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Duly Noted

June 26, 2008

Political Conference Message Applies to Web Marketers, Too

This week's Personal Democracy Forum, the annual conference dedicated to exploring the convergence of politics and technology, was its usual confluence of politicos, bloggers, tech geeks, media observers, and rabble-rousers. Topics like Net neutrality, government technological know-how, infrastructure and broadband access, and John McCain's computer literacy were among many discussed. Good stuff.

I was there Tuesday to speak on a panel about "New ways of making (and spending) money online," where I talked about how much the Obama and Clinton campaigns spent on online ads in the primary season.

While most of the subject matter at PDF steers clear of advertising and marketing, there was one interesting point relevant to ClickZ made during – of all things – a session on National Tech Policy. During the Q&A period, a representative of ocean advocacy group Oceana lamented the fact that government staffers often ignore mass e-mails sent in affiliation with issue advocacy campaigns. You know – those online form-generated e-mails – "Tell Senator Tankerbell you want to keep fluoride out of your tap water!"

The fact is even a few years ago, staffers were, to a certain degree, taking such mass messages with a grain of sea salt. I wrote a piece while associate editor of Personal Democracy Forum's site about the issue as it related to the nomination of John Bolton as UN Ambassador. At the time, Senator Lincoln Chafee's press secretary told me, “Ultimately, from a campaign point of view, these mass efforts can take away from the impact that individuals can have – the folks who read about it in the paper and decide on their own to make contact.”

With that as a backdrop, it was interesting to hear the response of Alec Ross, EVP External Affairs for tech nonprofit One Economy to the Oceana attendee's mass e-mail woes.

"You can't go with what worked 5 or 6 years ago when MoveOn was growing so rapidly," said Ross. "You've got to get creative."

I suppose for Web marketers, the same notion should be applied when something that used to work doesn't cut it anymore: get creative.

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May 1, 2008

Google Flips Switch on TV Ads, Spot Runner Gets Granular

As expected, Google has begun offering TV ad production and placement services to all AdWords advertisers. The public launch indicates the company has partially resolved the inventory problems that plagued the program in its early months, though it's still only pushing ads to customers of its DISH and Astound cable partners. Google's demo, viewable here, shows how advertisers can choose programs and networks, fix day parts, secure production services, and schedule campaigns.

With the launch, advertisers will be in a better position to analyze and compare the relative merits of Google's system with competing offerings, most notably Spot Runner. Spot Runner, which hired Joanne Bradford and Marc Rosenthal in recent months, is going after national advertisers whose budgets were too small for TV in the broadcast boom years. A client example the company shared last month is that of a purveyor of home power generators. "When we see a storm rolling in, we turn on their campaigns," CEO Nick Grouf said.

While Google is giving marketers the option of uploading spots or contracting jobs, Spot Runner has taken the tack of proactively packaging video ads for specific business types. You can see its library here, including an interesting set of political advertising templates I hadn't noticed before visiting today.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 21, 2008

China Surpasses U.S. in Internet Users

In a first, the number of Internet users in China has surpassed the United States.

China had more than 220 million users as of February, according to a report in USA Today. The United States had 214 million at the end of 2007.

There's still lots of room for China's Internet usage to grow; it has a population of 1.3 billion compared to 304 million in the United States.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 16, 2008

Kudos to Pete Blackshaw

Pete Blackshaw is one of three Internet marketing pioneers given an industry achievement award last night at ad:tech SF.

Blackshaw, a ClickZ columnist, is EVP, strategic services for Nielsen Online,
a combination of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, a firm Pete helped co-found, and Nielsen/NetRatings.

"Let's stay credible, let's stay trusted, and let's keep the consumer front and center in what we do," he said upon receiving the award.

At the ceremony that's part of this week's advertising technology conference in San Francisco, the two other lifetime achievement award winners were: Kate Thorp, CEO of Real Girls Media and founder of Lot 21, and Rich LeFurgy, general partner of Archer, an advisory services company, and founding chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

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April 4, 2008

Behavioral Ads on Meth: More Info on U.S. ISP Practices

The Washington Post has some new information on the scope of ISP behavior tracking in the U.S. According to its story this morning, ad vendor Front Porch claims it's already observing and targeting ads to 100,000 U.S. broadband subscribers through secretive partnerships with its ISP partners. NebuAd meanwhile said it has deals that cover 10 percent of U.S. customers.

