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Free advertising for your blog? What's the catch?

I got a ping recently about BlogUpp, a reciprocal advertising network for blogs. The concept is this: you submit your blog to the service, and it gets advertised to other BlogUpp users in proportion to the number of BlogUpp ad units you serve on your own site. And it's free.

It's not a bad setup if you don't mind running ads for your competitors. To be clear, though: you shouldn't, because they'll all be running ads for you in return. This isn't a zero-sum game. A user who is interested in the topics you'… Read more

Mobile ads start to get traction

Nearly a quarter of all cell phone users in the U.S. say they've seen an advertisement on their phones in the past 30 days, according to a report from Nielsen Mobile, which tracks these trends.

About half of those who saw advertising on their mobile phones in the past month responded to an ad, the report said. In the fourth quarter, there was a big jump in the number or people reporting that they had spotted advertisements on their mobile phones. In fact, this figure rose 38 percent to 58 million users who said they saw advertising on … Read more

GetIrishNow.com ad campaign: These Irish eyes are rolling

Oh, St. Patrick's Day. To a self-respecting Irish-American like myself, it's such a catch-22: On one hand, it's a celebration of the fact that our culture knows how to have a damned good time; on the other hand, all the gross-tasting green beer and sequined leprechaun hats kind of make us cringe sometimes.

We also have to deal with all kinds of ridiculous St. Patrick's Day marketing tie-ins, like this new ad campaign for the Irish Spring soap brand (which I believe was created by the U.S.-based Colgate-Palmolive Company). It features a new Web … Read more

Facebook plucks new COO from Google's sales ranks

Facebook announced on Tuesday that it has hired a new chief operating officer to replace the outgoing Owen Van Natta. Starting on March 24, veteran Google employee Sheryl Sandberg will take on the executive role at the social network.

For six years, Sandberg was vice president of global sales and operations at Google, where she helped to grow the company's AdWords and AdSense products, as well as its Google.org nonprofit division.

As part of her new job, according to a statement from the social-networking company, she will "be responsible for helping Facebook scale its operations and expand … Read more

Are Microsoft and Yahoo talking or not?

There is talking, and then there's talking.

Microsoft's CFO Chris Liddell told investors on Monday at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference that Yahoo has "not yet formally responded" to Microsoft's unsolicited buyout bid.

Apparently, nothing has changed over the past two weeks, since we reported that Yahoo had not formally responded to Microsoft's offer and had remained "radio-silent."

And on the flip side, you have Liddell's boss, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, telling folks at CeBit in Hannover, Germany, that "a range of dialogue" has been occuring between the … Read more

The increasing ubiquity of Cleantech

I have subscribed to Forbes for over a decade because, unlike many other popular business journals, it seems to have a genuine voice -- even if I sometimes disagree with it.

On a plane flight from Cleveland to L.A. last Thursday night, I read the March 10, 2008 issue, and was amazed at how pervasive cleantech has become -- even in its stoutly conservative pages:

• Pages 4-5: an advertisement from General Electric (NYSE: GE) touting their solar efforts.

• Page 24: an advertisement announcing the winners of the 2008 Eni Awards, sponsored by the Italian energy giant Eni (… Read more

Green message crafting

Green message crafting Americans and the U.S. have a reputation of flaunting their wealth. Today, however, they are starting to proudly (sometimes loudly) show off their greenness. There's a debate over whether this is just a fad or the start of a nationwide trend to support sustainable practices.

Companies around the world are now racing to establish their credibility in green production. But they must also be careful of not being perceived as greenwashing.

On the other hand, being too inconspicuous in their efforts could hurt a company. With public awareness and demand for products that have smaller … Read more

SXSW Interactive 2008: Who will be this year's Twitter?

Next weekend, just a couple of days after the dust of the primary campaigns will have settled, national media attention will return to Texas as Austin is turning into party central for the annual South by Southwest Festival (SXSW, March 7-16). SXSW Interactive, added in 1994 to the music festival, has evolved into one of the most influential tech conferences in the country and beyond. While somewhat geeky in its first years, SXSW Interactive is now considered a must-attend venue for big tech players (Google, Microsoft, Seagate, etc. all have a strong presence at the show), start-ups, creative agencies, software … Read more

Yahoo to extend proxy slate deadline?

In the next two weeks, observers of the Microsoft-Yahoo courtship will get a telling signal as to whether it's headed for a shotgun marriage or a friendly embrace.

Yahoo has the option of extending the March 14 deadline for shareholders to nominate an opposition slate of directors for its next annual shareholder meeting, though it is expected to maintain a hard deadline.

"It's unlikely but not out of the realm of possibility to extend the date to nominate directors," said Bruce Goldfarb, chief executive of proxy solicitation firm Okapi Partners. "I don't see the … Read more