There is a battle brewing for ownership of your address book. It all started when MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn started asking users if they wanted to port their contact lists, giving them instant friends on their social networking profiles. The network effect [created by syncing contacts] is a prime driver of the Internet and is critical to the success of burgeoning social networks. More ..
While the big news in the online world focuses on Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, a more profound revolution is taking place on the online social networks: The discussion about privacy is changing as users take control over their own online data. While they spread their Web presence, these users are not looking for privacy, but for recognition as individuals -- whether by friends or vendors. This will eventually change the whole world of advertising. More ..
A new global study of consumers found that the most popular forms of Internet advertising score at the bottom when it comes to consumer trust. More ...
Thirty-two year old Microsoft Corp. has been a software company for most of its life, but media is its future, CEO Steve Ballmer said at a media event in Paris on Tuesday. As growth in operating system and desktop software slows, Microsoft expects that within four to 10 years, 25% of its revenues will come from advertising. Part of the reason for the change is the growth of free, ad-supported Web services offered by Google; consumers no longer need desktop software to write documents and create spreadsheets, which has left the technology giant searching for new sources of revenue. The other reason is opportunity: "All marketing will be digital sometime in the next 10 years," said Ballmer. More ...
WiMax is coming, seriously, this time. Chip maker Intel, whose invested hundreds of millions into the technology, is so sure that WiMax will go live in 2008 it's pumping its next-generation semiconductor technology with a new Wi-Fi/WiMax module called Echo Peak. What does any of that mean? On a larger scale, notebooks powered by the technology, called Montevina, will process information faster and be low-power, but they'll also support the new mobile WiMax standard being developed by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire that you've heard about for nearly five years. According to a recent Intel announcement, 150 million people will have WiMax access by 2008, 750 million by 2010 and 1.3 billion by 2012. More ...
Why are social networks considered such a goldmine for advertisers? Because their users input nothing but personal data. However, finding the right tool to leverage social network data has proved to be difficult. MySpace, the world's largest social network with 110 million active users, aims to take full advantage of its rich user data bank by implementing a new set of targeting tools for advertisers. This week, MySpace execs are expected to shed light on the results of a program testing the new behavioral targeting system, which increases the likelihood that a user will click on an ad by 80%--effectively increasing its revenue per month from $40 million to $70 million, executives said. At a Merrill Lynch conference on Tuesday, Peter Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, noted the "phenomenal" amount of data MySpace has, saying, "We have an opportunity to provide advertisers with a completely new paradigm." More ...
For all the talk about MySpace vs. Facebook, there are vast differences between social networking's top two; they might even be able to coexist peacefully. Content-wise, MySpace and Facebook couldn't be more different. There's a strong hint of old media to the former's model for expansion, while Facebook is about the development of new software to help its users interact with one another. For example, News Corp. content has become a big part of MySpace's stickiness strategy. Clips from Fox shows like "The Simpsons" and "24" have helped it become the second most-popular video site on the Web. MySpace continues to be a driving force in music; thousands of artists have profiles and the company even has its own record label. Expect MySpace to soon move into TV and film and production. Over at Facebook, the focus seems to be on software. The 40 million-strong social network--which represents less than half of MySpace's registered total--has never licensed content and probably never will. Even so, MySpace execs have a Facebook obsession, while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, "I've never really considered us competitors." More ...
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. More ...
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. More ...
Consumers and advertisers face the same challenge when trying to navigate local content on the Web: an intensifying level of fragmentation. Media companies that can aggregate large-scale local audiences will ultimately be the ones that score with users and advertisers. More ...
Investment firm William Blair & Company partnered with AdGooroo for a keyword-based advertiser-side analysis of the global search industry, authoring a report that pegs the number of advertisers at more than 500,000 and growing--with 90% of them currently running search campaigns with Google. The search giant didn't snag all available advertisers, however, as the report found that the 10% of marketers not using Google remained exclusive to either Yahoo or MSN. Analysts attributed this slice of market share to affiliate marketers and other companies whose business policies run afoul of Google's standards. According to the research, 30% of all search marketers run campaigns on Yahoo, while only 10% use MSN--with about half of each of their advertisers using Google as well. More ...
Yahoo is taking a cue from Facebook's playbook, encouraging outside developers to create new software programs that would make Yahoo's pages "stickier." The company has already released the source code for Yahoo Mail and aims let users embed non-Yahoo products and services into their My Yahoo homepages. The company hopes that developers' programs, also called widgets, will entice users to hang around Yahoo's pages longer. Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo senior vice president of communications, communities and Front Doors, is the man who sternly identified those problems. Yahoo's disparate businesses were spread thin -- like peanut butter over toast. Garlinghouse, who sounds pleased with the new course of action, sees a future in which companies like Evite (owned by Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive Corp.) The New York Times and News Corp.'s MySpace create widgets for My Yahoo, using their contact lists to display upcoming events, share articles or view updates to friends' profile pages. The report says Yahoo's decision is about embracing consumers' desire to create or customize content, but it's also about defense: Yahoo has to innovate to keep up with MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, with which it just struck a smart ad serving partnership. Could this be a giant step forward for the Web giant? More ...
