Digital Marketing Blog

Yahoo! shuts auctions, loses eBay battle

Yahoo! is to close its auctions website this summer in the face of eBay's overwhelming market dominance.

Yahoo! Auctions will be shut down in the US and Canada from June, but sites in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore will remain.

by Robert Andrews 09 May 2007 08:54am 0 comments

Affiliates can be your social media allies

Brands who burn their bridges and leave behind angry affiliates risk losing valuable social media allies, writes Andrew Girdwood.

by Andrew Girdwood 09 May 2007 08:00am 1 comment

Email marketing provider Silverpop acquires Vtrenz

Email service provider Silverpop has acquired Vtrenz, a company which provides automated lead generation services.

Vtrenz analyses customer behaviour and uses this information to determine the most appropriate response, whether it be a phone call or email.

by Graham Charlton 08 May 2007 18:40pm 0 comments

Microsoft upgrades Hotmail

Windows Live Hotmail, the successor to MSN Hotmail, has launched worldwide today, offering the most comprehensive upgrade to the email service since its inception in 1996.

The new version of Hotmail has been in beta for the past two years, with 20m users testing it. From yesterday, the 280m active Hotmail accounts will be migrated over to Windows Live Hotmail.

by Graham Charlton 08 May 2007 15:49pm 3 comments

MySpace 'to buy Photobucket for $250m'

MySpace is reportedly set to acquire image-sharing site Photobucket for around $250m (£125m).

Photobucket is currently the largest image-sharing site on the web, with a reported 41m registered users.

by Graham Charlton 08 May 2007 12:15pm 0 comments

Contacts start-up in European running

A British online contacts and calendar suite is among the finalists to be picked to contest the title of best European web start-up.

Anywr.com unifies address book entries from multiple webmail and offline email clients, and synchronises information with desktop applications and mobile phone handsets.

by Robert Andrews 08 May 2007 10:32am 0 comments

Google points to VW.com over cloaking

Volkswagen's US marketing web team has made changes to the way its pages are constructed following an intervention from Google.

VW.com had been featured by Google's Enterprise blog last week for making search front and centre of a new design.

by Robert Andrews 08 May 2007 10:11am 4 comments

Election fiasco shows importance of usability tests

The cost of failing to usability test designs before deployment has unfortunately been shown again in Scotland's controversial election results.

by Chris Rourke 08 May 2007 08:00am 12 comments

Microsoft and Yahoo in merger talks?

The blogosphere is awash with rumours of merger talks between Microsoft and Yahoo! as the two companies seek to challenge the mighty Google.

The source of the speculation is an article in the New York Post, which claims that Microsoft is the driving force behind the possible deal and that Yahoo!'s price could be around $50bn (£25bn).

by Graham Charlton 04 May 2007 17:01pm 1 comment

Bloggers have 'crossed the line' - DRM group

Bloggers that published a key for the encryption on some High Definition DVDs are in big trouble, according to a copyright protection group.

The issue exploded on Digg this week, when users began posting the code on the site. Digg initially responded to a cease and desist notice from the AACS by removing the posts and blocking some accounts, but then backed down in the face of user protests.

by Graham Charlton 04 May 2007 13:00pm 0 comments