Narrow down your results by adding or subtracting another category. Numbers in the columns below indicate how many stories will be shown as a result of adding / removing each category. [ Help ]

Your current selection	AND	NOT
» ad buying & planning	197	645
» ad pricing	36	806
» ad selling	120	722
» ad targeting	93	749
» ad technologies & vendors	85	757
» advertainment	12	830
» Advertising	2	840
» affiliate marketing	9	833
» agencies & ad departments	72	770
» alternative marketing	35	807
» Asia/Pacific	36	806
» automotive	20	822
» b2b	21	821
» best practices	27	815
» Beyond Marketing	1	841
» biz buzz	193	649
» branding	30	812
» broadband	62	780
» campaigns & creatives of note	29	813
» case studies	8	834
» co-op marketing & partnerships	17	825
» computers & tech	62	780
» consumer packaged goods	26	816
» CRM	2	840
» cross media	52	790
» deep coverage	1	841
» demographics	60	782
» direct marketing	99	743
» domain names	45	797
» don't believe the hype	40	802
» e-commerce	120	722
» email marketing	49	793
» entertainment	103	739
» Europe	64	778
» events	12	830
» finance	52	790
» global	21	821
» healthcare	14	828
» I-PR & business communications	16	826
» instant messaging marketing	5	837
» interviews	2	840
» intrusive formats	58	784
» Latin America	5	837
» legal, government & regulation	228	614
» loyalty & retention	32	810
» major account moves	19	823
» major brands	147	695
» major players news	272	570
» measurement & analytics	50	792
» media convergence	52	790
» minorities	4	838
» mobile marketing	30	812
» multi-channel marketing	10	832
» new and improved	16	826
» nonsense & parodies	21	821
» online ad market	178	664
» pearls of wisdom	12	830
» people	69	773
» personalization	14	828
» political parties & organizations	42	800
» privacy	89	753
» promotions	7	835
» publishing	169	673
» real estate	6	836
» research & stats	251	591
» rich media	14	828
» search engine marketing	94	748
» seniors	8	834
» sex sells	3	839
» signs of recovery	27	815
» signs of what's to come	258	584
» small business	8	834
» spam & anti-spam	60	782
» Spanish-speaking	2	840
» syndication & RSS	12	830
» technical innovation	30	812
» telecom	18	824
» text ads	43	799
» tools & software	83	759
» top stories	140	702
» travel	9	833
» user experience	135	707
» viral marketing & social media	17	825
» weblog marketing	19	823
» women	17	825
» worst practices	240	602
» Youth	22	820

E-commerce Spending Falls First Time

U.S. e-commerce spending fell for the first time on record in 2009, according to the comScore 2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review. Total U.S. e-commerce spending reached $209.6 billion in 2009, down 2% compared to the previous year and the first year on record with negative growth rates. Travel e-commerce spending dropped 5% to $79.8 billion, while retail (non-travel) e-com  [...]
Posted: Tuesday, February 16th 2010

Industry Buzz & Snippets: 02/12/10

Ad Formats & Technologies: Facebook releases beta version of ad conversion tracking. Yahoo display strategy turns to OPA ad formats in effort to drive premium prices. Scotttrade   [...]
Posted: Friday, February 12th 2010

Online Retailers Tackle Sales-Tax Hurdles

Sales taxes - or the absence of them - are one of the big reasons why some online retailers can often beat out their brick-and-mortar counterparts that also sell online. Simply put, many e-tailers do not collect taxes from their customers if they don’t have a presence in a state. This gives them an edge over operations that range from Wal-Mart to Target to Sak's Fifth Avenue. This discrepancy is also one reason sites such as eBay and Amazon have thrived in the downturn,   [...]
Posted: Monday, November 30th 2009

Online Newspaper Ad Revenue Falls 17%

Online newspaper advertising revenue dropped by a precipitous 17% in Q309, compared with the same quarter in 2008, from $750 million last year to $623 million this year, according to the most recent figures released by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). That number, though, pales in comparison with the total newspaper revenue decline of 28%, writes  [...]
Posted: Monday, November 23rd 2009

Senate Sniffs Out Shady Direct Marketing

A recently released Senate Commerce Committee staff report is taking aim at the dark side of 'aggressive' online direct marketing, and has singled out shady and controversial practices by three companies - Affinion, Vertru and Webloyalty, in addition to the hundreds of retailers that have used their services. The report details purchase procedures in which consumers rarely realize they are signing up for a monthly cl  [...]
Posted: Wednesday, November 18th 2009

