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September 2004
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LinkedIn Passes Million MarkLinkedIn, a social networking firm, announced that it passed the one million members mark, partly due to its launch of a group-oriented strategy that allows clubs, companies and other organizations to use LinkedIn as a networking platform. Networking firm Soflow... continue reading »Leaderboards 2nd Most Popular Ad SizeAdrants pointed to a MediaLife story on a DoubleClick study indicating that the use of the newer and larger "Leaderboard" banner size quadrupled over the course of 2003, becoming the second most popular ad size on the internet. Interestingly, the... continue reading »WB to Debut TV Series on AOL FirstThe WB Network will air the debut of a new series, "Jack & Bobby," on the AOL network before it airs on television. Both networks are owned by Time Warner. The online preview is billed as the first time a... continue reading »Another New SF Agency Exec HiredIt seems San Francisco is popping again, with online agencies hiring senior level staff, particularly new business people. Tribal DDB announced the hiring of a new leader for its Bay Area office. Elizabeth Ross, a business development veteran from agencies... continue reading »OPA Europe Gets New HeadThe European Online Publishers Association (OPA) changed heads, hiring on Amy Porter, an IT marketing executive, who is to concentrate on expanding research efforts and starting to keep tabs on European legislative efforts that might hinder online publishing. PaidContent.org points... continue reading »Rumors: Google to Bow Instant MessagingNet rumors have it that Google is working on an instant messaging (IM) application that may have close ties to both its Gmail free email product and its Orkut social networking application. Google already owns the Hello product through its... continue reading »Claria Settles SuitsClaria settled trademark lawsuits brought by several online companies, such as Wells Fargo and Quicken Loans. Terms weren't disclosed, but after similar suits filed in years past were settled, Claria stopped allowing its adware pop-ups from appearing on litigants' sites.... continue reading »60 Percent More Behavioral Targeting Users in 2004JupiterResearch reports that adoption of behavioral marketing - such as placements through networks using targeting technology from Tacoda, Revenue Science and Claria - increased by 60 percent among advertisers in 2004. But that number doesn't tell the full story, as... continue reading »Traffic Management Dropped into Behavioral Targeting (Hmm, Tastes Great)Behavioral marketing firm Revenue Science teamed with ad management firm Trafficmac to provide a bit of predictability and stability for publishers considering making the plunge into moving their ad inventories to behavioral targeting. Publishers have had a difficult enough time... continue reading »Study: Fortune 100 SEO StinksA new OneUpWeb study shows that Fortune 100 firms still don't care much for search engine optimization. About half failed even to include some of the most basic website tags that would make the sites more likely to achieve high... continue reading »Blogger Firing Inspires Friendster BoycottFriendster earned the ire of the blogosphere this week when it fired Joyce Park for writing something about Friendster on her personal blog. Just what was found offensive wasn't revealed to Park, who told CNET that her former company declined... continue reading »Engorged AKQA Too Fat for Current DigsGrowing digital agency AKQA needs new digs in San Francisco and will move into a bigger space at the end of the year. The firm went from about 50 employees earlier in the year to about 100, mostly due to... continue reading »Reker Takes Over at Zentropy MinneapolisAimee Reker will take the lead of media services at Zentropy's Minneapolis office. The dozen media employees in the Minnesota facility plan and buy for General Mills, Microsoft, H&R Block, Purina and others. The position had been open since early... continue reading »Zinio Hires Zinman to Head Marketing, ProductsZinio, the digital magazine firm, named David Zinman as VP marketing and product management. Zinman became a well-known figure in online marketing circles in the late 1990s as founder of AdKnowledge, one of several large and expensive companies purchased and... continue reading »B-to-B Publisher Seeks Salvation on InternetPenton Media, the debt-ridden publisher of B-to-B titles, is looking to the web for new revenues. The new focus comes from its new CEO David Nussbaum, who needs to cut costs and raise revenues quickly to prevent the companies interest... continue reading »In-Store Pick-Up Much Improved over 2003Online retailers offering in-store pick-up are doing some things quite well. For instance, most are offering same-day service and sending off emails almost immediately to show availability. But even as pick-up service has improved over last year, according to a... continue reading »eBay Ups Investment in Korean VentureeBay bought more of its Korean holding Internet Auction