Courtesy of Flickr user fidgetrainbowtree

Since we consider ourselves to be a part of the new wave of internet advertising and web monetization strategies, we try to stay abreast of internet advertising news at Image Space Media headquarters. That means spending a bit of time every day on our Google Readers, on Yammer, and on Twitter, reading the latest about tech startups, advertising, marketing... Anything that seems relevant to our work. And about once a week, we've been sharing what we've been reading with you all, at our What's Happening Around the Web tag.

So what's new this week?

In startup news...

Quora recently closed its first round of funding with a valuation estimated at $86 million. Quora is a new site (invite only!) that provides a question and answer service. It's success, however, is based on the fact that it goes beyond just Q&As by sparking discussions. As TechCrunch described Quora, "there’s a magic to Quora that has captured Silicon Valley’s imagination. Something about the quality of the people and the content. Real discussions break out on Quora all the time."

Michael Arrington from TechCrunch (who gave us some love last week!) sat down with Quora's founders and investor to chat about the startup. I found their concept of "reverse blogging" to be pretty interesting:

What makes Quora so special? Why are people raving about it?

I don’t think it’s any one thing, but it’s a bunch of little things. Part of it is the right audience. Instead of just Q&A, we think about this as blogging. Some people call it inverse blogging or reverse blogging. When you write a blog post, you write to your audience. When you write on TechCrunch, you know that these people are expecting techie news about startups.

When you come to a question page on Quora and it’s blank there are a bunch of people waiting for the answer. An expert will look at it and say “there’s an audience here and I know exactly what they want to hear. And I actually know about this stuff, or know enough to research and produce a really interesting piece of content, and it’s going to go to the perfectly targeted audience who opted in to hearing about this.”

On a different note, you maaaay have noticed recently that the health care reform bill passed the United States Congress. Whether or not you support the bill, now that it has passed it means the times they are a-changin' in the way businesses provide health insurance for their employees. But what does it mean for small startups? ReadWriteWeb has a channel specifically for entrepreneurs and startups called ReadWriteStart, and they recently detailed the programs, laws, and providers dealing with new health care policies that are relevant to new start-ups. If this applies to you or your company, check it out.

In marketing/advertising news...

We've all seen the "Windows 7 was my idea" ads... want to hear from the creative mind behind them?

CNET News' Ina Fried spoke with David Webster, Microsoft's chief marketing strategist, about the inspiration behind these ads and the process of naming Bing, Microsoft's search engine. Up next for Webster is designing the advertising for Office 2010, which will center around the surprising range of uses that Office programs can have. Here's a (topical!) example: "One friend of Webster does his Passover seder in PowerPoint with embedded sound clips from Charlton Heston in 'The Ten Commandments.'" I for one am interested to see how Webster incorporates his friend's story in the advertising for Office 2010.

Lastly, a big question on everyone's mind since Twitter first stepped on the scene is - how will the giant make their money? paidContent.org systematically reviews Twitter's possible revenue sources, from advertising to e-commerce to mobile deals. What will their advertising scheme look like? We know what it won't look like: Twitter execs agree with our opinion of banner ads (that audiences are blind to them!), saying that “traditional web banner advertising isn’t interesting to us." Word up, Twitter execs.

So that's what we've been reading this week. What about you?

This might look like Mardi Gras but it's actually 6th Street in Austin, Texas, during the music portion of SXSW. Photo taken by our Publisher Manager Samantha Farr.

So, now that we're winding down from the excitement of SXSW, it's time to get back to work. And lord knows, it wouldn't be a normal day at ISM Headquarters if we didn't spend some time cruising the web for some new and interesting stuff related to advertising, images, and the like.

First up! Yesterday was World Water Day. Did you celebrate? Decided by the United Nations Water Group, this year's theme was "Clean Water for a Healthy World." The Big Picture blog, one of the best collectors of beautiful news photography on the web, featured 43 insanely awesome images from across the world related to World Water Day. Among our favorite images is one of India's Ganges River during a religious holiday, an aerial shot of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Southern California, and a photo capturing a tender moment during a traditional kissing festival in Bali. All of them are fantastic.

Next up! On a completely different note, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (a.k.a intern Carly's favorite museum in the world - also note: Tad has a lifetime membership), has officially acquired the @ symbol. As Tweeter Maria Popova (@brainpicker) writes, "@MuseumModernArt acquires Twitter and all the world's email. Well, sort of." Learn more after the jump.

Although it was first used in the sixth or seventh century, the @ was given its current meaning in the 1960s. American electrical engineer Ray Tomlinson is credited with being the first to use @ in the way we know it today -- in email! The curators at the MoMA write, "He chose the @ for his first e-mail because of its strong locative sense—an individual, identified by a username, is @ this institution/computer/server."

