So Long ClickZ News Blog

A quick note, readers, to let you know that this blog will soon be shuttered and its content merged with ClickZ's regular news and features coverage.

The news and commentary you're used to seeing here will soon begin to appear over in ClickZ's regular news section. To subscribe to all our news content, please see our e-mail newsletter and RSS feed subscription pages.

As for the back-story: we created the ClickZ News Blog in 2005 as an experiment in format - a way for our reporters to cover digital marketing outside the confines of traditional journalism. In doing so, we intended to follow in the footsteps of entrepreneurial news organizations like TechCrunch, Politico, PaidContent, and others that prioritize chasing tips and fleshing out back-stories over covering press releases.

It's served that purpose well. Over the past three years the blog has built a solid following of marketers who look to it for breaking news, analysis, and aggregated content from around the Web.

However, it also has its drawbacks. Publishing it requires us to maintain a separate CMS, taxonomy, and analytics tools. And it lacks its own e-mail newsletter, a key way we deliver other content to you.

More importantly, we've come to the conclusion that some readers are confused - understandably so - about the difference between ClickZ News, our flagship daily reporting package, and the more casual and freewheeling ClickZ News Blog.

To cure these ills, we've decided simply to combine the two sections. As a result, our regular industry coverage will soon be flavored with some "bloggy" conventions, such as use of the first person and aggregated news posts. As we go through these changes, rest assured ClickZ's news team remains committed to the fundamentals of journalism, including in-depth reporting and analysis.

The integration will take place in about one week. Meanwhile, please head over to our e-mail newsletter and RSS feed subscription pages to ensure you continue to receive this content.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers on February 2, 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Coke Clobbering Pepsi on Facebook, But Not on Twitter

One has to credit Pepsi's commitment to charitable programs in its "Refresh Project," which will ultimately donate $20 million to local community projects.

For more than a month, the soft drinks maker has been hammering the PR message that it's going to use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media entities to promote the initiative. Pepsi's been touting these ideas while pointing out - in a self-congratulatory fashion - that it's passing on a Super Bowl ad for the first time in 23 years in favor of social media buzz.

Well, this led me to check out the brand's Facebook presence this morning. It had 307,326 "fans."

That piqued my curiosity to see what Coke's Facebook presence looked like. Somewhat surprising was the humongous gap between the "big two" - Coke has more than 4.5 million "fans."

But the social media picture is not all bad for Pepsi. It has 20,923 "followers" on Twitter, while Coke has 15,798.

Posted by Chris on February 2, 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Twitter Expands Media Partnership Staff

Following ads it posted last month seeking monetization staff, Twitter has hired a new media partnership exec in the shape of Robin Sloan.

In a blog post, Sloan confirmed his appointment, and said his role would involve "everything at the intersection of Twitter and media." It's unclear at this point if that will include anything directly marketing related, but the assumption is that said partnerships are likely to include some kind of sponsorship element.

According to Sloan, he will work alongside existing media partnership Twitter staffer, Chloe Sladden, both of which previously held positions at Current TV. He starts mid-February.

Posted by Jack Marshall on February 2, 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Related: Media, Social Networks, Twitter

iPad Video Brouhaha: Apple Caught Wearing a Toupee?

Sites are buzzing today about what appears to be a misleading product video Apple has produced to sell its iPad. An eight-minute clip on YouTube depicts NYTimes.com on the device at about the 2:04 mark. The clip shows The Times' Video section fully rendered, including a Flash element that sits above an article in the newspaper's Travel section.

Here's a screen-grab from the video that shows (apologies for the blurriness) the Video section center-left:

But of course, as Steve Jobs himself showed at the product unveiling on Wednesday, Flash doesn't work on the iPad:

It's not the end of the world - a marketer fudging the truth in a sales pitch. But shame on Apple for trying to sneak this by the gadget-conscious universe. That's almost like Patrick Stewart showing up at a Trekkie convention wearing a toupee and expecting nary a double-take.

Posted by Chris on January 29, 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Next GOP Money Bomb? There's an Ad for That.

Scott Brown made headlines with his one-day "Money Bomb" fundraiser that became a week-long phenomenon raking in millions for the newly-elected Senator from Massachusetts. Now, Republican primary candidate for Senate in Florida, Marco Rubio (he's running an increasingly tight race against Governor Charlie Crist) is using a similar tactic. That's Rubio pictured below at "Bike Night" in Clearwater, FL the other night.

And, The Senate Conservatives Fund PAC is running display ads to promote their Rubio fundraising effort - even to people outside the Sunshine State. The ad uses a photo of Crist pictured in cozy contact with the President. I just spotted one on Newsbusters, where I was reading a very important story about how the Obama Girl thinks the Prez needs to focus more on job creation.

The Republicans have become big on advertising for all sorts of things. Yesterday, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's PAC ran display and search ads on Google to promote his rebuttal to last night's State of the Union Address. If you did a search on "state of the union" you may have seen one.

Posted by Kate Kaye on January 28, 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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