Google has launched Gmail Chat, allowing users to instant-message with a click from their email accounts, see when contacts are online and save their chat history as they would an email message, reports CNET. Users can also keep chats "off...
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To help ensure accurate online advertising impression counts during audit processes, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and ABC Electronic (ABCE) today announced the launch of an expanded global Spiders & Bots List. The new list, for the first time, combines...
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The blogosphere is now more than 60 times larger than it was merely three years ago, and it continues to double in size every 5.5 months, according to Technorati's most recent installment of the "State of the Blogosphere" report by...
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E-commerce giant Amazon.com is testing an AdSense-like online advertising program to distribute third-party contextual ads to its network of affiliates, reports ClickZ. Though Amazon has confirmed the program, in beta testing since January 27, a spokesperson wouldn't say who is...
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General Motors reduced its national advertising budget from $1.5 billion in 2005 to $1.3 billion for 2006 to cope with the $8.55 billion net loss the company suffered last year, reports Auto Week (via MediaBuyerPlanner). GM has historically led the...
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More than 50 commercials appeared during Super Bowl XL on Sunday, but instead of vanishing into the ether as they once did, many have already found a second life online, writes the New York Times. This year, many have been...
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Fox Interactive Media has signed TVG Network, an interactive cable network focused on horseracing, to provide users of FoxSports.com with horseracing content like streaming video of live horse races and racing commentary, writes Broadcasting & Cable (via MediaBuyerPlanner). TVG will...
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Men are more likely than women to buy their Valentine's Day gift online, reports Internet Retailer, citing a new consumer survey from Discover Card. Some 22 percent of men, and 15 percent of women, in Discover's Valentine's Day Shopping Survey...
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The General Mills Progresso brand has launched a website featuring nine short films, so-called "Soup Operas," with Publicis Dialog New York having created the site, homesweetcube.com, targeted to young women at work, reports AdWeek. The site features nine short films,...
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Dell has confirmed that it and Google are considering a partnership that would result in the bundling of Google Toolbar, Google Desktop Search and Google-designed Dell default homepage with new Dell computers, writes CNET. Google confirmed that tests were going...
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OgilvyOne Worldwide has officially launched Neo@OgilvyOne, which will handle digital and direct media after the breakup of mOne, the joint venture between WPP group agencies Ogilvy Worldwide and MindShare Worldwide, reports ClickZ. The newly named network is being headed up...
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Video blog Rocketboom, having decided to run ads on its site for the first time since its launch in 2004, is auctioning its video inventory on eBay, writes MediaPost (via MediaBuyerPlanner). The auction is for five post-roll video ads to...
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Set to launch in spring, Aeon Digital, a new online on-demand service, will make more NBC Universal content, including TV events and movies, available on the web, writes Broadcasting & Cable (via MediaBuyerPlanner). Users can access programming for 24 hours...
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Since the 2001 merger of Time Warner and America Online, "Time Warner's missteps have been particularly value-destroying at AOL. Since 2002, almost every strategic decision concerning AOL has been wrong," according to a 343-page report by advisory investment firm Lazard,...
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Two new real estate websites are starting to offer services that could change the way real estate is bought and sold, writes the New York Times. Just-launched Zillow.com helps homebuyers and sellers obtain detailed sales data that real estate agents...
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A recent survey of 18-34-year-old college students and recent grads found that online advertising motivates them to purchase products or services, according to a survey by Experience, Inc. (via iMediaConnection). The "2006 Online Advertising: Habits" survey found that the age...
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At least one America Online user is charging that the company is using the name of God in vain in its marketing campaign for AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), writes WorldNetDaily (via WebProNews). AOL recently launched a campaign with the tagline...
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Agents operating a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program may have snooped on the emails and phone calls of Americans with no ties to terrorists, admitted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales earlier this week, reports CNET. The admission came during the...
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Media companies can take advantage of the web's community features and their TV shows' online fan bases to help build their audiences, according panelists at the Digital Hollywood conference in New York, reports MediaPost. Dave Panos, CEO of a social...
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Agency.com CEO Don Scales has resigned from the interactive shop (reportedly due to "strategic differences"), after having served as CEO since July 2004, reports AdWeek. His future plans are undisclosed. Agency.com's estimated revenue reached $94.5 million in 2005, compared with...
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Search engine Blinkx has partnered with news producer ITN (U.K.), in the process creating a new broadband TV platform for media brands, reports NetImperative. The DirectPlay solution lets content owners broadcast and monetize video using an internet protocol TV (IPTV)...
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Volvo Cars of North America today announced the launch of a new car configurator that runs on BlackBerries, Treos, Windows Mobile Smartphones and other smart mobile devices, writes MediaBuyerPlanner. The Volvo configurator gives car buyers the opportunity to configure their...
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New features are being added to the Google Desktop search program, including greater customization of its floating tool palette - Sidebar - and the ability to send information directly to another desktop, search on multiple computers at the same time,...
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To forestall - or at least retain some control over - the expected controversy over the upcoming film The Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown's book, Sony Pictures is expected to launch a website to serve as a platform...
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Panelists at Wednesday's Business Marketing Association's What to Expect 2006 formed a consensus that marketers should invest more in intellectual capital in the B2B arena and worry less about return on investment, writes BtoB Online (via MediaBuyerPlanner). Leaders from various...
