Bloomberg gets to work on BusinessWeek
Bloomberg is wasting no time in getting to work on BusinessWeek, which it agreed to acquire last month. Although the deal is not expected to close until next month, Bloomberg is already plotting out the future for the weekly business magazine.
According to MediaWeek, Bloomberg's initial plans are to make BusinessWeek "bigger, glossier and more international". Talking Biz News, whose sources were at a meeting conducted by Bloomberg exec and future BusinessWeek chairman Norm Pearlstine, is reporting that the overhaul would "focus on making it more competitive with The Economist and less like Fortune and Forbes".
Got traffic? Yahoo has a gift for you
If your website gets massive traffic, or you are building a new website and can't sleep at night because you're worried that you will, Yahoo wants to help. And it doesn't want anything in return, except maybe your love.
On Tuesday, Yahoo will announce that it has open sourced Traffic Server, the HTTP web proxy cache it uses internally to serve up millions upon millions of requests to its users on a daily basis in an efficient manner.
Is Google really capable of detecting paid links and webspam?
Paid links are something I've written about lately as the possibility of Twitter data being incorporated into the Google and Bing search indexes has raised the spectre of a much more complicated situation vis-à-vis paid links.
In the case of Google, the rules are clear: paid links are bad. If you get caught buying or selling them, you could find yourself in a world of hurt. But just how good is Google at detecting paid links? If the example I'm about to give is any indication, it's not good at all.
The new CNN.com: the good, the bad, the ugly
CNN is one of the world's leading news organizations and it's website is arguably one of its most valuable assets today. In an effort to make it even more valuable, CNN has launched a new design for CNN.com over the weekend for both its U.S. and International versions.
According to Nick Wrenn, Vice President of Digital Services for CNN International, "We had a look on how our users use the site, and put a lot of thought and research behind it". The finding: "Breaking news is our core brand and will continue to have a prominent spot. But we wanted to showcase a lot more of the deep, rich content we have. It was falling off the main page too quickly and people couldn't find it".
Volkswagen goes all in on the iPhone for the new GTI launch
The iPhone's App Store has made a lot of people a good deal of money during its short existence. But can a new car launch on the iPhone alone? Volkswagen is betting it can. The automaker is launching an app to announce its newest vehicle.
The car maker is betting that the highly targeted app will reach the caliber of customers interested in purchasing the vehicle.
AdAge calculates that the new app will reach more of that demographic than a much costlier television purchase. But does the math add up?
CMS guide highlights need for seamless content delivery
Econsultancy has this week published its 2009 CMS Buyer's Guide, containing profiles of 23 leading platforms and a discussion of key market trends. A lot has changed since the last version of this report in early 2007, including the explosion of social media and much wider use of mobile phones to access the web.
Four steps to profiting from a decent domain name
If you're an entrepreneur, or budding entrepreneur, making money online can sometimes seem like a real challenge. In my opinion, that's often because entrepreneurs focus on the wrong thing. They want to create a 'startup' and become the next Facebook or Twitter.
That's a tall order and, for most of us, a recipe for disappointment. But if you're willing to start out small and work hard, profit on the internet isn't so elusive.
Wall Street Journal taking paid content into new markets
While other newspapers like the New York Times grapple with how to charge readers for content online, the Wall Street Journal stands out as one of the few newspapers that doesn't have to deal with such issues.
Unlike many other newspapers, the Journal didn't drink the 'content just wants to be free' kool-aid. When it seemed like advertisers had an unlimited amount of money to throw around, the Journal stuck to its guns and ironically, has managed to have its cake and eat it too. Its ad sales are healthy and the mixed model it employs has apparently proven to be the secret sauce.
Conde Nast hunts for new revenue with GQ iPhone app
Amid staff layoffs and magazine closings, Conde Nast launched a new potential source of revenue today with the launch of a GQ iPhone app.
Conde Nast will start selling digital versions of its issues on the iPhone for the discounted price of $2.99 (versus $4.99 on the newstand). The first question that comes to mind is this: Who will start doing this next?
Will BusinessWeek bring social media to Bloomberg?
Times are tough for many magazines these days. BusinessWeek knows that first-hand. The weekly business magazine will reportedly lose some $40m this year.
But after a long bidding process, it has found a knight in shining armor: Bloomberg LP. The privately-held financial software, data and news company is acquiring BusinessWeek for an undisclosed sum rumored to be in the range of $2-$5m (yes you read that right, million). It will also take on BusinessWeek's liabilities, which could far exceed that amount.
Holiday shopping forecast 2009: a lot like 2008, with more coupons
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
