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2004
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Microsoft Still on Patent Hook for $565 MillionThe half billion dollar jury decision against Microsoft in a patent dispute was reaffirmed by a federal district judge, who added to the damages $45 million in interest to boot. The original late summer jury decision found that Microsoft -... continue reading »Advertising.com Releases AdBid Online Media Pricing SystemAdvertising.com launched a new self-serve advertising interface named AdBid that brings to its inventory - primarily a combination of banner ads, text links and email opportunities - the same sort of pricing process and mechanism already seen in search advertising.... continue reading »In China, Relationships RuleLaurel Delaney lists ten items to consider in selling to Chinese customers. Part marketing advice, part business development advice, her MarketingProfs column also makes note of a long list of useful web-based trade resources for those trying to break into... continue reading »Channeling Jakob NielsenJakob Nielsen, the oft-cited usability expert, has a cruddy looking site (http://www.useit.com), and Jim Kukral asks the natural question, if this guy doesn't see fit to hire a designer for his site, why should anyone else? MarketingProfs reports.... continue reading »WeatherBug Builds User Trust With Ad TargetingiMediaConnection's Nancy Wong Bryan interviews WeatherBug Senior Vice President and General Manager Andy Jedynak about the success WeatherBug has experienced as well as its unique Sponsor Select targeted ad program. One might liken it to a human-controlled Tacoda-like system whereby... continue reading »Earthlink Joins Anti-Spyware ClubEarthlink will distribute anti-spyware software to its subscribers, following the practices of both AOL and MSN. The Earthlink version of the software will notify users of programs that track behavior and instigate pop-up ads, regardless of whether or not users... continue reading »Yahoo Revenues Up 132 PercentYahoo reported $664 million in Q4 revenue, up 132 percent from last year making it the most successful quarter in its 10-year history. Net income for the fourth quarter was $75 million, up from $46 million a year ago period.... continue reading »New Report Says Advergaming the Next Big ThingGartner G2 Analyst Denise Garcia previewed a report on advergaming at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In the report, Garcia claims advergaming - the embedding of advertising in electronic games - will grow rapidly in the next few... continue reading »Salon Gets SaviorsRolling Stone Editor Jann Wenner invested $200,000 in struggling Salon.com, and Adobe Co-Chairman John Warnock kicked in $600,000. The deal includes an editorial alliance between Wenner and the Salon staff in which the group will collaborate on a series of... continue reading »It's Not 'Must See TV' AnymoreKathy Sharpe brought down her editorial hammer on the heads of clueless media executives who are making excuses for TV's poor performance and measurement. Viewership is down. Executives are blaming Nielsen methodologies, blind to possibility that viewers are simply not... continue reading »Get the XML Feeds ReadyYes, Yahoo is moving away from Google for algorithmic search results and to Inktomi. The thing is, even though Inktomi spiders are out indexing the web, they are generally not considered as aggressive as Google's. That means you better get... continue reading »Network Effect vs. Better TargetingPamela Parker comments on the interesting dynamic that happens when media networks decide to break down and provide better targeting within their available inventory. Publishers want to participate in networks that have high effective CPMs, and as marketers get more... continue reading »Adspend to Grow 8 Percent in 2004Measured general ad spending will jump almost eight percent this year to $138 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR. Spanish TV is seen as the big winner, likely to capture an additional 15.7 percent of 2003 revenues, closely followed by... continue reading »Can-Spam Having Zero ImpactNow that the Can-Spam legislation has taken effect, the spam filtering companies that monitor the amount of unsolicited email coming over people's virtual transoms all see the same trend: unimpeded growth. Can-Spam has been ignored by the mega-spammers and only... continue reading »China, India to Account for Half of Web UsageChinese citizens today account for about 80 million Internet users - not a small number - but a Frost & Sullivan analyst predicts that within 10 to 15 years, India and China will together account for more than half of... continue reading »Trademark Terms Issue Still UnsettledThe case that allowed advertisers and search engines to believe it was safe to allow trademarked words to be used as search terms just came back from the dead. A 2000 federal district court decision dismissed Playboy's case against Excite... continue reading »Major Newspaper Editor