|
|
|
Home »
Archives »
February 2004
« Previous Entries ·
Microsoft Rich Media Patch on IceMicrosoft put its upcoming browser patch on ice, opting not to make the major changes in how it handles rich media, in the hopes that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will vacate the patent that caused all the trouble... continue reading »Battle Shapes Up Online Between Retail GiantsWal-Mart brought it's own special brand of e-commerce measurement to its web efforts, instituting a merchandizing-oriented ongoing analysis of sales results. The mega-retailer's site - frustrating to some, who expect more complete offerings and a more refined checkout system -... continue reading »Analysts Handicap DoubleClick, aQuantiveAnalysts eyed both DoubleClick and aQuantive to handicap the stock prospects of the two in the ongoing online ad boom. The financial analysts worry that both may suffer growing pains in the boom-bust-boom media environment. Some worry in particular that... continue reading »Amazon Discount Strategy QuestionedEven after a healthy year, analysts fear Amazon may cripple future profits by continuing to offer steep discounts. Amazon does enjoy the top spot as number one online retailer but Forrester Vice President of Retail Research Kate Delhagen said offline... continue reading »FTC Wants Porn Spam LabeledIgnoring the likelihood that pornography marketers won't heed its policies, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a rule that would require all porn-related email to be labeled with the subject line "Sexually-Explicit-Content." Calling it "the electronic equivalent of a 'brown... continue reading »Care Needed in Using HTML 'Titles'ClickZ provides a how-to on using HTML titles to best advantage in organic search engine optimization. Sometimes businesses submitting sites to directories confuse a search engine's request for the business's "title," usually a simple question seeking the proper business name,... continue reading »Patagonia: Sales Better with HTML, not FlashFor all the whiz-bang impact of the rich media version of its site, online retailer Patagonia discovered that the HTML version was better liked and much more effective in driving sales. The online channel now outsells its paper catalog business... continue reading »Microsoft 'Fix' to Break Some Ecommerce AppsHard on the heels of announcing it will at least delay an update that breaks much rich media web content, Microsoft compensated for the burst of goodwill by announcing it is about to break some ecommerce security functions on many... continue reading »Microsoft Bows Server CampaignMicrosoft delved again into the creative world of testimonials, only this time it promises to be a little less creative. The software maker will launch a new online and offline campaign for its server products using case studies and successful... continue reading »Frequency Capping, Integration, Rich Media Top 2004 IssuesSeana Mulcahy moderated a Boston Interactive Media Association panel last week and was pleased to see panelists look beyond the "old Issues" of clickthrough rates and branding. The "new issues" discussed at the event turned out to be frequency capping,... continue reading »The Empire Strikes Back: Microsoft vs. GoogleThe light sabers are out at Microsoft, and planning for the slaying of the rebellious Google is already underway. Microsoft needs to win the war, while Google faces its own challenges to protect its search dominance and the various other... continue reading »Verizon SuperPages to expand into Self-Serve PPCThe success of Google's local search results, as well as the success of self-serve pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising, must have been too much for Verizon. They finally launched their own PPC product. Even their slow move entry into self-service PPC... continue reading »4As Lobbies Bush on Health Insurance for Little ShopsA representative from the Association of American Advertising Agencies (4As) met with President George W. Bush to lobby for federal legislation that would pre-empt the conflicting patchwork of state health insurance regulations that prevents the trade association from offering cheaper... continue reading »AOL Nixes Halftime Show Online BroadcastAOL, sponsor of the Super Bowl's half-time peep show, will demand compensation from CBS, according to reports. The online network had planned on rebroadcasting the show on its broadband network for two weeks after the event, but Janet Jackson's partially... continue reading »Ad Server Execs Relieved, Annoyed at Jerky Browser PlansAd serving executives and others expressed relief at the Microsoft decision to hold off on changing Internet Explorer, its flagship browser, in such a way as to prevent online rich media from running when first downloaded. But behind the relief... continue reading »eBay Drop-Off Stores OptimisticAn executive from one of the many sprouting bricks and mortar retail stores offering eBay selling services said that eBay itself is upping its estimate of the industry size for the drop-off services. Where once the firm estimated the potential... continue reading »Poor Commerce Metrics Often Squishy, Not Really that DireDespite the frequent criticism coming from ecommerce metrics companies, spinning out press releases about commerce sites losing 20 percent of their customers, defining a "lost transaction" is an exercise fraught with squishy interpretations. Many "lost" transactions actually occur when customers... continue reading »MSN Betas Search ResultsMSN is reportedly experimenting with a beta version of its new search results engine. According to SearchEngineJournal, the beta is "rumored to be delivering results from MSNBot," the spider many web denizens have seen in their web logs over the... continue reading »BBC Blogger: Online Ads Don't WorkBBC pundit Bill Thompson remains convinced that online ads don't work because of generally poor creative and a medium that doesn't support rich enough images to grab useful attention. Many British readers of the "Bill Blog" commented on the issue,... continue reading »Spam Hits Mobile UsersIn retrospect, it should have been obvious that it would be easier for spammers to randomly dial phone numbers than it would be for them to guess email addresses. This is the main method they're using to drive mobile SMS... continue reading »Google Still Atop Brand SurveyGoogle won Interbrand's brand impact poll for the second year running. Four thousand visitors to Brandchannel.com were polled on "impact," either positive or negative. The big mover this year was the Mini site, which jumped from 11 to third place,... continue reading »Super Bowl Streaker Online BillboardProving yet again that incidences of Super Bowl nudity invariably have strong links to the Internet, the man tackled for streaking almost nude on the field in the beginning of Sunday's second half of the Super Bowl turns out to... continue reading »B-to-B Marketers Eschew Branding, Look for SalesA poll of business-to-business marketers showed that marketing spending will increase, but again this year the moneys will be poured into measurable, sales-driving media. Only about one in six executives expected a spending decline, and about half expected increases. Driving... continue reading »Microsoft, GE Top Brands in StudyHot on the heels of a web poll that placed Google atop the brand lists, CoreBrand released a study that calculates the worth of brands. Based on an undisclosed formula, the research firm listed Microsoft, GE and Exxon Mobil as... continue reading »Commercial Adoption of Open Standards a Threat to Open StandardsThe open standards some large technology companies are very publicly "embracing" may suffer from those same companies patenting uses and ways of manipulating those standards. While Microsoft, for instance, has use the freely-available XML standard, it also is patenting methods... continue reading »Tivo in ReviewTivo, after salting its board of directors with advertising and media executives, has hopes to jump back into the marketing world with both feet. It is seeking ways to provide its own advertising media to programming sponsors through the digital... continue reading »Sites Want to Push Rich Media Costs Back to AdvertisersWhere it was once accepted that web sites employing rich media advertising would have to pay the extra serving costs for the added trafficking, bandwidth and trouble, the widespread adoption of the new media is making some rethink whether they... continue reading »Spam Chasing Away Online BuyersA group of 65 American and European consumer groups released a study indicating half of respondents shop less or not at all online because of a fear of inviting more spam. Only one in six survey takers thought that spam... continue reading »Post Joins Those Requiring RegistrationAdopting its main competitor's model, The Washington Post will begin requiring site visitors to register their identities, contributing information the publisher hopes will help sell its advertising inventory. This model comes from the long-standing New York Times policy, which straddled... continue reading »RSS to Gain Ad CapabilityThe traditionally free syndication services many publishers use as additional distribution mechanism, allowing users to read articles through news reader applications, may soon gain an advertising capability. The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) format open standard has long been criticized by... continue reading »SEMPO Offers Rich SEM ResourcesClickZ's Chris Sherman calls attention to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization's website, where marketers can find a treasure trove of information, both to educate and to arm themselves with information to pass along to clients. ClickZ reports.... continue reading »Goodmail Proposes Novel Solution to Spam: StampsA company called Goodmail may just have figured out how to actually thwart spammers: charge money to send email. Sounds like wishful thinking? Well, Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon are actually taking the idea fairly seriously. The basic premise is... continue reading »Some Anti-Spyware Programs Actually SpywareWeb surfers are charging that some "anti-spyware" software companies