As Facebook soars in popularity, its ad revenue is growing quickly. But where that money is coming from may come as a surprise. Of the $310 million Facebook will make in revenue this year, 74 percent ($229 million) will come from local advertisers, according to a report from Borrell Associates. more
Tour de France Traffic Soars on Versus.com
Versus is posting huge traffic increases for its Web coverage of the Tour de France, with page views on the site jumping 109 percent through the first 15 stages of the 21-stage race. Through the 15th stage of the race on Sunday, Versus.com generated about 24 million page views, more than double the 11 million page views that it had generated last year, spokeswoman Katie Bradshaw said today.
The live and on-demand video coverage Versus is offering of the entire race this year is one of the most popular areas of its site. It has delivered more than 10 million videos through July 19, nearly doubling the 6.5 million videos it delivered last year, and more than tripling its total video delivery count in 2007, Bradshaw said. more
Video: Kevin Spacey tries to explain Twitter to David Letterman
This is Kevin Spacey. He's a man who gets paid millions of dollars to pretend to be other men, for entertainment. And here he is on the "Late Show With David Letterman" trying to explain Twitter, the pulse of the planet, to Mr. Letterman.
Key points to remember: Twitter is free; you type with your thumbs; it's "a waste of time."
Mr. Spacey: "And now, I'll get, in about an hour, lots and lots of people saying 'hi' back."
Mr. Letterman: "That really is a miracle." more
Bartz thinks Bing is a good product as MS deal nears
"I think actually Bing is a good product," said Bartz. "I think they've done a good job. I think Microsoft should be given kudos for Bing."
It was a politic thing to say, to be sure, especially with Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) still zeroing in on a search and online advertising deal, as has been previously reported by BoomTown. more
U.K. Mobile Coupon Users Like Cookies More than Toilet Paper
Consumers in the U.K. who have redeemed discounts and coupons via their cell phone prefer to receive offers for cookies, chips, candy and other snack items rather than necessities such as toilet paper and soap, according to (pdf) a mobile survey conducted by Mobilize Systems to gauge consumers' interest in different types of product promotions offered via mobile device. more
Amazon acquires online shoe retailer Zappos for $850 million
Amazon.com is acquiring online shoe and merchandise retailer Zappos in a mostly stock deal valued at about $850 million. It is the biggest acquisition in Amazon's history. The Zappos acquisition dwarfs other recent Amazon deals. The company spent a total of $432 million on acquisitions in 2008, about $300 million of which went toward acquiring audiobook company Audible. Amazon said the Zappos management team in Las Vegas will remain intact and Zappos will continue to operate as its own brand. more
MySpace to Launch Web Email Service Thursday
This Thursday, MySpace plans to roll out its own webmail, paidContent has learned from sources familiar with the plans. The News Corp. social network, like competitor Facebook, allows messaging—a much-used service—but this will give them their own addresses "@myspace.com" in what was described to me as a "logical extension of that relationship."
Yahoo to Sell HotJobs; Buy Xoopit
Yahoo is looking to unload its HotJobs and Yahoo Small Business units, PEHub.com reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. Yahoo bought job listings site HotJobs for $436 million in 2001, and launched Yahoo Small Business to provide smaller companies with tools to help create an online presence. Meanwhile, Yahoo's corporate blog reports that it has acquired Xoopit, the provider of a service that lets users post media contained in emails to social networks and blogs.
Law Firm Readying Class-Action Suit Against Amazon For Deleting Orwell Books From Users' Kindles
A law firm known for bringing class-action suits on behalf of consumers against Internet companies says it's readying a case against Amazon for deleting George Orwell books on users' Kindles. "This is an incredible situation," says Jay Edelson of the law firm KamberEdelson. "What Amazon did was plainly illegal."
