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February 22, 2009 - February 28, 2009

February 26, 2009

Relevant Gmail Ads...finally

I've almost never found any ad that shows up alongside my Gmail messages to be relevant. But the ads that appear near the message my husband just sent me containing an mp3 of an early Van Halen demo of "Everybody Wants Some" actually are. Everybody wants...to play like Eddie:

EVH Wolfgang Guitar
Designed by Eddie Van Halen. The latest news on fresh new gear.
MusicalInstrumentNews.blogspot.com

Van Halen
Find Eddie Van Halen Guitars at Great Prices.
www.Pronto.com

Play like Eddie Van Hale?
Free Guitar Guide Reveals The 3 Secrets That Made Eddie a Legend
VanHalen.GuitarControl.com

ThommoHawk - Play It Loud
Want to download hard rock MP3s? ThommoHawk rock will blow you away!
www.thommohawk.net

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 25, 2009

Yahoo's Head of Mobile Connected Life Exits

The latest executive to leave Yahoo is Marco Boerries, executive vice president of the Connective Life Division. He had global responsibility for the group, which largely is responsible for Yahoo Mobile, and most recently for Connected TV, which was introduced last month at the Consumer Electronics Show. The news was first posted on AllThingsD, including an e-mail Boerries sent to Yahoo staffers.

A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed the group leader's departure with ClickZ. "After four years at Yahoo, Marco Boerries is leaving the company for personal reasons. Under Marco's leadership, the Connected Life division developed a leadership position in Mobile, and most recently in the Connected TV space."

Boerries joined Yahoo four years ago as the result of the company's acquisition of VerdiSoft, which he founded in 2001. The initial vision of VerdiSoft was to enable digital mobility across mobile, broadband, and home networking markets, which was carried through in his years at Yahoo. Connected Life's mobile division launched many initiatives over the last six months or so under the leadership of David Katz, head of the mobile advertising and publishing division. Yahoo Mobile has signed mobile search distribution deals with over 70 operator partners worldwide; it added 11 European markets through a relationship with T-Mobile earlier this month.

Posted by Enid Burns at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

February 23, 2009

Microsoft's Scott Howe Gets Laughs at IAB, But Conflict Fears Persist

Source: IAB

Scott Howe managed to make the current crisis of falling ad prices funny today in his speech before 400 or so publishers at the IAB's annual meeting in Orlando today. In a bit called "Why the Green Bay Packers are smarter than us," Microsoft's corporate VP, advertiser and publisher solutions speculated that if the online ad industry owned the Packers, the team's biggest star would make the full $98 million in salaries paid to the whole team. In actuality, two of the team's relatively anonymous defensive ends are better paid.

You get the analogy. The Web's unsung heroes (premium media brands) do the heavy lifting, and are entitled to more of the total ad spend. The star (search) should get less.

Howe then made an impassioned plea for publishers to work with Microsoft's Atlas Institute ad research unit to determine the advertising impact generated by their sites. "If you want to know how your site did in helping, you call and we'll hammer it out," he said.

But Howe couldn't entirely escape the conflict of interest issues facing a company that is not only an ad platform, but also a major publisher AND a global ad agency.

One example: When he said publishers must resist advertiser demands to cut prices further, someone shouted from the audience, "Tell Avenue A!"

Howe took the jab in good humor, but a few minutes later was forced onto the defensive again, when IAB President Randy Rothenberg asked him if Microsoft's invitation to publishers isn't really "a case of the fox in the hen house."

Howe acknowledged the point, and once again told digital media firms not to worry -- that he's on THEIR side. "Having a better forecasting engine is good for all of us," he said. "There are no ulterior motives here."

Earlier today Scott talked with ClickZ about Microsoft's move to integrate its sprawling ad network and media holdings into a single platform called Microsoft Media Network. Read our full coverage.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oodle's AOL Deal Boosts Network Scale

Oodle's network just keeps on growing. The firm's latest score is AOL, where it will be feeding listings in some categories into AOL's new classifieds service.

AOL already offers autos, jobs, real estate, and personals, so to start, Oodle is filling out sections like merchandise and pets. In the future, Oodle listings will appear in other categories, according to Oodle CEO Craig Donato, who called the AOL partnership a "big addition" to the network, which he told me sees around 500,000 new listings each day -- about 40 million active listings at any one time.

Donato told me the main focus for Oodle has been to achieve scale. "We have been very, very focused on achieving scale.... We're getting there," he said.

New to AOL through Oodle is the ability for users to post free listings in categories including merch, services, and vehicles.

