Reason No. 1,247 on why it’s great to live in the Bay area – you can be talking (or writing) about a winery one day, then visiting it the next. While drinking one of our favorite Malbecs from our recent trip to Argentina, we did a little research and found the winery in Argentina actually was owned by Hess Family Estates, which also owns The Hess Collection Winery in Napa Valley.
With that in mind, we headed to Hess to check out their wines and their fabulous art collection. We were pleasantly surprised on both fronts. Hess immediately sets the mood for a great experience with a walk through a gorgeous courtyard that takes you to the tasting room. The bar area, unfortunately, was closed this trip while they replaced the floor, but it is one of the nicest tasting areas, a large round bar that can accommodate a lot of people and not leave you cramped as many other tasting rooms.
Hess makes a number of wines that can be found all over under its Selection brand. The wines are decent and fairly priced. But Hess makes a number of other wines that can only be found at the winery or through its Wine Club that not only are fantastic, but very reasonably priced by Napa Valley standards.
Among the wines that particularly stood out were two Petite Sirahs. Reason No. 2,372 why it’s so fun to visit wineries is that sometimes you get a chance a chance to taste the same varietal with fruit coming from two different vineyards, which gives you an idea of the different climates in those vineyards. The tannins in the 2006 Artezin Mendocino Petite Sirah hit you right away. They were big and bold – no way to miss them. There was also a nice fruit taste, but it was overpowered by the tannins, which should mellow out as the wine ages. The Artezin retails for $25.
The real standout was the 2006 Allomi Vineyard Petitie Sirah. The Allomi Vineyard is in Napa Valley and is the source of a few different Hess varietals – Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc to name two. The Allomi Petite Sirah is a wine you don’t want to finish in fear that the whole bottle is gone before you can get another glass. It was much less tannic, with smells of leather and tastes of slight berry fruit. The Allomi retails for $36. Jill’s sister bought a bottle and then quickly took it back to Chicago with her so we’re hoping she opens it during a holiday when we’re back home. Thanks Hess for making both wines available to taste side-by-side and to the Hess servers, who were quite generous with their pours.
Other standouts were the Hess Small Block Series Viogner ($28 retail) and the Hess Small Block Series Zinfandel. The Zinfandel was a dark magenta color and had the perfect blend of jammy fruit and white pepper. It retails for $36.
We also were able to secure a bottle of one of our favorite Malbecs, from Bodega Colomé, an Argentina winery owned by Hess. The tasting room manager went into the depths of the winery’s cellar to find us a bottle, though a quick Internet search also turned up the wine at K&L Wines in San Francisco (yes, they ship). However, we weren’t able to convince anyone to sell us a bottle of the Artezin Charbono, a red wine that is rare in these parts. The bottle is only sold to members of the Hess wine club.
Hess also has an art gallery, which contains Donald Hess’s private collection. It is worth a tour either before or after your trip to the tasting room.
We were impressed with Hess and the number of wines we were able to taste. The prices are incredibly reasonable for Napa Valley and I’m sure we’ll find ourselves back there soon.
We have many reasons to enjoy living in the East Bay of San Francisco. We can be in the city in 15 minutes, visit wine country in a little over an hour and have access to an abundance of regional parks all within a 15-minute drive of our house. Lately, we’ve also discovered a small number of wineries in the area who are making pretty exceptional wine. This Saturday, we decided to stay local by barbecuing in one of our favorite parks while opening a bottle from Broc Cellars.
Broc Cellars is a small winery in Berkeley, Calif. We first discovered Broc and its owner, Chris Brockway at an East Bay food and wine pairing event a few months ago. Broc blew away the competition away with his incredibly rich and complex wines, as well as his food pairings, which included both venison and duck.
Brockway introduced his first vintage in 2004 and yesterday, we had the great fortune to drink his 2007 Vine Starr red blend. It was the perfect wine to sip as we enjoyed the view in Redwood Regional Park and fired up the grill for some tri tip.
