Given the industry's obsession with search engine marketing, it's easy to forget that up to 70 percent of small businesses are service-oriented.

Many mainstream advertisers are still unsure whether to enter MySpace, the popular social networking site recently purchased by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. They’re deterred by the racy user-generated content that often results when real humans — teenagers, specifically — express themselves. And then there’s Pimpfants. Yes, that’s a combination of the words “pimp” and “infants,” and yes, it’s a brand — a brand of clothing for small children. According to its Web site, Pimpfants is “more than a name, it’s a movement,” intent on “allowing babies and tots everywhere...to hit the playground with fresh gear and street …

Proving that even security can be a laughing matter, software provider Symantec took a comedic path to educate about online theft.

One chronic question for Web publishers is how they can better accommodate and monetize an expanding base of advertisers whose appetite for video inventory is increasing faster than the supply. Unlike traditional search engines, Pixsy aggregates real-time RSS feeds using its own in-house algorithms to extract tens of millions of thumbnail images and videos and index them into easily accessible categories. Sources include sites like YouTube, NYTimes, CNN, Variety, BBC, and StupidVideos. Pixsy’s proprietary technology allows Web publishers to run their own private label photo and video search engine. “Our goal,” says company founder and …

Online advertisers and agencies looking to simplify their video campaign execution by consolidating both ad buys and creative requirements can now consider the merits of Advertising.com’s new video advertising network, which aggregates pre-roll inventory from video-enabled Web sites. The network could help online publishers as well, allowing them to use video advertising from a centralized source and eliminate serving fees. Another big draw for media buyers: mass reach combined with advanced targeting. Through its relationship with comScore Media Metrix, Advertising.com will also provide custom research and view-based reporting for video campaigns, providing advertisers with analytical information on the …

Imagine this: Cat lovers see commercials for cat food and dog owners see commercials for dog food, and never the twain shall meet. After all, if you don’t cohabit with a canine, you don’t need to know which kibble gives him better breath. Armed with that kind of thinking, cable technology company Big Band Networks is deploying software to help cable operators better manage their bandwidth, and that same technology can send hyper-targeted ads to specific customers. Big Band is deploying what’s known as “switched broadcast technology.” In non-jargon, that means Big Band is the …

Savvy consumers already know their attention span is worth something. After all, advertisers pay publishers and broadcasters millions a year for a few minutes of their time. Virgin Mobile’s new Sugar Mama service eliminates the middleman (media) and goes direct to consumers with a simple bargain: Watch an ad and get remunerated. In this case, viewers who sit through rich-media spots at the Virgin site and agree to interact with advertisers receive free airtime — up to 75 minutes additional monthly minutes on a customer’s pay-as-you-go wireless account. Ultramercial LLC, the company that powers the …

“Not long ago, most e-mail marketers thought they were doing their job by getting their messages delivered to an ISP,” recalls Eamonn O’Neill, director of product management at multichannel interactive marketing and technology firm Bluestreak. “Now they realize they’re not really going to do anything effective unless they know that message is really making it intact all the way through the ISP to the mailbox, and being opened,” O’Neill says. To help clients accomplish just that, Bluestreak launched ionMX 2.0, an enhanced version of its e-mail marketing platform designed to bring more precise targeting and less waste …

MySpace and YouTube may be getting all the buzz, but there’s more to social media than youth culture and lifestyle communities. Take ITToolbox, a community of nearly a million IT professionals who share information and insights on new information technology and related issues via more than 700 discussion groups, blogs, and wikis. It’s also designed as a uniquely advertiser-friendly platform for reaching enterprise technology-buying decision makers. In addition to content targeting, the site provides advertisers with a proprietary context-matching machine engine, enabling them to match keywords to ongoing user-generated content throughout the network. The site also opens …

Canadian-based Crazyfunbabe, which describes itself as the “‘Sex and the City’ of mobile,” continues to carve out a niche as a unique mobile content developer and aggregator exclusively targeting young women. Started in 2002 with service in North America, Europe, and India, the company has launched a direct-to-consumer channel featuring mobile content and services, powered by mobile retailing solutions provider July Systems. Available initially in the U.K., and soon in the U.S., the new channel provides a collection of mobile entertainment including wallpapers, ringtones, true tones, screensavers, and video clips. “From the outset, Crazyfunbabe has …