Articles of the Day
More organisations join lawsuit against Google - Another eight plaintiffs are joining music publisher Bourne & Co and the UK Premier League in a class action lawsuit for copyright infringement against Google. The new parties include the US National Music Publisher’s Association, the Rugby Football League, the Finnish Football League Association, two boxing promotion firms and author Damien Quinn, all of whom claim YouTube has hosted unauthorised copies of their copyrighted content.
Google pays users for business information - Google is offering to pay users to source business information for its mapping applications through its business referral scheme. Eligible US users can sign up to become business referral representatives, seeking out local business and providing detailed information on them, such as opening hours, services offered and street-level photos of the location, as well as providing them with information on Google services.
Internet Ad Spending Set To Overtake All Media By 2011: VSS - Spending on Internet advertising will reach $61.98 billion and surpass newspapers to become the nation’s leading ad medium in 2011, projects private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson in its 21st Communications Industry Forecast released today.
NBCU Goes Beyond Must-See TV, Launches GiftDivvy.com - NBCU is rolling out a combination e-commerce/social-networking initiative that focuses on gift giving. Called GiftDivvy, the brainchild of NBCU’s digital innovation team, it’s positioned as an easy way for a group to collaborate on buying a wedding or birthday present without picking up the phone.
Customer Reviews Increase Web Sales - Customer product reviews are increasing retail e-commerce conversion rates, site traffic and average order values, according to e-consultancy and Bazaarvoice’s “Social Commerce Report 2007″ report. Asked about the effects of customer ratings on their Web sites, over half of online retailers in the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe said their overall conversion rates had gone up in the past year, compared with only 9% who said they fell. Over three-quarters said their site traffic had increased. Only 5% said it had fallen. Average order values rose for 42% of the responding online retailers, and only 6% said they had decreased.
Debate: Whither Web TV? - There’s an interesting email debate between Sab Kanaujia, vice president for digital product strategy at NBC Universal, and Steven Starr, co-founder and chairman of Revver, in which they discuss the future for online TV and mass media. Revver is a video-sharing site that compensates producers by sharing ad revenue. The rise of sites like Revver and competitors such as Metacafe and YouTube come at a time when NBC Universal and its traditional broadcasting cousins are searching for ways to incorporate social media into their online video offerings.
Yahoo, Slate, HuffPo To Host Presidential Web Debate - Yahoo, in conjunction with the Web publications Slate and the Huffington Post, said it would host the first Web-only U.S. presidential debate. Set for Sept. 12, the event will feature all eight of the Democratic Presidential candidates, and will be Webcast across each of the partners’ sites.
The New Yahoo Evangelist - Yahoo needs a superstar executive. Apple has Steve Jobs, Google has Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and Microsoft has Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie. Former CEO Terry Semel and former Chief Sales Officer Wenda Harris-Millard are gone, and the understated Jerry Yang lacks panache. Yahoo’s Bradley Horowitz, vice president of advanced development, stands out. And advanced development is exactly what Yahoo needs - to be first in the Next Big Thing.
Buy.com Ecommerce Tool Falls Short - Buy.com has thrown its hat in Facebook’s ever-expanding ring of third-party applications and services with a new program called Garage Sale, which allows users to sell directly to their friends. Buy.com will charge a flat 5% commission on completed sales, which excludes PayPal and other fees. Garage Sale isn’t the only Facebook app to facilitate ecommerce between friends; Mosoma is another one.
Study: Popularity of Social Networks Hampers Ad Growth - The rise of social networking has triggered a fall in the growth of online advertising, according to a Group M U.K. media and marketing forecast. U.S. figures, to be released in a few weeks, are expected to reflect the same trend.While Facebook has doubled in size globally over the past six months, to more than 30 million users, advertisers are struggling to profit from the popularity of social-networking sites.
Meet the Little Guys Who Are Challenging ComScore, NetRatings - Move over, Nielsen/NetRatings and ComScore, a new crop of measurement services with names such as Quantcast, Compete and Alexa have popped up, vying to provide quick and free data on a larger swath of sites. OK, it’s unlikely the two web-measurement giants will be unseated anytime soon, but unlike in other media, where multiple measurement companies have eventually been whittled down to one dominant player, some advertisers are cautiously welcoming the multiple audience-measurement options available online.
All NY Times Free Once Again Online? - The New York Times plans to scrap its two-year-old TimesSelect subscription service and once again make all of the newspaper’s columns available for free online, according to a report in today’s New York Post. The move comes amid speculation that under Rupert Murdoch’s ownership, The Wall Street Journal will stop charging for content in favor of an ad-supported business model.