The smell and taste of the wine is distinctly Zinfandel, but much more complex. There are notes of blackberries and a fruit jam smell and taste that makes you come back for more. Jill also tastes a little bit of licorice on it – but strawberry licorice. It could be because she loves Twizzlers and wishes that flavor was in everything, but it seems to really be there. The wine notes list the blend’s varieties as 67% Zinfandel, 30% Syrah, 2% Petite Sirah, 1% Mourvedre. We love that Brockway makes his wines in the Rhone style. You can’t beat getting great French-inspired wine from a local winemaker (and at a reasonable price). The Vine Starr is currently selling for $25.
As you can imagine, Brockway doesn’t have his own vineyard in his backyard in Berkeley. He sources the grapes from growers across Northern California and produces his wine in a Berkeley facility shared with a few other wine makers.
Wine is currently being produced in all 50 states in the United States. Our advice – check out your local producers and get to know them. The winemakers are often products of great enology programs and are striving to bring great wine to their local market. As we all “go green,” let’s continue to “go local” and support these up-and-coming wine producers.
Jill and David Shabelman
We went to a wedding in St. Pete Beach, Fla. over the weekend and made a few interesting discoveries. The first, is that St. Pete Beach is not really a wine-drinking city. At least not from the wine lists I saw at a couple of restaurants in town. I asked one server for their wine list and the response was, “We have white, red, and white zinfandel.”
The second is that every wine story can have a happy ending. Jill went to the liquor store across the street from our hotel. It was your run-of-the-mill liquor store, but Jill came back excited because it not only had the wonderful Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc for a very reasonable $12, but also one of our favorite Malbecs from our recent trip to Argentina. Before I get into the Malbec, it’s worth noting that Sauvignon Blancs from the Marlborough region in New Zealand are often crisp and delicious in addition to often being great buys for under $15.
The Bodega Colomé Estate Malbec is a truly wonderful wine. The dense purple color you see on the pour carries over to the taste, a rich, deep fruity flavor with a fantastic finish that stays with you until your next taste. Even the crappy plastic hotel cups we were drinking from couldn’t mask the wonderful taste.
Looking to get some more information on the wine, I Googled it and was surprised to see the Bodega Colomé Estate winery actually is owned by The Hess Collection, a beautiful Napa Valley winery on Mount Veeder that is a wonderful place to visit and taste. I phoned the winery and they said they only get the wines from Argentina sporadically and they typically sell out fast. I was able to track it down on Wine.com, though at $27.99 it’s about $5 more than we paid in Florida.
Still, Malbecs are some of the best bargains out there and the Bodega Colomé Estate Malbec could stand up to some of the more mid-priced California reds out there. It’s well-worth searching out. You might even find it at your local liquor store.
David and Jill Shabelman
Before people begin sending nasty comments (ok, we’re not even sure anyone is reading), let us state that we’re well aware that Mendoza is the premier wine growing region in Argentina and we do have hopes of one day making the trek there to taste their lovely wines. Nevertheless, a recent trip to Argentina included an interesting few days in the country’s fledgling Patagonia wine region, where we found wines that were good, though not quite up to the quality of some of the more established Mendoza wineries. We did, however, meet some of the nicest people in a very friendly country, which in the grand scheme of things may be more important than the quality of the wine.
First off, a brief explanation of how we found ourselves in what some call “the end of the world” wine region (the region is the closest wine growing region to the South Pole in the entire world). Our trip to Argentina began in Buenos Aires before we flew to Patagonia to enjoy the country’s beautiful lakes region. Rather than hopping a plane back to Buenos Aires, then flying to Mendoza (Argentina is a huge country), we decided to drive to Neuquén and check out what was going on. Wine Spectator did a fine review of the region that you can find here.
We stayed at a beautiful new wine resort, Valle Perdido, where the staff couldn’t have been any friendlier, the food was first rate and wine certainly pleasant enough to drink in the mass quantities in which we were served.
We recently drank a bottle of Valle Perdido’s 2006 Malbec Reserva that we brought back and the first taste sent us right immediately to our memories of Argentina. The Malbec was rich and dark, with a smoky smell that made you want to indulge in something off the grill. Nice plummy Malbec taste, though perhaps not with the sophistication of its Mendoza brethren. But we’re here to praise, not criticize, and considering that wineries in the region began making wine in the early 2000s and basically sit in the middle of a desert, it’s certainly as good as many other reasonably-priced Malbecs out there. We discovered that one of our local wine shops, K&L in San Francisco, is selling the Valle Perdido Pinot Noir so we’re excited to continue drinking Patagonian wines and monitor their progress as they evolve.
