Mobile Marketing
November 30, 2004
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting!If you thought marketing for mobiles was all about selling ringtones and dodgy premium callbacks, think again: mobiles are fast becoming the big “next thing” of opportunity, opening a massive new area of user interraction, challenges, and marketing, […]
Search Engine Marketing: going mainstream
November 30, 2004
Nick Wilson at Threadwatch covers an almost alarming move - Search Engine Marketing going mainstream: Public Relations meets Search Marketing
After all, with the Search Engine Wars being so high-profile nowadays, SEO/SEM has experienced a meteoric rise in webmaster awareness.
However, as Alec makes a point of noting in his reply:
This may not be a bad thing. […]
Microsoft to give dividend
November 30, 2004
Apparently, Microsoft has been holding back on dividend payments to shareholders over the past few years. However, in a possible attempt to reinvigorate the company, after share price lows to below $30 a share this August, Microsoft will drop a $33 billion on their shareholders - resulting in a $3 dividend per share.
Market analysts predict […]
AOL browser release
November 30, 2004
AOL has released a prototype browser for users, which is based on a mixture of different browser technology. Employing both the Mozilla Gecko engine, as well as the Internet Explorer engine, the browser apparently allows surfers to switch as they like between both.
Check out a preview image from the Cnet coverage: New Netscape embraces Firefox, […]
Google desktop: security fears
November 30, 2004
Speculation about the powers and risks of desktop search - especially from Google - are percolating around the internet. Bruce Schneier writes in Desktop Google Finds Holes that the Google Desktop software could be exploited to search a users cache for passwords and banking information.
This is something I’ve also warned about in passing on other […]
Internet TV & search
November 30, 2004
Internet TV is a big topic at the moment - Microsoft hooked up with SBC to provide software for internet TV earlier this month - and then Yahoo! expanded their contract with SBC to provide internet TV itself.
According to the first article, Microsoft has blown around $20 billion on fruitless internet TV development. However, today’s […]
The international internet
November 30, 2004
I’m currently outsourcing some development work to people I know in India - sometimes in e-mail it’s easy to forget the time difference, though. For example, the other night I tried to arrange for some webdev work with a client site at 6pm GMT - which just happened to be near midnight local Indian time. […]
Banners deliver Ads+trojans
November 30, 2004
Earlier this week, the Register - a major hub of internet news and general interest - reported on how the a Buffer Overflow Frame (BOFRA) exploit led to its ad server serving trojans with its ads: Bofra exploit hits our ad serving supplier
Crucially, although Microsoft Windows machines are - of course - vulnerable to the […]
Wiki News?
November 30, 2004
Wiki strikes again - this time its Wiki News.
Apparently administrated by the same people behind the Wikipedia, the intention is that the wiki format will help remove bias from reporting - something that is claimed has happened on the the Wikipedia.
However, if there’s a problem from bias in an encyclopedia format, it’s hard to see […]
Trends and statistics: market research
November 30, 2004
It’s good to get a handle on the statistics of some of the major internet giants - so here’s a quick list of them, which adds Ebay’s newer pulse page stats:
EBay Pulse
Google Zeitgeist
Yahoo! buzz
Lycos 50
Sun sues little guy over “Java”
November 30, 2004
Sun Microsystems is normally seen as one of those tough little guys, trying valiantly to fend off global domination by corporate giant Microsoft.
However, in More on the legal proceedings of Sun vs. JavaGeeks.com Ted Neward puts online correspondence between himself, and Sun’s team of lawyers - who are claiming trademark infringement because:
1. His domain contains […]
Branding: also in Asia
November 29, 2004
Nick Wreden has an interesting book review: Asia Branding: A Great Way to Fly
It discusses how Ian Bately walked from a failed restaurant business, to selling Singapore Airlines globally through strong brand marketing.
The review is very in-depth, and is well worth a read itself, so long as concepts such as “brand” and “marketing” offer even […]
Sponsor a tramp
November 29, 2004
Seems as if there’s nothing you can’t sponsor these days. And the liberal Dutch have decided to mix philanthropy with advertising.
In a move that sounds so unreal you couldn’t invent it, a bunch of Augustinian Nuns in Warmoesstraa, Holland, have set up a scheme whereby the homeless get a free winter coat, so long as […]
Heidi Klum replaces clown
November 29, 2004
According to AdRants, Heidi Klum Joins McDonald’s As McHottie, Heidi Klum will become the new face of McDonalds in America.
No doubt having a supermodel to represent the company, might help Americans forget that a high fat and high salt diet does something for the obesity problem that has recently been much publicised there.
Of course, […]
Record company greed continues
November 29, 2004
EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and Universal, as well as a number of Australian record companies, have taken Kazaa to court again - this time in Australia.
Despite defeats in the USA (Grokster and Streamcast) and the Netherlands (Kazaa), the giants or music recording still insist on powering home one simple message - that they are big […]
New online scam
November 29, 2004
There’s been a lot of information on phishing issues recently. However, it seems some people are moving back to good old-fashioned scam tactics.
In this instance, the victim is an online merchant, who is sent a cheque for a purchase far in excess of the value of the purchase itself. Arrangements are then made for the […]
Playstation 3 Cell chip
November 29, 2004
Sony, IBM and Toshiba, have been working together on the development as the “Cell consortium”, on a microchip - referred to as the Cell - with specific design architecture for handling the detailed graphics demands of games, films, and broadband.
This is the same chip that Sony apparently intends to power the Playstation 3, which has […]
Asa Bailey on Viral Marketing
November 28, 2004
And in an interview with PRweek, Asa Bailey offers an insight into the motivations of viral marketing, after a recent stunt with a dead body, with a toe-tag stating: “If you understood the modern brand, you would know how to protect it.h
From the interview:
I try to put a simple view across: if you could […]
Bob Bly on Direct Marketing
November 28, 2004
Bob Bly shares some interesting insights into Direct Marketing, with what he claims as a strong top 10 of considerations in the mind of any successful direct marketer.
These include:
1. Direct marketers are only concerned with one thing – ROI (return on investment). That is, if you spend a dollar on a mailing, do you get […]
Patents to internet protocols for sale?
November 28, 2004
In a report Patent Pending, Britten Manasco and Joe McKendrick suggest that the rights to some of the most basic internet protocols could be up for sale. This comes after the registrant software company, Commerce One, filed for bankruptcy, and some 39 patents it registered are included in its saleable assets.
According to the report, […]