Advertising and marketing

E-mail messages tell story of Clinton's failed bid

It's a fundamental rule of journalism: let the facts speak for themselves.

An Atlantic Monthly article published online Monday presents the facts of Sen. Hillary Clinton's failed presidential bid in the form of dozens of e-mails, memos, and other pieces of correspondence collected from inside the campaign. The magazine also makes a complete index of the documents available.

While the memos largely reinforce earlier reports of internal disputes in the campaign, it is sometimes surprising what one learns (Bill Gates apparently at one point asked Clinton strategist Mark Penn to make him "more human"), and what … Read more

Barack Obama dominates Twitter

Sen. Barack Obama has already proven himself to be the most popular presidential candidate on the Internet, what with his more than 1.3 million Facebook supporters and lofty aims of 2 million online donors. Now the presumptive Democratic nominee is not only outshining other politicians on the Internet, but also the very stars of social networking--Obama has just overtaken Kevin Rose's spot as the most followed person on Twitter, according to Twitterholic.

By Twitterholic's last count, Obama stands at 56,661 followers, compared with Rose's 56,442. Obama also has the second highest number of friends … Read more

Yahoo board sets eyes on Chapple and Biondi

Update at 7:34 a.m. PDT on August 14: Frank Biondi Jr.'s decline comment has been added.

Yahoo is close to appointing John Chapple and Frank Biondi Jr. as its two additional board members, as it nears its Friday deadline to expand its board as part of a settlement agreement with activist investor Carl Icahn, according to sources.

The Internet company had agreed to select two candidates from a pool that included Icahn's former slate of dissident directors. Icahn was also appointed to Yahoo's board as part of the proxy battle-ending agreement.

"We know who … Read more

Summer traffic up for Google, down for Microsoft

The lazy days of summer on the Internet seem to be a boon for Google and Yahoo, but not Microsoft.

The latest figures from research firm Nielsen Online show a slight lift to Google's audience from June to July, up by about 1 million visitors to an estimated 129 million, the largest population for a parent company of Web sites in the United States.

Yahoo, the third most popular U.S. group of sites, enjoyed a boost of about 4 million visitors over that time to almost 118 million visitors. In contrast, Microsoft's audience fell by roughly 700,… Read more

Microsoft in Flickr rights shockr

Microsoft has always been rather strident on the topic of copyright infringement, as you may have noticed, which makes tale of its "Iconic Britain" photo contest all the more astonishing.

The competition was designed as part of the marketing campaign around Windows Live Image Search, with Nikon as the prize partner. Unlike most photographic competitions, which tend to involve photographers submitting their own work (crazy, I know), this one invited entrants to search for other people's online pictures, then submit the ones they felt were iconic British stuff, in the hope of winning a Nikon camera. As … Read more

Yahoo makes its Google search advertising agreement public

Updated August 9 at 10:21 a.m. PDT, with more perspective on the agreement.

Yahoo on Friday released a copy of its controversial search advertising partnership agreement with Google, marking the first time details of the deal have been made publicly available.

But before laying your hands on a copy of the document, be forewarned that it is heavily redacted.

For example, a number of entire sections and their headings that explain how the deal will work are completely redacted, such as sections 2.1.4, 2.1.7, 2.3, 2.12, 2.13, 2.14, and 2.… Read more

Blinkx makes offer to bail out ad company Miva

The British video search site Blinkx has offered to acquire Miva, a digital-ad company that sprang out of Web 1.0 search ad firm FindWhat, for a price of $1.20 per share in cash. That's a 54 percent premium over Miva's August 7 closing price of 78 cents.

"A combination of the two companies--fusing Miva's advertising network with Blinkx's ability to leverage its technology portfolio into the online market--presents an exciting and compelling opportunity," a release from Blinkx read. Miva has not yet responded to the offer.

Several months ago, reports surfaced that both Google and News Corp. … Read more

Between a rock and YouTube, video execs see promise

SAN FRANCISCO--If the $1 billion Web video advertising market is to reach the level of television's estimated $50 billion, it ironically won't be thanks to YouTube, the Internet's most popular spot for watching clips.

That's at least the read from Internet video executives here Thursday at the RBC Capital conference. Executives from popular video search and ad companies said that so-called user-generated videos like those on YouTube aren't drawing any significant dollars from advertisers or agencies. Advertisers need to control their brand, and it's seen as too risky to give up that control on … Read more

Google sours on $1 billion AOL investment

Google acknowledged late Thursday that it may have made a bad bet on AOL.

The search giant said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its $1 billion investment for a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's Web unit "may be impaired" and that it may have to take a charge in the future:

Based on our review, we believe our investment in AOL may be impaired...We will continue to review this investment for impairment in the future. There can be no assurance that impairment charges will not be required in the future, … Read more