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Mansueto Digital launches FastCompany.TV with Robert Scoble

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Mansueto Digital announced the launch of FastCompany.TV, a new online video network featuring coverage of bleeding edge technology trends, interviews with leading executives and business people, reviews of the latest technology products, and lifestyle programming.

Robert Scoble will serve as Managing Director of the site, which is slated to launch in March.

Scoble’s daily video series, ScobleTV, will be featured on FastCompany.TV. Scoble’s current video show receives about one million views a month. Scoble is highly regarded for his coverage of emerging technology trends from both start ups and established tech companies, especially in the Web 2.0 and social media space.

“I decided to join up with Fast Company because I wanted to work with a brand well known for covering innovation and technology in an authoritative, provocative manner,” said Scoble. ” And I’m excited that the Mansueto Digital websites are going to be innovating in the social media space themselves.”

FastCompany.TV will debut several programs over the course of 2008 featuring Scoble and other well known personalities.

Originally posted on January 17, 2008 @ 12:54 am

Forrester hails Avenue A | Razorfish the leader in interactive marketing

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razorfish.gifWith the budget for online marketing expected to increase next year among many businesses, finding the right interactive marketing partner is very important. You may want to consider Avenue A | Razorfish.

Because of its extensive experience with interactive marketing campaigns utilizing many different channels, interactive service firm Avenue A | Razorfish emerged as leader in the recent “The Forrester Wave™: Interactive Marketing Agencies, Q4 2007 (December 2007)” Forrester Research report.

Forrester evaluated 6 interactive marketing agencies in the U.S. against its rigid 52 criteria such as approach to solving hypothetical scenarios and in-depth interviews with client references.

What makes Avenue A | Razorfish outstanding is their dedication to studying changing online behaviors. More notably, the agency is recommended for large companies that need digital marketing strategies across online channels and are grounded in audience research. According to Brian Haven, Analyst at Forrester:

The agency’s strengths lie in its quantitative and qualitative audience research capabilities, measurement and analytics of standard campaign metrics, and broad experience with social media campaigns.

In its previous report, Forrester highlighted the importance to online businesses of digital marketing category and multi channel experiences such as blogs, traditional online advertising, micro-sites, mobile devices, social networks, as well as mainstay tactics like media buying and planning, and Web design.

Other prominent clients of this agency include Ford, Garnier Fructis, JC Penney, Red Bull, Singapore Airlines, and The New York Times.

Originally posted on December 12, 2007 @ 3:34 am

News sites want more control over search engines

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online newsIt’s now evident online news publishers are not quite pleased with the way search engines index their sites.

Today, these publishers will unveil their new proposals at the Associated Press headquarters to prevent any disagreements with leading search engines like Google and Yahoo!

Currently, crawlers of different search engines follow the rules of news sites as stated in their text file named as “robots.txt”. However, they still feel this method is not flexible enough to express their terms and conditions.

Common complaints include posting of news summaries, photos, and headlines without permission. The system called Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) is created to avoid any legal problems.

While Google welcome these proposals, they will need time to thoroughly evaluate these proposed extensions to make sure these represent the needs of the majority and not of a single community.

“Ultimately, ACAP will benefit everyone: publishers, search engines and, most of all, consumers, by creating a fair and content-rich online experience for all of us: no standards wars; no proprietary monopolies; open collaboration: win, win for all,” said Gavin O’Reilly, chairman The World Association of Newspapers, to PC Pro.

Originally posted on November 29, 2007 @ 11:06 am

Kaboose acquires the largest online parenting club in the UK

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new media newsKaboose, the largest independent family-focused online media company in the U.S., has acquired Bounty.com, a leading family destination and parenting club online in the UK, for $140 million.

The acquisition of Bounty.com is expected to complement Kaboose’s other sites like BabyZone, ParentZone, AmazingMoms and TwoPeasInABucket.

Hopefully, this will give the Toronto-based company a better fighting chance against established players in the family-friendly demographic like Nickelodeon, Walt Disney, and J&J’s BabyCenter.

However, both parties declined to deal with the media until the equity-refinancing deal for $115 million is completed.

Why $140 million? Bounty.com is not only the largest parenting club in the UK with 2.4 million members but also the largest database of young families in Europe. Not to mention its strong partnerships with leading multinational companies like P&G, Unilever, J&J, and Kimberly-Clark.

Originally posted on November 16, 2007 @ 12:39 pm

The Wall Street Journal Online Now Digg-able

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new media newsThe Wall Street Journal Online has announced a new program that will enable its users to submit WSJ.com articles to Digg, the popular news and content sharing website, and allow Digg users to view content currently available to WSJ.com subscribers.

Every article on The Wall Street Journal Online will now include a “Digg This” icon in the article tools section that enables users to Digg the article directly from WSJ.com, and view the “Recently Popular” and “Upcoming” WSJ.com articles as they surface on Digg.

In addition, users clicking on a Wall Street Journal article link on Digg will be able to read that article for free on WSJ.com.

Moreover, Rupert Murdoch intends to remove the subscription fees of this popular online newspaper. Following the new business model of the New York Times, the objective behind this move is to increase readership from a mere 1 million to 20 million. Consequently, this will boost advertising revenues.

Originally posted on November 15, 2007 @ 6:28 am