Company (IAC) after almost doubling its bid to several institutional shareholders. The purchase of about 23 percent of the company for about $325 million brings its stake to about six sevenths... continue reading »New Microsoft Music Store Still ProprietaryMicrosoft launched its new music retail store last night, showing it to be only the second company, after Apple Computer, to get all the major music publishers to agree to common terms for a web retail effort. The store -... continue reading »Disney Dumped $68 Million on 'MovieBeam,' Unlikely to See it AgainHewing to almost perfectly consistent precedent, Disney's video on demand test markets are proving a bust. This time around, Disney's stab at making the online world resemble the Hollywood model is called MovieBeam and uses a technology that downloads movies... continue reading »Instant Messaging Spreads to AdultsA new Pew study shows that instant messaging (IM) has spread among adults, with 51 million of them having used the technology. A quarter of those use IM more often than email. In an average day, 15 million adults use... continue reading »Search Firm Launching Directory CreatorFAST Search & Transfer, a search technology firm that has sold enterprise search applications to large IT firms such as AT&T and IBM, will offer a web version of its technology to media companies hoping to come out with their... continue reading »Massive Advergaming Network to Provide Net Ad PowerMassive, the New York digital agency, is developing an ad system that would allow for banner insertions in video games, tracking and even abilities such as frequency capping. The system is set to launch with game publishers Atari and Ubisoft.... continue reading »Small Firm Bows Desktop Search AppCopernic Technologies launched its own combination of desktop and internet search applications, called Copernic Desktop Search (CDS). 30,000 users have already downloaded a similar application that provides combined search results from several web search engines. The new application adds to... continue reading »Overture to Automate Broad Matching, Wins Yahoo, Microsoft DistributionAn Overture executive told CNET that it plans to automate its ad auction system next month. The company's global product management head said it will combine and automate broad matching and phrase matching. The service will be called "advanced match... continue reading »IDC: Spam Much Worse in 2004IDC, a research firm with one of the most conservative estimates of how much email turns out to be spam, said yesterday that the ratio of spam to email increased from one in four messages to two in five messages... continue reading »Shopping Cart Abandonment Upped with ComplexityAccording to an e-commerce site optimizer, conversion rates are often directly related to the simplicity (or lack thereof) of shopping carts. While adding new cart features can help achieve some goals, cluttering up the shopping experience can significantly add to... continue reading »Wotbox Launches 8 'Localized' Nation SitesIn a report pointed out by SearchEngineLowdown, Wotbox.com announced eight new "local" search sites, geared to the eight countries Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and the U.S. Wotbox already had an international site and a U.K.-specific site,... continue reading »Google Bows Branding Features in AdSense, MoreAn email Google sent out to AdSense publishers tells of added features, including multiple ad units on a page, collapsing ad units that shrink when a targeted ad isn't available, and - most interestingly - ads with "new branding features"... continue reading »China's Keystone Web Kops at It AgainChina's attempt to censor Internet access points in the country is again running into problems. Filters banning more than 1,000 words began to clog some months ago, prompting some ISPs to offload the filtering to users' computers. Of course, enterprising... continue reading »Google, Overture in Trademark Suit SetbackLast week a federal judge in Virginia denied Google and Overture motions to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Geico, allowing the insurance company to sue the search companies for allegedly violating its trademarks, conducting unfair competition and diluting its marks.... continue reading »Speculation on Claria Buy-OutClickZ's Pam Parker speculates that Claria may be in the throws of acquisition talks, having pulled back from its proposed initial public offering, yet continuing to gussy up its balance sheet and prospects with legal settlements. Like a Kremlinologist parsing... continue reading »Carat: Adspend to Rise FasterCarat, one of the world's largest media buying concerns, upped its estimates for 2004 and 2005 worldwide adspend. The shop increased its predictions for U.S. market growth about half a percentage point to 5.8 percent growth in 2004 and up... continue reading »Interview: Coke to Bow Social Networking EffortiMedia interviewed Mark Dooley, Coke's main online brand manager. He revealed that the soft drink purveyor plans a big social networking-oriented marketing effort online soon. His team is growing, and he