Gawker: valleywag, cox

Forbes, Cox pay blogs to run anti-gay-marriage ads

Owen Thomas — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:20:00 EDT

Forbes.com, the online arm of the right-wing business magazine, is offering to pay blogs to run a political ad supporting a ban on gay marriage. The price: $2.85 per thousand pageviews. The ad advocates the passage of Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative. The blogs in question are part of Forbes's Business and Financial Blog Network, an online-ad network which places ads sold by Forbes salespeople on independent sites. The network itself is run by Adify, an ad-technology company now owned by Cox, the media-and-cable-TV conglomerate. The ad won't run automatically, according to an email from Sharon Gitelle, who's listed on Forbes.com as a "membership" contact; bloggers must specifically choose it. Politics aside, a $2.85 CPM, or cost per thousand pageviews, is nothing to sneeze at in these tough economic times. Reached on the phone, Gitelle said, "I'm not talking to Valleywag." So we know this much: She's no dummy! Here's the email she sent:

Comcast lies to FCC about blocking file-sharing

Jackson West — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:20:00 EDT

Cable copmany Comcast assured the FCC that the company's "network management" practices that involved blocking file-sharing traffic only affected heavy users during peak hours. However, tests found that the Internet service provider blocks such traffic for a majority of users all day, every day, as does fellow ISP Cox. [Torrentfreak]

Online-ad network Adify sold for $300 million

Owen Thomas — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:50:00 EDT

The news of Adify's $300 million sale was likely the first time most had heard of the online-advertising company. The San Bruno startup was so obscure that Silicon Alley Insider, which first aired the rumor of a sale did not include Adify in its list of the 25 most valuable startups. The price cable-and-newspapers conglomerate Cox paid for the startup would otherwise qualify it for that list. Ad networks, which allow advertisers to buy and publishers to sell ads across multiple websites, have become faddish; and Adify, which allowed anyone to launch a network of their own, caters expertly to that fad.

NBC, Martha Stewart, and Forbes use Adify to run their own networks; with capable sales forces but undersized websites, ad networks allow them to expand their Web reach. Cox was interested in signing up with Adify as a customer, then decided to buy them outright.

One hopes Cox executives don't think an Adify buy turns them into Google overnight. It gives them technology. But the value of a network isn't primarily in the technology; it's in the data, which allows the operator of the network to refine targeting, improve pricing, and increase its take. A number of small, atomic ad networks may keep salespeople better employed. But they won't overturn the industry's status quo.

Remainders: Vlog the Implogger

Nick Douglas — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:45:14 EDT

Anything, anything but calling them "vlogs!" A chat where every line is as good as: "i'm so addicted to video journals, i've got vournal disease" [jaschu's record]
Craigslist gets Cox-blocked. (Heehee! Cox!) [Silicon Valley Watcher]
Michael Arrington is sick and tired of those giddy Google worshippers. "What drives this kind of blind enthusiasm? When is the last time Google released a product that really changed our lives?" Yeah, startups do all the life-changing stuff, like a news service for MySpace's teenage userbase! [TechCrunch]
It's slicker, it's eight-bittier, it's a little more emasculating — underrated fake-friends site Consumating just took the bandages off its facelift. [Consumating]
Apparently SingleStat.us, which was coded over the weekend with no intention of actually getting attention, is now a zeitgeist of our stalkeresque society. [WebProNews]