Digital Marketing Blog

Musicovery - a new web radio station

Musicovery is a new web radio application which allows you to visually customise the genre and style of music you want to listen to, before streaming it through your browser.

Musicovery launches

Users of the visual search engine MusicPlasma will recognise the design of the site. Essentially, this is MusicPlasma with the added benefit of streaming radio. Founders Frederic Vavrille and Vincent Castaignet are responsible for both sites.

by Graham Charlton 21 November 2006 18:30pm 0 comments

Is long-term domain registration a search ranking factor?

Webmaster World forums recently hosted a discussion on whether or not a site’s search engine ranking is affected by the length of time a domain name is registered for.

The theory is that registering a domain name for ten years indicates to Google that the domain’s owners’ have made a long term commitment and therefore the site is less likely to be spam.

by Graham Charlton 21 November 2006 18:25pm 1 comment

Yahoo! APIs 'could reduce peanut butter effect'

Gifting its underlying infrastructure to web users could help focus a flailing Yahoo!, according to one of the portal's lead developers.

According to an internal memo, aimed at counteracting its listing fortunes but leaked this weekend, company senior vice president Brad Garlinghouse likened the search giant's one-stop shop approach to "peanut butter" - "a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular".

by Robert Andrews 21 November 2006 18:23pm 0 comments

Interview with Spot Runner's Keith Wiley

Small businesses have traditionally been locked out of the TV market because of the prohibitive costs of running ads. However, one California-based company is looking to change this by allowing companies to produce and plan ads online.

Set up by entrepreneurs Nick Grouf and David Waxman, Spot Runner offers a ‘self-service’ platform for businesses to create and plan ads, and says it can allow firms to run campaigns for as little as $1,500. It recently received funding from a string of big media companies, after previously attracting the interest of Google.

Although the firm is focused solely on the US for now, Spot Runner’s Keith Wiley spoke to us about how its service can be used by advertisers and ultimately be adapted to other forms of media.

by Chris Lake 21 November 2006 13:54pm 1 comment

Gather.com raises $10m from VCs

Gather.com, the social network and journalism site, has secured $10m in funding from investors including Hearst Corporation, The McGraw-Hill Companies Pilot House Ventures.

The move brings its total VC investments to around $17m.

by Graham Charlton 21 November 2006 12:35pm 0 comments

More tips on writing marketing headlines

If you've used up your list of catchy headline templates, here are a few more ideas from Brian Clark at copyblogger.com ...

by Graham Charlton 21 November 2006 12:31pm 0 comments

Pink is the new black, search stats say

Pink technologies for girl gadget lovers are set to be hot-ticket gift items this Christmas, dominating a growing number of consumers' web searches for the colour.

Online marketing tracker Hitwise UK found mobile phones, games machines and handheld consoles were amongst the most searched-for pink products in November, with the pink version of LG's newly colourful range of Chocolate phones leading the pack.

by Robert Andrews 21 November 2006 12:22pm 0 comments

Wordpress takes on Six Apart with new edition

Automattic, the company behind Wordpress, has announced a partnership with RSS platform provider KnowNow to extend its publishing tools to the enterprise market.

Through the deal, the two companies have developed KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition, a blog platform for businesses which will be in direct competition with Six Apart’s Movable Type.

by Graham Charlton 21 November 2006 12:18pm 0 comments

Yahoo signs ad-sharing deal with US newspaper groups

Yahoo has signed a deal with US newspaper groups in which they will share online advertising, content and technology.

In return for Yahoo publishing local classified ads on its network of sites, the newspapers will supply local news content. This deal should boost Yahoo’s local reach while providing local papers with national exposure for their classifieds.

by Graham Charlton 20 November 2006 14:53pm 0 comments

AGLOCO – AllAdvantage team launches new(ish) business

AGLOCO is a new startup from the founders of AllAdvantage, a site PC World placed at number five in its list of ’25 worst web sites’.

By all appearances, AGLOCO is essentially AllAdvantage 2.0, as the idea behind it seems to be exactly the same – users are paid to surf the net as long as they subject themselves to watching all manner of advertising.

We didn't care much for that business model first time around, but is AGLOCO a different beast?

by Graham Charlton 20 November 2006 13:59pm 3 comments