Advertising and marketing

Washington Post to start charging frequent site users

The Washington Post won't be completely free online much longer.

The publication this summer plans to start charging users who access more than 20 articles or multimedia features a month. The Washington Post hasn't yet decided how much it will charge, according to an article on the newspaper's Web site.

Large portions of The Washington Post's audience will be exempt from fees, though, including home-delivery subscribers. Students, teachers, school administrators, government employees, and military personnel will have unlimited access to the Web site while in their schools and workplaces, the article said. And access to The … Read more

Airport posts Facebook pic of crash to boast about safety

The beauty -- and the challenge -- of Facebook is to keep people engaged.

You know, excited, amused, enthralled, and fascinated.

One way of doing this is to post a picture of a plane crash in which a child died.

No, that is not a professional recommendation. That's what one enthusiastic member of the support team at England's Luton Airport thought would be a perfect marketing wheeze.

Indeed, the image of a plane that crashed at Chicago's Midway airport was accompanied with the sensitive caption: "Because we are such a super airport... this is what we … Read more

SXSW shocker: For LevelUp, business strategy trumps buzz

AUSTIN, Texas--If the fastest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, perhaps the optimal way to engineer real affection for your startup is to cook up a similar approach.

That seems to be the logic behind mobile pay service LevelUp's presence at South by Southwest, a show where brands are drowning out startups in search of their breakout moment.

LevelUp, a 2-year-old mobile pay service operated by Boston startup SCVNGR, skipped dog-and-pony-show antics for a far more practical strategy that is drumming up dollars instead of buzz. The company is powering mobile pay at every food … Read more

Parents crowdfund firstborn child on Indiegogo

Crowdfunding may be a normal way to start a business, but it's an unusual way to start a baby. Baby Ali-Penny is due soon, and when the kid arrives, it may have one of the first crowdfunded births thanks to the March 2013: Baby Ali-Penny Indiegogo project.

"Since getting knocked up, the number one question we have been asked is, 'What do you guys need?'" mom Fanny says in the project video. The answer is pretty much nothing. The family already has strollers, car seats, onesies, blankets, and socks. What's left? The birth itself.… Read more

Ad group: New Firefox cookie plan will boost spam

The Interactive Advertising Bureau ratcheted up its pressure on Mozilla's Firefox to reconsider its decision to block third-party advertising cookies by default.

The trade group, whose senior vice president tweeted last month that the policy was a "nuclear first strike against the ad industry," put out a statement from its president and CEO, Randall Rothenberg, detailing its concerns. He painted a bleak picture of the future of the Internet, saying that a vast array of Web sites would be shut down by the proposed change.

"If Mozilla follows through on its plan to block all third-party … Read more

If Grumpy Cat is the biggest news of all, is SXSW in trouble?

AUSTIN, Texas -- Talk to just about anyone who has been at South by Southwest this year, and there's really no doubt what was the biggest news of all: Grumpy Cat.

On the one hand a sweet little cat with a facial expression that looks annoyed, and on the other one, of the biggest Internet memes of the last year, Grumpy Cat has been the unquestioned biggest star of SXSW, thanks to Mashable, which managed to bring the famous kitty to the world's most important interactive conference so that tons of her biggest fans could meet her.

Never … Read more

At SXSW, brands take over

AUSTIN, Texas -- Meander through the halls of the Austin Convention Center or traverse the city's surrounding streets and you'll soon realize that nothing at South by Southwest Interactive, once the trade show of startups and geeks, is without a sponsor.

In the past few years, big, consumer-facing brands have traversed down south, and, with elaborate setups and fancy door prizes, are drowning out the little guys. This year in particular.

For instance, Oreo, the now on-trend brand that acquired a bit of social-media fame with its savvy Super Bowl tweet, is lining up attendees at a mega … Read more

Trulia personalizes real estate listings with Trulia Suggests

In an effort to better tailor home searches to customers' interests, real estate listings site Trulia has launched new functionality that aims to learn from home buyers' interests.

While real estate sites tend to present properties based on basic parameters such as neighborhood, number of bedrooms, and price range, Trulia thinks its new Suggests tool can present a better selection based on users' opinions. Trulia says its proprietary algorithm tracks individual home buyers' behavior to immediately surface personalized results determined to appeal most to users.

Trulia's personalized property suggestions appear in a photo-centric presentation and can be refined by … Read more

Tumblr preps release of ads in mobile apps

Tumblr will help advertisers reach more of the 165 million people who use the service by soon making sponsored content viewable to its growing mobile audience.

Derek Gottfrid, Tumblr's vice president of product, told Bloomberg that the New York-based company will allow in the first half of this year businesses to promote their Tumblr updates and blog sites on mobile.

Tumblr, which was founded in 2007 and maintains nearly 100 million blog sites, is still new to the advertising game. The company first started selling ads to select clients on a limited basis in March 2012. The startup offers … Read more