In late 2004, Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel, speaking at the Association of National Advertisers, used a familiar metaphor for the company's strategy: a digital theme park that tempts visitors with endless attractions to get them to stay inside the gates. Analysts credited the strategy for reviving the company's fortunes following the dot-com bust. Fast-forward three years. Yahoo!, badly trailing rival Google and in the midst of a corporate reorganization following Semel's exit, is breaking with that vision. Instead of relying solely on the many features designed to keep people around to view the ubiquitous ads, Yahoo!, and other first-generation Web portals, are taking a page from Google's playbook to remake their businesses to focus not just on attracting eyeballs (and ad dollars) but to find them across thousands of sites and other digital destinations. Yahoo! illustrated its embrace of a network strategy by inking a deal last week to buy ad network BlueLithium for $300 million in cash. The deal came less than two months after it closed another deal to buy ad network and exchange Right Media for $650 million. More ...
A new study of newspapers' Web offerings shows that online video has become a nearly ubiquitous feature offered by major U.S. publications. The Bivings Group study, which analyzed the Web offerings of the top 100 newspapers according to Fas-Fax data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, found that 92 of the largest newspaper sites now offer video, a 31 percent jump from a year ago. Their video sources are varied: 39 papers offer original video content, 26 use video from the Associated Press, 13 use video from local news outlets and 10 papers use at least two types of video content on their site. The study found that use of other online features increased in nearly every category, too. Ninety-seven of the 100 papers offer RSS and text feeds, while 95 have at least one reporter blog. Forty-nine papers have podcasts, compared with 31 last year, while 44 provide some sort of bookmarking, compared with just seven last year. The number of sites requiring users to register also increased to 29, with three requiring paid subscription after registering. Mobile offerings from U.S. newspaper publishers are also on the rise, with some 53 papers creating content specifically for mobile devices. More ...
A research team has created a new peer-to-peer file-sharing system that penalizes those who take while rewarding those "selfless" sharers who contribute content to the network. A manners-enforcing file-sharing network addresses the issue of clogged networks; networks become sluggish when more users are downloading content rather than sharing it. The new system, dubbed Tribler, effectively turns bandwidth into a currency, promoting P2P stewardship. Tribler is already being used by Sony to turn its Web-enabled PlayStation 3 video game console into a file-sharing device. It's also being reviewed by the European Broadcasting Union, which wants to pump TV across the Web. The idea would be to connect a TV directly to the Web, turning it into an entirely on-demand experience; the system automatically shares downloaded programs as a TV lies dormant, collecting download "currency." More ...
Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it. Broadband service in the Land of the Rising Sun is anywhere from eight to 30 times faster than the U.S. (depending on where you live)--not to mention cheaper. Studies show that it has the world's fastest connections, too, which will likely make Japan the vanguard of Internet innovation for years to come. By offering big phone companies huge subsidies, the Japanese government compelled Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. to a nationwide build-out of fiber-optic wire to homes. The shorter, faster wires enable the transfer of information at speeds of up to 17 times faster than in the U.S. The result? The Japanese can watch broadcast-quality, full-screen HD television over the Web, an experience that puts our grainy, windowed, broadband video to shame. The quality is so good it even allows doctors to make crucial surgical decisions through video conferencing. More ...
News clips are the most popular form of streamed video content, according to a new study by Advertising.com. Meanwhile, 94% of survey respondents said they would prefer ads to subscription fees. More ...
Google's mobile phone operating system is getting ready for a formal unveiling, possibly next month, according to their sources. The tech blog has christened the Linux-based system the "Gphone OS," which it says is a long time in coming. Google in 2005 acquired the mobile software company Android, whose former president and CEO Andy Rubin has been spearheading big G's OS project. Apparently, Rubin's team is currently shopping the program around to handset makers and carriers, whose various agreements Google needs to establish distribution. Engadget expects an OS announcement with distribution partners to come sometime after Labor Day. Meanwhile, the report downplays the possibility that Google is planning a phone of its own, saying that Google is sticking to the turf of Microsoft and Opera instead of competing with handset makers like Nokia and Apple. More ...
Could YouTube overtake Craigslist as the undisputed classifieds king? After all, video is a far more helpful resource for a prospective buyer than a photo--especially when it comes to apartment hunting. Brokers and landlords are using the video-sharing site as an opportunity to give walking tours of their properties. After a few clumsy first attempts with his MiniDV player, broker Andre Kendall bought a Treo and started making movies with his mobile phone. "I got so many comments from people saying they hadn't seen anyone use YouTube for an apartment," he says, and it was a definite success. Another broker turned video walk-throughs into a business. Called reelProperties, his company now produces walk-throughs for Prudential Douglas Elliman at $150 a pop. His walk-throughs include trappings provided by programs like Final Cut and Avid, which allow his employees to input music and captions about the apartment into the videos. It's a new way to make money on YouTube. More ...
A new advertising system on Facebook gives marketers access to an unprecedented amount of information that its users reveal about themselves. The idea is to ultimately devise a system that predicts what products and services users might be interested in before they know it. Unnamed sources say the new behavior targeting plan, set to be unveiled this fall, is the company's top priority moving forward. Facebook declined to discuss specifics. The same sources said the social networking giant is trying to achieve what Google did with AdWords, allowing advertisers to buy groups of people with similar interests using enhanced, targeted technology. Right now, advertisers can only target by age, gender and location; the new technology would add stated user interests, such as music, activities, sports, etc. Instead of selling simple banner ads by category, marketing messages will appear in user, group and company news feeds. Facebook advertisers can already create their own pages and send out messages via news feeds in a separate, but vaguely described three-month marketing campaign. The new program is about pushing relevant marketing items onto users' pages. The company thinks the new initiative will be a less labor-intensive way to take advantage of the personal data people reveal on the site. More ...