The relatively new method for behavioral targeting works by sniffing data packets on virtually all of a consumer's online activities (and anonymizing those packets, the companies involved will be quick to tell you). Ads are then served to consumers through cut-rate remnant network inventory. ISPs and their vendors only buy impressions where the IP address of the user matches up to its subscriber database.

Two ISPs, Wide Open West and Embarq, have modified their terms of service to permit the activity, and WOW named NebuAd as a partner, according to the WaPo story.

Reaction of the U.S. public and press to such activities has been muted in the U.S. The U.K. is a different story. There newspapers and public interest groups have loudly protested the development. A dedicated protest site was created at badphorm.co.uk, and a Web page has been set up to petition the Prime Minister to scrutinize the practices.

Our earlier coverage:
-ISPs Collect User Data for Behavioral Ad Targeting
-Questions for Bob Dykes, NebuAd CEO

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 19, 2008

Some Transactional Assembly Required

Ordering your Arild sofa and Ramvik coffee table living room furniture online from Ikea this week? Well you can order it, but the site won't be able to take your credit card number to complete the transaction. An e-mail from the Swedish furniture conglomerate after an attempted order said a follow-up e-mail would ask for credit card information. To add even more insult to injury, hold times are running in excess of about 20 minutes to speak with customer service representative, who confirmed the transaction system has been down and the call center is being overrun by customer calls.

Posted by Enid Burns at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 13, 2008

FTC Extends Comment Period for Behavioral Targeting Guidelines

Back in December, when the Federal Trade Commission unveiled its five proposed guidelines for self-regulation in behavioral targeting, it introduced a two-month comment period on the document. The deadline for feedback on the principles was supposed to be next Friday, February 22. Now, at the request of the Network Advertising Initiative and perhaps other groups, it's extended the date to April 11.

Anyone wishing to read the proposed guidelines document can do so here. Comments should be sent to: Office of the Secretary, Federal Trade Commission, Room H-135 (Annex N), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580 or BehavioralMarketingPrinciples@ftc.gov.

Speak soonish or forever hold your peace.

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February 11, 2008

Active Athlete Not Active Enough, Becomes Sportgenic

Sports related ad network and publisher technology firm Active Athlete today announced it has renamed itself as Sportgenic. Having interviewed Robert Tas, president and CEO of Active Athlete (left) on several occasions, he's told me he doesn't want his company to be seen only as a specialty ad network catering to athletes, but as a technology and services partner for publishers to make use of. Active Athlete's recent acquisition of GolfBuzz, to incorporate that company's social networking and widget technology into its own offering, was clearly part of that strategy. Still, it remains to be seen if a name change will clarify Sportgenic's roll with publishers or just muddy the issue.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 5, 2008

Super Bowl Buzz Results

Now that the New York Giants have managed to buck the odds and beat the New England Patriots in Sunday's Super Bowl, it's also time to see who won the other important battle of the event… the most popular commercial.

As the game actually got under way, over 200 participants on the Hey! Nielsen Live Polling service were asked if each commercial was a "touchdown," a "punt," a "first down" or a "fumble." The site also collected comments from participants about the ads. And when the dust settled, it was Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser: Horse/Dalmatian commercial that won the night, with 73 percent scoring the ad as a touchdown, 21 percent calling it a first down and 6 percent calling it a punt. The big loser of the night was SalesGenie.com: Sales Lead commercial, which 42 percent of the Hey! Nielsen participants called a fumble.

According to Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Nielsen Online Strategic Services and ClickZ columnist, Pepsi generated the most buzz leading up to the game by previewing some of its "Bob’s House" ad and Anheuser-Busch also got noticed for providing teasers of its ads online. Even so, he was surprised by the lack of online integration with many of the Super Bowl ads, and with many advertisers' unwillingness to preview them online before the game.

"Our guess is that brands were running so hard to get Super Bowl ads ready to go they didn't get everything else coordinated," he said during a conference call to share Hey! Nielsen's results.

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January 29, 2008

Can Digital Integration End the Agency Silo?

Earlier this week OMD became the next in a number of agencies to place digital as a central component of the agency's strategy. OMD made Scott Hagedorn managing director of the East Coast region. He previously held the title U.S. director of OMD Digital. The agency redefined the role with an emphasis on digital. An OMD statement said "the new structure was put into place to ensure that digital capabilities and insights are fully integrated within client teams." At the same time as the strategy change, OMD also promoted Mark Stewart to the global account and strategy director of the Visa global media business. He previously served as head of OMD East. He will now have oversight across all activity on the Visa brand including digital and other media.