The standard classifieds categories -- cars, real estate, jobs -- typically attract users only when they're in the market for those things. Donato stressed the importance of sites like AOL taking the "portfolio" approach by offering those and categories that drive more habitual behavior. Merchandise does that. (Hey, anyone with saved searches on eBay knows this).

As classifieds services online have become more popular, they've grown more vulnerable to spam, said Donato, who said his firm has been battling the classifieds spam epidemic through various filters and algorithms for nearly two years.

Next up for Oodle is implementation of Facebook classifieds, "soon," according to Donato.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OrangeSoda Sees Trend, Opens Service for Larger Brands

Search engine marketing is undergoing change, and agencies are reacting to the call. Today Utah-based OrangeSoda opened up OrangeSoda Enterprise, a search engine marketing service for large companies and national brands. While it targets the larger customer, it still addresses the local market the agency knows well. At launch of business, Enterprise already works with national brands such as Re/Max and Jiffy Lube to strategize, create, implement, and track online campaigns.

Just last week northern Michigan-based Oneupweb refreshed itself with a new Web site and white paper entitled, "Search has Changed. It's Time to Stand Up and Take Notice." In it Oneupweb identifies the DNA of the new Web -- which includes maps, wikis, link popularity, site architecture, content optimization, news, meta tags, blogs, PR, widgets, social profiles, videos, local search, and more - and how the new landscape is affecting search.

The direction both agencies are taking (and it's my guess other agencies are doing the same whether we'll see the changes publicly or not) is a sign that things are changing in search and on the Web. The social Web and Web 2.0 applications are also changing how sites are measured using Web analytics.

Posted by Enid Burns at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will Yahoo Make Changes We Can Believe In?

Under the direction of Yahoo's new, noticeably down-to-earth CEO, Carol Bartz, the firm is rumored to be planning another round of structural changes. A WSJ
piece lays it out, noting a handful of expected executive title/responsibility changes. For instance, current head of advertising, Hilary Schneider would be named head of North America. All this is speculation, and a Yahoo spokesperson told me the company won't comment.

Apparently the approach Bartz will take is meant to establish more top-down management to hasten decision-making.

Yahoo's been shifting around its top execs for the past couple years in the hopes of streamlining and jump-starting a sputtering operation. Will this be the change that ignites some real movement?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wenda's Speech: About the 'Schmattes' Thing

Since she uttered the line last night, several news stories, blog posts, and tweets have already referenced Wenda Harris Millard's line that we shouldn't sell our inventory like "schmattes." For the record, the credit for that one should not go to Millard, but to IAB CEO Randy Rothenberg, who invented it earlier this month in a blog post that riffed -- in part -- on Wenda's speech at last year's IAB meeting. In that original speech she said (now famously) that we online media companies must "not trade our assets like pork bellies."

Circular, I know.

In an echo of Wenda, Randy wrote earlier this month, "We must stop acting as if we're selling schmattes, and start acting like the makers of magic that the best of us are -- and always have been."

Wenda liked his tribute so much that she quoted him in turn, resulting in a large number of attendees understandably giving the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia co-CEO kudos for coming up with it.

So if the whole schmatte thing seemed to you a little too similar to the "pork bellies" remark in 2008, while at the same time being perhaps a bit nonsensical, that's the reason. And if you're unfortunate enough not to have come across the term schmatte before, it's a Yiddish word meaning "a rag," or alternatively something of generally poor quality. Now you know.

Read ClickZ's full coverage of Wenda's speech here.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Florida AG Settles with Another Mobile Content Seller

Florida's Attorney General office has settled with yet another mobile content marketer over the fraudulent marketing of ringtones and other mobile content.

The settlement of $1 million with New Motion Inc. and Traffix Inc., which do business jointly as Atrinsic, follows numerous other similar deals with firms like AzoogleAds, AT&T, World Ave. and M-Qube. The AG's office uses the money from these settlements to fund investigations into other misleading marketing offers.

Atrinsic works with affiliates and ad networks to provide content for cell phones. The company's negotiated deal with the AG protects it from prosecution, in exchange it has agreed to disclose the real costs of mobile content offers in an obvious way on all online transaction screens.

"Florida is leading the nation in holding the industry accountable to a high standard of online disclosure and I appreciate Atrinsic's participation in this effort," said a statement form AG Bill McCollum.

According to the AG's CyberFraud division, investigations of complaints have found thousands of Florida consumers have been charged for mobile downloads they neither wanted nor authorized.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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