Articles of the Day
ValueClick Shares Plummet After Guidance Is Lowered On Lead Generation Decline - ValueClick shares dropped as much as 23.5% on Monday after company executives reported its promotional lead generation business — now subject to an industrywide regulatory probe — took a “disappointing” $10 million hit in the second quarter that overshadowed gains in its display advertising, behavioral targeting, affiliate marketing and comparison shopping businesses. But analysts suggested the lower valuation makes the company a more attractive target.
Monster To Slash 800 Jobs; Reinvest in Product, Promotion - Facing heated competition on both ends from professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and free listings services such as craigslist, Web job site operator Monster Corp., one of the first to the category, plans to slash 15% of its workforce by year’s end, and to reinvest in product development and promotion.
Search, Display Ad Combo Best At Driving Store Sales: Study - New research from Yahoo and comScore found that retailers who targeted consumers with both search and display ads got the most bang for their buck–as the combination yielded greater increases in converting researchers to purchasers, average amount spent per consumer, and total in-store revenue–than either method alone.
YouTube Partners With Interscope To Find Next Rap Star - Google’s YouTube is set to launch its second sponsored music promotion, this time in conjunction with Universal’s Interscope Records, to discover hip-hop’s newest rising star.
Jupiter: Green Teens Receptive To Appropriate Online Ads - Teens who care about the environment aren’t just socially aware. They are also a desired ad/marketing target, says a new JupiterResearch report. The Green Teen cohort trends slightly female (57%), and 45% say they like to be the first to know about new products. Plus, they are effective influencers and trend-setters in their peer groups.
Building a Better Algorithm - The three largest search engines, Google, Yahoo and msn, account for the vast majority of U.S. searches, but that hasn’t stopped dozens of startups from trying to stake out their own claim to the market. Venture capitalists also don’t appear daunted by the odds. In the first quarter of this year, they’ve poured nearly $135 million into vertical and social search startups alone, according to Dow Jones VentureOne.
Social Networking Consuming More Time - MySpace and other social networks may have more growth ahead, according to data on June 2007 Web usage from Compete. The firm measured what it calls “attention” (defined as the percentage of all time spent online that is devoted to one site), and attention for MySpace jumped 20% in June 2007 from the previous month. In fact, the top six social networks all saw increased attention, and the top 20 social networks received over 15% of all attention in June. MySpace consumes an outsized share of Internet user time overall.
Series Marries Online Video and Social Networks - Online video sharing is an important part of social networks like Facebook, while social-media tools have become an integral part of YouTube and other major online video sites. But is there a way to integrate the two? A new online video series called “KateModern,” just a week old, is doing it. Brought to us by the folks who produced the popular video series “LonelyGirl,” KateModern has caught fire with users of the British social network Bebo, in which its fictional main characters interact with its audience through public profiles, comments, chat, polls, quizzes, even plot suggestions.
Giving Search A “Semantic” Understanding - Search startup Hakia is creating what it likes to call “semantic” search, which means that Hakia’s engine will try to understand user search queries rather than relying on statistical methods like linking, keyword analysis and user history to return relevant search results. Here’s the idea: Search for “headache,” and Hakia will presumably know enough about what you want to return “Tylenol,” “Advil” or another brand name.
Google May Build Wireless Network - Google is making waves in the mobile industry after the company announced it would bid on a $4.6 billion slice of wireless spectrum to be auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission early next year. A somewhat unexpected decision, industry watchers now wonder if it plans to build a wireless mobile network, or even a Google phone. Google execs reveal that the company’s main goal in bidding on the airwaves is to provide Internet access to those who live in hard-to-reach areas of the country.
