Gawker
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politics
Is Google Heading For an Antitrust Trainwreck?
Everyone has misunderstood why Google, from CEO Eric Schmidt on down, is cozying up to Barack Obama. It's not out of some likeminded geekiness. It's out of desperation and fear.
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By Owen ThomasComment by FormerEnglishMajor: Terrific incentive for all you guys who want to build a business - as soon as you succeed, Uncle Sam... 6 Responses | Other threads
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valleywag
Yahoo CEO Lays Off Workers, Not Swear Words
Carol Bartz, Yahoo's recently installed CEO, is a woman of many charms, not the least of which is her gutter mouth. She dropped the F-bomb today while announcing Yahoo's sucky earnings (and more layoffs). More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Firsthand: Looks like they are moving in the right direction by putting Ari in charge of engineering and product he can... more » | Other threads
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lawsuits
Spot Runner Looks Like a Scam Runner
There's something adorable about Nick Grouf, the babyfaced, waggle-eared cofounder of Spot Runner. Who would think he'd be capable of bilking investors out of tens of millions of dollars, as one shareholder charges? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by oneninesevenfour: But it's hard to imagine a business less efficient than one which loses $5 for every $1 it makes. I... 2 Responses | Other threads
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funny
Facebook's Get-Rich-Quick Scheme Has Yankees Player Sliding Into Home
Facebook's revenues are reportedly up 70 percent from last year, when they came in between $250 million and $300 million. What's their magic trick? Junky ads with catchy photos! More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Widget Economist: Fact. Google wouldn't be the business it was today if it didn't have OUTSIDE advertising (AdSense) Come Facebook's insular, doomed ad... 7 Responses | Other threads
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confirmed
Google to Lay Off 200 Employees
Make it official: Google's not immune from the bad economy and plummeting ad market. We've been hearing for weeks that Google would have layoffs. Google is cutting 200 employees today, the company now confirms.
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By Owen ThomasComment by TheHonJudgeSmails: I long for the day when spokespeople respond immediately when contacted for comment by a blog. 3 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
After Promising It Wouldn't, Twitter Dips an Adorable Toe into Advertising
When is an advertisement not an advertisement? When Twitter says it's an "interesting topical experience." That's what cofounder Biz Stone, who once promised Twitter's website would never carry ads, is calling Microsoft's ExecTweets. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by kitkatsplash: Can Guy Kawaski and others start paying for their spam tweets, then? Seriously. I had to attend a... 4 Responses | Other threads
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free
Google, No Longer the Land of the Free
The accountants have taken over the Googleplex, once a hotbed of amiably unprofitable innovation. The notion that ads would pay the way for everything has been dropped — and "fee" is replacing "free." More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by unclevanya: What the hell is Google Checkout? I use the Web, Image, Video and Map searches. Anything else is delusional meat... 4 Responses | Other threads
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google
How Google Will Invade Your Privacy While 'Protecting' It
The geniuses at Google, the world's most arrogantly clever ad sellers, have announced plans to target ads to Internet users based on their "interests." You can opt out — but there's a catch. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Skyler David Insler: Google is a scapegoat here. Every advertising network and online media company has similar practices. In fact, from Google's opt-out... 2 Responses | Other threads
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death of print
Here's Hoping Google Does Kill the Newspapers
The news that Google is placing ads on Google News has sent a renewed wave of handwringing through the newspaper industry. How dare those Googlers make online news a profitable business! More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Elliot Poger: OK, and once the newspapers die, who's going to write the stories? (No, not bloggers churning out copy in... 10 Responses | Other threads
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death of print
Only a Cable Guy Could Come Up With Newsday's Pay-Only Scheme
Pundits will say Newsday's desperate plan to charge for the Long Island newspaper's website is some kind of bellwether for the industry. What it really means: Newsday and its owner, Cablevision, have nothing to lose. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by OlgaGrisha: "Some local Long Island News"? That's pretty much all Newsday is and has been for years now. People know this,... 2 Responses | Other threads
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facebook
Facebook's Get-Rich-Quick Scheme
"Once every hundred years, media changes," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in 2007, predicting a sea change in online advertising. The reality: His social network is leading the way in online scams.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Rachel Marsden: Fuck it. Just charge for it already. I'd pay. It's one of the few valuable tools on the web for... 5 Responses | Other threads
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adsense
Google Sees Right Through Julia Allison
NonSociety, Julia Allison's experient in making macro bucks from microcelebrity, hasn't come up with a clever way of paying the bills. So she's running cheapo Google AdSense ads! Do they ever tell a story. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by friend_of_a_friend: Every time I see that pic all I can think is "Mutton dressed as lamb." 17 Responses | Other threads
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google
Google Cuts Off Its Big-Media Dreams
Like Napoleon marching into an abandoned Moscow, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have led Google's advance into traditional advertising only to find nothing to loot. Now begins Google's long imperial retreat, starting with 40 layoffs. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by CheapCynicism: Is that analogy right, Owen? If I remember AP Euro History, the march to Moscow and its occupation cost Napoleon... 5 Responses | Other threads
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anniversaries
Facebook at 5: What the Future Holds
Every generation that logs on thinks they invented the Internet. With Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg may actually have done it. His social network turns five today, and in that time, it has actually changed the world.
