Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
A judge will decide this week whether to proceed with a lawsuit that claims Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole source code and trade secrets from people who hired him to work on another social-networking site, ConnectU. The plaintiffs want the court to shut down Facebook. (http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=201200554 7/23)
Democratic presidential candidates made history Monday, parrying Internet video questions from voters, in a sign of the Web’s booming role in elections. “Wassup? asked the first questioner, Zach Kempf from Provo, Utah, in the debut of the “unconventional” CNN/YouTube debates. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070724/pl_afp/usvote2008democratsinternet 7/23)
Below is the first video question and answer from the debate. I think this is an excellent way to harness the power of TV with the interactivity of the internet. Just under 3,000 video questions were submitted for the candidates to answer. There’s no better way to Rock the Vote than by inspiring the younger generation to care about their leadership. And one more thing, the casual man-on-the-street style of the questions was much more entertaining than the usual dull banter. I give this strategy the Marauder seal of approval.
Want more of the debate? Click here: http://www.youtube.com/debates
Time Warner’s AOL is said to be paying $275 million for Tacoda, an online advertising company that uses behavioral targeting techniques to track Web surfers’ habits. Tacoda’s technology allows brand advertisers to target messages to specific audience segments. (http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242007/business/aol_has_an_eye_on_you_business_peter_lauria.htm 7/24)
MySpace founder Brad Greenspan sent out another one of his open letters, this one to Dow Jones shareholders as the Bancroft family considers Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion offer for the company. He says the creation of a Dow Jones cable channel and a subscription-free WSJVideo web site will push the stock price up to $100 a share. The valuation is based on assumptions of 10 billion views a year and a $30/CPM ad rate.
Takkle, a high-school sports social-network site, is receiving additional funding from Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated and the New York City Investment Fund. As part of a content sharing deal, Takkle will carry SI articles on its site and sponsor magazine features. (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/07/23/takkle-scores-funding-from-sports-illustrated 7/23)
National Geographic Channel launched a campaign today offering an embeddable “How Taboo Are You?” widget featuring video outtakes of taboo rituals from the Taboo series returning August 5 at 9 pm ET/PT. The contest gives viewers the opportunity to choose which taboo ritual they would undertake. Upon making their selection, users will find out if more people agreed or disagreed with their selection.
The Game:
Video search engine blinkx has logged on more than 14 million hours of searchable content through more than 200 media partnerships, including new deals with RealNetworks, Lycos and Ask.com.
Social network aggregator MyLifeBrand launched a new video platform MyLifeTV, enabling users to organize, share and soon upload videos based on community interests. Initial channels include A3TV (“The Nightlife Network”), Adventure Online and a music video channel powered by Brightcove. Revver will enable uploading, hosting and ad serving of user generated video.
Pay-per-click fraud figures increased by rate of 15.8% for Q2 2007, according to a report released by Austin-based Click Forensics. The average click fraud rate of PPC ads appearing on search engine networks such as Google AdSense and Yahoo’s Publisher Network was 25.6%, up from 21.9 percent during the first quarter of this year. Google and Yahoo have long claimed that Click Forensics inflates its numbers to gain more business from advertisers.
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