Articles today in the WSJ and Friday in the DM News argue that the recent acquisitions of Shopzilla and Shopping.com reflect that online comparison shopping is hot and speculate about further consolidation. Empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests that while many…
Following Scripps, Gannett Buys PointRoll. PointRoll creates rich media ad banners. Speculation is that the deal was worth US$100 million. Here's the Financial Times on the TM buying IM trend (traditional media swallowing Internet media). More consolidation/acquisitions on the way.
AOL distribution brings a report of success with Ingenio's pay-per-call for a Cruise Operator. Calls are ultimately a key to local for SMEs, but this model will likely be adopted by large advertisers (i.e., the cruise operator) sooner than mass…
Kevin Ryan has a good column today summarizing consumer research about awareness and attitudes toward online advertising. Are consumers interested in online ads as additional, relevant "content," or are they duped by them and confused about what is advertising and…
While IAC has said it's basically done with major acquisitions after Ask.com, consider that it just sold its stake in Vivendi Universal for US$3.4 billion. Although the deal is complex and convoluted, it should give IAC the ability to do…
Riddle: How is advertising like politics? According to MediaSpan CMO Mark Zagorski, they're both local. And he sees more geo-targeting in the future. We obviously agree that local is very important, but it's complex and there are major issues in…
Because "war" is the metaphor business journalists like to use for competition and almost everything else. . . welcome to "Map Wars." (Cue John Williams' music.) According to Battelle and SiliconValleyWatcher, Google is going to "A9" its mapping but with…
Not exactly. There are profits this time around and consumers have embranced the Internet. But consider this: Google has a market cap of just over US$81 billion. In 2004, the company had revenues of just over US$3 billion. By contrast,…
As blogged by Greg Sterling earlier today, E.W. Scripps, the Cincinnati based media company known by some for its sponsorship of the National Spelling Bee, announced plans to buy online shopping site €" Shopzilla for an estimated $525 million. Scripps…
Right on the heels of eBay's costly acquisition of Shopping.com, Cincinnati-based, "diversified media" company E.W. Scripps buys Shopzilla (formerly BizRate). The price was reportedly US$525 million in cash. Scripps owns newpapers, cable networks and local TV affiliates. Now it's made…
Today I tripped over an offer from Weather.com for a personalized weather report called weather.com €œgold€. For $19.95, weather.com gold will get you more speed for downloading radar maps, the ability to customize €œyour€ weather page and add your exact…
No real surprises here: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) today announced that Internet advertising totaled over $2.8 billion for the first quarter of 2005 making this the highest reported quarter in nine consecutive growth quarters. Q1 2005…
There's an interesting piece, "What eBay Could Learn From Craigslist," in the NY Times. The piece contrasts the growth curves and cost structures of the two companies. It implies certain principles could be extracted from the experience of Craigslist that…
Why anyone is paying $61.90 per month for broadband connectivity now that SBC and Yahoo! are offering it at 15 bucks a month is a fine question. I pay my bill to the same company Greg does and I pay…
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Chairman of the NY Times Co., spoke at the 58th World Newspaper Congress in Korea, which was covered in The Korea Herald. According to the article, Sulzberger argued that the Internet did not represent a crisis for…
Why did it do this? More distribution for eBay merchants Popularity of comparison shopping/shopping search Moving beyond the auction model ePinions reviews/ratings/community The growth imperative -- its stock has taken a beating in the past few quarters for not showing…
The Kelsey Group agrees that it is important to include IYP and local search products offered by publishers to help national advertisers make informed local Yellow Pages buying decisions. Our concern was that a method for including online look-ups could…
AdMission Corp. issued a press release that announces the granting of a patent for its "media-submission" technology, which is in widespread use in both the online newspaper and directory industries. The wording of the patent is fairly broad and could…
Yellow Pages Group, the Yellow Pages publisher for all of Canada, is now taking an old concept €" talking Yellow Pages €" into a new era. John Kelsey knows all about the first 3,000 attempts to make talking Yellow Pages…
AOL€™s MapQuest unit announced it was going €œback to the future€ today with plans to publish printed maps and guide books, and AOL announced the formation of MapQuest Publishing business unit. Perry Evans, CEO of LocalMatters, Inc. must be having…
