Month: February 2006

Here is a great introductory article on the nuts and bolts of IPTV technology. Why is this important or relevant to local? The architecture of IPTV systems will allow for a two way street of communication between users and servers much like the IP architecture of the web which makes it much more interactive than…

Yahoo! some time ago launched a free website offering for small businesses (to get their content and as a "foot in the door" for web hositing upsells). When I speak to Yahoo! about it, they won’t reveal numbers but say the product has been well received. Today Google launched something similar but somewhat broader: "Google…

Online classifieds site LiveDeal.com launched a free rental listings service today. Read about it here and here.

Red Herring reports on a social search engine that has launched called PreFound. Like others in this growing space — led most notably by Yahoo! (Flickr, MyWeb, del.icio.us etc.) — its success will depend on gaining a critical mass of users to do all the tagging and indexing on which a social search model is…

A study by research firm Compete (found via Search Engine Watch) found Google has the most loyalty among its users. Here is how the rest of the search engines stacked up: * Google: 71.0% * Yahoo!: 48.1% * MSN: 27.8% * Excite: 23.4% * AOL: 23.2% * Ask: 21.6% * AltaVista: 16.6% * Clusty: 10.3%…

eMarketer predicts an uptick in online auto ads this year. Auto advertisers will spend 1.9 billion in online advertising in 2006 and almost $2.7 in 2007 — up from 1.4 billion last year, according to the research firm. Other notable facts cited by eMarketer: * 70 percent of auto buyers use the Web at some…

There are many things happening that I’d like to write and post about, but I’ve been unable to because of travel. Yesterday I was at the NAA conference and moderated a very interesting panel on "free" classifieds. I attended another interesting discussion on local search and talked to many vendors in the exhibit hall. I…

Today’s N.Y. Times (reg. req’d) has a pro-"net neutrality" editorial: If access tiering takes hold, the Internet providers, rather than consumers, could become the driving force in how the Internet evolves. Those corporations’ profit-driven choices, rather than users’ choices, would determine which sites and methodologies succeed and fail. They also might be able to stifle…

MySpace’s phenomenal popularity with the teens and early twentysomethings generated a $580 million acquisition by the seventysomething Rupert Murdoch. Here are some truly impressive recent metrics on the site (according to comScore): 24.2 million unique users in October 2005 11.6 billion page views in October 2005 More page views than any destination other than Yahoo!,…

Chris Sherman at Search Engine Watch writes up a bit of the history of Ask Jeeves now that the butler’s retirement is here. This is something that has been well over a year in coming. The question now is whether jettisoning the Jeeves part of the brand will help the engine gain share. Ask has…

There are a few interesting posts on the Lost Remote blog today that relate to our post yesterday about online vs. traditional broadcasting of the Olympic games. Read them here and here.

Here’s a roundup of data by aggregator eMarketer on broadband adoption — now pegged at 61 percent of U.S. households, according to Ipsos. eMarketer summarizes that price is the major barrier to continued penetration in the U.S. market: According to a new survey from the Yankee Group, the most common reason US consumers don’t subscribe…

When people have asked me about "vertical search" and the associated opportunity, I’ve argued that there is an opportunity but it’s mixed. Because the general search market is locked up right now we’re seeing a ton of companies offering a more specialized content experience with search as the hook or angle. It’s also the case…

Here is yet another roundup of broadband video channel launches.

This USA Today piece explains that Olympics video content is perfect for online distribution. Much like the Live 8 event that AOL covered online to much acclaim, the Olympic games are filled with simultaneous events that happen sometimes on the other side of the globe. Some events only appeal to niche audiences — like the…

Search Engine Journal covers the upcoming Yahoo Search Marketing Searchlight Awards in N.Y. The program is highlighting the innovative work of agencies that have combined traditional campaigns with search marketing. I’ll be racing from the Newspaper Association of America show in Orlando to N.Y. to be one of the "industry expert panelists" at the Yahoo!…

Like Yahoo! before it, Microsoft is now offering free basic Web sites to local/small businesses. I haven’t set one up so I don’t know how "robust" it is compared with what Yahoo! offers. It’s pretty clearly a kind of "foot in the door" strategy to get SMEs on board. I’ve long believed that free Web…

SiliconBeat blogs about Podbop, a site that combines podcasting and local. It allows you to hear podcasts of bands that are playing in the local market. One can search by artist or location. The site links to Eventful.com, which provides the venue information. Local events are a relatively still undeveloped area online — probably a…