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May 2004
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Foreign Fraudsters Mobilize Armies of Clickers for PPCCompanies mobilizing armies of foreign housewives and students are scamming pay-per-click advertisers. The Times of India interviewed several participants. "I have no interest in what appears when clicking an ad. I care only whether to pause 60 seconds or 90... continue reading »Car Advertisers Say They Mean It this Time: Less UpfrontAgain this year, major brands are making great noise about spending less on network television upfront buying, in the face of obnoxious price raises at a time of diminishing audience and effectiveness. This is the same line in the sand... continue reading »Users Find Organic Results More RelevantWhen asked which was more relevant to their needs - normal search results or the paid listings targeted to their search - a new study revealed that about three out of five users find the original, organic results the most... continue reading »Existing Free Email Sites Already Do Gmail's 'Creepy' ThingsThe strange mix of privacy advocates, anti-globalists and anti-commercial groups that seem to be swarming on Google in hopes of preventing the company from providing its new Gmail service might be surprised to find out that the other free email... continue reading »Catalog Retailer Earnings Improve on Web EffectThe small outdoor catalog Sportsman's Guide shows an example of a trend in the direct and catalog industries. The publicly traded catalog seller shows through its filings that the Internet is playing a major role in its recent growth and... continue reading »FTC to Enforce No-Call Registry, FinallyA Federal Trade Commission (FTC) official said that a No-Call enforcement action is imminent. While the FTC has written nine warning letters to some, it has yet to levy a fine against violators of the Do Not Call Registry policies.... continue reading »Parody Social Network Site LaunchesIt's been said that when someone has sex with someone else, they have sex with every person with whom the other person ever had sex. What better genesis for yet another social network site. This one's called "Who Banged Who?"... continue reading »Commerce Sites Turning to Analytics for BoostsDM News gives a few case studies of commerce sites using different web analytics packages to diagnose and correct site obstacles to increased sales. Among the products used with success are Omniture's SiteCatalyst, Art Technology Group and QAS. DM News... continue reading »Effort Tries to Roll Up Local Blog News MediaSteve Rubel reports on apparent upcoming efforts to roll up blog media for advertising sales purposes. He points to an Ad Age story that indicates Advance.net's NJ.com will start with its melange of local school sports blogs and similar daily... continue reading »BN.com Fined for Security LapseA few user complaints to Barnes & Noble in early 2002 that indicated some people could gain access to other people's credit card info and even purchase books online went unheeded until August. For that, New York City's attorney general... continue reading »Snapple's Team Shows Behavioral Targeting WorksSnapple used agency Deutsch, iVillage and research firm Dynamic Logic to test out the efficacy of Tacoda's ability to target behaviorally interested people. They liked what they saw. In advertising to diet-oriented women within iVillage's network - by targeting people... continue reading »Cross-Media Study Results SharedEarly details given to MediaPost by the Internet Advertising Bureau on the cross-media studies conducted by Ford, Universal Studios and Verisign show interesting indications that a great deal of spending should continue to be done on television but that online... continue reading »Behavioral Marketing Best on Multi-Site SystemsPete Lerma points to Claria's new BehaviorLink service, along with aQuantive's DRIVEpm, as examples of why behavioral targeting is a natural for media networks that extend across multiple sites. The services attempt to target individuals by linking them to behaviors... continue reading »REI Sees E-Commerce Move Into Retail StoresWhen given the chance to pick up goods at its retail location, rather than waiting and paying for shipping, REI saw its customers come to the stores in droves. It expected about one to two million dollars in sales to... continue reading »Brands too Square for TeensA British market research firm concluded that brands are failing to connect with youth, proving too conservative and, well, square. For this, they get paid. The company found that the online marketing efforts of major brands didn't conform to the... continue reading »Adidas' Laila Ali Web Spot Garners High ViewershipAs part of the new "Impossible is Nothing" Adidas campaign, a television spot was created that pits Muhammad Ali against his daughter Laila. The spot was then placed online for viewership on Yahoo and MSN's homepages for a day each... continue reading »Gawker Media Launches Defamer, an