All of the agency's employees will have access to ongoing employee training targeted a digital media and new technologies. OMD's aim is to make digital a core competency for all team members.

Posted by Enid Burns at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 3, 2008

A Landmark Sale in the Works

Landmark Communications, parent company to Weather.com; The Weather Channel; newspapers including The Virginian Pilot and The Roanoke Times; online marketing divisions Q Interactive; Digital Element/Digital Envoy; and other businesses, said it retained investment banks J.P. Morgan and Lehman Brothers to explore opportunities including the sale of Landmark's businesses.

The Wall Street Journal reports the company could be sold in pieces, and that J.P. Morgan is responsible for The Weather Channel while Lehman will likely handle the other media outlets. It's unclear whether Landmark intends to sell all its businesses, and how the company may be divided up.

Weather.com is aggressive in its advertising strategies, and debuted an ad-supported video player in August. Not much is mentioned about Landmark's Internet marketing and services division, which includes Ad Engine, in the company's statement outlining the potential sale.

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December 28, 2007

InfoSpace Completes $135M Sale of Mobile Business to Motricity

Motricity, a company that builds and runs mobile storefronts for carriers, said today it completed the $135 million acquisition of InfoSpace's mobile services business.

InfoSpace's mobile services unit provides the portal and search functions for AT&T and Verizon in the United States; Motricity offers a storefront, catalog, and other applications that enables its customers to offer ringtones, games, and other content on mobile devices.

InfoSpace, moving forward, will focus on growing its online search business, according to a statement from Jim Voelker, InfoSpace chief executive. InfoSpace's metasearch technology is used by other Web sites such as Dogpile and WebFetch.

Ryan Wuerch remains as Motricity's chairman and chief executive, while Steve Elfman, former executive vice president of InfoSpace's mobile services business unit, becomes Motricity's president and chief operating officer.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 27, 2007

Trends to Watch in 2008: Facebook Suicide to Mobulimia

What trends should be watched in the coming year?

Advertising agency JWT today released its list of 80 things to watch in 2008. Among those that could affect digital advertising and marketing professionals in the year ahead: Facebook suicide (the decision to drop out of a social network) and e-clutter and e-clutter consultants.

Trends involving mobile devices got four mentions on the list, including: mobulimia (addiction to mobile devices), the mobile technology explosion, and the "third screen (as in mobile) rivaling the first screen (as in TV).

While Apple's iPhone made the list in 2007, JWT figures the Gphone will be the mobile technology development to watch in the coming year.

On the social network front, JWT points to social network branded communities established by marketers. "You'll see brands trying to appeal to their target consumers by starting these groups. For instance, a sleep drug brand starting an anti-insomniac community. What's in it for the members? They can talk about their commonalities and offer each other advice and get answers to their questions from trusted brands," explains Ann Mack, JWT director of trendspotting, in an e-mail interview with ClickZ.

While green weddings may bring gold, blue could become the new green in the environmental movement's color scheme. Look out, too, for the possibility of "eco-fatigue" setting in.

How does JWT identifies these trends?

"In our daily work, we're constantly mining and analyzing information out in the public domain and talking to influencers, experts and consumers. That's where the list begins," says JWT's Mack. From there, her team asks a worldwide network of 100 people to react to the preliminary list, and then a small New York-based group hammers out the rest.

Perhaps 2008 will usher in a kinder, gentler world online. E-mail etiquette and virtual gifting are among the top trends to watch.

Ann and JWT, Thank you.

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December 1, 2007

Miva Launches ALOT, But Doesn't Shift a Lot of Priorities

Miva has weathered a rocky road for the past several years. Two years ago it settled its patent suit with Yahoo Search Marketing, then lost its CEO last year and had a layoff and restructuring this past Spring. Just this August, Miva cut its own ad spend.

With all these hurdles, it looked as though the Pay Per Click network was striking out in a new direction with the launch of its ALOT platform. Intended for consumers, ALOT combines toolbars and start page to allow users to specify what information they want presented to them on a regular basis. Miva has partnered with Google, Netvibes, eBay and others to link to search and other information online.

