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Apr30
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The response by Google (GOOG) in a federal court in New York to the Viacom lawsuit (VIA-B) was that they've went "above and beyond what is required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act." In the middle of March Viacom sued the Internet behemoth because they "willfully infringe copyrights on a huge scale." The media company specifically mentioned some of their more popular programming from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "Comedy Central" and MTV. Google said the same thing they've said all along in that they cooperate with copyright holders whenever they let the company know about infractions. Of course the problem is that the cost of monitoring those things are so high that it becomes an impossible task to monitor, and Google knows that. What's interesting to me is that I think something concerning Google has turned in general with public perception. The public outcries and number of bloggers battling for the honor of Google seems to be diminishing. It seems that they're becoming one of "them," rather than an upstart battling the big guys. Now they are the "big guys." I think that's taking a lot of sympathy away from their cause.
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Apr30
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Last October Yahoo (YHOO) bought a 20 percent stake in New York-based online advertising exchange Right Media for $40 million. Yahoo announced today that they now will pay out another approximate $680 million in cash and stock to purchase the...
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There's a double-edged sword to the strategy of buying up keywords based upon breaking news stories. The news media is increasingly using this as a way to get visitors which they hope will eventually gravitate toward them without using search.Of...
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With local search becoming an increasingly important part of the strategy of a local business, search engines that are built to serve that market are starting to offer options that their larger competitors aren't offering.For example, Local.com is going to...
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Apr29
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In another challenge to YouTube (GOOG), Sony Corp. (SNE) has announced that it will launch their own video-sharing site in Japan. It officially launched on Friday.At a press conference CEO Howard Stringer said, "This is part of Sony's quiet software...
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In a unique move to break into the Chinese market, News Corp. (NWS-A) is going the route of licensing the brand and letting the local Chinese who know their market to start businesses from scratch to serve it.“They want to...
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Apr28
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Web surfers in the United States are increasingly visiting Web 2.0 Web sites like Wikipedia, MySpace (NWS-A) and YouTube (GOOG), according to HitWise research.In the week ending April 7, Web 2.0 sites accounted for 12 percent of all web traffic...
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Citing a Harris Interactive and Marketing Workshop survey, CRM2Day said that for the first time online bill payments have surpassed payments by check.Checks that have been sent via the mail has decreased by 4 percent to 34 percent of the...
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The founder and CEO of Brightcove Jeremy Allaire presented several key insights into where video ad marketing will probably be going soon.One thought he has concerning the new model would be offering up ads in a way that he calls...
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Apr27
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American Online is increasing its international presence with a move into Asia by launching an India portal. It will be the company's first foray into the Asian market.Ron Grant, president and chief operating officer, told reporters in Bangalore, southern India...
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While the music industry has been pushing for Apple Inc. (AAPL) to add a subscription-based model to their iTunes music store, Apple CEO Steve Jobs says that he probably wont be doing that any time soon."Never say never, but customers...
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The latest deal between an independent sports fan site dedicated to Ohio State University and ESPN (DIS) shows how you never know where your passion will lead you.ESPN has signed a content sharing and cross promotional deal with Bucknuts.com, the...
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A report by Gartner says that those that are active Internet users, 80 percent will have a "second Life" in some virtual world by the end of 2011, but not necessarily at Second Life.“The collaborative and community-related aspects of these...
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Apr26
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Feedburner is now offering a tool to its advertisers that enables them to keep their ads from being shown next to content that they would deem harmful to their brand.How it will work is the advertiser will be able to...
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For buyer's under the age of 35, Toyota's (TM) Scion finished in the No. 1 position for name recognition, according to the second annual e-commerce survey performed by Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group.That beat out big-name retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT), Sears...
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Suzie Reider, head of advertising for YouTube, announced at the Ad:Tech conference in San Francisco that YouTube will start to include advertisement in their videos some time this summer.“We’re looking at executions like a very quick little intro preceding a...
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Billboard, the popular music charts company has partnered with Veoh Networks, a leading Internet television company to launch a Billboard channel on Veoh.com, according to a press release.The channel will continue to feature the music industry from news about the...
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With the launch of their new tool called MovieConnect, Pointroll is offering consumers the opportunity to receive text messages concerning local movies and the times they'll be playing. It also adds another tool to the studios to remind people of...
