TheAlphaMarketer: April 2007 Archives

Know More: Google 2.0, Google

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.

Posted at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 8:33 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 6:52 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments

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,... Continue Reading

Posted at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments

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,... Continue Reading

Posted at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments

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,... Continue Reading

Posted at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments

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,... Continue Reading

Posted at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 7:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments

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?... Continue Reading

Posted at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments

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,... Continue Reading

Posted at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments

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,... Continue Reading

Posted at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

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.... Continue Reading

Posted at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

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,... Continue Reading

Posted at 3:09 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 8:39 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments

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),... Continue Reading

Posted at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

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... Continue Reading

Posted at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments

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...

Apr30	Google Files Response to Viacom Lawsuit Gary Bourgeault April 30, 2007 Know More: Google 2.0, Google 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. Continue Reading Posted at 8:24 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr30	Yahoo Buys Rest of Right Media to Counter Google's DoubleClick Gary Bourgeault April 30, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:30 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Prices Skyrocketing for Breaking News Keywords Gary Bourgeault April 30, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Local Search Brings People to Your Business Gary Bourgeault April 30, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 1:49 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr29	Sony Creates Video-Sharing Site in Japan Gary Bourgeault April 29, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 3:21 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	News Corp. Licensing MySpace Brand to Chinese Gary Bourgeault April 29, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 1:52 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr28	Web 2.0 Sites Account for 12 Percent of U.S. Web Traffic Gary Bourgeault April 28, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 7:26 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Online Bill Paying at Highest Level Ever Gary Bourgeault April 28, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 6:24 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire Proposes Different Ads within each Video Clip Gary Bourgeault April 28, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 2:12 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr27	India Has Major Role in AOL Asian Strategy Gary Bourgeault April 27, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 8:33 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Steve Jobs Says Apple Customers Don't Want Subscription Music Model or DRM Gary Bourgeault April 27, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 7:55 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	One Minute You're Just Bucknuts, Next Minute Working with ESPN Gary Bourgeault April 27, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 3:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Online Marketing, Second Life, Virtual Worlds Gary Bourgeault April 27, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 1:16 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr26	FeedBurner Adds Keyword Feature to Suppress Unwanted Content for Advertisers Gary Bourgeault April 26, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 8:04 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Toyota's Scion Highest Name Recognition with Young Buyers Gary Bourgeault April 26, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 7:38 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	YouTube will Offer Video-embedded Ads by Summer Gary Bourgeault April 26, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 6:52 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Billboard Partners with Veoh for New Web Channel Gary Bourgeault April 26, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:37 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	PointRoll Launches MovieConnect For Local Movie Times on Mobiles Gary Bourgeault April 26, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 2:29 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Joost Adds 31 Major Advertisers to its Growing Business Gary Bourgeault April 26, 2007 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,... Continue Reading Posted at 1:34 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr25	The Great Online Marketing Campaign of the DIY Network Gary Bourgeault April 25, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:32 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Consumer Packaged Goods Increasing its Internet Advertising Spend Gary Bourgeault April 25, 2007 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,... Continue Reading Posted at 3:21 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Comcast Newest Distributor in YouTube Alternative Gary Bourgeault April 25, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 1:55 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Ad Spending on Social Networks Reaching Almost 1 Billion This Year Gary Bourgeault April 25, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 1:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	BlueTie Launching New Web-based Software Ad Model Gary Bourgeault April 25, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 12:43 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr24	The Three Simple but Powerful Elements of Online Marketing Success Gary Bourgeault April 24, 2007 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,... Continue Reading Posted at 11:38 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	They're Baaaack: Amazon.com's Profits Explode Gary Bourgeault April 24, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 9:11 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Gaia Online and Differentiating Gary Bourgeault April 24, 2007 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,... Continue Reading Posted at 6:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Learning Simplicity from Apple iTunes, TIVO, YouTube Gary Bourgeault April 24, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 4:06 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr23	Boomers Increasingly Consuming Online Video Gary Bourgeault April 23, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 11:51 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	YouTube Soon to Offer Revenue Sharing for Video Content Owners Gary Bourgeault April 23, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 11:26 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Email