LA Gossip BlogGawker Media, publisher of chic commercial gossip blogs, just launched Defamer, which aims to skewer LA and Hollywood culture. Publisher Nick Denton said that "L.A. is crying out for a Defamer. For a city that's in many ways the cultural... continue reading »Google's 'Banned' Gambling Ads ReappearingGambling ads still appear on Google, despite the search firms very public banning of them just several weeks ago. Gambling sites continue to re-submit ads, finagling them to get around automatic filters that appear to be rather simplistic. This is... continue reading »Microsoft Adopts Whitelisting Anti-Spam TechMicrosoft's Hotmail email service adopted IronPort's whitelisting service, which requires bulk emailers to pay it a "bond" in order to guarantee that they will abide by email practices set out by IronPort. The cash deposits will be as high as... continue reading »Anti-Spyware Bills Advance in CATwo California anti-spyware bills escaped their respective committees and will face votes. One in the senate would find spyware companies $1,000 for installing software without notice, imposing a clear distinction between spyware and what the law would consider adware. The... continue reading »aQuantive Eats Up Ads4EveraQuantive purchased Israeli rich media company and Unicast partner Ads4Ever in an effort to jumpstart its own rich media technology product development. Ads4Ever will continue to operate to serve its clients in Europe. ClickZ reports.... continue reading »IAB Publishes Rich Media Usability GuidelinesThe Internet Advertising Bureau announced guidelines for over-the-browser rich media, including between-page rich media spots and what it calls in-stream ads. The guidelines set out specific measures to make sure that viewers retain control over their browsing experience, including clear... continue reading »Search Beats Pants Off Other Media for FordClickZ caught an interesting fact in writing up the story reported yesterday about the Ford F-150 cross-media study. In giving an overview of the results, market researcher Rex Briggs revealed that search performed far better than any form of online... continue reading »Gmail Accused of 'Wiretapping'A group that recently sought to link Google's new Gmail service with the Federal Bureau of Investigations sent a letter to the California Attorney General alleging that the new free email service "violates California's wiretapping laws, subjecting both Google and... continue reading »Interview with Iraqi Web Marketer: Internet to Help ReconstructionFor the past few weeks, MarketingVOX has been volleying questions to Ali Yaqoub, marketing manager for Iraqi web portal Baghdad Bazaar. In that time the security situation in Baghdad has gone from better to worse to better, and through the... continue reading »People Spending Less Time on SpamLast year it used to pass as news whenever one month proved to see more spam than the previous one, but Internet publications are barely covering the fact that people are finding spam less annoying this year. SpammingBureau.com polled 2033... continue reading »Study: One in Five Visited Social NetworkIn a survey of 9,200 Internet users, one in five reported having visited a social network site, such as Friendster. Of those, about half reported registering and joining. Many of those polled may have visited and joined out of politeness,... continue reading »Commissions Are Out, Media Audits InA study from the Association of National Advertisers showed that commission-based compensation is just about eradicated from the industry, with only about one in ten big advertisers paying their ad agency in this fashion (probably because it's cheaper that way).... continue reading »Suing Google a New Marketing FormSuing Google is becoming its own form of marketing. After companies like "Luis Vuitton," France's "Flight Market," insurer AXA and American Blind & Wallpaper Factory all got lots of free publicity suing Google over the use of their trademarks as... continue reading »Amazon ExaminedPaul Demery wrote an exhaustive review of the Amazon.com business, showing where the growth is coming and the high hurdles facing the company, including a vastly more diverse product base, market geography and an increasingly large and balkanized series of... continue reading »Online Newspaper Readers Most Politically ActiveIn a study conducted for the Newspaper Association of America by NielsenNetRatings, online newspaper readers were found to be 36 percent more likely to donate money to a political campaign. They were more involved politically across the board; 39 percent... continue reading »U.K. Buyers Fear Media Job OffshoringMediaWeek UK examined the trend, started by the invasion of the multi-bid procurement method of placing ad accounts, of agencies moving to cheaper accommodations. It's not talking about the distance between Fleet Street and Paddington, either; the publication examined the... continue reading »Plea to Newspapers: Don't Fall for Subscription TrapOld newspaper hand Dave Morgan wrote a warning