dave liu dot com

Earnings: Audible Reports 4Q Profit Loss - Music and audio book download provider Audible (Nasdaq: ADBL) reported a 4Q net loss of $700,000, or 3 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $2.18 million, or 9 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue at the Wayne, NJ-based company rose to $23.3 million from $18.3 million, a 16 percent gain. For the year, net revenue came in at $82.2 million, up 30 percent year-over-year.  

Digital Music Roundup: Execs Complain; YouTube Adds Indie; Another Exec Buys In - Some days, it seems like the record industry is all over but the complaining. CNET reports that yesterday music executives assembled in New York for Digital Music Forum East, starting “with an all-around bashing of Apple CEO Steve Jobs” and moving on to how the industry might survive at a time when “CD sales fell 23 percent worldwide between 2000 and 2006.” Former EMI digital top dog and current head of TAG Strategic, Ted Cohen, has the money quote: ”We’re running out of time. We need to get money flowing from consumers and get them used to paying for music again.”  

Anheuser-Busch Mingles Online With Social Net Promotion - Aside from trying to remain afoul of state attorneys general regarding issues of minors and its Bud.TV online entertainment network, Anheuser-Busch is trying to stay away from those under 21 with its recent foray into social networking sites. Rather than approach drinkers through MySpace, which still maintains a large membership of those not yet old enough to drink legally, the beer company is joining start-up social net MingleNow, Adweek reported.  

Ning Launches New Version of Build-Your-Own Social Network Service - Ning’s new version of its build-your-own social network service puts the Marc Andreessen-backed company in the spotlight again.Reuters has a good roundup of Ning’s intentions, and how it compares to other players in the space. “How will Ning make money?” you ask. You’re not the only one, apparently, since there’s a “What Is Ning’s Business Model?” question high in the company’s FAQ. In a nutshell: advertising and subscriptions.

Academy Takes Oscars Off YouTube - Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has asked YouTube to take down clips of its Oscarcast and the user-gen video giant has complied, reports Variety. “Ric Robertson, exec administrator for the Academy, said the organization had its content pulled “to help manage the value of our telecast and our brand.”

Blockbuster In Advanced Talks To Acquire Movielink, Again - The Movielink acquisition talks are on again, and this time WSJ says it is in advanced talks to be sold to Blockbuster, for possibly less than $50 million in cash and stock. The online movie service, jointly owned by the major movie studios, has been on and off the sale block for about two years now, and a formal process earlier did involve Blockbuster, among others (such as Comcast, AT&T and private investors as well).

Quigo Teams With Pixsy To Offer Multimedia Search - Contextual pay-per-click advertising company Quigo will introduce video search capabilities to its network of Web partners by the end of this quarter through a deal announced today with Pixsy Corp., a multimedia search platform.

Digital Music Mashups Remain Fraught For Marketers - A panel at Digital Music Forum East explored the challenges for marketers trying to navigate the digital music space and partner with established online music and video hubs. Even giants like Miller Brewing are trying to figure out which programs work, how to execute them, and how to measure effectiveness.

iVillage Taps Electronic Arts For Casual Games Channel - Women’s lifestyle portal iVillage will launch a games channel featuring syndicated titles from Electronic Arts’ casual games property Pogo. The deal taps into the demographic appeal of short-form games to older women.

Sponsors And TV Shows Get Lift From Online Viewership - Viewers who watch TV shows on network Web sites tend to favor the sponsoring brands–and many also watch the show more often on TV, reports a new study suggesting that the crossover TV-Web audience is worth cultivating, and has plenty of room to grow.

Video Plays Key Role In Digital Magazine Future - Online video isn’t yet a profit center for many magazine publishers, but it should achieve profitability in the near future, according to a panel discussing online video at an MPA event. Warned one editor: “If you don’t have video, you can’t have viewers. It’s as simple as that.”

Roo Group To Acquire P2P Service Provider Wurld Media - Setting its sights on bandwidth-efficient peer-to-peer distribution, broadband services company Roo Group has agreed to buy the assets of legal P2P service provider Wurld Media. The deal is expected to boost Roo’s social networking, e-commerce and digital rights management offerings.

Web Gurus Launch Local Blog Aggregator - Steven Berlin Johnson, co-creator of Feed Magazine, and John Geraci, a social media veteran, have launched an ad-supported local info site called Outside.in, which culls local news and events, and allows users to search it by ZIP code.

TV Viewing Solid Despite Online Video Growth - Online video growth is not yet coming at the expense of TV viewing. Although total online video usage has increased in the past year, the percentage of adults watching online video remains relatively unchanged. A previous LRG survey conducted nine months earlier found that 4% of adults viewed online video at least daily and an additional 11% at least weekly. TV still dominates viewing habits: 93% of adults spend at least one hour a day, on average, watching it.

Digital Shops Exploiting General Agency Skill Gaps - The Web and related digital technologies are exposing major weaknesses in traditional agency skill sets, a new Forrester Research study reports. Among the trends: Marketers turning to digital shops for their “traditional” agency work.

MSNBC.com Tees Up FirstPerson - In the Web 2.0 world, everybody has a story. MSNBC.com has tapped into the trend with the launch of FirstPerson, a feature that enables consumer-generated storytelling by inviting readers to upload stories, video and photos related to their passions. Rich media advertising opportunities will follow.

eMarketer: Online Ad Spending Growth To Slow - It had to happen sometime. Market research firm eMarketer is forecasting online ad spending growth will slow to less than 19% this year after three straight years of more than 30% gains.

Google Will Fling Open Kimono On AdSense Network - Google will begin telling its advertisers where their ads run across the AdSense publisher network, a move that provides some transparency heretofore absent in the search giant’s contextual advertising product.

YouTube Taps NBA To Harness Basketball Fan Passion - In its second content partnership with a major professional sports league, YouTube has struck a deal with the National Basketball Association to start a branded NBA channel. Fans will be able to upload videos of their own moves.

