Articles of the Day
Google Takes On Facebook With OpenSocial - Google today will give outside Web developers standardized tools to create applications for social networks including Orkut, LinkedIn and Friendster. With the move, Google challenges fast-growing social networking site Facebook, which unveiled a similar plan in May.
Best Buy Unveils Paid Video-Sharing Service - Bucking nearly every trend in online media today, Best Buy this week has partnered with Mydeo to launch a closed and paid service for consumers to share uploaded video online. Prices start at $6.97 for 100 minutes of video hosting and video lengths up to 30 minutes each.
IAC 3Q Profit Dips 4% - IAC/InterActiveCorp. reported strong media and advertising growth in the third quarter, but not enough to offset a 41% drop in LendingTree revenue.
Online, Newspaper Audiences Up, But Revenue Growth Slows - More people are reading newspapers–online. Roughly 59.6 million people visited newspaper Web sites in July, according to new figures from the Newspaper Association of America released Wednesday. That’s 37.1% of all active Internet users in the U.S., and the number represents a 9% increase over the same month in 2006.
Google Now Bigger Than Buffet’s Empire - The world’s largest online company at more than $700 per share, is now worth more than Warren Buffet’s massive investment firm Berkshire-Hathaway. The Web giant’s continued growth is staggering, considering that the company went public just three years ago at $89 per share. The company’s share price this year has surged 54% from $460.48 at the end of 2006.
Online Privacy: What Consumers Think - Ad Age weighs in on the debate about whether consumers really care about online tracking. The trade pub’s answer, more or less, is no — unless privacy groups and bloggers make a big enough stink about a given topic. Even privacy advocates contend there ought to be a bigger consumer outcry over Web tracking. Of course they say there would be if the average consumer understood the process better.
NBC to Shut Down DotComedy - NBC Universal continues to clean house with online properties that are either no longer necessary or no longer working out. DotComedy is the latest to receive the axe following minimal interest. In the coming months the company says it plans to fold the comedy site’s content into NBC.com. Mediaweek says it’s unclear whether or not the DotComedy brand will retain its own channel.
Ad Network Spree Opens Door For Specific Media - Few independent ad networks remain after the acquisition tear earlier this year by Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN, but among the biggest is Specific Media — which according to CEO Tim Vanderhook, thoroughly plans to keep its autonomy. On Thursday the company announced it would put its new (and massive) $100 million round of funding from Francisco Partners toward other ad network acquisitions in anticipation of a future IPO. Specific and its investors think those that cashed out to major Web firms left behind an opportunity worth exploiting: advertisers and publishers alike worry about brokering their advertising transactions through Big Web, opening the door for an independent player like Specific Media.
Gauging The Effects Of Offermatica And Optimost Acquisitions - The recent acquisitions of site-testing and optimization firms Offermatica and Optimost shine a spotlight on landing pages and their growing importance when it comes to search and online marketing overall. According to Jonathan Mendez, founder and CSO of Offermatica’s OTTO Digital, “You need to strategize around every page as if it were a landing page, because it is.” Sara Holoubek notes that the acquisitions represent a shift in how marketers define the goals and objectives of a Web site - from traffic, to information gathering, to conversions - which in turn affects how search gets included in the media mix from the onset.
