Articles of the Day
Google Considers Video for Search Listings - Google is discussing ways to integrate video or image ads into sponsored search results. But Google executives say they will proceed “cautiously and slowly” because the images and video ads on content networks will not carry over in the Universal Search context.
Nielsen: Obama On Top For Web Traffic - Democrats are getting more bang for the buck in terms of traffic on their Web sites, according to new data from The Nielsen Co. Senator Barack Obama is leading all presidential candidates in visitors to their campaign Web sites with 717,000 unique visitors. Among Republicans, Fred Thompson’s ImWithFred.com drew the most unique visitors in July, with 381,000–although he had not yet announced his candidacy.
NEXT.TV Brings TV-Like Experience to PCs - A new Internet television service on Hewlett-Packard consumer notebooks will allows users to view TV and video content anywhere there is a broadband Internet connection. Users will be able to enjoy hit TV shows, movies, music videos, shorts, documentaries and more for free.
AOL Finalizes Tacoda Acquisition - AOL joins the ranks of Google and Yahoo with the acquisition of its own behavioral targeting network. The behavioral targeting market is projected to increase to $3.8 billion by 2011, from $350 million in 2006.
Shareholders File Another Class Action Against ValueClick - Another class action lawsuit charges that ValueClick senior management violated federal securities laws by issuing various materially false and misleading statements that artificially inflated the market price of the Company’s securities. ValueClick maintains it did nothing inappropriate or illegal.
Cox TV Spins Off Digital Sales Company - COX TELEVISION HOPES TO TAKE a bite out of the billions of dollars spent annually on online display advertising. The Atlanta-based company is spinning off Cox Cross Media. Effective Oct. 1, the new digital sales company will be based in New York. It will initially market and sell online media advertising for the 300-plus television stations that are currently represented by Cox Television’s three national sales representative firms: TeleRep, Harrington Righter & Parsons (HRP) and MMT Sales.
Casting the Big Movie Download Roles - There are a lot of ways to download movies. Netflix and Blockbuster offer digital rentals. CinemaNow and Amazon offer movies for sale. Yet none have gone mainstream in the way that Apple’s iTunes has. The competition may also last a while, since studios are trying to avoid creating another power player as happened with Apple and digital music. The market for movie downloads will reach $720 million in 2011 in the United States, according to Screen Digest’s “Online Movie Strategies: Competitive Review and Market Outlook.” Studio and content owners are expected to take $530 million of that 2011 market. Service and solution providers including Amazon, Apple and Netflix will take the rest.
‘Daily Show,’ Other MTV Brands Get Their Own Sites - Web sites for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and two dozen other brands that fall under the MTV Networks umbrella are being prepared for a first-quarter launch, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “The Daily Show” site, for example, which actually launches in the fourth quarter, will contain the entire video history of each show, including headlines, interviews and the “Back in Black” feature. Episodes will be available in their entirety an hour or two after broadcast.
DoJ Warns Against Net Neutrality - The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday backed the big telecommunications companies in the States, warning the Federal Communications Commission not to impose so-called “net neutrality” rules on Internet service providers. Should the FCC decide not to, ISPs would be allowed to prioritize how they distribute network bandwidth.
OnTheToob Joins Joost - Joost, a startup itself in the area of Web TV, has just brought in digital programming guide OnTheToob.com along with its creator Hal Schechner. OnTheToob’s technology–which helps Joost beta testers create customized channels and RSS feeds out of Joost’s some 238 channels and 10,298 programs–will now likely be rolled into an enhanced version of Joost.
