Digital Marketing Blog

Brands fail to bag Myspace domain extensions

Have you bothered to register a personalised URL for your company on Myspace? If not, you’re not on your own.

Major brands such as McDonalds, Cingular, Nike and Pepsi – as well as Myspace itself – appear to have been too slow after the site allowed users to create their own extensions to Myspace.com.

by Richard Maven 08 February 2007 14:27pm 2 comments

Virgin Media launches, response mixed

Virgin Media was today unveiled as the new name for ntl and Telewest, with the new entity aiming to shake up UK consumer telephony, entertainment and communications provision with a quad-play offering.

The cable company last year completed the £962m acquisition of Virgin Mobile, making Richard Branson a 10.7% shareholder in the firm, which celebrated today by firing a volley of press releases.

by Robert Andrews 08 February 2007 13:58pm 124 comments

Warner calls on moblog for movie promo

British user-generated content network moblogUK will provide the backend to a promotional website for the forthcoming Warner Pictures movie, The Science of Sleep.

The Michel Gondry film will ask people to people to capture their dreams in video, audio or still image, and post them to a moblog (mobile phone photo weblog) used to support the release. DreamBlog.co.uk is linked to from the movie's official website.

by Robert Andrews 07 February 2007 16:25pm 0 comments

'Not guilty', says Apple on music DRM

Amid growing consumer demand for platform-neutral digital music without cumbersome copy protection, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has fired the digital rights management (DRM) ball firmly into the record labels' court.

In a surprise open letter, titled "Thoughts on Music" and published on apple.com last night, Jobs wrote:-

"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players.

by Robert Andrews 07 February 2007 15:19pm 0 comments

Vodafone to offer MySpace on its mobiles

Vodafone has cut a deal with News Corporation's MySpace to allow users of its mobile network to access the social network via their mobiles.

The service will launch first in the UK, followed by other major European markets, believed to be France, Italy and Germany.

by Graham Charlton 07 February 2007 15:16pm 0 comments

Google redefines ROI, misleads marketers

Lots and lots of people use Google AdWords, and have more recently layered Google Analytics over the top. But the search giant has confused these users by re-defining a well-defined business metric: 'ROI'.

This has led to confusion within companies - and at worst, caused Google AdWords users to think their campaigns are more profitable than they are, and thus pump more money into Google while decreasing their own business' profitability.

So has Google 'done evil' this time?

by Deri Jones 07 February 2007 13:36pm 1 comment

Last.fm signs deal with Warner Music

Last.fm has teamed up with Warner Music Group in its first deal with a major music company.

The agreement will see Warner's music catalogue made available to the Last.fm's listeners. It will initially roll out in the US, with Europe to follow shortly after.

by Graham Charlton 07 February 2007 13:06pm 0 comments

Google makes its email service available to all

Google has announced that its free, web-based email service Googlemail will now be universally available, rather than invitation only, as it has been since 2004.

From today, any UK will be able to sign up for an account. Google is also launching a new, downloadable version of Googlemail for use with mobiles.

by Graham Charlton 07 February 2007 12:46pm 0 comments

Q&A: AKQA's Ajaz Ahmed on internet marketing

Ajaz Ahmed co-founded the agency AKQA some 12 years ago. Last week AKQA revealed that private equity group General Atlantic had bought a majority stake, for a rumoured $250m.

We caught up with Ajaz to ask him about the investor situation and also to chew the fat on a range of internet marketing issues and trends.

Read on for the full interview...

by Chris Lake 06 February 2007 13:38pm 0 comments

Vinny Lingham's incuBeta bags funding, eyes USA

Congratulations to Vinny Lingham and the team at incuBeta, the Cape Town-based internet marketing group, which has secured a £1.75m investment from HBD Venture Capital.

by Chris Lake 06 February 2007 13:32pm 0 comments