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Sep29
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A recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, reveals that broadband Internet growth is going to struggle to grow quickly from now on. Broadband penetration in the U.S. is expected to go over 50 percent this year, but many of those without access aren't seeing it as a necessity to pursue. In other words the demand isn't that great with the rest of the American population, and people without it now aren't pressuring anyone to provide it. The report adds that even if prices are lowered and competition increases, it won't make much of a difference with existing consumers without the service. Even if all the rural areas were to receive service, it wouldn't make much of an impact on the percentage of users in the U.S. Another factor is 29 percent of people with dial-up access at home have broadband access at work, possibly making their dial-up home connection enough for them. Of course the broadband work connection also may make the numbers higher as far overall users go.
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Sep28
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The fallout for Tania Head, and her story that can't be verified in any way, is a good lesson in marketing the truth. As I mentioned on a couple of other blogs, these are some of the things she asserted...
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The Fox Business Network announced it will launch a microsite, featuring the various personalities to be seen on the network, which is set to launch October 15. As far as the microsite goes, called foxbusiness.com, it will start on October...
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When Ryan Adams threw a tantrum at a performance in Minneaopolis, it made me think about branding and marketing.Adams has cultivated an image of a bad guy, and so throwing a tantrum about the sound system, especially when he got...
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Sep27
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MSN is making some changes to its MSN Video site to make the experience better for users. The major change they're making is with the pre-roll ad they've been incorporating in the streaming video. Many times with their former ad...
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Sep26
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TV Guide Broadband has landed another distribution deal, this time with the portal site of Comcast (CMCSA). TV Guide Broadband already has distribution deals in place with Vuze, Veoh, Brightcove, YouTube (GOOG), AOL Video (TWX) and Yahoo (YHOO). In the...
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The mostly frivolous news about celebrities that nobody can seem to get enough of, is an interesting study in how you can enter mutually beneficial relationships that can explode your marketing results.One of the hottest stories from that outlook, is...
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Sep25
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Rocketboom and Andy Baron may have finally found a long-term strategy to monetize their video blog. Baron has struggled since its inception to find a consistent model to generate revenue with Rocketboom.In an attempt to remedy that problem, Baron has...
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After some time of analyzing the figures for long-form video online, it's found that it isn't taking away from regular TV viewing, but slowly adding to it.What consumers are doing is using the Internet as a DVR to catch up...
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Echostar (DISH) announced it will pay $380 million in cash and stock to acquire Sling Media Inc., the company that produces the Slingbox. The Slingbox technology enables users to migrate their TV programs to portable devices like laptops, cellphones and...
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Sponsored ReviewPromotional products are one of the most powerful ways to help get the word out about your business. To that end, Empire Promotional Products was launched in 1984 to serve the promotional needs of corporations and nonprofit agencies. Empire...
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Sep24
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The story about the San Francisco Chronicle trying out some touch screen, computerized tables in a regional coffee chain was fascinating to me. The practicals involved will include a table developed with built in PCs, and embedded LCD displays, which will include access...
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A study by Cap Gemini, cited by Reuters, shows the combined net worth of the growing number of millionaires and billionaires in the world, stands at $37.2 trillion, as of the end of 2006. And they're willing and able to...
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While the majority of the TV industry has been moving toward an online ad-supported model for their TV shows, Fox (NWS-A) has decided to add another aspect to the mix by offering their new fall TV shows on Apple (AAPL)...
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Sep23
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It's hard to keep up with the seemingly endless deals announced by Hollywood concerning deals for its content being put up on the Internet. The industry clearly sees that in the not-too-distant future, online video consumption will result in delivering...
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Sep22
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Research by Forrester Benchmark 2007: Retail, reveals that the growth of online shopping is still being driven by early adopters, says Research Recap.With 57 percent of online adults purchasing items on the internet over the last three months, it gives...
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A new tool that allows users to create their own virtual world has been launched, where anybody can create virtual worlds that can be used cross-platform, with no knowledge of difficult computer languages.The new tool called Metaplace, was developed by...
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On Thursday, ABC (DIS) announced it will now offer some of its shows for free on AOL Video. Some of the shows included will be "Lost," "Grey's Anatomy" and "Ugly Betty."Citing ABC, bizjournals.com said it "will also include a variety...
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The drug industry was concerned when the debate over a Food and Drug Administration bill looked like it was going to drastically impact the way they marketed their drugs. They breathed as sign of relief as the final version of...
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Sep21
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Saying leaving ABC was her decision, Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom fame, has left another job with the promise she's about to start some other project online soon; presumably Oxmour Entertainment, started early 2007 with Mario Librandi.ABC stated: "It's been a...