Brightcove Enables New Washingtonpost.Newsweek Ad-Supported Video - With the help of video technology company Brightcove, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive is launching ad-supported Web video channels across all its online properties. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive — the online publishing subsidiary of The Washington Post Company — will feature daily newscasts from the Washington Post’s stable of journalists, news documentaries, and international coverage.

Men 18 to 34 Years Old Are Key Online Video Viewers - New consumer research, Emerging Video Services, from Leichtman Research Group, found, based on a survey of 1,250 households nationwide: 1. Men aged 18-34 account for 41% of those who view video online on a daily basis, while comprising just 14% of the online subscribers sample 2. Men aged 18-34 account for over two-thirds of adults who view YouTube and other user-generated content daily and 3. Just 8% of those who watch video online strongly agree that they now watch TV less often.

Building Is Big Business In Second Life - Real-world real estate might be suffering, but there’s a building boom happening in the virtual world Second Life — in the commercial sector. Whether it’s a marketing/advertising thing, a way to gauge word of mouth by engaging consumers, or a way to find and talk to potential recruits, building a second home in Second Life is hot with real-world companies.

Piper: Online Spending To Hit $80 Billion By 2011 - Ever-bullish on Internet media, the financial-services firm Piper Jaffray now predicts that online ad spending will surge to $80 billion by 2011. Most research firms peg online ad spending at around $20 billion this year — eMarketer, for example, expects growth to slow.

Joost Founders: We’re Going After Cable TV, Not YouTube - In a past life, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis made a habit out of producing disruptive technologies. Co-founders of the controversial software programs Skype, a free Web-based phone service they sold to eBay for $2.6 billion, and KaZaa, the peer-to-peer service that enabled millions of users to trade music and other media files illegally, Zennstrom and Friis have decided to play it safe with their latest creation: the Web TV service Joost. Why? “We don’t want to be in a long, multiyear litigation battle,” Friis said.

Over-Aggressive Filtering Snags Video Producers - It’s the online video takedown smackdown: the consumer backlash to video clips removed that appear to violate copyrights, but do not. Mere weeks into the widespread regulation of Viacom content on YouTube, producers are complaining that perfectly legitimate content is being farmed out by over-aggressive filtering from the Google video site.

Apple Delays Web TV Device - Apple has confirmed that its new Apple TV device will be delayed, although the company gives no explanation. The Web-based set-top box, code-named iTV, was officially unveiled by the computer giant at its Macworld conference on Jan. 9; it is designed to play content downloaded through Apple’s iTunes media store on a TV set.

Earnings: CBS CEO: More Digital Investments Coming - Some highlights from the CBS 4Q06 earnings call with Chairman Sumner Redstone and CEO Leslie Moonves: (transcript by SeekingAlpha): MMOD: Moonves: “Our out-of-market online game coverage turned out to be a huge hit. So this year, we’ve sold it much more aggressively and project to double our revenues and increase our profits sixfold. This is a trend that we expect to continue as this medium grows.”

Piper Jaffray Dubs Emerging Media Trend ‘Communitainment’ - Investment bank Piper Jaffray projects that half of all content consumption over the next decade will take the form of “communitainment”–blend of communication, community and entertainment. IM, social networking, photo and video-sharing sites are fueling the trend. Advertisers that want in must find a way to align with consumers’ interests. Separately, the bank projects global online advertising is poised to reach $8.1 billion by 2011

Podvertising To Grow Fivefold, But Remain Niche - Advertising on podcasts will remain a niche channel through 2011–albeit a $400 million niche. New research from eMarketer projects a fivefold podvertising spending increase over the next five years.

Is The Web Headed For A Heart Attack? - You wouldn’t know it, but the world wide Web is bursting at the seams. Thanks to the proliferation of user-uploaded and professionally produced video, large chunks of bandwidth are being eaten up by a Web infrastructure that may be inadequate as rich content usage ramps up. Like clogging arteries, the Web’s pipes are headed for some serious blockage. 

NBC Forced To Compensate Web Writers - The Writer’s Guild of America West won a case late last week against NBC Universal over the use of its members’ work on the Internet. The National Labor Relations Board agreed with the association in its dispute against NBCU over worker compensation. WGAW took issue with NBC’s decision last year to create Webisodes, short video clips, for most of its prime-ime shows. It told its writers not to agree to do the work until they’d agreed upon an acceptable fee.

CBS Invests In Virtual Content Creator Electric Sheep - Media giant CBS Corp. has put $7 million behind Electric Sheep Co., the digital content developer best known for its work in the virtual world Second Life. Electric Sheep creates 3D model properties in the popular online role-playing game, in which users create avatars, or alternate personalities. CBS has commissioned Electric Sheep for a series of projects, including virtual sectors devoted to Star Trek, and Showtime’s popular show “The L-World.”

Web Faces Video Ad Conundrum - The Web video advertising conundrum: marketers want to get in front of consumers watching video, but no one wants to be forced to watch ads. Consumers simply don’t have the patience to sit through a 15-second pre-roll — not when they can open a new browser or find something else to keep them occupied. Google, the Web advertising behemoth, hasn’t even tried running video ads yet.

Niche Audiences Serve Web TV Sites - “Rocketboom” was just the start. Shows like “Diggnation,” a “Wayne’s World”-esque daily video roundup of the top stories from Digg.com, are proving that Web TV has wings. Diggnation, which is hosted by Digg co-founder Kevin Rose and friend Alex Albrecht, is niche programming aimed squarely at the 18-34 year old tech geek set. Whereas the broadcast networks wouldn’t give a niche programmer like Diggnation the time of day, these niche audiences are exactly what Web video startups want.

