Web sites run by the campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are "leaking" usernames and other potentially identifiable data, according to a new report by Stanford grad student Jonathan Mayer. "The major presidential campaigns both fell short of best practices in their Web site design and testing," Mayer wrote Thursday in a blog post outlining his findings. Mayer reports that referrer headers on several pages from the site BarackObama.com include the usernames of people who have registered with the site. Those usernames consist of a Facebook name (with the first and last name separated by a dot), or the first part of an email address (before the @ symbol). Referrer headers on several pages from MittRomney.com also include names, and in some cases, partial email addresses and ZIP codes. Those referrer headers can be seen by third parties that track visitors to the campaigns' sites. Mayer reports that 10 companies receive usernames from BarackObama.com: Akamai, Amazon, BrightTag, Chartbeat, Facebook, Google, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, New Relic, Think Realtime, and Zendesk. He says 13 companies receive partial email addresses from MittRomney.com: Adobe, Akamai, Amazon, Compete, comScore, Facebook, Google, Lotame, New Relic, Optimizely, Search Discovery, ShareThis, and Syncapse. Both of the presidential campaigns reportedly are undertaking extensive efforts to track and target potential voters who visit the official campaign sites. The New York Timesreported on Sunday that Evidon recently found 76 tracking programs on BarackObama.com, and 40 trackers on MittRomney.com. The prospect of data leakage via referrer headers has been known since at least 1999, when Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee warned of that possibility. More recently, researchers from AT&T and Worcester Polytechnic Institute reported that many popular sites and social networks, like Facebook and MySpace, were leaking personally identifiable data. After those reports came out, some sites revised the way they configured referrer headers.
Digital agencies have begun to verify the benefits from Google product listing ads (PLAs). Sales revenue rose 607% for retailers managing such ads through Kenshoo, while increasing the amount spent on PLAs by 348%, according to a new report by the digital marketing company. The report is based on analysis of more than 270 million global impressions and clicks aggregated from merchants managing PLAs through the company's platform. Those ads triggering Kenshoo custom PLA bid policies saw 89% improvements in return on ad spend. Many retailers have begun to invest more to optimize the PLA format, expanding the role of the ads. Some believe that voice search on mobile apps will increase the need for PLAs. Kenshoo CMO Aaron Goldman said that in order to create PLAs, search marketers must actively monitor product feeds. Having structured data and organizing products makes it easy for Google to serve it to any potential query across any device. Overall, Kenshoo found that Google PLAs outperformed text search ads. Click-through rate (CTR) rose 73% higher; conversion rate (CVR) came in 35% higher; average cost-per-click (CPC) was 36% lower; and return on ad spend (ROAS) was 46% higher. The company's clients using Kenshoo PLA bid policies gain an additional 4% CTR, 34% CVR, 31% average decline in CPCs, and 89% increase in ROAS. The uptick from Google PLAs is not limited to Kenshoo clients. Adlucent client BabyEarth expanded the number of PLA targets from less than 100 to more than 10,000 within one month, growing revenue from 193% in August to 201% in September. The average monthly revenue from PLAs rose 129%. The Search Agency also released a report this week that shows how Google PLAs grew by triple digits. Spend on Google's Product Listings rose by 378% sequentially, and share of click traffic rose 656%. PLAs experienced a 25.4% CTR and 36.5% CPC decline.
