About two months ago, we highlighted an article published by Steve Rubel titled If Everything Else Asks for Feedback, Why Not Ads?  He followed up the article with two in April that really caught our attention:  An All Too Convenient Truth:  Many Marketers Pollute the Web  clearly explains the fundamental problems with current online marketing strategies, and Study:  A Billion Dollars in Internet Advertising is Wasted bluntly illustrates the money that online advertisers throw away by using current online marketing strategies.

Steve is a fairly influential blogger and his site, Micro Persuasion, is well respected in a number of online circles.  As widely read as he is, it was prudent for us to assume that competing efforts would jump into the market we are creating.  

Reddit.com, a news aggregation site similar to Digg and StumbleUpon, appears to have heard Steve.  During a major redesign of their site, Reddit added a feature that looks to be a feedback tool allowing site users to leave feedback on the ads that Reddit displays.  

We can't outline the feature beyond mere speculation, since the feedback tool is not yet functional.  We'll be checking Reddit often in the next couple of days because we are eager to see what they have up their digital sleeve.  

For the record, we welcome this competitve effort.  Sure, we'd love to be the only guy on the block with the idea, but nothing lights a fire like another player looking for elbow room.  The more people that jump into the fray, the more focused the real competitors become in refining their service and seeking customer satisfaction.  

Our third round of private beta testing is nearing completion, and the new version of our collaborative advertising platform will be open for public beta testing soon afterwards.  Stay tuned, as things are moving fast.  And as always, feel free to send any questions, comments or concerns to brandjury@gmail.com. 

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Microsoft is a company in transition.  Despite the very vocal and very loud ramblings of MS haters in the online world, Ballmer and Co. employ some fairly intelligent and forward thinking people.  Take, for example, their new marketing stance towards college students.  In November, MS began to sell Office Ultimate 2007 to college students with a valid .edu email address for a paltry $60.  Retail versions hover between $500 and $700, and I don't doubt that MS converted a very large number of college-aged Office pirates into legitimate customers with the sweatheart deal, aptly named "The Ultimate Steal."

Ballmer followed this up with DreamSpark, a Microsoft website offering completely free and totally legitimate versions of Visual Studios 2008, Windows Server 2003, and MS Expression Studio to any currently enrolled college student with a valid .edu email address.  But why would Microsoft give away $500 - $3000 software packages to the one demographic that has likely been the most egregious software piracy offender?  

Microsoft can see the writing on the wall — the future belongs to the Internet, and it will be written not by Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison or Bill Gates but rather by today's teens/young adults who view television the same way my generation viewed record players.  These kids furiosuly tap away on their tiny qwerty-equipped text-phones, dilligently manage their MySpace/Facebook profiles, and get blank stares across their faces when asked to consider a world without the Web.

What better way to keep your product relevant than to give it away to the only people who can maintain its relevance in the future?

Yahoo!, on the other hand, appears to employ vapid and nostalgic lovers of past history.  Although Yahoo! once maintained an enormous pile of relevance and innovative stock, the current company is but a shell of its former self.  The king of online marketing, search advertising, belongs without question to Yahoo!'s master and mortal enemy, Google, and without the ability to utilize that for which it is known (Yahoo!, surprisingly, was once a popular search engine), Yahoo!'s left with an empty bag and lots of angry shareholders.  

Instead of taking a long, hard look at its broken business model and optionless future, Yahoo! stubbornly refused to admit that 1998 ended a decade ago when its founder, Jerry Yang, turned down Microsoft's near-$50 billion purchase offer.  Ballmer was Yang's last real hope of keeping Yahoo! from becoming bunkmates with AOL in int3rw3b hell, and I'm fairly certain that Microsoft just saved itself from making a $50 billion mistake.  Yahoo, indeed.        

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Back in late February we opened up a second round of invitations to folks interested in testing our platform.  The response was even better than it had been in December of 2007, when we invited a select few alpha code testers to put our code through its paces.  Having a competent coder, a talented designer and motivated management is key for the success of a start-up, but often little is said about how crucial a dedicated base of alpha and beta code testers is. 

And speaking of beta codes, maybe we're just old fashioned and remember the days when beta versions were distributed on 5 1/2 inch diskettes through the mail…but isn't a beta supposed to be an advanced prototype?  I've never thought of the word "beta" in any context other than product development, but based on the number of beta platforms littered across the web I'm guessing I should accept the fact that "beta" now means "you cannot complain about how poorly designed my site is — it is still in beta and therefore unfinished."  It is as if start-ups think there is some sort of quasi-legal waiver attached to the word "beta" that removes any liability for creating junk code. 

Call us stubborn and say we're tilting at windmills…but our beta is a real one, and we're using it for testing and development, not so that we can launch a half-baked site in time to cash in on the new web bubble. 

With that being said, the beta code released on February 26th and diligently flogged by our testers is heading off to that special place in the sky.  While we don't have a specific date yet, in the very near future we will release Brand Jury v1.2b.  The updated version includes an entirely new design, a streamlined code and modified functionality for both users and advertisers.  We expect to keep the v1.2b in private beta for a much shorter period of time, and once we're confident that the major bugs have been worked out, we'll open the platform's registration to the public.  

Check back soon for updates, and feel free to send question, complaints or otherwise to us a brandjury@gmail.com.    

