World of Warcraft was the most-played PC game in the US this year, averaging 671 minutes/week per user, reports MarketingCharts.
Meanwhile, Tetris and Bejeweled were most popular on mobile devices, according to The Nielsen Company, which released its annual "Top 10"...
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Rumor has it Microsoft may cut 17% of its global work force — a total of 15,000 people — in the next two weeks, claims Fudzilla.
Departments likely to be affected include MSN, and Microsoft offices in Europe, the Middle East...
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Google, Yahoo and MSN/Windows Live were the most popular websites in 2008; Yahoo Mail, Google Search and Gmail were the top mobile websites; and the Motorola RAZR V3 series was the most popular cell-phone handset, according to The Nielsen Company,...
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In an effort to tie its Tostitos tortilla chip brand to Super Bowl revelry, Frito-Lay launched "Race to the Bowl," a guerrilla campaign sporting on- and offline components.
The online "Fiesta Bowl" portion is hosted on Facebook, where rival groups —...
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Hoping to win more youthful readers (and some insta-hipster clout), Consumers Union — the publisher of Consumer Reports — is purchasing Consumerist.com, a cheeky consumer advocate blog owned by Gawker Media.
Unlike Gawker, which is selling a panoply of online properties...
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Seann William Scott — better known as Steve Stifler of the raunchy '90s comedy American Pie — joins male entertainment site Heavy.com as co-host of The Burly Sports Show, a weekly round-up of all things sporting.
"This goes beyond a sponsorship,"...
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The Mozilla Firefox browser exceeded 20% market share in November 2008 for the first full month since tracking began, and remains the second-most-popular web browser behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer, according to Net Applications, which compiled share for browsers, search engine...
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Though the primary players involved in the Google's book scanning debate have come to a settlement, all groups be affected by the decision are still trying to understand what it will mean.
Librarians, for instance, worry that Google — the...
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Eight in 10 online shoppers (81%) have read consumer-written product or retailer reviews when doing their holiday shopping this year, according to (pdf) a Nielsen Online holiday survey conducted in mid-December, reports Retailer Daily.
71% of online consumers feel reviews...
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On Dec. 30, microblogging service Twitter hosted its first governmental press conference on behalf of Israel's Defense Forces — whose microblogging tag was @IsraelConsulate.
Questions and answers were limited to 140 characters, the standard length of a Twitter message or "tweet."...
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Some online retailers will thrive in 2009, while others face an uphill battle, if customer satisfaction with top retail websites during the holiday season is any indication, according to an annual report from ForeSee Results, writes Retailer Daily.
Amazon and...
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Last month Apple announced that marketing guru Philip Schiller would conduct 2009's first Macworld Keynote in the place of CEO Steve Jobs.
The news gave life to rampant speculation about Jobs' health. (The CEO announced in 2004 he'd been diagnosed with...
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Thanks in part to a personal appeal from co-founder Jimmy Wales, the Wikimedia Foundation surpassed its goal of raising $6 million to keep Wikipedia in business.
Wikipedia is a dynamic online encyclopedia, populated and edited by its readers. Because the information...
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Aegis Group is said to be on the brink of a restructuring whereby it spins off non-core research ops, such as Synovate. An outright sale of the company could even be in the cards, MediaBuyerPlanner writes.
The company is lining up...
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Jean-Marie Colombani, ex-director of French newspaper Le Monde, is launching a France-based online magazine modeled after Slate.com.
Microsoft launched Slate — now a Washington Post property — in 1996. Best known for its irreverent political editorials, it parented a business news...
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LiveJournal, a mature blog community launched in 1999, cut 12 employees — about 20% of its workforce — without severance yesterday, reports Gawker (via LiveJournal's xb95).
A previous version of this article stated the staff cut consisted of 20 employees. In...
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Recent speculations that Microsoft will fire a large number of employees on January 15th have been backtracked by their sources.
According to MSNBC, a "significant cost-cutting initiative" is expected, but not to the dramatic degree reported by sites like Mini-Microsoft and...
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Perhaps as a tribute to its mainstream legitimacy, Twitter's turf has been invaded by at least two spammer-orchestrated scams.
In the most widespread of the two, users receive a direct message from a follower, bearing this or similar bait: "hey! check...
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Online spend in several key categories, including Sports & Fitness and Video Games, increased, outperforming offline spend over the 2008 holiday season.
Meanwhile, overall online and offline spend in other home and luxury-goods categories decreased across the board, according to a...
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For a mere $10, Hawaiian residents with 'net access and a webcam or text chat will be able to "talk" directly to their doctors about medical problems.
Beginning January 15th, a partnership between Hawaii Medical Service Association, the state’s Blue...
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Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple continue to dominate the consumer smartphone market.
But market-share leader RIM must improve customer satisfaction and fix glitches with its new BlackBerry Storm in order to defend itself against long-term challenges from Apple's iPhone, according...
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Agencies and Marketing Execs:
Interpublic chose Quentin George, ex Global Lead-Digital Media/Strategic Innovation at Universal McCann, to head digital media at Mediabrands.
Sara Weinstein was made Account Executive at Revenue Science/New York.
Shane Steele joins Tremor Media as VP of Marketing. She left...
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Cox Cross Media (CXM), the digital sales component of Cox Enterprises, announced a marketing liaison with ABC's Television Stations Group.
ABC Television Stations presides over ABC-owned TV stations, websites and the ABC SuperSign in Times Square, in addition to a...
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Over three-fourths (77%) of the US internet audience viewed online video in November 2008, driving the total of online videos viewed by US internet users to 12.7 billion.
That's a 34% increase over the same period in 2007, according to data...
