In a resource-saving public relations move, Amazon.com is using some of its most zealous users to give reporters — and customers — the 411 on the best holiday gifts.
Amazon's "Holiday Customer Review Team" purports to help consumers make more...
continue reading »
Despite the cultural phenomenon that Facebook and MySpace have become in the past few years, 55% of top-brand CMOs said they're not too interested (22%), or not interested at all (33%), in incorporating these and similar social-networking sites into their...
continue reading »
Online reviews and comments written by users — often overlooked by marketers in favor of things they can control — are disproportionately influential to consumer buying decisions.
What's more, reviews are second only to personal word-of-mouth in terms of purchasing influence...
continue reading »
Beginning this week, jewelry designer Ivanka Trump will be guest-blogging on Brides.com's Wedded Bits channel. The mogul will share tips on top bridal jewelry and major brands. She will also wax poetic on her own sense of style.
"It's wonderful to...
continue reading »
Data storage firm SanDisk enlisted Cohn & Wolf to promote a three-day sale across social networks. Sale items include MP3 players, Flash memory cards and USB drives, for example.
Instead of advertising with ads and flyers, SanDisk hopes to "reach consumers...
continue reading »
Cyber Monday is gaining steam as a favorite holiday shopping day. 26% of respondents plan to shop on the Monday after Thanksgiving, up from 20% in 2007, according to a Maritz Poll, Retailer Daily reports.
However, 41% of respondents say...
continue reading »
Email, news gathering and paying bills remain the most widely-used online activities among US adults.
But downloading TV programs, watching videos and making web phone calls posted the biggest overall growth, according to data from Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI), writes...
continue reading »
"Britney Spears" was the most-searched term on Yahoo.com this year, but the epic tale of Barack Obama's presidential victory won more click-throughs than any other story on the engine, reports Yahoo (via Reuters).
Spears topped Yahoo's top 10 search terms for...
continue reading »
With only four weeks separating Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, Cyber Monday One (December 1st) and Cyber Monday Two (December 8th) may command a greater share of online sales than they have in years past–thus increasing the importance of search...
continue reading »
Regulatory filings reveal that billionaire hedge-fund manager Carl Icahn bought nearly 7 million additional shares — about $67 million worth — of Yahoo.
The investor paid an average of $9.92 for each share over the course of three days, bringing...
continue reading »
Last week New York Times president Scott Heekin-Canedy released an eight-page memo praising the success of the newspaper's Facebook advertising campaign, which went live in the days following the Presidential election.
"The goals […] were to increase our number of Facebook...
continue reading »
Judge Richard Kramer of the California Superior Court has dismissed a lawsuit against Google and Yahoo, which were charged with displaying gambling ads in search results.
The suit was filed in 2004 by two California residents, which saw the ads and...
continue reading »
Americans conducted 12.6 billion core searches in October 2008 — up 7% from September — while Google Sites maintained its top position.
Google accounted for nearly two-thirds of all core* searches conducted, according to the monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the...
continue reading »
Behavioral ad firm Phorm lost four board members, reportedly because they disagreed with CEO Kent Ertugrul about the company's future. Departees were David Dormon, chairman of Motorola; Virasb Vahidi, former CEO; Christopher Lawrence, Rothschild exec; and Stephen Heyer, ex-Coca-Cola exec.
No...
continue reading »
Yahoo is availing its search technologies and infrastructure to parties that want to improve their site-specific search engine.
The initiative, BOSS — an acronym for "build your own search service" — was announced in July. Its premise is to give...
continue reading »
Nearly 60% of mobile-phone users say carry their cell phone with them "at all times" — including inside their home — and a growing number say their device plays an important role in many day-to-day aspects of their lives, according...
continue reading »
Political news site The Huffington Post received $25 million in a financing round led by VC firm Oak Investment Partners.