AOL Extends $900 Million Takeover Bid For TradeDoubler - AOL is holding firm on its $900 million cash offer for Swedish online marketing company TradeDoubler, though the Time Warner company said it is extending the bid’s deadline by several weeks to March 14, Reuters reports. The takeover bid has been resisted from the start, with enough shareholders opposed to block the transaction given the 90 percent acceptance agreed to by the two companies.

BitTorrent’s New Service To Launch Tomorrow; Service Rife With Restrictions - There are so many ironies in this that I feel bad for Cohen and his team: BitTorrent, the commercial company born out of the P2P software by the same name, is launching its service tomorrow, called BitTorrent Entertainment Network (BET)…it will launch with 3,000 new and classic movies and thousands more TV shows, as well as a thousand PC games and music videos each. The service will sell digital copies of TV shows for $1.99 an episode, but will only rent movies. Once the films are on the PC, they expire within 30 days of their purchase or 24 hours after the buyer begins to watch them.  

Online Expatriate TV Channel Aggregator JumpTV Raises $100 Million In IPO on AIM - JumpTV, a Canada-based online TV channel aggregator, focused mainly on the expatriate markets, has announce completion of its IPO on London’s AIM market, and is going to raise about $100 million. The company sold about 13 million of its common shares to a syndicate of underwriters led by Canaccord Capital Corporation and Morgan Stanley Canada and including Paradigm Capital, Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon Limited and GMP Securities.

Facebook’s Sitting Tight; Microsoft Deal Extended Till 2011 - A decent story on Facebook and its decision to remain independent: some details which have been covered in previous stories, and some new ones. Among them, Facebook is on target to generate $100 million in revenues this year. The company has raised about $38.5 million. A new detail: Facebook struck its first major financial partnership last summer with Microsoft, which reportedly guaranteed to deliver about $200 million in ad revenue through 2008. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the advertising contract with Microsoft recently had been extended through 2011.

Google Extends Video AdSense Service; Adds WSJ, Conde Nast - In an illustration of how gray everything is in the media-tech-finance nexus these days, Google has extended its video advertising through AdSense, and included content providers such as Dow Jones & Company, CondeNast and other content companies. The videos appear inside Google ad boxes on sites that are relevant to the content of the videos, and ads run during or after the content. Google shares the ad revenues with the video provider and with the sites that show the videos.

comScore Data Show Yahoo!’s New Ranking Model Has Had Initial Positive Impact on Sponsored Search Click-Through Rates - Using the week ending February 4, 2007 as a baseline for sponsored search click-through rates before the ranking model launched, comScore studied the two subsequent weeks of click-through data to evaluate the impact of the new ranking model. comScore’s data indicate that for each of the two weeks subsequent to the launch (ending February 11, 2007 and February 18, 2007), Yahoo! Sites experienced a noticeable lift in its sponsored search click-through rate. The week ending February 11 saw a 5-percent increase, while the week ending February 18 showed a 9-percent jump.

An Ad Upstart (Quigo) Challenges Google - Google and Yahoo have been fighting it out over which company will dominate the online advertising business, with Google maintaining the upper hand so far. But in the competition for contextual text ads — those small sponsored links that run adjacent to related articles online — both companies are facing a challenge from a tiny but growing adversary named Quigo Technologies, a New York-based ad service that bills itself as an alternative to the giants.  

New Yorker Cartoons Available As Animated, Ad-Supported Podcasts - The New Yorker‘s famous cartoons can now be viewed as an animated, ad-supported video podcast on iTunes through RingTales, an online animation syndicator. As part of the deal with the Conde Nast publication (through its cartoon licensing arm, The Cartoon Bank), Santa Monica-based RingTales has the exclusive license to animate and distribute the New Yorker library of over 70,000 cartoons.

Google Will Use Audible Magic Technology For Filtering: Report - The Google-YouTube filter picture just got a little blurrier … after months of insistence by YouTube that it was developing an in-house filtering/anti-piracy solution and continued comments to that effect by Google since it acquired the nascent video-sharing site, the San Jose Mercury News is reporting a hook up with Audible Magic. That’s the Los Gatos company that News Corp. signed with for MySpace digital fingerprinting of audio.

UBS Forecasts Up to 45% Yahoo Revenue Boost From Panama - The launch of the long-delayed Panama search advertising platform could yield up to a 45% increase in 2007 revenue for Yahoo, UBS forecast yesterday. Advertisers, meanwhile, are reporting improved click-through rates.

Marchex Adds Conversion Tracking - Contextual advertising company Marchex has begun offering conversion tracking across two of its ad networks, Enhance Interactive and the Marchex Network. The tracking feature will allow advertisers to track sales, leads, sign-ups, views of specific pages and clicks on designated links across all sites on those networks.

Interpublic Teams With Web 2.0 Firm Spongecell - Interpublic Group has teamed up with Web 2.0 services firm Spongecell, the companies said Thursday. As part of the agreement, Interpublic will have preferred partner status in implementing Spongecell’s solutions for its clients. Interpublic will also obtain a preferred equity share in Spongecell. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Podvertising - As a rule, most widely consumed podcasts still have less than 50,000 downloaders, and most have far fewer, but podcast distribution and viewing mechanisms are proliferating and podcast advertising has marketers buzzing. Even though podcast advertising spending was a mere $3.1 million in 2005, it rose to $80 million in 2006, and eMarketer forecasts that it will grow fivefold in the next five years.

CNNMoney.com Tops In Biz News - With a bevy of business news sites out there, the competition for eyeballs is tight. New data from Nielsen/NetRatings reveals that CNNMoney.com was the most visited business destination of 2006, according to data from the Web research firm’s Financial News and Information category.

Social Network Goes Beyond MySpace - Social-networking startup Stickam seeks to benefit from going where MySpace and other social networks fear to tread: the Webcam. Its strategy is not just about enabling users to send video clips to each other; we’re potentially talking about voyeurism in the extreme, 24/7 real-time video.

