The referenced article is actually about the announcement of Time Inc.’s own ad network that will leverage the 26 properties that they have which includes some big names like People, Time (duh!) and Sports Illustrated. The network, called Time Axcess, offers advertisers access (get it?) to about 27 million unique visitors per month.

Admittedly I was a little surprised that this was even news because I would have assumed that a media giant like Time would have done this a while back. Apparently though they are a little bit behind the curve with competitors like Martha Stewart, Living Omnimedia and Conde Nast already in the game. Difference being with those groups is that they use outside partners to accomplish what Time is doing in house.

As one would suspect it is anticipated that advertisers will be receptive to this offering. Media buyers are excited.

“First off, I know who Time Inc. has,” said Michael Hayes, exec VP-managing director at Initiative Digital. “Even if I don’t know the exact placement of the inventory, when I go to talk to Dr Pepper or Ikea or Bayer, that creates comfort for them. When I tell them it’s running on an ad network and it’s blind, they get incredibly uncomfortable, and rightly so.”

Time is excited for the fact they are not paying a middleman to move their inventory now.

Kirk McDonald, president of Time Inc. Digital said, “Ad networks buy inventory today from companies like us at pennies on the dollar,” he said. “We’re going to take the same impressions that today we’re getting pennies on the dollar for, and get dollars for those.”

While it is exciting for Time to have this opportunity it also may be a case of being patient and giving actual time for it to develop. This network comes online when advertising is taking a hit of historic proportions so it may be a while before they know just how good this will be for them.

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The report breaks down the use of social media by Social Technographic role by type of social media involvement (types explained in this PPT):

(Click To Enlarge)

The “Overall” column indicates what percentage of those surveyed fell into that type of social media activity. Note that, obviously, there is overlap between roles—Creators, who generate online content, can also be Critics, who leave blog comments, etc.

Takeaways here:

• 91% of these decision-makers consume social media including blogs, video, and customer reviews.
• 69% of Spectators use social media for business purposes.
• 55% of the B2B buyers in this survey are Joiners—they’ve created profiles on social networks.
• After Spectators, the most popular role is Critics (again, people who leave comments on blogs, review products, etc.), with 58% of those sampled engaging in this activity, and 37% using it for business purposes.
• Other than the Inactives, B2B buyers in IT fields were more engaged in social media—but the gap between IT buyers and non-IT buyers is narrowing.
• 43% are creating media, including blogs and videos.

The report also made some recommendations and general observations, including:

• Buyers use social technology but don’t rate it highly in terms of its influence on their buying decisions, despite the fact that they count on peers’ opinions to make decisions.
• Social applications should be integrated into other marketing. For example, National Instruments makes technical content from its customer community central in its marketing activity—this is a model other B2B sellers should follow.
• Reach out to people by role—people with the same job description form natural communities.

What other applications can we see from this information?

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eBay maintains issues were occurring that slowed down trade when buyers left unflattering comments about sellers who then hit back with their own comments. Beginning in May sellers will no longer be able to leave negative comments about buyers.

 Sellers are not happy with the move saying it leaves them unprotected from a problem customer and there is little they can do when a sale goes bad. They also point out a double standard because eBay allows buyers to leave negative comments about sellers.

eBay argues that problem buyers can be reported by the seller and that it will review the complaint and possibly remove the buyer. The company says the change is to "improve the overall customer experience."

Chris Norton writes on his blog," eBay is an online community, it’s a social site and once the community becomes one-sided, it becomes biased towards the buyer."

"I am all for customer relations but eBay’s customers are the sellers too and if this change means we get treated badly and abused further by small minded individuals looking for an easy discount – I think we may see eBay slip into decline."
 

Sellers on eBay left billions of dollars on the table by not putting a higher price on their wares. A pair of University of Maryland statisticians discovered in their research what some eBay sellers have complained about: buyers are cheap.

Buying behavior in 2003 showed the thrifty shoppers saved $7 billion, according to Reuters. Researchers Wolfgang Jank and Galit Shmueli projected the numbers through 2007, where buyers may have saved some $19 billion in their shopping.

Though that sounds ominous for sellers, the researchers believe sellers benefit from the market liquidity of eBay.

It appears the savings come when an auction ends, and the winning bid exceeded the second place bidder by an increment in price. If the winner did not pay the full amount he was willing to pay, the difference becomes what the researchers call a consumer surplus.

That doesn’t help salve seller complaints from the past, where bargain hunters sniff at prices they find too expensive. Coupled with seller fee increases, some of the more frustrated sellers opted to head to competitors like Amazon.com or the now-defunct Yahoo Auctions.

Others set up e-commerce sites and spent money on contextual search advertising to find customers. Those sellers may have cause to look at eBay again, as CEO Meg Whitman’s retirement could spur changes, including adoption of volume pricing that sellers have wanted for years.

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