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By Owen ThomasComment by if_i_only_had_a_heart: hey, you kids on the facebook over there, get off my lawn! "For some vulnerable minds with not much to report... 6 Responses | Other threads
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acquisitions
The Unbearable Yahoo-AOL-Microsoft Dance
Someone buy something, please. Our New York sighting of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer with Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock missed one: Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who'd like to unload AOL. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by macbeach: I can't help but think that any deal involving Microsoft will be challenged legally. Nobody's going to complain as... 1 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Layoffs at Federated Media Signal Blogs' Ill Health
John Battelle is the salesman for a host of indie sites, from the futuristic Boing Boing to the Web-obsessed TechCrunch to mommyblog Dooce. What does it say that his company, Federated Media, is canning workers? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by TrilbyAuxo: I missed the former story on how he tried to misuse other blogs for a Microsoft campaign. I think what... more » | Other threads
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yahoo
Yahoo's Holiday Bonus: A Lawsuit Settled
If you thought Google's "dogfood" holiday gift was chintzy, check out what Yahoo employees got: $50. To donate to charity. Some others, though, are stuffing their stockings with a $10 million legal settlement.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Lucille van Pelt: I agree, it's kind of silly that they were given money to donate to charity. but come on, bonuses are... 4 Responses | Other threads
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online video
Report: Sarah Palin destroying Web video
We've uncovered what's really killing the online-advertising business: Sarah Palin! Or rather, the lack thereof. Traffic at Hulu, NBC's YouTube wannabe, tumbled in November without the Web's favorite hot lady governor and VP candidate.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Catherine Helzerman: Palin was made for reality TV. Her family is a walking soap opera. I'm still waiting for cliff... more » | Other threads
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blogging for dollars
Ladyblog publisher bad at asking for money, just like other ladies
More bloggers getting paycuts! Today, the slasher is BlogHer, a network of ladyblogs which grew out of a conference for ladybloggers. We feel more sorry for the women behind BlogHer than the ladies they're shortchanging.
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By Owen ThomasComment by James Harris: Owen, I know the entire BlogHer management team and I have to say that they are insightful, talented, world class entrepreneurs.... 1 Responses | Other threads
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fake trends
Making money on YouTube? Not so fast
There's gold in them thar YouTubes! People are making literally thousands of dollars a month! What a fluttery Times trend piece doesn't say: Most of YouTube is a creative desert with zero moneymaking potential.
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By Owen ThomasComment by macbeach: I tried watching both of these programs when I first saw them mentioned here months ago. I had trouble getting through... 2 Responses | Other threads
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social networks
Why Facebook wants to spam your News Feed
Social networks have a lifecycle: They start with a small core of early adopters, swell as mainstream users get pulled in by their friends, and then see growth taper off as people get turned off by spam. That's why Friendster is forgotten and why MySpace is looking increasingly stagnant. The price for reaching an audience advertisers care about seems to be a site users can't stand. Facebook, however, isn't following the fashionable trend. -
meltdowns
Wall Street Journal traffic doubles, but no ads
The Wall Street Journal's website traffic doubled in October as nervous-wreck investors tracked the economy's nosedive. But the usual WSJ advertisers — banks and luxury items such as watches — aren't buying ads to go on all those pageviews. Usually, advertisers confirm their planned holiday spending level to the Journal by October, so the paper can be sure to make space for them. This year, silence. It's the same at many other business publications. Good thing I already got laid off, so I don't have to worry about it.