reports more brands are shifting more dollars online.... continue reading »Site Conversion Too Broad a MeasureAnalysts report that online retailers using a gross conversion rate measure are likely oversimplifying their sites' performances. Conversion rates can translate into more useful information when they are tied to specific marketing efforts, according to independent analyst Matthew Berk. JupiterResearch's... continue reading »Justice Official Annoyed at 'DMA' LeakA U.S. Department of Justice official told a reporter that the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA's) PR campaign to take partial credit for U.S. anti-fraud efforts crossed over the line from mere self-promotion and moved into harmful interference last week. The... continue reading »U.S. Appeals Case, Seeks More Email Privacy ProtectionAfter a panel of federal judges in New England ruled that an internet service provider (ISP) did not violate federal laws when copying user emails for its own perusal, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) petitioned for the whole First... continue reading »eMarketer Denies It Copied Data UnfairlyeMarketer, an aggregator of internet-oriented research, made a public statement on the suits lodged against it by Jupitermedia, a publisher of internet-oriented research. Jupitermedia sued eMarketer this past May for allegedly misappropriating proprietary research and publishing it. For its part,... continue reading »Spyware Bill Advances, to Head Off Misguided 'Spy Act'In an effort to head off the misguided Spy Act bill that would ban a wide range of technical methods of running web applications and collecting data - throwing out, for instance, the browser cookie baby with the spyware bathwater... continue reading »MarketingVOX Shortened for Labor DayMarketingVOX will publish a shortened issue of the MarketingVOX Daily today, Labor Day in the U.S. Those not yet subscribed can join for free by sending a blank email to join-marketingvox. They must... continue reading »Google Staffs up IndiaSearchEngineWatch points to indigenous accounts in India as indicating Google is following up with its stated aim of staffing up in India. A Northern India newspaper reports that Google is seeking to fill 100 initial positions for a new Bangalore... continue reading »Mathemetician 'Solves' Primes Puzzle; E-commerce Systems Firms NervousAcademics report that one of the seven biggest mathematical puzzles may have been solved, providing a pattern to the seemingly random placement of prime numbers, which might throw a wrench into the mechanisms most websites provide for security. The good... continue reading »E-Commerce Firms Branching OutThe Times reports e-commerce firms are again branching out into related - and sometimes unrelated - product categories to take advantage of existing customers. The period of consolidation appears to be mostly over, as companies play a free association game... continue reading »Woot Attempts BlogfomercialAdAge found an internet media company it likes: a firm aiming to bring home shopping channel-type content to the web. Woot, the website equivalent of a daily infomercial, is reported to have more than 25,000 daily visitors looking to see... continue reading »FT.com Goes BehavioralThe Financial Times' online division will use targeting firm Revenue Science to divvy up its ad inventory into behavioral segments. The well-respected British financial daily will group its readers into eight categories: business education, institutional investors, IT, luxury and consumer,... continue reading »Digitas/Modem Merger Shaking Out ClientsThe client conflicts created in the planned Digitas and Modem Media merger are now coming to a head as the companies are just a quarter away from closing the deal. Digitas said some clients will likely change agencies, according to... continue reading »Retail Spending Offering Small HopesResearch firm Retail Forward indicated retail sales will likely continue August's lackluster results, with its forward-looking spending index declining a few points to 101 from the early summer's 105. Online sales growth has been slowing significantly more than bricks and... continue reading »Poindexter to Gun for Atlas with New Venture RoundPoindexter Systems, a 33-person ad serving and behavioral targeting firm, announced it raised $8 million in venture funding to help support its stated aim to compete with huge firms like AtlasDMT and DoubleClick. Those companies offer a much wider range... continue reading »Vonage to Spend $25 Million in Online AdsVonage announced it will put more than half of its $50 million annual marketing kitty into online advertising. The average proportion among all brands remains closer to three percent. Vonage already spends a great deal online, as its internet telephony... continue reading »Levis Tops for Week on Consumer Online AdsAdRelevance reports that Levi Strauss came out on top for consumer goods online advertising in the third week of August, with about 77 million impressions, followed by Goodyear with 60 million and Nestle with 33 million. The Levis figure would... continue reading » |