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New Media News Every Morning

Social networks not the holy grail of advertising

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new media newsNo doubt, social networking sites are among the hottest items in the venture capital industry and trading floors. Yet, these popular sites failed to meet the targeted ad revenues.

According to WSJ, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has admitted they had overestimated the potential of these sites when he stated to the analysts, “We have had a challenge with social networking inventory as a whole and some of the monetization work we were doing there didn’t pan out as well as we had hoped.”

News Corp, the owner of MySpace, shares the same results. Though MySpace is one of the most visited sites around the world, it ironically managed to deliver only $23 million in operating income.

Some analysts blame contents for these are hard to categorize, in so doing confuse both consumers and marketers. On the other hand, others criticize the lack of permission from the community for this dismal performance.

Via BloggingStocks

Originally posted on February 5, 2008 @ 10:27 am

MySpace launches platform for developers

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MySpace announced the launch of the MySpace Developer Platform Site, giving software developers around the world the chance to deeply integrate into MySpace. The MySpace Developer Platform Site is a place for developers to connect and learn about, build, test, and deploy MySpace applications. As a founding partner of OpenSocial, MySpace is expected to empower developers with an open standard for building MySpace applications to foster innovation and creativity on the Internet.

Originally posted on February 5, 2008 @ 4:00 am

Footnote.com opens records in honor of Black History Month

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footnote.pngFootnote.com announced free access to select databases during February in celebration of Black History Month. These databases include original historical records from the Amistad case, the program for the 1963 March on Washington and the Southern Claims Commission records from the Civil War.

The majority of the records on Footnote.com come from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Since partnering with NARA a year ago, Footnote.com has been working aggressively to digitize and make these original source documents available online. To date, Footnote.com has digitized over 26 million images. Each month, approximately 2 million new records are uploaded to the site.

In addition to the records Footnote.com uploads to its site every month, members of the site are also making contributions by adding records from their files at home and creating their own web pages dedicated to topics that interest them. b

Originally posted on February 6, 2008 @ 8:30 am

Filed Under: Web

Cartoon Network joins forces with Outblaze in keeping young consumers engaged in Asia

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outblaze.pngOutblaze entered into a strategic partnership with Turner Entertainment Holdings Asia Pacific (Turner). The joint venture, Turnout Ventures Limited (TurnOut), will leverage the web expertise of Outblaze to launch highly interactive community networks customized around Cartoon Network’s library of established brands and characters.

Outblaze will enhance Cartoon Network’s portals in Asia to be more interactive and support user-generated content. Services including blogs, games, instant messaging and a full suite of video creation, editing and sharing capabilities, will be customized to the look and feel of Cartoon Network. The joint venture will serve to strengthen Turner’s digital and online assets in the region and provide Outblaze an opportunity to leverage its robust and scalable infrastructure to grow its business.

In addition to the community sites, other plans include the development of online businesses in the region (including China), such as multi-player games, licensing and merchandising, educational products and other businesses that will leverage Cartoon Network and acquired brands.

Originally posted on February 5, 2008 @ 8:00 am

Filed Under: Web

Budweiser’s Rocky bags top spot in 6th Annual AOL Super Sunday Ad Poll

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AOL announced that Budweiser’s Rocky commercial was the top ranked Super Bowl XLII commercial as chosen by viewers in the 6th Annual AOL Super Sunday Ad Poll. The poll, sponsored by Verizon, began shortly after Super Bowl XLII kick-off when viewers could watch and rank their favorite commercials.

Top Five Ranked Annual Super Sunday Ad Poll Commercials Include:

1 Budweiser: “Rocky”
2 Bridgestone: “Squirrel”
3 Coca-Cola: “Balloons”
4 Life Water: “Thriller”
5 E-Trade: “Baby”

The ads will be available online on AOL Sports for a week following the game.

Originally posted on February 4, 2008 @ 1:32 pm