|
|
|
Home »
Archives »
March 2004
« Previous Entries · · Next Entries »
Blog Popularity Bad Indicator of OriginalityHewlett-Packard Labs found that the most popular bloggers tend not to be the ones coming up with new ideas. Instead, they tend to be good copiers of relatively influential, yet unknown, other bloggers. They also tend to be poor at... continue reading »Major International Papers Start Cooperative BlogThe World Editors Forum (WEF) started a cooperative blog for editors or deputy editors of major daily papers worldwide, including The New York Times, The Times, El Pais, La Stampa, Aftenposten, Yomiuri Shimbun and others. Asked whether the site aims... continue reading »Airline Sites Take Off, WorkA new study from the Travel Industry Association of America reveals 35 million Americans have signed up with airline sites to receive special offers and that 10 million of those were compelled to take a trip they might not have... continue reading »Behaviorist Believes Targeting Will Trump Search MediaiMedia published an ode to behavioral targeting, written by Bill Grossman, CEO of Revenue Science, a company that sells behavioral targeting technology to sites selling advertising. The column holds that this form of advertising - where agencies exploit deep market... continue reading »ABC Forces Brit Dailies to Seek New Biz Models OnlineSome British news dailies, until recently, have been avoiding appearing online in a tiff with the media measurement company Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), who so far has refused to include online circulation in with the offline equivalent figures. But... continue reading »Eolas Patent Nixed, Microsoft Mostly Off HookIn a very rare move, the U.S. Patent Office invalidated the Eolas patent that caused a half-billion-dollar judgment against Microsoft and forced the software giant to start to change its browser in ways that would be very interruptive of many... continue reading »Joe Cappo Interview ContinuediMedia published the second of three installments of its Joe Cappo interview, a rollicking, critical view of traditional media and where its headed relative to the new stuff. (Hint: it's hot and firy).... continue reading »No-Call Registry Upheld Against CharityA federal court upheld provisions the Do-Not-Call Registry rules that apply to charities. While the rules largely exempted charities, they do require the non-profits to abide by no-call requests and rules on abandoned calls, time restrictions, caller ID and other... continue reading »Can-Spam Act Used in Private SuitA California lawyer used a provision of the Can-Spam Act to sue a web services company on behalf of his client, a web services company. The suit also names the defendents client firm, which produces Bob Villa's home improvement web... continue reading »Earthlink on Road to 'Problem Account'Back when Earthlink had the best creative running among all the Internet service providers, it decided to put the creative portion of the account up for review. Now, not long after, it is ending its relationship with Leo Burnett -... continue reading »Forrester CEO: Google Hype ExcessiveGeorge Colony, CEO of Forrester Research thinks Google's hype exceeds its true value as a business. One of the primary factors he uses to determine value is site stickiness. But to get people to switch to a new search engine... continue reading »Yahoo Demonstrates Portal Branding EffectHow many online brand lift studies does it take to change the media plans of major marketers? Answer: still counting. Apparently, it doesn't matter how much brand lift you show a major agency or marketer. Nor does it seem to... continue reading »Judge Resigns over Chat Room CommentsContent remains forever available online through search engines, but otherwise smart people often forget that, saying things online that they would never say in person. A chat room transcript managed to nab a judge this past month, making racist comments... continue reading »Internet Radio Perfect Weapon For Stern Against the FCCWhile the FCC is hammering Howard Stern, satellite radio and Internet radio are jumping for joy. No matter what side of the issue you are on, radio programming choices continue to explode. Following Arbitron's decision to change the way it... continue reading »PayPal Penalized for Exaggerating Fraud ProtectionPayPal agreed to pay New York $150,000 in penalties for having misled consumers into thinking that they provided more fraud protection than they actually do. PayPal typically sees one fraudulent transaction for every 200 normal ones. CNET reports.... continue reading »Sites Try to Weasel out of Privacy ResponsibilityWorried that data systems remain vulnerable to hacking, many large e-commerce companies are putting weasel words into consumer agreements, making themselves theoretically immune to liability in the event of a security breach with private information. The waivers may or may... continue reading »Can-Spam Reinvigorating Email Marketer StrategiesThe Can-Spam Act is forcing