Articles of the Day
The Other Guy Blinkx: Denuo Strikes Deal With Video Search Engine, Hopes To Develop Best Practices - Publicis’ Denuo unit this morning announced a deal with video search engine blinkx to develop a set of “best practices” for advertising and marketing tied to online video. Among other things, the companies said they would collaborate on projects that would explore how the ad industry can deliver online video advertising campaigns that map to the right audience, are delivered in the right context, and run in the most appropriate form.
Yahoo Execs Pique Interest With Apex Hints - Promising to “revolutionize” Internet advertising, Yahoo founder and CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker coyly hinted at some capabilities of Yahoo’s new “Advertiser-Publisher Exchange,” or Apex, at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Ecosystem 2.0 conference in Phoenix on Monday.
Take-Two Rejects EA’s $2 Billion Takeover Bid - Take-Two Interactive Software, parent company of Rockstar Games and the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise, has rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from Electronic Arts (EA). EA proposed to acquire Take-Two for $26 per share in cash, or roughly $2 billion. Take-Two’s Board of Directors publicly said the offer undervalues the publisher’s “robust and enviable stable of game franchises, exceptional creative talent and strong consumer loyalty.”
ContextWeb Launches Ad Campaign For ADSDAQ - To promote the community aspect of its ADSDAQ ad exchange, ContextWeb today is launching an ad campaign featuring the very advertisers and publishers who make up ADSDAQ, its network. “This is about the formal launch of our community, which we think will be an important ingredient in the evolution of the exchange,” Burns told Online Media Daily in an exclusive interview.
Web Video Viewers Will Continue To Increase Consumption - With TV networks and studios putting more of their programming online–through their own sites or portals such as News Corp. and NBC’s Hulu–Web viewers will increasingly shift from video “snacking” to full-length TV episodes and movies in the next five years, according to a new study on online video by eMarketer.
Washingtonpost.com Partners With Kiplinger’s To Boost Personal Finance Coverage - Washingtonpost.com has entered into a content partnership with Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine and Kiplinger.com in its latest effort to boost the Post’s personal finance coverage online.
Glam Media Seeks To Expand, Raises More Financing - Seeking expansion into new content categories and global markets, fashion and shopping e-publisher Glam Media has raised another $84.6 million in financing led by German publishing behemoth Hubert Burda Media.
Yahoo Prepares Open Search Platform - Yahoo is preparing to launch a new search platform that would allow third parties to modify results by adding images, data and links. Listings can be modified, but the order of results cannot. Codenamed “SearchMonkey”, Yahoo execs say the effect is supposed to be similar to that of Greasemonkey, a Firefox add-on that lets users see modified versions of Web sites. Similarly, SearchMonkey would be a series of search add-ons that users could turn on and off (though some will be turned on by default). Open search would certainly open the door to more information for a given result. Yelp, a user generated local business review site, is one of the launch partners. Its listing will now include a photo, review information and the address and the company’s contact information.
Yahoo Launches Digg-Like Social News Features - Yahoo is taking direct aim at social-news aggregators like Digg and Reddit with a new tool called Yahoo Buzz that calls up the most popular articles voted on by the Web site’s massive user base. As part of the Buzz launch, Yahoo is also introducing previews of content on other sites. For example, a search for a LinkedIn user could return links to that person’s connections or their full profile; a search for a restaurant could include links to a reservation page or a review. The moves are in line with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s wish to open the Web giant’s services to third-party publishers.
Google January Revenues Are “Disaster” - ComScore is reporting “shockingly bad” paid search performance for Google in January. Being a panel-based traffic measurement firm, comScore’s won’t be exact, but as Silicon Alley Insider’s notes, “Even if Comscore is only half right, this is a disaster.” The surprising news broke in a flash note from Bear Sterns analyst Bob Peck. ComScore reported 532 million domestic paid clicks in January, flat year-over-year, but down 12 percent since October. Click-throughs were the lowest since comScore started reporting the data, which only came from Google.com (not the AdSense network) in the U.S.
eBay Strike Ends, Seller Wrath Grows - eBay sellers went on strike earlier this month after the ecommerce giant raised fees and implemented other policies that sellers claim silence them. The one-week strike ended today after the company, surprisingly, said it didn’t care–they need us more than we need them.
Fox Said To Be Exploring Termination Of Google Advertising Deal - Even while parent company News Corp. continues to try to disrupt the Microsoft/Yahoo merger, Fox Interactive Media (FIM) is rumored to be in negotiations with Microsoft take Google’s place as the MySpace advertising partner. The Google-FIM deal, first announced in August 2006, obligated Google to make guaranteed minimum revenue share payments to FIM of at least $900 million based on Fox achieving certain traffic and other commitments. But the original deal was negotiated in extreme haste, say people with knowledge of the deal. In February 2007 the parties were rumored to be working on the final agreement, months after ads were already being served by Google. That long form agreement was never actually signed. In Google’s haste to keep the deal from Microsoft they may have paid more than they can stomach.
AOL To Pump Out Quigo Text Ads - AOL will begin serving its own text ads across some of the most popular sites in its network via Quigo, the PPC engine it bought for $340 million in November. While AOL will continue to serve Google text ads to visitors, the Web giant will also run Quigo ads on sections including News, Money & Finance, Sports, Email and Entertainment.
