Articles of the Day
Gay Ad Net Launches With Key Advertisers On Board - Allstate, Ford, eBay and Atlantis Events were among the advertisers running across the entire Gay Ad Network as the new vertical venture officially launched Tuesday on 200+ Web sites representing more than two dozen online publishers–including local gay newspapers, national gay magazines, independent content sites and social networking services.
AOL Revamps GameDaily for Users, Advertisers - AOL has revamped its gaming site, GameDaily, unveiling new community features like user reviews, widgets and online video–and new rich media and sponsorship opportunities for advertisers. Blockbuster, Doritos and Electronic Arts have already signed on as brand sponsors.
MySpace Leads U.S. Mobile Social Networking - MySpace emerged as the leader in mobile social networking in the U.S., with some 3.7 million monthly users in July according to M:Metrics. Facebook placed second, with 2 million, while YouTube rounded out the top three with just over 900,000.
Hearst Enters Lucrative Quinceanera Market - Hearst Magazines is stepping into the young Hispanic arena with the launch of MisQuinceMag.com, a new online-only service magazine for teenage girls covering the quinceanera–a traditional coming-of-age party for 15-year-old girls celebrated in many Spanish-speaking countries and now the U.S., too. The new online offering will compete with Quince Girl, launched two years ago.
A Common Misconception Regarding Video Advertising - It seems every venture capitalist and holding company is investing in online video platforms without a true understanding of the challenges and issues facing scalability. I’ve done a tremendous amount of research into the space, and from what I can tell, there are no current tools for dynamically serving third-party video ads into online video content! From what I can see, most of the existing video networks either serve video into existing ad units, such as 728×90 or 160×600 ad units, into existing ad locations — which is what Klipmart did for a number of years and still does now that it is part of DoubleClick (and potentially Google), or they are hard-coding or manually attaching video spots like 30-second commercials into existing video content. This model is not scalable, nor is it what advertisers truly want.
Is Yahoo! Better than Google? - What makes one portal better than another, either for users or for marketers? Or are all portals fundamentally alike, easily exchanged by visitors and advertisers? Further, how does Yahoo! differentiate itself from Google or MSN, for instance? From the audience point of view, as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, US consumers now express more satisfaction with Yahoo! than Google, Ask.com, MSN or AOL. The ACSI report on e-business Web sites is sponsored by ForeSee Results.
Experts Assess Google’s Management - The Wall Street Journal asks two experts — Professor Thomas Eisenmann, a Harvard Business School Associate, and Gary Hamel, a management consultant — to assess one of the great Google debates: “Is Google rewriting the rules of good management? Or is it just enjoying the rewards of a single well-timed breakthrough?”
Muni Wi-Fi Foundering - Municipal Wi-Fi, once hyped as the coolest new way to get Internet access on the cheap, is in trouble. Hundreds of citywide projects have been announced in the last few years, but the one with the highest profile, the one San Francisco operated by Google and EarthLink, is in limbo. Contractual disputes, the high cost of building the networks, and the potentially low margins, have caused many operators to halt the building of municipal Wi-Fi networks in other areas, too, like Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
Yahoo Refreshes Local Search - Despite its status as a pioneer of local search and early integrator of community and ratings/reviews, Yahoo has faced growing pressure — from Google and Microsoft in dynamic mapping — and then from new local and community sites such as Yelp. So Greg Sterling applauds the redesign of Yahoo Local, which launched last night.