are tricking users into installing still further spyware programs, merely eliminating the competing pieces of software. A large group of users has been monitoring the behavior, and the Center for Democracy... continue reading »MyDoom Worm a Message in Unsavory MediumThe BBC reports that the likely original source of the MyDoom virus - the latest worm to effect millions of computers worldwide - likely comes from the Linux open source community. The worm's target, SCO, has been initiating legal actions... continue reading »AOL Demanding Super Bowl Money BackTime Warner's AOL unit is asking the National Football League (NFL) for a refund of its halftime show sponsorship of the Super Bowl. The Internet division had planned on rebroadcasting the show on its online network but chose to cancel... continue reading »Meaning of Brand Name Important SEO FactorA brand naming expert writes that the relevance of product and company names to their English meanings has enormous impact on search engine optimization placement. In a world in which only the few top search listings get seen and the... continue reading »FindSounds Provides Sound Search EngineFindSounds is a specialized search engine for sound effects and musical instrument samples. Unlike some other multimedia search services that help people to find songs, radio broadcasts or other types of recorded content on the web, FindSounds is limited to... continue reading »FDA Makes Drug Advertising EasierOnline prescription pharmaceutical advertisers can breathe a sigh of relief now that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its new advertising guidelines. Some had feared they would force online advertisers to show gigantic, useless disclaimer and side effect information.... continue reading »China to Issue Anti-Spam LawAs Chinese citizens now find themselves as much a target of Chinese-directed spam as the rest of the world, they now find spam to be a majority of their in-box contents. This pressure led to a Ministry of Public Security... continue reading »ComScore Study Shows Cross-Media Impact of Super Bowl NudesComScore watches the surfing behavior of millions of people and on Super Bowl Sunday was proof positive of the link between the immediate impact of both advertising and PR. Cialis (an advertiser) saw an 1,868 percent increase in web traffic... continue reading »Washington Post Forgets to Renew DomainAccording to a leaked memo from the Washington Post's managing editor Steve Coll, sent to internal staff (and forwarded, apparently, to the political gossip blog Wonkette), someone neglected to see a renewal notice from Network Solutions that washpost.com was set... continue reading »37 Percent Ratio Critical to SEMHidden within this interesting article on the eBay eTailing explosion is an interesting percentage quoted from a study. While 44 percent of customers visited a retailer site directly, 37 percent started their shopping experience at a portal or retail aggregator... continue reading »DoubleClick Reports Response PlummetResponse rates to online ads fell dramatically in the last quarter of 2003, according to DoubleClick statistics. The firm served more than 200 billion ads in Q4, up 43 percent over the prior year. That additional clutter may partly explain... continue reading »Tivo Data 'Creeps Out' SubscribersThe powerful media tracking capabilities of Tivo earned it much publicity following the Super Bowl's rated R half-time show. The company was able to point out that the interactive digital video recorder owners had replayed the Janet Jackson peep incident... continue reading »'Ring Back Tones' New Mobile Marketing MediumAs part of the "advertising is everywhere" trend, the ubiquitous telephone ring - not the one you hear when your phone rings but the one your hear in your ear when you make a call - is becoming an ad... continue reading »Streaming Patent Decision Expected SoonA company claiming to own patent rights over streaming media may see one of its major cases decided today. Acacia Technologies Group has been seeking licensing agreements from particularly weak-willed legal departments at institutions like state universities. Further establishing precedent... continue reading »Social Networking ReduxClickZ editor and social networking butterfly Rebecca Lieb runs down the ever-growing list of social networking applications. As a connected journalist, she gives the scoop from behind the exclusive "velvet ropes" that give the new networks a sense of faddish... continue reading »Net Sheds Old Feel of Political WackinessWhere once Internet political discussion was overly concentrated on odd interest groups, libertarians and journalists (and odd libertarian journalists), a new study shows that the Internet is one of the best media to find mainstream thought leaders and influencers. IAR... continue reading »Nielsen, Tivo Ink DVR Measurement DealCriticized for not determining the influence that digital video recorders (DVRs) are having on television ratings, Nielsen inked a deal with DVR maker Tivo to create a panel to explore that very issue. It appears that the deal will not... continue reading » |