Articles of the Day
Aegis, WPP Dominate Digital Agency Ranks, Account For Half The Industry - With a team of 1,400 people worldwide, London-based Aegis Group–and its Isobar network–is the ad industry’s biggest interactive media services organization, according to estimates released Thursday by Paris-based agency billings researcher RECMA. Based on data published in RECMA’s first-ever digital agency report, Aegis accounts for 28% of all the digital media personnel across the six holding companies surveyed.
CEA: Computers Becoming Main Audio Devices - With Internet-sourced music on the rise, the Consumer Electronics Association, which has traditionally served the manufacturers and retailers of such products as TV sets, CD players and DVD players, released a study showing that early three quarters of U.S. online adults now listen to audio on home computers.
NBC, Scripps & Universal Studios Discuss Online Spending - Representatives from The NBC Agency, Scripps and Universal Studios opened up about their digital advertising investments at 360i’s “Search in the Media Ecosystem” Summit.
Nintendo Moves Look Suspiciously Like A Media Company - Nintendo is adding a social networking avatar-driven Mii channel to its existing Wii channels that offer news, weather reports and photo sharing. But analysts say it’s all about enhancing the company’s games business, not any indicator of ambitions to become a media company.
Blinkx’s Project Trilby: AdSense For Video - Video search engine Blinkx is putting the final touches on a new advertising platform for Web video code-named Project Trilby. When it launches next Monday it will be called blinkx AdHoc. It will offer media companies and video sites a way to place targeted ads alongside (or even in) Web videos based on the specific words spoken in the videos, as well as their overall context.
Revenues to Grow at YouAd - An explosion of user-generated content has reshaped the media landscape, shattering the status quo of content ownership and distribution and creating new opportunities for marketers. Led by the companies that started this revolution — YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Photobucket and others — eMarketer estimates that US user-generated content sites will earn $1 billion in 2007 and reach $4.3 billion in ad revenues in 2011.
Social Networks Highlight Fickleness of Social Media - Are social networks running out of steam? Judging by the rapid resurgence of Facebook, not yet. But the manner in which users are change allegiances is worrying for advertisers and media partners. The movement of Silicon Valley contacts from one social network to another highlights the fickle nature of social media. First, it was Friendster, then it was Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn and now, Facebook.
Social Media Users Learn To Manage Celebrity - Anyone can syndicate their own celebrity on the Web through social networking profiles, blogs, photo-sharing sites and confessional online videos. And millions do. As Dave Wienberger, author of “Everything Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder,” notes, this is the danger for future generations. As they grow up seeking jobs, especially public office, they may regret having left their digital footprint all over the Web.
Meredith Acquires Health Search Engine Healia - Meredith Corp. has acquired Healia, a consumer health search engine, as part of its strategy to expand reach in the women’s health market and to increase its online content. Healia’s patent-pending content-filtering technology will be integrated into Meredith’s various consumer sites over the next few months; the media company also plans to enhance Healia.com and to offer its technology through licensing and syndication.
Sony’s Talks To Buy ClubPenguin Off - Not sure who’s the other one in the fray, but someone is, and Sony is out. We reported last month that Sony was in advanced talks to acquire the two-year-old kids focused social gaming site ClubPenguin for about $450 million. The talks broke down some days ago, and price was one of the factors…our sources tell us the asking price went up beyond $500 million, and Sony balked at the price.
Google Acquires Zenter; Y Combinator Gets Another Payday - Google made another acquisition announcement today - they’ve bought a company called Zenter (”a company that provides software for creating online slide presentations”) to help complete their upcoming Powerpoint/presentation application. The price wasn’t disclosed.
McClatchy Exec Takes Stake in Gather.com - Kevin McClatchy, a director at newspaper publisher the McClatchy Company, acquired a minority stake in Gather.com, a social network for adults focused on niche interests and activities. Although Tom Gerace, the founder and CEO of Gather.com, emphasized that McClatchy’s stake is a personal investment, it may herald strategic cooperation between the companies in the future.
Yahoo Acquires Rivals for $100 million - The Yahoo board saw fit to go through with the acquisition of sports publisher Rivals.com, which focuses mainly on college and high school sports. Yahoo is currently ranked second in sports, with 15 million unique users behind ESPN.com with 17.5 million monthly users, according to comScore Media Metrix. Other major competitors include MSN/Fox Sports and AOL Sports. Rivals.com is 19th, with 1.4 million uniques. The acquisition is believed to be in the $100 million range.