So is this a new direction for company? Not exactly, Peter Corrao, CEO of Miva told me. The ALOT platform comes out of the Miva Direct division, while its other advertising efforts stem from the Miva Media division. It’s the Miva Direct side of the business that has been contributing a third of MIVA Inc’s total revenue and growing, but the majority is still created through Miva's connections with publishers and advertisers, he said.

"Miva Direct is growing faster than other parts of the business so it may look like we are focusing there, but it's not the case," he said. Instead of concentrating only on Miva Direct, Corrao said the entire company is refocusing on providing more attention to vertical markets and "shifting the focus from being a broad-base provider to a more narrow-base provider."

"The thing that is so important now for us, especially in the ALOT branding, is we're trying to build products that we can monetize because consumers want those products. We're not trying to build products that happened to monetize what consumers don't want," he said.

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November 8, 2007

Wheeling and Dealing for IT Advertising and Aussie Ads

Acquisitions abound this week, as two IT trade publications made deals to increase their knowledge base for advertising's technical folks and bring in new ad dollars, while an American firm shored up its Australian banner ad offerings.

TechTarget announced the acquisition of KnowledgeStorm for approximately $58 million. KnowledgeStorm is a search resource for IT professionals that generates around 3.5 million visits per month, according to the company. TechTarget is also getting access to its 700 active advertisers.

Separately, CNET Networks agreed to buy FindArticles.com from LookSmart in an all cash transaction of approximately $20.5 million. FindArticles.com stores over 11 million resource articles from over 3,000 sources, including magazines, journals, trade publications and newspapers, according to the company, and CNET intends to capitalize on providing the premium content draw for advertisers.

Meanwhile down under, Adknowledge acquired the U.K. and Australian divisions of Media Run, an online advertising network focused on banner advertising with approximately 30 employees. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Adknowledge intends to add its behavioral targeting technologies to Media Run's ad network, and will do away with the Media Run name.

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November 2, 2007

Drew Pops Up on Facebook

Ousted WebTrends CEO Greg Drew is laying low this week, clearly thinking of his next move, but that hasn't kept him from updating his Facebook page.

The official word on his Facebook profile is that he's taking some time off, and sources say that he'll be updating his page with more information soon. Of course, we still recommend reading ClickZ rather than Facebook for all your breaking news.

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October 22, 2007

Viewpoint and Interwoven both make Acquisitions to Strengthen their Content Management Offerings

Internet marketing technology company Viewpoint is acquiring Springbox, an interactive marketing firm. The Austin-based Springbox provides creative and marketing technology for clients like AMD, Callaway, Dell, Disney, Hoovers, Lance Armstrong and Siemens, but Viewpoint intends to combine its Premium Rich Media system with Springbox's content management technology.

Viewpoint is comprised of several campaign management groups, including TheStudio creative services group, the Unicast online advertising group, and its KeySearch search engine marketing consulting practice. There's been no word as to how Springbox will be integrated into any of the various groups. The deal itself is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2007 based on an initial consideration of approximately $5.5 million in stock and cash, according to the company.

In a separate deal, content management company Interwoven is acquiring Optimost for approximately $52 million in cash for all its outstanding shares. The deal with add Optimost's real-time multivariable testing and Web site optimization to Interwoven's technology to allow its customers to maximize keyword search ad results, Ben Kiker, chief marketing officer for Interwoven told me.

"What the acquisition of Optimost allows a company to do is really get very creative around developing targeted landing pages and figuring out what is the best thing to present when someone clicks on that search terms," said Kiker. "So you can grab them and they don't hit the back button."

The acquisition is also expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2007, and the company will continue to use the Optimost name.

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October 10, 2007

AlmondNet Pairs up with National AdForce

Behavioral targeting firm AlmondNet has aligned with interactive site rep firm National AdForce, enabling the company to offer AlmondNet's targeting and ad serving services to advertisers.

While speaking with AlmondNet CEO Roy Shkedi today about the deal, he reminded me of AlmondNet's unique focus on collecting purchase intent data, as opposed to just browsing data. If users have simply viewed articles or Web content in a certain category, he continued, "There's not as much of an interest as if you read a product review or did a search for a product."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 8, 2007

From Handsets to Media, Advertising

Nokia said today it completed its acquisition of Enpocket. No additional details since the acquisition was first announced. With this most recent acquisition, the creation of Mosh, and other moves the handset manufacturer has recently made, the company is on its way to becoming a global media presence for the mobile Web.

