Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Ask.com’s Newest Offer: Discount Search
Barry Diller has tried just about every gambit possible to boost his Ask.com search engine, but he keeps coming up with more. The latest: Coupons.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Music’s Sales Slump Slowed–But Not Stopped–By Michael Jackson and the Beatles
The good news: Two of music’s biggest acts helped slow the industry’s sales slump last quarter. The bad news: It’s still slumping. And the Fab Four and MJ are probably out of tricks.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Why Google and Yahoo Will Have to Keep Waiting for Mobile Money
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.
Monday, September 28, 2009
This Just In: YouTube Is Ginormous!
You already know this, but it’s always good to be reminded: In online video, there’s YouTube, and then there’s everybody else. Today’s data point: ComScore’s August video report, which shows Google’s video site generating 10 billion views and owning 39.6 percent of the market. That’s 10 billion views, and that’s just counting Web surfers from the U.S. Factor in international visitors and…it would be a lot bigger.
Yahoo’s $100 Million TV Ad
Don’t say they didn’t warn you: Last week, Yahoo formally rolled out its new $100 million-plus marketing campaign. Today, the TV ads begin. Here’s what you’ll be getting if you watch AMC, ESPN, USA, Comedy Central, Bravo or any of the broadcast networks in the U.S.
Time Warner Dumping Its Magazines? Not So Fast.
Heavyweight media investor Gordy Crawford–who happens to own a big chunk of Time Warner–says the conglomerate plans to dump its magazine business. But I get the sense that Jeff Bewkes and company plan on keeping at least some of the unit’s iconic titles.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Back for Yet Another Season: The “What Will GE Do With NBC?” Show
Even when the M&A market was shut down, Wall Street couldn’t stop speculating about GE’s intentions for its NBC Universal unit. And now that it’s deal-making time again, the chatter is getting very noisy.
Hence the flurry of coverage over yesterday’s remarks by Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy, in which he said…not very much.
Friday, September 11, 2009
All the Music You Can Eat, on Your iPhone? Wall Street Snoozes.
The announcement from RealNetworks that Apple had approved its iPhone app–all you can eat music, to go, for $15 a month–gave the company’s stock a brief jolt yesterday. That’s over now: Wall Street seems to have thought about it and concluded that people won’t pay a monthly fee for music, even on an iPhone.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Rhapsody Beats Spotify to the Punch. But Will You Pay $15 a Month for an iPhone Music App?
Okay, all you Spotify coveters who say you can’t wait to get the much hyped app on your iPhone, here’s your chance: Pony up $15 a month and you can get Rhapsody’s app, which does exactly the same thing.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
MySpace, Facebook Move Lots of Display Ads, Not So Much Money
Just how big are MySpace and Facebook? Big enough to account for nearly one in five of the display ads Web marketers buy in the U.S. That has nothing to do the number of dollars the two social networks generate, since their ad impressions are famously cheap. But at least it gives you a sense of the services’ potential.
Napster: Don’t Hold Your Breath Waiting for Our Awesome New iPhone App
Napster says it has an awesome new iPhone app that will let you stream music directly to your phone–just like the one Apple approved for Spotify, the superhyped service you can’t even get in the U.S. yet. But Napster says you won’t be able to use its app anytime soon, and it blames the big bad music labels.
Walmart.com Bulks Up, Aims at Amazon, eBay
Wal-Mart is the world’s biggest retailer, but online, it’s still a relative piker. Now the company is trying to change that by opening up its Web store to other retailers–just as its biggest competitors already do. But no need for Amazon and eBay to start sweating just yet.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Back to the Future: Financial Times Launching “Wealth” Magazine
Does the economic turmoil have you pinching pennies and clipping coupons? Then the newest product from the Financial Times isn’t for you: The daily’s new quarterly magazine is aimed at people worth more than $1.6 million.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Pirate Bay’s Would-Be Buyer Sinks, Blames Media
A proposed deal to buy The Pirate Bay and turn it legit, which never made sense in the first place, now looks all but dead. The Swedish software/Internet cafe company that’s supposed to buy the file-sharing haven for $8 million now says investors that were supposed to finance the deal have disappeared. And it says this is the fault of the U.S. media, which supposedly spooked said investors. Sorry!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Will an Ad Recovery Pass Viacom By?
Hard to tell how much of the modest ad recovery we’re hearing about is real versus hoped for. But analyst Richard Greenfield says that either way, Viacom won’t be getting a boost.
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About Peter
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 »
Ethics Statement
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
