Ninemsn's View

One thing I find surprising, after a decade in online news and a few years in print, is that the longer I remain a journalist the more my respect for the readers grows. Increasingly the correct attitude to adopt towards the audience seems to be one of respect rather than arrogance.

Perhaps it is the daily exposure to their reading habits. Perhaps this kind of humility is the natural consequence of experience. But every year it gets stronger: the audience is right.

Back when Bill Gates and Paul Allen were talking about a computer on every desk and in every home, software was in the nascent stage of introducing new ways to be more efficient and productive. Now, as we enter the 21st century, search is making our lives even easier as it becomes increasingly more ubiquitous, social, and smart.

Today, we’re excited to announce that through the joint venture with Mi9, we’re making a long-term investment in driving the future of search and search advertising in Australia and New Zealand with the introduction of Bing Ads. As nearly 5.5 million Australians use Bing every month, we’re excited to add search to Mi9’s already extensive end-to-end offering to advertisers in Australia/New Zealand.

Has there ever been a generation like it before or since? Where would we be without Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and Quentin Tarantino? They are the most liberated generation, who changed the world with their appetite for new ideas, change and innovation and produced some of the greatest inventions of all time. Holding more than 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, Baby Boomers - 50-69 years olds - are one of the fastest growing demographics in Australia. Over 4.7 million Boomers now enjoy a new era of financial and personal freedom; there is huge untapped potential for advertisers and brands that get it right.

Data provides marketers with the ability to do so much more than we’ve been able to do in the past. By analysing and interpreting data we learn more about audiences and are able to validate our advertising decisions. We can amplify our audience’s receptiveness to messages through relevance and context. We can prove what of our marketing works, while also learning how to improve it. It provides a continuous insight loop, allowing us to make more informed decisions faster and each campaign more effective.

It’s been almost eight months since I landed in Australia now and I’ve used that time to really observe where this market is heading. I’ve completed my deep-dives and now with my head above water and the year ahead, I want to share some of the trends we see shaping 2013 for Mi9.

We have been investigating the essence of shareability in news content for just over a year. After collecting data on a lot of shared content, both within ninemsn and from other publishers, we have developed certain rules of thumb for shareable content creation. We do not claim to have a single, consistent recipe for creating shareable content, nor do I think we ever will.

The importance of this investigation is difficult to exaggerate - already ninemsn's main news site receives around 15 percent of its visitors direct from Facebook. We think that as social networks mature and proliferate, that percentage will grow. Knowing what kind of content people share and why is key to maximising our audience in a digital world where behaviour is so clearly changing.

Now that the Olympic team is home I would like to take a moment to reflect on and highlight the most successful sporting event ever hosted by ninemsn – the London 2012 Olympic Games.

By the end of the closing ceremony, the site had served close to 50 million page impressions and 6 million video streams. On Wide World of Sports, where the ninemsn London 2012 Olympics site was located, we hosted an average of 400,000 unique browsers a day, which is two and half times greater than the site’s average day. This helped Nine bring The Games to the Australian population on a scale not seen before.

There’s arguably no other life event which brings about such dramatic changes. Becoming a mother impacts a woman’s lifestyle, income, relationships and the communities she chooses to be involved with. Unlike her mother’s era, today’s mum has access to a global, online digital network that is there for her whenever she needs it – and she relies on it. Mi9 recently conducted independent research into 500 Aussie Mums to uncover just how they’re using online, giving advertisers real insights into how to reach and engage them effectively.

Late last year Mi9 launched Australia’s first premium Advertising Exchange, predicting it to be a game changer. Six months on and we are in a time where the rate of change is nothing like this industry has experienced before. Automated trading is here; get on the platform to avoid missing the train!