Posted by Enid Burns at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 3, 2007

Yahoo, BlueLithium Deal Clears FTC

Yahoo received antitrust approval to acquire BlueLithium, a performance-based behavioral targeting network, according to a published report.

The Federal Trade Commission determined the $300 million deal, announced Sept. 4, posed no antitrust concerns, Reuters reported Wednesday. BlueLithium, based in San Jose, CA, said it's the fifth largest ad network in the United States.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 2, 2007

Microsoft Acquires Jellyfish.com

Social shopping, shopping 2.0, shopping discovery. Whatever you want to call it, there's a ton of action these days around services that add community elements to legacy shopping features like ratings and price comparisons. The news on this front today is that Microsoft has acquired Madison-based Jellyfish.com, which generates large discounts by mobilizing large groups of buyers through chat and auctions to purchase a single product on a single day.

The company will be added to Microsoft's Live Search division, which had the following to say on its blog:

"We think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search. Stay tuned for more great stuff from our new colleagues in Madison!"

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September 25, 2007

Network Solutions tapped Ingenio to Offer Pay Per Call to Small Business

It's no secret that a lot of small businesses don't have a significant Web presence, but what if they still want to advertising online? Network Solutions, which bills itself as a provider of Web solutions for small businesses, is partnering with up with Ingenio to offer its clients a Pay Per Call system.

Simply enough, run the ads and pay for them based on how many calls they generate to the business. Network Solutions customers will find a new tab available to them to use the Pay Per Call network that Ingenio operates.

"Network solution has hundreds of thousands of small businesses that work with them for their core offering. To this point they've been offering Pay Per Click, and now they are offering Pay Per Call via our services," Marc Barach, chief marketing officer for Ingenio told me. "From the Network Solutions customer point of view we're able to bring in another efficient way to generate leads from online searches."

Posted by MatthewNelson at 9:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 21, 2007

Wenda Harris Millard Named Vice Chair at IAB

The IAB announced some changes to its board this afternoon, including the appointment of Yahoo vet Wenda Harris Millard as vice chair of its executive committee. An alum of DoubleClick back in the day, Yahoo most famously and now Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Wenda has perhaps the most recognized faces in online ad selling. Or she did, in the days before Tim Armstrong grew an entourage of giddy Twitter stalkers.

Other new members of the board include Ned Desmond, president of Time Inc. Interactive; Peter Horan, CEO of IAC Media and Advertising; Tad Smith, CEO of Reed Business Information; and Matt Wise, president & CEO of Q Interactive. New to the executive committee are Neil Ashe, CNET Networks CEO; Mike Hard, VP of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, U.S. Sales; and Dave Morgan, founder and chairman of Tacoda.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 19, 2007

And Now It's Done: The Death of TimesSelect, Brought to You by AmEx

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 10, 2007

ScanScout lands Time Warner Investment, and a New Board

Online video start-up ScanScout landed some pretty impressive street cred today, with a strategic investment from Time Warner and the formation of its own board of directors.

Contextual video ad placement, via the company's Brand Protector system, helped get the attention of Time Warner's Investment arm, which contributed an undisclosed to the ScanScout. Time Warner is also getting a seat on the company's board. Rachel Lam of Time Warner joined as a Board Observer, while the rest of the board is ScanScout President Waikit Lau; CTO Steven Lee; CEO Doug McFarland; Chris Fralic of FirstRound Capital; David Orfao and Neil Sequeira of General Catalyst Partners; Digitas COO Jim Rossman and Paul Vidich formerly of AOL and Warner Music Group.

Doug McFarland, CEO of ScanScout, dropped me a line after coming out of a meeting with his new board (which, not surprisingly, ran into overtime).

"For a start up, even though we've had a lot of notoriety, having a major media company say this is interesting enough to invest in is an overwhelming compliment. They are a great partner. I'm just really impressed not only with Time Warner but with the board in general," he told me. "This is one board where you can't say they don't understand our business, cause they really do and everything they talk to us about is really helpful."

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August 28, 2007

Engauge Digital Agency Roll-up Seems a Tad Late

The New York Times has the story of 82-year-old marketing legend Stan Rapp's project to build a digital marketing agency powerhouse through a series of small acquisitions in conjunction with private equity firm Halyard Capital. The first two agencies joining Halyard's roster are Direct Impact in Austin and Ten United in Columbus, Ohio. The combined firm will be called Engauge, a vaguely surgical looking word that's spelled that way to evoke accountability.