some marketers to reinvigorate the intelligence behind their email marketing strategies. Pizza Hut, hoping to avoid accusations of spamming, made its email promotions contingent on real-time orders, sending promotions after ad-free confirmation emails and other... continue reading »Group Challenges NY Interstate Trade LimitationIn an attempt to prevent states from limiting the types of commerce that can go on across borders, a non-profit group filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a recent decision allowing New York to prevent wine... continue reading »Ad Age FactPack Freely DownloadableAd Age published - in PDF format - a "FactPack," including such information as the average cost of TV spots, the top 25 interactive ad agencies, and endless lists of the largest agencies, advertisers and just about anything else remotely... continue reading »Web Page Titles ImportantA MarketingProfs story shows how important page titles can be, being prominently used in search engines, bookmarks and other important places that will later attract visitors. Also included are seven tips for more effective title choices. MarketingProfs reports.... continue reading »Online Leads 2003 Ad Growth, Nips at Radio's HeelsAll media but spot television rose in spending in 2003, and online media led the growth, with about 16 percent more measured spending than the previous year. The TNS Media Intelligence/CMR study pointed out that online media is close to... continue reading »E-Commerce Grows 27 PercentOnline retail spending grew by a full quarter in the week ending Feb. 22 relative to the same week last year. The sum rose to $1.2 billion from $940 million the year previous. One analyst noted that the dropping consumer... continue reading »Only One in Nine Small Biz Owners Knows about PPCOnly one out of nine small businesses with a web site realize that they can purchase pay-per-click (PPC) search media, according to a Kelsey Group and ConStat Inc. study. But once they get hooked, they don't take long to invest... continue reading »Soccer Moms Become Internet MomsIn a survey by C&R Research for Disney Online, 84 percent of mothers said the Internet would be the hardest medium to give up. The study finds moms use the Internet 13.2 hours per week, double that of television at... continue reading »OPA Study Segments Online/Offline ReadersAn Online Publishers Association (OPA) study found that different types of readers treat online publications and their offline equivalents quite differently. The OPA broke audiences up into four types, revealing some interesting demographic differences. Half tended to use both types... continue reading »Forrester: Google Won't Win Search WarA recent report from Forrester Research says the search war will be divided into three segments and that there will be no single winner. While Google enjoys market dominance, Forrester concluded that Microsoft and Yahoo will gain strength and that... continue reading »China Search Engines Becoming ForceMajor U.S. search engines now face significant competition in the China market from popular, growing and profitable indigenous search engines like Baidu.com and Zhongsou.com. Recognizing the trend, Yahoo recently shelled out $120 million for 3721.com. CNET reports.... continue reading »Selling Online Media to the SkepticalPerhaps the biggest battle online media executives face is convincing upper management that the Internet is really worth the money and effort. In this iMediaConnection article, Neil Perry offers six tactics to make a powerfully positive argument for increased monetary... continue reading »NetRatings Hires Cassar as Chief AnalystKen Cassar will take over strategic analysis at Nielsen/NetRatings. Cassar was formerly a senior analyst at Jupiter Research and most recently head of strategic consulting for Modem Media. Internet Retailer reports.... continue reading »Board Control Needed to Prevent Cost 'Black Holes'A study showed that when people in charge of IT and marketing at a company do not report directly to the board of directors, the spending in those categories can become a "black hole." Large irrational purchases and waste are... continue reading »Marylanders Propose Jailing SpammersThe recently proposed Maryland Spam Control Act won support from AOL, as it contains many of the measures found in neighboring Virginia's already-passed anti-spam law. Chief among the penalties proposed in the act is jail time for people using deceptive... continue reading »Big 4 File Huge Can-Spam Suit Against HundredsFour of the largest Internet companies filed a massive Can-Spam suit against hundreds of alleged spammers today. The act indicates that the firms - normally quite competitive with one another - are finding spam an important enough enemy to marshal... continue reading »Yahoo Maps To Hype Local CommerceYahoo Maps will now overlay business locations on top of requested maps, if users choose to see where the local joints are for Food & Dining, Bars, Recreation & Entertainment, Community Services, Shopping & Services, Travel & Transportation and Financial... continue reading »Free Speech Tested at GoogleOn TV, some networks refuse ads for commercial products if they feel the ads are not up to snuff. But the same standards don't apply to political advertising, which is generally given much more leeway. A recent incident involving complaints... continue reading »Dave Winer Proposes to Merge RSS and AtomDave Winer, the guy who created RSS (Really Simple Syndication), is considered a pain in the ass in some sectors of the blog community. Nonetheless, everyone loves RSS, an XML protocol which is the most popular way to syndicate web... continue reading »Pop-up Alternatives SuggestedTessa Wegert, who last week pointed out the anti-branding effects that pop-ups can bring, suggests a few alternatives to the high response rate media. Between pop-unders and the use of the skyscraper banner ads, she says that a lot of... continue reading »Search Popularity May Be Due to Purchase MechanismsDave Morgan writes that search has become a mania in the online ad business not so much because of the inherent greatness of the media itself, but because of the flexible, easy and predictable manner in which it is sold.... continue reading »Unilever's Pot Noodles Get Web Ring TreatmentAd agency glueLondon created a collection of web sites that resemble the many cheesy web-ring type sites on the web that take you on a circular journey from one bad site to another. The set of sites incorporates deliberately tacky... continue reading »'Big 4' Spam Suit Proves Popular CauseThe uniting of the Internet big foursome, Microsoft, AOL, Earthlink and Yahoo on a series of anti-spam enforcement actions stole many headlines yesterday, spam clearly being on the minds of many annoyed readers. Direct Marketing Association (DMA) CEO H. Robert... continue reading »Advertisers Waking Up, Say They'll Shift Money to NetA survey of the Association of National Advertisers released yesterday reveals many advertisers will level fund television budgets next year and shift more money to the Internet, branded entertainment and direct marketing. At least that's what they say they'll do.... continue reading »FTC Seeks Comment on Do-Not-Spam RegistryThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) started the long process legally required to institute a do-not-spam list that would function much like its runaway-success Do-Not-Call Registry. It announced yesterday that it will collect public comments on the potential registry, how it... continue reading »Starbucks to Offer Music Burning ServiceJava purveyor Starbucks will launch a new service offering customers the ability to listen to a selection of over 250,000 songs using an HP tablet, and then create a CD of their favorite songs for $12.95. The service is designed... continue reading »FCC Considers Dissent on Banning Digital RebroadcastThe "broadcast flag" that TV companies have sold to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would prevent digital versions of TV content from being distributed digitally and erase fair use rights for viewers and teachers came under pressure recently, with... continue reading »ANA Whines about Upfront Process, Forms Support GroupThe Association of National Advertisers held its annual discussion about how terrible the TV upfront buying process was in revealing how irrationally much of their money is wasted. To help reform the process, they established a subcommittee, which should really... continue reading »Wannabees and Would-Be Web Wonders Target GoogleNothing gets people drooling faster than an industry with good multiples on valuation, and the search space is so hot, the multiples are getting impressive. Lots of companies are hoping to live the Google dream of inventing a better technology... continue reading »Spam PoetryNPR's All Things Considered: Spam Poetry There is a strange relationship between spam and poetry. There is, of course, a proud tradition on the internet of spam haiku, about the trademarked canned lunch meat, not the annoying junk email. Poet,novelist,... continue reading »Chrysler to Relaunch Web EffortsHaving now to compete with third party Internet sites specializing in matching prospective auto buyers with the right car at the right price, Chrysler is embarking on a new web effort to link its branding sites to its dealership sites,... continue reading »Broadband Now Dominant in Some MarketsIn some cities, broadband is already edging out dial-up access for the main means of getting on the Internet. San Diego and Boston already have at least half of their net users on broadband, with New York City soon to... continue reading »Agencies, Vendors Cave to Nielsen Pricing, FTC Drops CaseThe Federal Trade Commission dropped an investigation into Nielsen's pricing practices after the major Nielsen data analysis companies finally agreed to contracts. The investigation started when the American Association of Advertising Agencies complained that members were being forced to pay... continue reading » |