Telefonica Internet Tumblelog

"According to a source close to the handset business, Google’s Android team directly assisted..."

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:25:05 +0100

“According to a source close to the handset business, Google’s Android team directly assisted Motorola and Verizon in building the Droid’s software from the ground up and is currently assisting another, unknown, handset maker in Korea to create a finely-tuned hardware and software combination. Most important, however, is that this is sort of assistance most manufacturers do not receive and, in the end, they are dinged for running an “older” version of Android.”

- It’s Google’s world and handset makers just live in it

Google to Offer a Tool To Measure Web Hits

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:10:23 +0200

As soon as Tuesday, Google plans to unveil a new service that measures Internet use, according to advertising executives who have been briefed on it. The tool is intended to help advertisers identify the best places to buy online ads by telling them which Web sites their target audiences visit.

Google’s approach, aimed at bolstering its ad-sales business, could pose a major threat to the Web measurement services that are available now, ad executives say. The two main players in the business — comScore and Nielsen Online — gather data on Internet use largely by tracking what panels of people do online or by conducting surveys, and their results can be inconsistent and incomplete. Google’s new offering will be based mostly on data from Web servers, allowing for a deeper and broader view of Internet use. And unlike the services from comScore and Nielsen, Google’s will be offered to marketers free, according to ad executives.

Separately, Google this week is expected to roll out a new tool aimed at showing how Web surfers respond to online ads. It will compare groups of people who are exposed to an ad with others who haven’t seen it, taking into account such factors as search activity and site visitation.

The services are a logical next step for Google as it moves into other parts of the advertising business, including television and newspapers, where the company has begun selling ad space. Marketers are hungry for research that helps them compare the results of offline and online ads so that they can allocate their marketing budgets more intelligently. Google could be positioned to serve this one-stop-shopping role.

With its new service, Google, like comScore and Nielsen, will offer marketers demographic details about potential customers, such as age, gender and income. Google’s new tool, which will also rely on some data gleaned from panels of human users and other sources, is similar to one developed by New York-based start-up Quantcast, which has been gaining popularity among media buyers. But because of its size, Google has the potential to shake up the Web-measurement business.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Technorati Launches Blog Ad Network, Technorati Media

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:43:00 +0200

Blog-focused advertising networks are all the rage right now, with both Federated Media and Glam pulling down big valuation financing rounds in the last few months based on very early growth metrics. Other startups, like Six Apart, have launched their own blog advertising networks as well.

As we predicted, Technorati now joins them with the launch of Technorati Media later this morning, their own blog advertising network. This comes just a couple of days after news leaked of their new round of financing.

The company has been testing the new sales product with a number of partners, including BlogTalkRadio, BlogCritics, BlogCatalog, BlogTV, Technabob, GPSMagazine, GeekAlerts and NerdApproved. CEO Richard Jalichandra says these blogs reach a combined audience of approximately 17 million unique monthly visitors.

Early advertisers on the network include Honda, Acura, Toyota, t-mobile, Adobe, HP, Sandisk, MSFT, Verizon, Sun, Sony, Visa, Nike, Scion, Chevrolet, Paramount, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Best Buy.

Technorati has explored selling ads for third party sites for some time, but this is the first time they’ve opened the service up to anyone. Unlike Glam and Federated Media, they will take all comers, and say they expect blogs, from the large players on down through the long tail, will find they do a better job monetizing sites than the current options.

Ads are sold on a CPM basis. They will not make revenue guarantees, says Jalichandra, but the split between parties is negotiable. He declined to state what rates have been negotiated with beta partners. This is similar to what Six Apart promises, which is also targeting the long tail of blogs.

Jalichandra also says Technorati is uniquely positioned to sell ads at premium rates, even through small blogs, because they will be able to use descriptive tags/keywords, along with their existing blog indexing technology, to better match ads with content.

Technorati’s has seven sales professionals, led by VP Sales Tony Pribyl, a new hire. They also hired a new marketing lead, Jennifer McLean, away from Glam recently.