to the industry, cautioning against decisions that would have the major newspaper groups opt to squeeze subscriber fees out of burgeoning websites, rather than let them grow as an advertising medium. This... continue reading »Gotcha Patent on Way to InvalidationThe U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) dealt a major setback to one of the gotcha patents that threatened the e-commerce world with licensing demands. The PTO found that one of the patents - dealing with online payment systems -... continue reading »China: Internet Bad for Teen Minds8,600 Internet cafes shuttered their doors in the past two months, forced to close by local licensing commissions. The Chinese government warned that the Internet could harm the "mental health of teenagers" and spread "unhealthy online information." With a nod... continue reading »Nike Starts NYC Scavenger Hunt via SMSOn Friday, Nike's Operation 6453 begins. It's a scavenger hunt set in New York City that combines SMS short codes with an on-foot search for 16 poster locations throughout the city. Entrants must send a blank SMS to short code... continue reading »Study: Marketers Suffer 'Moral Myopia'A University of Texas professor interviewed many marketing executives and found them to be largely amoral and reluctant to even talk about moral implications their work may involve. More than 50 ad execs were interviewed at 29 agencies. The professor... continue reading »Lawyers: Can-Spam Threatens Viral MarketingTwo lawyers wrote a longish review of the legal issues surrounding the issue of whether or not viral marketing efforts - where, presumably, viewers take messages and pass them along to friends via email - fall afoul of the Can-Spam... continue reading »Overture, Google Give Tips for Paid ListingsRepresentatives from both Google and Overture at a recent catalog marketer conference gave sets of tips to improve rankings on paid search lists. They include ensuring that the landing page is indexed in the relevant search engine and making sure... continue reading »Tax Bill Allows Locals to Discriminate Against NeteBay tried to rally support against a federal bill that would streamline sales taxes from cities, states and counties. Right now these taxes go mostly uncollected, as it remains practically impossible for jurisdictions to get their citizens to submit payments... continue reading »Microsoft Bounces Mouse for FoxMicrosoft has been gunning hard for the sports market on MSN, offering to pay higher fees for Major League Baseball, and now dumping its three-year ESPN relationship to integrate more closely with FoxSports. Disney, owner of ESPN, described the parting... continue reading »Hotel Sites Abysmal in StudyHotel sites are getting lots of Looky Lous, but few people booking rooms. A new Rush Report study by iPerceptions and Hospitality eBusiness Strategies showed that only a third of hotel site users intend to use the web for booking. The... continue reading »U.K. Firms Ignorant of Own Spam LawResearch revealed that five out of six British businesses remain in the dark about the U.K.'s recently passed anti-spam measures. Clearswift found that the precious few business officials aware of the laws thought them woefully inadequate, with 92 percent... continue reading »Student Project Shows Rapid Web Spread of IdeasA Brandeis University senior tried to quantify how an idea - called "memes" by the pompous - spreads across the net via blogs. He seeded a few and watched it take off, quickly becoming one of the fastest spreading links... continue reading »Orkut Database Hacked into Open (But Nicely Displayed)Social network Orkut apparently had a major security breech, allowing a programmer to create an application that lets people type in a name to find a map of that person's connected friends across the U.S. The information seems a little... continue reading »Gmail Gets So-So ReviewClickZ's Rebecca Lieb reviews Gmail, and it ain't all pretty. The constrained viewing window breaks some HTML newsletters, and worst of all, it won't allow for neat forwarding of HTML email. Flaws and all, it seems to be an inevitability,... continue reading »Even Bush's Emails Might not Conform to Can-SpamMarc Cenedella posted a copy of a Bush Administration email newsletter to show that it failed to conform to the Can-Spam Act's requirement to include a snail mail address. Email filtering companies of all stripes have been quick to release... continue reading »DM News Exec Dead at 44DM News wrote a short eulogy for its late executive editor, Patrick Honan, who died a week ago on his way home from the trade magazine. Honan helped make DM News one of the best trade publications for both online... continue reading »GM's Hummon: Stop Carping over Media ShareiMedia interviewed Maureen Hummon, a manager at GM Mediaworks, the in-house media buying coordination group for General motors. She didn't win the award for most enthused about online media. Sounding perhaps like a hounded media executive, Hummon indicated that there... continue reading » |