Latest Blog Entries by dag at VideoSift.com

This is the Last Year I Trick-or-Treat in Australia

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:23:31 -0700

(6 comments - 154 views)
It's a holiday in transition here. I took the kids out and walked around in the twilight - (it's getting to be summer, with longer days). People here seem to be aware of the holiday- but fight it in many households- by turning out the lights and hiding.

Even houses that were decked out with jack-o-lanterns and looked to be safe bets were cringingly embarrassing. A guy comes out with no shirt on - "what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to give you something?" Meanwhile his young costumed daughter- works in the background scooping up lollies to drop in the bags. Maybe it's a generational thing.

- dag

I have a dirty secret to tell you all

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:35:55 -0700

(12 comments - 306 views)

I've been watching Glee on Hulu- and I can't stop. See, I was in the Chugiak High School Swing Choir- and I love a good show tune. The episodes are actually laugh out loud, darkly funny in some parts - and the singing, though very studio polished is not shabby at all.

- dag

CPM Ad Networks

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:27:33 -0700

(3 comments - 270 views)

Most advertising networks have clauses in their agreements that prevent disclosing how much income a site receives- I'm not doing dollar figures. I am opening the doors a little to share how VideoSift pays the bills.

CPM Networks

The pie chart above represents all the income we received for the month of September. The wedges show what percentage each source of income represents. The bulk of our monthly income comes from CPM networks. A CPM network is an ad company that pays based on the number of times their ads have been seen displayed on a site. "CPM" is an abbreviation for "Cost per Thousand", with the "M" being the roman numeral for 1,000. So, for every 1,000 views they might give us, say $1.00. So if we get 100,000 page views in a day- we would theoretically receive $100 - if we were always displaying the CPM ads from that network. It never works out quite like that, but that's the basic idea.

As you can see in the pie chart, Glam is the biggest source of income for us with a whopping 59%. Glam is a "vertical advertising network", meaning they market to a particular demographic- ladies. If you have been on the Sift for a while you might have seen quite a few ads for Macy's sales, shampoo and eyeliner. As I think we're probably at most only around 15% female on the Sift- you can understand that those ads did not perform exceptionally well. Lucky for us, Glam recently established a "male vertical network" called Brash (still sounds like it was named by a girl). We're lucky to be in the network- because frankly, they pay most of the bills - and the ads are pretty good and relevant to us.

Daisy Chaining and Geo-targeting

Here's a bit more info on how the mechanics of serving ads on the Sift works. We use Google's free (not very well publicized) solution for serving ads, Google Ad manager. It performs the same functions as other ad platforms that charge a lot of money. The most important feature they have aside from tracking our impressions is geo-targeting. That means that depending on where a Visitor is coming from in the world, we can serve a different ad network. Glam, for example- only serves ads to North America. So for international visitors to the Sift (me), Google Ad manager skips Glam and goes to our next ad network, Tribal Fusion - a non-vertical network, which serves globally. We could let Glam do this - basically they reject the ad, and we tell them which ad network to send the impression to next - but it saves time and user bandwidth to preemptively direct them to the ad network that we think will serve the ad.

This brings us to daisy chaining. It means that we hook ad networks together based on which one will be more likely to serve an ad- and provide the highest income for the impression. Our daisy chain for ads served in North America looks like this:

So if the ad is rejected by Glam, it gets automatically passed to Tribal Fusion- and if TF doesn't want the impression it goes to the last stop- Adsense (they'll take pretty much all impressions). Ads may be passed to a lower tiered network for more than just geographical reasons. Many Advertisers (and therefore networks) specify a "frequency cap", meaning that they don't want their ad displayed to the same person more than 3 times a day (for example). A somewhat mysterious part of this- is that it might not be just on the Sift. If the user saw an ad on Engadget, for example, and then came to VideoSift- the frequency cap may kick in. Yes, the networks track your visits across sites