Last week, Amazon stunned consumers by deleting copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Big Brother from users' Kindles after learning of a copyright problem. The company, which sold the books for 99 cents each, discovered last week that the books had been added to its catalog by a company that didn't have the rights to them. more
ICANN Changes Could Lead to Brand-Specific Domains
Will .com and .net be followed by .toyota and .pepsi? Businesses that haven't given much thought lately to their domain names may have reason to take another look at them starting next spring. If all goes according to schedule, that's when the long approval process will begin for new top-level domains to challenge the dominance of .com. more
Samsung releases Mondi as WiMAX takes off in Vegas
Samsung announced the commercial availability of its Mondi WiMAX tablet just as both Clearwire and Sprint Nextel made a flurry of announcements about the expanded availability of their mobile WiMAX service. The Mondi is compatible with Clearwire's mobile WiMAX service and features WiFi connectivity, though it has no voice component. The device has a 4.3-inch touchscreen and runs on Windows Mobile 6.1. It has a full Qwerty keyboard, optical mouse, built-in GPS, the Opera 9.5 browser, push email support, a 3-megapixel camera and camcorder and supports instant messaging and MMS. more
Conde Nast Says Goodbye to Men.Style.com, Hello to GQ.com, Details.com
Conde Nast will shut down one of its web-only brands, Men.Style.com, when it gives two of its titles, GQ and Details, their own websites in October. The move marks a partial dismantling of Conde Nast's strategy of creating web-only brands to house magazine content, such as Style.com, Epicurious.com and Concierge.com, and the realization that in many cases the best brand for the web is the one that's been successful in print.
The move comes in the midst of a terrible advertising climate and companywide budget cuts, and on the heels of the repositioning of one of its men's titles, Men's Vogue, as a twice-a-year supplement late last year. more
Twitter Generates $48 Million of Media Coverage in a Month
Twitter's been the toast of TV news programs, daytime talk shows, magazine editors and newspaper reporters. But what's all that chatter worth?
According to news-monitoring service VMS, a cool $48 million over the past 30 days. (That's half of what Microsoft plans to spend marketing its biggest product launch of the year, Bing.)
Twitter received almost 3 billion impressions -- 2.73 billion, to be exact -- in the past month, a time period that doesn't even include the frenzied weeks in April in which Oprah and Ellen weighed in on the micro-blogging service. TV contributed to 57% of the PR value, newspapers 37% and magazines 5%. Incidentally, Fox News bested CNN in terms of total PR value delivered by its Twitter mentions, although CNN dropped the name more often. more
Apps 'to be as big as internet' by 2020
The market for mobile applications, or apps, will become "as big as the internet", peaking at 10 million apps in 2020, a leading online store says. However, GetJar say, the developer community will decline drastically as each developer makes less money. To date, Apple runs the most popular application store with over 65,000 applications. Last week it notched up another milestone with 1.5 billion downloads. more
China internet users outnumber total US population
There are now 338 million users on the Internet in China compared to under 307 million in the U.S. This means that there are now more people online in China than there are people in the U.S. According to the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC), the increase is a 13.4 percent inflation since the end of 2008. However, of China's population of more than 1.3 billion, only 25.5 percent are online. more
Microsoft 'retiring' YouTube challenger Soapbox
After hinting at this possibility last month, Microsoft today said it will shut down its Soapbox user-generated video service in stages in the coming weeks. Microsoft launched Soapbox in 2006 as challenge to YouTube, but it never became a credible rival. more
Barnes & Noble Debuts eBookstore With 700K Titles
Barnes & Noble has announced the launch of what it says is the world's largest eBookstore, which initially will offer more than 700,000 titles in a range of e-book formats. The company also announced an exclusive deal to sell a forthcoming e-book reader hardware device made by Plastic Logic, taking a page from rival Amazon with its Kindle reader.
Google Commemorates 40th Anniversary Of Apollo 11 With Virtual Tour Of The Moon
on Monday, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, search engine giant Google released Moon in Google Earth, an addition to the popular Google Earth mapping software that lets you reproduce the same experience, well almost, with footage released by NASA that has been integrated in Google's Earth application includes 3-D images of the moon's landscape.
Yahoo To Launch Revamped Home Page, First Since 2006
An outstandingly revamped home page is finally coming to the Yahoo.com, one of the top-most traveled destinations on the Internet, and the company's search page will follow suit starting next month. Struggling search engine pioneer Yahoo Inc. is expected to launch its new homepage today, as the company strives to make itself more relevant to Web surfers and establish new ways to sell advertising. more
Youtube testing 3D videos
a YouTube
The news site's Barry Schwartz discovered a recent thread on the YouTube help forum
Facebook releases 3 new ad filters
Facebook has released three new filters for its ads program, equipping advertisers to make addressable audiences more granular.
