Google gives online life to Life mag's photos November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentMOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Google Inc. has opened an online photo gallery that will feature millions of images from Life magazine’s archives that have never been seen by the public before.
The new service, available at http://images.google.com/hosted/life, debuted Tuesday with about 2 million photos. Eventually, Google plans to scan all 10 million photos from Life’s library so they can be viewed on any computer with an Internet connection.
About 97 percent of Life’s archives have not been publicly seen, according to Life.
The photos can be printed out for free as long as they aren’t being used as part of an attempt to make money. Time Warner Inc., Life’s parent company, hopes to make money by selling high-resolution, framed prints. The orders will be processed through Qoop.com.
Read The Rest—>Google gives online life to Life mag’s photos
Microsoft's Ballmer `Done' With Talks to Buy Yahoo (Update2) November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentBy Dina Bass and Crayton Harrison
Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said all acquisition talks with Yahoo! Inc. are “done,” even after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang announced plans to step down. Yahoo fell as much as 20 percent in Nasdaq trading.
“We thought we had something that made sense. Didn’t make sense to them. We’ve moved on,” Ballmer, 52, said today at a shareholder meeting in Bellevue, Washington. He reiterated that a partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo in the Internet-search market is an “an interesting possibility.” There are no talks about such an agreement, he said today.
Read The Rest—>Microsoft’s Ballmer `Done’ With Talks to Buy Yahoo (Update2)
Jerry Yang, Yahoo Chief, Steps Down November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentSAN FRANCISCO — Jerry Yang, who, as chief executive of Yahoo, resisted a takeover bid from Microsoft only to later ask that merger talks resume, said he was stepping down.
In a memorandum sent to the company’s staff Monday evening, Mr. Yang, 40, said he would hold the post until the board names his successor, a process he said he would participate in. The Yahoo co-founder said he would then return to his previous job as “chief Yahoo,” a corporate strategy role, and would remain on the board.
In a memorandum typed in his style using no capital letters, he wrote, “i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company.”
The announcement comes a year and a half after Mr. Yang assumed control of Yahoo from Terry Semel, a Hollywood studio boss that he handpicked for the job. Mr. Yang’s tenure has been marked by a precipitously declining stock price and the high profile collapse of a $44 billion acquisition offer from Microsoft last spring.
A Yahoo spokesman described the decision as “mutual” and “in progress for a while.”
Read The Rest—> Jerry Yang, Yahoo Chief, Steps Down
eMarketer: Facts and Numbers for Teens / Tweens Via Hard Knox Life by Dave Knox November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentOver the weekend I had a chance to catch up on some of the recent eMarketer reports. They have been releasing quite a bit around Teens / Tweens and technology. In particular, their Kids & Teens Communication Revolutionaries provides some stellar information for any Brand Manager marketing to the youth market. For instance, by 2012 US youth will be almost 1 out of 5 Internet users.
Furthermore, this generation wants to communicate in different ways than older generations, with a much higher preference text messaging than e-mail.
Read The Rest—> eMarketer: Facts and Numbers for Teens / Tweens
Google Nears 72% of U.S. Searches in October November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentGoogle had a large majority of search market share in October, accounting for 71.70% of all U.S. online searches conducted in the four weeks ending November 1, 2008, while Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 17.74%, 5.40% and 3.53%, respectively, according to October data from Hitwise, MarketingCharts reports.
Read The Rest—>Google Nears 72% of U.S. Searches in October
Shoppers Continue to Shift Purchases Online November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentAmid the current economic downturn, 53 percent of consumers cite price as a reason to buy online, compared with 46 percent last year. However, convenience continues to trump price as 76 percent of consumers cite the ability to shop 24 hours a day and 74 percent mentioned time saving as key factors for choosing online shopping.
The results are based on a Nielsen Online survey, conducted Nov. 6-11, intended to gauge online consumers’ holiday shopping plans for 2008.
Survey results indicate that holiday gift budgets are shifting online. Respondents said that they would spend an increased percentage of their holiday shopping budget online, an average of 41 percent compared to 39 percent last year. And more respondents indicated that they would spend the majority of their holiday gift budgets online, up to 36 percent from 32 percent a year ago.
Read The Rest—>Shoppers Continue to Shift Purchases Online
Does New Media Hurt or Help TV? November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentInsiders meet to discuss the future of the medium
Nov 19, 2008
NEW YORK A conference here Tuesday on the future of television turned up differing opinions about whether new-media options were hurting or helping TV ratings.
Several members of TV-heavy traditional media companies, including CBS Corp. and NBC Universal, said full-length Web videos on sites like Hulu and the broadcast networks’ own sites were starting to see some real traction with millions of users.
They said that it was helping, not hurting, TV use. Yet a forthcoming IBM study, which was presented in part on the first day of the Future of Television conference in lower Manhattan, showed that TV use is declining among a small but growing part of viewers who are watching TV shows on computers and mobile devices.
“It’s really now having an effect,” said William Serrao, an executive with IBM Global Business Services.
Read The Rest—>Does New Media Hurt or Help TV?
Updated: CBS Taps OMD for Media November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentAssignment includes namesake network and Showtime
NEW YORK CBS has awarded its media planning and buying chores across all traditional and digital platforms to Omnicom Group’s OMD without a review.
The assignment includes the CBS and Showtime networks. Spending on the account in 2007 was $135 million, per media tracking service Recma.
Interpublic Group’s Initiative has handled the work, which it won in March 2006 after a review. At that time, Alan Cohen, now CEO of OMD USA, was with Initiative and led the winning pitch. (Initiative took over the business from then incumbent Carat. OMD placed second in that review.)
Read The Rest—> Updated: CBS Taps OMD for Media
Click Fraud To Shape Ad Decisions in 2009 November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — We are in the midst of a transition in online advertising that may not be fully appreciated for another year. As financial fears and uncertainty pervade Wall Street, and once-high-flying Internet darlings struggle to stay relevant, there is an underground revolution among marketers that will permanently change how ad spend decisions get made.
More than ever, marketers around the country are taking a closer look at their advertising expenditures and asking, “What did I just get from this?!” They are facing reduced budgets and looking for the biggest bang for their advertising buck. They are increasingly intolerant of low-performing and hard-to-measure ad campaigns. They want answers today, and they want better answers tomorrow. And since CPC and CPA advertising provide more measurable ROIs than do other forms of brand advertising, marketers are expected to allocate a higher proportion of their reduced budgets to online advertising. The result is that online advertising is expected to be fairly resilient in the coming year. But that resiliency will be matched with intense scrutiny as marketers seek to maximize ROI to the fullest possible extent. As a result, marketers are expressing a renewed interest in the subject of click fraud (a.k.a. unwanted traffic) and how it is distorting their ad campaign’s performance.
Click fraud can be defined as clicks or impressions that have no economic value to the advertiser due to malicious intent on the part of the clicker.
Read The Rest —>Click Fraud To Shape Ad Decisions in 2009
PC Magazine Folds Monthly Print Edition November 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentSeven print production staffers are leaving the company as a result of the closing
Nov 19, 2008
In the latest contraction of the computing magazine category, Ziff Davis Media said it would fold flagship PC Magazine with the January issue and convert the brand to an all-digital format at PCMag.com.
Seven print production staffers are leaving the company as a result of the closing.
Print subscribers will be offered a digital version of the printed magazine, the company said in an announcement.
Read The Rest–>PC Magazine Folds Monthly Print Edition