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WPP, which employs more than 100,000 people, plans to cut several thousand jobs worldwide, reports MediaBuyerPlanner.
The staff-slimdown will take place where labor costs exceed 60% of revenue, the Guardian said.
According to Reuters, cuts will revolve largely around Western Europe...
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One in five teen girls (22%), nearly as many teen boys (18%) and one-third (33%) of young adults say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude photographic or video images of themselves, according to (pdf) a survey...
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On its Google Checkout page, Google claims a "Checkout" icon can increase ad click-through by 10%. (At least one client, Fred Lerner of e-commerce network Ritz Interactive, claims the Checkout icon increased clickthroughs by 23%.)
What's more, Google Checkout users purportedly...
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Consumer confidence and spending in the US began slowing as early as spring 2007, especially among middle- and upper-income Americans, according to a recent analysis by Experian Marketing Services, based on data from Experian units Simmons and Hitwise, reports Retailer...
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Bowing to pressure from the record industry — as well as cheaper, DRM-free rivals like Amazon.com and Napster — Apple introduced elasticity to the price of iTunes music.
Prior to its announcement at MacWorld yesterday, all iTunes tracks were available for...
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Together, Google AdSense and Google-owned DoubleClick account for 57% of total ad server market share, while Microsoft and Yahoo lost significant share since March and together make up only 15% of the ad server market, according to an analysis by...
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Mobile ad firm AdMob launched Download Tracking for iPhone Apps, a means for marketers to monitor App Store conversion rates.
Apple's App Store enables third-party developers to build, then sell, games and mobile services to iPhone and iPod touch users. By...
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One expert posits that, in the months preceding Vista's 2007 debut, PCs deceptively labeled "Vista Capable" made Microsoft a cool $1.5 billion.
The estimate comes from University of Washington economist Dr. Keith Leffler, who testified in an ongoing class-action lawsuit based...
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To educate the industry on social media's ability to form better customer relationships and compel companies to innovate (typically through scathing consumer reviews and other "insights"), the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) is holding a one-day conference, "Transform Your Research by...
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97% of US small business owners are concerned about the economy, but 26% nonetheless plan to spend more on advertising — especially online.
Another 60% plan to spend about the same as in 2008, according to a report from Ad-ology Research...
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A progressive slowdown in the ad market forced Time Warner, owner of HBO, AOL and several publishing units, to report its first annual loss in six years.
Minus depreciation and amortization, the media conglomo's adjusted operating income rose 2% last...
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Marketing executives are going back to basics this year, putting renewed focus on satisfying and retaining customers and investing in research and insights.
A propos to that, they are "sick" of hearing about Web 2.0. Previously hot topics, like global warming...
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Ad Networks and Analytics:
mDialog has launched mAD, an ad delivery platform that brings short pre-or post-roll ads and coupons to online video content.
Agencies and Marketing Execs:
Tom Vick and Joe Petyan are now joint managing directors at JWT/London.
Reuters added Riley McDonough,...
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Yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the development of a coveted liaison with Verizon Wireless.
The five-year contract makes Microsoft the default search provider to Verizon's sizable user base. It will also manage...
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A group of well-known — but unnamed — Silicon Valley executives and investment bankers are brokering a deal to take over Yahoo, TechCrunch claims.
The investors are expected to offer $20 billion for the struggling internet company, a 20% premium...
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Last Monday Dunkin' Donuts bowed a $100+ million integrated ad campaign with a rallying cry for consumers hard-hit by the economy: "You Kin' Do It!"
The national "You Kin' Do It" campaign broke with three TV spots aired during network primetime...
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Search/ad darling Google has discharged a "substantial number" of temporary and contract workers, reports the Associated Press.
Actual figures weren't revealed. But in November, sources claimed Google planned to lay off 10,000 "temps" or contract workers — people that are not...
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Consumers in the US watch more TV and mobile video than those in Germany, Sweden and urban China.
And while most still watch video on a PC, nearly a quarter (23%) watch video on a mobile device, according to results from...
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Even through a recession, and despite a strong reported preference for them, US consumers redeem just 1-3% of paper coupons.
But coupon distributors take heart: up to half the coupons that Kroger sends to its customers are redeemed, courtesy of the...
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The children's book market is moving quickly toward digital, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (via Retailer Daily).
Kids are primed for reading books on a computer and via e-book readers, having grown up with technology like laptops and iPods. They're also able...
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At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, the Associated Press (AP) launched two new applications that fuses web-based engagement to TV consumption. Both offerings operate on TVs optimized with Microsoft Mediaroom, a separate service that integrates interactive capabilities to...
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Some 36% of online shoppers suffered roadblocks when buying gifts this holiday — ranging from slow website response, to fruitless check-out efforts, to outright system crashes–according to a survey of 1,000 online consumers, conducted for Guidance by Synovate, reports Retailer...
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Ex presidential candidate John McCain announced the launch of a grassroots organization called "Country First," which is supported by many of the social media tools that contributed to President Elect Obama's historic win.
According to an email to McCain supporters —...
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Ogilvy PR has launched The Daily Influence, a social media/RSS dashboard tailored to PR and marketing professionals.
Produced in tandem with RSS/widget platform Netvibes, The Daily Influence comes pre-loaded with aggregated social media, word of mouth, PR and marketing news feeds....
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China expanded its crackdown on "vulgar" online content to 14 additional sites, including Microsoft's MSN, reports Reuters.
The ruling Communist Party also accused Google of doing an insufficient job of policing its own search results.
Google took significant flak from American...
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Online news sites are now second only to recommendations from friends ("word of mouth" or WOM) as the primary trusted source of information in the UK, and are "highly trusted"* sources of information by 40% of people in 16 countries...
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