Connections lets advertisers target the members of groups, pages, or events they own. They can also target users that aren't already members, meaning ads encouraging either participation in a group, or joining a group, go directly to the most relevant user without any overlap.
The other two filters empower advertisers to target by Location and Birthday. Locations lets you target by country or multiple countries; and Birthday lets you send specific messages to users on their birthdays. more
Wikipedia painting row escalates
The battle over Wikipedia's use of images from a British art gallery's website has intensified. The online encyclopaedia has accused the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) of betraying its public service mission. But the gallery has said it needs to recoup the £1m cost of its digitisation programme and claims Wikipedia has misrepresented its position. more
Amazon Remotely Deletes Unauthorized Kindle E-books
In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.
An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. "When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers," he said. more
Yahoo Investor Icahn Backs Microsoft Search, Advertising Deal
Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) investor and board member Carl Icahn has spoken out in favor of a search and advertising deal with Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) that was reported last week to be nearing completion, Reuters reported. "I've been a strong advocate of getting a search deal done with Microsoft," Icahn, who owns about 5% of Yahoo, told Reuters. more
The Onion Said To Be Negotiating Sale
The Onion this month told staff that resisting advertiser pressure is a "losing game." But it seems the humor publication isn't just keen to sell its soul to sponsors; we hear The Onion is talking about selling everything.
A tipster says word out out of the publication is that it's in negotiations to sell to a large media company. It's not clear how far apart the two sides are; we're not assuming any deal is imminent. more
Amazon Promises To Replace Cracked Kindles
Following a customer lawsuit, Amazon says it will replace Kindles that have been cracked by the cover the online retailer sells as an accessory to the electronic book reader.
The move marks a change in Amazon's previous position over the apparent flaw, which was to charge customers $200 to replace the device. Amazon had said the damage wasn't covered under the warranty. more
Fortune Launches Tech Site To Complement Its Conference
Everything's up for change at the biz mags this week, it seems. Fortune is launching a new tech site this morning, called BrainstormTech (screenshot here), complementing its eight-year-old Brainstorm conference. The site will be a sub-section on Fortune.com, and brings together an all-star team of reporters on a Wordpress-driven blog. Besides contributions from its journalists, it will have guest columns from tech execs, including at launch, from Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Brightcove, John Chen, CEO of Sybase, and Iqbal Quadir, founder of Grameen Phone. And of course, video from its Green and Tech Brainstorm conferences. more
Financial Times Editor Says Most News Web Sites Will Charge Within a Year
The Financial Times editor, Lionel Barber, has predicted that "almost all" news organisations will be charging for online content within a year.
Barber said building online platforms that could charge readers on an article-by-article or subscription basis was one of the key challenges facing news organisations.
"How these online payment models work and how much revenue they can generate is still up in the air," Barber said in a speech at at a Media Standards Trust event at the British Academy last night. more
Yahoo Search Ad Deal With Microsoft “Down to the Short Strokes”
Unless there is some major glitch, there might finally be a search and online advertising deal struck between Yahoo and Microsoft at long last.
Top executives at Microsoft–including SVP of the Online Audience Business Group Yusuf Mehdi, search head Satya Nadella and top digital exec Qi Lu, as well as others–have all flown down to Silicon Valley from their Redmond, Wash., HQ today to iron out the remaining issues, which seem to have to do with the deployment of technology. more
Amazon Plans to be MVNO in UK?
According to a report over on itproportal, US retailer Amazon has plans to become an MVNO. Amazon US is in negotiations with a mobile operator with a view to becoming a mobile virtual network operator in the United Kingdom. Amazon has already launched Amazon Wireless in the states which offers wireless plans and mobile phones, so they are looking to do something similar in the UK.
Twitter Fights Back
TechCrunch began publishing documents stolen from Twitter by a hacker this week, claiming they got the "green light" from Twitter Inc. Not so, say the Twitter founders.
In an embarrassment similar to having your seventh-grade diary read aloud to the whole school, the stolen documents have revealed Twitter's possible plans for an IPO, swipes at Facebook, outlandish forecasts, and even a burn on P. Diddy ("Diddy values his contribution higher than we do").
