Internet News

Top 5 Web Ideas Worth Stealing, Summer Edition

Steve Smith

The new Web launches, feature rollouts and redesigns keep coming this summer. After months of talking the digital talk, publishers are starting to show off their new investments in digital. At the very least, there is evidence that content providers and advertisers are thinking a little bit more seriously and creatively about the digital media ecosystem. We don’t get a chance to cover all of these ideas, and often a good little idea gets tucked into a larger business story. That is why we have initiated min’s “Steal This Idea” series in which we highlight the big and little notions we think other publishers should copy.

1. Ads That Don’t Suck: There is an old joke from the early days of the Internet. A tech salesman calls an ad agency to make a pitch for his new advertising solution. He says, “Good morning, I would like to talk to the person at your agency in charge of display ad creative.” The receptionist doesn’t miss a beat to reply, “Speaking.” Such is the long-standing reputation of online creative. Other than the great Apple PC/Mac units, how many of you can name a memorable piece of Web creative? Get back to us on that. Our favorite new ad campaign actually pokes fun at the low level of Web display ads by slaughtering them. The upcoming banner ad campaign for Halloween II sends lead villain Michael Myers into crappy dating ads and those heinous dancing homeowner ads for mortgage companies…and he kidnaps them. And because this is a serial killer, after all, Myers plays no favorites and even invades the PC/Mac ad. Which of the two do you think he singles out for vivisection? You can see all of the units at the Halloween II site.

2. $1 ESPN Subscription: Magazine stalwarts will argue until they are blue in the face that ESPN The Magazine undercut their print products with a $1 subscription renewal offer. The pitch was aimed at getting readers to highlight part of the subscription that actually was always there—access to the online ESPN Insider site. According to ESPN The Magazine general manager Gary Hoenig, ESPN was hoping to get their subscribers to experience the bundle differently and get them to use the online product. More to the point, enrolling at the Insider also requires a credit card entry that lets ESPN renew them later at the full price automatically. Hoenig tells CNBC, “The opportunity here is to change the decision-making process from opt-in to opt-out, and that’s something that everybody in every industry would like to do.” ESPN also told CNBC they had exceeded their goals set for end-of-September Insider subs by mid-August as a result of the promotion. Well played.

3. Virtual Money: Real Revenue: The virtual economy is getting very real. Both Facebook and a little teen social network called myYearbook drew our attention this week with announcements surrounding virtual currency. MyYearbook claimed to be profitable in part from subscriptions that gave users virtual currency to exchange for additional features and enhanced game play. At some point soon, we expect a casual game syndicator to bring this model to some of the games that many mainstream Web sites already host. People will pay to play when they really do get to play. But we also think that the real big deal will come from Facebook, which is testing its virtual currency with third-party publishers and applying it to real-world goods. Put your thinking caps on now, publishers. How can you start monetizing those Facebook “fans” right on the page?

4. NPR’s iPhone App: This is among the most impressive applications (note that we didn’t say “extension”) of a media brand into mobile we have seen. NPR News for the iPhone has more good ideas in the first few pages than five common apps. The live audio stream from NPR is available, as are clips from recent broadcasts. You can grab the most current hourly news update with two button clicks. There are on-demand episodes and direct links into your local station. All of the content is easily pushed over to a saved content area for later review so users can triage the headlines. Both audio and text versions of most stories are available, too. While the app is boring visually, it effects a superb balance between giving users quick surface access to the news and a deep dive into a bottomless pit of information. This is a mobile app design that anticipates how its users really want to engage with the content on the road. In mobile, you have to design with awareness of the user’s situation and not just to “extend the brand.”

5. Size Doesn’t Matter: Repeat this to yourself and to your clients 10 times: Dynamic Logic’s new study of ad effectiveness and online format finds that smaller rectangular ads placed deeper within the content of a page perform much better than leader boards and skyscrapers at the edges of a page. Rich media containing video created the strongest brand impact (see the Halloween II campaign above), and the worst results came from the simple Flash units most agencies now use. Creativity and context, not intrusiveness or size, matters. Oh, for the hell of it, chant this mantra to your clients 10 more times.

http://www.minonline.com/mins_top_5/Top-5-Web-Ideas-Worth-Stealing-Summer-Edition_11918.html