Online/Interactive

Like Yahoo! before it, Microsoft is now offering free basic Web sites to local/small businesses. I haven't set one up so I don't know how "robust" it is compared with what Yahoo! offers. It's pretty clearly a kind of "foot…

Search Engine Journal covers the upcoming Yahoo Search Marketing Searchlight Awards in N.Y. The program is highlighting the innovative work of agencies that have combined traditional campaigns with search marketing. I'll be racing from the Newspaper Association of America show…

Search and Win: A story that's circulating today is one about the prospect of MSN and Yahoo! "incentivizing" users to switch to their search engines with rewards and prizes. MSN is further along; Yahoo! floated what might be called a…

We put out a press release this morning highlighting some top-level numbers from our forecast released to clients late last week. Here are some of the numbers featured in the release: Global print Yellow Pages revenues will increase 1.5 percent…

Chris Sherman has a very balanced write-up of Google's enhanced destop search and its privacy implications. My personal view is that Google has become highly sensitized to its perceived position in the market and the privacy issues swirling around the…

In an admittedly self-serving e-mail, InsiderPages VP Andrew Shotland pointed me to Alexa traffic data that show basically that YellowBook.com and the newer online-only site are neck and neck. YellowBook has been running a TV campaign during the Olympics, whereas…

Here's an interesting post I came across from the Internet Stock Blog (quoting the earnings call) on how local advertising is driving revenue growth at online wedding vertical/portal and directory site TheKnot.com:Online ad sales constituted 57% of the company's revenue…

If anyone is interested to see how last night's TiVo event went that we blogged about on Friday, here is coverage from Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection.

The video and IPTV news inundation continues. Here is this week's roundup;--"Punk'd" and "Beauty and the Geek" creators Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg will team up with AOL to deliver five new programs exclusively on AOL.com.-- ZDNet has an interesting…

A little while ago I got a peek at the successor to Microsoft's classifieds marketplace "Fremont." The new site is being called "Expo" and offers a number of advancements and enhancements over the original incarnation of MSN classifieds. It was…

Seth Godin (found via SEW) reports on a Google click-to-call option that is being served up with some sponsored links. He gives an example of sponsored search results that instead of links, include a small phone icon (same icon used…

From the bizzare item of the day dept., TiVo is setting up a promotional event on Monday (close enough to Valentines day), that mixes speed dating and well, TiVo.The event will match San Francisco singles with "their perfect TV compatable…

News from the IPTV world continues to come at us with no signs of slowing, as the industry's many moving parts take form. There are content issues with rights and aggregation; technical issues with bandwidth and video delivery; and local…

The WSJ (sub. req'd) and MediaPost (reg. req'd) today both have articles about the new, public auction of ad placements in major magazines on Google. We first blogged about it (after a tip from Battelle's blog) here on Wednesday. From…

It appears that something of a milestone has been reached (if the data are to be believed). According to this survey written up in MediaPost (reg. req'd), the Internet has become the primary hiring vehicle for employers. The research was…

Google launched an upgrade to desktop search/Sidebar. There were a number of feature enhancements (remote PC/file access, "undocking" of plugp-ins and sharing functionality). That's a very "quick and dirty" summary. The most interesting feature of the new enhancements from my…

I was invited by SimplyHired's Dave McClure to moderate the SDForum's Search SIG event last night on classifieds and search. Panelists were: Bindu Reddy, Product Manager Google Base, GoogleCraig Donato, Founder/CEO, OodleKeith Teare, Founder/CEO, EdgeioThe discussion was very candid and…

eBay-owned Skype today launched "SkypeWeb": Skype, the global Internet communications company, today announced SkypeWeb, a Web presence feature that is already integrated into more than 50 Web sites in 20 countries around the world. SkypeWeb allows people to see Skype…

This USA Today article by Jefferson Graham pushes the privacy angle: "will/should consumers be fearful of the privacy issues" associated with the new "search across computers" feature of Google Desktop?I spoke to Graham about this late yesterday and told him…

News Corp. announced fourth-quarter earnings yesterday. During the earnings call Rupert Murdoch stressed the value of its Internet properties, which has yet to be shown in reported financials. To read into this, the value of MySpace's 50 million dedicated users…