FDA Declares War on Fruity Cigarettes

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is exercising its recently acquired regulatory authority over the tobacco industry by targeting online ads for cigarette products that are aimed at youth. In this case, the government agency has sent warning letters to several companies selling flavored cigarettes through their websites, directing them to either cease their marketing or sales or bring the products in  [...]
Posted: Tuesday, November 10th 2009

Scareware, Rogue Ads Join Up for Hack Attacks

Two separate online security threats aimed at publishers and online advertisers are converging to form an even more potent force: Scareware is increasingly piggybacking in rogue ads to cause serious financial havoc and digital distrust - in some cases of once venerable websites - among consumers. Scareware refers to warnings that suddenly pop up on a consumer's screen purporting to be from a security vendor. The messages often suggest that the computer has been infected by malware. To stay sa  [...]
Posted: Friday, November 6th 2009

Retailers Clear Q3 Hump; Ramp Up for Holidays

Amazon's recently announced Q3 earnings are not as telling for online marketers as, say, the hopeful results delivered by Yahoo,  Google and   [...]
Posted: Wednesday, October 28th 2009

Industry Buzz & Snippets: 10/23/09

Web 2.0 Trends: Amazon: Earnings are up; Kindle is best seller. It's official – Facebook is king of the social networking scene: MySpace has conceded defeat in contest to become the largest online social network. Dailymotion, Europe’s biggest online video challenger to YouTube  [...]
Posted: Friday, October 23rd 2009

Web Retailers Cope with Shipping-Charge Rejection

In response to consumer demands for low or no-cost shipping and the increasing role shipping costs play in online purchase decisions, a growing number of top online retailers are planning free shipping promotions during the 2009 holiday season, the Wall Street Journal reports. The moves come as a slew of industry studies and internal retailer data confirm that shipping charges rank as one of the bigge  [...]
Posted: Thursday, October 22nd 2009

Phony Online Flu Cures Draw FDA Ire

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is monitoring the online marketing and sale of products that claim to diagnose, prevent, treat or cure the H1N1 influenza virus - and in at least one high-profile case - is ordering the well-established brand, doctor Andrew Weil, to cease marketing a product in this way. As part of its enforcement activities, the agency, which issued a   [...]
Posted: Tuesday, October 20th 2009

WSJ Passes USA Today; HuffPo Passes WashPo

The Wall Street Journal said last week that it has passed USA Today to become the #1 newspaper in the US by weekday circulation, though the USA Today - the longtime holder of this distinction - is still claiming it has the highest total print circulation.   The Journal recently told Ad Age that when the next Audit Bureau of Circulations report is released on Oct. 26, it is expected to show average paid circulation  [...]
Posted: Monday, October 19th 2009

IAB to FTC: Rescind Blogger Rules

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is protesting portions of the Federal Trade Commission's new rules (pdf) governing endorsements and testimonials - namely its stepped up expectations of bloggers - and has called on the FTC to rescind these rules. FTC Clamps Down Released at the beginning of October, the new guidance for conforming to the FTC Act - the first since 1980 - touche  [...]
Posted: Monday, October 19th 2009

Pharma Steps Back from Sponsored Ads

Pharmaceutical companies are struggling to reconcile online marketing techniques with a stepped-up oversight campaign by the Food and Drug Administration's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications (DDMAC), which is specifically targeting such activities. While industry-regulatory give and take on marketing is a long-standing and complicated dance, recent events appear to have caused pharma companies to take a step back from several strategies – at least until they can be s  [...]
Posted: Friday, October 16th 2009

Invisible Ads Haunt Marketers

Marketers are becoming increasingly vulnerable to fraud on the internet – both from targeted attacks launched from fake ads, and more recently, from 'legitimate' publishers looking to eke out extra money from advertisers. In 2007, MarketingVOX was snookered by a fraudulent and malicious trojan-horse campaign, while the most recent victim has been The New York Times, after the venera  [...]
Posted: Friday, October 16th 2009

