Christmas season is upcoming yet again so I thought it would be appropriate to introduce something that will be quite popular over this holiday season. Great gift ideas depending on your budget…

Guitar Hero World Tour

Guitar Hero has an interesting marketing campaign out trying to build awareness for their latest release. As you may know, they are directly competing against the Rock band series of music video games. When Neversoft developed the original Guitar Hero they had a first mover advantage with it’s release, but Harmonix Music Systems eventually released Rock Band and took away a lot of their built up hype.

Rock Band is the main competitor for the Guitar Hero series as it essentially has the guitar hero game built into it (not the exact game).

So what have they done to compete with Rock Band? Well, the release of Guitar Hero World Tour (Previously referred to as Guitar Hero IV) tells the story.

Guitar Hero World Tour maintains it’s main guitar-shaped controller which users have come to love. It also however features drum and microphone controllers which perform the percussion and vocals for the game. Now you may be thinking…so, they have released Rock Band??? Well, essentially yes they have…just in their own unique way …

Like Rock Band you are able to download new songs to use in the game. They are introducing the ability to upload and share songs that you have created within their “Music Studio” mode.

Below you can see some commercials for Guitar Hero World Tour

Heidi Klum Guitar hero ad

Guitar Hero World Tour ad - Kobe Bryant, A-Rod, Phelps, Tony Hawk

Guitar Hero World Tour Trailer

Check Out Ebay For Guitar Hero And Rock Band Deals!

Rock Band 2

When Harmonix Music Systems developed the original Rock Band it quickly began to gain very positive reviews. Now they have released Rock Band 2 and critics seem to be maintaining their positivity. In it’s first 2 weeks following it’s release 363,000 copies were sold.

Over the original game, Rock Band 2 has improved it’s drum and guitar controllers, but if you have the older version controllers they are compatible. They now feature a drum trainer mode along with a unique battle of the bands mode, and online capabilities that offer merchandising opportunities for the players in your virtual band.

Below you will see some commercials for Rock Band 2.

Rock Band 2 Commercial - AC/DC “Let There Be Rock”

Microsoft XBOX 360 Rock Band 2 Commercial

Overall, if you are stuck choosing between purchasing Guitar Hero and Rock Band, take a look at what they both offer and choose the one that offers the extras that you prefer. They both have their own unique upsides.

With the incredible rapid growth that online video sharing and video search sites are realizing, more and more advertisers are pumping money into video advertising. According to the latest research, online video advertising revenues in the US are expected to reach $7.1 billion by 2012 which is a 72 percent compound annual growth rate for the next five years. In 2008, the projections are just shy of $1billion.

Since video sites have been realizing more and more traffic growth, they have had a unique opportunity to innovate and test various different online video ad formats. And the advertisers as well are more than happy to experiment as they are looking to these leaders to develop the most effective online video advertising formats. Traditionally, pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll ad formats (aka in-stream ads) have been favored by advertisers due to the availability of inventory and prominence of the advertisement itself.

Pre-Roll Ads - In this format of advertising, the advertisement clip is inserted before the actual video and while playing the video, the advertisement clip is played first and the viewer is compelled to watch the advertisement before the start of the real video file.

Post-roll Format - In post-roll, just like the other in-stream ad formats, a short clip is played and streamed within the player at the end of the video stream itself. This is not as desired by advertisers as they know that many users never watch a video all the way until the end.

Mid-Roll Format - With mid-rolls, a short clip is streamed in the middle (sometimes every X minutes) of video content that is playing. This tends to be less annoying to users as they are acustomed to this format in television advertising.

As stated earlier, due to the demand, many of these video websites have begun to test and offer new, innovative ad solutions for video. One of these experimental format is the In-Player ad: With in-player ads the player skin itself can be used to place relevant images or text content for the advertiser so that the ad is displayed for the entire time that the video is played.

Contextual in-video advertising seems to be the way of the future with many different sites attempting to match videos with advertisements that are most relevant to the subject matter. Users like this format more as well as it does not disturb the experience of watching the entire video. This quality of the format makes it one of the most promising advertising formats for the future and there are many diverse ways in which to serve either images, clips, or text ads.

Some of the video sites like to go through the video and include only relevant in-video text advertisements, which match the contents of the video and at the same time it does not disturb the process of video watching by the viewer. Youtube was one of the first sites to adopt this format as a standard and it is called Overlay Video Ads.

I have given you a brief overview of the most common formats of video ads that are being tested and utilized at the moment. That being said, with growth being what it is, and video discovery as new as it is, we will certainly see many different companies innovating in regards to developing new and exciting formats for online video advertising.

Every time a Page rank updates, the same common issues arise, creating confusion regarding your web site’s Page Rank. What the Page Rank and its fluctuations mean cause confusion to the site’s owner. Some usual themes are the following:

1. If, during an update, your PR goes down, it is not necessarily a penalty. The PR is found in the Google toolbar, and is simply the grade that Google assigns your site. Losing powerful links or if a site that links to your site loses PR, will result in your PR lowering. If Google alters changes the way they determine PR, you can also lose PR. Keeping your content fresh will ensure your PR remaining steady. There are a lot of reasons for PR lowering, but none of them are penalty related. Being penalized will only occur if you disobey Webmaster Guidelines, and you will see that penalty in removal from the index or drastic drops in rankings.

2. PR that is displayed is not current. The PR is only current after an update. You could have made a well rounded link profile, even added an interface for user generated content, and still have a PR4 after a couple months. Do not worry about it, because you do not know your actual PR.

3. Higher rankings are not equal to higher PR. Focus on your traffic, rankings and conversions instead of your PR. many searches have PR0-3 that outrank PR4-6, so it is not the only method in the Google algorithm that measures your sites ranking. unless you are selling your links on your site, and need to show your PR as high to sell, do not worry about the PR. Be sure to keep that in perspective, while not completely ignoring it. PR is the general snapshot of your site in the eyes of Google. Generally, you will rank higher with high PR, but that is just one piece of the puzzle.

4. PR juice flows. Without obsessing about your PR, understand that acquiring high PR links will flow PR to your site as well. Worrying about your own site’s PR may not be as valuable as making sure that your incoming links are from high or mid PR sites. If you are working towards obtaining links, high PR pages mixed in, naturally, will greatly benefit you. If you look at PR as a trust snapshot, then obtaining a link from a more trusted site, at the same time being relevant to your industry, will not only boost your PR, but your ranking as well.

Usually, a drop or increase in PR that doesn’t coincide with traffic or search results should not worry you. It is an awesome thing to see your PR rise, but traffic is what really matters.