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Joost has landed a series of three-month contracts with 31 large brand marketers. Some of the big names are Coca-Cola (KO), General Motors (GM), Nike (NKE) and Proctor and Gamble (PG). Talking about the type of advertising offered, David Clark,...
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Apr25
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In what I feel is a brilliant online marketing effort, which also migrates to their offline TV show, the DIY Network launched what it called its first "Blog Cabin," which solicits the comments and input of visitors to determine the...
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The Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry is increasingly targeting the Internet user as their area of growth. Last year the overall online marketing budget for the industry grew to $288 million, 36.6 percent larger than 2006. According to Lisa Philips,...
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The upcoming alternative to YouTube (GOOG) being spearheaded by News Corp. (NWS-A) and NBC Universal (GE) has recruited a new player in the game, as the two companies announced that Comcast (CMCSA) will a distribution partner for the project.Comcast, which...
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The ad spending pie for social networks is continuing to grow as agencies and businesses are targeting them to the tune of almost $1 billion dollars this year.MySpace (NWS-A) will get over half of that with about $525 million being...
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Bluetie, Inc. has created a new model to monetize Web-based software. The company has email and calendar applications that will be integrated with mapping, planning for travel and business search.Explaining how it works, Online Media Daily wrote that "the model...
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Apr24
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The growing trend toward offering ad-supported music downloads, with companies like Qtrax, Ruckus and SpiralFrog moving quickly to offer up the services through the major music labels, has resulted in a number of deals.The chief executive of Nettwerk Music Group,...
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Profits for Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) more than doubled, as shares in after-hours trading soared by 12 percent. Earnings in the first quarter increased to $111 million, equalling 26 cents per share. That is in comparison to $51 million, or 12...
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There was talk this weekend about the growth of the virtual world Gaia, which has now reached 2 million unique monthly visitors, in contrast to 500,000 it attracted in the middle of 2006.While the game is built to attract teens,...
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The early reports for Apple TV (AAPL) aren't as favorable as they were for the iPod when it was introduced, but I think the reason was the pent-up demand for a legitimate music download product, which when introduced exploded in...
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Apr23
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New data shows that contrary to people that quote older studies, boomers are increasingly consuming online video, according to eMarketer. The average age of an adult that streams online video is just under 40 years old. That's about 5 years...
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Talk has been going on for awhile on the idea of YouTube (GOOG) taking steps toward sharing revenue with owners of video content uploaded to the site. It looks like that may shortly become a reality.Citing Howard Lindzon, Variety says...
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A study by Epsilon, a marketing service company, confirms that email marketing continues to be a powerful part of the online marketing world.New data from their survey shows that 84 percent of those asked said they have clicked-through to offers...
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Last post we talked about the slowing down of the growth in online newspaper sites and ads. Another industry looks like its starting to mature some online too, as the online banking industry dropped under 10 percent growth for 2006.The...
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Apr22
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The online growth of newspapers has barely got going, and it looks like it's already starting to falter as growth rates are slowing down strongly over last year. Bad news since the industry is dependent upon the Internet to remain...
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Sponsored ReviewRoyal Liner, a company in a very traditional business, is learning the ropes of Internet marketing and after a relatively short time have achieved great results. They are a great example of why any company needs to have an...
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In what looks like an increasing frustration by Ticketmaster with sellers in the secondary market "interfering" with their exclusive business deals, it has responded by filing a number of lawsuits this week, culminating with eBay's StubHub.The suit alleges that StubHub...
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Apr21
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A recent post we talked about Jimmy Wales prediction that MySpace (NWS-A)would fail within a few years, although he didn't give any definition of failure, it seems it's because of it offering too much advertising in his opinion.From another way of looking...
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Napster, the online music retailer, announced that it's partnering with Circuit City Stores to launch a new music download service.The new venture will be called Circuit City + Napster, and will be run by the Napster subscription service. Unlimited access...
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Jimmy Wales has predicted the failure of MySpace (NWS-A) within the next few years, saying that the advertising "hurts my eyes."He added that "There's way too much advertising and they're not really respecting their own community." The problem I have...
