ChasNote

As Brian Morrissey at AdWeek puts it, “Brands Grab Web Video’s Long Tail.” In this case the brand is Microsoft (the charity-based I’M Initiative) and the long-tail video is Boing Boing TV.

“Xeni Jardin isn’t exactly a household name, but she has a sizable following. As one of the creators of the popular blog Boing Boing, Jardin’s a bona fide Web celebrity.

“Now, Microsoft is hoping she can lend some small-wattage star power to its ‘I’m Initiative,’ which promotes Microsoft instant-messaging and e-mail by tying them to social causes. Through a deal brokered by Federated Media, Microsoft is underwriting episodes of a new Jardin-produced Web series, ‘Boing Boing TV World,’ which gives snapshots of international cultures.”

From Adweek’s coverage of a panel at Ogilvy’s Verge conference. Outgoing Facebook chief revenue officer Owen Van Natta defended the company’s Beacon advertising concept, while Gawker’s Nick Denton slapped back:

“Gawker media publisher Nick Denton said he believes the ‘innovation’ in social media ad models is mostly a result of their failure as media properties. Even MySpace gets higher click rates than Facebook display units, he noted.”

FM’s Battelle disagreed:

“Not all ads on Facebook perform poorly, though. John Battelle, founder of Federated Media, said Facebook applications like Graffiti Wall are running ad campaigns for companies like Dell that are performing well by all metrics. ‘There’s no engagement in ad networks,’ he said. ‘We haven’t yet figured that out yet, and I think social media will.’”

For many creators of digital video programming, argues Ellie Parpis in AdWEEK, the lure of a TV deal is still powerful: “Although the Web is becoming as important a distribution vehicle for entertainment as traditional TV, the goal for many is still to end up on the good old boob tube.”

Not so for the gang at Ask A Ninja:

“Kent Nichols, improvisational comedian and co-creator of Askaninja.com, an online comedy series featuring a ninja who answers user e-mails, says there’s no incentive for him and his partner, co-creator Douglas Sarine, to consider taking it to TV. ‘We met with all the major studios about Ask a Ninja. It doesn’t make sense in terms of money,’ he says. ‘We gross about $100,000 a month in revenue. These were early offers, but they were a fraction of what we could make in a year.’”

While FM manages advertising and sponsorships for Ask A Ninja, we still don’t know who’s behind the mask.

That’s the headline for Greg Jarboe’s column today at Search Engine Watch. I worked with Greg at Ziff-Davis in the mid 1990s and was at CMP before that, so it’s sad to see the group tombstone for the trade magazines that have gone under in recent years.

The good news is that the readers of those magazines did not suffer the same plight. They’ve just gone online and, in most cases, filled their informational needs with leading business blogs for their industry.

“According to Compete, 382,749 people visited Search Engine Watch in November 2007; 342,970 visited Search Engine Land; 278,014 visited WebProNews; 139,914 visited Marketing Pilgrim; 77,085 visited Search Engine Roundtable; and 32,398 visited Search Newz.

“This puts them in the same ballpark as the circulation of print publications: 440,000 for InformationWeek; 400,100 for eWeek; 58,979 for Advertising Age; and 23,152 for AdWeek.

“More to the point, the number of visitors to the online publications and group blogs covering the search industry is in the same ballpark as the number of visitors to the websites of trade publications in the technology or advertising industries.

“According to Compete, 424,773 people visited InformationWeek.com in November 2007; 331,060 visited eWeek.com; 213,900 visited AdAge.com; and 101,140 visited AdWeek.com.”