Online media news summary of todays online advertising news

Google Bypasses Tech Departments — Again

Posted by Ben Worthen Microsoft?s pursuit of Google?s online advertising business may earn the headlines. But the search giant is quietly trying to steal business customers from Microsoft, as a new product release shows. Google today is adding a feature to its Apps package ? which already includes online spreadsheets, word processing, email and other tools targeted [...]

Don’t call it a wiki: Google Sites finally launches

Google is finally launching the wiki it's been promising since the company acquired Jotspot, 14 months ago (see Dan Farber: JotSpot reincarnated as Google Sites). The service, now called Google Sites, will be rolled out to Google Apps users starting tonight. Oddly, nowhere in the press materials does Google use the word, "wiki."

Call it what you will (it's a wiki, ok?), Google Sites is a natural extension of the Google Apps suite of business apps, into which Google currently bundles Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and other collaboration and productivity services. And it's not a bad standalone wiki, either.

Creating a new wiki, embedding media in it, and creating sub-pages takes even a newbie only minutes.

As with other wiki services, it has two main features: First, you can set it up so anyone you want can edit a Google Sites page (or you can keep it private). And second, it records all changes and lets you change things so you can un-do these edits.

Users who want to keep track of changes to a Google Sites project, or just a page on it, can easily sign up to get alerted when other users make changes.

I spent a little time with it and found it to be a very strong wiki. The service's editor is simple and clean, and there's no whiff of the weird Wikitext markup code you see on earlier-generation wikis. You can drop into HTML editing if you like, though.

There are only a limited number of page types: Five, at launch, including the generic text page, a two-column "dashboard," and a page with a special list module (for to-dos and the like). But Google Sites makes it easy to embed other elements from its Apps or Doc suite, including spreadsheets and presentations, and also YouTube videos and iGoogle widgets (which is cool). To embed most items all you need is its URL. It's not a pretty way to get the job done but it is straightforward and fast.

There aren't many pre-formatted page types, but this one (list view) is pretty useful.

You can also embed word processing files from Google Docs or Google Apps, which could possibly create some confusion, since these documents may already be shared with other users and may not have the same permissions as the text surrounding them in your wiki. At least the text editor is similar, so moving between environments will not be too jarring. But I would hope for smoother integration between the collaboration features built into the Google Docs word processor, and Google Sites, in the future.

As is typical for Google productivity applications when they first launch, the functionality inside Sites is on the spare side, but the collaboration features are clear, easy to use, and well-chosen. This is a capable workgroup wiki, and even in this early stage its integration with the Docs and Apps suites makes it an excellent collaboration tool.

Estimates Put Internet Advertising at $21 Billion in U.S., $45 Billion Globally

Two reports are out today on the size of the Internet advertising market. The Interactive Advertising Bureau has a preliminary estimate of $21.1 billion for U.S. Internet ads in 2007, a 25 percent increase over 2006. (For the fourth quarter of 2007, it is estimating $5.7 billion for the size of the industry, up [...]

Google Slammed On Ad Fears, Click Throughs; Stock Off 35 Percent From Highs

Shares of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) have been on a sustained decline since late last year, when they briefly hit the $700 mark. They're now off about 35 percent from those highs, factoring in a decline today of more than 7 percent to $451.13 early this afternoon. The latest wave of fear seems to stem from a comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) report claiming a meaningful decline in click-through rates in January to 10.4 percent, from over 12 percent in the second half of 2007. Lehman's Doug Anmuth, who queried various advertisers and search engine marketers, pegs the blame on consumers. Advertisers aren't (yet?) pulling back from paid search, but searchers, perhaps because of the weakening economy, aren't clicking on ads as much they have been. As TechTraderDaily notes, a number of analysts are piling on today, to varying degrees. Though between the share decline and the company's mediocre quarterly performance reported in January, the market doesn't need to be told that the bloom has started to come off the rose.

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Earnings: CBS Q4 Revs Down 3 Percent; Income Down On Investment Loss; $21M From March Madness Online

CBS (NYSE: CBS) has announced Q4 revenue of $3.76 billion, down 3 percent year-over-year from $3.88 billion. Net income fell 18 percent to $273.1 million, from $335 million, however this year's quarter included significant declines in the value of certain CBS investment. The decrease in the top-line was partly attributable to asset divestitures and lower political spend. Some highlights:

-- Television: Revenue fell 4 percent to $2.46 billion in the quarter. While overall ad spending fell for the above noted reasons, the decline was offset, in part, due to strength at Showtime and CSTV.

