03.21.06
Posted in Internet Business, Internet Users, Marketing at 4:06 pm by Administrator
Follow the money
By John Leyden
Article originally found via digg
Adware backers named and shamed | The Register
Large corporations and dot.com firms are funding the distribution of software that loads invasive pop-up ads with their advertising dollars, according to a report by the Centre for Democracy and Technology.
The US consumer rights organisation named and shamed a number of firms over the practice, including Club Med Americas, uBid, PeoplePC and GreetingCards.com. It is calling on mainstream firms to become more vigilant about policing their advertising practices.
Click Here
In its report Following the Money: How Advertising Dollars Encourage Nuisance and Harmful Adware and What Can be Done to Reverse the Trend, CDT explains how the adware works through a complicated series of middlemen to persuade advertisers to pay for ads generated by unwanted advertising software or “adware”.
In most instances, surfers unintentionally install adware after visiting maliciously constructed websites or responding to online solicitations. The CDT report (PDF) documents the financial relationship between one unscrupulous adware distributor and mainstream firms.
“Knowingly or not, these companies are fueling the spread of unwanted programs that clog people’s computers, threaten privacy, and tarnish the internet experience for millions,” CDT deputy director Ari Schwartz said. “Because the adware financing model is willfully convoluted, many companies may not know where their advertising dollars are ending up. We’re urging those advertisers to be more vigilant to ensure that they aren’t unwittingly bankrolling one of the internet’s fastest-growing problems.”
Several organisations, including the Interactive Travel Services Association, Dell and Verizon, have established policies that prohibit or discourage the use of nuisance or harmful adware in serving ads. CDT wants to see these policies adopted by other advertisers. It also wants corporates to monitor the advertising practices of their marketing affiliates.
Earlier this year, CDT filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that 180solutions, engaged in a “pattern of unfair and deceptive trade practices”. In its latest report, CDT looked at firms that advertised through 180solutions, and enquired about why their marketing messages were been propagated using 180solutions’ advertising software.
Two of the firms identified responded to CDT’s requests by establishing ad placement policies, and five more said they already had policies in place. Eleven others - Altrec, Club Med Americas, GreetingCards.com, LetsTalk.com, NetZero, PeoplePC, PerfectMatch, ProFlowers, True.com, uBid and Waterfront Media - failed to respond to CDT’s request for information about their ad placement policies. CDT said firms that support nuisance or harmful adware with their advertising dollars deserve increased scrutiny.
“The time is now for companies to take a more active role in policing their own online advertising activity,” CDT deputy director Schwartz said. “Although unscrupulous adware companies bear the greatest blame for the spread of the unwanted programs, those programs wouldn’t exist without advertising dollars to fund them. We need to cut that revenue stream off at the source.”
180Solutions rejects CDT’s criticism over its business practices. “We object to the overall premise that consumers are duped into installing our software,” 180Solutions chief executive Keith Smith told The Washington Post. “It’s no different from what’s on television. People are paying for this content by agreeing to some ads.”
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03.12.06
Posted in Internet Business, Marketing, Podcasting / Podcasts, Software and Web Apps at 7:06 pm by Administrator
Audion has released Podcast Station, a new podcast audio production and publishing program. Podcast Stations’ on screen buttons let users assign commentary, music, sound effects, and interviews in a variety of file formats (MP3, WAV, WMA and AIFF). Content can then be mixed and saved for uploading and play on personal computers and mobile devices.
Podcast Station supports publishing online with RSS, iD3 and iTunes support.
A trial download is available.
“Podcast Station makes producing a show easy. Having the ability to pre-set your music, jingles, sound bites and effects, mix them on the fly, produce and then publish your program to the net is absolutely what it’s all about“ says Audion Laboratories CEO Charlie Brown.
[photopress:PodcastStation_Screen1.jpg,full,centered]
Podcast Station is based on the company’s VoxPro PC recording and editing software platform, used in radio broadcast news and on-air studios.
More information and a trial download are available at the Podcast Station site.
Podcast Production software Article originally found via Podcasting News
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03.09.06
Posted in Marketing, Podcasting / Podcasts at 3:35 am by Administrator
Podcasting Worth Millions but Not Yet Mainstream
Interesting article from podcasting-tools.com points to some intersting numbers. We believe that much is lost in the quick translation of numbers however. They compare 50 million podcast listeners to 200 million radio listeners… It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that 10 million podcast listeners may be more valuable to advertisers, especially niche advertisers, than 200 million radio listeners. The demographics of radio listeners are often not what is being sought after, and podcast listeners are more likely to have more money to spend, amongst other things.
Podcasting also offers the ability to give marketers, uh, make that consumers, video along with audio (more and more podcasts or becoming videocasts), and calls to action with podcasting is often easier to ensure than a fleeting radio ad someone hears in the car. Podcast advertising also offers smaller niche based marketing an easy affordable avenue to target unique groups of listeners, and when done right listeners will appreciate the related information rather than considering it an interuption to thier entertainment experience, as is often the rule with radio advertising.
From podcasting-tools.com:
Podcasting has a long ways to go before it becomes a mainstream medium, but is poised to grow exponentially through the end of the current decade and will increasingly become an attractive outlet for advertisers, says a new report from eMarketer.
By 2008, podcast advertising should reach $150 million, approaching $300 million by 2010, according to the report.