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You know things are changing when the words coming out of Taylor Swift's mouth at the CMT Music Award were "This is for my MySpace people and everybody who voted."The CMT 2007 Music Awards is the only country awards show...
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Apr20
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The "Shoot the Rapper" banner ad that ran on MySpace (NWS-A) underscores the reason why so many companies have been slow to put their wares on social networking sites. The blogger who first saw it while looking at the profile...
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The social networking phenom has been battled against, especially as far as entering the classroom goes, with the U.S. even offering up a congressional bill that would hold back funds from those schools that don't restrict access to them. Enter...
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Apr19
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The battle for the hearts of girls and their dolls is ramping up as Mattel has launched a new online community for girls and their Barbie dolls called BarbieGirls.com.The new Mattel site features an online community where girls can create...
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Speaking at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, Bill Gates talked about the future of technology and how it will keep inceasing in its value rather than plateauing out."I'm often asked, is the technology revolution going to reach an end?...
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In a move to try to keep its visitors on the site longer, MySpace (NWS-A) is launching a news service that searches the Web for stories and enables viewers to rate them.As one article said, it "resembles a mix of...
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Joost will be officially debuted later this year. In talking about it, one writer mentions about some of the details of how it will be monetized.He says: "Joost says no more than three minutes of advertising will be placed in...
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Apr18
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At the ARF Re:think conference, the "Ad Agency of the Future" panelists talked about how they see campaigns adding more value in the future and becoming more branded. They said they will replace the more trivial, amusing offerings we've been...
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Nike took out a full-page ad in The New York Times, and then followed by putting banners on several Web sites saying thanks to Don Imus for bringing the issues of race relations and sexism back into the conversation.The company...
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Now with some of the Imus issue starting to settle down, it's good to look at a few things concerning it that show some of the strengths of the Internet.The one thing the Internet does as far as communicating goes,...
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Apr17
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Brulant released the results of its surveys for October 2006 and February 2007, and it shows that larger online retailers are slowly making the transition to alternative payment methods.The company said that during the time period non-traditional methods like Bill...
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The new rules that caused an uproar among small Internet radio companies were upheld by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board, made up of three judges.The "Board" said after a review of the filings by small commercial Webcasters, National Public Radio,...
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Writing on the Online Spin blog for MediaPost, Joe Marchese speaks something that we've talked a little about here before, and we need to look at it a lot more closely. It's concerning the current mentality of building online businesses...
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WPP has invested in the online video technology company VideoEgg to learn more how to work in video-sharing environments more effectively.The company is planning on looking into more ways to experiment with video ad-serving techniques which have been developed by...
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Coca-Cola (KO) is the newest corporate entry into the Second Life virtual world, offering an invitation to the residents and the general public to give their input concerning a portable virtual vending machine.There are opportunities to submit entries through multiple...
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Apr16
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The idea that bank trading desks and hedge funds are investing in computers that are programmed to trade automatically based upon news stories, is a great example of what not to get involved in if you want to make it...
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Traffic.com is a site that offers customized traffic information for drivers. They announced that they have entered into a mult-year marketing agreement with The Associated Press' broadcast division. Traffic.com will get 10-second advertising inventory from "Associated" for TV and radio...
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Apr15
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The largest airline carrier in Brazil has now landed in Second Life as it announced that it will become the first airline to promote itself there through flights within the virtual world that align with their real world service. Brazil...
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Apr14
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It's amazing to think back when the fan sites that were connected the Harry Potter franchise were attempted to be shut down by Warner Bros. because of copyright issues. If they would have succeeded in doing that, I don't think...
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The USAtoday.com Web site has seen a surge in registrations and unique visitors since it changed its site and relaunced in March.The company says that its registrations have increased by 380 percent with the added on interactive features now available....
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Nielsen has launched a new tool that will enable online marketers to map out the DNA of their brand. Called the Brand Association Map (BAM), and from BuzzMetrics, it empowers marketers to find out what people are saying on blogs,...
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Apr13
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With the purchase of PersonalBee by Technorati, it offers users the opportunity essentially build their own portal connected to the interests you have.Dave Sifry on his blog said, "For content creators and brands, recreational and professional alike, this will offer...
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In a recent survey from the Luxury Institute, it confirms that marketing online to wealthy Americans is a growing success.The study indicates that Americans with higher incomes actually hang around blogs and social networks more than the general population. The...