Social media isn’t getting behind either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. In fact, it’s downright negative about both presidential candidates, according to a study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The report examines coverage of each candidate from the party conventions to the eve of the final presidential debate, finding that both candidates have received more negative than positive news coverage, although the president has a slight edge. From Aug. 27 to Oct. 21, 19% of stories about Obama in the mainstream media were positive, 30% were unfavorable, and 51% were mixed. For Romney, 15% of stories were favorable, 38% were unfavorable, and 47% were mixed -- a differential toward negative stories of 23 points compared to 11 for Obama. But the study points out that social media -- specifically, Facebook, Twitter and blogs -- has been far harsher on the candidates than the mainstream media. “There, the narrative about both men has been relentlessly negative and relatively unmoved by campaign events," stated the report, noting that this is "more a barometer of social media user mood than a reflection of candidate action." Still, there are some differences depending on the platform. Twitter is leaning toward Obama, with 25% of the stories or posts favorable to the president compared to just 16% for Romney. At the same time, 45% of the chatter about Obama has been negative, with 58% unfavorable for his Republican challenger. On Facebook, which helped Obama galvanize support from young voters in 2008, the conversation about him four years later has turned mostly negative (53%). That compares to 62% for Romney. The two are about even in positive buzz, at 24% and 23%, respectively. The Pew report noted that the perception of Obama on Facebook has actually improved over the course of the debates. When it comes to the blogosphere, both candidates again are essentially in a dead heat, with 44% and 46% of the discussion negative about Obama and Romney, respectively. “The overall tone of the conversation on blogs for both of the candidates was sharply negative, only just somewhat less so than on Facebook and Twitter,” according to the study.
Several days after Hurricane Sandy tore up the Atlantic Coast, some search marketing agencies and their clients continue to feel the aftermath. While some brands continue to increase online budgets, especially mobile, others put campaigns on hold. The storm could create mixed revenue results for search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo when they report Q4 2012 earnings. Rob Griffin, EVP, global director of product development at Havas Digital, expects to see some fallout with brands that are more sensitive or that have businesses that rely on local commerce and activity. It's not clear whether search query volume will rise during the quarter or whether the industry will see an impact on mobile devices. Sandy clearly impacted paid search with declines across many metrics for IgnitionOne U.S. clients, notes President Roger Barnette. "When the storm was at its worst on Tuesday, compared with the prior week, we saw impressions down 30%, clicks down 15% and spend down 10%," he said. "These numbers are for the entire U.S. market." Bonnie Bornstein Fertel, co-owner of NJ-based heating and plumbing company Bornstein Sons, increased her online paid-search budget about 125% daily, a bigger portion allocated to mobile. Bornstein Fertel raised her online search budget after running out of the company's daily allocation around 9:30 a.m. each morning during the past few days. She also continues to analyze Web site traffic through insights gained from WordStream. Site traffic rose in October to more than 6,500, most during the last week, from 4,500 in September. "People click on every ad we have because they have no heat. But whether they heat with gas or oil, they don't understand their units are useless without electricity," she said, from her home in West Caldwell, N.J., where about 70% of residents have no power. Bornstein Fertel increased her company's search budget, but Janel Laravie, founder of Chacka Marketing, said some clients hit pause on campaigns. One that is focused on lead generation had to close its call center and main office. The company not only stopped the search campaigns, but also Facebook. "Search campaigns you can pause and resume at will without seeing serious impact, but on the Facebook side, I worry more about that," Laravie said. "It's a little more difficult to get into a rhythm on Facebook after stopping a campaign, especially when using it as a direct response and not a branding channel." After gaining momentum on the social network, halting can cause the brand to give up its position. In terms of search queries, on Bing as with any major national event or severe weather disaster, there has been a significant uptick in all search terms associated with Hurricane Sandy during the past several days. "Bing has seen a particular spike in searches for cleanup efforts, storm tracking, pictures and details about hurricane damage, as well as the storm's impact on gas prices and the impending presidential election," according to a Microsoft Bing spokesperson. "We expect these search trends to continue over the next several days as relief efforts expand and people attempt to sort out election and voting details with the disruption caused by Sandy."
