Articles of the Day
Havas Reports Strong Organic Growth, Beats Expectations — Havas, the Paris-based parent of MPG, Media Contacts, Euro RSCG and others, this morning reported first quarter 2007 revenues of 345 million euros, up from 321 million, with organic growth of 7.4%. The results, which beat analyst expectations, reflect a “significant increase in growth” across all of Havas’ North American operations, which posted an organic increase of 6.0% during the quarter. “This confirms the positive trend observed throughout 2007, underscores the validity of our business model based on integration with digital at the core and reflects our stronger position in key market,.” Fernando Rodés Vilà, CEO of the Havas Group, said in the statement.
Marchex Announces Local Content Partnerships — Marchex, a local online ad company and publisher of local content, will announce several partnerships today with providers including Yelp, Avvo, Frommer’s and Priceline. Under the separate agreements, Marchex will add more than 5 million reviews and ratings to its network, bringing the total number nationwide to more than 8 million. The content will be integrated into Marchex’s network, which attracts more than 26 million unique monthly users and features more than 150,000 local Web sites.
Apple To Open Virtual Stores — Apple may be planning to open a virtual-world shop, more sophisticated than those that already exist in virtual worlds such as Second Life, based on a technology patent. The patent application, entitled “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere” and submitted in Sep 2006, has just been published by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Speculation that the project may lead to a virtual world environment is supported by some of the invention details. For instance, Apple says that “visitors to the site are represented by human-shaped icons” moving in a virtual retail store with a shopping cart. Users will be able to see other shoppers and to interact with them and with the sales staff. Items will also be represented by icons, along with other “realistic” details such as indicators of the season and the time of the day. The key point of Apple’s project is to let online shoppers know what other users on the site are doing - for instance which items they are looking at or buying. This is based on the idea that online shopping is at a disadvantage compared to physical shopping from not letting users interact with fellow shoppers and see their behaviour.
Microsoft Trials Web-Based Office-Apps — Microsoft is trialling a subscription-based service that will let users in the US update their Office applications, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint, online. The software giant has not released pricing details or a launch date for the offer, which is code-named Albany and is still in private beta. Microsoft already offers subscription-based Office services in emerging markets. The move is Microsoft’s latest effort to branch into web-based applications, or Software-as-a-Service. Players such as Google and Salesforce are increasingly putting pressure on Microsoft’s licensed software business model by offering online consumer and business applications, at low cost or for free. Last week, Salesforce said it would integrate Google Apps into its on-demand customer relationship management (CRM), allowing CRM and desktop applications to work together.
Bloomberg Encouraged To Buy NYT — “Top associates” of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg are encouraging him to buy The New York Times (NYT), says a report in Newsweek. The proponents reportedly argue that Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of the Bloomberg financial news agency, believe the businessman is best placed to help the NYT fight rising competition from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Responding to the report, however, Bloomberg said, quoted by Reuters: “I am not going to go into the newspaper business. I am not a newspaper person.” The WSJ is set to increasingly challenge the NYT following its acquisition by News Corp. News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly expressed his intention to take on the NYT by making the WSJ more mainstream and more international. Questioned by Newsweek, Murdoch says he “wouldn’t look forward to going up against [Bloomberg]”, citing his “great respect for Bloomberg’s business abilities.”
CNET Partners With StrategyEye And Reuters For In-depth News Portal — US online media network CNET is partnering with news providers including StrategyEye, Reuters and Seeking Alpha to provide feeds for its new portal, BNET Industries. Launched on Apr 15, BNET offers in-depth news and information on some 9,000 companies across 11 sectors and will target business managers. The site is free to access and is supported by advertising, including from Adobe, Bank of America and Microsoft. The deal is the first global partnership for London-based StrategyEye, which launched in Apr 2006 and serves clients in Europe and the US. Both BNET and StrategyEye, which uses contextual meta-data to pull in and organise feeds on relevant companies and categories, help executives monitor their market, says Nick Gregg, CEO of StrategyEye. “Our value-chain mapping coupled with the accuracy of our article indexing will allow BNET users to quickly understand the context of any event and easily assess its broader strategic impact.”
Break Media Launches Online Video Industry Group — Break Media today plans to announce the launch of a new industry group seeking to promote the efficacy of online video advertising. Composed of online video companies, agencies and technology providers, the Online Video Advertising ROI Council aims to provide a forum for research, discussion and education centered on the emerging video ad category. In addition to Break Media, charter members include Ogilvy One, truTV, the National Geographic Channel, AT&T, Panache, Lotame, Visible Measures, Horizon Media and Initiative Media.
The ‘Gold Rush” For Ad Nets is On; But Crowded Space Brings An End To Remnants’ Low Prices — A prolonged economic downturn could turn out to be a upturn for advertising networks, at least in the short term. But, as the space gets more crowded with companies selling remnant, or unsold inventory, the fortunes for many such ad nets could change. As the NYT illustrates, many ad networks that focus on remnant ad space charge as little as $4 CPMs versus the average $40 CPMs commanded by portals like Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) or MSN. Meanwhile, the suddenly trendy vertical ad nets offered by major media publishers don’t offer the promise of cheap prices; instead, promising greater placement on top sites and like-minded affiliates. While the low price is the key for remnant ad nets, improved targeting has helped support their use. But as ad nets proliferate, expect low prices to rise, diminishing their primary selling point to advertisers. David Hallerman, an eMarketer senior analyst, tells NYT: “These are the gold rush days now for ad networks. And that kind of counters the appeal of ad networks for advertisers’ agencies, which was to simplify the purchase of ads. And that’s why it’s unlikely that a great number of ad networks will survive.”