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Google (GOOG) just entered the display marketing business in a big way with the acquisition of DoubleClick Inc. The deal is for $3.1 billion in cash for the ad-management company.This is of major importance as display advertising in its various...
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The steep decline in traffic to their online tv site Bud.TV has left Anheuser-Busch (BUD) executives scratching their heads as to the problem.While a lot of things have been thrown around like the age verification process and closed walls, I...
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Luxory site lx.tv has landed Jaguar as a sponsor of a Webisode series over a nine-week period. The shows title is Gorgeous, and Jaguar shares the tagline with its 2007 XKR, the car the auto company chose to feature.The Webisodes...
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Apr12
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The online dance craze that has caught on in Asia has caught the attention of one big music company as Warner Music Group (WMG) has partnered with Acclaim Games to launch a multiplayer online dancing game that is free to...
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Forsaking the online portal business model, CBS Corp. (CBS-A) has built an Internet distribution vehicle to offer up its TV programming through 10 new partners. Some of those they're partnering with are AOL (TWX), Comcast (CMCSA) and MSN (MSFT).Referring to...
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In a meeting set for the purpose of keeping the senate updated on the progress of the FTC and secure next year's funding, it was suggested that spyware criminals be put in jail - not only fined.Federal Trade Commissioner William...
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Apr11
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Landing a deal with Sony Pictures to provide tools for online social networkers to create slide shows of Spider-Man, Photobucket is leveraging everything it has as it's now being put on the market for sale.The Web site is promoting the Spider-Man...
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Anybody in the marketing world has probably heard of the name Lauren Rich Fine, who in my unsubstantiated claim, may be one of the most quoted figures on the Internet, has decided to call it quits at Merrill Lynch (MER),...
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Comcast (CMCSA) has expanded its online presence by purchasing Fandango.com, a movie-ticket Web site.Fandango has a healthy user base, driving between 4-5 million unique visitors a month. It will be included with the Comcast Interactive Media unit now.The cable giant...
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Facebook has added a new feature to its site that adds home pages to its 47,000 member network. Facebook is still the second most visited social-networking site on the Web. Each home page will reveal the number of people within...
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A study by JupiterResearch shows that 25 percent of Internet user in the U.S. visit social networking Web sites. Overall in the U.S., it accounts for about 41 million people.For the study, social networking sites were defined as “one that...
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Apr10
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Viacom Inc. (VIA-B) has chosen to have Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) for its advertising partner as they've inked a multiyear agreement that should move Yahoo into a stronger position against its chief rival Google (GOOG).Yahoo's text ads will stand along search...
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The publisher of such magazines as Ladies' Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens, Meredith Corporation has launched a new video sight Better.tv which has 20 different categories created to catch your interest. It has channels like Relationships, Fitness, Mrs....
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The revamping of the Martha Stewart Web site will be a very interesting experiment to watch. With the majority of online content providers going the way of a stronger user-generated format, Stewart has rather chosen to go heavier on professional...
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In a move to attract more female travelers to their business, American Airlines has created an online marketing channel built around the traveling needs of women.The new initiative is housed at www.aa.com/women and is targeting the 50 million women who...
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Apr 9
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Reading about another company entering the DIY ad creator space, made me think that I'll bet that a lot of companies that could take advantage of this don't really understand the value in it.Sure it helps the budget as it's...
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Fox Television (NWS-A) is getting together with Hearst Magazines to take popular magazine titles and create broadband series' around them. The two said that they would eventually bring them to the TV screen.They are starting off with Popular Mechanics and...
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Apr 8
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For the first time in the history of online travel bookings, they will surpass their offline counterparts this year, says eMarketer, citing PhoCusWright. It is estimated that this year there will be 41.3 million U.S. households that will book their...
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All the recent press about DoubleClick is a great opportunity to talk about something that the majority of us in business - especially online businesses - need to know. Think of all the hype that the online video craze has...
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Apr 7
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NBC (GE) has had a lot of success on its NBC.com site with its usual late-night content from its popular Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and Last Call With Carson Daly....