Twitter co-founder Evan Williams reacted via Twitter [ed. note: how else?] and co-founder Biz Stone reacted in a post on the Twitter blog, saying, "The publication of stolen documents is irresponsible and we absolutely did not give permission for these documents to be shared." more
Qualcomm pulls the plug on LifeComm MVNO
It's been more than four years since Qualcomm first announced its plans to help launch a healthcare-focused mobile phone service, called LifeComm. Qualcomm and its (still) undisclosed partners recently decided that it was time to pull the plug on LifeComm after failing to raise additional third party funding reports Mobile Health more
Conde Nast Moves Into e-Commerce with Wine Widget
In the first of several e-commerce partnerships it plans for its Web sites this year, Condé Nast is allowing users to buy wine at its food site Epicurious.com. Content from the site comes from sibling magazines Gourmet and Bon Appétit.
The deal calls for wine site Snooth.com to provide wine suggestions for Epicurious' recipes. When users click on a wine pairing, they'll get more information on the wine and will be able to click through to a retailer to buy it. Winemakers can pay to have their wine offered as an appropriate choice for a given recipe. more
The deal calls for wine site Snooth.com to provide wine suggestions for Epicurious' recipes. When users click on a wine pairing, they'll get more information on the wine and will be able to click through to a retailer to buy it. Winemakers can pay to have their wine offered as an appropriate choice for a given recipe. more
Google Friend Connect Adds Support for 47 More Languages
Google Friend Connect has announced support for 47 new languages. (It's already supported in English.) Google Friend Connect launched last year and is a tool for web developers to add social networking to websites. It simply allows people to log into the network via their Google account. Then they can connect with others using the site. more
Facebook: The Movie
Sony Pictures and producer Scott Rudin are said to have contracted with Aaron Sorkin--writer of movies such as A Few Good Men and Charlie Wilson's War and for the television series West Wing and Sports Night--to write a script about the genesis of Facebook. more
Amazon Sued Over Kindle Cover Said to Crack Screens
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, where Amazon is based, claims that the covers designed and sold by Amazon to protect the device often end up cracking the Kindle screens due to pressure on the hinge. The plaintiff alleges that a customer service supervisor at Amazon acknowledged that such cracking was a "common problem" but would not be covered by a warranty. Geise was instructed to pay $200 for a replacement Kindle, the complaint says. more
Newspaper Publisher Gannett Swings to Second-Quarter Profit
In a hopeful sign for the newspaper industry, Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and 83 other daily papers, on Wednesday reported a second-quarter profit that easily topped the estimates of Wall Street analysts and sent company shares up more than 20% by midday.
Facebook Hits 250 Million Users Worldwide
Facebook, which recently passed News Corp.'s MySpace as the most-visited social network in the U.S., now counts 250 million users, having added 50 million since early April, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a blog post on Wednesday. "The rapid pace of our growth is humbling and exciting for us, and it affirms that people everywhere are realizing the power of staying connected to everything they care about on Facebook," wrote Zuckerberg. " more
Facebook Sued For Click Fraud
Sports site RootZoo has sued Facebook for click fraud, alleging that the social networking site charged for more clicks than actually occurred. The lawsuit comes several weeks after Facebook users began flooding message boards with complaints about overcharging.
RootZoo, which advertised on Facebook from November of 2007 until June of last year, alleges that its own analytics programs showed significant discrepancies between the data provided by its own analytics programs and the numbers claimed by Facebook. more
WSJ Launches Financial Jobs Site Fins.com; More Coming?
The Wall Street Journal has launched a new financial-jobs site Fins.com, its first jobs/career launch since it started with CareerJournal way back. Kevin Hatfield, the GM of Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) Ventures (DJV) and formerly the Chief Revenue Officer of Jobster, is the GM of the site. more
Breakingviews in Sale Talks With Thomson Reuters
Breakingviews, the financial commentary Web site and a content partner of The New York Times, is in preliminary discussions to be acquired by Thomson Reuters, people briefed on the negotiations told DealBook.
The privately held media company, based in London, has made no comment about the talks, which was first reported in The Times of London earlier on Tuesday. more
Wikipedia Officially Launches Mobile Site
The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has officially launched their mobile site. It has been in beta for quite a while but now it is on a new server and considered good enough to call it done.