Despite Complaints, AOL Expands Email Ad Program - Inevitably, AOL’s move to tack on ads to emails has drawn the ire of AOL Webmail users, according to an AOL spokesperson, who dismissed it as a “smattering” of complaints, saying the Web company plans to continue the practice. AOL began embedding email ads about eight months ago.

Vivendi Games to Buy Wanako Games For Online Downloads - Vivendi Games, the interactive entertainment unit of Vivendi, has bought Santiago, Chile-based Wanako Games, the largest game development studio in Latin America. Financial terms were not disclosed. The acquisition will help VUG’s Sierra Online division grow its development of downloadable online console games…it will retain and Wanako’s team of developers.

Endemol USA Buys Online Animation Site JoeCartoon.com - TV production giant Endemol has done its first U.S. digital acquisition: its U.S. arm has acquired online animation site JoeCartoon.com, reports Variety. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The nine-year-old comedy content creator/site is best known for its 1999 short “Frog in a Blender,” which has been viewed more than 90 million times. The company survived the first boom an bust, partnered with Atom Films for a while but eventually returning to its indie roots.

FIM Acquires Interactive Ad Tech Company Strategic Data Corp. - Fox Interactive Media has made what the company calls its first “major” acquisition since low-profile Peter Levinsohn took over late last year, picking up interactive ad technology firm Strategic Data Corp.. The company’s home page has been turned over to the announcement. No terms disclosed, which makes it hard to gauge just how major it is. The deal is structured as an earn-out, with an upfront payment higher than “the low tens of millions”—make of that what you will—and the ability to be worth north of $100 million if FIM sees the kind of performance jump it expects.

Aegis Buys Brazil’s Top Digital Ad Agency - Global media buyer Aegis Group is buying Brazil’s largest digital ad shop AgenciaClick for $31.1 million in cash. The UK-based media company has also kicked in as many as 3.4 millions new shares of its stock over the next five years, Bloomberg reported. The acquisition is designed to build up Aegis’ Isobar digital-marketing services network.

Social Media Monitoring Firm Cymfony Being Bought By Taylor Nelson Sofres - You’re reading it here first: Cymfony, the social media market intelligence and research firm based out of Watertown, MA, is being bought by UK-based research giant Taylor Nelson Sofres. Not sure on the sale price, but I do know it is in double-digit millions. The company has venture investment from Ascent Venture Partners, Trident Capital and Hearst Interactive, and has raised a total of $24 million in four rounds.

Getty Buys Celebrity Photo Service WireImage For $200 Million - Getty Images, one of the two biggies in the editorial and stock photo has now bought out celebrity photo distributor WireImage‘s parent company for $200 million. The privately owned MediaVast also owns FilmMagic and Contour Photos. Getty said acquiring WireImage would help it share photos of celebrities, events and entertainment, all of which have become digital.

Microsoft kicks the tires on Revver - Don’t expect Microsoft to stand pat in a video-sharing sector dominated by Google’s YouTube. — A week after a test version of Microsoft’s video site, Soapbox, went live, the company sized up at least one potential acquisition target, sources say.

IBM To Media Companies: Loosen Grip On Content - To deal with threats from new digital competitors, IBM’s media-consulting arm recommends that traditional media companies focus fanatically on consumers and embrace new technologies and business models. In its new report, “Navigating the Media Divide,” IBM says that mainstream media companies should allow the legal reuse of content for mash-ups, overdubs and other ways “that celebrate their favorite branded content in new and creative ways.”

PayPerPost Recruits ‘Link Love’ - Controversial viral marketing firm PayPerPost has launched an affiliate program aimed at recruiting new bloggers who will link to existing entries. The initiative, unveiled Wednesday, was met with criticism from some word-of-mouth marketing experts.

Times Online Ad Revenue Grows 26% - Thanks to strong growth in both display and classified advertising, Web ad revenues for The New York Times Company’s major media groups rose 26.2%. Overall, however, revenue at the company was nearly flat.

ValueClick Q4 Profits Nearly Double - Beating its own guidance, online ad network ValueClick on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter revenues of $160.4 million, up from $116.6 million in the year-ago period. Net income was $22.1 million, or 22 cents a share, up from $14.2 million, or 14 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

DoubleClick: Four In 10 Rely On Web For Political Info - Americans are increasingly turning to the Internet for political information, according to a study released Wednesday by DoubleClick. Forty-two percent of 1,047 U.S. adults surveyed by the company’s Performics division said they intended to use the Web for information about the 2008 elections more than they did in 2004.

IAB Launches Monthly Magazine - The Interactive Advertising Bureau has launched a monthly magazine, MIXX, in conjunction with Adweek Magazines and custom publisher Media Ventures Inc. The magazine, which appears as a supplement in Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek, and online on the magazines’ Web sites and the IAB’s site, www.iab.net, will look at different platforms’ impact on the future of advertising.

Advertisers Demand More Accountability For Digital Media - Even while U.S. Internet advertising revenues grew more than 30 percent last year, topping $16 billion, corporate advertisers and advertising agencies are concerned that their online ad impressions may not be properly counted. A recent survey sponsored by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), shows that less than half of ad-agency respondents and only one-third of advertiser respondents said they were confident that their companies’ online ad impressions were measured and reported accurately.

Google Goes After Microsoft’s Enterprise Market - Google is moving farther into Microsoft territory, enhancing its rudimentary Web-based communication services by combining its email, chat and calendar services. The company is specifically targeting the corporate crowd by offering the applications program, which includes bigger email storage and more support for companies’ technology staff — for the low-cost price of $50 per user per year.

Online Measurement Moves Offline - The 21st century may come to be known in the media industry as the advertising measurement century. Nowadays, it’s not just Internet advertisers and publishers that want more accurate digital data; magazine, TV, outdoor and radio firms also want to make their information more accountable. Enter Google, which is making an aggressive push into selling measurable advertising to traditional mediums.

