Whiny Topica Users Kvetch about Ads

Topica, a free site used by interest groups to develop communities via email lists, started placing text ads in the emails sent through its system, and seemingly, all heck broke loose. Many subscribers and list moderators complained loudly when the... continue reading »

ANA Comes out Against Do-Not-Email

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) came out against the Do-Not-Email Registry on which the Federal Trade Commission must report back to Congress this spring. The ANA told the Commission in a letter that such a registry wouldn't solve the... continue reading »

ITV Tests Hope to Prove Effectiveness

Television advertisers and media sellers are getting together under the auspices of the Association of National Advertisers to test several new interactive television media products. Billed as a means to validate several new concepts, such as addressable video advertising, the... continue reading »

Trade Group Launches Weblogs

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA), will publish two weblogs. The first, called "ANA Marketing Musing," by President and CEO Bob Liodice, will contain as many as two to three posts per week on major industry issues. The second, with... continue reading »

Hilfiger Launches 'Mix & Match' Net Catalog

Fashion Designer Tommy Hilfiger launched a new site that functions like an offline catalog, where pages can be flipped. And it goes further, providing the visitor the ability to page through various tops and bottoms to find matches that meet... continue reading »

Google to Launch 'Gmail' Service, for Free

Google will soft launch a new email service - termed Gmail - on Thursday with just a thousand lucky invitees. The high storage service will be free to all users, taking revenues in only from advertising. Officials at Google had... continue reading »

Rich Media Options Reviewed

ClickZ's Tessa Wegert started a multi-part series on buying rich online media. Her first installment reviews the creative options available among EyeBlaster, EyeWonder, PointRoll, Unicast and United Virtualities. ClickZ reports.... continue reading »

Trade Mag April Fools Review

eCommerce Times published an April Fools sendup of a dot-com hotdog stand making a comeback. It sits atop several other improbable headlines on the site, including "Memo: Bill Gates To Sabotage Linux Using 'Time-Travel' Machine" and one indicating that Microsoft's... continue reading »

Havas Consolidation Played as 'Integration'

Back when Havas announced layoffs and a planned consolidation of much of its below-the-line businesses under the Euro RSCG brand, it was seen as a cutting of losses. But today's announcement of the new Euro RSCG 4D brand is being... continue reading »

Kinja Launches, Lazy-Man's Blog Syndication

So, you love blogs but have too many to keep up with, and RSS is too much of a pain for you to deal with? That's the value proposition Kinja is counting on. The new service, which went live in... continue reading »

Another April Fools Redux

Virgin Atlantic used the April Fools holiday to get some "earned" PR around the world. In one release claiming the airline was going to introduce hypnotherapists on its long-haul flights between London and Sydney. Imagine, said a spokesperson, how nice... continue reading »

Amazon Patents Cookies (No Joke)

It sounded at first like a poor April Fools story: Amazon patents browser cookies. But running it down to the U.S. Patent Office's site proved it to be true. And even sillier, the application was made in 2000, long after... continue reading »