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The release of the Forbes 400 richest Americans is getting more competitive than ever, as it took a net worth of $1.3 billion or more to make the list this year, while last year a puny $1 billion would have...
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Sep20
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Google (GOOG) will finally get a hearing from a U.S. Senate subcommittee on their proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Web advertising supplier DoubleClick Inc.When Google announced they had a deal in place with the company, antitrust concerns were raised in...
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The announcement by Slacker, Inc. that it has landed a number of deals with leading independent music labels and distributors will give it access to millions of songs, when brought together with its existing deals with the four major music...
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A recent survey conducted by advertising agency JWT (unit of WPP) found that above all activities, the Internet is the one most important necessity to their lives. Cell phones came in second as the most desired activity.For the Internet it...
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Sep19
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On the Internet, the Almighty is starting to get his due, as according to comScore, GodTube was the fastest growing site on the Internet in August 2007. The site grew an astounding 973 percent, and ranked among the top 1,000...
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The release of the of the traffic statistics for the Wall Street Journal websites, seems to speak a lot to what Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. (NWS-A) will do with Dow Jones & Co. (DJ) once it's taken over.With their...
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With the social networks starting to take market share away from web portals, AOL (TWX) has had their share of setbacks as they announced their ad growth for the second quarter will be less than expected. It's not good news...
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Today is the official "National Talk Like a Pirate Day," a fun idea that has spread over the last several years. Surprisingly, it is already a 10-year old practice, created by Mark Summers and John Baur in 1995 while they...
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Sep18
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Tapping the gold mine of consumer information across its MySpace social networking site, Fox Interactive Media has been experimenting for a six-month period on a newly designed algorithm, built to travel through the MySpace member profiles and pages to uncover...
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Saying an agreement with Joost would significantly increase the reach of his company, Ryan Magnussen, CEO of Ripe Digital Entertainment, announced a parternership with Joost to distribute content from three of its networks: RipeTV, FlowTV and OctaneTV."With short form, professionally...
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I talked on one of my other blogs about the incident with Andrew Meyer when he was questioning John Kerry and resisting arrest, which eventually led to him being tasered.Most reading thealphamarketer are aware of what mashups are, and how...
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The perceived credit crunch has had a detrimental effect on the US economy specifically and the worldwide economy in general. When this type of concern takes hold of consumers and businesses, it generates a psychological response that causes people to...
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Sep17
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In a major move reflecting growing demand, comScore recently announced it will start measuring visitors to blogs, as well as some social networking websites.For blogs, they'll measure not only the more popular sites, but the smaller ones also. The official...
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The New York Times (NYT) announced its subscription Internet service TimesSelect will be ending as of Wednesday. The Times launched the service two years ago.Subscribers to the service paid either $7.95 monthly or a one-time yearly fee of $49.95. For...
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Talking to a group of British TV executives at theRoyal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention, News Corp. President Peter Chernin told them they must embrace new media or risk perishing. Chernin emphasized the major change where big media companies used to...
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When SpiralFrog announced it had entered a licensing deal with Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group last fall, it garnered a lot of interest. After some shuffling of executives at the top and some technology-related issues, the company has finally went...
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In the U.S., it's consitution day today, marking the 220th anniversary of the signing of our constitution.Thinking about that and the First Amendment to the constitution and the freedom of speech, brings me to all the stuff we can interact...
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Sep16
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Online community TV site BuddyTV has been acquired by Comcast (CMCSA), says paidcontent.com, citing unnamed sources.According to co-founder Andy Liu, the site has around 3 million monthly unique visitors. It competes in the highly competitive online TV category. Liu also...
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Internet websites are becoming increasingly important to multichannel marketers as a full 70 percent of catalog marketers said multichannel sales increased over the last year.The most successful multichannel marketers, according to the Direct Marketing Association's "Multichannel Marketing in the Catalog...
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Sep15
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Viacom (VIA-B) has believed the Internet will eventually fragment in a similar way broadcast television did with the introduction of cable TV for some time. In response they've been developing hundreds of micro-sites on the Internet catering to a number...
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Even though Yahoo (YHOO) has made a couple fairly big acquisitions, including Right Media, it looks like they're not interested in paying the high valuations attached to some social networking websites, and is going to create their own social networking...
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PointRoll put out a new report saying rich media advertising works especially good for entertainment marketers and greatly increases consumer interest.The “2007 Entertainment Performance Analysis” report says rich media grabs the attention of visitors and offers a more engaging experience...