MMOG Take Lead In Ad-Supported Online Sports Games - If there are two omnipresent elements in media, it’s sports and advertising. These elements converge as much as possible. It follows that marketers should carve out new opportunities in new media. Even in the world of video games, one such medium, sports publishers have taken a lead in selling ads. It’s only a matter of time before the genre moves online, becoming massively multiplayer, like the virtual worlds of Second Life and World of Warcraft. In-game ad providers like Double Fusion are banking on that convergence.

Study: Video Downloads Have Lucrative Future - The market for TV and film downloads is expected to far outweigh that of ad-supported online programming, according to industry researcher Adams Media Research. Right now, the market for ad-supported programs is four times larger than pay-for video downloads — $409 million compared to $111 million — though it’s expected to surge to $4.1 billion by 2011. Ad-supported video will grow to $1.7 billion over the same length of time. The reason is that the ad-supported model will mainly be used on the Web sites of major U.S. television networks. Video download services, on the other hand, will be able to offer a broad array of programming from one location

Google, Microsoft Play Follow The Leader - Microsoft apparently is gearing up to enter the video-sharing space in a much bigger way. The company, which is testing the video site “Soapbox,” also apparently recently mulled purchasing Revver, according to a report in CNET’s News.com. While the article also says it doesn’t look like a deal’s going to happen any time soon, Microsoft still appears interested in at least exploring whether it can hire any Revver staff or harness the company’s ad technology.

AOL Switches Strategy, Pulls Back On Possible Kids, Teens JV, Spinoff; SVP Malcolm Bird Leaves - You’re reading it here first … Last fall, we broke the news that AOL was looking for possible JV partners for a spinoff of its kids and teens businesses, KOL and Red. They had some inquiries and were exploring options. But that strategy isn’t part of the new AOL management team’s plans, a source at the company tells me “there has been a strategy shift” and the company has decided “kids and teens are core to our business.”

Armstrong: Google Looks For More Integration Between Its Products And Advertising - Since the web is open 24 hours a day, why shouldn’t its advertising be open, too, Tim Armstrong, VP for Google’s national sales, asked during an investors’ Q&A at the Bank of America Technology Conference in New York. He also discussed the need for better metrics to help propel ad activity on mobile devices and hinted at plans of integrating products like Google Maps with advertising campaigns.

WaPo Expands On Its Blog Ad Network - Last summer Washington Post launched a blog ad network called “Sponsored Blogroll”, to help WaPo online advertisers find blogs to advertise on, and in return, blogs got shared-revenues as well as links from WaPo website. Now some further results and expansion of the effort, still among the only of its kind among major news companies.

IAB Opens D.C. Branch, Hires Lobbyist - The Interactive Advertising Bureau has opened a Washington, D.C. office and hired its first in-house lobbyist, Mike Zaneis. He’s charged with representing the interactive ad industry in Washington on matters like anti-spyware legislation, proposals to tax e-commerce transactions and laws that would require Internet companies to retain data about consumers.

Joost Deal To Bolster Viacom Ad Inventory - The new distribution deal between Viacom and Internet TV startup Joost won’t just give Joost a strong content offering when it launches later this quarter. The deal also is expected to give advertisers a good deal of new online video inventory.

Burst: Two In Three Book Travel Online - Two-thirds of Web users who plan to travel in the next three months will do their travel research and buy tickets or book hotels online, according to a new study by Burst Media. Almost half of 2,100 people surveyed said the Internet will be their primary travel resource, while two-thirds said they would research and make a travel-related transaction online.

Google Beefs Up Office Suite Competitor - Google reportedly is preparing to integrate its Docs & Spreadsheets Web tool into its Google Apps for Your Domain, a package of white-label services, including instant messaging, home pages, email, and calendars, for use with any domain, according to PC World. The Google Apps for Your Domain beta service allows organizations to sign up and receive, for free, customizable versions of Google Talk, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Page Creator, and the personalizable Google Home Page to offer their users.

Marchex Adds Publishers - Contextual advertising company Marchex, with its subsidiary IndustryBrains, has signed seven publishers to its network in verticals including finance, sports, IT, and Home and Living. Under the agreements, Marchex will serve contextual ads on the publishers’ sites, as well as in newsletters and blogs. The publishers include CIOIndex.com, Homes and Land, InvestorVillage.com and WorldGolf.com.

Tweens Doing Homework Online… Honest! - It may not be their online activity of first choice, but preteens really are going online to do homework. According to new data from Experian Simmons, 48% of children ages 6-11 had played online games at least once in the preceding month. What is notable is how commonly kids said that they did homework online: 21% of those asked said they had done so at least once in the preceding month.

Viacom, Google Prepare For Possible Legal Battle - Google is set to make its anti-piracy plans for YouTube a privilege reserved for its media partners. Viacom, which ordered its content off the online video site a few weeks ago, is now said to be pursuing legal action against Google. The media giant called the proposition “unacceptable,” while others likened it to a “mafia-shakedown.” For months, media companies have been clamoring for content-recognition technology. However, they thought such a program would be a precursor to setting up a wider content agreement with YouTube, not a privilege reserved only for its partners.

YouTube, CBS Talks Break Down - YouTube, which had been close to closing a multiyear deal with CBS Corp., looks to have lost out on what would have been a broad-ranging deal.The companies were in talks that would let YouTube license its content in exchange for providing ad revenue from both the video Web site and CBS Corp.’s broadcast radio division. Talks broke down in part because the firms could not reach an agreement on issues such as how long the deal would run. However, they said the talks could be revived at a later date. For now, the report says Google and CBS will work only on “more modest initiatives.”