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Google has opened up bidding for print ads via AdWords, and advertisers can now, during a test phase, bid for full-page, half-page and quarter-page ads in various lifestyle and technology magazines, reports ClickZ. Google provides circulation and readership data, including...
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Procter & Gamble has shifted its global creative duties for the Old Spice brand from Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi to independent Wieden + Kennedy after a pitch, AdWeek writes (via MediaBuyerPlanner). W+K will also handle media planning and buying...
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The total number of U.S.-based searches conducted across approximately 60 search engines in December reached nearly 5.1 billion - or an increase of 55 percent from the 3.3 billion searches conducted in Dec. 2004, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Google accounted for...
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Internet adoption continues to grow in India, having reached 38.5 million by yearend 2005, according to data from the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), citing the lower cost of broadband; e-commerce and the demand for .in domain registrations...
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Pageviews for Clear Channel Radio's HD2 multicast channel streams are up 71 percent this week, according to statistics compiled by WebSideStory, Clear Channel said, and the number of streaming sessions is up 90 percent in the same period, reports MediaBuyerPlanner....
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Online retail spending will increase from $81 billion in 2005 to $95 billion in 2006 - reaching $144 billion in 2010, according to a JupiterResearch forecast, writes iMedia Connection. The report also forecasts that the internet will influence nearly half...
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On February 9th, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, Cingular, opened its concert series, Cingular Sounds Live, designed to generate content specifically for the mobile environment, writes MediaBuyerPlanner. The company will produce and host a series of regular music events around...
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Ad execs speaking at a digital media summit in New York this week said despite all the commotion having to do with the convergence of TV and the internet, a cultural divide separates the executives of the two media, MediaPost...
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Some 55 percent of U.S.-based online merchants accepted orders from outside the U.S. and Canada in 2005, and those orders constituted 14 percent of their total sales, according to a CyberSource survey, writes Internet Retailer. However, the direct fraud rate...
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Multimedia search engine TVEyes now lets viewers use a "spoken word index" to search on any word spoken during top TV news broadcasts - that is, those subsequently stored online - reports Search Engine Watch. TVEyes is using voice-recognition technology...
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Name and shame might become the name of the game for advertisers whose ads are served via surreptitious adware, according to a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), reports CNET. Speaking at an Anti-Spyware Coalition event this week, Jon...
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Isobar, Aegis Group's global digital network, said it has acquired Ammo Marketing, a word-of-mouth marketing agency - Isobar's third acquisition in the U.S. in the past 15 months. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Ammo was founded in 1999;...
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Marketers who want to create impressive interactive experiences for users of mobile phones can now turn those phones into remote controls for interacting with out-of-home digital screens, reports ClickZ. Startup LocaModa this week launched StreetSurfer, which lets phones control in-store...
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Six college students from China, Germany, Italy, Canada, Austria, and the U.S. are blogging about their trips to the winter Olympics games in Torino, Italy - thanks to Coca-Cola, which is paying to fly and house them, write MediaPost and...
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The HD Digital Radio Alliance has announced the launch of HDRadio.com, which is touting itself as "the new epicenter of consumers' digital radio lifestyle," reports MediaBuyerPlanner. HD radio promises to be the next big thing in radio and a challenge...
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MobiTV, a mobile video service, will help NBC Universal's mobile phone programmer, NBC Mobile, deliver daily highlights of the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, to U.S. customers of Cingular and Alltel, writes Broadcasting & Cable (via MediaBuyerPlanner). The NBC Mobile:...
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Some 50 percent of car dealers are relying on search marketing and intend to increase their paid search budget in the next 12 months, writes InternetRetailer, citing a Cobalt Group study of 300 car dealers. Dealers are targeting buyers within...
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Microsoft is scheduled to announce today partnerships with major cellular networks for a new generation of phones that would run Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system and be able to receive emails "pushed" directly from a company's PC server, without the...
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U.S. companies' primary source for hiring employees is the internet, producing 51 percent of all hires, according to a Booz Allen Hamilton study conducted for the DirectEmployers Association, reports BtoB Online. In 2005, corporate websites accounted for the largest share...
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Playboy magazine's website plans to publish a photo spread of "Girls from MySpace," featuring women from the social and blogging site, according to MediaPost (via MediaBuyerPlanner). While Playboy has often tapped into pop culture for photo spread features - having...
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Pheedo CMO Bill Flitter completes his three-part series in ReveNews on "How to Buy RSS Advertising," focusing on targeting techniques. In addition to taking into account the profile of the typical RSS user (Part 2), marketers should make use of...
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A new Gallup poll says the average American is not wild about blogs. Blog readership hasn't increased over the past year or so, even though Americans are spending more time online, writes Al Tompkins at PoynterOnline, citing Gallup's annual Lifestyle...
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Time Inc. is expected to finally launch online men's magazine Office Pirates on Feb. 22, after several years of development - and hype - reports MediaWeek. The irreverent site is expected to be a veritable treasure trove of videos and...
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The winner of video blog (vlog) Rocketboom's eBay ad auction was TRM, an ATM and photocopy services company, which bid $40,000, according to BusinessWeek's Blogspotting (via AdJab). Of course, the vlog itself also played a winning hand. Reportedly, Rocketboom cofounder...
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Word-of-mouth marketing and media firm BzzAgent has launched a word-of-mouth media channel to enable advertising, marketing and public relations firms to purchase access to BzzAgent's community of some 130,000 consumer volunteers (buzz "agents") - as they would buy time on...
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