Contrary to other Ad Age reports about the amount of company time and money employees waste annually on blogs, a new article from the trade publication says that while other companies fire people for blogging, IBM encourages the practice among its employees. Viewing blogs as a way to influence employees and potential business partners, IBM began providing its workers with blogging services about six months ago. The services come with 12 guidelines developed by employees. In other words--in true community fashion--the community made the rules. These include: follow the company's business code of conduct, respect copyright law, and don't reveal …

Financial Services Companies Continue To Spend More on Advertising USA Today Financial services companies could soon become the nation's top advertisers, reports USA Today. In 2002, the category spent $5.9 billion on advertising, entering the top five for the first time. Last year, spending jumped to $7.8 billion, and in the first six months of this year, financial services firms had already spent 3.8 billion, 7.2 percent more than in 2004. Financially services are currently third in ad spending, behind domestic and international auto companies, who have reduced their ad budgets this year, while financial spending should continue to increase. …

Members of the European Union want to build a world-governing body for the Internet, but the United States and Germany has said it would not agree to such a proposal, primarily because a regulated Internet would severely slow the pace of innovation. Apparently, the United Nations has sent a report outlining a multinational approach to Internet governance, which was embraced by EU members, with the exception of Germany. Government officials on both sides of the issue will discuss the U.N. report on Sunday, before the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis next week. Among the topics up for …

In an age of real-time analytics reporting and top-down pressure on ROI, the concept that marketers can be satisfied knowing that "only" half of their ad spending is wasted is no longer relevant. Marketing has become a manageable business process, and upper management is now demanding the same accountability standards they apply to finance departments, a panel of marketing experts explained at the recent Ad:Tech show in New York. Many marketers have now turned to the Internet not only as a marketing medium but also an analytics medium, and they recognize that a higher standard of accountability just comes with …

Amazon.com has finally done something about its woeful travel section. The online retailing giant Thursday said it has struck a deal with SideStep, a travel search engine, to produce a co-branded site in Amazon's travel store. The financial nature of the agreement is unclear, as the terms were not disclosed. Nevertheless, a partnership with Amazon.com is a major advertising boost for SideStep, writes ClickZ, because the combined site will benefit from Amazon's broad distribution. Advertisers pay SideStep on a cost per acquisition basis. Its advertisers include JetBlue, American Airlines, Continental, Hyatt, Best Western and Thrifty Car Rental.

Google Personalized Search went live yesterday, says Search Engine Watch. The new feature reorders search results based on a user's search history in order to make them more relevant. Users will also have the ability to search through their history, allowing them to revisit previously viewed pages and bookmark those pages in order to find them again easily. However, personalized search is not something that just happens organically; it's an option offered through a Google account, which users receive when they sign up for AdWords, Gmail and other services. Other enhancements made to the product include a more sophisticated remove-results …

The Bush Administration is taking some time from its focus on international affairs to consider the thorny issue of intellectual property. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Administration is urging Congress to enact new laws for protecting copyright by making it easier to put perpetrators in the big house. At a conference on intellectual property crime, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said tough law enforcement is urgently needed because the money generated from piracy leads to terrorism and other illegal activities. Among the changes Gonzales requested are: to allow authorities to recognize a criminal case and make arrests before registration …

Google's effort to digitize the content of some 15 million books has drawn the ire (to say the least) of authors and publishing executives, who have banded together to sue the company, while continuing to write angry op-ed pieces in national papers. However, a columnist from USA Today says the publishing industry has gotten it all wrong, Google is actually their friend. "The misinformation and misguided attempts to stop these projects are mind-blowing," writes USA Today's Kevin Maney. Only searches for books in the public domain (about 90 percent of the books Google is indexing) would grant full access to …

The organization responsible for the Daytime Emmy Awards is adding a category for video content produced on portable devices, according to The New York Times. This includes cell phones, iPods, and portable gaming devices like Sony's PSP. The portable category will be added to the Emmy shows produced by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for news and documentary, business and financial reporting, and daytime television, but not the prime-time Emmy Awards. The academy said it wants to draw attention to what is a rapidly growing industry, especially among teenagers. However, video content is not yet widely produced …

Cnet obtained a memo from Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff to his employees that upped the stakes in the battle brewing between the old and new guard of new media. The memo was written in reaction to the one Bill Gates sent his Microsoft employees last month, describing the need to recognize the "sea change" in the way content is monetized on the Internet. The Gates memo singled out the success of Google and Salesforce.com as weather vanes of that change. Benioff's response sounds like a call to war. He heaps praise on his employees for the defeat of their closest …