NYTCO’s January Ad Revenue Dropped 2.1 Percent; Internet Ad Revs Up 26.2 Percent - The New York Times Company reported a similar tale among other newspaper properties in January: weakness overall, offset mainly by rising fortunes for its digital properties. The NYTCO’s January ad revenue from continuing operations was down 2.1 percent from a year earlier, with total revenue dipping 0.4 percent. 

Interactive Agencies Fueling Greater Media M&A Activity; Paucity Of Targets - Online ad agencies will continue to be a hot takeover target this year, a survey conducted by i-bank AdMedia Partners says, in an obvious conclusion. The survey finds that over 80 percent of 3,200 senior media company executives believe that this year’s takeover activity will be moderate to strong this year. Furthermore, ad holding companies will face increased competition from PE firms, the WSJ points out in its article on the survey.

Jupitermedia In Talks With Getty For Images Division Sale: Report - Getty Images, the stock photo giant, is in advanced talks to acquire smaller rival Jupitermedia, in a move to expand its suite of offerings to site designers and online marketers, according to NYPost. My guess is this is for the online images division of JUMP, not the whole company, though NYP doesn’t mention it

Ebay Readies Online Ad Marketplace For March Launch - The eBay Media Marketplace, the online auctioneer’s interactive TV advertising exchange, plans to launch March 15—just in time for the 2Q scatter market. Christi Korzekwa, director of media for Home Depot, told Mediapost a beta version of the system is finished and is currently being reviewed by networks, marketers and agencies that may be interested in participating.

Remaining In-Game Ad Startups Could Tempt Sony, EA - Now that it seems Google has bought AdScape, a relative non-entity in the current field, TheDeal speculates that the six remaining independents of note may be up for grabs..which of course is an obvious conclusion, Microsoft bought Massive for a massive $300 million or so last year. The six possible targets: Double Fusion, IGA, Exent Technologies, NeoEdge Networks, Eyeblaster, and Greystripe.

Google To Offer Anti-Piracy Tools To All, Eventually; Doing Damage Control After Non-Deals - Google is doing some damage control today, after a spate of stories on how it failed to close deals with media companies. Now Google CEO Eric Schmidt does an interview with Reuters, explaining that it will soon offer anti-piracy technologies to help all copyright holders, irrespective of whether those companies have a distribution/licensing deal with Google-YouTube or not.

Tech IPOs: They’re back! - Why are champagne corks popping again in Silicon Valley? Tech startups are coming back to Wall Street and Business 2.0 Magazine identifies six that are likely to cash in. Judging by the number of companies that have already filed or indicated that they might, 2007 is shaping up to be the biggest year for initial public offerings in the tech world since the end of the dotcom bubble in 2000.

MySpace Launches Comic Book Hub - MySpace has unveiled a Comic Books hub, meant to be the official community for all manner of comics, including Japanese-based manga, graphic novels, and more classic American comic styles. As part of the launch, MySpace is hosting a “Buffy Changed My Life” contest running until Mar. 14.

Study: BarnesandNoble, Amazon Lead In Satisfaction - Customer satisfaction with e-commerce last year rose to its highest level since 2003, according to the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index. Overall, online commerce sites scored an 80 on a scale of 100, up from 79.6 last year, but still down from an all-time high of 80.8 in 2003.

Report: TV Networks Lag In Web Video - TV networks are streaming a wealth of video online, but their broadband sites aren’t as interesting or interactive as sites like YouTube. That’s according to a new industry analysis by Broadband Directions.

Nick Launches User-Generated TV Block - MTV Net’s Nickelodean launches a TV programming block featuring user-generated content provided by kids. Nickelodeon’s ME:TV integrates Nick.com and TurboNick, Nickelodeon’s broadband player, with Nickelodeon television to let kids help program the TV block themselves–original content is uploaded online.

All Sides Dig In on DRM - Some 62% of European music executives thought that digital music would benefit overall from DRM-free files that could be used with any player — not just iPods — which had been a source of particular contention in France. And 40% of the respondents thought that government or consumer effort would be needed to make DRM-free digital music sales happen. eMarketer estimates that digital music spending in the US will reach nearly $5 billion in 2010, up from $1.1 billion in 2005. While the US made up approximately 59% of the digital music market worldwide in 2005, eMarketer expects this to decline to 42% in 2010 as online and mobile digital music services proliferate outside the country.

Web-Video Vaults Are Full, Coffers Are Not - It’s one of the most-hyped developments in marketing, yet online video still accounts for only a tiny fraction of the $280 billion ad market, and less than 5% — about $775 million — of the $20 billion online-ad industry in 2007, according to eMarketer. What gives? It’s certainly not lack of interest from advertisers, who are clamoring to be around video content. Instead, several factors are holding back online video’s ad-revenue growth: fragmented audiences, limited inventory, a lack of video created specifically for the web and a still-evolving ad-buying model.

Viacom Signs With YouTube Rival Joost - When Viacom ordered its content off YouTube, you knew it had to be planning something else. That is, something other than placing Comedy Central content on its new Comedy Central site. Viacom is set to strike a deal with the Internet video service Joost. Joost is the brainchild of Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. Their idea is to create a video-sharing service where all television, DVD and Web content are exchanged between users. It will also add real-time social networking and chat features to make video a more interactive experience.

Market Research Firm Wins Second Life Competition - The interactive virtual world Second Life recently hosted a competition to see which of its citizens could come up with the best business plan. The winner was Minnesota-based Market Truths, which devised a market research and analysis system to help real-world companies figure out how best to engage with users of the vast virtual world. The contest’s judges said they rewarded the company because of the team’s experience conducting similar research in the real world, and also because its business plan had the best prospects for making money.

Scripps Unveils Social Network For Interior Designers - Scripps Networks pulled the curtain up on a new social network Monday, placing a bet that interior design enthusiasts who watch its HGTV cable network will want to form an online community. The site is called Rate My Room and it lets the TV audience connect online and discuss remodeling, budgets, and future projects. Viewers can write ratings and reviews, post to various forums, and upload photos of their remodeling projects.