HuffPo plans to invest in infrastructure, increase in-house advertising capabilities and expand content offerings. The site primarily curates political content from...
continue reading »
Microsoft has partnered with brick-and-mortar movie rental firm Blockbuster to serve films on mobile devices.
"Eventually, we'll give customers instant access to any movie on any device with an internet connection and a screen," vowed Blockbuster Chief Information Officer Keith Morrow...
continue reading »
With only four weeks separating Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, Cyber Monday One (December 1) and Cyber Monday Two (December may command a greater share of online sales than they have in years past.
This increases the importance of...
continue reading »
Ad Networks and Analytics:
Media6 Degrees, a social graph-mapping ad company, has exited beta. The firm promises to provide clients with scalable audiences using social graph data. It is currently floating on $9 million in VC funding.
Agencies and Marketing Execs:
Serial Entrepreneur...
continue reading »
Facebook has launched Facebook Connect, a system that lets members use their login information to access other websites, see what "Friends" are doing, and broadcast actions to others.
Sites accessible via Facebook connect include the Discovery Channel, The San Francisco...
continue reading »
Editors at Gawker, Gizmodo and Jezebel blogs are facing the axe.
Gawker editor Sheila McClear has been let go, as has an editorial assistant at Jezebel, while Gawker weekend editor Alex Carnevale’s monthly contract was not renewed, writes FishbowlNY (via MediaBuyerPlanner).
Gizmodo...
continue reading »
NetShelter has launched an offering that enables marketers, publishers and consumers to communicate openly about products and services.
Headed by SVP/Media and Chief Publisher Patrick Houston, the Open Media Platform targets marketers that wish to embed ads on contextually relevant sites...
continue reading »
Only 28% of the audience of an average news program, website or magazine gets valuable information about products and services advertised there, making news venues less effective at conveying ad messages than all forms of media combined, according to consumer...
continue reading »
Ex-AOL CEO Jonathan Miller is talking with private investors in hopes of obtaining part of all of Yahoo, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Up until recently it was assumed that Time Warner would incorporate AOL — another flagging internet brand —...
continue reading »
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may consider auctioning public airwaves to private companies — on the condition that the winning bidder provide free internet access nationwide.
Chairman Kevin Martin put the proposal before the commission on Dec. 18.
Mobile phone firms...
continue reading »
Two-thirds (70%) of consumers that recently bought video games and/or game systems, either online or in stores, reported some or significant purchasing influence from TV.
And 54% reported influence from online video, according to a consumer-choice study from Ad-ology Research, MarketingCharts...
continue reading »
In-game ad network Massive inked a multi-year liaison with video game publisher Activision and subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment.
Massive will serve dynamic in-game ads across 18 of Activision's Xbox 360 and PC offerings, including Guitar Hero: World Tour and James Bond: Quantum...
continue reading »
Shoppers spent $534 million online on Black Friday — only 1% more than on Black Friday last year, according to comScore.
$10.41 billion has been spent online for the holiday season to date (the first 28 days of the November-December season),...
continue reading »
Mobile ad network Greystripe now offers clients the ability to push rich media ads — including Flash videos and advergames — on iPhone units.
New formats include:
GS.Impact, which lets brands extend existing online ad campaigns to mobile. Marketers may wield "all...
continue reading »
Google has launched Google Holiday Shopping, which aggregates top product searches for certain categories.
"To find the season's most wanted gifts, Santa's elves mined millions of recent Google Product Search queries to put together some of the most popular products people...
continue reading »
Men and women in Great Britain rank first among industrialized western nations on the international "Promiscuity Index," a measure that incorporates their total number of sexual partners and one-night-stands, according to Bradley University, as reported in London’s TimesOnline.
Germany, The Netherlands,...
continue reading »
News Corp's MySpace is giving users the ability to view streaming, ad-supported video clips on mobile devices, Reuters reports.
