Posted by Chris Walbert on June 24th, 2008 and has no comments.
Internet rumor has it that Google is set to announce their new web measurement tool today. Various articles in the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, and others are all saying that Wayne Lin, Google Business Product Manager, will announce the new tool this afternoon at the Advertising Research Foundation media conference.
As most of us who plan and buy online media know, the current tools available are either lacking or quite expensive. To be fair, I have not used comScore or Nielsen @Plan due to their prohibitive costs. I currently use Quantcast and Compete for the majority of my research. However, while these tools give you a basic idea of site traffic and audience demo, that’s really where their usefulness ends.
Another issue with these tools is that they, like old-school media measurement tools, rely on user panels. This means that only those who have allowed comScore, et al. to measure their web activity are included in the numbers. The reason that Google’s program may be more beneficial is that they will be gathering data from web servers. This should allow them to have more definitive data.
Continue Reading Google Ad Planner to be Announced Today
Posted by Chris Walbert on June 10th, 2008 and has 2 comments.
Last night was the Death Cab for Cutie show at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Despite the 100+ heat index, a few thousand people came out to enjoy the stylings of one of America’s biggest rock bands.
The show was opened by Rogue Wave, who I was looking forward to seeing. Though they only played for 30 minutes, Rogue Wave was tight and sounded great. The crowd applauded after each song, but it was obvious that the majority did not know Rogue Wave’s songs. The people were there for Death Cab.
Any time you see a band who is touring to promote a new album, you wonder if they are going to stick to their new songs, with maybe a smattering of previous hits thrown in. As you can see from the setlist below, Death Cab did an amazing job of working in songs from their entire catalogue. While not everyone knew some of the older songs, those who did were excited to hear them. Even though the set spanned the last decade, it flowed perfectly from song to song.
Continue Reading Death Cab for Cutie Show
Posted by Chris Walbert on June 9th, 2008 and has no comments.
This is just a quick post to link to some of the amazing new stuff that is out as of today.
New iPhone announced at WWDC. It will be available July 11 and starts at just $199. I think I’m going to have to cancel my TMobile contract early.
New Sigur Ros album leaked today. This is one of the greatest bands in the world. Their new album is beautiful, as always.
Tonight is the Death Cab for Cutie show at Merriweather. Hopefully I’ll have some photos to post tomorrow and will not get heat stroke.
The annual Maiste crab feast/cookout/karaoke party was this past weekend. As always, it was so much fun. Thanks Mike for hosting another great party.
I’ve also recently downloaded some other really good music that is worth listening to: Bowerbirds, Wye Oak (from Baltimore), and the new Lil’ Wayne. Check them out and let me know what you think.
Posted by Chris Walbert on June 2nd, 2008 and has 1 comment.
Last Wednesday, I travelled to NYC for the 2008 AAAA Digital Conference. I planned to live blog the event, but this didn’t quite work out. First, my train arrived a bit late, so I missed the first 30 minutes or so. I’m assuming that it was during the introduction that they doled out a username and password for their wi-fi. Needless to say, without the luxury of having this information, I had no internet connection.
While I was initially disappointed, I think it was actually a good thing. With so many conversations happening and information flying around, I definitely would have missed some key items if I had been also trying to craft coherent sentences. Instead of going through the conference session by session, I’m going to focus on the ones that most interested me and were, in my opinion, the most successful.
As I mentioned, due to a late train arrival, I missed almost half of Venture Capitalist Mark Kvamme’s talk. I did manage to catch his introduction of SearchMe.com. SearchMe looks pretty cool, but you have to wonder if it stands a chance in gaining enough users to make it viable. With its visual display, there is the opportunity for advertisers to incorporate much more engaging advertising than the standard 95 characters of text. It also takes a much different approach in displaying the search results, which makes it very interesting.
Continue Reading AAAA Digital Conference
Posted by Chris Walbert on May 20th, 2008 and has 1 comment.
I know that my last post was a restaurant review. I also know that I am not a professional food critic, so don’t worry, this is not turning into a restaurant-review blog. However, after eating at Clemetine, the new restaurant in Hamilton last Friday, I really wanted to get the word out about this great spot and encourage all of you to check it out.
Contrary to a certain review in the Baltimore Sun, Clementine, which is located in the 5400 block of Harford Road, is in downtown Hamilton and not Lauraville. The restaurant is housed in an unassuming storefront in the vicinity of a Blockbuster, a pawn shop, and a Dunkin Donuts. But please do not allow this to lower your expectations of Clementine.
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Continue Reading Clementine
Posted by Chris Walbert on May 14th, 2008 and has 3 comments.