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Sep14
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Brightcove is moviing its video portal to a new website called Brightcove.tv, so they can focus the Brightcove.com site on being a video technology platform.Concerning the video portal, Brightcove vp of marketing and strategy Adam Berrey said, "It's something that...
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The new batch of Vanessa Hudgens' photos online is giving a hint of her losing control of her brand. We talked before on thealphamarketer "If she says nothing personally or through her representatives, her brand will be taken away from...
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Alyssa Milano recently landed her dream job, by being named a correspondent for MLB.com during the post-season. Milano is a baseball fanatic and knows her stuff with the sport. What's important for marketers is the way she has built her...
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Sep13
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Evidently the quiet negotiations between Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick with MySpace TV are over, as it's reported they have a deal in place with the social networking site to air an online series creation named "Quarterlife."Herskovitz and Zwick have...
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According to a SurveyU study, which compares its results with the Pew Internet/American Life Project’s online video study, there's a huge difference between the online video habits of college students and adult internet users.One example of the difference, of adult...
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The recent hoopla about Southwest Airlines (LUV) telling a couple women they couldn't go on the airplane because of the way they were dressed brings up an interesting marketing issue.First of all, the two separate incidents have brought about a...
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The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) website received the largest number of unique visitors in its history in August, drawing 23 million to the website, 12 percent more than in July. The company cited data from Nielsen//Net Ratings."It is now the...
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Over the last couple weeks, Prince has had his lawyers request about 2,000 illegal video uploads of his material be removed from YouTube (GOOG). Along with YouTube, Prince has threatened to sue eBay (eBay) and Pirate Bay as well, saying...
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Sep12
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Independent short-form filmmakers will have a new opportunity to generate revenue from their creations as News Corp. (NWS-A) is partnering with MyDamnChannel.com to offer up their videos on MySpace. The company also signed a deal with Google (GOOG) in July.My...
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While Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has hinted he's not trying to make too many disruptive changes in the company, he is definitely making a good series of moves that should position Yahoo to produce some healthy profits in the years...
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Reuters announced it has launched an English language website that will focus on South Asian news, business, sports and culture.Along with India, the site will also target Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It will include text and video content,...
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The report in The Wall Street Journal (DJ) saying Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang has decided against "outsourcing" its paid advertising arm to Microsoft (MSFT) or Google (GOOG), to me was good news.What I like about it is Yang's commitment...
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Sep11
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TNS Media Intelligence reports advertising in the U.S. for the first-half fell slightly from a year earlier. While drops in newspaper and broadcast television dropped, gains by magazines and Internet advertising made up for it, as the overall spend decreased...
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It wasn't too long ago that ABC (DIS), like other networks, had decided to put their video online exclusively on their own website. It didn't take long for them and others to see it would never reach full potential with...
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Data released by research firm Nielsen//NetRatings shows Microsoft (MSFT) had the largest Internet audience in the US for the month of August. They beat out Google (GOOG) by a little over 1 million. The data is based on all the...
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News Corp. (NWS-A) isn't considering dropping their relationship with Steve Jobs and Apple (AAPL) iTunes because NBC Universal (GE) said it wouldn't renew the deal to sell shows on Website. The key issue has been Apple's refusal to allow flexible...
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Sep10
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After a period of experimentation last year, the broadcast networks look to make some serious waves on the Internet starting this season.The big four networks will be offering a plethora of free shows through an ad-supported model online.They are starting...
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I like this simple post by Joseph Carducci, who I think wrote in a way that was an example of what he was trying to say. He talks briefly about why he thinks so many newspaper readers have stopped reading...
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Lou Young from zdnet.com talked to Peter Thiel, one of the investors in Facebook , as well as a board member, at the Singularity Summit 2007. Thiel told Young at this time Facebook is at about the break even place,...
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The fiasco that was Britney Spears at the MTV VMAs revealed a marketing nightmare. When the announcement that you're making a comeback is part of your marketing plan, it has to be considered one of the most important times of...
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Last October Schematic, a digital agency in the US was hired by ITV to design their media player and video-on-demand website. Martin Sorrell of WPP fame liked what he saw and decided to acquire the company.Schematic has built a strong...
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Sep 9
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A recent report from Jupiter Research shows consumers don't take to viral marketing in the way that may have been thought. The study shows only around 15 percent of viral campaigns lead to consumer purchases.While it's nothing new to understand...
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Sep 8
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Saying the upcoming Website T-Works will be a big part of the company's online strategy, Warner Bros. Chairman-CEO Barry Meyer announced the Internet initiative on Thursday.“T-Works will serve as a great marketing platform for all the studio’s businesses, helping us to...