For now Technorati is only working with larger blogs, although it will be open to all comers in 2-3 months.

Source: TechCrunch

MySpace: My Portal?

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:38:05 +0200

News Corp. wants its popular social networking site to be a gateway to the Internet—and go head-to-head with Yahoo and Google

Just as Yahoo! (YHOO) gets one competitor off its back by quitting merger discussions with Microsoft (MSFT), the Web portal may soon find itself going head-to-head with a new rival. Starting June 18, News Corp.’s (NWS) social network MySpace is introducing design changes it hopes will make it look and feel a lot more like Yahoo.

If all goes to plan, MySpace would go beyond being a site where people build personalized profile pages and hang out online with friends, and become more of a gateway to the Web, where users can read news headlines, listen to music, watch videos, and more easily communicate with pals. “What we want to do is make MySpace the start page of the Internet,” says MySpace co-founder and President Tom Anderson. “When we talk about competition…I think about Yahoo and Google.”

Source: BusinessWeek

IM Platform Meebo Tries Shareable Ads

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:02:14 +0200

Browser-based IM platform Meebo has come up with an ad format that allows its users to easily share advertiser assets, for instance movie trailers, branded crossword puzzles, or product photos.

The new “MediaBar” ad unit is an expandable 728 x 90 banner that appears at the bottom of the browser window and supports video, games, news, or other content. Once a person is exposed to an ad, an icon is saved in their application menu interface, after which he or she has the option to share it with contacts. Meebo users can also personalize their IM experiences with branded backgrounds, buddy icons, and emoticons provided by its advertisers.

Initial advertisers include Havaianas, Sony Electronics, Universal Pictures, and the band Weezer. Meebo plans to sell the MediaBar using both a CPM and performance-based pricing.

At any point in the session, users can close the banner to opt out, and will not see ads until the next login, Meebo said.

Meebo also plans to expand advertising through its partner program, which has resulted in chat windows on sites like CNET, blip.tv Showtime and NBC Universal. It has begun selling text ads within many of those chat windows for publishers that want them. Revenue is shared with partners, who can dictate the frequency of ad placement.

Source: ClickZ

Narrowstep sold for $19 Million

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:49:58 +0200

Onstream Media Corp, a Florida-based digital media communications and applications company, has bought Narrowstep, a UK-born provider of Internet TV and IPTV services, in a deal worth up to $19 million.

Onstream will immediately execute a restructuring plan designed to significantly reduce or eliminate substantial costs related to Narrowstep’s facility leases and other costs. Then Onstream will be able to offer a single platform.

Narrowstep’s customers include ITV, Fox International, Outdoor Channel and Torque TV. For 2007, Narrowstep posted $6 million in sales and a net loss of $7.1 million.

Source: IBLNEWS

Simyo tests ad-funded mobile news service Squeeze

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:45:09 +0200

German mobile discount service provider Simyo is testing a new personal information service for mobile phones called Squeeze. The trial is currently running among a selected number of Simyo customers, whose feedback will be used to improve the service. Squeeze is developed by UK-based company AditOn and uses the same business model as the free dailies around Europe: advertising pays for the news to be free. Squeeze offers texts and pictures from twelve themes including politics, sports, news and showbiz. The service can be used by Symbian-OS and Java-enabled phones. The current trial involves 300 customers and will run until the end of June.

Omnifone claims UK music crown

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:32:17 +0200

Omnifone claims its unlimited downloads mobile music store ‘MusicStation’ is now the UK’s largest digital music subscription service, overtaking PC-centric services in terms of subscriber numbers. A Mobile Entertainment report notes that would effectively mean MusicStation - available exclusively in the UK via Vodafone - has more subscribers in the country than services such as Napster UK ( available via O2 ) and Nokia’s rival Music Store . Apple’s iTunes does not offer a subscription service.

Vodafone UK users pay £1.99 a week for access to unlimited mobile music downloads from a catalogue of 1.8 million tracks. Unlike other offerings, MusicStation’s business model does not allow users to keep the music once their subscriptions cease. Omnifone did not provide any statistics to back up today’s claim. Its service is also available via partners 3 Hong Kong, Telenor (Sweden) and Vodacom (South Africa).

