Howie Mandel New Spokes’comic’ in Buy.com ads

Please God be merciful and let this be a horrible joke!

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=24585

Advertisers Spend $1 Billion on Word-Of-Mouth Marketing

From Ars Technica:

“PQ Media, which last year brought out some interesting research on TV product placements, recently released a report on word of mouth (WoM) marketing. The goal of WoM is to get consumers talking (to start “buzz” in industry parlance), since research from Keller Fay Group shows that “trusted recommendations” are the single best form of advertising in the US.

80 percent of surveyed consumers trust recommendations offered by friends and family; the remaining 20 percent apparently have friends like my college roommate, who to this day insists that The Net was a fine example of the filmmaker’s art. “

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071129-advertisers-spend-1-billion-on-word-of-mouth-marketing.html

The only problem is monetization. Advertisers can’t seem to quantify their investements. Now I’m not saying money shouldn’t be spent exploring the possibilities, but a healthy dose of scepticism seems to be in order.

Yahoo to Serve Up Ads in Pdf’s?

 Say it ain’t so! Aren’t pdf’s annoying enough?

Ads for Adobe PDF powered by Yahoo!

Privacy Policy | Terms of Services Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. | Copyright Notice

To be considered for the Ads for Adobe PDF powered by Yahoo! beta program, please enter your information below. Participants of the program must have a valid U.S. Social Security or Tax ID number, and PDF content that is in English and targeted at a U.S. user base. We will contact you about your eligibility to participate and about availability of the program.Yahoo! Publisher Network does not wish to be associated with certain types of content, behavior and/or products. Please refer to our Content Guidelines

http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/scp/viewer/index.php?client_id=1173&event_id=18671

Yahoo! Publisher Network Content Guidelines

Yahoo! Publisher Network does not wish to be associated with certain types of content, behavior and/or products, and will not accept sites that contain this type of content. This includes, but is not limited to:

Adult-oriented content Violence, excessive use of vulgar or obscene language Excessive, duplicate or competing advertisements Content related to human suffering or death Copyright or trademark-sensitive products such as MP3 downloads, DVD backups or bootleg items Weaponry, ammunition, fireworks or explosives Gambling Illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia Propaganda, potentially offensive or controversial content Defamatory, libelous, threatening or other material that advocates against any individual or group The sale of body parts or bodily fluids The sale of hazardous substances Political, religious or charitable organizations, issues or causes The sale of tobacco and tobacco-related products Hacking, surveillance, interception or de-scrambling equipment The sale (or facilitated sale) of prescription drugs The sale of counterfeit or stolen items The sale of government IDs or police items The sale of alcoholic beverages The sale of products from any of the following countries: The Balkans, Burma (Myanmar), Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Libya, North Korea, The Sudan, Syria or Zimbabwe

Spammers Conceding to Google?

From Wired:

“Google won’t disclose numbers, but the company says that spam attempts, as a percentage of e-mail that’s transmitted through its Gmail system, have waned over the last year. That could indicate that some spammers have gotten discouraged and have stopped trying to get through Google’s spam filters.”

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/11/google_spam

I use Yahoo mail far more than I do Gmail. I have no idea why. I get tons of spam daily, much of it with obvious spam titles. Maybe its time I make the switch.

Consumers Generally Pleased with Online Retailer Performance

From Internet Retailer:

“Customer satisfaction in online retailing reached a score of 76.6 on a 100-point scale on Monday, up 1.3% from a year ago, researchers ForeSee Results reports. It says retailers were better prepared this year to handle high traffic volumes that, according to research firm Hitwise, rose 26% year-to-year on Monday. A recent survey conducted by BIGresearch for Shop.org, the online unit of the National Retail Federation, found that 72 million had planned to shop online on Monday. “

This seems to fit both what I have been hearing and my own personal experience. Online retailers seem to be ‘getting it’. Online behavior is much more Darwinian (err..for those in Kansas…intelligently desined…err created…whatever) and those retailers that don’t consistently satisfy their consumer perish.

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=24569

MSN In Talks to Buy Shopzilla

MSN is in preliminary discussions with Scripps to purchase Shopzilla, according to a source at MSN associated with the talks. It’s no secret that Scripps is looking to sell Shopzilla, and that they are hoping to recoup the $525 million that they paid for it in 2005.  Initial talks have the proposed sales price significantly below the 500-600 million asking price.  

MSN is said to want to expand its shopping reach to better compete with Google Product Search and Yahoo Shopping.

Yahoo Stores Down On Cyber Monday

Yahoo is really stepping on their johnsons lately. First it was the publicity hit they took with the closing of Yahoo 360 and now its having a revenue impact when Yahoo Merchant Solutions bit the dust for large parts of Cyber Monday.  With merchants already scrambling to do well this holiday season, you can bet they weren’t quite with this outage.

Yahoo responds:

 ”We are aware that Merchant Solutions was experiencing some problems today [Monday] due to heavy holiday traffic on Yahoo! powered merchant stores. We are aware of the issues and are working towards a solution as quickly as possible. Yahoo! makes every effort to prevent outages. We continue to put strategies in place that will minimize the impact that extremely heavy traffic periods have on our merchants. Yahoo!’s relationship with our merchants is extremely important to us and we value their loyalty. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and we are continuing to put processes in place to prevent further disruptions. “

Oh spin control, oh spin control, of all the lies most timely (humm to Oh Christmas tree tune)

Ahh spin control…I love it.

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/

Google “My Location” GPS without GPS

Google Maps is now featuring the ability to triangulate your position (without GPS) and pinpoint your position. Using “My Location” technology, Google can use cell towers to determine your position.  It will work on most smart phones including Blackberry, Symbian 60 devices 3rd ed, Windows Mobile devices and some Motorola and Sony/Ericcson devices. Is there anything those crazy kids at Google can’t do?

 

http://www.google.com/gmm/index.html

Happy Thanksgiving

Doing the family thing so no posts til Monday!

Double Click Serving Up Malware Via Flash

From Wired:

“The malware-spiked ads have been spotted on various legitimate websites, ranging from the British magazine The Economist to baseball’s MLB.com to the Canada.com news portal. Hackers are using deceptive practices and tricky Flash programming to get their ads onto legitimate sites by way of DoubleClick’s DART program. Web publishers use the DoubleClick-hosted platform to manage advertising inventory.”

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/11/doubleclick