Articles of the Day
Google Unveils Mobile Vision; An Open Platform Named Android - Hoping to spur the growth of the mobile industry as it did the Internet, Google announced the launch of a new mobile software platform aimed at opening up and simplifying the creation of applications and services for the cell phone. Its name: Android.
Experts Weigh Impact Of Google’s Android - Industry analysts agree Google’s new open platform will help accelerate expansion of the mobile Internet and pose a serious challenge to carriers’ “walled garden” strategy.
MySpace Extends Targeted Display Ads To Smaller Budgets - Giving marketers of modest means access to targeted display advertising, MySpace has launched an ad platform for small business owners, brands, and politicians to purchase, create and analyze the performance of ads throughout its social network.
Ask.com Renews Google Search Deal, IAC To Split Into 5 - Google will continue to power the search ads on Ask.com (and much of IAC/InterActiveCorp’s other Web properties), in the renewal of a deal that analysts have said is worth about $3.5 billion to IAC. Meanwhile, IAC will be split into five separate companies.
Is the Internet Becoming Rich Media? - At one time it was commonly held that no one could sell high-priced items online. That time has come…and gone. Affluent users are not only online, as a percentage of the total Internet population they are growing. In fact, eMarketer projects that the number of affluent users in the US will increase from 43.7 million in 2006 to 57.1 million in 2011.
Privacy Mavens Leery Of Latest Targeted Ad Launches - A flurry of online advertising initiatives unveiled this week have some privacy advocates renewing calls for government regulation. Social network Facebook is expected to offer a new program that will allow marketers to serve ads to members based on information in their profiles, while MySpace is expanding its behavioral targeting offering. In addition, Monday saw the official launch of NebuAd, a start-up that partners with Internet service providers to serve ads to people based on both their search queries and the Web sites they’ve visited.
Facebook to Add Shopping Service to Its Menu - Lots of people find the next books they plan to read by browsing the New York Times or Amazon best-seller lists. Others count on referrals from friends and colleagues. But what if you could eye a hot title as it began to climb the best-seller list within your Facebook network? You’d be alerted: “Thirty-one people in your network have bought ‘Microtrends.’” A scenario like this soon will play out on Facebook, as the company is about to unveil plans to make shopping part of its social network.
With So Many Start-Ups, Only You Can Save Web 2.0 - Nearly every online start-up you can think of is basing its business model on advertising. It’s as if your digital budgets are a bottomless pot of money with more than enough to go around for everyone. Ask any of them how they plan to stay solvent, and they all fire off the “a-word”: advertising. The conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley is that as all advertising goes digital, there will be plenty of money for every business. Further, they argue, it doesn’t take much to make a start-up profitable. The cost of starting, scaling and operating a Web 2.0 site is a fraction of what it was during the Web 1.0 era.
IAC Splits Off Four Divisions - Barry Diller is banking his IAC — a newly slimmed-down version — on the fast-growing, quickly changing online. The company will spin four of its divisions into separate, publicly traded companies: Ticketmaster; Lending Tree; home-shopping business HSN; and time-share travel business Interval International. What’s left — including Ask.com, Match.com, CitySearch and CollegeHumor, among many other businesses — will be part of an internet media and services company that will claim more than 50% of its revenue from web advertising. At present, the media and advertising unit accounts for only 9% of IAC’S total revenue.
Yahoo Launches Social Network For Graduates - Yahoo on Monday launched another social network, but this one is aimed at a more targeted audience: college students, alumni and job recruiters. The idea is to get college graduates their first jobs in the real world. Scott Gatz, senior director of Yahoo’s Advanced Products, says “it’s a professional network with a purpose–to help college students and recent graduates build a professional network.” The social network is called Kickstart; it launched on Monday.
Google-Facebook: Open vs. Closed - GigaOm’s Om Malik considers the implications of Google’s OpenSocial platform, comparing the search giant’s approach to social networking to that of Facebook. Malik points out that Google’s entire business model depends on information being public–search is just a tool used to glean more information about us so the company can serve more targeted advertising. The idea behind OpenSocial is more of the same: provide free tools for (developers in this case) to create free, open software and then help developers monetize their programs through AdSense. Therefore, Google doesn’t really have to get into the social networking game.
Radiohead Results: 38% Forked Over $6 Average - Now, preliminary results in from comScore show that about six in 10 downloaders didn’t pay anything for the album since it was made available online on Oct. 10. Worldwide, 1.2 million people visited the album’s Web site last month, with a “significant percentage” downloading the record, according to comScore estimates. Thirty-eight percent of downloaders worldwide paid something for the album, while 62% downloaded it for free. Between the “freeloaders” and paying downloaders, overall revenue came to an average $2.26 per album.