If you ever find yourself in the Neuquén area of Patagonia, the few wineries there are worth the trip. You won’t believe that really affordable tasty wine is grown in this desert region and you also will be blown away by the winds that engulf the area some days. In addition to tasting at Valle Perdido, we visited Bodega NQN and Familia Schroeder. Our lunch at NQN was out of this world delicious and the wine selection at Familia Schroeder rivals any Sonoma winery. Don’t forget to brush up on your Spanish though, the locals speak little English.
In preparation for our trip to Argentina we drank some Malbecs and are hard-pressed to find wines that offer better value for the money. We would not hesitate to buy a $10 Malbec, and most wine stores and grocery stores (at least where we live) are littered with them. With barbecue season upon us, they are the perfect accompaniment for grilled meats. Enjoy!
Jill and David Shabelman
Bad traffic through Sonoma County pushed back the time of our canoe trip down the Russian River on Saturday, and subsequently delayed our visit to wine country. With the 5 p.m. tasting room closing time looming, there was only time to visit one place, so we couldn’t make a mistake. It’s why Sbragia Family Vineyards was the easy choice.
Nestled on top of a hill on the way to beautiful Lake Sonoma in Geyserville, Calif., Sbragia is, as its name suggests, a family-run winery that produces some of the best reds and whites in the Dry Creek Valley. The patriarch, Ed Sbragia, has a top-notch pedigree as the former winemaker at Beringer, where he won Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year for a 1986 Private Reserve Cabernet and a 1994 Private Reserve Chardonnay. Not surprisingly, the Sbragia Chardonnay shares many characteristics with the one from Beringer.
Sbragia’s white wines, and its Zinfandels, are the draw. The Home Ranch Sauvignon Blanc is perhaps our favorite wine from the winery, in part because it delivers the most bang for the buck and comes in comfortably below our $20 comfort zone for white wines. Sbragia also participates in the Sonoma County Vintners Visa Signature program that gives users a free tasting and 10% off all purchases.
The Home Ranch Sauvignon Blanc is the perfect warm summer day wine. It’s bright and crisp with a definite citrus flavor. It never disappoints. The other interesting thing about the Home Ranch Sauvignon Blanc is the reusable glass stopper they use in place of the cork.
The Gamble Ranch Chardonnay most resembles the wines Sbragia produced at Beringer, most likely because the grapes are sourced from Yountville in Napa Valley, but the wine lies just outside of our price range at $40. It’s creamy and rich, but doesn’t taste overly oaked. It’s always a treat to taste it at the winery.
All under $30, the three Zinfandels at Sbragia also provide good value. On this visit, the $28 2005 Gino’s Vineyard Zinfandel stood out. The extra year in the bottle than the 2006 Italo’s Vineyard Zinfandel brought out more of the wine’s character and gave it a little extra zip during the tasting.
The wines are reason enough to visit Sbragia, but an added bonus is its fantastic deck that sits high above the valley and provides a gorgeous location to hang out, drink wine and have a picnic. Many people believe that the enjoyment of wine comes not just from the wine itself, but also from where you are, who you are with, the setting, the food you’re eating – virtually everything that you’re experiencing at that moment.
Sbragia’s wines are good with or without an experience. Visiting the winery only enhances it.
Jill and David Shabelman
With the Red Wings beating up on our Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Playoffs it may be time to take a break from red and taste a little pink. Rosé that is.
Rosé’s have grown in popularity the past couple of years and they’ve become kind of trendy. But there’s a good reason. The easy-to-drink pink is very refreshing, among the most food-friendly wines out there and have become popular enough that you can find a wide variety at your local wine shop. Best of all, it’s not your mother’s White Zinfandel.
The 2008 Toulouse Vineyards Rosé of Pinot Noir from California’s Anderson Valley is an excellent example of everything that’s good about rosé. The first thing that lets you know you’re not drinking White Zinfandel is that it’s very dry – no sweetness here. The wine is crisp and has a lovely berry flavor, strawberry in particular.
Anderson Valley is one of the best places in California to grow Pinot Noir, which no doubt also makes for a great Rosé. The area is also famous for other varietals that thrive in cooler climates like Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris. The most famous region for Rosé in the world is the Tavel region in southern France. Tavel Rosés also can be found at many wine shops.
