Articles of the Day
Media Buyers Give Thumbs Up To New AOL Ad Network - With its continued focus on advertising, AOL has established a new division for its ad networks–including Advertising.com and Tacoda–and named Curt Viebranz, former CEO of TACODA and a one-time Time Inc. executive, to lead it. The unit, called Platform A, will reach an estimated 90% of Web users.
Google Brings AdSense Onto Mobile - First it was AdWords. Now, Google is extending its AdSense program to mobile, allowing for the contextual targeting of ads to mobile Web site content.
Reuters Introduces Facial-Recognition Video Search - Reuters announced two developments for its online news and video syndication services–one with Viewdle, for a new facial-recognition feature that lets users search videos for specific people, and the other with Attributor, which will provide the news giant with a robust content tracking and reader analysis system.
EBay To Undergo Massive Relaunch - Amid mounting competition from direct retailers like Amazon and flagging interest in online auctions, eBay has lost some of “the magic” that has made it one of the Web’s biggest and most important companies. As one seller says, the days of easily selling out one’s inventory are over. Investors, too, have noted as much in eBay’s earnings, which have been consistently flat in the auctions department; almost all of its growth these days comes from PayPal, the company’s online payment service.
Facebook To Compensate App Developers - MySpace rival Facebook is handing out cash incentives for developers to create compelling programs on the social network, offering up to $250,000 to those who develop apps that are both “innovative and disruptive.” The grants will come out of the $10 million recently raised by Facebook from its primary backers Accel Capital and The Founders Fund.
Ad-Supported Music Downloading Finally Becoming a Reality - Launching a free, ad-supported music-downloading service has been not unlike downloading an actual song — unintended glitches may occur. But despite one early, high-profile stumble and the lack of a proven model, a trio of startups is still bullish on the business opportunity. Last fall, the much-hyped Spiralfrog announced it would make its debut by year’s end as the first free, ad-supported major music service to offer downloadable MP3s of songs from a major-label music catalog (in this case Universal Music) ,with Perry Ellis as its first sponsor.
Are EBay and Others the New New Media? - What makes media “media”? Increasingly, that question is getting harder to answer. The web, it turns out, is doing more than just transforming media-business models — it’s blurring the definition of media in the first place. Does a media site create content with the goal of selling ads or subscriptions to pay for it? Or can we now define as a medium any site that aggregates an audience through other means — e-commerce or lead generation — then it turns around and sells to advertisers? Companies such as Amazon and eBay and IAC brands such as ServiceMagic that were not built as media companies, lately have all begun to act like them: They all sell ads to targeted audiences who are in an acquiring state of mind. And when online media agencies can’t find what they’re looking for among “traditional” media sites, they’re increasingly not afraid to approach these aggregators to manufacture ad opportunities.
Powerset: Birth Of A Natural Language Search Engine - Powerset has been in somewhat of a stealth mode since last year, with only bits and pieces of information about the “natural language” search engine showing up on blogs and tech Web sites. At yesterday’s TechCrunch40 Conference, the startup officially unveiled Powerset Labs — an online community aimed at culling tester feedback and developer insight to help build and improve the search engine before it goes public next year.
Google, Yahoo, IBM Challenge Microsoft’s Desktop Dominance - Google has officially changed the name of Google Docs & Spreadsheets to simply Google Docs, and also unveiled its presentation software Presently (dubbed the PowerPoint-killer by some in the blogosphere). Combined with Yahoo’s recent acquisition of hosted-mail provider Zimbra, and IBM’s announcement that its Lotus Symphony office software suite would now be free — the hosted application/desktop/office landscape is now very competitive indeed.
Times Online Content: Free At Last! - As expected, The New York Times ended its premium TimesSelect service and is once again offering all of its content, including columns by well-known authors like Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, for free. In an article about the shift, the Times reported that 227,000 people paid for service to the tune of around $10 million a year, but said online ads could generate even more revenue if the site was free again.
