Yesterday, Amazon.com unveiled their new digital download service called amazonmp3.

Simply, this is great for consumers and troublesome for Apple.  The competition is great for the industry as it will create more incentives to be price competitive.  Consumers will benefit from lower prices, more promotions, and more innovation from both companies to keep or take away business from each other.

Amazon has positioned their product for success and it’ll be interesting to see Apple’s reaction. 

• Amazonmp3s can work with both iPods and other MP3s — will Apple finally succumb and allow iTunes music to be played on other non-Apple players?
• Amazonmp3s are DRM-free — this means that the files can be burned and transfers without restriction.  iTunes currently limits the number of times the file can be used and burned to CD.
• Amazonmp3 has 2 million songs right now – this is much less than the 6 million songs that iTunes currently has but record labels will be wise to negotiate deals with both companies.
• Amazon.com has a trustworthy name and the capital to keep this service going — unlike other failed mp3 sellers, Amazon has the money and branding to pull this off.  If purchasing music is as easy as iTunes, they can likely be a threat to Apple.

Apparently Google is continuing its efforts to push advertising to be more dynamic, engaging, and interactive.  It has apparently been testing its latest ad format – Google Gadget ads – since May 2007 but now is starting to slowly rollout. 

According to Google’s help – “If gadget ads are enabled in your account, you will have received an invitation to create gadget ads from the Google support team. If you haven’t received this notice, don’t despair: We expect to offer Google Gadget Ads to other advertisers in the future as the launch progresses.”

This looks like a better alternative to rollover video ads as it provides the user a greater chance to interact with the ad without committing to going to the actual site.  For an example, click here.

It seems like Apple has another hit on their hands.  Like Pixar, the other company Steve Jobs founded, it seems Apple can do no wrong.  Today, Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s newest iPod.  It is largely based on their popular iPhone mobile device with similar navigation and design. 

Dubbed the iPod Touch, Apple’s new media player is more than just music and videos.  It is only 8mm thick and incorporates a Safari web browser and the ability to access a Wi-Fi iTunes stores.  This means that individuals will have the ability to shop, preview, and purchase music on the fly.  As we all saw with the iPhone frenzy, the new Touch should have a similar fan reaction.  At $299 for the 8GB and $399 for the 16GB model, it is pricy for the amount of storage.  But as Apple has shown before, people are more than willing to pay a premium for their unique designs and fashionability. 

I wonder if I’ll see the day when Apple isn’t seen as being cool.  So far they seem to be one step ahead of everyone else…

As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s really important for brands to know who they are.  I came across an article today about VW and Apple discussing a possible “iCar”.  This sounds like a win-win for both companies. 

Apple wins because the demographics that VW targets (or should be targeting) is similar to Apple consumers.  They are youthful, technologically savvy, and like to be unique.  Integrating the iPod and iTunes into cars would be a great test case to show the automobile industry that it should be a standard fully integrated feature in all cars. 

VW wins because this is something they could promote that would resonate with its consumers.  Like its previous promotions, it could offer a free new limited edition iPod with each new car purchase.  A great selling point (or interest point) could be limited edition colors for both the iPod and “iCars”.

All in all this looks like a money maker for both companies and something we should look forward to in the future.

YouTube announced today that it is introducing a new ad format for its videos.  Dubbed InVideo ads, the ads are semi-transparent and occupy the bottom 20% of the video frame that start playing 15 seconds after the start of the clip.  After playing for 10 seconds, the overlay ads then shrink to a smaller button.  Of course the ad and button are clickable. 

Right now, YouTube is charging a flat rate of $20 CPM (per thousand viewings).  If you look at the most viewed YouTube video of all time, it has received 55,943,502 views.  That would have cost an advertiser a little of $1.1 million.  Not bad considering some paid search campaign budgets and the amount of impressions it would have received over the past year.

I think this is an important step to get a standardized working video advertising business model.  Video Ads charging a CPC can’t be far behind.  Some kinks that probably need to get worked out are determining what ad goes on which video, can video creators limit and/or choose what ads to display, and measuring the impact of these ads on sales.