Currently, despite all the hype surrounding the nascent medium, eMarketer estimates that just 3 million Americans are active podcast listeners, and a total of 10 million people have ever downloaded a podcast to date.
And advertising on podcasts, “is in its infancy to put it mildly,” says Mike Chapman, eMarketer editorial director, who authored the report. “Podcasting is not set to become a new mass-market venue, at least for the next half decade. By way of comparison, U.S. broadcast radio still reaches close to 200 million Americans,” he said.
However, the number of podcast listeners is expected to skyrocket over the next four years, reaching 50 million total listeners by 2010, with 15 million or so listeners being described as active - i.e. downloading podcasts on a weekly basis.
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02.08.06
Posted in Marketing at 5:59 am by Administrator
Super bowl ads not shown on TV and the ads that aird now available via google video.
WHO REALLY WON THE SUPER BOWL? By Marco Iacoboni
This year, at the UCLA Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, Marco Iacoboni and his group used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain responses in a group of subjects while they watched the Super Bowl
Excellnet article there at the edge with great photos and graphs of brain activity.
Originally tipped off about this story by the post at Boing Boing - your brain on the superbowl.
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02.06.06
Posted in Internet Business, Marketing at 7:09 am by Administrator
German BMW Banned From Google
This penalty is a good example of what can happen to sites going against the Google webmaster guidelines – no matter how big or important one might deem the site. Google writes:
“If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or ’throwaway’ domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index.â€
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01.10.06
Posted in Marketing at 11:13 pm by Administrator
A great read for those designing logos, or for those who want to know a little more about what to look for in a company that is designing yours…
from Fizbang, logo article originally found via digg…
Fizbang Web Design - How to Improve Your Logo
How to Improve Your Logo
Logo “touch-up” is one of our most frequent requests. Our final work must be more effective, more visually appealing, and most importantly, recognizable as a revision of the old logo. How do we go about this? I wrote this guide both to offer potential business clients insight into our graphic design process and to help aspiring graphic designers.
* Logo Design Objectives
* Tips for Improving Logos
* Apple’s and Microsoft’s Logos
* How We Improve a Logo
* Conclusion
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12.29.05
Posted in Internet Business, Marketing at 3:33 am by Administrator
A new internet usage poll from pew is due out today, many of the internet browsing habits that we have been assuming are apparently backed up by those surveyed in the poll.
In an article via yahoo / reuters by Eric Auchard, we can establish that men are more likely to buy online, download files, surf for porn and engage in action activities online. Women tend to enagage in more communication that establishes community and relationships, and men are usually right to the point, especially in emails.
One of the suprising results was that women under 29 are just about as apt at internet verbage and usage, and the next generation of adults may see women blogging and otherwise using the web community more than men.
Some of the findings from the interview with Deborah Fallows are quoted here:
Internet users share many common interests, but men are heavier consumers of news, stocks, sports and pornography while more women look for health and religious guidance, a broad survey of U.S. Web usage has found.
-snip-
“Once you get past the commonalities, men tend to be attracted to online activities that are far more action-oriented, while women tend to value things involving relationships or human connections,” said Deborah Fallows, a research fellow at Pew and author of the report.
A larger number of men surf the Internet for pleasure, with 70 percent acknowledging they go online to pass time, compared with 63 percent of women. Men are more likely than women to listen to music, view Webcams and pay for digital content.
-snip-
Men want facts, women seek relations on Web - Yahoo! News
WEB RISKS, JARGON PUT WOMEN OFF
Over the past decade, men have proved more willing to engage in riskier encounters or transactions, such as joining chat rooms, bidding in online auctions or trading stocks. Auctions attract 30 percent of men versus 18 percent of women.
In addition, 21 percent of males confess to looking at porn online compared with just 5 percent of females, the Pew survey has found. This area is notoriously difficult to measure and may be underreported by survey respondents, Fallows said.
Meanwhile, 74 percent of women seek health or medical information online, far more than the 58 percent of men who do so. Thirty-four percent of women seek religious information from the Web versus 25 percent of men. Such differences mirror gender differences in the offline world, Fallows noted.
-snip-
In addition, the survey found men feel more in control of their computers. Far more men fix their own computers, for instance. Men also are more likely to be aware of the latest technology jargon — terms like spam, firewall, spyware, adware, phishing and RSS.
-snip-
Eighty-six percent of women ages 18-29 are Web users, compared with 80 percent of men. But 34 percent of men 65 and older use the Internet, compared with 21 percent of elderly women.
-snip-
“Teenage girls may do more or less than boys of certain activities, like downloading, but the important message is that the technology is not standing in their way,” the report states. As younger women grow up, women are likely to overtake men in terms of the overall audience, Fallows predicts.
The report cites data from surveys performed by Pew from 2000 through 2005. Some 6,403 respondents took part in 2005.
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12.21.05
Posted in Internet Business, Marketing at 12:43 pm by Administrator
Sometimes it’s a taboo subject, but advertising in every medium seems to do well when incorporated with sexual themes or imagery. Adrants has done a swell job of reporting on some of the largest ad campaigns that blend sex with an ad message, and today they posted the top 30 sex - ad stories of the year…
Adrants » Top Ten Thirty Adrants 2005 Sex-In-Advertising Stories
So here, in no particular order, are the top sex-related advertising stories of 2005 for your multiple pleasures.
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