Twitter Fair Game for Serving UK Court Orders

The British High Court is permitting an injunction to be served to an anonymous user on microblogging site Twitter. The user, who has been posing as right-wing political blogger Donal Blaney of website Blaney's Blarney, is accused to breaching Blaney's copyright. Blaney, who felt the content appearing on Twitter under his name was "mildly objectionable," approached the courts to find out whether an injunction could be served via the social network -- as opposed to contacting Twitter headqu  [...]
Posted: Friday, October 2nd 2009

Complaints vs Video AdNets Rise as Buyers Pay for Ineffective Ads

With the popularity of online video advertising on the rise, media buyers are faced with large variations in pricing and options to decipher. Pre-roll video ads can run anywhere from CPMs under $10 to $50 CPMs - and if buyers aren't careful, they can end up paying for ineffective ads. Some industry observers are pointing out that video ad networks are deliberately inflating ad impression numbers by running video ads that begin automatically when a user lands on a site, with those ads sometime  [...]
Posted: Tuesday, September 29th 2009

Ad Retouching Gets Legal Once-Over in UK and France

Hoping to improve self-esteem problems experienced by girls and women that feel pressure to live up to images of digitally altered counterparts, British and French lawmakers are pushing for laws that force advertisers to disclose when retouching is used on models. "When teenagers and women look at these pictures in magazines, they end up feeling unhappy with themselves," said British Parliament member Jo Swinson of the Liberal Democratic Party (  [...]
Posted: Monday, September 28th 2009

FTC Makes Sears Destroy Web Tracking Data

The Federal Trade Commission has approved a settlement that forces Sears Holdings Management Corp. to destroy data it collected from online users. Users downloaded Sears' tracking software, which monitors web activity, between April 2007 and January 2008. Each was paid $10. The program involved sending pop-up advertisements to 15 out of every 100 visitors, requesting email addresses. Via email, respondents were invited to download the online browsing tracking software and were promised $10  [...]
Posted: Friday, September 11th 2009

Twitter and Facebook Targeted in Web Attack

Denial-of-service attacks hit popular social networking sites Twitter, LiveJournal and Facebook on Thursday, which resulted in Twitter being down for at least two hours. For its part, Facebook reported intermittent issues, yet was able to maintain service. Google also   [...]
Posted: Friday, August 7th 2009

Time Warner Reabsorbs Google's 5% Cut of AOL

In a deal valuing the former internet subscription company at less than $5.66 billion, Time Warner bought back Google's 5% stake in AOL. The planned $283 million purchase includes share of cash distributions Google received from AOL during its investment. It was finalized on July 8. Google bought the stake in 2005 for $1 billion, valuing AOL at $20 billion at the time. $726 million of the investment was written down last year. Time  [...]
Posted: Tuesday, July 28th 2009

AP Software Tracks Appropriation of Content

The Associated Press is adding software to its articles, intended to inform readers of usage rights associated with the content -- and act as a policing agent, automatically informing the AP about how the article elsewhere online. Each article will be published with a digital "wrapper" -- data not visible to users that maximizes the content's ranking in search engines and tracks its movements across the web. The program will be introduced in stages stretching over the course of the next year,  [...]
Posted: Monday, July 27th 2009

Popfly Games/Mashup App Goes Belly-Up in August

On August 24, Microsoft will be discontinuing service and support for Popfly, a mashup and games creation app. A blog post by team leader John Montgomery reports that all sites, references and resources will be removed after August 24. Account access, and games or mashups created via Popfly, will also be discontinued. "However, Microsoft is still very much dedicated to helping you express your creativity,"   [...]
Posted: Friday, July 17th 2009

Hacked Accts Divulge Twitter's Thirst for Solvency ... and Meditation

A French hacker that managed to penetrate a number of sensitive Twitter employee accounts has leaked documents that reveal the company's financial ambitions, pending profit models and a "growing sense of entitlement" among its workers, Valleywag reports. The hacker, who goes by the pseudo Hacker Croll, accessed the email, Paypal, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, MobileMe, and Gmail accounts of higher-ups  [...]
Posted: Thursday, July 16th 2009

MySpace to Cut 30% of US Team

This week MySpace announced plans to cut 30% of its US workforce -- a total of 420 employees. "Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company," stated CEO Owen Van Natta. comScore figures suggest Facebook had about half of MySpace's US audience this time last year. But by May 2009, MySpace's audience plummeted to 70 million and is now outpaced by Facebook, which has over 300 million users worldwide. (The US userbase  [...]
Posted: Wednesday, June 17th 2009