Articles of the Day
Another Exec Bites The Yahoo Dust - Another executive is fleeing Yahoo for BermanBraun, the six-month-old brainchild of former Yahoo Media Group head Lloyd Braun and ex-Paramount Pictures president Gail Berman. Mike Weetman, presently CFO of Yahoo’s Network division, is scheduled to assume the position of COO at BermanBraun.
Stardoll Hits 10 Millionth Registered User - Stardoll, the online destination that lets tween and teen girls create, customize and shop for virtual dolls, announced that it hit the 10 million registered user milestone. The company will give out free virtual “swag bags” to all members featuring gifts like perfume, chocolates, and a version of ‘Seventeen’ magazine. Stockholm-based Stardoll AB launched the site just over a year ago–after a name change and upgrade from Paperdollheaven.com–and Stardoll.com has since been ranked by as the top destination in June for girls ages 9-17 (on comScore’s Top 1000 Web sites list).
Newspapers Incorporate Video, Other Web Offerings - A new study of newspapers’ Web offerings shows that online video has become a nearly ubiquitous feature offered by major U.S. publications. The Bivings Group study, which analyzed the Web offerings of the top 100 newspapers according to Fas-Fax data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, found that 92 of the largest newspaper sites now offer video, a 31 percent jump from a year ago. Their video sources are varied: 39 papers offer original video content, 26 use video from the Associated Press, 13 use video from local news outlets and 10 papers use at least two types of video content on their site.
Chicago Scraps Wi-Fi Plans - Chicago’s municipal Wi-Fi project is the latest to hit the skids, yet another worrying sign that citywide WI-Fi as a business may not work. ISPs EarthLink and AT&T, which operate muni Wi-Fi networks for several cities, both opted out of the Chicago project after the city told them it was unwilling to pay to install the network. In trade, the city had offered to provide the infrastructure, but that wasn’t enough; Chicago has since pulled the plug.
Automatic AdWords Optimization Doesn’t Make the Grade - Google rolled out the AdWords Campaign Optimizer last month, a tool that analyzes existing keyword campaigns and suggests ways to improve performance, but StraightUpSearch blogger Matt finds that the tool falls short of its claims to help “fine tune” ad campaigns. The team at Oneupweb (parent company behind the StraightUpSearch blog) ran tests and found that the automated application’s recommendations would have sent “a perfectly profitable campaign into a tailspin.”
