Articles of the Day
Social Networking High On Time’s Web Agenda - The shift in mindset to time spent from pages viewed will work to the advantage of Time Inc.’s Web brands as the company plays up the consumer “engagement” factor of such flagship sites as People.com and SI.com, and works to land some big advertising deals, predicts John Squires, executive vice president of Time Inc. Plans for social networking should help, too.
MSNBC.com Launches Vertical Ad Network, Next Hot Thing - In a wave of things to come, MSNBC.com has launched online vertical advertising networks for its TODAYshow.com and politics sections that give small publishers access to its content while increasing the amount of inventory it can sell to advertisers. It’s all about wresting dollars away from Google AdSense and others.
Monster Asks: What’s Your Job Sign? - Monster.com has launched “Job Sign,” an online viral campaign designed to bring the Monster brand front-of-mind with job seekers, Jungian psychology buffs, and anyone who’s had a curious workplace experience. Maine-based VIA is the marketing and communications agency behind the effort.
Study: Online Local Search Booming, But Print Still Strong - A new comScore study indicates a third of consumers still consider print yellow pages to be their primary source of local business information. However, 60% go to the Web first for their local searches.
How Now Murdoch-Owned Dow? Look For Free WSJ.com - With the fate of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal all but sealed, speculation shifted to just how the online properties might change once the deal closes.
MediaWhiz Buys Out Shoemoney’s Share Of AuctionAds - With the Affiliate network boasting more than 25,000 publishers just five months after launch, MediaWhiz moves from one-third ownership to 100%.
Parfums Givenchy, Fredericks of Hollywood Use Brickfish For UGC Campaigns - Brickfish, a San Diego-based online marketing company, is set to launch campaigns for Parfums Givenchy and Fredericks of Hollywood involving UGC. Users can create an ad slogan for the former and a corset for the latter.
Is RSS the Best of Web 2.0? - Really Simple Syndication (RSS) has the highest value among Web 2.0 technologies, according to a Forrester Research report cited in a BtoB article. RSS was considered to have substantial business value by 23% of respondents. One in three said they used RSS for marketing. Web 2.0 business value was not measured by 14% of respondents. Of those who did measure, most looked at metrics such as ROI and total cost of ownership.
Japan: YouTube Copyright Technology Not Enough - A group of Japanese media companies slammed Google’s YouTube, accusing the online video site of not doing enough to rid itself of copyrighted videos. Calls were made for the company to make wholesale changes to its site; the coalition was also skeptical that a new video recognition technology would sufficiently guard against copyright infringement.
Microsoft Unveils Ad-Supported, Desktop Works - Taking a page from the Google playbook, Microsoft on Wednesday said it would start offering a free, ad-supported version of Works, its basic spreadsheet and word-processing software, as part of a testing program with computer manufacturers. The free Works would be a rival to Google Docs and Spreadsheets, which is Web-based, although Works is not. That means ads would be stored in users cache folders, refreshed each time a user logs onto the Web. Microsoft is yet to disclose its partners for the new software, which used to go for $40.
Report: Yahoo “Must” Acquire Social Network - Jerry Yang’s reign as Yahoo CEO is yet to have any impact on the company’s poor stock performance, but Bear Sterns analyst Robert Peck, in a 22-page report, has a few ideas for him. Peck says the priority No. 1 for the ailing Web giant should be to address its woefully under-developed social-networking strategy. A recent report from the Web traffic monitor comScore says that social sites account for 60% of the world’s Internet users. For a company that once thrived on its ability to attract the masses, it’s unbelievable that Yahoo has failed to jump on the bandwagon. Social networks have stolen Yahoo users, particularly young users, stunting the company’s ad growth.
