Rumor: StumbleUpon To Be Acquired By eBay
Reports surfacing about a possible eBay/StumbleUpon deal have created quite a buzz throughout the blogosphere over the last 24 hours. Forsaking the significance that such a deal could have in the silently mounting animosity between Google and eBay, the rumored details of acquisition weave an interesting tale in and of themselves.
Headlines on the acquisition front have, by in large, been dominated by Google over the last six months, starting with the company’s highly publicized and now much scrutinized purchase of YouTube.
MySpace News Launches
Sometime this morning MySpace will lift the lid on their new MySpace News feature. MySpace News will scour thousands of news sources via RSS and group them in hundreds of categories. MySpace readers will then vote on which stories are the most popular.
According to the LA Times…
Google Steps on eBay’s Toes
Google has set up a system to provide content recommendations and random site navigation based on information contained within a user’s search history and preferences, which would seem to be a step onto StumbleUpon’s turf. If the eBay purchase of StubmleUpon goes through, we could have a classic confrontation.
Mochila’s AdMatch Player Opens Up Online Media
Traditionally, these have been the barriers to media entrance: cost, content, audience. Broadband has weakened those barriers in terms of cost and audience, but content, as always, drives the final bargain. But when under-the-radar Mochila officially launches its AdMatch Player next week at Ad:Tech, the final barrier is effectively breached.
Culture Shock on Madison Avenue
Last week’s announcement that the Interpublic Group acquired Reprise Media set off a round of self-congratulatory praise up and down Madison Avenue. It was as though they stopped hitting the snooze button and finally addressed the importance of search in any advertising campaign. But take a close look beyond the buzzwords like “integration” and “broad marcom mix,” because the acquisitions and partnerships merely put a pretty face on some of the deep, troubling issues at play.
Froogle Shops For A Frugal Experience
Google has rebranded their moribund shopping engine from Froogle to Google Product Search, and changed its look to match other Google pages.
Amazon Unveils New Indie Store
Amazon evidently wants you to “Go Indie”; a new music store of that name has been launched, and it features some tempting price cuts over regular items.
Amazon got 30 different music companies to work with it on this project. To be honest, I didn’t recognize any of them (guess I’m not indie enough), but some of the more interesting names are Alligator Records, Bloodshot Records, Epitaph, Fat Possum, Hellcat, Matador, Smithsonian Folkways, Vagrant, and Yep Roc.
StumbleUpon Deletes Audience Rank Feature
StumbleUpon has ticked some of their users off recently by removing their audience rank feature.
SEO expert Joe Whyte wrote this on his blog about the sites actions. "It looks like Stumble Upon has taken a page out of the book of digg and started removing factors that allow you to gauge your rank and profile power within stumble upon."
BBC Moves Forward With Online Archive, iPlayer
It’s only for a six-month trial period, and it involves just 20,000 people in the UK, but something important has transpired – part of the BBC archive went online. And if everything goes well, we can look for all of that audio and video to become much more widely available.
More on Mobile Search Site Creation & Optimization
Part 2: Mobile Site Optimization
The question remains; how should you optimize a mobile web page? All of the presenters provided tips, but Cindy Krum’s presentation provided the majority of information. I listed a blend of the tips from all presenters below: