Articles of the Day
All Ads All The Time On NBCU’s New Didja.com - To call it an ad-supported video-sharing site would be an understatement. Rather–on the premise that ads can be as entertaining as the shows they support–USA Network is preparing to launch a site to serve up ads exclusively.
Fox Interactive Posts First Full Year Of Profitability - News Corp., in its quarterly earnings call, reported that Fox Interactive Media, led by MySpace, reported its first full year of profitability–with $10 million in operating income.
Insurance Brands Will Spend $980 Billion Online: eMarketer - A new eMarketer reporter says insurance brands will spend some $980 billion in online advertising this year, with about half that budget going to search. But television continues to be the dominant ad medium, drawing almost 67% of all ad dollars spent in the category.
aQuantive Reports 22% Q2 Loss On Healthy Revenue Gains - Costs associated with the pending sale to Microsoft Corp. helped push second-quarter net income down 22%, aQuantive reported on Wednesday. Microsoft’s board is scheduled to vote on the $6 billion deal today.
Google News Adds Controversial Comments Section - Google on Thursday introduced a controversial new feature to its Google News service that allows experts and analysts quoted in news articles to publish their comments next to the Google News link and blurb to avoid being misquoted. In a blog post, Google News programmers Dan Meredith and Andy Golding said: “Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as ‘comments’ so readers know it’s the individual’s perspective, rather than part of a journalist’s report.”
NBC-News Corp. Venture Receives Huge Cash Boost - Five months after announcing a vague and still nameless joint venture, News Corp. and NBC Universal’s video project is still short on details, but long on cash. Rhode Island investment firm Providence Equity Partners on Thursday secured a 10% stake in the joint venture, code-named “New Site”, with a massive $100 million investment.
Hashers: Video Fight For Content Owners - “Hasher”–a new breed of professionals (yes, legally) employed to scour online video sites for copyrighted content and report their findings back to big media firms. Agencies like 8-year-old startup BayTSP have more than 20 video analysts who do this all day, alerting YouTube to take down content belonging to clients like Viacom, per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Bill Gates And Search - If Bill Gates is behind it, then it must be good, right? Well… Apparently, Gates is listed as one of the inventors behind a search system that is built on feedback from consumers clicking through search engine ads. The feedback is used to help rank search ads — along with the marketers’ services and goods.
Search Solo Or Not? - By now, you’re probably using search marketing to create brand awareness and sales. But is it time to hire an outside service to handle this task? Most advertisers are still managing search marketing in-house. But a post from this marketing prof site suggests that you should consider bringing on a team of specialists to handle the broad array of skills needed to create effective campaigns.
