MySpace Profiles Follow Users to Twitter, eBay, Elsewhere

Reuters reports that MySpace users will now be able to share information on sites like Twitter, Yahoo and eBay. MySpace users may control what information — such as profile pictures and contact information — gets shared. The move is tied to MySpace's support of OpenSocial, which encourages interoperability of applications and tools between social networks […]

Posted: Friday, May 9th, 2008

Clearwire, Sprint Partner for WiMax Venture; Telecoms Tag Along

Clearwire and Sprint Nextel are combining wireless broadband units, reports The Associated Press. The duo will operate under the Clearwire label and focus on the development and implementation of WiMax high-speed internet technology. WiMax is faster than standard Wi-Fi. Clearwire and Sprint believe this liaison will expedite its mainstream availability. Sprint Nextel will own about 51 percent […]

Posted: Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Startups Explore 'Interactive' Alternatives to Old-Fashioned Banners

Slowdown in the online ad market has many startups — which count on ad revenue to push otherwise unprofitable ideas onto the production floor — seeking alternatives, reports the Wall Street Journal. Models of particular interest are ad formats that add "value" to the "user experience" instead of operating on a pure pay-per-click basis. meebo, for […]

Posted: Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

AT&T Mobile TV Goes Live — Really, This Time — On Sunday

AT&T has announced it will launch its mobile TV initiative this Sunday. After a handful of delays, last March the company conservatively arranged a May debut. The service is available on LG Vu and the Samsung Access, across 58 markets including New York, Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Chicago. Powered by Qualcomm's MediaFLO, the AT&T Mobile TV lineup includes […]

Posted: Friday, May 2nd, 2008

PIXSTA Fuses Advertising to Image-to-Image Search

London-based PIXSTA has launched a search engine that lets users search for images with other images — a capability unmatched by text-to-text and text-to-image search engines. PIXSTA visitors query by clicking on a product's photo, which returns items of similar color, shape or texture. Clicking on the new options re-submits them as search terms, further terracing […]

Posted: Thursday, May 1st, 2008

24/7, Mindset Put Heads Together for Predictive Ads

24/7 has partnered with Mindset Media to launch Mindset Buys, which serves ads based on educated guesses about future purchasing behavior. Mindset gathers past online behavior to build unique profiles. Based on that data, 24/7 shall deliver targeted ads that presuppose what users might buy next. Sensing a potentially major source of pushback, executives involved said no […]

Posted: Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Mobile IM Use May Overtake SMS, Mobile Email

SMS (texting) and mobile email may well be overtaken by mobile instant messaging (MIM), according to a TNS Global Telecoms Insight (GTI) survey of 17,000 consumers across 30 countries, MarketingCharts reports. Globally, 11 of 100 messages sent by mobile device or fixed PC are instant messages, the survey found. And 8 percent of all mobile […]

Posted: Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Streaming Ads Get High-Def Treatment — and are Likely Better for It

DoubleClick and Brightroll have incorporated high-definition (HD) video into streaming advertising, reports ClickZ. Since the debut of Adobe's high-definition video format, HD video spots have primarily been used in expanding banner ads. DoubleClick and Brightroll now offer units that begin in a normal video window, but which can then be expanded to full-screen, high-definition video. A number […]

Posted: Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Google Developing 'PageRank' for Image Search

Last week at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing, Google researchers presented VisualRank, an algorithm that blends image-recognition software with techniques for ranking similar images, reports The New York Times. VisualRank is positioned as PageRank for images. Google's PageRank helps determine a site's value, based on content and scaled from 0-10. The higher the […]

Posted: Monday, April 28th, 2008

Google Slow to Act on Cookies Pledge

Google has been slow to make any of the changes it promised regarding collection and storage of private user data, reports The Financial Times. At issue are cookies, which are dropped on user's computers. Cookies track web activity and are used to deliver targeted ads. Last year, Google said it would consider revising its cookie policy […]

Posted: Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

BayTSP, NTT to Launch DIY Copyright Protection Technology for Online Video

BayTSP has formed a partnership with NTT that enables publishers to use video and audio fingerprinting technologies to learn whether their content is misused online, particularly on sites like Google Video, YouTube or Daily Motion. BayTSP provides content authentication technology; NTT's content recognition platform has not, up until this point, debuted in the US. NTT has provided […]

Posted: Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Spammers Crack CAPTCHA; ReCAPTCHA to the Rescue?

