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Live From the Search Insider Summit: Search Changed Drastically In 2007 - This year was big for search–especially when it came to improvements to the user interface. All four of the major engines introduced a form of blended multimedia search, more features for personalization and more tools to refine queries on-the-fly. While the industry will continue to evolve, the shifts in 2008 will be much less noticeable.                                                   

Webkinz Takes Heat For Taking Advertising - Can The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood pressure Ganz into not taking ads on phenomenally successful Webkins.com? Branding expert Laura Ries is betting Ganz will prevail, as long as it doesn’t “go really overboard.”

Ad Auto Dollars Driving To Net - Worldwide automotive advertising revenues will stay at the $40 billion level for the next three years, according to a recent survey by a Princeton research group. However, there will be a shift in media for those dollars –the Net being a major growth area.

The Promise of Social Network Advertising - Social networking is an Internet success story. This year, 37% of the US adult Internet population used online social networking at least once a month. That figure will rise to 49% in 2011. ”The continued growth of social networking seems assured,” says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending and Usage, “unless teens stop social networking as they become adults.” Don’t bet on that. Currently, 70% of all US teens visit social network sites on a monthly basis.

Google May Exercise AOL IPO Right - More proof that Time Warner may be preparing to unload AOL: Google has the right to force Time Warner to take AOL public, or the media conglomerate runs the risk of search giant buying back its 5 percent stake in AOL. Back in December 2005, Google agreed to invest $1 billion in the beleaguered Web portal, a deal that strengthened the companies’ ties (Google also powers AOL’s search engine). As part of the deal, Google has the right to force Time Warner to conduct an AOL IPO or buyback its stake “at fair market value” on July 1, 2008.

Why MySpace Matters For ‘08 Election - News Corp. claims that MySpace users are more likely to engage with presidential candidates on the Web than the average online adult, according to an internal study. MySpace users are 139 percent more likely to visit an online chat room with public officials and political candidates than the general online adult population. They are also 50 percent more likely to watch political or public affairs-related video online and 29 percent more likely to look up political or campaign related info on the Web. Moreover, a whopping 86 percent said they were “likely” or “extremely likely” to vote in the 2008 election.               

Writers: We Will Move Online - The Hollywood union strike between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is turning into an all-out war. With the strike now in its second month, the talks–which involve writer compensation for new media revenues, among other things–don’t look any closer to a resolution. Which is fine, says Patric Verrone, president of the WGA West, because the stalemate is only creating “entrepreneurial possibilities for the talent community to go directly into production and distribution.” Who needs big media nowadays? Production costs are low, and the Internet provides ready access to a massive audience, right? “With every day that goes by, our members are exploring Internet TV,” Verrone warned the Alliance. “The ability to explore this business without media conglomerates is becoming a real possibility.”

Is OpenSocial to its Own Party? - In late October, Google announced OpenSocial to a great deal of fanfare. Media critics responded by touting the developer consortium, which uses open source code to allow developers to create and run universal applications across a network of social sites, as the future of the social Web. But that was six weeks ago. Yesterday, Facebook announced that its own developer network, whose platform has been around since May, would go live with Bebo, the Web’s No. 3 social network, as its first partner. Meanwhile, OpenSocial isn’t finished, and according to Bebo CEO Michael Birch–whose company is also part of Google’s group–Google’s initiative won’t be ready until “early 2008.”

Adknowledge Buys Facebook Ad Network Cubics - You don’t have to work out of an online advertising hotbed to be a player. Adknowledge has just bought Facebook ad network Cubics, which makes its home in Edmonton, Canada. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Cubics says it represents over 500 application developers. Less than a year old, Cubics claims to be serving over 1B impressions a month. It currently runs ads on Facebook and Friendster and plans to support Bebo and other OpenSocial networks.                         

Penthouse Buys Adult-themed Social Net Various Inc. For $500 Million - Penthouse Media Group has acquired adult-oriented social network operator Various Inc. for $500 million, NYT (FRB: 066570) reports. Various runs more than 25 social net sites under its flagship site,FriendFinder.com. While porn remains one of the most lucrative areas of online media, more traditional companies like Penthouse and Playboy (NYSE: PLA) have been struggling to catch up on the digital side. Playboy CEO Christie Hefner boasted of 50 percent gains in digital revenue earlier this month at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference, thanks in part to the launch of its social net PlayboyU.com this past year. She cited the investment in a community site as a way to extend Playboy’s brand.          

Bankrate Acquires Savingforcollege.com, Nationwide Card Services For Nearly $29MM—Before Earnouts - Consumer financial info site Bankrate.com (NSDQ: RATE) announced two acquisitions today totaling nearly $38 million with potential earnouts: Nationwide Card Services for $26.4 million and $7 million in earnouts, and Savingforcollege.com for $2.25 million plus $2 million in possible earnouts. NCS is an online marketer of business and consumer credit cards. Bankrate has identified credit cards as a key growth area, and it believes it will benefit by combining its traffic with NCS’ platform and affiliate network.

Searcharazzi: Fathom SEO Acquisition Details - The industry has been buzzing for awhile about private equity buyers that just might be interested in picking up some search firms. Here are the details on the acquisition of Fathom SEO by PromiseONE, a private equity buyer.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 11:03 am and is filed under Internet, Digital Media & Software, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.