It’s e-reader preview week, apparently. Last night, Plastic Logic formally named its would-be Kindle killer; tomorrow, Barnes & Noble is supposed to show off its own branded device. This morning’s entrant: Spring Design, which says it has produced a reader that boasts two screens and an operating system that runs on Google’s Android. What it doesn’t have: Big-pocketed partners to boast about.
Is there anything you people won’t watch online? Doesn’t look like it, based on the newest Web video numbers from Nielsen. While stats show that the overall size of the Internet video audience has increased by 12 percent in the last year, the amount of video consumed has shot up 25 percent.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt used the opening moments of a New York City press conference to reinforce a message he’s been delivering for several weeks: The worst is over, things are looking up, and Google is spending accordingly.
Google and Yahoo both expect mobile ads to provide big boosts. Time to rethink that notion, says Bernstein Research’s Jeffrey Lindsay, who says mobile will be a modest niche business for the big guys.
Here’s a front-page story the New York Times would rather not be running: The paper is warning readers to be aware of bogus ads running on its Web site.
The paper says “some readers” have seen unauthorized pop-up ads promoting antivirus software on NYTimes.com, and warns visitors who see the ad not to click on it but to restart their browsers instead. While the Times doesn’t spell this out, it has likely had its site hijacked by a “malware” scammer who is trying to trick visitors into installing pernicious software onto their hard drives.
Can Google’s boldest attack against Microsoft succeed? Absolutely. Even if it flops.
The newly announced Google Chrome OS won’t show up until the second half of 2010, when it will first appear on lightweight netbooks. Eventually, it’s supposed to run on full-sized PCs. But Chrome OS will start working long before consumers start booting it up next year as it forces Steve Ballmer and company to open up yet another front in their long-running war against Google.
Microsoft’s first series of Web video ads for Internet Explorer 8 didn’t seem to garner much attention. But its latest one did: It features a married couple, an unspeakable porn site and a lot of vomit. Now Redmond says that was probably a mistake.
Well, Google can’t say it’s not in the content business anymore. Here are 11 ads the company has commissioned to promote its Chrome browser. Most are designed to be “viral videos,” though you might see one of them on TV because Google will be buying some airtime for the spot using its TV Ads platform.
Web video publishers are still trying to get their heads around their existing sites, which attract plenty of eyeballs but not much in the way of ad dollars. But at some point they’re going to have to figure out what will happen as video moves from the PC to the phone.
Here’s one small step in that evolution: Joost, the once-hyped video site, is going to start selling ads for stuff it shows via its iPhone app. Doing the heavy lifting will be FreeWheel, a well-regarded start-up that already handles ad-serving for some of the Web’s biggest video players.
Google is letting advertisers who buy AdWords–its main revenue engine–automatically buy mobile advertising, too. The company says AdWords buyers can choose to have their AdWords automatically show up on phones that support “real” Internet browsers like T-Mobile’s G1 phone and Apple’s iPhone. That’s a relatively small market, but one that’s growing fast, and Google’s first real opportunity to show that it can make money on mobile.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
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