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It looks like the success of LonelyGirl15 and Prom Queen is going to spur a herd of new offerings catering to the young female audience.The latest entry in the field will be from CosmoGirl, which will air exclusively on the...
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In a move to increase the value of their cross-platform publications for advertisers, and increase ad revenue, the Wall Street Journal (DJ) has reorganized its advertising department to reflect the integrated realities of the marketplace.Led by the recently appointed Chief...
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The music download site Ruckus, which provides an ad-supported music service for College students, announced it has reached an average of 20 million downloads monthly. They added the service is now being used in over 1,000 college campuses around the...
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Sep 7
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With the number of online games, videos and music growing at an exponential rate, it has created a problem for those that use Internet services excessively.So far Comcast (CMCSA) is the only company warning customers about excessive use and dropping...
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WPP CEO Martin Sorrell let it be known this week that he would soon announce another acquisition in the Internet ad space. He has been looking for other companies that would be a good fit with WPP since they acquired...
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Sep 6
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We talked about the way the poison popcorn butter flavoring story took off and how we need to take actions on certain viral events that may impact us.The release of the nude photo of Vanessa Hudgens online is another case...
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The recent concerns about the chemical used in some popcorn flavoring shows the way a story can negatively go viral.What I want to mention in this post is how we must watch our business reputations in a world where any...
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The online company Lulu, which helps authors self publish their own writings, has filed a law suit against the recently named partnership between News Corp. (NWS-A) and NBC (GE) called Hulu.Duncan Riley at Techcrunch said about it: "Lulu alleges that...
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Sep 5
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Vudu, the latest entry into the video download market, launched Wednesday with over 5,000 movies available for immediate watching.There's been some buzz over the months about the startup, but I'll cut to the chase and not go over what about...
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Screen Digest projects that online revenue for movie downloads in the United States and Western Europe will reach about $1.3 billion in 2011. Of that figure, $720 million will be generated in the U.s. and $572 million in Western Europe.Most...
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Over 10 years ago when Amazon.com came onto the scene, people starting projecting the end of physical stores and people sitting around in their pajamas with their computer basically taking over all the shopping for them. It was a fun...
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In a strategy to gain mindshare for the holiday season, Apple Inc. (AAPL) announced a number of different changes in products and offerings throughout the company.For the iPhone, CEO Steve Jobs said the company will cut $200 off the price. ...
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Sep 4
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A new Firefox Plugin called "Adblock Plus" has been developed which will allow users to visit websites without having to see any Flash, text or banner ads that come with free content.It's caused some to think it could be an...
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Yahoo's (YHOO) quest to boost its sagging profits seems to be tied into acquiring online ad companies to offer a wider and deeper range of advertising options for its customers.Late Tuesday they announced they're acquiring Internet advertising network Blue Lithium...
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"Jacked" is a new Internet company developed to Interact with TV shows. It is founded by former American Greeting Mobile head Bryan Biniak.The company is building a digital media platform to "hotwire their TVs." They scored their first deal with...
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The popular online series "Prom Queen" has entered its second season, as the creation of former Disney (DIS) CEO Michael Eisner's Vuguru has launched.According to their press release, blinkx says they have "a content agreement with Vuguru, Michael Eisner's independent...
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Sep 3
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For a period of several months, hackers from a number of locations in China looked for ways to gain entry to the Pentagon system, and finally was able to breach its defenses. According to American officials it's the most successful...
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Sep 2
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Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) announced in a press release that the number of movies tv shows being viewed on customer's computers has increased to 10 million episodes. That doubles the number of people using the service over the last 6 weeks,...
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The local online search market continues to grow at a strong pace, and marketers are looking for ways to tap into the lucrative market.CBS is going the way of reaching potential auto buyers, as their three Dallas divisions, CBS Outdoor,...
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A recent Synovate/Marketing Daily survey says 80 percent of Americans now know what a blog is and about 50 percent have visited them.Of those Americans knowing what a blog is, 90 percent are from the ages of 25 to 34,...
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Sep 1
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or What's the future of amateur, user-generated video?MCPS-PRS Alliance, the group that collects music royalties for artists in the UK, announced it has entered an agreement with YouTube (GOOG) to get paid for playing music clips on the web site...
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Not being able to reach an agreement with iTunes, NBC (GE) has decided to pull its TV shows from the iTunes store.With the current agreement due to expire in at the end of December 2007, if no progress is made,...
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In an agreement with MSN Video, Clipblast.com will automatically index all MSN video as it becomes available online.With the inclusion of MSN Video clips on Clipblast.com, viewers will be able to browse news, sports, entertaiment and lifestyle channels streamed from...
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