Marketing Continues to Draw Strong Response, Results Gary Bourgeault April 23, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 10:48 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Online Banking Growth Slows to Under 10% in 2006, Wachovia Customers Most Satisfied Gary Bourgeault April 23, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 3:22 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr22	Online Newspaper Growth Already Slowing Gary Bourgeault April 22, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 11:05 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Royal Liner Making Great Strides in its Online Marketing Campaign Gary Bourgeault April 22, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 6:34 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Ticketmaster Sues eBay's StubHub for Wrongfully Obtaining and Auctioning Premium Seats Gary Bourgeault April 22, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 4:22 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr21	Is MySpace being too Cautious? Gary Bourgeault April 21, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 9:18 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Napster, Circuit City Launching Music Download Service Gary Bourgeault April 21, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 7:58 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales says 'MySpace will fail..' Gary Bourgeault April 21, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 7:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Country Music Going Social Networking Gary Bourgeault April 21, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 3:12 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr20	"Shoot The Rapper" Banners on MySpace Link to Virginia Tech Victims Gary Bourgeault April 20, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 4:53 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Will Elgg be the Answer to Embracing School Social Networks? Gary Bourgeault April 20, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 4:14 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr19	Mattel and Barbie Taking it to the Bratz Gary Bourgeault April 19, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 10:33 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Bill Gates Says Tech Revolution Will Never Stop Gary Bourgeault April 19, 2007 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?... Continue Reading Posted at 7:22 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	MySpace Wants to become NewsSpace Gary Bourgeault April 19, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:11 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Joost and Sponsorship Gary Bourgeault April 19, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 2:47 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr18	Going Beyond Marketing Amusing to Adding Value Gary Bourgeault April 18, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 10:41 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Nike Uses Imus Controversy to Promote Company Gary Bourgeault April 18, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:52 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	The Imus Controversy and How the Internet Empowers Various Voices Gary Bourgeault April 18, 2007 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,... Continue Reading Posted at 2:49 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr17	Larger Online Retailers Slow at Offering Alternative Pay Methods Gary Bourgeault April 17, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 10:40 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Internet Radio Companies Lose Appeal Over Royalty Increases Gary Bourgeault April 17, 2007 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,... Continue Reading Posted at 9:06 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Beyond "Build it and They Will Come" Gary Bourgeault April 17, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:18 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	WPP Invests in VideoEgg Gary Bourgeault April 17, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 4:02 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Coca Cola Newest Corporate Entrant in Second Life Gary Bourgeault April 17, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 2:35 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr16	Why Trading on Automatic News is Idiotic Gary Bourgeault April 16, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 10:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Traffic.com and AP Partner in New Ad Network Gary Bourgeault April 16, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:37 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr15	Brazilian Airline Sets Up in Second Life Gary Bourgeault April 15, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 4:24 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr14	Harry Potter and being Ready for Your Fans Gary Bourgeault April 14, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 9:31 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	USA Today Registrations and Traffic Explode with New Interactive Features Gary Bourgeault April 14, 2007 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.... Continue Reading Posted at 4:37 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Nielsen Launches New Branding Tool for Online Marketers Gary Bourgeault April 14, 2007 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,... Continue Reading Posted at 3:09 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr13	Technorati Buys PersonalBee, Now Can Build Fast Micro-sites Gary Bourgeault April 13, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 9:51 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Wealthy Americans Love Blogs and Social Networks Gary Bourgeault April 13, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 8:39 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Google Wins DoubleClick Sweepstakes at $3.1 Billion Gary Bourgeault April 13, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:04 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Bud.TV Traffic Dwindling Gary Bourgeault April 13, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 4:15 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Jaguar Sponsors Nine-Week Webisode on LX.TV Gary Bourgeault April 13, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 12:16 AM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr12	Acclaim Games, Warner Music Group Launches "Dance Online" Gary Bourgeault April 12, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 7:41 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	CBS Enters New Online Distribution Deals Gary Bourgeault April 12, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 5:26 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Some in FTC Want to Put SpyWare Criminals in Jail Gary Bourgeault April 12, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 3:12 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
Apr11	Photobucket Showing Potential Suitors More Than Photo Dump Gary Bourgeault April 11, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 10:03 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Lauren Rich Fine Stepping Down From Merrill Lynch Gary Bourgeault April 11, 2007 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),... Continue Reading Posted at 8:55 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Comcast Buys Movie-Ticket Site Fandango.com Gary Bourgeault April 11, 2007 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... Continue Reading Posted at 8:34 PM \| Permalink \| Comments
	Facebook Upgrades its Messaging and Adds Home Pages Gary Bourgeault April 11, 2007 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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