Web Wednesday 7.0 - Kevin Huang - Pixel Media Asia

Kevin is in town and agreed to speak on his experience in China.

This was the first time at Brewerkz for Web Wednesday Singapore. We had about 200 people turn up. It's great in that we did not know most of them. I think 30% are recurring guests that show up now and then. And 70% new faces.

Then again, the numbers are increasing - so 30% last month represented over 40% of visitors in July. Hey, I am data geek.

Web Wednesday Singapore V 5.0

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It's Wednesday again. That's Web Wednesday. And yes, it is technically Wednesday since this is posted at 1am on Wed, 25th June 2008. Here's what we are up to:

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Hello again, it is Web Wednesday time again – Version 5.0. Funny how time flies, we are now halfway through the year. Things seem to be heating up in the interactive sector for everyone.

One of the hottest topics in the interactive advertising space at the moment is in-game advertising. This month, Web Wednesday Singapore is proud to present one of the leaders in this sector, Massive Inc. We will have a presentation this month by In-Jun Jung, the regional lead for Massive who will give us an overview of the In-Game Advertising market in Asia and show us examples of some of the most innovative In-Game Advertising around.

Last month’s panel on Advertising Networks was well attended and generated a very good debate. Thanks again to Charles at Faciliate for moderating and to our panelists Fred from .fox, Matt from AdMax and Alex from Aktiv. Last event we had over 80 industry professionals in attendance. Unfortunately, we have outgrown the J-bar at the M-Hotel (thanks to them for their support through 4 good rounds!) and will now be moving to a NEW LOCATION with a good AV system (better to hear you with) and more space for drinks and discussion.

This month the Web Wednesday Event will be at the Victoria Bar at the Intercontinental Hotel at Bugis Junction on Wednesday the 25th of June from 6:30-8:30pm.

The event is the night before Ad:Tech Singapore, so feel free to bring any friends or colleagues from the interactive community that happen to be in town for the event. (Also remember to sign up and attend the Ad:Tech Singapore conference – it promises to be a fantastic event. http://www.ad-tech.com/singapore/).

Also this month, BBC.com has come on board as a sponsor for Web Wednesday Singapore and will be hosting the ‘first drink of the evening’ – register at the entrance and get your first drink courtesy of BBC.com!

As usual, no sales pitches, no boring speeches, just discussion, drinks and networking!

See you all on Wednesday the 25th at the Intercontinental Hotel!

Best,

Andy, Joe and Kevin

Web Wednesday Singapore


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About Massive Inc:

Massive Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp., is the creator of a leading network for dynamic video game advertising. The Massive Network offers advertisers the ability to engage an aggregated gaming audience in real time across multiple platforms. Over 200 blue-chip advertisers have run campaigns across the Massive Network throughout North America and Europe. Now they are coming to APAC. Massive’s technology allows for all forms of downloadable media and advertising content to be contextually integrated into the game environment, including image, audio, video and game object formats. More information can be found online at http://www.massiveincorporated.com.

Join us on Wednesday June 25 at The Victoria Bar at the Intercontinental Hotel to meet Massive and learn a bit more about their offering in APAC.

Web Wednesday Singapore - 2008-02-20 - "Show me the eMoney!"

As I mentioned in my post last week, we had the inaugural Web Wednesday Singapore here last Wednesday. It was the first one, so the three "(dis)organizers" - Kevin Tan, Andy Tu and I - just wanted to get a small group together to get some feedback and determine the viability of this kind of event. So we sent out personal invites that included something like this:



*****
Hi Everybody,

It has been a long time since we have had a gathering of like minded individuals for a night of drinks, catching up, and networking. The famous (or rather, infamous) Web Wednesday has now landed on our fair shores. The first one is next Wednesday (20th Feb) at 6-8pm at the J Bar at the M Hotel. Topic of discussion 'Show Me The e-Money!' by Joe Nguyen, Director of Global e-Commerce of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels.

This WILL NOT be:

1) a sales pitch
2) a long speech

It WILL be:

1) informal
2) interactive
3) alcoholic

Hope to see you guys there.
*****

It was a good showing of about 20 people ranging from publishers to advertisers to agencies.

We also try to start discussion by getting people to speak. So as you can see, the first one was me: "Show me the eMoney!".

So I just put together about 10 slides. Download PDF of them here.

But the main one is this one:

What this shows is that:

a) In all of 2007, 58.2% of our traffic is from Search Engines
b) 20.0% are from other site; many of which also derive traffic from Search Engines so indirectly we get that traffic from Search Engines.
c) Of the direct search engine traffic, 23% is from PPC and 77% is from natural search results (SEO)

Since our online revenue source pretty much mirrors that of our traffic sources (within a few percentage points), we are very dependent on search engines. I would say over 75% directly and indirectly of our revenue are attributable to search engines.

So there's the eMoney.... it's in the search engines. Here's an old article on how important Google is to a business and you will see what I mean.

Also, remember this slide below from my posting about "Online Travel Agents: Can we live without them?":


I still think that search engines actually contribute closer to 90% of my online revenue. I am still checking out the 21.8% of my traffic attributed to "Typed/Bookmarked". I do not believe we get that much loyal traffic from this segment. There must be some error in the system or tagging process. Something related to the 302 & 301 redirects...

As I have been saying, "the internet is infinitely measurable, but is (- hence -) never 100% correct!".

Anyhow, can't wait until the next Web Wednesday Singapore in March.

UPDATE: Web Wednesday Singapore Website is up.

The ultimate interaction with the Brand

We had our first inaugural Web Wednesday Singapore gathering last night, and I had a short talk about "Show me the eMoney!". It was a good evening with lots of drinks and good company. More on this in another post.

But as usual when I have many drinks (but not enough to pass out), I tend to wake up very early and my mind races and I can't get back to sleep. Like last night, I came home around 2 am and woke up at 5am and my mind wanders and works around ideas and thoughts. So this morning, it was about "Interaction with the Brands".

The internet is an "interactive" medium. This has become an accepted lingo when referring to the online space. We mean that users interact with the websites that they go to; they "sit forward" rather than "lean back". They choose what they want to read and view. Essentially, the users actively push and pull information that they need as they want it.

From a site publisher and media agency standpoint, the revenue stream is from the advertising - which is measured by impressions, pageviews, clickthroughs and interaction with the creative. So for a campaign, many normally measure its effectiveness by the interaction by consumers with the campaign elements.

However, despite the measurability of the internet, it is still hard to quantify the interaction with the Brand i.e. the advertiser with products or services. I don't just mean driving traffic to their site. I mean the ultimate interaction between the advertiser and the consumer: a financial transaction to buy a product or service. This is what the advertiser really wants. Obviously not all products advertised online can be bought online.

But I guess that is the difference between online marketing and eCommerce.

And that is why I am in eCommerce...