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June 7, 2009 - June 13, 2009

June 12, 2009

Facebook Vanity URLs: The Countdown Begins

Facebook's move to allow its members to sign up for vanity URLs just after midnight tonight is stirring up a frenzy.

And it's potentially fueling a cottage industry for buying and selling accounts on social networks.

A Google search for "Facebook vanity URLs" earlier today turned up a sponsored link for Assetize.com, a company that currently lists Twitter accounts for sale such as @amazonsavers (listed for $1,250) and @24hourfitness (best offer).

See you at midnight!

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digital TV: A Day of Reckoning

As television broadcasters move from analog to digital signals today, there's no shortage of businesses selling consumers services and products not prepared for the transition.

A Google search this morning for "digital tv" turned up these sponsored links.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 11, 2009

Vodafone Tracks Real-Life Cabbies to Tout Location Capabilities

This post was written by Jack Marshall

Vodafone has launched an inventive online campaign, dubbed "Taxi Grand Prix," to tie-in with its sponsorship of the 2009 McClaren F1 team.

The campaign, created by digital agency Dare, makes use of Vodafone's GPS and location-based services to track 10 U.K. taxi drivers (or "cabbies") in real time, as they race to cover the same number of miles an F1 car would in a single race.

Entrants pick a team of two Vodafone-sponsored cabbies from a pool of ten spread across five major U.K. cities. Whichever team completes the race distance first over the course of their working week wins, and users can track their teams using live GPS via the Taxi Grand Prix site.

Vodafone has upped its efforts in the location-based space, and recently announced it would be extensively testing a number of location-aware ad products this summer. This campaign strikes me not only as a nice integration with their current F1 involvement, but also a great way to introduce consumers to their location-based technologies in a creative manner.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Phorm Raises Capital to Keep things Ticking

This post was written by Jack Marshall

ISP-level behavioral targeting company Phorm is raising more capital, selling 19.4 percent of the firm for a figure of £15 million through a new share offering to keep it fueled until it finds some customers.

Despite announcing a content recommendation product last week designed to encourage users to opt-in to its ad targeting platform, none of the firm's ISP partners have actually implemented the technology yet, meaning the company currently has no active revenue streams.

The company said in a statement today that it intends to use the cash to "continue the implementation of its service in the U.K. and Korean markets, and for general working capital purposes, as it continues its discussions with other ISPs both in the U.K. and internationally." CEO Kent Ertugrul said he was "pleased that the financial community has demonstrated its support for Phorm, with a substantially over-subscribed offering."

Last week, the company's managing director, U.K., Nick Barnet, told me that U.K. agencies were impressed by the product, and eager to know when it was fully deployed. At present, neither Phorm nor its ISP partners - BT, Virgin Media, and Talk Talk -- can say when that is likely to be.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 10, 2009

What's Driving Government's Gripes with Google?

If it seems like the government has a beef with Google - make that multiple beefs - it's a logical conclusion. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have either formally or informally investigated a variety of its business practices and projects. The Wall Street Journal today has a good round up of the government intervention, particularly the DOJ's request that Google and its book publishing partners provide "information about a deal both struck last year to allow the search giant to make millions of books available online."

The article refers to "probes" into "4 Fronts:" the book search deals, the hiring practices of Google and other tech firms, overlap on the boards of Google and Apple, and - of most importance to us here at ClickZ - consumer protection issues related to online advertising (think DOJ's inspection and subsequent squelching of the Google/Yahoo search deal and FTC's ongoing work on behavioral ad targeting).

Ever since the news reports surfaced that the DOJ is also inspecting the hiring practices of Google and others (Yahoo and Apple have been named), I've been thinking a lot about this investigation pile up, too.

A few questions leap to mind:
1. Is this simply the result a more regulation-prone Democratic administration at work?
2. Is Google being picked on or singled out?
3. How much do lobbying efforts influence these sorts of inspections?
4. Could these investigations be fishing expeditions?

I don't know the answer to any of these, of course. But I did have a talk about some of these subjects yesterday with Eric Goldman, assistant professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and prolific Internet law blogger.

Specifically, we discussed the reported DOJ inspection of tech firms and their hiring practices. The concern, Goldman and others believe, is that tech firms could be in effect suppressing their labor market. If - as has been standard practice for years - they include "non-solicitation" clauses in their agreements with employees or business partners, they may have placed restrictions on the ability of other businesses to hire their employees, or of employees to freely move to a competitor's firm.