The decision to court data-driven marketing businesses is compelling, but it's a little late to embark on an aggressive rollup of independent digital ad firms. Many of the best agencies have already been bought, and the valuations for those that remain are sky high.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 24, 2007

Is There a Market for Dynamic Ad Placements in Downloadable Media?

ClickZ published a story today on a move by Podbridge, a podcast ad management and ad network firm, to expand its offerings beyond a dynamic ad insertion and measurement method it pioneered for downloadable media. By allowing hard-coded ad placements and the measurement of mere downloads (as opposed to actual ad views), the firm seemed to suggest there's a stronger market -- or at least an unignorable one -- for static ad placements versus dynamic ones.

After the article ran, Podbridge CEO Murgesh Navar reached out to me to affirm his belief in the ongoing potential for dynamic ad swapping in downloadable media. Here's what he wrote:

Now that the monetization of the medium is being proven by the front running news/info content it is time for the evergreen content to come into podcasting. But evergreen content has the requirement to swap ads "after" download. The requirement here is "dynamic at play" and measurement of play. Our iTunes plug-in solution addresses this as a complement to our [Limelight Networks] integrated ad serving.

Just noting it for the record.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 27, 2007

ICrossing lands $62M in funding led by Goldman Sachs.

Digital marketing company iCrossing has received $62M in funding from investment agency Goldman Sachs, along with additional investments from existing investors Oak Investment Partners, RRE Ventures and StarVest Partners L.P.

The company said it will "use the funds to support acquisitions and an organic growth strategy," in its announcement. It's been a busy buying year for iCrossing, which has acquired U.K. search and social media agency Spannerworks, Salt Lake City-based Sharp Analytics, and paid-search agency NewGate Internet. The company also launched a mobile unit and wooed Travelocity away from Range Online.

No specific word yet on what the company wants to do with its new cash infusion.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 10, 2007

Heavy Gets Drifting with Castrol

Heavy, a Web site for the younger male audience, is launching a new video and news channel about "drift" racing and sponsored by Castrol Syntec. Drifting happens when lightweight cars slide around turns at high speeds and is growing as a sport, which is certainly why Heavy and Castrol have launched the Heavy Tuning Channel.

The Channel will feature content from radio personality FunkMaster Flex, and a chance to enter the Castrol Syntec ‘Unlock Your Power Sweepstakes’ for a $5,000 American Express Gift Card prize to help contestants upgrade their cars. Users will also be given their own MyHeavy drifting profile page featuring a drifting video locker, which will be automatically updated with the new racing content from Castrol.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 8, 2007

WPP's G2 Acquired Refinery

WPP Group PLC's G2 Worldwide has acquired interactive ad agency Refinery for an undisclosed sum. The advertising conglomerate has been expanding around the world recently with acquisition of Chinese marketing agency Star Echo and Spanish data firm MDS Boole. Philadelphia-based Refinery has 79 employees, and its clients include Merrill Lynch, Merck, Amgen, and Campbell's.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 31, 2007

Schmidt on Ads After DoubleClick Buy, Viacom Suit (A Mistake?)

Today at the D5 conference, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked about the DoubleClick deal and what it means for online ads. The AllThingsD site has coverage of the talk, in which Schmidt was asked, "Does Google’s DoubleClick acquisition portend a movement away from spartan, text-based ads to more invasive display ads?" His response was vague (no surprise), according to what the D site says: "As we broaden our mission from an advertising perspective, Schmidt says, we want to solve the ad problem in general and bring engineering to it."

Also, by way of PaidContent, the Viacom issue came up during the talk. Schmidt said Viacom's suit was probably a mistake. The media monster "should have waited for the tools to have been built," he said. I guess this means Viacom should have waited for Google/YouTube to unveil the magic copyright protection technology they've been telling media firms they'll enable…eventually. Schmidt also called the suit a "business negotiation tool," according to PaidContent's report.

Still, hasn't the promise of a technology for monitoring copyrighted material on YouTube also been a negotiating tool for Google in scoring content relationships from various media partners?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 17, 2007

Coke Drinkers in Europe to get two billion free iTunes tracks

Two billion… yes billion… free iTunes tracks are going to be given away by Coca-Cola as part of its latest promotion in Europe. According to a story on the UK C/Net site, Coke is footing the bill for the downloads and the promotion will run between May and August.

