Articles of the Day
ImageSpan Partners With Visible World For On-Demand Ad Customization Platform - Visible World and ImageSpan today are announcing a new online dashboard that allows advertisers to tap into thousands of videographers and photographers to create rights-cleared creative. Its founders promise nothing short of a revolution for the $8 billion rights management clearance process.
Survey: Companies Need Web Analytics Education - Companies using Web analytics are placing too much faith in technology and people, and not putting enough effort into education and training, according to research backed by the Web Analytics Association.
Podzinger Now Does EveryZing - Podzinger, known until now as a podcast search engine, is getting a new name and more ambitious mission. Rechristened EveryZing, the company now hopes to make searchable the multimedia libraries of the largest media companies around.
Google Universal Search Boosts Video, Map Use - YouTube and Google Maps are the prime beneficiaries to date of the new Google Universal Search, which puts all related Google content behind a single search result, according to an analysis by Hitwise. Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Hitwise, analyzed the percentage of U.S. visitors to the top Google properties for the weekend ending 5/12/07 and again on 6/2/07 after the launch of Google Universal Search.
Behavioral Advertising on Target… to Explode Online - After years of deriding the Internet as “only” a direct advertising vehicle, major brand marketers are discovering powerful new ways to target their users online, and major online players are clearly noticing. Spending for Internet advertising with a behavioral targeting component will soar from $575 million this year to $1 billion in 2008, and that still represents only 11% of the US display, rich media and video market.
US Broadband Fulfills Need for Speed - Broadband is getting cheaper, faster and more widely available, which is why 70% of US homes will have broadband Internet access by 2012, according to JupiterResearch’s “US Broadband Forecast, 2007 to 2012: LECs Maintain Advantage over Cable Operators in Quest for New Subscribers” report. That means 36 million new broadband subscriptions in the next five years, resulting in 86 million households with high-speed Internet connections.
Media Execs: YouTube Stalls On Copyright Issue - The agitation is mounting among Hollywood executives with respect to YouTube’s perennially “still-coming” content filtering system. It’s now been two months since Google CEO Eric Schmidt quelled Hollywood fears over the forthcoming program, which he said the company is close to enacting. But CNET says it’s not just the “hold on, it’s coming” thing that has media executives angry, it’s the “no-shows at meetings and canceled test programs” that lead them to believe Google might be stalling.
Investors Unimpressed With eBay Growth Strategy - It’s ambition is enviable, but just where does eBay think its heading? The online auction and e-commerce giant is branching out, having spent some $6 billion on new media acquisitions in the last five years. From online payment service PayPal (which proved to be a smart, synergistic decision) to the $2.6 billion Internet telephony giant Skype (eBay overpaid and the jury’s still out), to classified sites around the world, including a 25% interest in Craigslist and Kurant, which sets up online “storefronts” separate from eBay, to ticket reseller StubHub (its newest acquisition), eBay thinks it can be everywhere in the world of e-commerce.
Report: Google Last In Privacy Satisfaction - The online rights group Privacy International has labeled Google as “hostile” to privacy in a new report about how Web firms handle personal data. It said Google is leading a “race to the bottom” among Web firms in terms of how they protect their users. The PI report is the result of six months of research, which scrutinized the personal information practices of 20 big Web firms.
Yahoo To Carve Niche In Celebrity News - In the last 10 years, the celebrity-news sector has exploded like no other category in the publishing industry. And while other print pubs have seen ad revenues eroded by the surging use of the Web for gathering news, this sector has remained relatively unaffected. But that may change. Yahoo on Monday took the curtain off a new celebrity-oriented Web portal called-get ready-omg!, or “oh my God”, a 24/7 celebrity news site set to compete with Time Warner’s TMZ.com and celebrity blogs like Perez Hilton and Jossip.
