Still waiting for change you can believe in? Well, believe this: the White House just declared an intellectual property treaty a state secret and denied Freedom of Information Act requests asking that it reveal the details of an international treaty that could have huge effects on how information is disseminated online.
YouTube Freezes View Spammers
We often hear about people trying to "game" search engines and social media sites to promote their content. We hear it about Google, Digg, and others, but for some reason, we don’t often hear about such practices with regards to YouTube.
That does not mean that it’s not happening.. And why wouldn’t it? It’s one of the most popular social networks, and it’s the second largest search engine and the 4th largest web property according to Product Manager Matt Liu.
Former Newspaper Staffers Plan Online News Site
A number of former Rocky Mountain News staffers have announced the launch of indenvertimes.com, an online news site with the aim of keeping the Rocky alive.
The E.W. Scripps Co. closed the Rocky Mountain News last month after failing to find a qualified buyer.
To launch the site, In Denver Times needs 50,000 subscribers by April 23, 2009, the 150th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain News. If that goal is reached, the full site will launch on Monday, May 4, 2009.
Yahoo Gives Ads More Targeting Options
Today Yahoo announced the addition of three new targeting options for Yahoo Search Marketing ads. They are demographic targeting, ad scheduling, and enhanced ZIP-level geo-targeting.
March Madness Puts The Squeeze On Corporate Bandwidth
Beware the Ides of March, Shakespeare famously warned in Julius Caesar. The Ides of March bring a different madness in the modern world, usually associated with college basketball, and extends to your IT department. All that mad video streaming can have a huge impact not just on productivity, but also on the company’s bandwidth bill.
Google Test Shows 300 Percent ROI
Kelly Wall of Google’s Retail Team was spare on data in a report about an experiment to see how online advertising affected offline, in-store sales, probably because it took some convincing to get the participants to share their sales data to begin with. So we’ll have to take Kelly’s word for it that one retail client saw a 300 percent return on investment.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Moves Online
The Seattle Post- Intelligencer (P-I) will become the nation’s largest daily newspaper to move entirely online, its publisher Hearst Corporation announced today.
The announcement was made by Frank A. Bennack, Jr., vice chairman and chief executive officer, Hearst Corporation, and Steven R. Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers. The final print edition of the newspaper will appear tomorrow.
Google Adds AdWords to Picasa
Google is now showing AdWords ads above search results in its photo sharing service Picasa. It’s hard to imagine people being shocked by this.
Google has been getting more aggressive with adding ads to its products. Only a few weeks ago, Google started adding them to Google News search results after years of not having them.
Facebook Connects Users with iPhone Apps
Over the weekend, Facebook launched Facebook Connect for the iPhone and iPod Touch at SXSW. Developers area already taking advantage of Facebook Platform APIs to add social features to many iPhone applications.
Social Media Market Still Miniscule, But Is Growing
Forrester Research just released a report that suggests the tough economy will be the catalyst for more spending on social media marketing.