Interpublic: 5 Trends For Year, Digital Dominates - Everyone loves to predict the future. Interpublic is no exception. Greg Johnson, executive director of Interpublic’s Emerging Media Lab, points to five top trends for the next year. The dominant theme is: digital, digital, digital.

YouTube Moves Beyond TV - YouTube secured a potentially smart deal last week when it agreed to become the official highlights destination for the English soccer giant Chelsea FC. The West London club is one of the biggest soccer teams in the biggest league in the world, which recently signed away its international and domestic TV rights for nearly $6 billion. As part of the deal, Chelsea will receive its own channel on the popular file-sharing service, showing news updates and archive content. The team can’t yet show live footage, though may change.

Content-Recognition Firms Pressure on YouTube - Media companies have a new friend in arms in their fight against user-generated content sites like Google’s YouTube. Audible Magic, a maker of content-recognition software that could identify even the blurriest piece of copyrighted material, is now open for business. Last week, it signed an agreement with News Corporation’s MySpace to identify copyrighted material on its pages.

MTV at 25: More Than Videos … and More to the Net - MTV has reinvented itself more times than Neil Young and Arianna Huffington combined. In The NYT, David Carr ponders the future of the Viacom-owned, once-dominant cultural touchstone, now at the crossroads at the ripe old age of 25. MTV’s president, acknowledges “our viewers are telling us that they want an experience beyond linear television” and points to the web game Virtual Laguna Beach as an outside-the-cable-box success for MTV. The recent layoffs at MTV Networks have been portrayed as an attempt to move more resources into Net-related endeavors.

MySpace May Beat Yahoo On Pageviews, But Not When It Comes To Attracting Advertisers - In December, comScore Media Metrix showed that pageviews for News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media outstripped those of Yahoo’s, with FIM posting 41.5 billion pageviews, while Yahoo trailed with less than 36 billion. However, The MySpace audience is spending less time per-page, racking up 4.5 pages per minute, as opposed to 1.6 pages per minute for the Yahoo audience. So Yahoo’s pageviews—despite trending lower—are therefore worth more to advertisers than those on MySpace.

Newspapers’ Online Video Efforts Might Just Beat TV - Kurt Andersen, of NYMag, writes about how newspapers have taken to putting video and videoblogs online, and may just become better at it than TV news outlets themselves. “Whereas the YouTube paradigm is amateurs doing interesting things with cameras, the newspapers’ Web videos are professional journalists operating like amateurs in the best old-fashioned sense.” Example David Carr’s Carpetbagger video blog on NYTimes.com.  

London’s Daily Mail Launches Downloadable Version - London’s Daily Mail launched its first “e-paper edition” Monday, which the company is pitching as a halfway point between website and newsprint, the Guardian reported. The Mail eReader, a fully downloadable version of the UK tabloid with the same graphics and design as the print edition, allows readers the flexibility to either click through content as they would on the web, or flip through page by page as they would with the actual paper.

Third-Party Serving In Search: The Solution To Click Fraud And Other Dilemmas? - Search is the ultimate data vehicle. Every action is tracked, captured, measured, analyzed and then discussed ad nauseam. However, a funny flaw exists in this data-driven marketing vehicle. That flaw? The serving of all advertising. For online display advertising the standard serving comes from third parties. This allows both advertisers and publishers to exist in an audited environment. Since ads are paid via impressions, advertisers want to have a third party telling them what was really served versus what a publisher says. But in search marketing, it is an entirely different story.

Music Industry Begins to Imagine a Post-DRM World; Will Movie Studios Follow Suit? - One of the most common arguments deployed against using DRM schemes is that the move to unprotected files is inevitable. In recent days, starting with Steve Jobs’s memo, many in the digital-music business seem to be preparing, either with glee or trepidation, for a world after DRM. “Executives at Hollywood studios believe it is only a matter of time before the debate over removing copyright protections spreads to movies from music. Until now, the studios have steadfastly asserted that copy protections…are essential to preventing piracy of films.”

Online Ad Surge Sends aQuantive Profits Up 76% - aQuantive on Thursday reported strong fourth-quarter revenue–up 53% year-over-year, while profits nearly doubled. The digital marketing company’s revenue for the quarter was $133.4 million, up from $87.5 million. Net income was $20.4 million, up from $11.6 million.

Google Tweaks Minimum Bid Formula - Search giant Google next week will change its methods for calculating advertisers’ quality scores, which the company uses to determine marketers’ minimum bids as well as ad placement. Additionally, Google will make available data on minimum bids of all keywords within ad groups, and will rate marketers’ proposed keywords as “great,” “ok,” or “poor.”

Digital Rules: NBC Taps Top Digital Exec To Head All Ad Sales - In the strongest signal yet that NBC Universal is fiercely committed to a future where revenues from emerging platforms are as important as–or perhaps trump–traditional mediums, the company has tapped its top digital-media executive, Beth Comstock, to oversee all ad sales operations.

TV Guide Acquires Three Web Sites - Seven months after purchasing JumptheShark.com, Gemstar-TV Guide has acquired three other Web sites–TVShowsOnDVD.com (offering news about shows on DVD), TV-now.com (containing scheduling information), and FansofRealityTV.com (for fan discussions, show recaps and the like). TV Guide also acquired some assets of eVoke TV, Inc. and next year plans to re-launch the evoketv.com site–which brings community features to scheduling information.

Quigo Adds Healia, Other Sites To Network - Ad network Quigo has added news aggregation site Breitbart.com, health search engine Healia.com, and weight-loss site SparkPeople.com, to its network. All three sites will be deploying a private-label version of Quigo’s AdSonar platform, which allows them to sell and serve contextual, pay-per-performance ads on their own sites.

