Douglas L Ross: E Commerce

Targeted Television Advertising

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:28:06 GMT

There is a significant battle going on for control of the intellectual property surrounding the delivery of targeted television and internet advertising.

Ad firm 24/7 pushing for patent power. 24/7 Real Media wins another patent for delivering digital ads, giving it new authority over the online-ad serving market as it pursues patent licenses to improve shareholder value. [CNET News.com]

Sexiest Man In America

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 19:10:26 GMT

ABC recently launched it's "Search for the sexiest man in America" contest in conjunction with TV show All My Children [ http://amc.tcsinteractive.com/phase3/index.cfm ] . The contest is comparable to some of BSkyB's iTV programs in the UK. Consumers can use their cell phones to vote by sending a premium text message to the show. [This requires a subscription to premium text messaging plus a transaction charge $0.50 per message.]

This is something of a milestone. It is the first time in the USA that we have seen a linkage between a television program and the use of cellular telephone text messaging premium services.

Targeted Advertising

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:33:18 GMT

This article is about the expansion of the bid-for-ad-placement concept from strictly the search domain to the general "web-site" browsing context.

If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad. Online publishers are beginning to sense the possibilities of having Google or Overture serve ads to their audiences. By Bob Tedeschi. [New York Times: Technology]

Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 12:47:20 GMT

Diller's InterActiveCorp reported solid second quarter results. On the conference call with Wall Street analysts Diller characterized his company this way: "The trinity of Amazon, eBay and Yahoo! has been expanded by one to include us." InterActiveCorp (formerly USA Interactive and which includes Expedia, Hotels.com, Match.com, Ticketmaster, HSN and is now acquiring LendingTree) had quarterly revenue of $1.5 billion [up 38% for the quarter] and generated ~$400 million in free cash flow.

The Amazon.com Portal

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 17:47:01 GMT

Amazon is apparently trying to do what the Library of Congress probably should do, that is make archived book content searchable.

Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books. Amazon.com is negotiating with book publishers to assemble a searchable online archive with the texts of thousands of nonfiction books. By David D. Kirkpatrick. [New York Times: Technology]

Microsoft At NCTA

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:10:46 GMT

Yesterday at NCTA, Microsoft introduce Microsoft^® TV Foundation Edition what they descirbe as "a new digital TV software platform designed to help cable operators get more value from on-demand and other digital TV services"

They simultaneously announced support (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/mstvIndustrySupportPR.mspx) for the platform from cable industry vendors Motorola, Inc., SeaChange, Concurrent Computer Corp., MetaTV Inc., Two Way TV Ltd. and Advanced Digital Broadcast Ltd.

They also announced a customer win (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/cablevisionselectsmspr.mspx) for the software platform with Televisa's Cablevision (CVC) subsidiary, one of Mexico City's largest cable MSO with ~450k subscribers announcing that they will adopt it.

Trusted Computing

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:48:21 GMT

Wave Systems announced their earnings for Q4 2002 today. According to their press release [see exerpt below] they are looking for strategic partners.

"Steven Sprague, Wave's president and CEO, said, "In order to raise the additional capital required to fund Wave's operations, we have engaged an investment banking firm and are exploring a number of financing alternatives which include debt or equity financing (or a combination of both) or one or more commercial or strategic transactions."

"The personal computing industry is now committed to a historic transition to trusted computing. The most influential players -companies including Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, AMD, National Semiconductor, Infineon and others - have publicly committed to a trusted PC environment secured by a hardware chip. Without a doubt, today's inherently insecure PC is morphing to tomorrow's secure and trusted PC which will offer a range of productive services for users. Wave's long commitment to hardware and services-secured trusted computing has made us influential in the evolution of this huge and evolving market opportunity."

