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July 2004
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LA Adopts China's Cyber Cafe Monitoring PoliciesTaking a page from China's public policy rulebook, Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance restricting access to cyber cafes for minors and requiring Internet providing establishments to install video cameras. The cafes will need a police permit to operate.... continue reading »FTC Settles Email List Rental Privacy CaseThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled a privacy case against the company that produces the Hooked on Phonics educational tapes. The FTC had charged that the company had rented its email list to third parties in violation of its original... continue reading »U.K. Net Adspend to Rise 53 PercentBritish ad spending is set to increase in the single digits this year, but online advertising - separated out for the first time in the Advertising Association's figures - will rocket upward about 53 percent. The group predicted growth in... continue reading »DMA Finally Gets New HeadIn a very tight 180 degree turn, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) said that CEO H. Robert Wientzen would retire more or less on time and be replaced by John A. Greco Jr. Just last week, the DMA said that... continue reading »Yahoo Doubles ProfitsInternet bellwether Yahoo's second quarter profits doubled from last year's, meeting market expectations but apparently falling short of the "whisper numbers" for which investors and analysts had been hoping. In after market trading, Yahoo tumbled about ten percent. Online advertising... continue reading »Googles from Goo Sue GoogleThe Googles from Goo, a set of children's characters developed by Googles.com, appear to have the senior trademark on their name, and now they're claiming search engine giant Google is infringing it by dipping into the category with services like... continue reading »Firm to Intro RSS-Based Email ReplacementMessageCast will launch an email replacement mechanism for letting companies interact with potential customers without the stigma of spam-prone email. Its LiveMessage system lets users send messages via RSS, the web syndication format. eWeek reports. More...... continue reading »WhitePages Buys 411Joining in the consolidation festivities, the parent company of WhitePages.com is buying out 411.com. WhitePages.com, owned by W3 Data, typically gets 6.5 million unique visitors a month, according to comScore. 411.com gets only about 400,000 unique people a month, but... continue reading »Toyota Advergame Launches New ScionWhoever spams the most wins, in Toyota's new "Scion Road Trip" mobile advergame. Players accrue virtual miles by sending e-cards to friends and getting back responses. The campaign continues until the middle of August. It was put together by Scion's... continue reading »Bad E-Commerce Search Common, FixableYou've seen it too many times before: conducting a search on an e-commerce site brings up nothing. Customers aren't sure if the company really doesn't have the product available, or if it just has a cruddy search function. When direct... continue reading »Web Metrics Used to Time Customer HelpIn showing that web analytics isn't just about tracking online ad campaigns, Internet Retailer points to LivePerson as a metrics company that uses closely counted web behaviors to determine which customers should introduce its live chat features at the most... continue reading »AOL Cleverly Makes IM into Aid for DeafAOL introduced a relay service for its instant messenger application that allows deaf and hard of hearing people to use their buddy lists as a directory for placing teletypewriter or TTY phone calls. Users can type directly into the instant... continue reading »IAB, MediaPost Merge TradeshowsMediaPost is folding its Forecast forum together with the Internet Advertising Bureau's Advertisers Forum to create one event to run in concurrence with New York City's Advertising Week. The Interactive Advertising World Conference and Expo will run from September 20... continue reading »Mysterious Billboard May Be Google Recruitment AdA mysterious billboard on Northern California's Highway 101 poses a mathematical puzzle linked to a site - which reportedly is hosted on a Google server. Programmers gossiping on message boards are concluding it's a recruiting test for the Mountain View... continue reading »Paid Search Growth LevelingIn his conference call with analysts, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel admitted that paid search hadn't grown in the quarter. Both by search query volume and by pricing, the figures were flat, and Wall Street spooked. Year-over-year, paid search is up... continue reading »E*Trade Account Homeless AgainAdWeek reported late this morning that E*Trade is starting to shop its account around yet again, making it one of the most wandering accounts in the industry. The $90 million account sat at Martin/Williams Minneapolis since September. A new chief... continue reading »Microserf Allegedly