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Seven
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Federated
Media Unveils Ad Planning Tool
Author John Battelle announced the beta version of Federated Media's advertising
platform to enable ad clients to create their campaigns for FM's network of high-quality
blogs.
Skype
Releases New Beta And Skypecasts
Version 2.5 Beta of the Skype VoIP software arrived with new features, and Skype
also launched a preview version of Skypecasts that allows up to 100 people to
connect in a voice chat. The Skype 2.5 Beta software arrived on the VoIP software maker's website.
Net
Neutrality Gets Bridge To Nowhere
Ready. Set. Flinch. The same senator who fought for the $223 million bridge to
Nowhere, Alaska is in charge of rewriting United States telecommunications laws
in the Senate. In a working draft of an amendment to the Communications Act of
1934, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens has confused just about everybody.
Exercise
at Home- Online!
If you're like me and the thought of going to the gym and working out in front
of well-toned people makes you break out into a sweat before you leave the house,
the answer is staring you right in the face. Exercise online. Well, not exactly
online, but using your computer as a personal trainer.
Online
Voter Guide Debuts in California
If someone asked you, "Which vacation destination state in America with a
warm-weather client would be in the forefront of having the most advanced and
simple online system for people to vote? You just might choose Florida, if the
presidential election fiasco of 2000 entered your mind. An online voting system
would lead to the demise of "chads", whether they were hanging or not.
HINCity
Revs Up Social Networking
It's MySpace for cars and hotties. Wait, what did they say it was? Oh, "a
new media channel and social-networking community geared toward the fast growing
automotive scene while incorporating other youth lifestyle elements like music
and fasion." Right, MySpace for cars and hotties.
MySpace
Threat Empties LA School
Every Spring, towards the end of the school year, somebody would invariably call
in a bomb threat. We were all pretty sure it was a hoax to get us out of school
half a day early, but we were always dutifully shuffled out. But, who needs phones
these days when you have MySpace?
Xbox
360 On a Crash Course With Gamers
It's been five months since the Xbox 360 landed in short supply just in time Christmas.
Many of those who scrambled to get their hands on one, paying thousands on eBay
to ensure a Yuletide joy-in-the-box, probably never dreamed they'd be on their
fourth console by May.
Pulitzer
Winner Suspended Over Blog
Let's say that you are a journalist for one of America's most prestigious newspapers,
The Los Angeles Times. Not only that, but in 1999 you won a Pulitzer Prize for
exposing corruption in the world of show business (a dangerous feat in L.A.).
And you were a foreign correspondent in Russia and Africa and a technology writer.
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Thursday May 04, 2006 |
Shadowy skullduggery, twilight tete-a-tetes, and disseminated disinformation may
have all been part of rumored talks between Yahoo and Microsoft about their online
rival, Google.
Editor's Note: What do Microsoft and Yahoo have planned?
Will they spoil Google's Media Day next week with a groundbreaking deal announcement?
Tell us what you think at WebProWorld.
While it doesn't quite match Smiley
and Karla meeting on the bridge in Smiley's People for intensity, the
idea that Microsoft and Yahoo have conducted clandestine coffee-klatchs and mused
over the downfall of Google just sounds so, well, 1970s.
Instead of the delicate and exacting tradecraft of spymasters being employed by the second and third place companies in terms of search engine market share, the Wall Street Journal reported that the duo, Microsoft and Yahoo, have been quietly conversing, while sources "familiar with the situation" informing on their corporate masters.
Perhaps we can cast Redmond in the role of Soviet-era Russia, and Yahoo as the Iron Curtain-wearing East Germany. Both seek to undermine the American influence of Google during the Cold War. The bullets in this battle won't be fired from automatic weapons, though.
No, contextual ads have proven more damaging in the Cold War of paid search than any fusillade of automatic weapons fire. Google, the West, has grown and prospered, while the East has stagnated behind the West, envied its wealth, drifted behind in the search technology arena.
Seven
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Separate, they haven't been able to make inroads. Not that they have not been trying. Yahoo has its improved search advertising relevance algorithms in testing with "Project Panama." Sometime soon, Yahoo may bring Panama in from the cold of Scandinavia, and test it in the United Kingdom this summer.