Coalition of Broaband Users and Innovators

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 16:20:30 GMT

A fight is brewing between a Coalition of so-called broadband "users" [comprised primarily of companies interested in access to broadband for Internet e-commerce] and the Cable industry. The link is to the Coalition's recent exparte filing with the FCC

BBC's Celebdaq Celebrity Trading Game

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 14:23:43 GMT

The basic principal is that clelbrities are traded on an exchange like stocks. Their value is influenced by player trading which in turn is influenced by, among other things, what the BBC broadcasts every Friday night at 10:30pm on BBC3. A very clever idea and apparently a sensation in the UK. Here's the link to the Celebdaq website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/celebdaq/index.shtml

NYT's Take On Record Company Online Offers

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:13:46 GMT

The Internet as Jukebox, at a Price. Record companies are offering online services as an alternative to music-swapping. Are they worth the price? By David Pogue. [New York Times: Technology]

Google

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 14:48:40 GMT

An interesting summary of what Google is by a guy named Jason Kottke: "Google is not a search company." via Kevin Werbog's weblog. [Werblog]

NYT on the Google Targeted Advertising Announcement

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 12:01:29 GMT

It's interesting that the weblog world was all abuzz about this yesterday but the NYT didn't pick up on it until today.

Technology Briefing: E-Commerce. GOOGLE INTRODUCES NEW AD SERVICE; ELECTRONIC ARTS DROPS PUBLIC OFFERING PLAN;. [New York Times: Business]

Google and Targeted Advertising

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 20:04:09 GMT

Google announced today (http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/advertising.html) a "content-targeted advertising" service which proposes to replace general website ads with "relevant sponsored links" similar to those displayed in its own search engine, and in the search pages of its affiliates.

Here's how "content-targeted advertising" by Google appears to work:

Google's proprietary classification engines identify "the meaning of a web page"
Based on that, and presuming a 3-way arrangement between Advertisers - Google - Websites, Google then automatically serves "relevant" ads from its stable of participating advertisers
Relevance to a website is [apparently] based on Google's classification scheme, and the order of relevant ads served is [apparently] based on Google-measured click-through response rates [now competing with Double-Click and others].

Here's a link to a Motley Fool article about this: Google's Banner Day. The search king moves into third-party advertising. [The Motley Fool] and another in Wired News: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57900,00.html

Tablet PCs

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 18:55:43 GMT

Planet PDA magazine says Tablet PCs will "revive the PC market?" http://www.planetpdamag.com/content/030403rt.htm

Apple Computer

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 18:17:45 GMT

This is another example of a hardware guy getting into the services business.

Apple gears up to sell music online. Not innovation, necessity [The Register]

Hughes and AOL Part Company

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 16:14:00 GMT

Reporting on the end of the strategic relationship between Hughes and AOL.

LA Times (registration required) http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-aol4mar04,1,312976.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dpe%2Dbusiness

WSJ (subscription required) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB10467221763794400,00.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news

NYT On The Liberty Comcast QVC Deal

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 15:05:18 GMT

Liberty's Malone and Comcast Set to Weigh Future of QVC. John Malone, the billionaire who controls Liberty Media, will soon negotiate ownership of QVC, the cable shopping network. By Geraldine Fabrikant. [New York Times: Business]

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 14:11:42 GMT

'Reassurance' a key word as Google grows. The search site's move into blogging, and its further expansion into advertising, has some concerned about a conflict of interest and whether Big Brother could be Googling you. [CNET News.com]

Does The Content Industry (At Least Music) Start To Get It About Online Sales

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 14:00:11 GMT

E-Music Sites Settle on Prices. It's a Start.. After years of confusion, most of the big record labels have coalesced around a set of prices at which they will sell their music online. By Saul Hansell. [New York Times: Technology]

CED article about AOL MusicNet service http://www.cedmagazine.com/cedailydirect/0302/cedaily030226.htm#1

Conference Board Says Consumer Confidence Down

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 17:01:07 GMT

Consumer confidence dropped 15 points (~19%) in February 2003 from an index of 78.8 at the end of January (1985=100) to 64.4 now.

University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 20:23:06 GMT

The latest consumer satisfaction show remarkable results for on-line retailers. Here's an article about it in Internet.com

http://ecommerce.internet.com/news/news/article/0,,10375_1586921,00.html

Nielsen NetRatings Announces

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 20:02:59 GMT

Nielsen has launched a 1.0 million plus "MegaPanel" research service in which internet users agree to let embedded Nielsen software track their on-line web use and e-commerce activity [in exchange for contest prizes, etc.]

Here's an article about it in InternetNews.com: http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1587681