-- Radio: Factoring out divestitures, same-station revenue fell 7 percent due to an overall weak ad market.

Release | Webcast (8:30 AM ET)

Conference call: The first big matter of business CEO Leslie Moonves addressed on the call was the economy: "At CBS, we are not seeing a recession in our day-to-day operations." Sectors that have been hit the hardest have not been big CBS advertisers, he noted. As for the concluded strike, the company says it's come out of it unscathed: "Our financial pictures was not effected by the strike in any shape or form." There will be some changes to business though. This year's upfronts won't be as garish as in past years, although they'll still be held at Carnegie Hall. And the company will attempt to maintain some of the lower cost structure that the strike instigated. Much of the call was spent restating the argument that the network business remains strong, and that "the internet is truly an extension of (the) existing network business." The thesis is that good TV content will be the backbone of digital success.

-- Last.fm: In the company's earnings release, this was the only digital property that got a mention. On the call, the company also touted it as an example of its success in the online space, noting that usage is up 92 percent since it adopted limited full streaming.

-- NCAA Tournament: CBS is projecting digital revenues form the tournament of $21 million, up from $10 million last year. In 2005, using a pay model, the company generated revenue of $250k. Moonves noted that the cost structure of the operations has been the same throughout.

Mochila Now Lets You Add BBC Videos To Your Blog

If you are looking for some stock videos to add to your blog or Website, Mochila just added about 800 clips from the BBC Motion Gallery, the licensing arm of the BBC. It doesn’t include news clips unfortunately, but there are plenty of science and culture videos. If you need a nicely produced [...]

MyPunchbowl Has Its Own Buzz: News Feed for Parties

Yahoo may have beat them to it with the launch of its Digg clone, but MyPunchbowl too wants to announce a product called “Buzz”, this one a Facebook News Feed clone of sorts for party planning. MyPunchbowl Buzz will give hosts and guests alike a way to keep track of what’s going on with the party [...]

Mixx Raises $2 Million Round For Social News Voting

Social news aggregator Mixx has raised $2 million from earlier backer Intersouth Partners, as it limbers up against Digg, VentureBeat reports. Based in McLean, VA, Mixx only went in to beta in September 2007, but got an undisclosed amount from Intersouth a month later and an investment from the LA Times in December. Founded by former USA Today VP Chris McGill, Mixx is going for news industry partnerships more than the tech geek crowd - it's got carriage for its Mixx button on LA Times and Reuters (NSDQ: RTRSY) amongst other sites. Whilst there are big parallels with Digg and Reddit, Mixx also adds news personalization options.

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UK Online Ad Network Adconion Gets $80 Million Funding; Expanding Into U.S.

All the ad networks are filling their coffers before the recession spreads to the online advertising industry, or at least that's the reasoning most of them are giving. Now, Adconion, the UK-based online ad network which is also now expanding into U.S., has raised a big second round of $80 million, led by Index Ventures and previous investor Wellington Partners. Adconion plans to use a quarter of its new funding to expand its U.S. operations—half to invest in new technology and the rest for acquisitions, reports WSJ. Adconion announced its first round last year in April.

The company was founded in 2004, and sells ads on about 350 publishers sites, including the Drudge Report, Sony's (NYSE: SNE) video site Crackle, and Demand Media. There was a rumor doing the rounds last year that Fox Interactive was in talks with Adconion to buy it, but seems like it didn't pan out, or tat the rumors were false.

European Ad Firm AdLink For Sale; Assigns Morgan Stanley For Possible U.S. Sale: Report

European online advertising network and marketing firm AdLink Group, part of Germany's ISP firm United Internet, has been put up for sale, possibly to a U.S.-based company, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, picked up by AFX. (The German language story is here). The story says UI is hoping for a triple digital millions from the sale...Adlink is valued at about 400 million Euros, while 84.3 percent is owned by United Internet.

AdLink also owns Sedo, the online marketplace for buying and selling domain names and websites; and Composite Digital, a provider of e-mail data and profiling tools.

The company has hired Morgan Stanley, the U.S. investment bank in a deliberate attempt to find an American buyer, the story says. My guess is AOL, which has been trying to buy a European online ad operation for a while, might be a buyer. It tried to buy TradeDoubler for $900 million early last year but withdrew its bid after shareholder opposition. Then later it bought Adtech AG, an international online ad-serving company based in Frankfurt, Germany, and then earlier this year announced buying UK-based affiliate marketing network Buy.at.

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