Google Gives Froogle Local Touch
NY Times
Google has added a feature to its largely unsuccessful Froogle comparison shopping service that lets merchants provide local shopping information. Besides contact, location and mapping information, the service now also provides up-to-the-minute inventory updates, so users would know ahead of time if a retailer currently carries the item they're searching for. Google is licensing the inventory data from an unnamed third party. Executives and analysts agreed that the service would be useful for bulky items users would rather not have shipped to them. Local postings on the Froogle site will be free to retailers; Google plans to monetize the service the same way it does its other services: via relevant pay-per-click text ads lining the right-hand side.
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Craigslist Founder to Launch Community Journalism Project
The Guardian
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, the Web site that has single-handedly revolutionized classified advertising in the U.S., is now setting his sights on a new market: journalism, reports The Guardian, a British paper. Speaking at an Oxford University forum, Newmark said he plans to bring his "wisdom of the masses" approach to his new journalism project, which is expected to launch in the next three months. Newmark said the project will use a similar ad model to the one deployed by Craigslist. Citing recent news scandals, Newmark said journalism has "lost the trust" of the public, because papers "are afraid to talk truth to power." Other than that, the article contains few specifics about the vague-sounding project. Craiglist is one of the top 10 most visited sites on the Internet.
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Q3 Online Retail Sales Up 27 Percent
Internet Retailer
Online retail sales hit $23.32 billion in the third quarter, up 26.7 percent from last year's third quarter, the Census Bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce said. By comparison, total retail sales in the same period were up 8.5 percent, to $957.9 billion. Online retail sales now account for 2.3 percent of total sales, but the Commerce Department weighs this figure against all U.S. sales, including those that would never be performed online, such as gasoline and service station sales. Barring those types of sales, Internet Retailer says online's proportion would likely be 6 percent.
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Google Opens Door to Separate Bidding on Search, Contextual Pages
ClickZ
For years, advertisers have been asking Google to let them bid separately for the contextual ads that appear on Google's publisher network, as opposed to those appearing on its search engine results. Now they can, reports ClickZ. Last week, Google quietly added "content bids" to its AdWords program for advertisers, which lets them bid more or less for content (ads running on its AdSense publisher network) than search. Many advertisers have had mixed responses to the effectiveness of their AdSense campaigns. Previously, when advertisers signed up for both search and contextual bid for keywords, they had no choice whether their ad appeared in search results or on an AdSense publisher's pages. Advertisers have been requesting that Google change this, as many believe that AdSense listings increase traffic but offer a lower return on investment. By contrast, Google rival Overture has allowed its advertisers to bid separately for nearly two years.
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BitTorrent, MPAA Reach Strange Agreement
Forbes.com
BitTorrent, an open-source software program that lets users swap files, has made a curious deal with the Motion Picture Association of America, saying it (BitTorrent ) will do its utmost to curb illegal file swapping on its Web site, specifically by removing pirated files from its search engine, according to Forbes.com. The curious part is that unlike Napster, which enabled such illegal file swapping through its central server, BitTorrent is just software that can be endlessly tweaked by its users, like different strains of the same flu. In other words, there's not much BitTorrent can do to enforce the promise it's making to the MPAA. In fact, according to research firm BigChampagne, the BitTorrent site doesn't even crack the top 20 list of sites specializing in BitTorrent files. Ostensibly, the deal will one day offer motion picture studios a chance to be distribution partners for digital files of their content, but more than anything, the agreement simply means that Hollywood won't be suing BitTorrent over the actions of its users. One wonders how the Grokster folks feel about this one....
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Column: New Media to Affect Broadcast Upfront
Hollywood Reporter
The broadcast networks have a big problem, says the Hollywood Reporter's Diane Mermigas. The television upfront season, an advertising institution, is just six months away, but she says there is no way the networks can launch a new season with the kind of pricing and strategies used in the past. She says that this year, just to maintain last year's pricing and volume levels, the networks may have to throw in new media or a few extra product placements, as now more than ever the economics of the $18 billion network TV upfront is being scrutinized. Why? Because advertisers are getting used to the culture of relevancy and accountability that surrounds new media, which she argues is no longer unknown territory. New media's spending will hit a record $12 billion this year and is expected to grow its share of the ad market for years to come. This year, the Internet is expected to contribute 30 percent of advertising growth, Mermigas says, reducing the growth rate of traditional advertising to 3.9 percent in 2005 and 2.9 percent in 2006.
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