The Wikimedia Tech Blog says that the iPhone, Android, Palm Pre and Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Kindle are officially supported. You can access the site by going to m.wikipedia.org on your phone's browser. The site should support mobile redirects as well, so if you are reading an article, such as this blog post, and in the midst of a brilliant political analysis it references Antidisestablishmentarianism, when you click on that link from your supported phone, it should redirect to the mobile site. more
IAB Unveils Mobile Media Buying Guide
With education still seen as a key step to expanding mobile marketing, the Interactive Advertising Bureau Monday released its first primer on mobile media buying for advertisers and agencies. The IAB's Mobile Buyer's Guide covers topics including an overview of the mobile ecosystem, key mobile ad terms, shortcode campaigns, and examples of various mobile ad executions. more
Time Inc. Relaunches AllYou.com with Coupon Database
Time Inc. has become the latest publisher to feature coupon offers online. The company has partnered with Coupons.com to launch a coupon database on women's site AllYou.com.
According to All You executive editor Susan Spencer, the partnership is part of a redesign to deliver more money-saving content. "In addition to delivering value-focused content from budget beauty ideas to meals under $2, the new site also allows us to share exclusive printable coupons, discount codes and up-to-the minute deals," Spencer said in a statement. more
According to All You executive editor Susan Spencer, the partnership is part of a redesign to deliver more money-saving content. "In addition to delivering value-focused content from budget beauty ideas to meals under $2, the new site also allows us to share exclusive printable coupons, discount codes and up-to-the minute deals," Spencer said in a statement. more
Facebook Rules in Time Spent Online
Facebook may be ranked sixth in unique visitors, but it reigns supreme in the amount of time users spend there -- topping Google, Yahoo, AOL and eBay.
The social networking site checks in at a bit over 4.5 hours per person, on average, for the month of June, according to Nielsen Online's June 2009 report.
Coming in second is Yahoo, which sees about three hours per user for the month, followed by AOL at two hours and 43 minutes, Google, with 2.5 hours and Microsoft's sites, with two hours and 12 minutes. more
Facebook Valued at $6.5 Billion for Employee Share Sale
Online social network Facebook has been valued at $6.5 billion for a transaction that will see Russia's Digital Sky Technologies purchase some $100 million worth of employees' shares in the company for $14.77 per share, Reuters reported. The deal will boost Digital Sky's stake in Facebook to as much as 3.5%.
When Digital Sky initially purchased Facebook shares back in May, the company was valued at $10 billion. In 2007, when Microsoft invested $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook, the company was valued at $15 billion. more
When Digital Sky initially purchased Facebook shares back in May, the company was valued at $10 billion. In 2007, when Microsoft invested $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook, the company was valued at $15 billion. more
$800 Apple Tablet Coming in October?
Hershey shuts down its online Gifts website
Hershey Co., maker of Reese's products, Jolly Rancher and its own namesake chocolate, announced recently that it was closing its Hershey's Gifts online service http://www.hersheygifts.com/ on July 31. After that, if customers want the candymaker's products, they'll have to visit stores.
"Hershey's is making the strategic decision to exit the online retail business," said Hershey spokesman Kirk Saville. "The current business model is not sustainable." more
"Hershey's is making the strategic decision to exit the online retail business," said Hershey spokesman Kirk Saville. "The current business model is not sustainable." more
Magna Forecast: U.S. Ad Economy to Drop 14.5% This Year
In his first forecast as the new global director of forecasting for Interpublic Group of Cos.' Magna, Brian Wieser came bearing a new methodology and some bad news.
Brian Wieser
During a presentation this morning, Mr. Wieser said the U.S. advertising economy will drop 14.5% this year, with revenue at media suppliers -- meaning those entities that sell advertising -- falling from $189 billion to $161 billion. And Mr. Wieser said he doesn't anticipate the industry to start exiting the recession until the second half of next year. more
Teenager Sets Off Craze With Media Report
A teenage intern at Morgan Stanley has everyone freaking out over an entirely unscientific report he authored for the securities firm that trashes newspapers, Twitter Inc. , and TV. According to Bloomberg, the report received "five or six times more feedback than an average report by the group and elicited e-mails and phone calls from fund managers and chief executive officers." [Ed. note: Don't any of these people have teenage children they eat dinner with at least once a week?] more
Free Microsoft office!!
Microsoft will release a free version of its dominant Office software that users can access over the Web, catching up with products that archrival Google launched three years ago.
The world's largest software maker will offer a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software and a note-taking program with the same look and feel of their counterparts in the Office suites that it sells for personal computers.
