I know I’m a little late on this, but late announcement is better than no announcement at all; SlashGear has added its editorial agenda with columns written by industry experts. While our focus is still up to date tech and gadget news, we wanted to diversify our content with opinions and analysis on digital lifestyle. I would like to welcome Michael Gartenberg, Avi Greengart, and Joanna Stern to SlashGear family.

An analyst working with Credit Suisse is claiming that YouTube is costing itself nearly $500 million a year. YouTube, which is owned by Google, only places banner advertisements on approximately 3% of the pages that make up the website. If they were to increase the number of pages that include web advertisements, they just might see their online advertising revenues increase dramatically.

The analyst, Spencer Wang, suggested that YouTube needs to create a standard web advertisement for their site. Once they can accommodate the additional advertisements, it will be important for YouTube to convince marketers that their site has the capability to boost sales for the products that they advertise.

Not too long ago the forecasted revenues for Google were dropped a bit and YouTube is supposedly to blame. Analysts suggest that the video website is a real weakness for Google. Wang noted that “Despite the growth of YouTube’s user base, there is little evidence to suggest Google has been able to materially monetize this usage. In light of the current ad recession, experimental budgets are being trimmed.”

Google stock has already taken a hit over the last several months. The economy is declining and revenue generated by online advertisements simply is not growing as fast as it used to. Even though the forecast for YouTube was less than optimistic, the value of Google stock grew slightly. At the moment, Google also seems to be generating a great deal of gossip over whether reports of a Twitter takeover are true or not.

Phorm has created a new type of technology that will essentially allow ISPs to track their users’ activity online. ISPs will then be able to take the information that has been generated by users and sell it to online advertisers. This will allow them to use advertisements that fit more appropriately with a user’s interests.

Many people have expressed outrage at the technology which could easily be seen as a gross invasion of privacy. Not too long ago, the Open Rights Group sent several large internet companies a letter that asked them to avoid Phorm’s technology. Those who received the letter included Bebo, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo.

Several companies are beginning to respond to the letter and it looks like Phorm might have a problem on their hands. A Bebo spokesperson said “We have received the letter and are giving it careful consideration from privacy and business perspectives.” Chris Kelly with Facebook added that “If [web browsers] are deeply unhappy with it we hope they express that as clearly as possible to the ISPs.”

It is also easy to assume that companies like Google will want nothing to do with Phorm. This is mainly because the technology that Phorm developed will be competing with their own. Although the technologies used by both companies may be different, the end result is more or less the same. Both will enable behavioral advertising to take place. The Open Rights Group is expecting a response from Google shortly.

It is no secret that the newspaper industry is suffering but several journalists who work with online newspapers believe that the future of the industry will be saved with the help of web advertisements. The Online News Association conducted a survey of approximately 300 journalists and the vast majority of them said that the news industry will find a way to stay profitable.

The survey questioned the journalists as to how online news sites would be able to turn a profit in the future. Around 60 per cent of respondents said that web advertisements would be the most likely way to generate revenue in the next few years.

Print publications have slowly begun to realize that their readership base is shrinking. In most cases, the good news is that these same readers are heading online to read the information. A great example of this is a major newspaper like the New York Times. Every month this site receives millions and millions of unique clicks.

While their subscriber bases might have receded, the customers are still reading the news. The only thing that print publications need to do now is figure out how to generate the revenues from their online readers to make up for what they might have lost through the print side. With web advertising continually growing, it seems like the perfect opportunity for a number of these publications to cash in on.

Perhaps this strategy is oversimplified and it could prove to be ineffective. Rupert Murdoch recently noted that web advertising rates were simply too low.

NeXplore has just launched the latest beta version of its web advertising software called NeXplore Ads which focuses on search capabilities. In what the company is calling a “lifecycle platform”, marketers will be able to utilize NeXplore Ads to create web advertisements and then manage their ad campaign going forward.

