Advertising and marketing

SAN FRANCISCO--The modern woman, per the popular '70s television commercial, was once "bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan." Now she's also writing a blog.

As many as 3,000 women are here at the fourth annual BlogHer Conference 2008, which opened Friday, to talk about their lives, their businesses, and their blogs. And in some cases, they're all one and the same. Despite the popular perception that women bloggers are all stay-at-home mothers, many women here run their own businesses or work full-time, and they use a blog as a personal … Read more

Investors punished Google for the less-than-stellar second quarter results it reported on Thursday, sending the share price down about 10 percent to $482 in Friday trading. So what went wrong?

No one thing was responsible, but a few factors combined to make a 35 percent growth in net income to $1.25 billion look like bad news.

Interest income First, the company missed expectations: net income, excluding various items, was $4.63 per share, short of the $4.74 expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, and that's usually enough to send the stock down in after-hours trading.

But … Read more

Russian Internet site Rambler Media has agreed to sell its advertising unit, ZAO Begun, to Google, and to use Google's technology for search and advertisements.

Rambler currently owns 50.1 percent of Begun, but will buy the remaining 49.9 percent from Bannatyne and then sell the entirety to Google for $140 million in cash, the company said Friday. Of that total, $69.9 million will go to Bannatyne, the company said. Rambler expects to end up with about $50 million from the deal, which it will use for investments and potential acquisitions.

The move marks an expansion of … Read more

Updated 9:16 a.m. PDT with Chief Executive Jerry Yang's comment about the site.

Yahoo is using its considerable Internet clout to promote its "proxy facts" Web site devoted to countering investor Carl Icahn's attempt to replace the company's board of directors with his own picks.

The company's main page includes a large link to the proxy fight site just below the main advertisement on the right side of the page, showing a purple panel that reads, "We have a couple of exclamation points to make." Given the heavy traffic to … Read more

CNET News' multimedia team, reporter Kara Tsuboi, photographer James Martin and cameraman Jared Kohler, visited the San Francisco studio of Obscura Digital, a company that aims to push the boundaries of digital marketing and advertising.

To talk or write about Obscura Digital's projects just doesn't do them justice. Their work is meant to be experienced first hand, hence the catchy phrase CEO Patrick Connolly kept throwing around to describe the 7-year-old company's work: immersion and interactive technologies. Watch the video that we shot on our recent visit to this unassuming warehouse space located in San Francisco's … Read more

With her dazzling looks and saucy lyrics about smooching women, it's tough thinking of Katy Perry as a geek.

Nonetheless, the pop singer has immersed herself in digital music, video blogs, and more recently, the Internet-distribution strategies of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. "I'm Internet crazy," she says.

Perry is the controversy-dogged pop singer who has owned the No. 1 spot on iTunes and Billboard's "Hot 100" for much of the past month. Her hit single, "I Kissed a Girl," has alienated some moral groups as well as Fox News commentators … Read more

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has spoken more than once this year about monetizing YouTube, but he showed some signs of patience on Thursday for finding a new, good way to sell ads on the video-sharing site. And when Google gets the mechanism right, Schmidt said he expects to hit the mother lode.

"There will be new monetization forms. That is what we are seeking. That is the holy grail," he said on a conference call after Google reported disappointing second-quarter earnings. "When we find it, it (monetization) is likely to be very large because of the scope … Read more

Most investors would be delighted with a 35 percent increase in net income, but not when it's Google in a soft advertising market and the results fell short of expectations. Here are highlights of what Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and others had to say during Google's conference call about its second-quarter financial results.

• To recap, Google reported net income of 1.25 billion, a 35 percent increase over the earlier year. But earnings per share, excluding various items, were $4.63 per share, short of the $4.74 expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Revenue increased … Read more

Faith in Google's financial strength, restored somewhat last quarter, turned out to be fragile as the company reported earnings Thursday that fell short of analyst expectations.

Google's net income rose 35 percent to $1.25 billion for its second quarter, the search giant said. Excluding various items, it reported earnings of $4.63 per share, short of the $4.74 expected on average by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

In after-hours trading, the stock had dropped as much as $60, or more than 11 percent, according to CNBC. However, the stock recovered somewhat, down $46.31, or 9 … Read more