Stole Search CodeMicrosoft has grown accustomed to other firms claiming it stole their ideas, but events took a literal turn last week when a Microsoft employee was arrested for allegedly stealing code from former employer AltaVista, now part of Yahoo. The 29-year-old... continue reading »UN: Spam Could Be EradicatedThe global body that outlawed war in the 1940s predicted that spam could be controlled in two years, if countries joined together in their various approaches. The United Nations' technology committee issued a statement, after a get together in Geneva,... continue reading »FCC Chair a BloggerFederal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell started up his own blog to allow techies and others to give input and get around the information moat of lobbyists and telecom firms that otherwise pen in the FCC. "Regulated interests have... continue reading »Telstra Launches New Search Engine with Local FeaturesAustralian internet firm Telstra challenged the troika of search giants by launching Sensis, a new search engine that ties into Telstra's white and yellow pages online directories. Results from searches will include phonebook listings, as well as websites, with maps... continue reading »CNET Bets on Branding BoomTech publisher CNET, powerless as much of the tech direct marketing advertising market rushed into search engine ads, hopes it will now be the major beneficiary of the next new trend: moving brand dollars online. With a respected content brand... continue reading »Online to Account for Third of Travel SpendingOnline travel revenues, already 20 percent of travel spending, will increase to a full third of it in 2006, according to a PhoCusWright report. 2003 registered $39.4 billion in travel spending, up about 34 percent from 2002. One of the... continue reading »Ask Jeeves CEO: We'll Bring Search to DesktopeWeek interviewed Ask Jeeves CEO Steve Berkowitz in a ranging conversation that covered Ask's future development plans and Berkowitz's interpretation of where the search engine market is moving. The upshot: everyone is trying to combine web search with third party... continue reading »Gay Sites Maturing SteadilyGay online media properties hope to profit from the half trillion dollar spending power their target demo controls, and one of the two main online properties - PlantetOut - is even going IPO this summer. Gays tend to be brand... continue reading »Search Firms Fear Client PoachingKate Kaye surveyed the search engine marketing (SEM) industry and found that behind the happy face borne of growth and success are furrowed brows of search marketers fearing the large search engines are moving in on their turf. Google and... continue reading »Google Picks NasdaqGoogle registered to be listed on the Nasdaq exchange after its initial public offering, thought to be coming out sometime this summer. No date has been officially set. CNET reports.... continue reading »Digital Impact Buys MarketleapEmail service provider Digital Impact announced it is buying Marketleap, a search engine marketing firm for $2.75 million in cash and stock. Digital impact said that Marketleap, which counts SMARTPages and Tyco Electronics among its clients, will contribute about $1.5... continue reading »Firm Launches Domain Portfolio ManagerDomain management firm Zetetic launched a new utility that keeps track of domain name holdings and their changing appraised values. Several firms offer one-time domain name appraisals, but the new product will continually reappraise values over time for a subscription... continue reading »Portals Look to Branding, Start Looking Like NetworksPortals, Yahoo among them, are looking to branding to keep the revenue momentum going strong. Branding advertising clients seem to be pretty happy with results, with the vast majority of them signing on again this year. But while Yahoo may... continue reading »Blogs Taking Ads, Making MoneyThrough devices like Google's AdWords and the Blogads network, bloggers are beginning to book some cash for their online diaries. And, for some, it isn't just chump change, with some blogs taking in thousands of dollars a month, raising the... continue reading »Yahoo Buys Innovative Email Client Firm OddpostYahoo will buy Oddpost, an innovative Internet email service that boasts features most often found in commercial email applications like Eudora. Oddpost has earned a reputation for adding or even inventing new features, such as drag-and-drop interface elements and automating... continue reading »Broadband at Almost Half of U.S. HouseholdsNetRatings reports that broadband has reached just shy of half of U.S. homes. Almost 63 million American households have access to broadband Internet. That, in turn, is driving much more Internet use, with the average broadband household spending about 70... continue reading »Yellow Pages Sites Keep Advantages Over Search FirmsSearch engines are proving great at letting searchers figure out what product to buy, but sometimes it's harder to figure out just where to go and buy it. Even as Google and Overture introduce