Articles of the Day
Massive Adds Five EA Sports Titles To In-Game Ad Network - Microsoft’s Massive Inc. announced the incorporation of five new sports titles from Electronic Arts (EA) into its in-game advertising network–further strengthening the in-game ad value proposition in a booming U.S. video game market.
BT: The Teen Years - While the recent acquisitions of 24/7 and now Tacoda suggest a maturing of the BT industry, I was struck at Tuesday’s Behavioral Marketing Forum by how young it really feels. Standards are still fleeting and the market is still cluttered by too many companies claiming to do too many flavors of behavioral marketing. There is still a lot of confusion in the market over what differentiates these vendors.
Netflix Stock, Site Go Down; Amazon Soars - Wall Street gave Netflix a beating Tuesday after the movie renter reported its first quarterly customer losses ever, and a more sober earnings outlook for the year. Netflix.com also went down for parts of Monday and Tuesday, sending the company’s stock price to a two-year low. Shares dropped as low as $15.62 in early Tuesday trading, the lowest price since June 2005. The stock closed at $16.07 in New York, down nearly 7%. Meanwhile, Amazon.com’s stock soared–up nearly 22% in after-hours trading–when the Web retailer reported second-quarter profit more than tripled, boosted by strong sales of books, music and electronics worldwide.
Millions Wasted in Second Life - Second Life is officially over. The virtual world supposedly heralded a new era of online advertising, as consumers increasing adopted massively multiplayer online gaming. Fascinated by Second Life’s commercial potential, marketers, news publishers, even interactive ad shops bought the hype. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t support their enthusiasm: In June, there were 4 million Second Life avatars created by distinct individuals. Of those, about 1 million had logged on in the last month. In all, about 100,000 Americans enter Second Life per week.
Facebook Nabs Former YouTube CFO - High-powered Web media executives have a tendency to jump around like mosquitoes, moving from one Next Best Thing to another. For Google’s YouTube, CFO Gideon Yu’s decision to crossover to Facebook, may be a sign of the times. Facebook is where the Web’s best minds want to be, not YouTube or News Corp.’s MySpace–yesterday’s Web 2.0 darlings. Yu will take the place of Mike Sheridan, the company’s current CFO, who did not disclose his reasons for leaving.
Nintendo Sales Increase Fivefold - After laying in rival Sony’s shadow for more than a decade, Nintendo has officially gotten its groove back: The Japanese video game giant posted a fivefold increase in second-quarter earnings yesterday, thanks to strong sales from its Wii console and portable DS gaming systems. Net income was $667 million for the quarter on total sales of $2.83 billion; the company also raised its profit forecast for the year to $2.04 billion.
Web Video Watchers - Almost one in five online adults, or 19%, now watch Web video on a typical day, while 57% have viewed online video at least once. That’s according to new research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “The growing adoption of broadband combined with a dramatic push by content providers to promote online video has helped to pave the way for mainstream audiences to embrace online video viewing,” states the report, which was based on a recent telephone survey of 2,200 adults.
The New AOL: From Ugly Duckling To Swan - Look for Time Warner’s ugly duckling AOL to emerge as a swan when earnings are announced next week. Smart acquisitions, new hires, a move to drop the subscription wall, and a focus on original content have both analysts and agency heads praising the unit for the first time in years.
Microsoft Gets a Digg On Google - In a big win, Microsoft will manage the ad inventory as exclusive provider of banner, display and paid search advertising on the popular Digg.com–replacing Federated Media and Google.