Starts WeblogCleveland Plain Dealer Editor Doug Clifton started a weblog. While there are quite a few journalist weblogs out there, it's believed to be the first weblog by a major newspaper editor. Though his first entry reads like a column rather... continue reading »Retailer E-commerce Spending on UpswingInternet Retailer reports that a new business climate is emerging, backed by some studies, showing that retailers are beginning to spend more on technology and e-commerce systems.... continue reading »Maximizing Revenue by Taking out WasteKevin Lee finished up his two-part series on search engine marketing as a means to maximize advertiser revenues. The second part concentrates on eliminating waste in search campaigns, using tactics such as daypart analysis. ClickZ reports.... continue reading »Secret Tapes Show AOL TiradesTapes acquired by Internet.com show that perennially screwed-up media seller AOL is perhaps more screwed up than even critics thought. Employees working under sales EVP Lisa Brown began tape recording her meetings because of alleged incidents in which she later... continue reading »Use Blogs to Market to Young VotersPolitical marketers should avoid traditional online advertising and focus their efforts on interactive marketing, such as blogs, in order to reach young voters, according to a new survey. Young voters respond better to marketing as a conversation than to... continue reading »God Save the Queen (on Stamps)In the U.K., Royal Mail launched a digital stamp service that allows businesses to design and print personalized postage marks. Users can download the software, design their own "SmartStamps," pay for the postage online, and then print them directly onto... continue reading »CBS Rejects MoveOn.org Super Bowl AdCBS TV rejected MoveOn.Org's bid to run an anti-Bush ad during the Super Bowl, claiming that the network has a policy against advocacy advertising during the football championship. CBS's reaction did not surprise many, who have come to expect a... continue reading »Google Snoops Around EmailGoogle Labs is at it again - this time tinkering around to try to display an automated ad when emails get opened. The fact that Google is exploring how email might be used to deliver information, ads or other communications... continue reading »Online Publicity Helps Free Jailed Iranian BloggerIn the case of jailed Iranian journalist and blogger Sina Motallebi, the Iranian and American blogospheres came together to get publicity and thousands of signatures on an online petition. There can be no denying that publicity in blogs can have... continue reading »Web Publishers Weep at Imminent Pop-up ExtinctionSome direct sellers are both angry and disappointed at the imminent extirpation of the pop-up. The larger media sellers, like Sportsline, saw pop-up revenues decline rapidly as both the publisher and its advertisers became queasier about the negative branding effects.... continue reading »U.S. Asks for Help in Sentencing SpammersThe optimistic U.S. government started soliciting ideas from the public as to how to generate sentencing guidelines for convicted spammers. These are the parameters - initially voluntary - judges use when considering what the factors are in whether or not... continue reading »Royal Caribbean Account in ReviewCruise operator Royal Caribbean threw its $15 million interactive business into review, with four interactive shops competing against incumbent Arnold. The remaining $60 million of measured media spending will not be included in the pitch, which also currently sits in... continue reading »Old :30 Model to be Forced on WebSeemingly unwilling or unable to come up with an alternative creative format, unimaginative advertisers, courtesy of Unicast, will now have the ability to place full-screen, 30-frame-per-second, TV-style ads on the web in interstitial format. On Tuesday, MSN, ESPN, Lycos and... continue reading »Ecommerce Not a Help to ID TheftWorking on a hunch, a Javelin Strategy analyst found that the increased use of Internet transactions, far from helping increase identity theft crimes, is actually helping keep it in check. Many reports and even government tabulations have incorporated the assumption... continue reading »Spam Filters Make Email Unreliable Business MediumSpam filters work pretty well - at least some of them - but any filter that usefully catches spam will also, eventually, throw out an important email. Wired notes that people now have to exercise much greater care in what... continue reading »Some Cart Abandonment Easy to AvoidWhile one study pegs shopping cart abandonment losses to ecommerce firms as high as $63 billion a year, a WebTrends study indicates that small changes in the purchasing process could significantly curtail that loss. Internet Retailer reports.... continue reading »FDA to Change Drug Ad RegsThe Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon publish its new guidelines on pharmaceutical advertising. Currently, online advertising benefits from not having to comply with