»
Google and Verizon Wireless are reportedly on the verge of a deal that will make Google the official search engine for all Verizon-powered cell phones.
The deal gives Google and its advertisers 68 million wireless customers who would see Google as their default mobile search engine. Verizon is also considering putting a Google search bar on the home screen of all its phones, according to The Wall Street Journal (via Network World). Verizon may even put Google on its own web portal and on its FiOS TV service, and the companies will split the revenue.
The deal guarantees that Verizon will not try to offer a competing search engine of its own, and makes it far less likely that Verizon users will go to rival search engines, says Irwin Lazar, an analyst at Nemertes Research.
Google has also made a deal with Sprint to have it be the exclusive search provider on all 40 Sprint phones, writes Daily Tech. AT&T, the nation’s largest wireless carrier, has signed with Yahoo for its Media Net search engine.
The potential Google-Verizon deal signals a significant shift in the way that mobile service carriers are beginning to view technology partners, writes MediaPost. Mike Boland, senior analyst at The Kelsey Group, says the shift began with AT&T’s unprecedented deal with Apple for the iPhone.
Now that so many iPhone subscribers have become hooked to its streamlined search and browsing interface, they are increasingly unwilling to pay for poorer mobile experiences, says Boland. That leaves carriers scrambling to partner with tech providers as a result.
CBS Radio and Yahoo, two of the largest online radio providers, are combining their online radio stations, beginning early next year.
CBS Radio’s 150 stations and LaunchCast’s 150 online stations will be integrated into Yahoo’s music site, powered by CBS…
Cox Enterprises, Inc. announced today that the company is bringing together its three media units - Cox Newspapers, Cox Television and Cox Radio - under a new organization named Cox Media Group, Inc., effective January 2009. The subsidiary will be headquartered…
Target is one of the first brands to create an iPhone application. The Target “gift globe” allows iPhone users to shake their phones to launch a snow-fall effect.
When the snow clears, a gift idea from Target is revealed. Users…
ABC is set to launch a slew of new series in a midseason shuffle. Primetime: What Would You Do? returns Tuesday, Jan. 9, in the 10pm time slot. The show is a hidden camera experiment in which actors stage scenarios…
Only 28% of the audience of an average news program, website or magazine gets valuable information about products and services advertised there, making news venues less effective at conveying ad messages than all forms of media combined (see chart), according…
Effective immediately, any telemarketing call that delivers a prerecorded message must include a quick and easy way to opt-out of receiving future calls. The opt-out must work both for consumers who answer these calls in person and for those whose…