A new study by Juniper Networks concludes that thousands of Android applications are collecting more information than they need, suggesting mobile users are exposing more data than they realize when downloading apps. The analysis, which examines over 1.7 million apps in the Google Play market from March 2011 to September 2012, found that free apps are four times more likely to track location, and three times more likely to have permission to access user address books than paid apps. Concerns about privacy in mobile apps first gained prominence through an investigation undertaken by The Wall Street Journal two years ago, finding that popular apps routinely collect and share personal data about users without their knowledge or consent. That and subsequent reports, along with revelations that apps like Path and Hipster were collecting users' address books without informing them, have spurred a backlash, leading to increased government scrutiny and proposed legislation, such as the Mobile Device Privacy Act. The Juniper study, conducted by its Mobile Threat Center, pointed out that there is a common assumption that free apps collecting information in order to serve ads from third-party ad networks. “While this is true in some cases, Juniper examined 683,238 application manifests and found the percentage of apps with the top five ad networks is much less than the total number tracking location (24%),” stated a blog post by Dan Hoffman, the firm’s mobile security “evangelist.” By comparison, mobile ad networks, including AdMob, Millennial Media, AirPush and AdWhirl, collectively accounted for less than 10%. “This leads us to believe there are several apps collecting information for reasons less apparent than advertising,” wrote Hoffman. Especially concerning are apps requesting permissions like the ability to silently initiate outgoing calls, send SMS messages and use a device camera. These permissions can be used to eavesdrop on conversations or pass on photos or other communications to third parties, along with potentially incurring data fees. Juniper found that racing games and casino and card apps were the mostly likely to overstep privacy bounds. For example, 94% all casino games have permission to make outbound calls but don’t explain why they would need this capability. And virtually all racing games have permission to send SMS messages and initiate calls, and half to use a phone’s camera. The firm urged developers to at least more clearly communicate why a particular function, like location-tracking or reading contacts, is necessary for a specific app. “Even though a list of permissions is presented when installing an app, most people don’t understand what they are agreeing to or have the proper information needed to make educated decisions about which apps to trust,” according to Hoffman. Most app users -- 57% -- decide either to remove particular apps, or to decide against installing them, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Center.
Continuing its strong showing as a public company, Brightcove on Thursday reported third-quarter revenue of $22.1 million -- up 32% year-over-year. The online video platform-cum-cloud-service provider, which went public in February, said subscription and support revenue was $21.5 million -- an annual increase of 35%. Revenue related to professional services and other areas was $0.6 million, which was actually down from $0.8 million during the third quarter of 2011. Regarding the company’s ongoing transition to cloud computing, CEO Jeremy Allaire said Thursday: “We are in the very early stages of a fundamental shift in how digital content is being delivered and consumed … We view this as a significant market opportunity.” Gross profit for the third quarter was $15.1 million, compared to $11.4 million for the third quarter of 2011. Non-GAAP gross profit for the quarter was $15.3 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 34% and a non-GAAP gross margin of 69%. As of Sept. 30, Brightcove had $30.8 million of cash, cash equivalents and investments -- a decrease from $58.6 million at the end of June. Brightcove attributed the decrease to its acquisition of Zencoder -- a cloud-based video encoding service and the developer of the Video.js free HTML5 video player -- which set the company back by $27.2 million in cash. During the quarter, Brightcove said it added 1,370 customers, the vast majority related to its Zencoder deal. New customers included All Nippon Air, Exact Target, Nikon and Yves St. Laurent. Looking ahead, Brightcove said it expects revenue to be $22.8 million to $23.3 million, and non-GAAP operating loss to be $1.9 million to $2.2 million. For the full year, the company expects revenue to be $86.5 million to $87 million, and non-GAAP operating loss to be $7.5 million to $7.8 million.