print regulations that require advertisers to use the bulk of the creative to list stultifying... continue reading »Pop-ups Reprieved With 'Popstitial'The pop-up serving vs. pop-up blocking boxing match is set to continue with the announcement of FPBA Group's COMMFLASH. It's a technology that detects pop-up blocking software, defeats it, and delivers a full screen "popstitial," a fancy name for yet... continue reading »Blog Available from Newspaper Association's New Media ConferenceCourtesy of hosting services from SignOnSanDiego.com, the Newspaper Association of America is blogging (http://www.signonsandiego.com/naa/) the Connections conference in San Diego. Turnout for this year's new-media conference, which is being held in tandem with the Marketing Federation's conference, is said to... continue reading »Advertainment Works for CharityThe British Heart Foundation launched an anti-smoking campaign, taking advantage of online communications. They created a micro-site that exhorts "Give up before you clog up" to support the campaign and teach people about smokers' health problems. The site, developed by... continue reading »Mazda Gets Its Zoom-Zoom With Flashy Transformer SiteForget about TV commercials on the Web, Mazda shows it's zoom-zoom with this anime-like Flash site for the RX-8 Transformer. Rick Bruner reports.... continue reading »Microsoft Forces Teenager to Take Down SiteA cheeky Vancouver, BC teenager named Mike Rowe wanted a catchy name for his web site, so he added "soft" to his name and registered the URL www.mikerowesoft.com. Microsoft is unamused. Microsoft's lawyers told Rowe he was committing copyright infringement... continue reading »Primus on Hook for $1 million in Do-Not-Call ViolationsThe Federal Communications Commission woke up and started making some inquiries into several alleged Do-Not-Call Registry violations. Among the targets was Primus Telecommunications, according to papers filed by that company. In securities disclosures, Primus noted that it could be on... continue reading »Un-PC Viral Vodka Ads Key to SuccessKiwi Saatchi & Saatchi executive Geoff Ross created a furor in New Zealand when marketing his own brand of vodka, 42 Below. An online viral video commercial so offended New Zealand's (pretty liberal) Advertising Standards Complaints Board that they asked... continue reading »Google Considering Email Ad Delivery Product, ServiceGoogle is believed to be developing both an email service and a program that will allow text ads to be served in email at the moment of delivery. While, AdSense ads can already be placed in outgoing emails, the launch... continue reading »Most CMOs Find Online 'Strategic' MediumTwo out of three chief marketers surveyed say that online marketing is highly strategic and important to their companies. Three quarters planned on boosting online spending, most of them because they thought it was a relatively cheap medium. DM News... continue reading »Marketers Need to Make Better Use of AdvergamingUnderscore Marketing's Tom Hespos writes in this Online Spin column that marketers have left a vastly popular medium, video games, untapped. Hespos says marketers should consider underwriting the entire development of games and then give them away for free. Or,... continue reading »Jonathan Adams to ModemmOne's group media director Jonathan Adams will move to Modem Media to take over the Delta account. Adams is a veteran of Lowe, Media Edge and Ayer. He will report to VP Media Services Walt Cheruk. AdWeek reports.... continue reading »SRI to Delve into PRSelect Resources International, a popular pitch consultant to major brands seeking new agencies, will move into the PR arena. The firm hired Dan Orsborn to head up the new division. The department will both train agency new business teams and... continue reading »Europe's Number Two ISP Renews with OvertureEurope's second largest Internet service provider will re-up with Overture. Wanadoo signed a multi-year deal with the search giant, indicating that Yahoo's acquisition of Overture did not quench the company's ability to maintain its distribution network of other major portals.... continue reading »Yahoo Labs to Stoke Innovation FiresTrying to emulate the success of Google, Yahoo started a new Yahoo Labs division that will attempt to come up with new technologies - particularly in the search field - that will keep it competitive. Upstart Google exploded onto the... continue reading »Mikerowesoft Tames Redmond LawyersThe cheeky amateur software coder Mike Rowe, who registered the mikerowesoft, seems to have tamed the better known Redmond beast, as Microsoft announced that it would cease its aggressive efforts to get the 17 year old software hobbyist to hand... continue reading »The Standard Reborn as a BlogIn the heyday of the Internet economy, The Industry Standard, was the magazine to read for options-rich dot-commers, thanks to smart writing and good editorial focus. When the bubble burst, so did The Standard. Now Jimmy Guterman, a former Standard... continue reading » |