Nokia’s MOSH Gets Ads

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:07:21 +0200

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) said today it added advertising to its MOSH portal that’s used by people who are interested in creating and sharing mobile content. The portal is tapping into the Nokia Media Network, which provides reach to more than 100 million consumers by advertising on mobile publishers, operator partners and Nokia properties. “The MOSH audience, comprised of the heaviest users of mobile content around the world, is particularly desirable to many of our top advertisers,” said Mike Baker, VP and head of Nokia Interactive Advertising. On the MOSH site, there will be paid placement ads, where brands are highlighted and placed above results from browsing, searching and contextual placements, Nokia said. The ads appear on both the mobile version and the PC version of the site. The first customer, video-sharing community Vringo, said downloads increased by more than 100 percent after its ads appeared on the site. BLUE LION mobile, a Germany-based company that has developed a mobile social network called “qeep” said downloads increased by more than 95 percent after advertising. Nokia said Universal Pictures plans to launch a campaign to promote the studio’s new film, Wanted.

U.S. Internet will shrink to 2 strong players

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:40:46 +0200

Tue Jun 3, 2008 6:39am EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An Internet analyst for a major Wall Street firm argues in a new report that Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc will be long-term winners, while Yahoo and IAC InterActiveCorp fall by the wayside and eBay Inc becomes a merger target.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay argues in a 310-page report entitled “U.S. Internet: The End of the Beginning” to be published on Tuesday that Google and Amazon are best placed to withstand the current economic downturn.

“We expect two players to continue to perform strongly, Google and Amazon,” Lindsay writes. “Both Google and Amazon.com are still racking up annual growth rates in the 30-40 percent range, with only a relatively modest slowdown in sight.”

Lindsay reiterates his previous positions that Yahoo eventually will be sold to Microsoft Corp and that Barry Diller’s IAC e-commerce conglomerate will go ahead in August with its five-way split-up, as planned.

“Arguably the weakest players have strayed furthest from their original competences and have been operating largely as conglomerates,” the Bernstein analyst says of Yahoo and IAC.

In the short-run, however, Lindsay believes Yahoo will see gains if it reaches a deal to turn over some part of its search advertising sales to Google to run or if Microsoft resumes acquisition negotiations.

He argues that eBay “could potentially attract a Microsoft-like suitor in the future,” especially if growth in its core auctions business fails to resume and because eBay could spin off its PayPal or Skype units to make a deal work.

Even the strongest companies have weakness, Lindsay argues. Google has yet to articulate a compelling strategy to achieve the same level of strength on the emerging mobile Internet that it has on the computer-based Web.

Amazon and eBay are likely to be forced eventually to pay state sales taxes. Ironically, he notes, this may work to their advantage as large companies, because they have more resources than smaller e-commerce players to collect such taxes.

Nokia and Buongiorno in revenue-share deal

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:03:25 +0200

Nokia has continued its push into the mobile content space via a deal with Italian-based company Buongiorno, which claims to be the world’s largest mobile content group with agreements with over 100 operators worldwide. According to reports, since confirmed by both companies, Nokia will add Buongiorno’s ‘BlinkoGold’ mobile content portal to ten of its handsets, including the N95, N70 and N82, and accessed via Nokia’s ‘Download!’ application. The deal is understood to be a revenue-sharing agreement, which will see both parties receive income from video, music, graphics and games downloaded from the site. According to the Financial Times, the service will initially launch in Italy, followed by Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Austria and France, and then US, China, Russia and Brazil. Nokia has signed similar deals in the last couple of months with operators Orange and T-Mobile.

European online ad market up 40% year on year to almost £9bn

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:04:00 +0200

02-Jun-08, 11:35 LONDON - Online advertising is growing by 40% year on year across Europe, according to research by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe. In 2007 the European online advertising market was worth €11.2bn (£8.88bn), up from €7.2bn in 2006.