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By Paul BoutinComment by macbeach: Any ideas on why their traffic numbers are doing so well? I'm a subscriber, but I rarely go there for my... 1 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
The death of conversational marketing
An unproar in the world of tech blogs is uncovering a broader fault line between writers and advertisers. Om Malik's GigaOm and his other blogs have dropped their outside ad-sales firm, Federated Media, a startup run by John Battelle. Federated isn't just another ad network, nor is Battelle just another entrepreneur; he helped start Wired and The Industry Standard and an author of a book about Google, thinks that the future of marketing is conversations. And he launched Federated around that notion. Rather than shouting at readers with ads, marketers will use blogs to engage with their readers — and pay handsomely for the privilege. That's his theory, at any rate, which he is expounding in a forthcoming book. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by DesireeKollina: Owen - It's astonishing how many things you can get wrong in a single post. Rather than list each and... 2 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Googlers take turns insulting P&G marketers
Nothing, it seems, can stop Google — except the overweening hubris of its employees. Every time Googlers venture outside the Googleplex to demonstrate their charitable embrace of the digitally unfortunate, they end up just reinforcing their snobby superiority. So it went with the search giant's job-swap program with starchy old-media marketer Procter & Gamble. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Mouser_UK: how does a 50's era TV ad apply at all to todays market i'me sure we all laugh or wince... 2 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Google hit by slump in product searches
Google's oh-so-clever ad system has an Achilles heel: As consumers cut back on spending, they also cut back on Google searches for stuff they want to buy. Furthermore, many shoppers now click on more links in search of a bargain. An official statement from IAC, which uses Google to serve ads on Ask.com, says search trends "have not been good over the last 30 to 60 days ... particularly on commercial-oriented queries." On the upside, the WSJ's reporting didn't find an analyst willing to forecast anything gloomier than 11% growth for Google in 2009. On the downside, 11% growth at Google means no more buying jets to park at Nasa next door.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Goose Spruce: If AdWords falls behind in profits im sure they can capitalize on their intelligent power grid, spreadsheets, android, and flying... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Federated Media slashes rates to $5 CPM
John Battelle has his own plan for riding out the holiday ad-buying slump. The founder of online-advertising network Federated Media, which brokers ads for sites like Boing Boing, GigaOm, and Dooce, can't fire writers, but he can cut the price of their ads. John, be careful. Your inbred network is made up of bloggers who are also endorsers, who also shill their own products. Your list of clients is months out of date — it includes Digg and Fark, who long ago dropped Federated. Cut ad rates too carelessly and your Rube Goldberg business model may backfire. I mean this as the highest compliment: If anyone can lay himself off by accident, that someone is John Battelle. Here's the spam that Federated sent to bloggers this morning: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by UpshawOrmberg: Paul, For the record, FM is not "slashing rates" but offering a promotion for "run of category" (not site-specific) buys for... 1 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Google selling YouTube ads, for real, finally
Just read Alleywag's summary. Then read the New York Times' official version. I tested Google's canned example: Search YouTube for "financial crisis." Get an ad for a super-violent movie. Those Google people are smart!
