You can't find a lot of effective advertising on social networks, according to Forrester Research. The Web research group says that traditional marketing just doesn't work on sites like MySpace and Facebook, as evidenced by the ineffectiveness of run-of-site, microsite, and other "push" advertising tactics. Forrester says the ROI of the campaigns it studied was very low, which means marketers have to do better a better job of engaging users by providing something of value. Social networks are built on relationships, so, too, should the advertisers' relationship with users. Social networking pages are meant to be engaging; users will …

Facebook could be costing employers billions of dollars, says a new study from Internet security firm SurfControl. Because socializing online is a waste of time and money, despite what other reports say about the networking and communication benefits of social networks. The firm, which used a sample of Australian users to conduct the study, said that Facebook users cost as much as $4 billion per year in lost productivity. "It's so interactive that people just get addicted to watching their Facebook groups all the time," SurfControl chairman Richard Cullen told Australian radio. Cullen based his highly disputable findings …

AOL had little option but to overhaul its failing business model, but despite a positive start to its new life as a free, ad-supported content provider, the Web portal's ad growth is already narrowing. As a result, Time Warner shareholders are questioning whether it was a smart move for the media giant to keep AOL. The Time Warner unit is still one of the most popular Web destinations, attracting more than 90 million visits per month, but the name of the game these days is monetizing your traffic, something AOL, with 16 percent ad growth in the second quarter, …

Last Thursday, the popular voice over Internet Protocol service Skype suffered a massive network disruption, leaving millions of users unable to make or receive calls, or perform downloads. The eBay unit had little to say about the massive service outage except that it was a software issue that would be resolved in 12-24 hours. In Thursday trading--an up day for the NASDAQ--the auction giant's shares tumbled $2.58 on the news, knocking $1 billion off its market cap, according to TechCrunch. Om Malik says that eBay's management was nowhere to be found during the crisis, but finally, more than …

Google's GrandCentral, the company that promised its users "one number for life," has reneged on that promise just six weeks after being bought by the search giant. Google sent out notices to users last week giving them just eight days until their telephone numbers expired. Neither Google nor GrandCentral has made any official statement about the move. Across the blogosphere, bloggers and their readers are expressing outrage at the search king's decision to do this with little warning and without explanation. John Battelle said the GrandCentral move contributed to the PR hit Google took for taking down Google Video …

Given that we live in such an advertising-overloaded society, wouldn't it be weird for a company like Didja.com, a collection of ads presented as content, to become a success? Didja is (or rather, will be) a collection of ads presented as content. Of course, the ads-as-entertainment concept is nothing new--marketers have created Web sites, games and other content devoted to various forms of advertising for years. But the idea of a video bank containing nothing but ads is slightly different: Marketers did not create the site, which effectively makes it a celebration of advertising. That's the …

A new tracing program that reveals where Wikipedia entries come from is stirring up controversy. People using FBI and CIA computers edited entries on such topics as the "Iraq war" and the prison at "Guantanamo Bay," presenting a conflict of interest for the nonprofit online encyclopedia, according to a company spokesperson. The so-called Wikiscanner was developed "to create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike (and) to see what 'interesting organizations' (which I am neutral toward) are up to," said the program's creator, Virgil Griffith of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. It reveals …

Microsoft is so bent on keeping Google's DoubleClick acquisition from being approved, the software giant has hired lobbying firm Patton Boggs LLC in Washington. Now that the House and Senate are looking into the matter, the lobbying frenzy can begin. So far, Microsoft has put $40K behind the effort. Three Patton Boggs associates have been working on the issue since May 15, according to the Associated Press. Isn't it ironic that Microsoft sees something wrong with a Google-DoubleClick merger? After all, the technology recently completed a similar deal in acquiring aQuantive for $6 billion. Meanwhile, scores of …

Google dominates search everywhere in the world except China; fittingly, the search giant is now redoubling its efforts to move past Chinese No. 1 Baidu.com. "Over the next year, Google will acquire one or two companies in China, and invest in four to five companies," Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google China, told a Chinese news outlet. Google doesn't like being second, which is why China is becoming a priority, as CEO Eric Schmidt revealed during the company's second quarter conference call last month. "It's a very good start, and although we don't think that this will result …

Signs indicate that an economic downturn may be on the horizon, but advertising agency BBDO, whose fortune relies on the advertising budget of big, economic climate-affected clients like GE, Bank of America and FedEx, says companies should think twice before slashing their marketing budgets. In an interview with Reuters, BBDO CEO John Osborn admitted that "sometimes those experimental budgets do go" in an economic downturn, "however, I would urge our clients to do almost the opposite," he said. Indeed, experimental online advertising campaigns may be the best alternative for marketers during a downturn. Osborn said the impact of interactive …