There's no word on how the lucky winners will actually win their free iTunes tracks, but supposedly there will be a new can design for the promotion, and iPods and free tickets will be part of the rewards as well. There's also no word on whether things will cross the pond and show up in the U.S., but considering both of the companies involved in the cross promotional deal are actually based in America, one would think it possible.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 4, 2007

Microsoft, Yahoo Re-enter Merger Talks

With the heat around digital media and technology, one must assume everyone's in M&A "talks" of one kind or another. Now and then, the press gets wind of it and a wave of speculation ensues. As often as not, it all dies down again and we collectively move on.

That said, a merger between Microsoft and Yahoo would obviously be a huge development; Google-DoubleClick would be insignificant by comparison.

Reports this morning from WSJ and NY Post mention the negotiations, and suggest Microsoft is driving them. This happened once before (that we know of), a year ago, when the companies explored the possible benefits of teaming up.

I'm no financial expert, but there are many reasons talks might not advance. Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft believes at its core that it has as much to fear from Google as many outsiders are telling it. Search market share is a big concern for both companies, yes, and if a merger did take place, the combined entity would have a market share around 30 percent -- kind of sad when you think about it. But display adveritsing is growing faster than search, and Yahoo strongly believes it's positioned well to benefit from a pendulum swing back to brand advertising. And Microsoft's very confident in its ability to innovate around platforms and applications, even as it struggles to convince marketers it knows how to serve them.

ClickZ will stay tuned of course, but let's remember that talks are just talks.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 30, 2007

Intel wants you to call your Mother

With Mother's Day fast approaching, Intel is partnering with Skype to provide users of the online voice communication system with free phone calls to anywhere in the world.

Intel is sponsoring the offering, which it's calling the Gift of Gab, to let US and Canadian users call anywhere in the world free on Sunday May 13th. Of course Skype is promoting its Skype Unlimited Calling, and Intel is trying to demonstrate the use of PCs powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, but considering Mother’s Day is the busiest calling holiday of the year, I'd have to agree there's probably no better day to make calls for free.

So don't forget to call your Mother.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 29, 2007

Amazon Running New Beta Test for Context

Amazon recently sent out a message to its large list of affiliates inviting them to try out a new beta test of its Context Links system. The idea being that if you copy and paste some code from Amazon onto your Web site or blog, the system will automatically attach links to Amazon products on relevant words from the page.

Amazon has a history of trying to make things easy for its affiliates with "we do it for you" linking, called Omakase and other tools, so I wasn't surprised when I spoke to Sean McMullan, marketing manager of the associates program for Amazon, and he told me " We hear from our associates that they like customization options, so we've gone out of our way to provide as many customization options as possible in this product."

"Specific to this beta test it's another example of us listening to our associates and what they want," he said. "Context Links are all about providing our associates another way to monetize their content on their page. It's complementary to what we currently do."

He told me that the software they are testing now will search Web pages and pick the best things it believes should be linked, and that they don't have a set date for the beta to come to an end. Still, from all accounts it seems to be working well for folks that have tried it out.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 16, 2007

AOL Withdraws TradeDoubler Offer

AOL has withdrawn its offer for Euro affiliate network TradeDoubler, which we mentioned back in January, after failing to convince the requisite number of shareholders that it's $900 million cash offer was up to snuff. The acceptance deadline had already expired and been extended once, according to Reuters.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 15, 2007

Google Promises to Randomize Users for Privacy

Google is updating its privacy policy to randomize the information logs it collects whenever a user makes a search. In the past the company held onto the information like query itself, IP addresses and cookie details, for as long as it liked, but now it will remove some of the pertinent details in an effort protect privacy and assuage privacy concerns.

Of course, the company is still going to hang on to all the information for at least 18 to 24 months before it randomizes it. The company made the new policy known through its blog yesterday, and claims it's the result of long discussions with privacy stakeholders in Europe and the U.S., but it's tough not to see the specter of AOL's search log debacle last year looming its head here too. When AOL mistakenly released search logs for over 650,000 users, which didn't even have IP addresses associated with them, users were still identified and AOL was dealt a black eye.

Still, Google is sticking to its guns that their new policy should be seen as positive move by consumers and advertisers alike. When I spoke to Google spokesperson Victoria Grand, she told me "We're adding an additional layer of privacy protection for our users. For advertisers, because trust is the foundation of users using our service, hopefully this means even more users will trust Google."

