Business and Marketing News
Gary Arlen, the longtime media pundit (and my former business partner), says in a new article for TV Technology that he is expecting newspapers to use the Web to shove their way into the television industry and become “become significant online HDTV purveyors.” Newspaper HD production efforts reflect an array of approaches to broadband video, and publishers are developing … Read more
The Boston Globe is building out a series of local WiFi “Pulse Points” that provide hyper-local information about the signal area (train stations, book stores, etc.). The paper, which is owned by The New York Times Co., launched two Pulse Points at the end of September, and expects to add some other Pulse Points by the end … Read more
Windows Live Expo, Microsoft’s entry in the classifieds war, has upped the ante against GoogleBase, Yahoo and the rest of them by signing with AdMission (formerly iPix) to use its SpotLight Ads technology. While advertisers can still post ads for free, the Windows Live team is betting that high value advertisers will pay $19.99 to upgrade to … Read more
Mobile search is seen as the big problem to solve in the directory business. But in the mobile business, many eyes are also on the development of location-based services, which are on the cusp of serious rollouts after years of false warnings, according to speakers at CTIA Entertainment ’06 in Los Angeles this week. “People always say … Read more
Newspapers are increasingly seeking out “federated search” solutions that can search and crawl all forms of their content, including display, classifieds, various feeds, editorial and archives, according to Catherine Kelly, President of HarvestInfo, a vendor to newspapers. “We’re starting to hear the term ‘federated search’ pop up from different newspapers, without any prompting,” says Kelly, who … Read more
Some analysts haven’t figured out Skype’s value to eBay. But I see it fairly plainly: classifieds. The classifieds industry appears to be on the verge of a freefall, due to services such as Craig’s List that don’t charge But with Skype in the picture, I see lots of “value add” that buyers and sellers would … Read more
Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs has run into turbulence on the way towards the creation of a dramatic new waterfront neighborhood in Toronto. The project may still get a greenlight, but tech players hoping to leverage the next wave of urban development would do well to note its problems as a case study. Tech players, of course, are envisioning … Read more
Hot trends in Web and marketing were all on display this week at Seattle Interactive, a large regional show with 190 speakers and an audience largely comprised of Northwest agencies, startups and technologists. The change in media was brilliantly illustrated by a single question posed by a speaker. “How many of you responded to a Nielsen … Read more
Walmart has been stepping on the gas in its efforts to extend its audience and keep Amazon and others at bay. Its efforts have won kudos – at the Groceryshop events this week in Las Vegas, the company was specifically singled by Morgan Stanley and others as a digital leader in online groceries. Walmart SVP of Digital Operations … Read more
Local auto dealers aren’t being found by Google. And their TV and print ads are largely invisible to a generation that TIVOs their television viewing, and doesn’t read newspapers. That will change, if Jim Bonfield succeeds with what he calls “the first auto dealer mashup.” Bonfield, a veteran business development executive with The Sacramento Bee and Travidia, … Read more