Supported devices include the BlackBerry Bold, Palm Centro, Motorola Q9, LG Voyager, Nokia N95, and Samsung Instinct. iPhone — notably missing...
continue reading »
Over one in 10 (11%) young adults aged 18-34 watches TV online at least once a week. They also spend an extra hour each day with media, compared with their same-age counterparts, according to new data from Knowledge Networks, writes...
continue reading »
The relatives of a 34-year-old Wal-Mart employee, killed during a Black Friday stampede at a store in Long Island, are filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the big-box.
Defendants include Wal-Mart, the Green Acres Mall and the security company hired to...
continue reading »
Consumers will continue to shift gift buying online this holiday season, citing convenience, time constraints and price among the primary reasons for shopping on the web, according to (pdf) a Nielsen Online pre-holiday survey, writes Retailer Daily.
With the current...
continue reading »
A Specific Media study finds the presence of display advertising significantly affects click-through and search style across both paid and organic searches.
In the "travel and tourism" category, display advertising engendered a 274% lift on both paid and organic search. A...
continue reading »
When entering a query into Yahoo's search box, users are presented with text suggestions to narrow down what they're looking for. Image Search will soon provide a parallel feature, with queries for images providing thumbnails for top related search terms.
For...
continue reading »
Despite gloom-and-doom reports for traditional print and broadcast media, C-Suite execs in the US — the highest echelon in business — remain heavy consumers of newspapers, TV and magazines in addition to online sources, according to the Business Elite: USA...
continue reading »
Ad Networks and Analytics:
Online contextual display ad firm LucidMedia secured $8.8 million in its third funding round, including converted debt. Leading investors included Lake Street Capital, RLI Partners and Melton Investments.
Agencies and Marketing Execs:
Silicon Alley Insider claims ex-AOL exec Jonathan...
continue reading »
Online classifieds ad vendor Oodle is taking the reins on Facebooks's "Marketplace" application, according to Oodle CEO Craig Donato.
Donato feels Facebook users and advertisers will benefit from Oodle's capacity to serve as a "weirdo filter" — that is, to stalwartly...
continue reading »
Up to 500 jobs, or 3% of the work force, are expected to be cut at NBCU, parent company of Weather.com and co-parent of Hulu.com.
NBC News bureaus in Dallas and Los Angeles will be affected, writes TV Newser (via MediaBuyerPlanner)....
continue reading »
College students are four times more likely to blog than other online adults.
And the popularity of blogging among this demographic is driven largely by women, which are three times more likely to blog than male counterparts, according to a study...
continue reading »
Those scared off by the "jumble of coding mixed with plain English paragraphs" in Wikipedia's entry edit forms should feel reassured by updates to the interface — thanks to a $890,000 grant from the Stanton Foundation.
A five-person team will use...
continue reading »
Boxee, a set-top box software purveyor, has updated its feature set.
The site enables users to view select TV and online video content from their computer desktops, over the internet or even on HDTVs. Users can also "see" what videos their...
continue reading »
Though 40% of parents who exchange text messages with their teen- and young-adult children say they have been caught off guard by high texting bills, the majority still say text messaging is the most cost-effective way to keep tabs on...
continue reading »
US-based advertisers are expected to spend only $23.6 billion online this year, according to revised figures from eMarketer, which lowered its estimate from the $24.9 billion predicted in August because of poor performance in display and paid-search advertising categories.
The new...
continue reading »
One week after changing the default format of video-viewing to widescreen (the better for HD material), YouTube now hosts a search bar in videos embedded to other sites.
The search bar enables users to run video searches on YouTube without leaving...
continue reading »
Hoping to "[redefine] education in the digital age," the Jacob Burns Film Center has opened the Media Arts Lab in Pleasantville, Westchester County, New York.
The complex of digital studios cost about $15 million to launch and will serve as an...
continue reading »
The Huffington Post, one of the fastest-growing independent political sites this year, is launching a World Affairs section.
The new channel shall include analysis from US foreign policy experts and bloggers worldwide. Contributors are expected to include Queen Noor of Jordan,...
continue reading »
