SAN FRANCISCO - RSS ads appearing as individual feed items generate a 7 percent click-through rate (CTR), over nine times higher than ads displayed within content posts. That's according to a new study released today by RSS ad firm Pheedo, which compiled the research based upon its network of 8,000 publishers. "We're trying to find what's the perfect ad unit for RSS," Bill Flitter, Pheedo's VP of...
Topix.net, the Palo Alto Web site that features news stories from around the world, is expanding into the citizen journalism business, offering readers a chance to publish their own stories. The move is a part of a broader overhaul that includes the addition of public forums and the ability to comment on stories. ``The nature of news is changing as interactivity comes into play,'' said Chris...
To improve the audience of Microsoft's Internet search engine, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates suggests using cash and various freebees as a lure. A Microsoft spokesperson adds that it's a possible service, but that Microsoft has no plans to introduce it. When a startup like Newsvine Inc., an online distributor of user-generated news, offers outright bribery to attract attention, it's one thing...
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- It’s been a year since Yahoo CEO Terry Semel hired Lloyd Braun, former head of ABC Entertainment Television Group, to bring his Hollywood sensibilities to the portal and create what that new head of media said would be the Web’s own "I Love Lucy" moment. So far, it is a moment waiting to happen. News initiative As leader of the Yahoo media group, Mr. Braun has made a stab...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. and Six Apart Ltd., creator of Movable Type -- the most popular software used to create professional blogs -- said on Sunday Yahoo will be the preferred supplier of Movable Type for small businesses. The partnership is the latest in a string of deals by the world's largest Internet media company as it seeks to embrace so-called "social media," the new...
OVER THE LAST 18 MONTHS, marketers have enthused non-stop about the potential of blogs as an ad medium. They've gushed over the authenticity of bloggers' voices, heralded the diversity of viewpoints, and rhapsodized about the affluent, educated audience blogs attract. But when it comes to actually pulling the trigger on ad deals, many online media firms--epecially those representing companies in...
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- If Microsoft Corp. trumps Google in the battle to be Time Warner’s AOL business partner, no one in Web world will be surprised. Most observers agree Microsoft needs the gig way more than Google does. Although both Google and Microsoft can give AOL the two things Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons said it needs -- a wider audience and better technology -- the stakes are higher...
CHICAGO -- Nine months after New York Times Co. bought the service for $410 million, About.com is ready to explain to advertisers the virtues of sitting alongside 57,000 topics and a library of 1.2 million pieces of content. The site, a high flier in the dot-com heyday, is almost under the radar today. But market researcher Nielsen//NetRatings said About.com drew 29 million unique users nationally...
U.S. residents who prefer Google’s search engine tend to be richer and have more Internet experience than those who primarily use competing search services from Microsoft, Yahoo, and America Online, a new study has found. The longer people have been using the Internet, the more likely it is that Google will be their search engine of choice, according to a survey of 1,000 U.S. Internet users...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The group that oversees Internet domain sites has again postponed a decision on a controversial ".xxx" domain for sex sites, the head of the organization said on Monday. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, had been expected at its quarterly meeting in Vancouver to approve or kill the domain, which would give pornographic Web sites their own...
