Articles of the Day
Yahoo Gaining In Search Dollar Share: RBC - A study from SearchIgnite and RBC Capital Markets reveals that more marketers chose to spend incremental search dollars with Yahoo than Google in Q3. While not a seismic shift, it represents positive momentum for Yahoo, which reports its third-quarter results this afternoon.
Agencies Urge AOL To Save Content, As It Slashes 2,000 Jobs - Media executives cautioned that AOL needs to retain the quality of properties such as Moviefone and TMZ in the wake of another 2,000 layoffs worldwide. Otherwise, the move is seen as “background noise” in the positive shift to an organization built for an ad-supported business.
Acxiom Takes Behavioral Targeting To The Next Stage - Database marketing giant Acxiom today officially launches its Relevance-X products designed to allow marketers to make online media buys using an ad network targeting specific customer segments based on their predictive lifestyle and purchase intent profiles.
Nielsen’s New Online, Mobile Units Promise 360-Degree Insights - Nielsen announced structural and organizational changes to its online and mobile audience measurement divisions–aimed at providing advertisers with a “360-degree” read on who their targets are, how they’re consuming media, and which devices to reach them on. The changes are built on the formation of two separate, but fully cooperative divisions–Nielsen Online and Nielsen Mobile.
Not Enough Web Dollars to Go Around? - As Web spending continues to hit new records each year, media execs are wondering whether the growth is sustainable. Are advertising expectations out of control? Some say that new media companies are taking advertising for granted, worrying that there may not be enough ad dollars to go around. Says NBC Universal’s Beth Comstock, whose Integrated Media division is setting up a fund to invest in new media companies. “It’s just not going to be possible,” she said. “There are not going to be enough advertising dollars in the marketplace. No matter how clever we are, no matter what the format is.”
Google Unveils Fingerprinting Technology For YouTube - Nearly one year and several lawsuits after buying YouTube, Google has finally unveiled a digital fingerprinting technology to help identify user uploaded videos that violate the intellectual property rights of media content owners. Reviewers of the long-delayed new system applaud Google’s efforts, but say the search giant still needs to do some refining.
Why Google Fears Facebook - By even the highest valuation, Google is still more than 15 times the size of Facebook. With a market capitalization of $190 billion, Google could eat the social network for lunch, and yet it’s Facebook that’s got the Web giant running scared. Google understands that it needs to grab a foothold in social networking, but Facebook, frustratingly, isn’t for sale. And given its ad ambitions, Mark Zuckerburg’s Facebook reminds one of a pre-IPO Google, circa 2003.
Universal To Challenge iTunes - Its relationship with Apple in tatters, Universal Music Group has decided to pool together other big music companies independent record labels to create an iTunes competitor. UMG already has Sony BMG and Warner Music Group on board, which together would represent 75% of the music market. UMG’s plan is to supply iPod competitors like Microsoft’s Zune with the fodder it needs to compete with Apple. The service would be called Total Music. No comment yet from UMG.
Network Solutions’ Local Search Offering - Domain name registration and Web hosting services firm Network Solutions recently rolled out a business-only local search offering called ThinkLocal.com — and Chris “Silver” Smith gives it a quick write-up in this post. Smith notes that while Network Solutions has some advantages (indexing the wealth of domains it hosts, for example) the ThinkLocal service still has kinks to work out and more robust sources of business listings to crawl.