I'm still wondering if holding onto something for two years is going to make users feel better about their privacy, but at least it's no longer forever.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 8:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 2, 2007

AKQA to Remain Private, for Now

So much for rumors of AKQA's imminent acquisition by a larger digital marketing firm. The agency, lauded for its creative work, has sold a majority stake in its business to General Atlantic.

Of course nothing about this deal rules out an eventual sale to Omnicom, WPP, Publicis, Dentsu, etc. It only means General Atlantic will have to be involved when that happens. The money from the sale is being used to pay off other investors and stakeholders, including Francisco Partners.

AKQA recently hired a new EMD of media and is aggressively expanding in search and media services offerings.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Bud.tv Shows, Coming Soon to YouTube

So on Monday we'll finally have Bud.tv, a project that has already gone down as a milestone for branded entertainment. It remains to be seen whether it will mark the true return of ambitious marketer-run content channels, a la P&G's early soap operas, or the moment advertising-as-entertainment jumps the shark.

The content Anheuser-Bush has slated for the channel is alternately low- and high-brow. Short form videos will be contributed by a high-falutin' passel of Hollywood auteurs, including Kevin Spacey's production house (Trigger Street) and Damon/Affleck studio LivePlanet. The site will produce some truly interactive content, including a "Finish Our Film" contest, plus predictable slapstick clips and high-concept shows. A story in The Times Magazine has many more details in a profile of the effort, which it calls "sotto voice" marketing.

A-B, which reportedly expects to spend $30 million on Bud.TV in its first year alone, is clearly shooting for a broad spectrum of programming – much of it high-caliber. The question is, will people see it on BUD.TV or on YouTube, and does Bud even care?

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 19, 2007

New Site for SES

Search Engine Strategies, a ClickZ corporate sibling and the search industry's flagship conference, just got itself a spiffy new Web site. Check it out here.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 15, 2007

Confirmation on Gatineau

News about Microsoft's free Web analytics product was frequently mentioned last week. ClickZ won't be the first to get Microsoft to talk openly about the service, at least not at this point, but we did get a statement from Alexandra Tibbetts, Microsoft adCenter director of product management. "Microsoft is making significant investments to make Web analytics broadly available to help customers improve the customer experience on their Web sites and optimize the performance marketing campaigns. Microsoft acquired DeepMetrics in May 2006 and began 'Project Gatineau' to continue investments in this area because it is important to our customers."

Posted by Enid Burns at 3:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 11, 2007

Voting on the Next Big Book

If you ever wrote a novel that is currently sitting unpublished on a shelf somewhere, it may be time to pull it out and dust it off. Social network Web site Gather.com and publisher Simon & Schuster's Touchstone division are running a contest to allow visitors to vote on the most promising first three chapters of some lucky author's unpublished work.

The contest, called First Chapters, was touted in a NYT article as a means of finding new authors with a built in audience. Of course, any book that gets as many votes as will be needed to win will have to generate an audience.

The contest allows writers to submit their novel until March 15th, and then voting will continue through the First Chapters Group on Gather.com, before a final judging panel of Simon & Schuster, Gather and Borders executives picks the winner. Over time, voters will select the winning pool of finalists based on their first chapters, and then winnow the field based on the second and third chapters of the books.

The final winner will not only win the publishing contract, but $5,000 from Gather, and promotion and distribution by Borders.

Of course, I'm certain that my book about rampaging ninjas raiding Silicon Valley laboratories for preserved dinosaur pee would be a shoe in.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 4, 2007

Paid Clicks: What's in the Sausage?

The season of Web marketing food analogies continues.

If you're following the click fraud debate, you should have a look at The Sausage Manifesto, a minor treatise on click fraud addressed to the big PPC networks. Written by Jeffrey Rohrs, president and chief strategist for Optiem, the piece is constructed as an open letter from Web advertisers to Google, Yahoo and others, whom it contends are not vested in eliminating the problem and therefore choose not to acknowledge its scope. Rohr makes several requests to the PPC networks, including "Talk, Don't Lecture" and "Light a Fire Under the IAB."

Following the sausage trail, Search Engine Watch yesterday reached out to Shuman Ghosemajumder, who heads click quality at Google, to get his response to the manifesto. That post is also worth a read.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) |