It is the latest salvo in an intensifying war between the two technology giants. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced plans last week to challenge Windows with a free operating system. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) introduced a new search engine, dubbed Bing, last month, that has taken a small amount of market share from Google. more
McGraw-Hill Exploring Sale of BusinessWeek Magazine
McGraw-Hill, the publisher of BusinessWeek magazine, has hired the investment bank Evercore Partners to help it explore strategic options, including a possible sale of the 80-year-old publication.
"BusinessWeek is a globally respected brand and one of the world's leading sources of essential and trusted content that informs and inspires business leaders to make smarter decisions in their professional and personal lives," the company said in a statement.
"BusinessWeek is a globally respected brand and one of the world's leading sources of essential and trusted content that informs and inspires business leaders to make smarter decisions in their professional and personal lives," the company said in a statement.
PaidContent reports that Bloomberg and Dow Jones parent News Corp are among potential suitors that have been mentioned. more
WSJ: MySpace to Reposition Itself as Entertainment Portal
CEO Rupert Murdoch intends to reposition MySpace, the online social network his company purchased for $580 million in 2005, "as an entertainment portal," where "people are looking for common interests," The Wall Street Journal reported. Murdoch made the comments last week at the Sun Valley conference. more
Yahoo To Terminate GeoCities This Fall
HP Partners With Green Social Network For Contest
Hewlett Packard is partnering with green social network Greenwala to sponsor a contest "Choose to reuse" which will benefit ACTERRA, a nonprofit that brings people together to create local solutions for a healthy planet.
Consumers can visit the contest page at Greenwala and submit a photo of the most creative or innovative reuse of something that would otherwise be trashed. The most popular entry will win an Energy Star-qualified HP Mini 110 XP Notebook and a Deskjet D2660 printer. more
Evian's Dancing Babies Take Internet By Storm
Evian's break-dancing babies have become an instant viral success -- which is just how the bottled water company likes it, since there's no TV media buy planned for the U.S. to support the new ad campaign, themed "Live young."
"The Web today has changed the way we communicate -- and in launching this campaign virally, it allows Evian, a global brand, to reach consumers worldwide in a way that traditional media cannot," says Evian Natural Spring Water spokesperson Cameryn Mercurio. "YouTube, in particular, is such a powerful force online, and reaches millions of people globally." more
Murdoch Says News Corp. Kindle-Like Device ‘Isn’t Likely’: ‘We’ll Be Absolutely Neutral’
In the latest round of will he-won't he, Rupert Murdoch told his own Fox Business Network not to expect a Kindle-like device from News Corp (NYSE: NWS). Speaking in Sun Valley, where he is participating in the Allen & Co. conference, Murdoch said: "I don't think that's likely. We're looking and talking to a lot of laboratories and big companies around the world, like Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Samsung. We're all working on wireless readers for books or newspapers or for magazines. I think they're a year or two away being marketed in a mass way, high quality ones, and we'll be absolutely neutral. We're happy to have our products distributed over any device provided it's only going to subscribers paying for it."
bearish."
Amazon.com: as frugal as ever?
It might seem that ecommerce giant Amazon.com had found every possible way of cutting costs. But it turns out those Snickers bars didn't need to be bathed in light after all. Workers at one of the company's fulfillment centers in Kentucky figured out how to save some money on energy bills by unscrewing the light bulbs in their cafeteria's vending machines -- a policy that has since been adopted company-wide. The light bulb initiative -- which CEO Jeff Bezos shared at the company's recent annual meeting -- is a sign that Amazon remains in some ways as cheap as ever, despite being a $33 billion company that is profiting handsomely in the current recession. more
Gannett Revenue Decline Hints at More Doom for Newspapers: JP Morgan
JP Morgan is forecasting that severe declines will continue at newspaper publisher Gannett in the second quarter.
Ad revenue will fall 32% in Q2, JP Morgan analysts have predicted, with consolidated EBITDA declining to a margin of 17%, compared to a margin of 25% in the second quarter of 2008, writes Editor & Publisher. Ad revenue fell 34% in the first quarter of the year.
Flagship publication USA Today will experience "severe declines," the analysts say. They predict that Gannett's weakness will "set the tone for another depressing reporting season in the newspaper universe." more
N.Y. AG Sues Tagged Social Network Over 'Fraudulent' Emails
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has sued San Francisco-based social network Tagged, alleging the company violated users' privacy and used deceptive marketing practices to inflate site traffic.