products that allow for localized business... continue reading »Online Sales UpOnline sales were again over $1 billion for the week ending June 27, making the first half of 2004 register gains of 25 percent over the same period in 2003. The online sales for the week were up 31 percent... continue reading »Agency.com: We're Not Done BuyingAgency.com, recent acquirer of i-agency Exile on Seventh, put the industry on notice that it's not necessarily finished its buying spree. "We're coming out of depressed market conditions over the past couple of years, and we're seeing quality assets that... continue reading »Ad:TECHBlog Providing Wall-to-Wall CoverageAd:TECHBlog is active once more, covering the Chicago conference, the party action, the who's who, and even the hotel's wifi and air conditioning woes. Five correspondents are attending all the sessions and eating excessively fatty meals so that you don't... continue reading »Study: Paid Search Rankings Greatly Affect PerformanceMarketers knew that higher search listings were a good thing, but a study done by aQuantive's Atlas Institute shows just how much an effect relative placement has in paid search. Every place down from the top listing generated an average... continue reading »180 Solutions Accused of Affiliate HijackingMediaPost reports on a graduate student's research into potentially shady affiliate practices of 180 solutions, an adware firm. By throwing up double pop-ups and invisible pop-ups, Benjamin Edelman alleged that 180 Solutions effectively credited itself with responsibility for sales that... continue reading »Revisiting Spanish Newspapers' Free-to-Fee EvolutionVin Crosbie revisited the topic of Spain's dailies, which chose divergent paths, some remaining free online, others requiring subscriptions or at least registrations. The update proves a bit inconclusive. Certainly El Mundo and ABC, the two big newspapers still free... continue reading »Women Drive More Online SalesPromo Magazine points out that women are increasingly driving online sales - in fact they account for 52 percent of online buyers, according to Forrester Research. Half again as many women shop online as shop at a drugstore. The magazine... continue reading »Google Picks up Picasa to Enter Photo MarketGoogle bought personal photo management company Picasa, a firm that developed a Windows-only interface for people to manage their personal digital photos, allowing them to publish them to the web and easily search among them. Picasa had been previously funded... continue reading »Microsoft's Search Reviewed, Found LackingSearch Guru Danny Sullivan tries to be nice, but his two-part review of Microsoft's recent changes to its search interface concludes that the changes just aren't very significant, despite Microsoft's public claims that this is the biggest search upgrade in... continue reading »NH Opts Not to Tax Net ServicesA state tax official in New Hampshire managed to avoid getting run out of the state by torch-wielding mobs by choosing to back down on plans to interpret an old law as meaning that Internet chat rooms, phone calls and... continue reading »Diverse Online Payment Options Increases SalesOnline conversions can be increased by about 20 percent by simply adding more payment options, according to a study conducted by CyberSource, an online payment system company. A survey of ecommerce managers showed that about two in five said they... continue reading »Social Networking Sites Bumbling through Authentication IssuesAlan Chapell reviews the privacy policies and authentication standards of several large social networking sites. Having signed himself up as the organizing member of some 16 or so different high school reunions, he thinks that Classmates.com might need to shore... continue reading »Email Dominating Online Campaign MarketingInternet campaigning is heating up in the presidential race, and email marketing is fast becoming the most commonly used medium. One political agency said email is "dwarfing" online advertising, especially now that databases have become sophisticated enough to match email... continue reading »Friendster Creates Fake Profiles for Ad ClientsFriendster, one of several social networks in search of a revenue stream, sold an interesting ad package to Dreamworks to promote its just-released Anchorman movie. The deal includes the creation of fake user profiles based on movie characters. The attention-getting... continue reading »Hispanics Showing Brand Differentiation OnlineHispanics choose different retail sites to do their online shopping, reflecting a bit of their offline habits and showing that, not surprisingly, the offline brand images seem to be making imprints on online behavior. Only about 20 percent of the... continue reading »CNET Pays $70 Million for Photo SiteCNET is the latest media company to buy out an online digital photo company, purchasing Webshots, a firm that had previously been stuck in the portfolio of bankrupt ExciteAtHome for $70 million in cash and potential future payouts. ExciteAtHome paid... continue reading » |