Professional networking site LinkedIn on Thursday reported revenue increased 81% in the third quarter, with growth in its hiring and subscription services units especially strong. Net income for the quarter was $2.3 million, or 2 cents a share, compared with a loss of $1.6 million, or 2 cents a share, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, LinkedIn reported a profit of $25.1 million, or 22 cents a share. Revenue rose to $252 million from $139.5 million in the year-earlier period. Analysts expected LinkedIn to report a profit of 11 cents a share on revenue of nearly $243.9 million. "LinkedIn had a strong third quarter with all of our key operating and financial metrics showing solid growth," stated LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner. "The last few months mark the most significant period of product development in the company's history." Sales from LinkedIn’s recruiting services business nearly doubled to 138.4 million, and represented more than half (55%) of total revenue. Marketing solutions -- the advertising unit -- saw revenue increase 60% to $64 million, or 29% of overall revenue, while subscriptions sales grew 74% to $49.6 million in the quarter. U.S. revenue reached $162.4 million, and international, $89.7 million. The company has taken steps to boost engagement, most recently launching redesigned profile pages last month with more visual appeal and simplified page navigation. It also rolled out a blogging platform with high-profile contributors, including billionaire Richard Branson, President Obama and Deepak Chopra. The group of over 150 influencers has attracted a total of 4 million followers on LinkedIn in the last couple of weeks, the company said earlier Thursday. In recent months, LinkedIn has also released a revamped home page, updated mobile apps and company pages, and endorsements, among other features. In its earnings announcement, LinkedIn said home page traffic has increased 60%; the new home page and notifications had driven “record levels” of comments, shares and likes. Still, LinkedIn’s overall audience of 39.6 million unique visitors in September was down slightly from 40.9 million in August, according to comScore. In the third quarter, traffic growth slowed to 25% from 30% in the second quarter, while page view growth fell to 17% from 30%, according to a JPMorgan research note previewing LinkedIn’s results. Looking ahead, LinkedIn projected revenue for the fourth-quarter revenue will range between $270 million and $275 million. For the full year, the company raised its outlook from a range of $915 million to $925 million to $939 million to $944 million.
Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network just got its own section on HuffingtonPost.com. The addition comes courtesy of a partnership between OWN and AOL’s Huffington Post Media Group, which has been in the works since this spring. Financial terms of the deal have not been released. HuffPost OWN will service as a hub for practical advice to help mostly female readers who embrace Oprah’s classic brand of existential inspiration. Regarding her latest media partner, Arianna Huffington said Thursday: "Oprah was about engagement and authenticity long before engagement and authenticity ruled the Web.” In exchange for its content, OWN gets access to HuffingtonPost’s large and highly active audience. Indeed, across all sections, the site’s audience generates some 2 million comments per day. Huffington currently serves as president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. When AOL bought the Huffington Post last year for $315 million, it originally gave the Web site’s founder editorial reign over its portfolio properties, including TechCrunch, Patch.com, MovieFone and MapQuest, while more than 30 AOL properties were aligned under the Huffington Post umbrella. In May, however, Huffington’s portfolio at AOL was reduced to Huffington Post alone, which gave her the opportunity to focus on special partnerships and global expansion.
A new report suggests activist investor Carl Icahn plans to use his new 10% stake in Netflix to engineer a sale of the streaming-video company and other shareholders would join him in his efforts. At the same time, Barclays writes CEO Reed Hastings is expected to be resistant. Potential buyers include Google, Amazon, Verizon and Microsoft, according to the Wall Street firm. The first three could use it to augment current online video plays. Microsoft might gain a foothold in the business, while strengthening efforts to turn the Xbox into a media hub. Barclays writes that increased competition from Amazon and Verizon/Redbox and rising content costs might persuade shareholders to get on board with Icahn’s move. Netflix recently reported that it was likely to miss its previous guidance of reaching 28.7 million U.S. streaming customers by the end of the year. Netflix believes Hulu is its most prominent U.S. competitor. Hulu has an advantage with its ownership (NBCUniversal, News Corp. and Disney) and is likely to keep its content pipeline flowing. Barclays did write that it is “skeptical that a buyer would find more value in purchasing Netflix than building a content offering organically.” Also, it suggested an Amazon or Verizon might find the value of Netflix more in how it could bolster e-commerce or hardware sales. Hastings owns less than 2% of the company’s shares, so Barclays says that further opens the door for Icahn to make a move. Netflix shares soared Wednesday on word of Icahn’s stake, but saw a slight dip in midday trading Thursday.
