by
5 Comments

NewTube?

posted on December 19, 2007

The New York Times has announced that they will begin featuring “citizen journalism” videos focusing on the upcoming presidential election. (That’s right, start your countdown clocks now, only 50 weeks left. Joy.)

Read/WriteWeb reports:

The videos will feature non-professional journalists and will run on the Op-Ed section of the site until February 5, so-called “Super Tuesday” when a large number of US states hold primary elections.

RWW also points out that the NY Times has run clips from Bloggingheads.tv since October.

However, I think this constitutes a new level of involvement from the New York Times. If you were never a comms major in college (ah, freshman year), the New York Times is an institution in print journalism. This the newspaper that’s won the most Pulitzer Prizes, the one with “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” the one that can get away with its own style guide (which does mean that they’re supposed to print things like “U.R.L.’s”). It’s one of the three largest print dailies in the US.

by
1 Comment

The Latest in Facebook Lawsuits and Features

posted on December 19, 2007

There’s another rash of Facebook headlines today, and for once it looks like they’re all different. Keep reading—I’m saving the best for last!

Lawsuits of late
Facebook is always in and out of court. Sometimes they’re the plaintiff, such as in a case they’ve filed in federal court against some hackers, naming Brian Fabian, Josh Raskin, Ming Wu and Slickcash.com.

Things didn’t pan out so well for Facebook in a kind of strange-sounding case where a woman got a new phone number which happened to have belonged to a Facebook member. She was receiving that member’s Facebook updates as text messages. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a text plan, and the messages were costing her 10 cents apiece. Facebook was accused of receiving some portion of that money. (So that’s where their revenue comes from!) SFGate reports:

by
1 Comment

List of Bidders Released for FCC Wireless Auction

posted on December 19, 2007

The contenders are in for the FCC’s 700MHz wireless spectrum auction that will be held next month. One of them is Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen.

The auction begins on Thursday, January 24. The FCC’s web site posted a list of applicants yesterday (see the PDF for the complete list). I learned that the FCC’s site is exactly like what you’d expect from the government. Finding things is not easy, so take advantage of the link.

The FCC had 266 applications but just 96 of them were complete and have been accepted. The applicants who were rejected can resubmit their applications by January 4, 2008.

by
1 Comment

Viacom Signs Advertising Deal with Microsoft

posted on December 19, 2007

It appears that Google’s jilted lover, Viacom, is not content with simply suing the search engine and jumping into bed with rival Yahoo. Nope, Viacom has decided that Yahoo is not enough to satisfy all of its needs–“he just doesn’t get me”–so has decided to also hook-up with Microsoft.

OK, enough of the lame analogy. What you need to know is that Microsoft and Viacom just signed a $500 million advertising deal. According to Reuters…

Microsoft will help Viacom place advertising on Viacom’s U.S. Web sites and be the exclusive seller of its remnant display advertising, or ad space Viacom has been unable to sell. As part of the deal, Microsoft will also license on a non-exclusive basis long and short-form television and movies from Viacom for the MSN portal and the Xbox 360 game system’s online network.

by
0 Comments

Pilgrim’s Picks for December 19

posted on December 19, 2007

Either marketing news is really starting to die down for Christmas, or I’m just more interested in the festivities instead of blogging. I’ll let you decide. In the meantime, here are some interesting items from my feeds.

by
23 Comments

Ten Tips for Buying Paid Links

posted on December 19, 2007

Link buyingIt seems that search marketers just can’t get their heads around the concept of life without paid links. It’s as if SEO just cannot exist without at least a sprinkling of links that include the exchanging of cash. Personally, I’m not a fan of buying links. No, seriously. Sure, I’ve experimented with them–those crazy days–but these days I’d prefer to create some kind of great linkbait than risk getting caught up in a paid link scandal.

However, I’m often asked my thoughts on the best strategies for buying paid links. So, I’ve compiled a list of ten strategies to use if you’re convinced that your only option is to buy yourself some link-love. And, yes, these tactics have all been approved by Matt–my brother Matt back in England, hi Matt! ;-)

by
2 Comments

Linky Goodness, December 18

posted on December 18, 2007

Guess what, everybody? Today is a very special day. It’s the one year anniversary of when I started posting for Marketing Pilgrim! (Ironically, my very first post, other than the SEM Scholarship Contest, was debunking Cyber Monday. . . .) 500+ posts later and here we are at an institution: Linky Goodness.

Now, I haven’t forgotten the Linky part of Linky Goodness in my nostalgic ramblings. Celebrate the day with more marketing news. (Oh, actually, that’s a little depressing. Go track down a cookie for me, will ya?)