Online to Account for Majority of US Travel Market - In most markets, the online segment accounts for only a small portion of total revenues and sales. But that is not the case in the travel business. According to a new report from Burst Media, based on data from PhoCusWright Research, this year the Internet will make up over half of all of the travel industry’s transactions. The rush of travel consumers to the Internet has led to an online travel marketplace estimated at $68 billion — and that is the US market only.

Casual Games Drive Traditional Media Sites - Casual gaming on the Web is a phenomenon; it might even be considered “the next online video.” Even traditional media companies in their crossover attempts are starting to add games to their sites to boost traffic and ad sales. Among them are print giant Hearst Corp., publisher of Cosmopolitan and Esquire, CBS Corp, NBC, and Disney. Hearst just struck a deal with game developer Arkadium, to add customized games to its magazines’ Web properties.

Google Accepts News Corp. Subpoena for YouTube User IDs - News Corp. has become the latest big media company to take action against widespread copyright infringement on Google’s YouTube. However, instead of telling YouTube to remove its content altogether News Corp, in what may be a RIAA-like legal strategy, is going after individual perpetrators of copyright infringement.

Google to Start Reporting Subscriber Numbers - In response to requests from probably thousands of other online publishers, Google announced today that it will begin reporting the number of subscribers any RSS feed has through Google Reader and Google Personalized Homepage. Other feed reading Google products may be included in the future but these are the two big ones.

Report: Bolt Media To Be Acquired By GoFish.com - Bolt Media is expected to sell itself to video-sharing site GoFish.com for as much as $30 million in stock, in order to raise money to settle a copyright lawsuit brought by record label Universal Music Group.

TVGuide Buys Several TV Community Sites & TV Listings Firm EvokeTV - This is in line with trying to make TVGuide.com into a community-driven site: its parent Gemstar-TV Guide International has done some more small online acquisitions, after buying Jumptheshark.com last year. It has bought several TV-focused site: TVShowsOnDVD.com, TV-now.com, and FansofRealityTV.com, as well as some assets of TV listings startup eVokeTV. Terms were not disclosed.

Google Does Buy AdScape After All; For $23 Million: Report - So says this RedHerring report, after we reported on the deal being on the rocks first, and then being back on this last weekend….the story says the deal was done for $23 million. Though signed, the AdScape Media deal is not completely closed, the story says. It says the company’s executive team will likely remain together until the start of March, at which point select staff will move to Mountain View.

Earnings: Ad Revenue Raises TheStreet.com’s 4Q Earnings - The addition of more video content boosted ad revenue for financial news site TheStreet.com (Nasdaq: TSCM), which posted strong performance numbers for 4Q06 and the year as a whole. The Street.com’s net income in 4Q came in at $4 million, a 125 percent increase over $1.8 million for t4Q05. Revenue for the quarter was $14.4 million, a 44 percent gain from the $10 million from 4Q05. Earnings per share were 14 cents, compared to 7 cents for the year-ago period.

Earnings: Reed-Elsevier Reports Postive Preliminary Results For 2006 - The British-Dutch publisher Reed-Elsevier (NYSE: RUK) reported its preliminary results on Thursday, saying its business was well-placed as the “digital horizon” continues to expand. In order to keep up with that expanding horizon, the company said it will sharpen its focus to develop its digital properties and sell its education division. The company reported 10 percent growth in online information and digital services which now account for 37 percent of total revenues.

Yahoo Preps Video Revamp - Yahoo plans to launch a revamped videos site that centralizes video content from its various content sections and provides a more seamless viewing experience for users. The redesigned site is expected to feature the most popular user-submitted videos as well as the best clips from its different sections including news, music, food and sports.

Google Adds CPC Pricing To ‘Site Targeting’ - Starting next month, Google plans to allow marketers who currently buy display ads on a cost-per-thousand impression basis via the “site targeting” program to start purchasing cost-per-click ads as well. The site targeting program allows marketers to select which sites within Google’s network will display their ads.

ESPN To Launch Radio Station Web Sites - ESPN will create Web sites for radio stations in New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

IBM Fires Digital Media Shift Warning - The crossover from old to new media is opening up a huge rift, through which billions of dollars could be swallowed up from the bottom lines of the world’s big media companies, warns a new IBM report. A clash is at hand, which, according to the report, “Navigating the Media Divide,” is reaching fever pitch. “Industry incumbents are responding — but perhaps not quickly or completely enough. While they are fighting an escalating competitive battle on this front, traditional media cannot ignore the impending division in its own ranks.”

Interactive Shops Deserve More Pay - Here’s a column online agency folks should love to read: you’re not getting paid enough. For starters, says Underscore Marketing’s Tom Hespos, interactive marketing plans are way harder to execute than traditional ones. Perhaps it’s because the roles of print, television, outdoor and other media are clearer and better understood from both sides. Media planners have to do more than figure out the role online will play in a marketing plan: Budget allocation is a far more complex question in the online world.

Local Publishers Sell More Video Than Local TV - Local print publishers have done a far better job of selling online video than local TV broadcasters, according to a new report. Only worth about $161 million last year, the local online video ad marketplace is expected to more than double in 2007 and hit $5 billion in the next five years. Publishers sold approximately $81 million worth of locally targeted online video in 2006, the Borrell Associates’ report said, while TV broadcasters earned $32 million.

MeeVee Integrates Online Video With TV Listings - In a substantial upgrade this morning, the TV listing discovery service MeeVee has integrated a number of online media types along with its broadcast TV listings, including viral videos. It’s a good move that will make the company all the more relevant in a world that is increasingly blurring the line between traditional and online media.

Yahoo Launches Digg-Like Suggestion Site - Yahoo is taking some criticism for launching a site that includes a Digg-like voting feature earlier today. The main criticism is coming from Digg users, who can sometimes stop fighting long enough to band together into a very angry mob. But a few bloggers are adding their own fuel as well.