Adsense

A word about Google's 800 pound advertising gorilla, Adsense. It's not a CPM network, it's a CPC or "Cost per Click" network. This means that every time someone clicks on an ad- we get a bit of change, but we don't get anyting for just displaying the ad. Many publishers have a love/hate relationship with Adsense, because although they may not pay that well for large, non-topic-specific sites like VideoSift- at least they pay something and you are able to monetize all your pages a little bit. The "hate" part comes from the fact that click-through rates are very low and nefarious companies (I'm looking at you Evony) use Adsense as a stealth, very low cost CPM network- because they get heaps of free display advertising without clicks, and their brand becomes very well known.

So that's how our advertising works. We wish that the pie chart was reversed and Charter memberships made the bulk of our income, but we do appreciate the income that it does bring in. For now, advertising is a very necessary part of VideoSift. I wanted to share this because I'm still learning about the process- and although I read a lot and try and tweak things for the better- there may be some Sifters out there with some insights or hints that could help us out a bit.

- dag

Is 'Wuthering Heights' the Best Song Ever?

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:37:49 -0700

(13 comments - 284 views)
Quite possibly. I am on a Kate Bush appreciation tear at the moment. I just learned to play a very nicely transposed chordie version on guitar and that red dress and dance moves hit me in the sweet spot.

- dag

Osaka Report

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:46:35 -0700

(8 comments - 345 views)

In 1993, as I was finishing at university, I had absolutely no job prospects. I didn't go to any of the job fairs and was moping around San Diego after breaking up with my girlfriend of three years. I was thinking about going to graduate school- for lack of a job, and because I hadn't defaulted on my Alaska Student Loans (yet).

I went to the San Diego State University campus to check out class schedules- I had ideas about maybe entering the foreign service after a graduate degree. My Spanish was pretty good- maybe somewhere in South America. I saw a little flyer "Teach English in Japan Seminar" on one of the bulletin boards there - and it just happened to be starting in the next 10 minutes. I sat in a classroom with 30 other recent graduates and listened to an attractive corporate lady talk about life in Japan. I asked a few questions from the back, which must have got her attention- because I got a "call back" and after a few weeks, received a contract and a round trip ticket to Osaka to work at "Trend Language Academy" teaching English to primary school kids.

My contract was for 1 year, but I wound up staying in Osaka for 3. When my Japanese was good enough- I got a job managing one of the first internet cafes in Osaka. This was in 1995. IE 2.0 Netscape 2.0. Mainly it meant keeping the 20 or so Macs and PCs from crashing- and helping drunk salary men find the porn sites.

Japan has a strict no pubic hair rule for pornography. The bookstores that stock Penthouse and playboy, all had magazines with the pubic area scratched out by old ladies in the customs office, using a little aluminum scratcher tool that they wore on one finger. (why do I know that? I can't remember) anyway, the Internet world of porn with pubic hair was a revelation to these sake soaked sadsacks.

In my spare time, I learned HTML, some Perl and Photoshop.

I had a very small apartment right in the middle of the entertainment district of Osaka - and a motorcycle - even though I was walking distance to my job. I slept in everyday until after noon and came alive when the sun went down and the neon lights came out. I felt like I was living in a William Gibson novel.

All good things come to an end. The economy started to crash in Japan- it looked like the internet cafe was closing down. My motorcycle was stolen- and I got married. 3 bad things, 1 good one. We left Japan, and have only been back once for a short stop, until this trip.

Now we're coming to the end of a 2-week reminiscence tour and I'm tempted to generalize and make comments on how Japan has changed - it has - but I feel like we've only skimmed the surface. We caught up with old friends- ate a lot of sensational food and rode too many trains.

We're considering maybe doing another stint in Japan. Living here for a few years- enough to get the kids nice and bilingual. I don't think I could go back to teaching English though. I'm too old and cranky these days. I'd just yell at the kids- probably scare them to death.