This growth helped Europe close the gap on the US online ad market, which increased by only 26% during the same period to €14.5bn. The research also found that two-thirds (65%), or €7.3bn, of European online ad budgets in 2007 were spent in the big three markets of the UK, Germany and France. However, some of the smaller markets experienced very high growth rates — Greece increased 91%, Spain rose 55% and Slovenia climbed 49%.

Alain Heureux, president of IAB Europe, said: “Despite a slowdown in advertising spend on some traditional media, the rise of online advertising in Europe continues unabated. “Not only is the growth coming from some of the smaller markets which are seeing significant increases in their market value, but also from the more mature countries as companies move their advertising budgets online for the first time.” The sectors investing the most in online advertising in 2007 were Entertainment & Leisure, Telecoms and Finance & Insurance.

Terra Networks Partners with Warner Music to Present the DVD Release of 'Arde el Cielo con Maná'

Sat, 31 May 2008 09:14:00 +0200

Terra Networks and Warner Music announced a partnership to present the DVD release of “Arde el Cielo con Maná”. The exclusive bilingual online programming will provide consumers a unique and unprecedented in-depth artist experience at Terra.com, including contests, photo galleries, community pages, blogs, webisodes of exclusive interviews and much more.

“We are proud to partner with Warner Music in order to offer Maná fans and the online community in general groundbreaking online coverage of one of the best rock bands in the world, Maná and the release of their DVD ‘Arde el Cielo con Maná’,” said Angel Sepúlveda, Executive Director of Programming of Terra Networks USA.

“In this new digital world we need to cater to a consumer that is eager for new content and open to new ways to relate to their favorite bands. I can’t think of a better way to start off this relationship with Terra than with a band like Maná,” said Gabriela Martínez, Vice President of Marketing for Warner Music Latin America.

The initial phase includes the re-launch of the Maná artist page with new videos, photo galleries, bios, trivia and exclusive sneak peaks of the DVD as well as a contest where fans will compete to become the ultimate Maná fan. Terra users will vote to select the top five finalists and the band will select the winner, who will attend the release party and be the “Official Maná Blogger” on the web.

The second phase will include an autographed Gibson guitar giveaway and a behind the scenes with Terra TV Host Luisa Fernanda as Maná, Terra and Warner Music get ready to take-over. Terra and Terra TV editorial teams will provide live minute-by-minute coverage available at http://www.terra.com/musica/artistas/m/mana .

Twitter Closing its $15 Million Round With Spark; Bit Less Than $100M Valuation

Fri, 30 May 2008 09:11:52 +0200

As has been reported and rumored for the last month or so, the much-hyped mobile messaging and community service Twitter is in the process of closing its $15 million round, and the investor is Spark Capital, we have confirmed through sources. Previous investor Union Square Ventures is also re-upping in this round, our sources say. Spark is the digital media-focused investment firm based in Boston, and has invested in companies such as Veoh, Kickapps, NextNewNetworks and others. In total, the company will have raised about $20 million after this round closes.

As we pointed out last week, the new round comes amidst a particularly bad stretch at the company, which has been suffering blackouts on a daily basis as of late. And of course, the business model part of it is still, well, a bit in the future, and more than anything, this new round is about buying the company time to figure out that part.

Source: paidContent.org

AOL Joins OpenSocial

Thu, 29 May 2008 09:21:00 +0200

OpenSocial gained a new convert today. AOL is officially joining the initiative to standardize social-networking apps, Google VP of Engineering David Glazer announced today at the Google I/O event. Not much more was mentioned. AOL, of course, bought Bebo for $850 million, which is already part of OpenSocial. But Bebo is also integrated with the Facebook platform. So is AOL just hedging its bets in the social network wars? Looks like it. With Facebook planning to open-source its platform, it will be interesting to see if AOL shows up as a partner for fbOpen as well.

A post on the official OpenSocial Blog states that AOL’s first steps will be to implement Gadgets on myAOL.com. The post says that Gadgets should help developers create widgets that can be used on myAOL, as well as the web at large.