Such agreements among companies ("Sure, we'll hire you on a consulting basis, but you have to agree not to poach any of our staff.") could amount to a cartel-like situation in the eyes of the law. Apparently, said Goldman, trade associations deal with this sort of thing all the time. If, for instance, members of a trade group set standards for doing business, could they freeze out other methods or technologies in the process? That would be an antitrust issue.

The thing is, at least at the higher levels, online ad sector firms seem to be hiring left-and-right, and often grabbing execs from competitors. Very recently, for instance, ad execs have moved from Google to AOL and Facebook. Indeed, Goldman told me he was "surprised that this issue has even been surfaced because there is [indication] that this is a pretty healthy labor market."

He also indicated that at least some of the investigations involving Google are mere tentacles of a larger animal. "Could the DOJ be sniffing around tech cos. and their hiring practices to see what they can dig up?" I asked him. They may be on a "fishing expedition," responded Goldman. Either way, he told me, it's not difficult for the DOJ to obtain the information it seeks. "They can do a lot without formal activity," he said.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cisco: The Future is Video, on Mobile and Everywhere Else

If you had any doubt video is the future of digital activity, consider the results of Cisco's annual visual networking index, released yesterday.

According to the forecast, global IP traffic will quintuple by 2013 as measured in data volume. Cisco estimates the sum of all forms of video -- including TV, video on demand, Internet video, and P2P -- will exceed 90 percent of global consumer IP traffic. While estimating data flow is not too meaningful as a gauge of media consumption (census and panel data are surely better), the anticipated five-fold increase in Web traffic demonstrates pretty well how moving pictures will continue to define the interactive media experience -- and the culture at large.

Other findings from the index:

• -The Middle East and Africa will grow faster than other regions, with a compound annual growth rate of 51 percent.


• -More than 60 percent of mobile data traffic will be video in four years. Mobile traffic will approximately double each year until 2013.


• -Cisco believes multi-tasking and time-shifting behaviors have turbocharged data traffic. Activities such as streaming music while viewing photos, recording shows while working, and instant messaging while on the phone are adding many additional hours of networked data traffic per day.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 9, 2009

Morning Reads: Search Queries Mirror Economy, Can MySpace be a Comeback Kid?

Google Searches Mirror the Economy (Fortune)
Google queries for terms like "investments" closely match the stock market's performance, according to a study the search giant commissioned from Compete. The study also identifies the search traits of high-value credit card shoppers -- mainly that they search a whole lot.

Can MySpace Pull Off a Comeback? (CNN)
Few sites have ever come back from a decline in popularity. MySpace is clearly determined to beat the odds, but what will be its secret sauce? No answers in this story, but a few good questions.

Adobe Strives to Crack the Smart-Phone Market (WSJ)
In a strategy with implications for mobile rich media, Adobe is striking alliances to bring Flash to a variety of handsets where it's not been available.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Quote of the Day: Carol Bartz on AOL Deal

Just two weeks after she criticized Twitter's founders for apparently ruling out a sale ("Never is a long time," she said), you wouldn't expect Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz to rule out any given deal for all eternity, would you? Well, you'd be wrong.

"Yahoo-AOL would not happen anytime in the forever future," she said in an interview with Fox Business News yesterday. "Yahoo is a much stronger property in a different direction and there's no sense confusing all of that."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 8, 2009

Bing Advertised: T-minus Two Hours to Microsoft's Live Infomercial on Hulu

Judging by the reactions of many, Microsoft has come off as trying a bit too hard to transform its new search brand into an overnight success. But while the flashy TV spots, homepage takeovers, and product placement deals do come off as strenuous, you have to give the company credit for playing around with creative formats that haven't been tried yet -- at least on behalf of a search engine.

Case in point: tonight's Bing-a-thon, a Microsoft sponsored "live party" on Hulu, which starts at 8pm. Hosted by SNL cast member Jason Sudeikis and G4's Olivia Munn, the hour-long show was developed by the Creative Artists Agency in L.A. How many will tune in? In all likelihood, only Hulu and Microsoft will ever know. But we'll follow the event and post reactions here tomorrow.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tweet of the Day: "Inventory, inventory..."

"'Inventory, inventory, remnant, remnant.' I feel like I'm in a wholesaler's mtng on 7th ave."

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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