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By Paul BoutinComment by seanpercival: Not sure why this took them so long, I stop clicking banners awhile ago but videos still get me. So... more » | Other threads
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loser-generated content
YouTube ads must be big in Japan
YouTube has never been this exciting. And I don't mean the puppy videos. The video-sharing site is frenetically experimenting with every imaginable form of advertising, from prerolls to rollovers to overlays. There's even that staple of late-night television — headache pills! For this, we can thank Ben Ling, the product manager who recently returned to Google from Facebook to figure out how to make money on YouTube. But surely the most absurd ads we're seeing right now are the adaptations of Google's familiar text ads displayed on Web search results. A blog post featuring two cat-with-head-trapped-in-bag videos — a staple of YouTube users' contributions to the world of cinema — has ads "by Google" slapped on top of them. In Japanese.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Drunken Economist: Oh, Owen, you TOTALLY MISSED the Fark: "Chinese product manager [related to Bai Ling? Another Asian bizarro?] returns to Google to... more » | Other threads
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gawker media
Nick Denton: "Publishers are sleeping their way to extinction"
Think things are bad in the media business? You ain't seen nothin' yet. That's the message Nick Denton, the owner of Gawker Media, an online publisher whose properties include this website, lays out in a new essay now published on his personal blog. (A draft I saw was headlined "Publishers Are Sleeping Their Way to Extinction"; he has now headlined it "A 2009 Internet Media Plan." Denton never was much good at headlines.) Analysts project a single-digit increase in online advertising in 2009; we should be so lucky, according to Denton, who writes that a 30 to 40 percent decline in all advertising spending, online and off, next year — a scenario supported by analyses of economic recessions from Sweden to Indonesia. His conclusion? "Publishers should be planning for the worst, now." Here's what Denton's cost-cutting recommendations could mean for his own company. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Alaska Miller: I want to be Nick Denton when I grow up. 5 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Why Facebook can't sell ads
Facebook has made a bold bet on being the next Google. The problem is that it may have made the wrong bet. The Wall Street Journal has taken tardy notice of Facebook's "engagement ads," first launched in August. They are not an easy sell; they require advertisers to come up with some compelling "action" for Facebook users to take, which will then be shared with their friends, and thus spread virally through the social network. And yet the chief way Facebook hopes to sell these ads is through an automated sign-up process. Facebook has a direct-sales team, but its top management lacks experience in managing large sales teams. Which may explain why MySpace, which has built a large salesforce by recruiting heavily from Yahoo, has 15.9 percent of the display-ad market, while Facebook has a mere 1.1 percent. (Chart by WSJ/ComScore)
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By Owen ThomasComment by ifstone: But Facebook doesn't run many (any?) display ads, which is one point in its favor compared to MySpace, which has... 2 Responses | Other threads
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patents
Google in $3 billion Russian lawsuit
A Russian company, Era Volodeya seeks $3 billion in damages for allegedly violating its patent on contextual advertisements, the keyword-matching technique which has made Google the largest company in online advertising. I'm waiting for some tipster to tell me that Era Volodeya is secretly a KGB front with ties to Vladimir Putin, and that this is just a follow-up to the government's move to block a Google acquisition in Russia on antitrust grounds.
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By Owen ThomasComment by deluxe2000plus: In Soviet-Russia the Internet finds you. Putin will put Eric Schmidt in jail for stealing great Russian Technology. Russia has... more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Google bails on Yahoo deal
Google won't be providing ads to Yahoo. The official Google version of the story says, "It's clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners." Then again, it also says, "That would be like trying to drive down the road of innovation with the parking brake on." I'm serious. A grownup wrote that.
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By Paul BoutinComment by TheGunslinger: Haha! Uh oh. Maybe the Microsoft deal looks a little better now. Hindsight is a great thing. Down, down, down. more » | Other threads
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deathwatch
Glam Media making publishers wait four months for cash
When will Samir Arora admit that Glam Media, his online ad network, is running out of money? Glam buys up ad space on websites and resells it to advertisers, as well as operating a few token websites itself. But it has overpaid for much of that space, and revenues are running dangerously short of projections. Now, Glam is delaying its payments to partners by up to 120 days, claiming that the move is necessary because advertisers are slowing their payments to Glam. Which is utter nonsense. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Robert Barr: The only organization that I know of that pays net 120 is the government. If Glam is have accounts receivables... more » | Other threads
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the sum of all human knowledge
Wikipedia running ads
What's that on the top of every page on Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales's nonprofit encyclopedia? Why, it's an ad! Wales had long promised that Wikipedia would not carry advertising, but he makes an exception for the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia's nonprofit parent. What Wales doesn't mention: Wikipedia will soon have many new ways of making money available to it, thanks to a revision in its open-source license. Wikipedia is switching from an obscure, restrictive agreement with its roots in software documentation to a much looser Creative Commons copyright license — which means the Wikimedia Foundation will be able to profit from its volunteers' editorial work. While they're at it, why don't Wales and company just run banner ads, too? The donation drive seems like an excellent opportunity to show potential advertisers how effective Wikipedia's ads can be.