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Centering their campaign around the signature company product of a gold bunny, the chocolate company Lindt has launched an inititiative which has people in several large cities around the U.S. looking for the bunny. The targeted cities are Chicago, San...
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AWS Convergence Technologies through its WeatherBug brand announced that it is expanding its Sponsor Select advertising platform to the interactive games marketplace. To me it's a little twist on permission marketing we talked about recently, which instead of being connected...
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Apr 6
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When Google (GOOG) purchased a $1 billion stake in Time Warner's (TWX) AOL, part of the agreement was the sponsored links that appeared on the AOL search pages from Google's Adwords technology.Now they're taking that a step further as in...
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Recently an article in Ad Age talked about the enormous problem that clutter has brought to the marketing world, and the response and medicine for it being more of the same, as company after company makes sure that their competitor...
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Joining the increasing number of companies creating a virtual presence in "Second Life," Best Buy (BBY) is now building its Geek Squad Island where their technical support people will be available for free advice concerning computers.Just like their real-world counterparts,...
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Yahoo (YHOO) has sent a message to their advertisers basically saying that less is more, as they've communicated to them that they need to shorten their ad copy.As a guideline they said that the the 190-character ad option has been...
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In an effort to draw out their inner "kitchen," General Electric (GE) has launched a new Web site called "Confessions from the Kitchen," and asks visitors to offer up their best kitchen secrets which could end up in them starring...
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After trying out eBay's hyped Media Marketplace, the most significant player in the business announced that the exchange is completely wrong and misguided. The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau said that they've made a permanent decision that they won't be using the...
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Apr 5
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Comcast (CMCSA), through their subsidiary thePlatform, has released a new product that empowers companies to build their own customized video players for their cellphones or Web sites.This isn't a new company as thePlatform has been managing online video for a...
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While it's no secret that MySpace (NWS-A) is aging and slowing in growth, the bigger question is what does it mean and if it's a bad thing.I don't think anybody is surprised that some former users are fleeing the site;...
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By all measurements, the blogosphere has been exploding in growth, with the only question being how long it would continue. Citing the "State of the Live Web" from Internet search engine company Technorati, an AFP report said that the growth...
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In a 2006 study by Deutsche Bank study, it was found that if newpapers wanted to survive they would have to affiliate with online newspaper networks, along with either creating an online classified presence or partnering with others that already...
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Apr 4
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If you've ever dipped a fly in the water, or stood on the shore of a river looking for the first hit of the day, you'll know why HOOK.tv was created. HOOK.tv is a fly-fishing video site built as an...
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Through its recent deal with Joost, Viacom (VIA-B) has started to increase the content it offers through the partnership by adding a number of shows to the new version of Joost's free software. Joost is a free, ad-supported Internet television...
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One of the challenges that began when luxory magazines knew they needed to create an online presence was how they could take the sleek, high-quality photos that were a part of their appeal and recreate that online.CNNmoney.com had the same...
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Update 5/15/07: Please take this free 1-minute survey to help ReferNow improve its service! 5 random entries will receive a year's subscription to ReferNow free!we’ve all heard that referrals are the best way to find new customers. Is this an...
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Apr 3
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ESPN (DIS) announced that it has bought the extremely popular National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing information site, Jayski.com.The site, which was started by Jay Adamczyk - who is Jayski - in 1996, has become one of the top...
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Airtran Airways, which is based in Atlanta, and sponsors of Andretti Green Racing and Danica Patrick, have created an online game staring the Indy racing beauty to promote their AirTran A+ Rewards, the airline's frequent-flier program, writes MediaPost. The game...
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We hear a lot about the domination of the online video space by short clips versus long. The problem with that assessment is that the long-form video really hasn't been tested online yet. That time is coming soon though.The recent...
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If you've been watching Google (GOOG) and the moves its been making lately, you know that they've been looking for ways to attract more brand advertising dollars. That's the reason it created an "automated" TV ad-buying system, working with Echostar...
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Apr 1
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At the Virtual Worlds Conference this week in Manhattan, as the talk went on, it was discovered that pretty much every problem that regular marketers face online like better ways to measure engagement, frequency and ROI, are also very much...
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The ABC.com Web site has undergone a few changes lately that we were able to get a look at this week. It added a new video player that offers the option of a full-screen and a couple of other smaller...
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