Daily Bits

Media

YouTube Now Lets You Create InLay Video Ads Easily

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Notice those animated overlay that YouTube displays at the bottom part of a video that you are watching? Well, yes I know those ads can get pretty annoying but hey, if you’re a video ad publisher those overlays is one major way by which you can sell ads on YouTube.

And besides, YouTube is not going to be doing away with it. Not in the near future, at least. In fact creating those InVideo  ads were  just made easier with the availability of the Display Ad Builder which everyone who wishes to advertise on their videos can use.

Since its launch in 2008, YouTube has added more templates and fonts to this Display Ad Builder. Making it easier and quicker to create video overlay ads. This is fully complimented by the Display Ad Builder’s functionality for creating animated ads.

With this feature in Display Ad Builder, you can now turn your image ads into overlays and run ad campaigns on YouTube in a matter of minutes. You can run those overlays on cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM). These ad campaigns will be matched to YouTube videos based on various criteria such as demographics and content categories.

If you want to run ad campaign overlays, the process can be best illustrated below:

Or if you want more details, check out this guide.

Despite the Criticisms, Apple iPad is Selling Like Hotcakes

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We have to give credit where credit is due. And in the case of the ongoing success being reaped by Apple at this early pre-order stage of its “magical and revolutionary” iPad, it’s just but natural to commend Apple for coming out with a great promotional. This is what Apple does best – introduce a new product, excite would-be customers, open it up for criticisms and then later on, offer the product for sale.

Once again, Apple has proven its marketing prowess. This early, the iPad is reportedly selling like hotcakes. An estimated 50,000 units were reportedly sold in the first two hours after the pre-order process started.  Stocks are dwindling down, affecting those who are still in the process of pre-ordering and choosing the pick-up option.

And while everybody else are busy, it was found out that the iPad filing has just passed through the FCC.  This heightens the excitement so more. So, it’s true – the magical product is indeed coming. I’m pretty sure when the FCC news broke out, more people started clicking on that pre-order button.

So, have you wondered why despite the criticisms that were hurled against the Apple iPad, many customers still purchased it?  Call it Apple consumerism. A disease that has inflicted me and the rest of the thousands of Apple fans who have pre-ordered the Apple iPad and who will pre-order it until supply lasts.

In case you’d want to ask, yes I’m pretty excited and couldn’t wait for April 3 to come.

Foursquare Ties Up with Starbucks, Free Barista Badges for Every Check-in

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Foursquare continues its quest for media hype dominance with yet another interesting feature. It just launched a new promotional gig that ties it up with Starbucks. So, on Thursday, the next time you visit a Starbucks outlet and check-in to your Foursquare account, you will be rewarded with a barista badge.

The Starbucks barista badge can be earned if you’ve checked-in to five Startbucks outlet. Although, there’s no physical reward yet is given if you earn the barista badge, I’m pretty sure Starbucks and Foursquare will come with something to give out some form of physical rewards in the future. A free tall Cappuccino perhaps for every barista badge earned? This may sound appealing for frequent Startbucks customers, but Starbucks’ Chris Bruzzo, vice president for brand, content and online said that the company is eyeing different rewards set, not just free Starbucks drinks.

This is a rather unique gig and both companies stand a chance of getting positive gains from this deal. Starbucks can use Foursquare to gather feedbacks from clients and perhaps gain new clients as well since Foursquare members can easily share their feedback to their network of friends on Foursquare.

For Foursquare, it already gained from the deal since Starbucks is planning to use the Foursquare business analytics tools that it recently launched.

So, the next time you visit a Starbucks outlet, don’t forget to check it in to your Foursquare account. You might be the first person to earn that “prestigious” barista badge.

Foursquare is on a Roll! To Launch Free Analytics Tool

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Foursquare is really gearing up to go big time in the next couple of months perhaps. The location-based social network is all over the news the past few days.  Well, what can you expect? It’s closest rival, Gowalla is also up on its feet with new features and new platforms lately.

So, for Foursquare’s latest arsenal NYT’s Bits Blog is reporting that Foursquare is about to roll out a free analytics tool and dashboard in the coming weeks. This tool will allows business establishment owners to get a grasp of information about people who are visiting their business establishments. It will also help store owners in knowing certain demographics about their reglar customers as well as learn how they could make new customers become regular ones.

In addition, the new Foursquare tool will also allow business owners gather a range of real-time data about usage, the number of Foursquare users who have  “checked in”, when these people arrived, male-to-female customer ratio as well as data about the times of day where there were more visitors in their establishments.  If you’re running a business establishment, this information will be very useful for decision making.

Finally, the new feature will also include a staff page for each establishments wherein employees would be able to “socialize” with customers.

Of course, to protect user privacy, such feature will be in an opt-in, opt-out feature.

Would-Be Buyers of E-Book Readers Want to Get the iPad

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Hot on the heels of the just announced pre-order and availability dates of the Apple iPad, here comes an interesting report from a survey conducted by  ChangeWave Research. According to the report – 40% of would be e-reader buyers would like to get the iPad than the Amazon Kindle, Sony E-Reader or Barnes and Noble’s Nook.

ChangeWave surveyed 3,171 consumers right after Apple announced the iPad sometime in February.  Respondents were presented with the features and capability of the iPad before they were asked if they are keen on getting it.  The results showed that 4% respondent that they will most likely buy the iPad, while 9% answered somewhat likely.

Quite interestingly, the percentage of those who answered that they are most likely to buy the iPad is almost the same percentage as those who plans to buy it prior to the iPad’s launch. This means that after knowing about the specs and features of the iPad, those who wants to get it remains the same.

To make more meaning to their data, ChangeWave also compared pre-launch demand of the iPhone and the iPad and found that the pre-launch demand for the iPad is greater than the pre-launch demand for the iPhone.

Another interesting findings of the report showed that current Kindle and other e-book readers replied that they would have bought the iPad if it were already available when they purchased their current e-readers. So, this somehow shows how the iPad will affect sales of existing e-books since potential buyers might also consider getting the iPad instead.

So, let me now turn the table to you our dear readers. If you are planning to get an e-book reader, will you consider getting the iPad or the other e-book readers available in the market today?

Popular Science Archives Now Available Online

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If you are a gadget freak, chances are you’re reading Popular Science. In fact, it might be your most favorite technology magazine. Did you know that Popular Science has been around for 137 years already?

Now, here’s the good news, Pop Sci the web wing of Popular Science has already scanned the entire issues of the magazine and has put up the archives available on the internet. By archives, I mean digital archives.  The project was in close collaboration of  PopSci with Google Books.

The Popular Science Archives is freely available on this site.  The moment the home page loads on your web browser, you’d immediately notice a simple search box.  That search box is your only way of getting into specific issues of the magazine.  A cool feature of this archive is the fact that it even has the original advertisements that appeared on when the magazine issue was released.

The online archives does not allow you to go into specific issues of the magazine except for the instance when you are brought to specific issues via the search function.  It would have been better if a browse option is available though especially if you have  not particular topic in mind and you just want to look back at what’s hip and cool in technology of bygone years.