But why did the MoMA acquire the @ symbol? The @ is now a large part of how we communicate with one another and how we define ourselves. Tomlinson deserves credit as the designer of this ubiquitous identifier, and as the one who first imbued it with its current meaning.

And lastly! On an even DIFFERENT note, I hope you all have seen the ChatRoulette piano improv guy. He's officially gone viral so I imagine many of you have.

The internet is an adorable and musically talented place! What have you been reading/watching/enjoying on the web recently? Let us know!

Our fly new look.

Amazing stuff is happening in Image Space Media Headquarters: We've unveiled our new website, logo and our publisher panel PubStop. AND our team is gearing up to head to SXSW Interactive tomorrow. It's an exciting time to be using in-image ads.

But let's break it down a little. Our team has put in a lot of work to make our new website look as beautiful as it does... from back-end developers to content writers, from management on down to us bloggers/ISM cheerleaders. And we're pretty happy with the results.

Here's a run-down of some of the additions to the site:

• Special section for advertisers, including FAQs and information about our content channels.
• For our WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr friends, step-by-step instructions on how to implement our code on each specific blog platform.
• PubStop! Our exclusive interface for publishers where you can see how many dolla bills you've made, control which ads have images, and just generally have a good time.
• Management bios! Ever wondered what the smiling faces of the ISM team look like? You're in luck!
• A new look! From our beautiful new logo to our poppin' color palette, every aspect of the ISM site is designed to be evocative.

Not to brag, but we think these updates are pretty fly. What do you think? We hope you find them to be an exciting and useful upgrade to ISM's services. Let us know what you think! Post your thoughts in the comments or email info@imagespacemedia.com!

via Jakob Nielsen for Useit.com

At Image Space Media headquarters, we're all pretty big proponents of online advertising (Cash Rules Everything Around Us, after all). We think it's a great way for publishers to financially support their passions and their expressiveness. And, of course, we believe we provide a unique and game-changing way for publishers to use their unique images to get paid.

But not all online advertising is effective online advertising. And it's not just you, getting sick of seeing the same banner ads above the sites you visit every day - it's a proven phenomenon called Banner Burnout, and it has very real implications for publishers and advertisers.

Let the stats do the talking: A study by DoubleClick found that after the fourth impression, CTR rates for banner ads go from 2.7 percent to less than 1 percent. That's pretty abysmal!

Photo via Flickr user jamescastle3

But before you can even worry about click through rates, there is the critical problem of Banner Blindness to deal with. As you can see from the amazing eyetracking studies shown above, created by Jakob Nielsen, the eye is automatically drawn to areas not dominated by ads. As Nielsen writes, "If users are looking for a quick fact, they want to get done and aren't diverted by banners; and if users are engrossed in a story, they're not going to look away from the content."

To combat the Banner B-problems, advertising experts suggest placing banners with animation, flashing bright colors, and cryptic messages at the top of your site. But what if that's not exactly the style you have in mind for your site? Remember, banner ads are not the only ad solution. These are many great advertising strategies to generate revenue - banner ads, Google AdSense and AdWords, in-text ads, Image Space media ads... Given the number of options in your arsenal, it's important to be tactical about your advertising solutions. How do you want your site to appear visually? Check out our online advertising tag for all of our past coverage of the various ways you can make ads work for your site.

The Super Bowl is a fantastic opportunity for advertisers to showcase their creativity. With millions of viewers, expectations are high. And some of the past decades most memorable commercials have first aired during the Super Bowl (see: Waaaasssuuuuupp). So what can we expect for this year?

Photo by volov via Pixmac.com

As always, there will be beer commercial upon beer commercial. The site I4U News reports that Anheuser-Busch InBev, the owner of Budweiser, Michelob, Stella Artois, and basically every other beer that you drink, is this year's biggest Super Bowl advertiser with five total minutes of ads (which cost the brewery $30 million, no big deal).

And beyond the expected focus on brews, this year's selection of ads has been surprisingly political. Focus on the Family, an evangelical church organization, will show a pro-life ad that features Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother -- a development that has been made more controversial by CBS' rejection of an ad for ManCrunch, a gay dating website.

If you want a run-down of all the ads, the content, and the agencies responsible, check out AdWeek's comprehensive Super Bowl XLIV Commercial Players Chart.

Having taken on the totally arduous task of watching most of this year's Super Bowl ads (it's a hard job, but someone has to do it), I have a few favorites:

This ad for the Kia Sorento features a lovable cast of characters (including Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba!) getting crunk and crazy. The robot doing the robot is sublime.

And E-Trade is bringing back their popular baby ads, featuring the same wise-cracking, financial geniuses as before. Note how the animation has improved! My love for these ads is inspired by my dad, who never fails to get the giggles when they come on TV.

So what appeals to me in an advertisement? Obviously it has to be funny, preferably in a slightly weird or quirky way, and ads that are visually unique can usually catch my eye. I like when ads buck the stereotypes: I don't have much patience for beer ads that feature the well-worn trifecta of slightly fugly dude + attractive woman + physical comedy. What about you? Is there an advertising archetype that never fails to grab your attention?

