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New Media News Every Morning

eBay pulls ads from Google’s paid search

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eBay pulls its advertising campaigns from Google‘s ad network, an untimely move that creates issues between the two internet giants, and questions among media people and analysts around the web.

About two weeks ago, a comScore study showed that e-commerce sites dominate paid search marketing, singling out eBay as the number one company who generated the most link exposures from Google Adwords in March.

Now, in spite of eBay spokeman Hani Durzy’s declaration that their move to pull off ads was a part of an ongoing experiment to look at eBay’s marketing campaigns across all media channels, some sources are saying that it was an angry reaction to Google’s plans to hold a party simultaneously with eBay’s annual conference for its merchants. Apparently, this Google event called Checkout Freedom Party is part of an effort to woo eBay to use its online payment system, the Google Checkout, instead of eBay’s Paypal.

Durzy acknowledged that eBay was disappointed about the Google event. “We don’t view that kind of activity as an appropriate activity for one partner to do to another.” Google eventually canceled the party, stating on its blog that “after speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference.”

Analysts say that while the two Internet giants have been harboring issues with each other for a while now, eBay will have to reconsider its decision to pull their ads off because of Google’s wide reach to potential eBay customers.

eBay has kept its Adwords campaigns outside of the US.

Originally posted on June 14, 2007 @ 6:30 pm

Xing and Zoominfo bring together networking and information search to online business industry

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Xing partners with ZoominfoXing.com and Zoominfo.com team up to bring together networking and information search to the global business industry today.

Zoominfo is a business information search engine that allows users to find news, updates, and business details about industries, companies, and people, with over 4.5 million unique visitors monthly. Xing, meanwhile, is a professional networking site that allows its members to meet people in the same industries, opportunities and other privileges through it’s network directory and advanced contact management platform.

“This is the first time that business networking and business search have been brought together. This partnership makes XING the business networking platform with access to the largest number of profiles of business professionals and companies in the world. Nearly 36 million people are now available to XING members, making XING a must-have business tool,” said Lars Hinrichs, Founder and CEO of XING.

On the other hand, Jonathan Stern, CEO of ZoomInfo said, “The potential for users of ZoomInfo to build business relationships through XING and be a part of such an active international community will inevitably open up many more new business opportunities for them. Making valuable connections is critical to business success, and ZoomInfo is thrilled to now provide our users with integrated access to XING’s dynamic business network.”

With this partnership by the top companies in the online business industry, Xing.com and Zoominfo aim to provide the U.S. business market unparalleed access to contacts and information that will take business networking and communications to the next level. This integration is expected to be launched in the fall of 2007.

Originally posted on June 15, 2007 @ 6:18 am

YouTube tests video fingerprint tool with Timewarner, Disney

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YouTubeYouTube is testing a new video identification technology that will identify copyright content in videos to prevent pirated content from being uploaded and circulated within the video-sharing site. This initial testing is in conjunction with Time Warner Inc and Walt Disney Co, two of the largest media companies today.

Developed by engineers at Google (YouTube’s mother company), this fingerprinting software is designed to recognize unique elements in the video clips that would help media companies to identify videos that are illegally uploaded, and eventually, block these copyrighted clips from being distributed or be subjected to licensing negotiations with owners.

Meanwhile, since much of the videos uploaded in YouTube are homegrown, some copyright content (such as those from CBS and NBC) attract more viewers and thus are beneficial to these broadcast companies as promotional avenues. Hence, more than the video imprinting tool, YouTube executives aim to protect relationships with media companies for a healthier give-and-take conditions.

This video fingerprint tool will be available in a month for testing, and widely available for use to copyright owners later this year.

Originally posted on June 13, 2007 @ 1:53 pm

Mahalo Greenhouse launches, pays search results submissions

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Mahalo GreenhouseTwo weeks ago, we covered the launch of Mahalo, the first search engine with a human touch. Now, 15 days into the alpha-testing of this human-powered search, Jason Calcanis announced, in his blog, the launch of Mahalo Greenhouse, “a place where the public can build search results that — if accepted by our Guides — will be included in the Mahalo search index.”

A lot of people all over the web have given their 2 cents on the launch of this human-powered search, most of which revolved around the scalability of the project, the system being dependent on human preferences, as well as the bulk of work to be done to achieve its goals. Putting the feedbacks into consideration, Calcanis’ team is launching the Mahalo Greenhouse as a way of involving anyone who’s interested to help, just as he said, “The tag line of Mahalo is “we’re here to help,” and after 15 days of tremendous feedback we’ve learned one thing: you want to help too!”

Mahalo is paying 10-15$ for each submitted search result that is approved by the full-time Guides and published to the web search. They start accepting applications for part-time Guides today, and they’re looking for people who are willing to help “a lot”, with extra consideration to those who can help them spread the word through their existing social networks and/or blogs.

Meanwhile, Calcanis added, for those who want to contribute to Mahalo and are not concerned with getting money in return, payment goes to the Wikimedia Foundation. Know more about how the Mahalo Greenhouse works here.

Originally posted on June 13, 2007 @ 12:14 pm

Microsoft signs deal with Linspire

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Linspire signs deal with MicrosoftMicrosoft reported to license voice-enabled instant messaging and digital media technology namely Windows Media 10 codecs, and TrueType font, to Linspire Inc, a small scale Linux distributor, in a move that they say would make the Windows Operating System work more efficiently with open-source software.

“This agreement will offer several advantages to Linspire Linux users not found anywhere else, such as Windows Media 10 support, genuine Microsoft TrueType fonts, Microsoft patent coverage, improved interoperability with Microsoft Windows computers, and so on, Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony said.

Interestingly, Linspire was “Lindows” in 2001 when it was founded. Microsoft then paid $20M to rename their company to “Linspire” as part of a trademark infrigement settlement between the two companies.

Based in San Diego, Linspire is known to provide propriety codecs, as well as drivers and software through which users were given the opportunity to use the Linux OS with a wide range of popular multimedia formats and plugins.

Linspire also agrees to make Microsoft’s search engine MSN Live.com their default search engine, an exposure and promotional strategy that benefits both companies.

Originally posted on June 14, 2007 @ 1:34 pm