- dag

I'm Off to Japan in 3 days

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:39:33 -0700

(2 comments - 206 views)

I will avoid this mishap

- dag

Wingnut bigotry- so very, very unchristian

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:04:03 -0700

(21 comments - 355 views)
It's amazing to me that the unsupported rumour of poor undocumented labourers getting free health care - would cause a well-insured white man to arc up in front of a joint session of congress.

Joe Wilson wants to make very sure that people like this get no healthcare within US borders.

Don't worry, Joe - they will be denied healthcare as usual in the US, rounded up by border patrol thugs, handcuffed, treated like cattle and thrown over the border - as per usual.

I see you are an active member of the First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, SC. Jesus loves you, I'm sure.

- dag

Heading to Japan on September 16th

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:34:34 -0700

(7 comments - 253 views)

We're off to our old stomping grounds for a family vacation in the Osaka/Kyoto area. Persephone and I met and got married there in the early 90s - we were both teaching English in the same school. (her the Australian variety, me the yankee doodle type).

I usually would spend the hour lesson playing games - wherein the kids competed against each other for points up on the whiteboard. We did have fun- but I'm not sure how much English was learned.

Anyway, we've got 4 rail passes and we're going to tour around and meet up with some old '90s friends- eating okonomiyaki and soaking it all in at some hotsprings.

Tickets were incredibly cheap. We're getting the 4 of us from the Gold Coast (just south of Brisbane) to Osaka and back for less than $1,800 US. Thanks JetStar.

We'll be gone for 2 weeks in total - and my presence here will be light. I debated trying to go without a laptop - but that's just crazy, so laptop and iPhone are both coming- though my connection will be dependent on the whims of WiFi.

- dag

Why I dislike Microsoft: Part 11

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:55:39 -0700

(22 comments - 280 views)
I signed up with Hotmail soon after launch in the late 90s- I can't even remember my address now, it might have been "bhouston@hotmail.com" which was a pretty good one I thought.

We moved countries from Japan to the US, and it was invaluable to have an email address that was not tied to an ISP - a real innovation at the time.

Microsoft bought Hotmail while I was living in LA. I was using my work email as my primary email and sometimes didn't log into my Hotmail account for a week or so. Around the time that MS came up with the wonderful "Passport" feature of Hotmail- they decided to delete Hotmail accounts that have not been accessed for more than 14 days. I went over that limit.

We're planning a holiday to Japan now- I have friends there that I've lost because their address was in Hotmail - safe I thought.

I curse you Microsoft and your short-sighted corporate wankery. A pox on your software house.

- dag

Coffee Snobbery

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:14:20 -0700

(19 comments - 595 views)
I really like what a recent Ted Talk had to say about snobbery- and it made me think of my own run-in with it yesterday.

On my way to work I usually get off my bus in central Brisbane, get a coffee and walk the 15 minutes into Fortitude Valley. My brew of choice is a Starbucks Grande filter coffee with just a splash of milk. I get my coffee at Starbucks because it's just about the only place in Brisbane where you can get filter coffee (except McDonalds). Espresso rules Australia- I don't mind it, but I find all the milk of a latte or cappuccino too heavy. Brewed coffee suits me just right.

Anyway, I was feeling a bit peckish, so after getting my coffee, I stopped at this trendy little German bakery near Central Station called "Brot: Wicked European Bread" for a croissant to carry with me.

I put my Starbucks cup on the counter to get my money out and an older lady, who looked like an office worker in her 50s said - "Oh, Starbucks - don't let him set that there, it's the McDonalds of coffee".

The guy behind the counter replied "Yes, I call Starbucks 'The Crematorium'". They both had a good chuckle and I went away without saying anything witty, because I hadn't had my coffee yet.

But now I have the perfect reply to that old hag- I would say "I like women like you, the same way I like my coffee - cheap, bitter and operating in a predatory manner to destroy local coffee shops for greater corporate profits".

That would have showed her.

- dag