Facebook, MySpace Too Popular For Own Good
Social networks can be used to waste time, and members have also been known to encounter a virus or two. Now, decision makers at Apple and the Maryland General Assembly seem to feel these problems outweigh the positives, as new bans on the two most popular social networks have been reported.
News Corp Bleeding Revenue Going Into 2009
Newspapers and traditional media are bleeding profits and jobs. It’s one of the hardest hit sectors, so it’s not as if they couldn’t see this coming. But News Corp’s CEO Rupert Murdoch says it’s even worse than he thought. The company just announced they are writing off $8.4 billion of losses.
Tremendous Hype Against Google Latitude
Trojan Horse: GoGap via Flickr
Google Introduces Imagery Partner Program
Google has introduced an imagery partner program where people can submit imagery for Google Earth if they feel they have a better version of a shot that Google currently has.
Yahoo Tries To Cheer Up Advertisers
The jobless rate is up again, Toyota’s issued a warning about a $5 billion operating loss, and a watchdog panel believes at least $78 billion in bailout money was wasted. But Yahoo wants advertisers to know the situation isn’t all bad.
Google Grabs 76% Of Search Spend In Q4
U.S. search advertising spending was relatively flat for most of the year and declined by 8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to search marketing firm Efficient Frontier.
Breaking it down by search engine, Google grabbed 76 percent of search spending in Q4. Spending on Google Search and its syndicated networks dipped 4 percent year-over-year (YOY).
Despite that, Google gained 2 percent market share from Google Content, which saw a robust 63 percent YOY growth in 2008 due to its improved targeting and monetization efforts across the AdSense network.
Meebo Gets Facebook Back
UPDATE: Meebo has now announced that Facebook is back on. Seth at the Meebo Blog writes:
After some hard work from the folks here at Meebo and help from a whole host of people at Facebook, we now have Facebook back in Meebo.
Plus, Meebo is now the first launch partner of the “alpha” version of the Facebook Connect + Chat integration. That’s pretty cool.
Social Networks Need To Figure Out Revenue Models Soon
It’s been said several times our favorite social networks have really struggled to turn a profit. YouTube, MySpace, Twitter and Facebook all are in this same boat, though they must not be a total money sink since they’re still around. The bigger ones do have advertising programs in place at least.
YouTube, AP, Hurting Fair Use
“This is what it’s come to,” writes the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Fred von Lohmann. “Teenagers singing ‘Winter Wonderland’ being censored on YouTube.
Using Advanced Segments in Google Analytics
I had a chat with E-Nor President Feras Alhlou after reading a guest post of his on the Official Google Analytics Blog. He was asked by Google to make a post, as E-Nor is a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant and is very active on a number of Google Analytics (GA) support fronts.