This all leads to something we will harp on in future blog posts. For those who become intimidated by a wine list or a wine shop, you should spend some time finding wines that you enjoy and learning where they are grown. When you’re struggling with a wine decision, you’ll know what wines and regions you can fall back on. We also recommend knowing your price point. The Toulouse Rosé is $24, which hits our sweet spot of good wines for under $30.
We were lucky to get friendly pour of the Toulouse Rosé at the winery during a recent trip to Mendocino County. The tasting was in a barn and winemaker Vern Boltz was actually pouring and educating visitors about his wines when we were there. It made for a great experience. Look for a review of the Toulouse Pinot Noir in a future post.
David and Jill Shabelman
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman. ad:tech San Francisco is winding up, but attendance was still solid for a Q&A with Andy Cohen, CEO of elderly care Web site Caring.com , John Durham, CEO and managing partner of marketing services firm Catalyst SF and Will Price, CEO of Widgetbox. Cohen told the audience that entrepreneurs must be persistent. He said entrepreneurs will always be giving reasons why they shouldn’t be doing something and constantly have setbacks. But he said if you can’t deal with rejection you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur. Durham concurred, saying, “don’t be afraid of failing.” As for getting an audience with VCs, attendees were told it’s all about relationships. VCs will almost never take a meeting based on a cold call and typically talk to people they’ve worked with before or if they are introduced by someone they know or have worked with before. Start-ups must be able to show the audience they are delivering, but traditional measuring services can often be costly. Instead, Cohen and Durham suggested publishers use Quantcast, an audience measuring service that’s gaining traction in the industry. Despite some personal differences with p.r. firms in his career, Durham said in the digital space, public relations firms are important for start-ups to get their story out. Finding a blog writer to tell your story or good placement in a trade publication also are ways to gain attention. Price ended the discussion by offering some hope to the entrepreneurs, saying he’s seen an improvement in conditions over the past couple of months and that the environment for starting a company is certainly better than it was at the end of 2009, when he said everyone feared they would be going out of business. For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman. After a while (keep in mind I’ve been here for all of a day and a half), attending presentation after presentation at a conference can become tedious, especially when you don’t have a vested interest in what is being discussed (other than being paid for blogging). That’s why it was especially enjoyable to attend a presentation where panelists provided practical ideas for how start-ups can cope with the recession. Panelists tackled a number of hot-button topics for the current environment, among them layoffs and salary cuts. Most stressed it’s important to hold on to your key employees and reward them accordingly. Andy Grosso, a partner at Riviera Partners, said an across-the-board staff layoff of 10% of the workforce will also “spook” another 10% of the employees, who will begin to look for another job. Most of the panelists agreed that it’s not a good idea to penalize the top employees by cutting salaries across the board. Those employees who are essential for the products the company is working on should be compensated accordingly. James Slavet, a partner at Greylock, said companies should not be making so-called “press release” hires, or people who look amazing on paper based on experience, but more on someone who is up-and-coming and looking to make their mark at a company. Slavet also said the founder or CEO should not be overly focused on treating everyone equally during tough times, but should work at making the “exceptional people” happy. Instead of spreading stock around to all employees, give it instead to the three or four most important people. In the current environment, CEOs should not be afraid to pull the trigger and let go of employees who are not working out. Rajeev Goel, co-founder and CEO of PubMatic, an online advertising optimization company, said a rule of thumb he uses on whether to keep someone is, “knowing what you know about the [employee] now, would you hire them now.” Can’t get much more straightforward than that. But companies should work harder during the hiring process so they don’t have to make tougher firing decisions down the road. In other words, hire the right person in the first place. Tim Chang, principle at Norwest Venture Partners said companies should keep digging for information about a potential hire and keep asking follow-up questions during an interview to determine if someone is right for a job. Along the same lines, Bijan Marashi, CEO and co-founder of e-mail enhancement application Xoopit, said companies should not be afraid to bring someone back for a second, third or fourth interview. And Grosso said employees don’t check references enough. As far as saving money, panelists recommended outsourcing non-essential IT services not e-mail exchange services and data center services. However, none were fans of outsourcing services such as advertising sales. For those companies seeking funding, the VCs also had some advice. Slavet said some start-ups are telling him things they think he wants to hear, such as a hot business model like virtual goods. He said it’s critical not to have a business model “tied to where the wind is blowing,” but to be true to the long-term market potential and invest in that. Also, he said businesses these days are over-emphasizing how frugal they are as the headline of their pitch instead of the opportunity of the business. Focus on why your market opportunity is exciting. For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman.
