Transparent is the new opaque with Quigo

If you’ve ever had a business relationship with Google (i.e. Google Adwords or Adsense), you may already know that it’s a little less than egalitarian. While the services they offer are innovative, and, if done right, lucrative, Google holds all the cards (I’ll pause here to say that I know that there are other contextual advertising services out there, but Google is undoubtedly the biggest and will get all of my attention today). If a problem arises where you question the quality of the Google services, you’ll probably end up having to accept whatever Google tells you (and that can range from “You’re right, let’s work something out” to “We don’t agree, sorry.”)

Quigo is changing this, and offering an alternative to Google domination. Now, no one will ever be able to infiltrate Adwords results that appear in the Google search engine, but contextual ads that appear on private sites are completely controlled by the site owner. This control is attractive, and some huge sites are already leveraging the Quigo way of life.

What is Quigo doing, exactly? Here’s how the NYTimes put it:

What Quigo offers is transparency and control in what can often be an opaque business: advertisers pay Yahoo and Google for contextual ad placement on a wide variety of Web pages, but get little say over where those ads run or even a list of sites where they do appear. (full article)

Transparent is the new opaque. Again, this is more of having to take Google’s word for it. If you are an advertiser and have a question about where your ads are running, good luck getting an answer. This isn’t to say that the Google technology isn’t advanced, and probably accurate most of the time, but there is a danger to Google being so large. They can’t possibly track everything, and since they can’t, you can’t either.

This probably isn’t news to everyone, and I’m sure there are companies out there that are completely aware of Google’s position and have chosen to stay out of the contextual advertising space for this very reason. Imagine how the market might grow now that there are alternatives to Ma Google.

Learn more about Quigo here and here.

The 4th Screen (Apple’s iPhone, for example)

Media isn’t something we merely watch or interact with for fun. Media is something we consume. Our eyes eat it up, and our brains digest it. Throughout history, media has almost always been fed to the ravenous masses through screens. Movie screens, television screens, computer screens, and now, cell phone screens.

I’ve heard rumors online about an Apple iPhone (cell phone + iPod) for months now, but the New York Times mentioned it in an article today. I think we’re not surprised and are all expecting our desktop/laptop computers to continue shrinking until they are able to fit in our pockets, but proof of this impending phenomenon is evident in the growth of wireless information being delivered by wireless providers.

Cellular carriers reported $1 billion+ for each quarter of 2006 in revenues for wireless information transfer services. To put this in perspective, that puts the US about even with Europe, and about a year behind users in Asia where about 50% are connected to 3-G networks, next generation wireless networks. This trend can also be seen in initiatives by companies like Earthlink who are racing to be the first to create wireless halos around major metropolitan areas (including New Orleans).

More about the 4th screen

Think of Steve Jobs as a drug dealer…(that’s a little strong)…as a Lay’s potato chip dealer. He offers you one. You like it. It’s crisp and clean high technology, but palatable due to its ease of use. He’s got you hooked on his chip and now you’re ready for his next offering. It just so happens that this new taste is similar to the first one, but he attaches much more meaning to this one.

An iPhone is going to do a lot, and I don’t mean as a geeky gadget. It’s going to mean more to you because you’ll be able to control your life, work and play, everything, from a device that fits easily into the palm of your hand. The 4th screen is going to set off an arms race among established behemoths like Nokia and Motorolla, not to mention wake the sleeping mother of all behemoths, Google. But as huge as this stuff is, and as amazing as it’s going to be, I think we (consumers) are going to have more power and control than we ever had before.

It’s as if Jobs taught us how to open a door, and then let us open a door. Now he says open this door. You’ll open it the same way, and it looks the same all glossy and white, but this time instead of a door, it’s a floodgate. Prepare for the deluge, change is a’comin.

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