Articles of the Day
Yahoo Launches Behavior-Based SmartAds - Yahoo today launches behavior-based SmartAds, a product that epitomizes the blending of brand and direct response advertising. It allows advertisers to target their message and creative on-the-fly and triggered by online user behavior.
Heavy Contest Winner Gets 1.2 Million Streams - Heavy.com’s “ContraBand” video contest has ended, with the winning band Punchline having created 65 videos that were streamed 1,189,157 times during the battle-of-the-bands contest. Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson will judge the Canadian contest.
Industry Watch - Into the Yonder: Have Laptop, Will Travel - According to travel, tourism and hospitality research firm PhoCusWright, online transactions will account for more than half of all U.S. travel bookings in 2007, and that figure is expected to rise to 60% next year. Here’s how the Web is creating opportunities to reach niches.
Internet Usage and Importance Expand - The Internet is the most essential medium for consumers and newspapers are the least, according to an Edison Media Research study conducted by Arbitron in January and February 2007. Respondents were all from the US and ages 12 and older. Over a third of consumers deemed newspapers “least essential,” while nearly a quarter felt that way about the Internet. Both radio and television had the fewest “least essential” mentions, at 18%.
Apple Faces UMG Defection - As Apple unveiled its iPhone on Friday, Steve Jobs and co. over the weekend were handed a fresh headache. Universal Music Group, the biggest contributor to Apple’s iTunes, will not be renewing its annual contract to sell music through the media store. Instead, if the two parties cannot agree on pricing and other terms, UMG wants to market its music to Apple at will, which would allow the record label to remove songs from iTunes on short notice, giving it far more control in dealing with distributors like Apple.
Apple Sells 500,000 iPhones, Despite Problems - A slow cellular network and expected first-generation bugs are two things that kept many from buying Apple’s iPhone. There were also activation problems for several new iPhone owners this weekend. Most of the complaints came from AT&T business customers who were unable to quickly transfer there new phones to a business account. Other complaints came from those switching carriers. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said the overwhelming majority of customers could activate service “within minutes.”
For iLike, There’s No Place Like Facebook - iLike, the fastest-growing digital music service on the planet, owes its surging popularity to Facebook. After integrating its music-sharing service into Facebook, iLike is now growing at a rate of 1 million new registered users per week. The social music site is also being taken far more seriously by record labels, who’ve opened discussion with it.
Widgets Revamp Advertising On Social Networks - It’s not surprising to hear that the social-networking generation prefers to choose their own marketing messages rather than receive random banner ads from marketers. A study of more than 1,200 kids ages 9 to 17 and about 1,000 parents across the country, finds that many consumers enjoy playing with ad-related features of their choosing on their personal profile pages.
PlanetOut Sells 56 Percent Majority Stake To Investors For $26.2 Million - PlanetOut, which operates websites, magazines and travel services for the gay and lesbian community, has sold majority in the company to investors: it sold 22.8 million shares for gross proceeds of $26.2 million, which comes to 56 percent of the company.