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We knew a long time ago that our idea is a no-brainer.  Steve's latest blog post is proof that we were right.  Of course, accepting feedback on ads is only half the equation; our platform provides the other half.

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Ah, the joys of code development!  For the past two months, a select number of alpha testers have been flogging the code, exposing flaws/glitches, and reporting them to our development team for correction.  Because of the hard work of these alpha testers (thanks again!), combined with the super-human patience and dedication of our lead developer, Nathan Malone, the platform is as good as it will get without exposing it to a larger and more demanding pool of testers.

We've spent a number of hours debating viable release dates, and everyone on the team wanted two things:  a perfect beta, and a timely launch.  Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect beta, and a timely launch isn't worth a bucket of spit if what is launched is unusable.  Further, we decided that it is not up to us to determine the "perfect" configuration of a site designed specifically around the idea of giving power to consumers; it's a bit presumptuous of us to ask advertisers to abide by the Brand Jury community if we're not willing to do the same.

Aside from a few finishing touches and minor tweaks still in need of attention, BrandJury.com is as perfect as it is going to get without suggestions and feedback from its user base.  Barring any major catastrophies in the next 5 days, www.BrandJury.com will finally release its first official private beta on February 26th.  For those who have already signed up to participate, expect an email in the upcoming days explaining the private beta login process.  For those who have not yet registed for the private beta, click here to enroll.

In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions or make any suggestion either on this blog or by sending us an email at brandjury@gmail.com.  We look forward to hearing from you, and hope you're as excited as we are to see this thing launch. 

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Dale Dougherty is obviously a kindred spirit.  Not only did his blog turn me on to the absolutely fantastic Microsoft video below, but be also threw out this gem:

"[T]he ongoing courtship of agencies and Web 2.0 companies like Google, MySpace, and Facebook […] has progressed from them staring at each other across the room to now where they are laughing at each other's jokes. Each one thinks they know the other pretty well, and they've agreed to talk about the future in the same way. Like an arranged marriage of members of distant royal families, they are talking about a union that will bring together very different worlds. The Web companies expect to become rich as advertisers pay more to reach an audience that can be sorted and selected on any set of attributes. Advertisers and their agencies are drooling that they will deliver highly targeted advertising messages that audiences will find more relevant, producing better results than they've seen in the mass media. The big question is what does the consumer, the commoner, think of this proposed royal wedding?"

 Aside from "watch the video," need I say more?   

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We've posted a fair number of entries over the past month because we needed a way to introduce our platform.  What we're asking from both advertisers and consumers isn't light, and we needed to make a solid case before presenting our solution.  On December 3rd, just a scant 6 days away, we are launching our private beta (you can register for it here:  www.brandjury.com), and prudence dictates that we explain our specifics instead of focusing on marketing generalities. 

Advertisers not only need a new online marketing model, but want one as well.  For those unfamiliar with the problem, this AdRant post explains it well.  Some sites, such as Firebrand.com, are clearly trying to invent an effective way to advertise online.  But as AdFreak explains, Firebrand is not the glorious idea they tout themselves to be; users expect some sort of quid pro quo, especially when their quid is as objectionable as watching a long chain of television commercials.  Firebrand's quo, it appears, is seriously lacking. 

So what is our quo?  What we offer to advertisers is obvious:  unprecedented levels of ad-focused attention.  And we reward cooperative advertisers by increasing the visibility of popular ads they've crafted and revised within the Brand Jury community.  What we offer to users, while less obvious, is a conduit through which we can demand more transparent, less intrusive advertising with a real world utility. 

Our aim is to create a global public focus group composed of Internet users unwilling to ignore online marketing's disregard towards our media experiences.  We want to see marketers appealing to the senses of their customer base, instead of appealing to the bank accounts of bloated advertising agencies.  We've got a voice, and the internet makes it loud.  If anyone's going to fix the broken model of pop-ups, interstitials and paid links, it's going to be consumers. 

Join our beta, change advertising.  It's as simple as that. 

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It appears as though you've got a real zinger of an ad running on the 'ol telly.  According to Jim Morris, the spot contains a "genuinely human moment [that] trumps spectacle and wizardry."  The moment?  A laughing baby.  I've stumped myself trying to connect a laughing baby with whatever service AIG offers…I'm pretty sure it's insurance, but I've never seen an AIG commercial that has made that clear.  Do they sell happy baby insurance?  

Morris helps explain the context for the daft ones like me:  ads should be used to either "illustrate a selling point or to encourage a brand bond."  Perhaps that's why I'm so terribily frustrated with what marketers shove down my throat so frequently.  I've spent the past decade or so responding to ads that build value in what's being peddled, when instead I should have been looking for nebulous "selling points" and contrived "brand bonds."  

I can't blame Jim; his bio explains that he loves the "persuasive art" of advertising and hates the business end.  But his blatant disregard for the itch that consumer advertising scratches is to blame for the junk we're confronted with on a daily basis.  When advertising gurus congratulate marketing campaigns focused on artistic quality and useless "human moments", advertising acolytes emulate what's being trumpeted.  Sure, pat yourself on the back for your scorn of the business end, but at least have the guts to admit that you've twisted yourself into nothing more than a film school drop-out striving not for increased sales, but instead for Clio awards and coctail party buzz. 

Think you could try and sell the merits of a product instead of trying to raise phantom goosebumps?  Give it a try…it's your job, after all.         

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