A surge in annual growth of local search far outpaced growth of overall Web search, according to a study from the Yellow Pages Association (YPA) conducted by comScore, Inc (via MarketingCharts).
Local search - the practice of using online search...
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After much ado, and provided the alliance passes regulatory review, The Walt Disney Co. shall join News Corp., NBC Universal and Providence Equity Partners as joint venture partner and equity owner of professional TV show/film/clip aggregator Hulu, MediaPost reports.
Financial terms...
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Interactive ad agencies are confident that the video advertising category will continue to perform, despite a challenging economy and an increased focus on performance advertising, according to a survey by BrightRoll.
The survey is part of BrightRoll's Q1 2009 Video...
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After condemning them as potential tools for terrorism just six months ago, the US Army is now using Twitter and Facebook to pursue new recruits.
Tomorrow's soldiers "live in the virtual world," observed Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley (via Newsday), citing Facebook...
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The aggregate percentage of print-generated revenue among B2B publishers fell from 58.3% to 40% between 2003 and 2008, while electronic revenues climbed from 18% to 33.9% in the same period, says Outsell, Inc.
A more specific look at the period...
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Though US adults are pessimistic about the economy and are cutting back on many big-ticket purchases, economically-driven changes in consumer behavior may hold potential bright spots for retailers engaging in social networking, according to (pdf) a recent survey from The...
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Print newspapers have been battling with competition from free online news sources like Google for some time now, and many thought the huge media companies that own newspapers would go down with them. But they're making a comeback in an...
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The collective reach of a group of vertical ad networks increased substantially in the past year, from 21.5% of the total US internet audience in March 2008 to 57.1% in March 2009, according to a study by comScore, Inc. of...
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YouTube has begun issuing written notifications to a number of popular content producers that have formed brand liaisons — and integrated those brands into their content — without its permission.
The YouTube Terms of Service states that users cannot post commercial...
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The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the launch of the Impression Exchange Solution, a document that identifies the core requirements necessary to the automated exchange of impression data between publishers and third-party ad servers.
Such a foundation will enable publishers and...
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Business-to-business (B2B) media company revenue declined 2.2% in 2008 vs. 2007, but revenue growth in online, live events, and data products helped offset revenue declines for magazines, according to American Business Media's (ABM's) 2009 Media Financial Survey.
The new survey,...
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is in the process of deciding whether an overlap of directors between Apple and Google's board violates existing antitrust regulations, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing "people familiar with the situation."
Notably, CEO Eric Schmidt...
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Generic website names with descriptive words of products and services deliver significantly higher click-through rates (CTRs) and overall clicks than those with non-generic domain names, according to a UK study conducted by MemorableDomains.co.uk, MarketingCharts reports.
The study was undertaken to...
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Rather than slash ad budgets, recession-hit hospitals are changing creative tactics with the times
Hospitals typically emphasize messages about their skilled doctors, caring nurses, and teamwork - or plug ratings given from a magazine or website, The New York Times observes.
One...
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As reports of swine flu outbreak reached beyond Mexican borders and into the US and other parts of the world last week, the number of Americans searching for information about the virus skyrocketed — as has the number of related...
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Ad Networks and Analytics:
Alloy is expanding: it officially launched TWEEN.com, which caters especially to marketers seeking to target 8-12-year-olds. It also announced the recent incorporation of Candystand.com, a sponsored casual gaming site; and WeeWorld, into the Alloy Media Network.
Lyris...
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In an earnest attempt to merge email and social media, Blue Sky Factory launched Share With Your Network (SWYN), which enables email subscribers to share the content they read across popular socnets.
The "SWYN" acronym is already part of the email...
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Yesterday Facebook added live updates within its home page - an application that used to be part of the older Facebook, but got shelved in the redesigned version, reports Mashable.
In doing so, Facebook joins the race of social media...
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After six years of hovering between $20 billion and $22 billion, 2009 TV industry revenue will take a dramatic fall below the $20 billion mark starting this year, reports MediaBuyerPlanner.
TV industry revenue for 2009 is expected to end at an...
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The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released the Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions (pdf), a document whose objective is to help "marketers better understand the true ROI of participatory communication," stated VP-Industry Services Jeremy Fain.
The sheet divides the social media...
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Despite many companies' efforts to clamp down on employees playing video games on office time, a study from PopCap Games finds that half of AT&T Wireless customers who play games on their mobile devices now play them at work —...
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Hoping to contribute to more ready adoption of streaming live video, Stickam's new service, StreamAPI, enables well-trafficked brands to stream video to a large audience for a white label fee.
StreamAPI boasts a simplistic interface — including a drag-and-drop editor that...
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Telus Corp., the second-largest telecommunications operator in Canada, has inked an agreement with Microsoft Corp. that enables customers to manage health files from personal databases. The fruit of their liaison is expected to appear in the next six to 12...
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Business professionals in Europe and the US waste about five hours each week arranging and re-arranging meetings and conference calls.
What's more, they pass countless more hours at meetings that are an average of 2.75 hours long, according to a meeting-planning...
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Despite the economic downturn, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) consumers in the US are likely to spend more on travel this summer than heterosexuals — and are less likely to cut back on meals and lodging while they are...
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In an ongoing campaign to fuse the worlds of TV and online gaming, Microsoft is debuting an interactive version of "1 vs. 100," an Endemol-created game show in which one person combats 100 others for a sizable cash prize.
"1 vs....
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4Q08 saw US ad spend fall steeply, down 9.2% from the year-earlier period, according to TNS Media Intelligence (via MediaBuyerPlanner).
That's twice the 4.1% drop for the year as a whole. TNS said spend shall continue to fall steeply in 2009....
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VideoEgg has launched an ad optimization service designed to catch users' attention through strategic ad placement.
AttentionRank is the latest in a series of the company's advertiser tools to attempt to attract user attention on clients' behalf. The tool optimizes...
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Ad Networks and Analytics:
A bipartisan group has launched Resonate Networks, an ad firm that uses data on political attitudes to help interest groups and other firms sell online ads.
Now Ning enables social network developers to create their own apps, including...
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Hoping to ingratiate themselves to today's social media-savvy shoppers, Kmart and parent company Sears are test-driving two new community sites: MySears and MyKmart.
Built with help from consumer review socnet Viewpoints, the site enables users to write reviews, view polls and...
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Big-screen e-readers may be the hope of the newspaper industry. Like Amazon's Kindle but with a larger screen - about the size of a standard sheet of paper - these devices are currently being created with the goal of displaying...
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American mothers with children ages 18 and under log an average of three hours a day on the internet, one hour more time than the two hours their school-age children spend online, according to a study by the Marketing to...
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OLX, an online classifieds site based outside the US, has raised $5 million in funding from Nexus Capital India.
This round brings the total amount of funding to $28.5 million. OLX received $13.5 million from General Catalyst Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners,...
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The iPhone reigns as the #1 most social brand, outscoring its innovator and parent, Apple, which ranks at #3, according to social media marketer Vitrue, which compiled its first-ever ranking of the top 100 social brands of 2008 (via MarketingCharts....
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In a poll for AdweekMedia, ad/marketing professionals on social network LinkedIn were asked what the most effective tone for advertising is during a recession.
They were given five options. Of the five, the vast majority of respondents (52%) argued the best...
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Skycore, a mobile messaging service and the parent company of Cellyspace, debuted mDAR (Mobile Delivery, Authentication and Redemption) at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES 2009) this week.
mDAR enables clients to build 2D barcodes, which some believe will ultimately wed the...
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Online streaming radio services, such as Last.fm and We7, have been hard-pressed to find a profit model that enables them to pass money to artists and record labels while remaining solvent themselves. But Pandora, a company that's profited primarily from...
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Men and women want websites to be easy to use overall, but men say fast downloading is their second-most-desired feature, while women value easy navigation and accessibility over speed, according to a recent web usability study from Southern Illinois University,...
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The number of US broadband households accessing web-to-TV content will leap to 24 million — and generate $2.9 billion in revenue from streaming services by 2013, according to a report by In-Stat, MediaBuyerPlanner writes.
Nearly 30% of those in the 25-34...
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Google accounted for 72.74% of all US searches conducted in the four weeks ending April 25, 2009, according to search-engine share data from Hitwise (via MarketingCharts).
This share is up 7% from 67.93% last April, and up from 72.39% in...
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For a full 24 hours this week, Sprint will take over YouTube's homepage in an ad campaign featuring a "human clock," composed of dynamically-changing user-generated videos.
The effort is for Sprint's "Now Network." In what MediaPost dubbed a "first" for YouTube...
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ShortTail Media will launch a beta test this summer of Digital 30 (D30) - a full-page, interstitial placement, through which 15- and 30-second TV spots can be incorporated between web pages — as they load, for example.
In a speech at...
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Consumer sentiment in the US rebounded this month on reduced concern about current economic conditions and diminishing fears of job loss, according to the most recent results of the RBC CASH (Consumer Attitudes and Spending by Household) Index (via MarketingCharts)....
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EveryZing, the Boston-based video search startup, signed a master service agreement with NBC Universal to provide video search and search-optimization technologies across all of its online properties: NBC.com, iVillage, CNBC.com, and the websites for Bravo, Sci-Fi, and Telemundo.
Under the deal,...
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Women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information (64%), advice and recommendations (43%), and opinion-sharing (55%), while they are 50% more likely use social networks to keep in touch...
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Ad Networks and Analytics:
FetchBack launched FIDO 2.0, a tech platform that hosts analytics remotely. Users can access campaign reports, review and update their campaigns.
Sorenson Media launched Sorenson 360, an internet video delivery network that enables users to easily publish and...
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The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released its Click Measurement Guidelines, the parameters with which publishers and advertisers can uniformly sell and buy cost-per-click advertising.
In addition to helping identify and discard fraudulent clicks, the Guidelines:
Define the life-cycle of a "click,"...
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Would-be video publishers suffering from options paralysis may soon be saved: Adap.tv has launched the Player Partner Program, which matches publishers to the video player partners that suit them best.
Partners available through this hub include Brightcove, thePlatform, Mogulus, VMIX, Twistage...
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In what indicates the growing importance of strategic communications within many large, global organizations, the majority (58%) of chief communications officers (CCOs) now report directly to CEOs, up from only 48% a year ago, according to a recent survey of...
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Web content monitoring/monetization platform Attributor is partnering with TubeMogul in an effort to better measure and analyze the online audience of viral videos.
TubeMogul was among the first online video anallytics/distribution firms to provide independent information about video performance, and user...
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