NeXplore Ads will allow marketers to engage in advertising campaigns that include a variety of different advertisement formats including simple text, video, instant message, and email. The new advertising platform will integrate with the company’s web browser called NeXplore Search which users will enjoy simply because of its aesthetic qualities.

The chief marketing officer for NeXplore, Scott Grizzle, said that with the help of NeXplore Ads, marketers will be able to create engaging advertisements that people will enjoy. He added that “With a simple click consumers can watch a brief video commercial and can click again to initiate a real-time video chat with a call center representative of the advertiser. With NeXplore Ads, targeted consumers are engaged, relationships forged and transactions consummated within seconds, with absolute privacy and without leaving the search results page.”

One of NeXplore’s consultants is Rowland Hanson who previously worked with Microsoft on their branding effort for Windows. Hanson has said that NeXplore Ads has really changed the way in which search advertisements can be delivered. He added that companies who take advantage of the interactive advertisements that NeXplore can generate will likely see a great return on their investment.

Web advertising continues to grow rapidly. At the moment, many marketers are looking for alternatives to print advertisements and the web is providing plenty of incentive for them. There are plenty of companies around today that offer a variety of tools to make web advertising easier. Some tools help companies create advertisements while other tools are used to help you understand how effective your web advertisement really is.

A new company called Yield Software is attempting to combine these aspects into one tool which marketers will be able to use with ease. Matt Malden, who is the chief executive officer of the company, said that they were looking to companies who want to spend upwards of $20,000 a month for marketing. He pointed out that a number of companies find current tools to be cumbersome or that they do not include all of the capabilities that they want.

Malden said that Yield Software developers spent a great deal of time thinking about the various elements that they would include in their package. Some of the tools could be automated while others could not.

Companies will be happy to know that the software will help them determine the types of keywords that their search advertisements should be based on. The program will help to determine the actual look and style of the advertisement as well. Anyone that is interested in Yield Software will have an opportunity to test it out for free during a month long trial period.

Popular website Wedding Mapper is changing the way web advertising is conducted. In what is considered to be a first in the advertising industry, Wedding Mapper is going to start auctioning off space for web advertisements that will be placed on a variety of different local sites.

The President of Wedding Mapper said of the new web advertising scheme that “Most industry websites cannot afford to cater to small, local businesses due to the overhead required to penetrate such markets with a sales team. Because we are fully automated, Wedding Mapper can serve diverse markets and support large and small businesses delivering the industry’s most competitive pricing structure with stronger results.”

Wedding Mapper uses a sophisticated algorithm to determine price levels. This algorithm takes into account things like web traffic and even the city which the site might be geared toward. Any company that wants to participate in the web advertising auction is required to create a budget. After the bidding process is over, Wedding Mapper will chose the winners who will then receive premium advertising space.

Those that win the auctions will receive an update every other month which details how well their advertisements are doing. Various statistics are included in this report such as the click-through rate.

So far the auction scheme seems to be working out well for Wedding Mapper. The site has already received around 250,000 bids for advertising space which covers approximately 7,000 markets.

New York was the host of the Pontiflex CPL Summit recently and a number of leaders in the web advertising industry were in attendance. Imran Khan with JP Morgan spoke at the summit and is predicting that the web advertising market will see an improvement towards the end of the year.

Khan emphasized that once the economy begins to pick up, the web is likely going to profit greatly. At the moment, television is still one of the greatest pulls for people’s attention in terms of the available media options. Not far behind is the web. Although a number of people take advantage of this useful service, only around 8 per cent of marketing budgets are spent on web advertisements. According to Khan, this presents an incredible amount of opportunity for advertisers to tap into.

What is interesting is that newspapers receive around 20 per cent of marketing budgets which is far more than the web receives. This is odd considering that television and the web both demand far more attention from people than newspapers can even hope to receive.

Khan pointed out that newspapers would likely continue to feel the pain from the loss of advertising budgets in the months to come and that they have not taken into consideration the power of the web at this point. As people quit reading the newspaper and choose to instead read the news online, they will have to adapt in order to compensate for the change in consumer behavior.