Microsoft’s Active Search feature, being tested within Windows Live Mail Desktop, scans users’ emails and displays potential search terms related to that email as well as text-based contextual ads, reports MediaWeek (via MarketingVOX). The effort is an example of the Windows Live ad-supported software initiative. Advertisers have two options for placing text ads.
In response to a MarketingVOX query regarding the veracity of Internet Bureau of Advertising cookie-rejection figures cited in a recent MediaPost article (which MediaBuyerPlanner also ran), IAB CEO Greg Stuart said the “numbers…used were not correct at all,” MarketingVOX reports.
eBay will be launching eBay Blogs to give sellers an opportunity to market themselves, and also plans to launch an eBay Community Wiki, AuctionBytes.com reports (via MarketingVOX and Micro Persuasion). Both will be officially launched at eBay Live, in Las Vegas, June 13-15. eBay is already using blogs and wikis internally, having changed its newsletter, “The Chatter,” to a blog format, using SixApart’s Typepad. Also, theBay Developers Conference has already set up a wiki.
Slingbox, a gadget that costs a one-time fee of $200 and can “place-shift” TV, has the potential to be as revolutionary as DVRs and their time-shifting capabilities, according to industry watchers, AdAge reports. The device streams live programming anywhere in the world to a broadband connected laptop or Windows-enabled smart phone and, when connected to a digital video recorder, place-shifting and time-shifting meet.
Yankee Magazine has switched list management to Direct Media, DM News reports. Yankee Magazine covers New England subjects like travel, garden, food and home. It has 266,000 active subscribers plus 110,000 active gift recipients for a universe of 376,000.
Manhattan Media plans to publish a spin-off of the East Side weekly Our Town, called Our Town Downtown. The new real estate and lifestyle newsweekly will target Manhattan residents living below 28th Street, paying particular attention to the area’s increasingly residential demographic, MediaPost writes.
In April, the radio industry endured a continued advertising slump with revenue dropping five percent, national ad sales falling seven percent and local sales down four percent compared to a year ago, according to data released last Friday by the Radio Advertising Bureau, reports MediaWeek.
In a movement that would likely settle the argument that has stalled this year’s broadcast TV upfront negotiations, networks have been expected to yield to buyers’ demands that deals be based on “live” ratings rather than Nielsen Media Research’s Live Plus 7 day ratings, meaning advertisers might not have to pay for extra ratings from time-shifted viewing on DVRs, according to several media buying execs, writes MediaPost.
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Martha Stewart’s new lifestyle magazine, Blueprint, debuted May 1, surprising media people hung up on the revival efforts for her flagship title, Martha Stewart Living, writes Media Life. Now, media buyers say that Blueprint is a magazine that will do well, potentially creating a new genre within women’s titles.
The test issue had 48 ad pages, including Liz Claiborne, Nestle, Crate & Barrel and Anheuser-Busch. A second Blueprint issue hits stands Aug. 28.
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