Satellite Radio May Face In-Vehicle Competition from HD

In-vehicle satellite radio will face stiff competition from both the portable satellite radio devices and HD Radio, according to a survey from New Strategy Analytics research and reported by Radio World Online. Increasing adoption of satellite radio will continue, but it won’t necessarily translate into the automarket, the survey said. Competition from HD Radio will increase as iBiquity shifts focus from radio station upgrades to consumer system upgrades.

Cox: Digital Cable Subs Compensate for Basic Subscriber Loss

Cox Communications’ cable systems increased revenue 11 percent for the three months ending in June, compared to the same period last year, even though basic subscriber counts dipped by 46,500, reports Broadcasting & Cable. The loss of subscriber base is typical in summer months when college students go home and retirees return to summer homes. Cox also added 48,800 digital subscribers - pushing penetration to 40.6 percent, up from 39 percent a year ago - and 89,000 telephone customers, improving penetration to 22 percent, up from 20.8 percent last year.

Marchex Tests Local Sites with ZIP Domains

Search optimization and marketing firm Marchex launched 52 beta sites with ZIP codes as their domain names in an attempt to create local ad inventory, writes MediaPost (via MarketingVox). The intent is that when consumers attempt to find a useful site for local info, they will type their ZIP code in the browser’s URL. Marchex owns more than 73,000 ZIP code domain names and populates each page with ads and local content. “This is the power of a lot of small numbers - we don’t really have that many people typing 90210 into their URL bar, but you do have some,” he said. “These small numbers add up over time.” Marchex has applied the same theory to domains based on generic product names - such as videocameras.com.

Excite@Home Selling 119 Domain Names

As part of the dismantling of Excite@home since its Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001, At Home Liquidating Trust, Excite@Home’s successor, is selling the former broadband company’s 119 domain names, CNET reports. The company horded names, from Shoppingcart.com to Home.net to Mystuff.com. MonsterCommerce has already spent $285,000 for Shoppingcart.com. The domain name portfolio could be worth more than $1 million.

GoldenPalace.com Hunts New Venue, Finds Cows

Internet casino GoldenPalace.com has won another auction on eBay, allowing them to tattoo the casino’s web address “GoldenPalace.com” on 100 cows and have them graze in a field located near a major highway in Florida, according to the company (via PRNewswire).

The casino, die-hard followers of Seth Godin’s purple cow philosophy, painted several of the cows purple. (Godin equates the advertising world to a sea of grazing cows, and that it takes a purple cow to see your brand amid today’s marketing clutter.)

PETA is onboard with the campaign.

AdWords Reseller Program to Launch in China

Google plans to launch an AdWords authorized reseller program in China, and is training three Chinese firms - China Enterprise, China Source and Hotsales - which will sell keywords on Google’s China site, ClickZ reports (via MarketingVox). Each company has national reach and focuses on small-to-midsized businesses. Google runs AdWords authorized reseller programs in the U.S., U.K., and in Latin America.

“This program reflects Google’s ongoing commitment to supporting the ecosystem of companies that have grown up around the AdWords program, providing support, service and advice to advertisers worldwide,” said Sukhinder Singh, VP of Asia-Pacific Operations for Google.

Oh, No, Not Again: More Circ Squabbles (This Time in Denver)

The way the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News newspapers are reporting circulation figures to advertisers could be viewed as violating the spirit of the Audit Bureau of Circulations guidelines, according to the Denver Business Journal (via The Media Drop). The newspapers include bulk copies delivered to hotels and restaurants in their overall circulation - a practice that is common among newspapers and legal by the rules of the ABC. But the bulk distribution of these papers makes up around 13 percent - an unreasonably large portion, some feel - of total circulation.

Digital Outdoor Advertising to Grow 45 Percent

Advertising in the U.K.’s digital outdoor media sector is worth around 20 million pounds a year, and is expected to grow another 45 percent by the end of 2005, according to a study commissioned in part by Avanti Screenmedia and reported by Media Week. The digital outdoor sector had grown by 81 percent during 2004.

Relationship-Building Tops Search Skills List

With search expected to help online ad spend exceed outdoor advertising within the next nine months, Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, advises media planners and buyers to buckle down and learn the discipline, regardless of the advertiser’s product or service, according to Haymarket’s Media Week. But a great gap still exists in media professionals’ knowledge about buying and planning search. According to digital agency I-Level, recruitment of media specialists in that area has been tough. Hiring for search positions from outside the media industry - in areas such as banking or data analytics - is becoming increasingly common.

USAToday.com Rolls Out Free Rich Media Ads

In the hopes of giving marketers an added incentive to advertise on USAToday.com, the company is providing advertisers access to PointRoll’s rich media formats at no additional charge, provided they pay a minimum CPM impression rate, MediaPost reports.