On Friday evening I had dinner with my friend Jess at a new restaurant in Hollins Market, Baltimore Pho. I actually don’t think I’ve ever been to the Hollins Market before, and my only experience in that neighborhood has been at the Lithuanian Hall (Wow, a geocities website).
We made a reservation for our 7:45 dinner, but the place was surprisingly uncrowded for a Friday evening in the spring. The dining room has a nice cozy feel without being too small. The tables are a bit close to each other, but that wasn’t an issue at all. The only possible problem is the proximity of the bar to the dining room, which could make it quite noisy once it gets more crowded.
Now, on to the food. We got 2 orders of rice paper rolls, both the Vietnamese and vegetarian varieties. I preferred the Vietnamese rolls with shrimp. For our entrees we each got the beef pho. I’m not exactly sure why, but they are adamant about making sure you know it is pronounced “fuh”. It’s literally written everywhere the name is.
Continue Reading Restaurant Review - Baltimore Pho
Posted by Chris Walbert on May 7th, 2008 and has no comments.
On Tuesday I took and passed the Google Advertising Professionals Exam. This was a pretty involved, 117 question exam that covers just about everything that goes into creating, running, managing, and optimizing a Google SEM campaign.
So, what is the significance of passing this exam, you ask? Well, according to Google,
“Qualified Individuals and Qualified Companies within the Google Advertising Professionals program have passed the Google Advertising Professionals Exam and have met other requirements in order to achieve this level of recognition. By attaining individual or company qualification, you’ll receive:
Continue Reading Qualified Google Advertising Professional
Posted by Chris Walbert on May 5th, 2008 and has no comments.
This weekend, Microsoft withdrew their offer to buy Yahoo for $33 a share. This MicroHoo merger has been talked about in many different forums by many different people for quite a few months. In the past few weeks, talks have heated up and culminated in Microsoft basically issuing an ultimatum to Yahoo.
Though Yahoo’s stock price dropped about 20% this morning, word is that Yahoo’s executive team celebrated the withdrawal of Microsoft’s offer. How others at Yahoo reacted to the news hasn’t surfaced yet, but reactions from shareholders have been mixed at best.
Now, the real question is, Where does Yahoo go from here? In what I think is a somewhat questionable move, Yahoo just concluded a two-week test with Google delivering ads on a small portion of Yahoo searches. The test was intended to show that Yahoo can earn more money by allowing Google to serve search ads for them. Both companies described the test as successful.
Continue Reading Where does Yahoo Go From Here?
Posted by Chris Walbert on April 30th, 2008 and has 1 comment.
In order to make up for my lack of posts over the past few weeks, I feel I need to justify myself to my faithful readers. Here are some of the ways I have been spending my time over the past few weeks while not blogging. I know it’s a bummer to click on a blog and see the same post at the top that’s been there for 2 weeks. I promise to do better in the future.
Playing social league sports, but having lots of rain-outs.
Thursday nights with the ABL (Abbott Basketball League) are always a lot of fun. Some nights the actual basketball being played is better than others, but it’s always a good time.
I was a little reluctant about joining a kickball team this season, but am glad that I did. I’ve spent the last 6 Saturdays at Patterson HS playing on an awesome kickball team. We’ve also had some good team-building excursions to Kislings after the games.
The Sore Losers are yet again displaying our dominance in BSSC football. We have won all 4 of our games, even though I almost lost the last one for us. Strangely enough we haven’t had any Saturday kickball rainouts, but have had 3 on football Sundays.
Last, is the Parkville men’s softball team. I am really looking forward to playing on this team, but our first 2 games have been rained out. Lame.
Continue Reading What Chris Walbert has been doing so far this Spring
Posted by Chris Walbert on April 17th, 2008 and has 1 comment.
Last week I sat down with Baltimore hip-hop band Soul Cannon to discuss their new album, give us some insights into who they are, and try yet again to explain their sound. We talked for over an hour, but I managed to edit it down to a more approachable 9+ minutes. Make sure you watch the entire video. There are some real gems hidden in there.
Soul Cannon’s new album, aptly titled “Kaboom”, is out on April 22nd. You will be able to find the CD in various stores, but be sure to get your copy at the CD release show, which is being held on Friday, April 25 at The Ottobar.
I cannot stress enough how much you need to be at this show. This is your opportunity to not only see an excellent band, but to also have a great time. So check out the video, listen to the new songs on their MySpace page, come out to see them on the 25th at The Ottobar, and buy the new record, Kaboom!
Continue Reading An Interview with Soul Cannon
