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?

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.

Microsoft Does Cartwheels
On Wednesday, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Turner, told partners that Apple’s legal department called Microsoft asking them to take down their new ‘Laptop Hunter’ ads (below), according to Ars Technica. “It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business. I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, ‘Is this a joke? Who are you?’ Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them.”

Turner claims that these PC value ads show people (not actors) taken off of the street looking to spend less than $1000 on a laptop. The commercials are supposedly completely unscripted.

Even though the PC ads are less accurate now that Apple has made a few price cuts, it was probably not the best idea for Apple to make that phone call. And to add more fuel to the fire, Turner announced that Microsoft stores opening this fall will be placed near Apple stores. Ouch!

Spotlight On: FastPencil
This week, Image Space Media is recognizing FastPencil, a website that gives aspiring authors the tools to take the pain out of publishing their books, either in e-book or printed form. Some of its features include legal considerations, formatting the covers and spine, adjusting the size and templates, formulating the price and an innovative concept called “Guided Collaboration,” which allows the site’s community to provide feedback and improvements on your work. We thought some of our online publishers might be interested in FastPencil if they ever want to turn their blog into the next bestseller!

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