Newspapers - the good news and the bad news
Times are tough for newspaper executives.
The newspaper industry's woes were highlighted once again last week when The New York Times Company posted a quarterly loss from continuing operations and announced that it would have to write down the value of some of its assets by over $100m.
Wired says bloggers should make like Calacanis and quit
Wired’s senior editor Paul Boutin has climbed aboard the 'blogging is dead' train, pointing to Jason Calacanis’ decision to quit blogging as a primary reason to bail out.
The article starts: “Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug.”
People hate intrusive ads, so why do publishers love them?
eMarketer has published a timely post on the endurance limits of web users in relation to one of the lamest online ad formats know to man, aka the floating overlay.
By looking at data provided by Dynamic Logic, the firm found that the average person can tolerate two sucky ads per hour, before doing an Assault on Precinct 13 in the comfort of their own office. Doing a Rambo might be more appropriate...
Q&A: BT’s Chris King on affiliate marketing
Chris King, BT's head of affiliate sales, gives us some thoughts on the telecoms and media group's online strategy and the growth prospects for the affiliate channel in a tough economic environment.
He also tells us how BT keeps the information flowing between it and super-affiliates, who of course play a big role in the company's sales efforts.
Google adds 'click-to-buy' links to YouTube
I haven't exactly been a big fan of YouTube (and its parent, Google) but there are signs it is moving in the right direction.
On Tuesday, Google announced on the YouTube blog that it would be adding "click-to-buy" links on the pages of videos owned by the site's partners.
Online reputation management avoided by PR people
It always staggers me when I receive a badly-written press release or PR pitch, simply because there’s so much advice out there on how to do it right.
But if there’s one thing that I just can’t understand, it is when PR people ask you to do their job for them.
You can tell a PR has strayed out of their traditional comfort zone when you see this kind of demand in a press release: “Please contact me if you place any of the following information on your site.”
The Web Week in Review
For some reason, the news that interested me the most dealt primarily with two words: music and Google.
BusinessWeek's Business Exchange: putting Web 2.0 in its proper place
In a post more than a year ago, I discussed the commoditization of social networks.
Joost proves serial success is hard to achieve
By almost any measure, internet entrepreneurs Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström achieved more business success by the age of 40 than most entrepreneurs could hope to achieve in a lifetime.
Yahoo Buzz launches mobile widget, plans to grow
Yahoo has launched a Buzz widget for mobile users, allowing them to browse and ‘buzz up’ top articles from the past 12 hours. Alternatively, iPhone users can do this here, via an optimised version of Buzz aimed specifically at the sexy Apple handset, though no dedicated iPhone app is yet available in the iTunes Store.
Yahoo says the mobile widget can be found by searching for ‘Yahoo! Buzz’ from within the widget gallery.
This is another sign that Yahoo is looking to drive up usage of Buzz, its social news play, although there is more work to be done if it really wants to usurp Digg as the number one social media website.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