The lawsuit alleges that Tagged sent over 60 million emails to Web users, stating that their friends had posted photos online.
When a user went to view the photos -- which did not exist -- they had to join the site. At this point, the company "would then illegally gain access to their personal email contacts to send more fraudulent invitations." more
The lawsuit alleges that Tagged sent over 60 million emails to Web users, stating that their friends had posted photos online.
When a user went to view the photos -- which did not exist -- they had to join the site. At this point, the company "would then illegally gain access to their personal email contacts to send more fraudulent invitations." more
Microsoft's Flash-Challenger Silverlight 3 Lights-Up A Day Early
Microsoft's challenger to Adobe Flash, Silverlight, has officially been planned to launch Silverlight 3 on Friday at an event in San Francisco, but Microsoft silently made the final code for the latest version of its Silverlight 3 runtime for users and software development kit (SDK) for programmers have been published to the web and were available for download as of Thursday afternoon. more
Microsoft's Bing Grew 25% In June, Nibbles At Google's Dominance -- Hitwise
Microsoft continues to spell progress against Google with its search engine Bing, but unfortunately for Bing is nibbling at Google's crumbs rather than taking large bites out of its pie. Microsoft's Bing captured 5.25% of the U.S. Internet search market in the four weeks ending June 27, while Google secured 74% of the market, according to data released by Hitwise Thursday.
Meanwhile, Yahoo managed to secure 16.2% of the search market last month--up from May, but down from the 20% last June, while IAC/Interactive Corp.'s Ask.com sharply dropped to 3.2%. The remaining 48 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis accounted for 1.36% of U.S. searches.
Twitter Outsources Ad Model Development
Twitter's phenomenal growth can be traced in large part to a decision the company made early on to let outside developers determine uses for the service. That's led to hundreds of applications that manipulate Twitter data in ways the company couldn't imagine.
It is taking a similar approach to the development of its business model. This week, two companies are working on ways to embed advertising with the Twitter experience, experiments that could pave the way to how Twitter will do the same.
It is taking a similar approach to the development of its business model. This week, two companies are working on ways to embed advertising with the Twitter experience, experiments that could pave the way to how Twitter will do the same.
Social Media, a San Francisco startup specializing in pioneering ad formats in social spaces, is introducing an ad product called Twitter Sparq that will embed advertising in Twitter streams by asking users of Twitter clients to answer a question in a message.
Meanwhile, Federated Media Publishing has rolled out its third sponsored Twitter aggregation site, CinemaTweets.com. The site, sponsored by Universal Pictures, aggregates Twitter messages on film topics.
Huggies Sponsors Circle of Moms Facebook App
Huggies maker Kimberly-Clark is sponsoring the Circle of Moms Facebook app, which claims to reach more than 2 million women with information, advice, and interactive tools.
The campaign was brought together by direct sales company Appssavvy and Kimberly-Clark agency Mindshare. Circle of Moms users who enter the site's new Huggies-sponsored "Baby Zone" will find an advice column, a mother-to-mother forum, age-specific information about diapers, and interactive tools such as a baby photo uploader. more
Bing vs Google comparison on Nytimes.com
The name "Bing", presumably, is supposed to evoke the sound of a winning game-show bell. The cynics online, however, joke that Bing is an acronym for "But It's Not Google."
Here's the shocker, though: in many ways, Bing is better.
That's quite a statement, of course — almost heresy. But check it out yourself. It's easy to compare the two, thanks to sites like bing-vs-google.com. Here, you're shown search results from both Bing and Google, side by side, on a split screen.
Murdoch Balks at Twitter Buy, MySpace Sale
News Corp. is not interested in buying popular microblogging site Twitter and will not sell its struggling social network MySpace, said the media conglomerate's chief executive, Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch, who arrived on Wednesday at the Allen & Co.investment bank's Sun Valley media and technology conference, said Twitter would be a tough investment to justify because it has not yet come up with a sustainable way to make money. more
Google's AdSense for iPhone Trips up Advertisers
In the two weeks since Google announced it would open up AdSense for mobile, serving up text and display ads inside apps, there are signs the online-ad giant -- and marketers -- are still figuring out how to create good experiences for mobile users.