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By Owen ThomasComment by dogcat: I've just had a terrible thought... Perhaps Owen's scoop was just too big, and Jimbo instructed the wikipidiots to perform a... 2 Responses | Other threads
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hires
Another Microsoftie joins Yahoo's new cult of personality
Heavy.com continues to get lighter; Eric Hadley, who only joined the funny-videos-for-guys startup a year ago as chief marketing officer, has joined Yahoo as its VP of advertiser and partner marketing. He'd previously worked for a decade at Microsoft. We see the hand of Joanne Bradford in this; she's the former MSN chief who now runs ad sales at Yahoo. The pattern here? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by ValleySag: This guy puts the "I" in Incompetent. He's not qualified to do anything really. He is entry-level pr at best.... 1 Responses | Other threads
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antitrust
America's CTO bows to the feds on Yahoo-Google deal
When did Eric Schmidt turn into such a wimp? When Google and Yahoo first proposed a deal to have Google sell search ads for Yahoo, Schmidt brazenly gave antitrust regulators a four-month deadline to review it. After that, Google would blaze ahead with the deal. The deadline came and went. Over the weekend, Google and Yahoo turned in a revised deal that they hoped would impress regulators. The bottom line: It is half as lucrative as Yahoo had hoped, generating $400 million a year rather than $800 million, limiting Google-sold ads to a quarter of Yahoo's search-related revenue. It's better than nothing, but it leaves Schmidt in a weak position the next time he wants to talk tough with the feds. Then again, maybe he's planning to dump Larry and Sergey for a nice, safe government job.
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By Owen ThomasComment by its_a_feature: I don't think he's ever intended to actually implement the deal. Instead, it has just served as a way... 2 Responses | Other threads
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nick grouf
Spot Runner CEO lays off 115, calls Valleywag to brag about it
You know when a layoff's really bad? When the CEO calls Valleywag to spin it. Spot Runner's Nick Grouf rang us up to let us know he was laying off 115 of the 385 or so employees at his online-advertising concern, which helps small businesses manage the complicated process of buying TV ads. The cuts follow a round of 50 layoffs in August. Grouf is also moving some key employees from an office in Fremont, Calif., which Spot Runner picked up when it acquired local-search startup Weblistic, to L.A. Grouf says Spot Runner is getting out of the search-ads market and "exploring strategic alternatives" for Weblistic, which is corporatespeak for trying to find a buyer. When he wasn't sounding like a get-out-the-vote robocall, Grouf did a decent job of feigning optimism. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by BeckyOogle: Apparently they're not done. Everybody not attached to Project Malibu will be gone within the next two weeks.... or so... more » | Other threads
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politics
Misplaced Prop 8 ads sparking Google boycott
As the election approaches, more bloggers are noticing ads from backers of Proposition 8, the gay-marriage ban appearing on Californians' ballots, courtesy of Google. The search engine's algorithm is mindlessly matching them to phrases like "gay marriage," regardless of whether the blog in question is for or against. Scott Beale, who blogs about Internet culture at Laughing Squid, has blocked the yes-on-8 ads, and, for good measure, taken Google's ads off his site altogether until after the election. He's not alone; one fashion website adminitrator tells Valleywag she's taken similar measures. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by dancurranjr: I also added the ads URLs to the Competitive Ad filter at Adsense this morning yet they are still showing... 2 Responses | Other threads
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online advertising
Nick Denton promises 40 percent reduction in my self-esteem
“Anyone who isn’t prepared for ads to go down 40 percent is crazy.” That's what Valleywag publisher Nick Denton blabbed to the wantrepreneurs at an event in New York last week. AllThingsD reblogger Peter Kafka rolled up Denton's irrational gloom into a big-picture gloom post this morning. There's some good news buried in the middle of Kafka's post: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Migrant Blogger: You're allowed to have self esteem? Nick must not know that. more » | Other threads
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online advertising
Viacom turns MySpace bootlegs into an advertunity
A year ago, Viacom sued YouTube for one billion dollars, claiming YouTube was not blocking uploads of copyrighted Viacom material from Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1 and others. Today, MySpace will join YouTube in running ads targeted to Viacom-owned clips, instead of deleting them. Auditude, a Palo Alto startup, provides the software that identifies Viacom-owned content. Remember when musicians believed all advertising was evil? Now, I'm looking forward to seeing a Big & Rich ad targeted against another Big & Rich ad, overlaid by another Big & Rich ad for a Big & Rich ad I haven't seen yet. Collect them all!
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By Paul BoutinComment by Uncle-Sam's Littlle Helper: Thanks! I tried to write you back on MySpace, but my network is running so slow because of all... more » | Other threads
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Transformers blows up this weekend. Need to know more? io9 gets down and dirty with the superbots.
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Gizmodo's just reviewed two great smartphones, the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3GS. Here's a guide to help you decide which is better for you.
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The Life of Steve Jobs - So far.
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