Yahoo & NDN sitting in a tree ...

The Wall Street Journal reports that there are strong rumors that Yahoo has entered talks to buy NDN, a very popular online video service. NDN is currently ranked fourth globally in terms of video views and generates on average about 570 million video views per month, far more than Yahoo's 384 million (ranked at number five).

If the acquisition goes through it will give Yahoo more ammunition to fight Google which dominates the space. In case you are wondering Google does about 13 Billion video views in the same one month period (figures include YouTube). Facebook ranks second and AOL ranks third.

NDN does not produce its own video content, but has a large collection of videos that are widely used by sites like Bloomberg, LA Times, New York Daily News and thousands more. The move would help Yahoo distribute its own videos to these sites.

Yahoo has been trying to expand their video service and build a catalog of video content to rival YouTube for a while now, it put in a bid to buy Hulu last year, but then dropped out of the bidding and was also looking to buy Dailymotion but negotiations fell through early on.

Let's wait and see what happens, I like some of the ideas of this "new" Yahoo under Marissa Mayer but so far I haven't been impressed.

About Us ... #$!@$#%@

Dear "Almost Every Website I visited this last year" ...

Your “About Us” page is statistically one of the most important pages on your website for new visitors, especially people who are not that familiar with your brand or services. And yet most of you choose to serve your visitors with a few random, generic, by-the-book corporate generalizations - simply because the space on your website had to be filled and you were not bothered to do a proper job and produce smart content that will help drive real business to your site. I get really upset when I encounter this, especially when I am looking to buy a product or service online.

• Instead of treating it like a boring school assignment, think about how you would tell your story to someone you just met face-to-face.
• Try explaining your story, your motivation for starting the business and what level of service customers can expect.
• You should also consider using your “About Us” page to encourage new business, subscriptions or any other actions by including calls-to-action links through out the content.

Don't overlook this integral part of you website. There’s simply no excuse for a boring “About Us” page and it may end up costing you a lot of business ... 

Why Blog now?

In February 2014, LinkedIn opened its publishing platform to its 278 million members. LinkedIn product management director Ryan Roslansky explained that all posts published by members on LinkedIn, will become part of their professional profile and therefore shared with their trusted network and thus have the ability to reach the largest group of professionals ever assembled.

This got me thinking, so I decided to finally give in and work on my own blog, which is something I have been avoiding for a number of years now. On my blog I will share my thoughts and insight on the online marketing industry. I will try to stay clear of content on affiliate and social marketing mainly because there are many other blogs about that out there. Instead I will mainly touch upon fundamentals like media buying, SEM, SEO, display advertising, etc. On occasion I may also use the blog to vent my frustration on how little some of the large ad agencies out there really know about online marketing and what a waste of time it is dealing with them.

This blog will appear on chailis.blogspot.com as well as on Chailis.com