Viacom has 'smoking gun' evidence in YouTube lawsuit: report
According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google willingly paid a $1bn premium to acquire YouTube back in 2006. And if Viacom has its way, he'll soon be paying another $1bn 'premium'.
In the search giant's legal battle with the media giant over copyright infringement, Viacom has fired a potentially devastating salvo: it claims it has evidence that YouTube employees were uploading copyrighted content without authorization.
Google improves SERPs for message board content
To many, the word 'community' elicits thoughts of social networks like MySpace and Facebook, and of popular social media websites like Flickr and Digg. But if you were active on the internet about a decade ago, you probably don't forget the precursor to today's social communities: the message board/forum.
They're still around (there are quite a few massive ones) and while they may not be as sexy as today's social networks, a Google update that will make it easier for searchers to find content posted in message board communities is likely going to benefit many operators of message board communities.
Do news organizations sell objectivity? Should they?
The Washington Post's Twitter crackdown has created a lot of debate. At the heart of it: whether it's okay for journalists to express their opinions publicly through social media outlets.
It's an interesting debate and there are a lot of ways to approach it. A central issue -- whether or not expressing an opinion jeopardizes a news organization's journalistic credibility -- is a fascinating subject. After all, most news organizations like to present themselves as objective sources who deliver truth and fact. But the debate over online postings that show their journalists and employees to (gasp) have opinions raises interesting questions: do news organizations even sell 'objectivity'? Should they?
Brands in Public: forget brandjacking, it's really about value
Seth Godin is taking a lot of heat for Squidoo's new service, Brands in Public. To many, Brands in Public is little more than a brandjacking service. As my colleague Meghan Keane put it: "Give Squidoo $400 a month. Or your brand gets it."
In my opinion, the criticism being leveled at Brands in Public is justified but it has far more to do with value than brandjacking.
Q&A: Posterous co-founder Sachin Agarwal
Sachin Agarwal is a co-founder of Posterous, the microblogging service that makes publishing content online (literally) as easy as sending an email. It’s a gem of a web app and I for one love it.
I interviewed Sachin recently to find out about progress, plans and Pro accounts (which are coming later this year).
Q&A: Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz
Every two years, SEO consultancy and publisher SEOmoz publishes a Search Engine Ranking Factors report that details which ranking factors some of the world's top SEOs think are hot and not. The latest Search Engine Ranking Factors report was published in August.
I spoke with Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, about the 2009 Ranking Factors report, the dilemma of paid links and how social media is changing SEO.
Q&A: Dane Atkinson, CEO of Squarespace
Before the company's Twitter marketing campaign went viral, Squarespace wasn't a brand known to many. But the company has experienced rapid growth building a niche in the competitive market for content management solutions/publishing platforms. And it has done it by doing something many others have avoided: charging users.
I spoke with Squarespace CEO Dane Atkinson about the company, its success with a paid business model and what ROI the company's viral Twitter marketing campaign produced.
Omniture's acquisition by Adobe has people saying "Huh?"
On the heels of Adobe's quarterly earning call, where they announced the grim news about software sales, they also announced the acquisition of Omniture. Is this a play to be a player in the analytics market, to have a strong presence in the SAAS space, to take advantage of Omniture's recurring revenue model, or something else?
Google: stop wasting your time on meta tags
Are you still using the keywords meta tag? Or are you stuffing your description meta tags in hopes that it will help your rankings?
If so, Google has a reminder for you: you're wasting your time.
Subscriptions preferred over micropayments in the UK: report
What the future of news online looks like has a lot to do with payment models. As publishers push ahead with their plans to go from 'free' to 'paid', how consumers are asked to pay for news content will play a significant role in determining which publishers succeed and which fail.
Despite lots of talk about micropayments, a newly-released paidContent:UK/Harris Interactive poll found that over half (53%) of British consumers would prefer to purchase a subscription to their favorite news site.
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