SecurityLabs has written an analysis on how spammers increasingly evade Captcha to impersonate humans with bots. CAPTCHA, or "the Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart," is a common line of defense against comment spam and false registrations on websites. Last year CAPTCHA released a means to correct digitized books while checking for […]

Posted: Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Forrester: Marketers Bullish on Mobile; Consumers Need More Time

A report by Forrester Research finds most marketers expect the effectiveness of mobile ads to grow in the next few years, Brandweek reports. 83 percent of surveyed marketers see the effectiveness of mobile advertising rising over the next three years. That view is based largely on the increasing dependence on mobile devices by consumers, 20 percent […]

Posted: Monday, April 14th, 2008

Digital Media Screens in Quick-Service Restaurants Get Attention

Millions of US adults visit quick-service restaurants each month, and they constitute a prime audience for in-store digital media, according to an Indoor Direct study conducted by Arbitron at Wendy's, Denny's, Hardee's, Arby's, and CiCi's Pizza stores, writes MarketingCharts. Nearly 100 million people - about 42 percent of the US adult population - visit at […]

Posted: Thursday, April 10th, 2008

In Wireless Carrier Choice, Price Outdoes Coverage; Mobile Web Use Grows

5-15 percent of customers (depending on the carrier) plan to switch carriers within the next six months. Lower price will be the primary reason for 19 percent of them, according to a comScore report on wireless consumer choices, MarketingCharts writes. Wireless Price vs. Coverage Coverage is still the strongest factor driving consumers' wireless purchasing decisions, with 22 […]

Posted: Monday, April 7th, 2008

Yahoo, Verizon Launch Voice Search Services

Verizon and Yahoo have introduced new and upgraded voice search products, respectively. Verizon has debuted 1-800-THE-INFO. Users may voice-search for businesses by name or location at no charge in exchange for listening to a short ad. Yahoo also unveiled a voice search tool for its OneSearch platform, reports Reuters. The company licensed technology from Vlingo to allow […]

Posted: Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

Amazon, Rockstar Sell MP3s in 'Stolen' Cars — Via GTA IV

Rockstar Games and Amazon are setting foundations for a new way to sell music: inside console-based games like Grand Theft Auto IV, which debuts at April's end. When players hear an appealing song in a car they've stolen within GTA IV, they can earmark the MP3 by dialing ZIT-555-0100 from an in-game mobile phone, reports Yahoo […]

Posted: Monday, March 31st, 2008

SceneCaster Uses AdSense to Vend Virtual Goods

SceneCaster, a virtual world that lets users to build personal spaces ("scenes") and "cast" them out onto the web, is using Google AdSense to proffer virtual goods, reports VirtualWorldNews. AdSense links are built into the metadata for an object, regardless of whether the item was introduced by SceneCaster or an outside developer. Items in worlds like […]

Posted: Friday, March 28th, 2008

Alternative Media Poised for Strong Growth in '08, Despite Slowing Economy

Spending on alternative media in the US jumped 22.0 percent from 2006 levels to reach $73.43 billion in 2007. That rapid growth is expected to continue in 2008 despite a slowing economy, according to a new report from PQ Media, MarketingCharts writes. Alternative media, including 18 digital and non-traditional media segments, accounted for 16.1 percent of […]

Posted: Thursday, March 27th, 2008

MediaMath Brings Meta to Ad Exchanges

MediaMath has launched a tool that enables media buyers to manage multiple ad exchanges from one dashboard. The service has launched with account support for Right Media and the DoubleClick Advertising Exchange. Other exchanges have been approached but have not yet joined. The MediaMath platform allows users to view ad progress and retarget them from a […]

Posted: Thursday, March 27th, 2008