Google is helping marketers run ads on the mobile web and inside applications built for the iPhone and G1 Android phone, but some of those campaigns appear built for the desktop web and don't necessarily translate to the small screen. more
NYTimes.com may soon cost $5 a month
The New York Times may be the most popular news source on the Internet, but that doesn't mean they have any more insight into monetizing the web than anyone else in the media. Right now it looks like they're considering putting their content behind a pay wall again.
A recent survey sent out to subscribers asked if they would be willing to pay a $5 or $2.50 monthly fee to acess the paper's website. And while getting print subscribers to pay seems like a good way to beef up revenue, it also promises to cut into the paper's ad revenue and influence online. more
French Senate Approves New 'Three-Strikes' P2P Bill
After France's highest legal authority stripped the teeth out of a law that would have severed the Internet connections of repeat file-swappers, the French Senate has passed a new, modified "three-strikes" bill, TorrentFreak reports. The Constitutional Council said that citizens deserved a court hearing, and that a court order was necessary before an Internet account could be severed -- instead of leaving it up to an independent agency called Hadopi. more
Hardware makers support Google OS
The search giant said it was working with many firms on Chrome OS hardware including Acer, Asus, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Toshiba.
The software is designed to work with the web and Google said it was most likely to appear on smaller portable computers known as netbooks.
The browser-based operating system will be released to the public in 2010. from BBC
China Blocks Access To Twitter, Facebook After Riots
Following last weekend's deadly riots
in its western region of Xinjiang, China's central government has taken all the usual steps to block citizens from accessing foreign web services: aside from crippling Internet service in general, the authorities have blocked Twitter, removed unapproved references to the violence from search engines and has now apparently moved to bar its citizens from accessing Facebook from most parts of Mainland China just now. Two weeks ago, the government had already blocked just about every Google service, including communication tools like Gmail, Google Apps and Google Talk. more
in its western region of Xinjiang, China's central government has taken all the usual steps to block citizens from accessing foreign web services: aside from crippling Internet service in general, the authorities have blocked Twitter, removed unapproved references to the violence from search engines and has now apparently moved to bar its citizens from accessing Facebook from most parts of Mainland China just now. Two weeks ago, the government had already blocked just about every Google service, including communication tools like Gmail, Google Apps and Google Talk. more
Ad model for Kindle revealed
Over the last 30 days, the US Patent Office has published several patents for Amazon that lend insight on the company's future plans for its Kindle book reader.
One patent, filed in December 2006, will grant customers that purchase a print copy of a book the ability to access the electronic version as well.
Two other patents go into detail about incorporating targeted advertising in on-demand content on Kindle.
Under the terms of the patents, Amazon could inserts ads throughout its ebooks: in the margins, between chapters or every 10 pages, from beginning to end, for example.
on Mediapost
Gmail out of Beta
Google's Gmail has earned a unique distinction as one of the longest running programs to maintain a "beta" designation since its debut five years ago. Well the jokes about "Is Google ever going to finish this thing?" should start to peter out with today's news that the e-mail program no longer has the beta tag.
"For every product we have goals for feature completeness and we feel we've now met them," Rajen Sheth, a senior product manager for Google Apps, told InternetNews.com. more
Thomson Reuters Acquires Webcasting Firm Streamlogics
Thomson Reuters, the provider of business information and webcasting services, announced that it has acquired Streamlogics, a provider of webcasting software. more
Wikimedia Gets $300K to Expand Web Media Repository
The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, has been awarded a $300,000 Ford Foundation grant that the company says will make it easier for people to participate in Wikimedia Commons, an online repository of shareable multimedia assets. more
Google OS - coming soon
That Google operating system rumor is coming true--and it's based on Google's browser, Chrome.
The company announced Google Chrome OS on its blog Tuesday night, saying lower-end PCs called Netbooks from unnamed manufacturers will include it in the second half of 2010. Linux will run under the covers of the open-source project, but the applications will run on the Web itself.
In other words, Google's cloud-computing ambitions just got a lot bigger.
BT gets wise, terminates Phorm - for now
Phorm, the company whose web tracking technology sparked international controversy, had a bad Monday as BT got wise and decided to drop its use of Phorm's Webwise product.
Phorm's loss, however, is a major victory for consumers. more
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