Increasing Inefficiency Makes Mass Media Less Fashionable

BusinessWeek reports that major companies are spending less on television and other mass media in an effort to better target messages, and at least in some cases, they're experiencing enormous efficiency boosts as a result. Crunching the numbers for P&G... continue reading »

Yellow Pages Creative Tool Readied

IPIX AdMission is set to release an automated yellow pages creative platform tomorrow, hoping to do for small and local business online advertising what management platforms like Go Toast did for search advertising. The application helps create graphics-laden ads that... continue reading »

Search Engines Face Inventory Crunch

Demand is outstripping search engine media supply, moving prices up and making the marketing channel look less appropriate for some types of advertisers. While the development seems to have surprised the New York Times reporter, it has been long predicted... continue reading »

Paid Inclusion Endangered

Paid inclusion - the practice of letting advertisers pay to have their sites show up in search engine results - seems increasingly endangered. Now that MSN and Ask Jeeves have abandoned the practice, in an effort to become more searcher... continue reading »

Ask Jeeves Back in Limelight

Ask Jeeves is back in the limelight, reducing competition in the tertiary search market by buying up the competition and rapidly becoming the last best hope for Microsoft to provide a competent search service through acquisition. Profits are up, it's... continue reading »

Internet Ad Sales Vaults MSN to Profit

Microsoft is finally making money on MSN, and it's not from Internet access, web site hosting, software subscription sales or any of the other major business models put forward since Microsoft aimed at AOL's market ten years ago. Ad sales... continue reading »

Nike Sued for Online Stick Figures

A Chinese Flash animator sued Nike in a Chinese court for allegedly infringing his stick characters. A Beijing court said it had already heard the case in which Zhu Zhiqiang sued Nike for about a quarter million dollars. Nike said... continue reading »

Microsoft Rejiggers Ad Sales Force

Microsoft put a former Grey executive in charge of global advertising in an attempt to earn a bigger share of integrated media budgets. Kate Murphy joins the Redmond firm as director of global advertising. Microsoft named Matt Lyndon as senior... continue reading »

CNET Launches Tracking, Targeting Tech

CNET launched a new tracking technology that it has been testing out for a year and a half. The GameSpot Trax service allows advertisers to view slices of GameSpot's audience, observe advertising effectiveness and then use those slices for additional... continue reading »

Net Ads Act as Check on Media Inflation

Zenith Optimedia released a media analysis indicating online ads are getting about five percent of U.S. spending and acting as a significant check on what would otherwise be a larger media inflation rate. Zenith upgraded its U.S. media spending estimates... continue reading »