Continuing to break out of its decade-long role as the major online reseller, Amazon extends its mission to become a publisher into the mobile app arena this week. The first game app, Air Patriots, flew into the respective app stores for Amazon’s own Kindle Fire line as well as for Android and iOS. This variant of the tower defense genre (but in the air) is free to download and try but requires in-app purchases ranging from 99 cents to $6.99 to experience more fully. The app is the second release from Amazon’s Game Studios, a unit of the company formed to craft apps across platforms. Its first title, Living Classics, was a social media game. While the game runs across iOS and Android devices, part of the design shows off Amazon’s native game network only on the Kindle Fire devices. Much like Apple’s iOS GameCenter, Amazon’s version tracks in-game achievements and high scores. In this case the game also saves a user’s progress in the cloud so gameplay can be ended on one Kindle device and picked up on another. The game initiative is just another example of Amazon moving more aggressively into the publishing arena. The company has recently initiated a number of e-book imprints as well as a digital video studio.
Now that Sandy has been designated a “superstorm” (and who decided that, and why?) it seems that in the last four days, Northeasterners have cycled through five or more stages of grief, even though “severe cabin fever” or “fury at Con Edison” might not register on the classic Kubler-Ross model. In the ‘burbs, some of those affected started talking to their neighbors, borrowing tools, sharing food, and going to bed early -- positively reliving “Our Town” values. Some city residents who lost power used the time in a similarly early-20th-century way, playing board games, reading by candlelight and concocting Rube Goldberg-like cooking apparati. Post-upset, are we more or less likely to want to blanket ourselves again in technology? I should point out that the losses so far have been heartbreaking and devastating, and millions are still without power. There is more suffering to come, no doubt, and I don’t mean to minimize it by joking. But stories like how a downtown Thai restaurant managed to operate via automobile battery power (and extension cords out the window to the car parked at the curb) remind us of how remarkably resilient and ingenious we are. Once Sandy began packing a punch Monday night, it was all the more frustrating because it was so sudden: We had already endured much nothingness, waiting all day in the “bracing for Sandy” mode. To the naked eye, it was raining, lightly. So the violent winds, surges, sudden explosions and power outages that followed by nightfall seemed rabidly apocalyptic. I updated my status with: “Will the world end with a posting on Facebook?” I got lots of clever responses, including: “No, it will end with some good-looking young reporter doing a live remote and bloviating on the obvious.” Indeed, the wall-to-wall coverage, interrupted only by annoying, repetitive political commercials, was hard to take -- especially before anything had happened. I had watched a local CBS reporter scouring Red Hook for someone to interview. She finally found a resident idiot in a fleece hoodie wandering around, and asked him how he was preparing for the storm. “Just picking stuff off the floor,” he responded. That was helpful. Then Sandy got really scary. For my money, there is nothing more terrifying than the thought of rivers of sea water and sewage pouring into -- and blocking -- dark city tunnels. That’s the stuff of your basic disaster film, which in the case of Sandy, turned into a war movie and then something straight out of a sci-fi drama, with nature reclaiming itself. All that was missing was an alien invasion. The similarities to well-known images from futuristic thrillers like Spielberg’s “A.I.” and “The Day After Tomorrow” were also unsettling. Both films feature visuals of flooded New York landmarks, bobbing like the anthropological finds of ancient civilizations. When parts of the boardwalk and fixtures of the now-ironically named FunTown Pier in Seaside, N.J. ended up swept out to sea, including the upside-down iconic StarJet roller coaster, the graphics seemed to be art-directed by Spielberg himself for maximum poignance. At the same time, the current high-concept, dystopian NBC show “Revolution” seems to have nailed one possible post-Sandy scenario. It’s set in the future, when all the power sources using electricity have mysteriously shut down. The pilot showed the carcass of a car being used as