A few more thoughts from Digg founder Kevin Rose at ad:tech San Francisco.
- On whether he was enticed to accept millions of dollars in a buyout, Rose admitted, “who wouldn’t want to have a shit ton of money,” but said he wasn’t too worried about his personal wealth. “I’ve never been one to need much to live on.”
- But Rose also said he’s not interested in selling out to a large company, then have the site losing its cache, not innovate and fizzles out in a few years.
- Rose said the company could use some of its funds to acquire a digg-like company in another country. He said digg monitors numbers of other sites and if they are gaining traction digg could acquire them.
- He said the dead tree media “is dead” and he doesn’t know why people keep talking about it. In terms of the media’s role as a watchdog, he said that won’t go away, it will just be stripped down. Rose said he doesn’t know if Digg can save newspapers, but it can provide newspapers with reams of information about their users and what other types of stories they’re reading.
- Along the same lines, he said popular journalists, such as the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, will always have a following and will actually be more powerful when they are not affiliated with a newspaper.
- He does not believe Twitter competes with digg.
- He said digg has gone about as far as it can with its current format, but said there were drastic changes for the site in the works.
- He was shocked by the amount of hatred its users expressed after the introduction of chocolate Skittles.
For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman.
No matter how many times we’re exposed to a successful young entrepreneur, it’s always a little bit disconcerting to run into one to give you a reality check of just what you’ve accomplished with your own life. That segue leads us to this morning’s keynote presentation at ad:tech San Francisco, with Digg founder and chief architect Kevin Rose onstage being interviewed by Wired.com editor-in-chief Evan Hansen on the stage of Digg and consumer generated media.
Digg.com is the wildly successful social news Web site that lets its users determine which are the most popular stories to display.
Sticking with the theme of the conference, Hansen first asked Rose about the advertising outlook for the company. Digg currently has a three-year advertising outsourcing deal with Microsoft that’s set to expire in another year. Rose said digg is ramping up its ads sales staff and expects it to be about 10 to 15 people within the next year.
More exciting is that Digg is looking to break free of a straight banner advertising revenue stream and do things a little different once the partnership with Microsoft expires.
Rose is looking for more interaction between Diggs’ users and its advertisements, saying interaction between user and ads provides much quicker feedback for the advertiser. Rose said Digg’s user base already likes to vote on things so its ads could also have an element of voting. Rose said he would love to see a world where if an ad is “really crappy” it gets thrown off the site and the advertiser actually gets charged a higher price. If an ad is successful ad, on the other hand, the advertiser is charged less. Interesting thought.
For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman. A few tips on local and video search tactics that attendees at the ad:tech conference were treated to. Matt McGee, assignment editor for SearchEngineLand.com, listed a number of local SEO tactics businesses should use. Drew Hubbard, senior linking analyst, SEO The Search Agency provided some video search tactics that are simple, yet integral if you’re trying to get your video noticed by YouTube. Since the search engine can’t actually view the video, he said you have to use text to describe everything that happens in the video. Also be sure to include keyword-rich titles, descriptions and tags. Also choose thumbnails carefully, put your brand name somewhere in the video and tag videos whenever reasonable. For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
1) Use a separate page for each location your business has. If your law firm has multiple sites, do a separate page for each location.
2) Write a detailed location/directions page; search engines need locations.
3) Do regular SEO page titles, but with geographical modifiers. Example, “directions to our downtown San Francisco hotel.”
4) Standardize and optimize business profiles using sites like getlisted.org or universalbusinesslisting.org,
GetListed.org and universalbusinesslisting.org.
5) acquire and encourage ratings and reviews of your business.
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman.
Not all of the discussion at the ad:tech conference revolves around how to make money on the Internet. A recent panel discussion focused on the rise of digital out of home advertising networks. Dubbed the “Fourth Screen,” digital signage includes embedded screens, projected interfaces and kiosks placed where people work, play and socialize. They can be seen in grocery stores at sporting events, coffee shops and even elevators.