Image via the Adages blog

Let's not forget, however, the traditional print medium. Ken Wheaton of Advertising Age's blog Adages had declared this print ad to be "the best Super Bowl related ad ever" -- a declaration that may or may not be related to his home-state bias. Even so, there's no denying the power of this Tobasco ad. It skillfully acknowledges the city's painful past without being emotionally exploitative, and in doing so is ultimately hopeful. And the ad does what I imagine most advertisers hope to do -- it incorporates the brand into reality without being overbearing. Speaking personally, I have very little stake in who wins the Super Bowl this Sunday, so it's a testament to the power of advertising in general that I may find myself rooting for the Saints.

I hope I haven't offended any die-hard Colts fans out there. If I have - retaliate! Hit me with your best shot, and by best shot I mean most convincing advertising scheme related to Indianapolis. And if you couldn't care less about the game itself and all of its physical displays of masculinity, what's your favorite Super Bowl ad? Any awesome ones I've missed?

Erick Schonfeld

Chitika, a search advertising network, has compiled data showing that Microsoft users are more likely to click online ads than any other users. Chitika analyzed users based on their browsers and operating systems. As a result, it found that Microsoft's Internet Explorer users are roughly 40 percent more likely to click ads than Firefox users. Also, Firefox users are 50 percent more likely to click ads than Apple Safari users. These numbers are based on over 134 million impressions on 80,000 sites.

Based on operating system, the trend was somewhat the same. Windows users are nearly twice as likely to click ads than Linux and Mac users. Although it is a very large sample, the data is only compiled from one ad network. However, it is still a very significant trend that I am sure will be studied more in the near future. For now, it seems as if Microsoft users are the ones to target for online advertising.

Entrepreneur.com just posted an informative article on putting the "pay" back in pay-per-click. The entry offers great tips on delivering conversions --not just click-throughs which can add up for new publishers.

The article outlines several different factors that contribute to poor conversion rates.

The most critical seems to be "Click Fraud"

In our experience, some of the smaller PPC search engines deliver clicks but no conversions. Check the clicks-to-conversion stats for every search engine you use, then stop using any where the results are seriously out of whack compared to your PPC performance on the other search engines.

Other culprits include:
-Content networks
-Lack of keyword research
-Scattergun ads
-Irrelevant landing page
-Sticking with the same old ad

Continue reading to learn more best practices to PPC advertising here.

Luxury brands have struggled to utilize the web where sites for knock-offs and deep discounts abound. Upholding the integrity of their brands is of utmost importance to keep their aging consumer base.

All eyes are on Burberry who has just launched Art of the Trench, a gallery of street photography of people wearing the iconic Burberry trench. They enlisted fashion photographers to begin the project and have invited the public to submit their own photos. The execution of the site is beautiful and has lead to a lot of buzz. It will be interesting to see how Burberry will ride this wave and if other luxury brands will follow suit.

Source: Erick Schonfeld

Online advertising bounced back a bit in the third quarter of 2009, after declining in the first two quarters of the year. The online advertising revenues of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL rose 1.2% to roughly $8 billion for the quarter. These four companies account for an enormous proportion of online advertising, so looking at these four companies gives a good representation of the overall industry. However, Google was the only company to report a rise in revenues in the third quarter. The other three had slight decreases in revenue. While it is still early to assume that the worst is behind us, this definitely gives hope that the online advertising industry might be stabilizing.

Source: unwiredview.com

As has been extensively covered this week by online media sources (see: the New York Times and Advertising Age, for starters), Google is set to acquire the mobile advertising company AdMob for $750 million in stock. According to Jon Fortt for CNNMoney.com, this deal represents a sign of the times. The mobile-display advertising sector is now the advertising market that seems most poised to grow, and with this deal, Google has positioned itself as the current leader.

Fortt, however, is skeptical of mobile advertising's potential. Although the popularity and ubiquitousness of smart phones is undeniable, spending on mobile advertising market was only $416 million in 2009 -- which is nothing compared to the close to $24 billion spent on online advertising overall in 2009.

Fortt is also skeptical of the smart phone user's likelihood to put up with mobile ads. He writes, "If you think online display ads are at best an annoyance on a 30-inch monitor, what about a three-inch screen? Ignoring ads on a PC is easy enough; on something I pay $60 or $80 a month for (especially if serving up the mobile ads slow my wireless network even more) ignoring the ads will be the default mode."

It remains to be seen whether Google can successfully develop a mobile advertising service with the acquisition of AdMob. In my estimation, and Fortt's as well, the difficulty of creating a mobile-display ad that doesn't completely turn off users is a significant hurdle that Google and other competitors must face.

Read the rest of Fortt's article here and let us know what you think of mobile advertising in the comments!