a vegetable planter; the citizens have returned to a pre-industrial hunting-gathering life and are hardy, self-sufficient, agrarian citizens. It sounds idyllic for those who dream of living off the grid and off the land -- except for the roving bands of militia. (Given the severity of the reported gas shortages in New Jersey, might we expect to see roving bands of dads in khakis, working up to tattered Mad Max leather, holding up gas stations?) Image-wise, floods are powerful, and contradictory: they suggest global warming, in all of its modern, greedy, rapaciousness, and at the same time, conjure up the story of Noah’s Ark and the ancient, anti-science Bible. The best summation of Sandy so far comes from Governor Andrew Cuomo, who said yesterday at a press conference: “We have old infrastructures and old systems, but yet seem to get a 100-year flood every two years.” A weather system like Sandy is punishing, regardless, whether you believe in retribution or Al Gore. In a famous poem, Robert Frost questioned whether the world would end in fire or ice. In the case of Sandy, we were done in by a combination of water, wind, and trees. But perhaps what’s most upsetting about a flood is that it wipes away any mark we have made on the earth. We want to think that we can salvage our experiences somehow -- that they mean something, and that with all the advances in technology, that they will live on. We can certainly strengthen the power grid, and update the infrastructure, and it will help. But in the end, the sad truth is that any illusion we have of control is just that, an illusion. ”Sandy, I’m breaking up with you,” one of my clever Facebook friends said. If only it were that easy to quit her.
It must be said upfront that any discussion about living the partly unconnected life pales in comparison to those who lost lives, houses, pets, friends, cars, electronics or irreplaceable family mementos, like pictures and film, in the recent storm. But with millions of us here in the Northeast without power, there has been a running debate about who misses what the most. Some are miserable because along with the power lines, the trees also yanked down the cable lines, so no Internet (or TV). Others lost cell service. Nearly everybody lost their commutation to work, either by train, subway, or bus. Some still have power, but many others are are listening to their generators suck up $4 a gallon gasoline or propane at an astounding rate, camping out with relatives, or splitting time between the library and the YMCA's shower room. There is nothing like a widespread natural catastrophe to remind us how reliant we have become on being connected. Our lives are thrown into chaos because the Internet is not just a boot up away or a swipe across a smartphone screen. With TV out, some even relied on radio for updates on the storm's progress and aftermath. How retro! Without power, charging up our phones rapidly became a problem, with families disbursing throughout the village to find out who had power -- and more important, open outlets. Some drove around and recharged with car adaptors. As luck would have it, my local cell tower is still up, AND I traded in my BlackBerry (with great sadness in my heart) for a Galaxy III just a day before the storm hit, so I have a nice-sized screen to manage email, send photos of downed trees and blocked streets to local authorities, and watch video of the evening news. I also found out that my phone has a very cool voice recognition/dictation capability that has come in pretty handy, since nearly all of my communications now are by email and text, and it is a hard transition from the BB keyboard to a virtual one. When you are forced onto that third screen for all of your work-related activities, you come to REALLY appreciate having a desktop with broadband. Since the kids don't have school and can't watch TV, they have reverted to DVDs. I have made magnificent progress with the dead-tree book that normally gets just 15 minutes of attention before I nod out. Miraculously, the newspapers resumed their early-morning appearance on my driveway, filled with hours of good reading. Except for the TV recommendations that simply remind us of what we will miss, since we can't even tape our favorite shows. Do you think the networks would mind running their prime-time schedules for the next few weeks from midnight to 6 a.m. in, say, December? Looking at the pictures and stories of those who suffered REAL loss because of Sandy, the inconveniences of not being connected 24/7 don't seem all that arduous. But man, they are a pain in the ass.