Amazon makes it easy for its affiliates to tweet
You may not be able to fit a whole lot of words into 140 characters but a growing number of individuals and businesses think that it doesn't take more than 140 characters to produce a profit.
While Twitter focuses on building its platform and brand, plenty of third parties have been focusing on using Twitter as a marketing platform of their own. From established companies like Dell to upstarts like Sponsored Tweets, many are trying to cash in on Twitter.
The domain name industry gets its Bernie Madoff
He may not have run a $50bn ponzi scheme but the domain name industry has found its Bernie Madoff. Yesterday, it was revealed that an employee of SnapNames, a popular domain name drop service and auctioneer, had been bidding on SnapNames domain name auctions, winning valuable domains, inflating auction prices and boosting revenue for the company in the process.
All told, the employee, who was an early member of the SnapNames team and a vice president at the company, is said to have participated in 5% of SnapNames' total auctions between 2005 and 2007 and that the value of his bidding accounted for 1% of SnapNames' revenue during that time.
ACTA could be the worst thing for the internet - ever
If the leaks that have been released in the past day are to be believed, the internet may be facing its biggest threat yet: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The negotiators who are sitting down behind closed doors today to iron out this international trade agreement have the internet on their mind.
And that's not a good thing.
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
The Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) licenses companies to copy from national and regional newspapers and collects fees on their behalf.
I've been talking to the NLA's commercial director Andrew Hughes about the fees newspapers are asking web monitoring services such as NewsNow to pay in order to index and link to their content...
Google pulls the trigger, gets into lead gen
In late August, we reported on a lawsuit filed against Google by LendingTree alleging that Google was planning to offer an online lead gen service related to mortgages using technology offered by a LendingTree vendor that was contractually forbidden from working with LendingTree's competitors.
While the status of that lawsuit is unknown, it is now official: Google has entered the lead gen business.
The internet is not responsible for rude customer service
Before the advent of the internet and social media, citizens and consumers had little recourse when they spotted injustice or suffered abuse. But that's all changed. Thanks to ubiquitous mobile phone cameras and internet content sharing services, when something goes down, there's a good chance it will recorded and posted online.
A customer service assistant for London Underground recently learned that the hard way after he hurled harsh words at an elderly passenger. The incident was 'caught on tape', uploaded to the internet and an uproar ensued. Consequently, the customer service assistant is voluntarily no longer employed by London Underground.
Gawker the latest victim of malicious ad buyers
Old media and new media may do battle in the quest for consumer eyeballs but they increasingly have a common foe: malicious ad buyers.
Last month, the New York Times fell victim to a sophisticated scam in which a scammer was able to buy ad inventory directly from the news giant posing as a past buyer of ads on behalf of VoIP company Vonage. The Times had to scramble to locate the malicious ad when legitimate-looking ads were swapped for malware-serving ads.
UK newspapers threaten major news aggregator
News aggregator NewsNow has been on the receiving end of legal threats from a number of UK newspapers, a move that is the equivalent of a herd of donkeys filing a class action suit against the inventor of the wheel.
The announcement comes six months after the Associated Press said it would demand more control over links and revenue sharing from aggregators.
While AP hasn’t been named by NewsNow as a complainant, an open letter by NewsNow MD Struan Bartlett has pointed to most of the UK’s top newspapers, including The Times, The Sun, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and Daily Express.
He's asked these newspapers to "restore amicable relations" with aggregators, including NewsNow, which itself appears under threat as a result of the mainstream media's demands.
Eight things the 'startup establishment' doesn't tell entrepreneurs
In response to Jason Calacanis’ war on individuals and organizations who charge entrepreneurs money to pitch their startups to investors, I made the point that the biggest scam perpetrated on entrepreneurs is the promotion of the idea that raising money from professional investors is something entrepreneurs should do if they want to be successful.
The truth of the matter is that angels and VCs are great, if you’re a member of the ‘startup establishment’, as Calacanis is.
Social media turns toxic avenger for The Guardian (#trafigura)
I read an article in today’s Guardian about a gagging order imposed on it. In short, the newspaper has been legally prevented from reporting about the alleged dumping of toxic waste by a firm called Trafigura (it couldn’t even name the company).
The Guardian has been ordered to avoid reporting parliamentary proceedings about the matter. The newspaper’s David Leigh explains:
Today's published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.
The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.
The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.
Naturally I was interested to find out what this was all about. It turns out that many others were too, and the newspaper’s strong social media presence has allowed readers to fill in the gaps.
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
