Jeeves Icon Made Over for Japan

DM News's extremely observant Brian Morrissey notes that in the move to Japan, the Ask Jeeves butler mascot got a face-lift and some new duds. Gone are the neck tie and pin stripes, replaced with a black suit and a... continue reading »

Study: Websites Make-or-Break for Automakers

Auto research firm J.D. Power & Associates found that the perceived quality and usefulness of an automaker's website had a very large effect on whether or not site visitors went on to arrange for a test drive. "Outstanding" sites, typically... continue reading »

U.S. Brings Spam Charges

The New York Times reports that federal prosecutors arrested and charged dozens of alleged spammers in the past few weeks. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is again telling reporters that it is partly responsible for the catch, although the Justice... continue reading »

Dart Motif Gains MSN Acceptance

MSN approved the use of DoubleClick's Dart Motif, the rich media format it created with Macromedia a year ago. The format joins Eyeblaster, Unicast and PointRoll as major formats supported. Motif has yet to gain full acceptance on major portals... continue reading »

JibJab Defeats Copyright Challenger

ibJab, the production company made famous by its Flash animation political satire of both major presidential candidates saw a copyright case lodged against it dropped by the company that claimed to own the copyright to the "This Land is Your... continue reading »

Newspapers, though Local, Fail to Embrace Nearby Blogs

Newspapers have been slow to link to local blogs, according to Poynter Online, creating a vacuum that's being filled with sites aggregating local content. Localized blog sites include one linking New York City blogs by subway stop and a North... continue reading »

Web Group Launches Anti-IE Campaign

The Web Standards Project (WaSP) launched an ad campaign to get people to switch from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser due to its lack of respect for web standards. Wasp was created in 1998 by frustrated web developers. Modeled on Apple... continue reading »

Travel Shoppers Monomaniacal on Price

JupiterResearch released a study showing travel shoppers aren't very loyal to the sites from which they buy travel services. In fact, they tended to check two to three sites to compare prices before making a purchase. Most travel experiences are... continue reading »

Data Standards to Bring Offline Ad Accountability

Association of National Advertisers (ANA) chief Bob Liodice notes on his blog that traditional media may soon gain much greater accountability - perhaps down to individual ad placements - with the advent of an electronic data interchange (EDI) format that... continue reading »

Study: Net Used as Offline Complement

A Pew study showed that many internet users employ both web and offline versions of applications together to get things done. Online applications like mapping, communicating with friends and checking weather were seen not so much replacements for the offline... continue reading »