But the advertising has yet to take off for a simple reason. Measuring the performance of the advertising is difficult and advertisers must take a leap of faith that their message is reaching their intended audience. Pushing this type of advertising is especially difficult when the Internet does such a good job of tracking the efficacy of advertising.
Advertisers are trying to get around the measurement aspect. Vince Garza, director national media with Fox Broadcasting, said the company has done digital advertising for “24,” at sporting events, where it knows attendance will be dominated by males. It has done pitches for its “Hell’s Kitchen” show in supermarkets. Doug Scott, vice president marketing and business development with digital place-based network Danoo, said his firm also has been doing interactive marketing in which consumers will see an ad, but will use their phones to download additional information.
Because digital out-of-home marketing is at best a small portion of an advertising budget, panelists said there has been a little more experimenting and innovating in the hopes of finding what does or doesn’t work. They view out-of-home advertising as one part of a larger digital platform.
For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman.
For many content providers, a large number of people who view their content see it somewhere else from where it’s originally produced. The challenge, then becomes, how to best syndicate content and also find ways to monetize it. It turns out, there’s a whole industry that has cropped up designed to help content providers with distribution.
A number of those companies were on display at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. Among them are auditude, which manages and monetizes online video; Redbricks Media, an interactive advertising agency; digg, a Web site that aggregates popular content; Associated Content, a platform that allows publishers to publish their content in any format — such as text or video –and distributes that content to users; and Digitalsmiths, a provider of video indexing and content publishing technology.
Rather than fighting where their content ends up, executives from the companies said publishers must embrace getting the content to as many people as possible, but identify and manage those areas so they can be better monetized. Publishers need to look at log data and target the areas that are generating traffic for them and work with those sites to enhance usage. By getting a better understanding of where their users are, publishers should be able to better engage them and create new revenue streams.
For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman.
In a roundtable on the state of the digital advertising industry at the ad:tech conference Wednesday morning, panelists emphasized that even with all the knowledge Web sites can gather on their users, challenges remain in digital marketing.
First and foremost, panelists emphasized that content remains king and that the message being delivered to consumers remains an important factor, though it must also be followed up with a great product. Carol Kruse, vice president of global interactive marketing for The Coca-Cola Company, said “if the story isn’t compelling, it doesn’t matter how well targeted it is, people aren’t going to look at it.” One of Coke’s most successful online efforts is a fan page on Facebook that wasn’t even created by the company, but has attracted millions of users that enjoy the product.
Neil Ashe, president of CBS Interactive concurred, saying despite all the information it has on its users, “the most measurable medium is the most difficult to understand.” While CBS is able to do effective advertising on its video game Web site Gamespot, he admitted it still is learning how to better serve products like Coke.
One solution, they said, is to enhance a consumer’s experience with the message rather than be seen as a disruptive. As an example, Coke worked with CBS in its online efforts that surrounded college basketball’s March Madness. Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of digital consulting firm Denuo (a part of Publicis Groupe), said advertising agencies must increasingly work with not only with their clients, but also with the technology company delivering the advertising.
Panelists also mentioned how mobile platforms are becoming a larger part of online marketing programs. Jeff Berman, president of sales and marketing for MySpace said the site has seen a five-fold increase in mobile traffic over the past year. Suffice to say, no word on the rumors that his CEO Chris DeWolfe was stepping down as CEO of MySpace.
For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
Live coverage of ad:tech San Francisco by David Shabelman.
Hulu CEO Jason Kilar just wrapped up a short question and answer following his presentation. Responding to a question regarding whether Hulu will explore different types of advertising, such as interactive television advertising, which is gaining steam with cable operators, Kilar said Hulu remains focused on brand advertising, noting that brand advertising is a $60 billion business.
Kilar noted that online brand advertising can be twice as effective as television, and that with all the knowledge Hulu has on its users, it remains well positioned for targeted advertising. But Kilar was not dismissive of exploring new and different advertising opportunities, saying Hulu is “uniquely positioned” to do advertising in ways that haven’t been done before.
For more coverage ad:tech SF, visit our overview page here.
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