WPP buys into social media firm
WPP has made its second foray in a month into the social media space with the purchase of a stake in reputation monitoring company Visible Technologies.
The ad giant said it had agreed to buy a quarter of the Seattle-based firm and entered into an option to acquire a further 26%.
Netvibes gets new cash injection
In another indication of growing interest among VCs in Web 2.0 outfits, Netvibes has raised US$15 million in a round of financing led by existing backer Index Ventures.
The Paris and London-based start-up, which claims to have recruited five million users of its customisable Ajax home page, plans to use the funding to help it take on rivals such as Microsoft's Live.com and Pageflakes.
Web 2.0 to have high impact, says Gartner
Analyst group Gartner has included mashups, Ajax and other elements of Web 2.0 in a report that predicts which key technologies are likely to impact on businesses over the next decade.
We don't need no television
Britain’s youth is driving a ‘radical shift in media consumption’ away from TV, radio and newspapers and onto the web, according to industry regulator Ofcom.
Ofcom’s Communications Market Report for 2005 shows declining interest in TV among 16-24 year olds, who watched one hour of TV less per day than the average viewer last year.
Web 2.0 and UK newspaper groups
On a scale of one to two point zero, how are the UK’s newspaper groups doing in terms of their adoption of Web 2.0 concepts, tools and approaches?
Ian Delaney, a UK journalist who blogs about Web 2.0 over at twopointouch.com, alerted me to a fine piece of analysis conducted by the BBC’s Robin Hammon, who has looked into this topic in some detail.
Search industry goes deep into social media and online PR
Search goes super holistic at San Jose. Blogs, reputation management, content and communities are big on the agenda as well as the return of creative advertising, this time by way of Google and Yahoo!
CrunchBoard launched with apparent initial success
Michael Arrington has launched the latest addition to the Crunch Network, CrunchBoard, which is a job board aimed at the tech savvy Web 2.0 crowd. Adds another player to the Web 2.0 job finding options...
Viacom fancies coy Bebo, and with good reason
This week’s Bebo acquisition rumour comes in the shape of Viacom, the also-rans in the MySpace courtship battle. With Bebo in no rush to sell, we don’t anticipate this latest industry gossip will become a reality anytime soon.
It is plainly obvious that Big Media Companies are now scrambling all of their M&A jets in search of social networking sites to buy. This was previously something that seemed a little bit like bandwagon jumping a few months ago, but now there is a real reason for it.
Beware the online behemoths?
There comes a time in every startup's life when you ask whether your bright idea will be stolen / pillaged / destroyed by a much larger 800–pound gorilla – where all you have effectively done is illustrate the potential of a market, enough at least for the gorilla to decide that he wants to eat, shoot and then possibly leave.
Netscape cracked, presumably by Digg fan
The Netscape vs Digg war has escalated to new heights over the past few days and is reaching some sort of crescendo today after a Netscape security hole was spotted by – presumably – a Digg fan, who promptly inserted a pop-up with the message: “Hi to all you Diggers out there ; )”.
For those of you not following this sometimes hilarious battle of wits, the conflict escalated after Jason ‘mad dog’ Calacanis offered $1,000 to the top Digg contributors to migrate to Netscape, which is widely viewed as a clone of Digg.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