Source: TechCrunch

ComScore Buys M:Metrics For $44.3 Million Cash, Plus Options

Thu, 29 May 2008 09:20:12 +0200

ComScore digs into mobile: It has acquired mobile research firm M:Metrics for $44.3 million in cash, plus about 50,000 comScore (SCOR) options, which will be issued to unvested M:Metrics option holders.

This makes perfect sense: As mobile Web browsing increases, mobile metrics will be increasingly important to comScore’s stats — and its customers. Last summer, comScore rival Nielsen bought M:Metrics rival Telephia.

Source: Silicon Alley Insider

Mobile Media Advertising In US To Increase 8-Fold by 2012

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:24:01 +0200

A new report published by Screen Digest predicts that mobile media ad spending in the US will increase from $88 million in 2008 to $700 million over the next 4 years. The report, titled “Mobile Media Advertising Opportunities: The Market for Advertising on TV, Video and Games“, also predicts that more developed mobile markets, such as Japan and South Korea, would have higher ad revenues than the US for mobile TV, gaming, UGC and VoD services.

“Data pricing structures, handset and mobile web usability, content quality and the lack of audience metrics to measure effectiveness are preventing mobile advertising from reaching its market potential,” said Julien Theys, who wrote the report for Screen Digest.

To put this in context, one can also look at other forecasts for the US market from eMarketer. These divide mobile advertising according to “messaging”, “display”, and “search”. The mobile media figures represent a portion of the display category.

The report also asked US advertising executives if they were planning to switch some of their online advertising spend onto mobile, 62% of them said not in 2008. Another interesting fact from the report was that only 15% of these advertising executives had already used mobile advertising.

“There remain clear growing pains ahead for mobile advertising,” said John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer. “There are sticky disagreements concerning mobile customer information among mobile operators, Web portals, brands and agencies. All agree that better contextual targeting (for example, location, time, history) is a prerequisite for mobile advertising to succeed. But how to get there in the short-term remains an open question.”

Microsoft Launches Microsoft Advertising New brand identity encompasses the growing list of products and tools it offers advertisers and publishers.

Wed, 21 May 2008 17:46:55 +0200

The company announced the new brand —Microsoft Advertising— on Tuesday (May 20) at advance08, its annual gathering of brands and agency executives being held this week at its Redmond, Wash. campus.

The Microsoft Advertising brand, which will be pushed by the company’s advertiser and publisher solutions (APS) group, includes the ad serving tool Atlas, the ad exchange AdECN, the ad platform adCenter, and the in game ad firm Massive.

Source: Mediaweek

Microsoft Pays You For Using Its Search (If You Live In The US)

Wed, 21 May 2008 17:24:34 +0200

Microsoft has a big announcement today, one that should show the world they’re capable of running a search business even without Yahoo: their Live Search CashBack program will enable you to use special savings “coupons” after you buy stuff you’ve found using Live Search. The detailed explanation of how this works can be found on here; the lowdown is as follows: You search for deals using Live Search; when you find deals with a special coin shaped icon, it means you’ll receive a small amount of money after you’ve bought something. When your balance reaches $5, you can claim your cash.

If this sounds like those special customer cards your local store clerk has been bothering you with, you’re right. Personally, I don’t care for such deals, but I’m sure there are people who enjoy saving a buck here and there. However, there are several of problems with Microsoft’s cashback; after I list them all, many of you will find that the program simply isn’t for you.

Source: Mashable

Napster Launches DRM-Free Music Store: Over 6 Million MP3s

Tue, 20 May 2008 19:10:13 +0200

Napster launches the largest digital rights management-free music store in the world, with six million songs that can be loaded onto just about any digital audio player (a healthy advantage over Amazon’s five-million-track MP3 store). The tracks will still cost 99 cents and albums $10 but Microsoft’s Playsforsure-protected format is no more.

Apple also has cause for concern. Two of its most widely-known competitors now offer DRM-free music the majors won’t let Apple sell without DRM. Apple’s latest figures on the topic (released in October) indicated that it only had two million DRM-free tracks.

Source: Wired