Microsoft has been belligerent and vocal in developing its search ad rival called adCenter. On occasion, it has been aggressive in touting its paid search technology. Those with long enough memories may recall video of Khruschev at the United Nations in 1960, pounding a shoe on a table in defiance of the assembly and sending Americans to bed wondering if the next sunrise would be the start of a nuclear winter.
The younger audience only needs to recall the tale of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, allegedly throwing a chair upon learning of a subordinate's defection, to imagine similar anger. If that ever happened, of course.
Today, Yahoo delivers contextual advertising to its potentially closer ally, Microsoft. But that relationship ends when June does, and adCenter steps in to replace Overture throughout Microsoft's online properties.
That closeness received some emphasis as a purportedly leaked internal email from Ballmer to the Redmondians found its way to the Seattle Times. A fist-pumping Ballmer, likely echoing a pose from his collegiate athletic days, appears with the article.
Ballmer told Microsoft's employees that the company would make "heavy investments" in Internet search. "[O]ur goal is to create the Web's largest advertising network, giving us an engine that will enable us to monetize our services and compete against Google," Ballmer wrote.
They won one skirmish recently, possibly the equivalent of Alex Leamas being cornered and gunned down in an alley at the end of "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold." Amazon ditched Google web search in favor of Microsoft for the Alexa and A9 websites.
That probably wasn't a significant wound to Google, but it drew blood nonetheless. Microsoft and Yahoo want to bleed Google more. Reportedly, they have been discussing how to do so.
Microsoft took one step that reinforces the Ballmer Memo, by luring Steve Berkowitz from Ask.com to take control of MSN.
There's money to spend in Redmond's war coffers, in the billions. They could spend it on Yahoo. It doesn't make sense to do that though. Unless Microsoft wanted to buy Overture and/or Project Panama to complement MSN adCenter, and combine their ad networks.
About
the Author:
David is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. |
|
AOL subscribers continue to jump ship like seaborne lemmings as Time Warner reports
the ISP lost over 3 million customers last year. A string of disappointing years
totals to 8.1 million lost subscribers since 2002.
The bright side, says Time Warner, is that AOL brought in $81 million in advertising revenue in the first quarter, an increase of 26 percent. That increase in revenue could not make up for, however, the $236 million loss due to 835,000 subscribers looking elsewhere since the previous quarter. Overall, revenues declined 7 percent to a flat $2 billion.
AOL boasted 26.7 million subscribers in September of 2002, according to consumeraffairs.com. The steady year-over-year mudslide has plummeted subscriptions to 18.6 million as of March 31, 2006.
The news isn't any better from across the Pond. In Europe, AOL lost 147,000 members last quarter, and 452,000 for the year, bringing total membership down to 5.9 million.
According to Watley Review (spoof), the loss of subscribers may be due to fewer people being "unclear as to what the internet is, or what benefits to expect from an online account." Hopefully, since 2004, many of them have realized they actually need a computer to use the service!
About
the Author:
Jason is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. |
|
Discussing Net Neutrality
One of the larger hot button issues on the Internet news front has to do with
the concept of net neutrality, or, more to the point, the diminishing aspect thereof.
In the past week, we've seen the Markey Amendment voted down, and now we have
a sterling addition to the Communications Act of 1934, provided by Alaska Senator
Ted Stevens, whose capacity for original thinking when it comes to all things
Internet seems to be severely lacking.
Take a look at Jason' article about the latest in the ongoing NN saga and share
your thoughts with us.
|| Chris||
Net
Neutrality Gets Bridge To Nowhere
Ready. Set. Flinch. The same senator who fought for the $223 million bridge to Nowhere, Alaska is in charge of rewriting United States telecommunications laws in the Senate. In a working draft of an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens has confused just about everybody.
A crash course in Congressional Logic 101: It's not okay for government, by way of FCC regulation, to interfere with the free economic structure enjoyed by telecommunications giants AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast. It is okay for government, by way of FCC regulation, to interfere with the free economic structure enjoyed by broadcasters and consumers, as long as it involves the Recording Industry Association of America, but not necessarily the Motion Picture Association of America.
Confused? Let's do the longer version.
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WebPro Question: |
I am looking for a hosting site that is up more than down. I used startlogic and
they [weren't good]. Any suggestions? Has anyone had any luck with homesite.com's
merchant platform?
- nipplecharms1
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