Quote of the Week:

Gord Hotchkiss at MediaPost's Search Insiders Summit
"1. Search is 2% of all media budget. Big agencies aren't incented to 'get' search.

2. To agencies, search is DR (direct response) and should be relegated to a DR silo and judged on DR metrics.

3. Search is granular (lots of pushing little levers). That's not what big agencies do best.

4. Agencies exist to persuade people to buy something when they weren't considering it. Search is 'multiple choice' giving people a list of things to choose from when they're already in the consideration phase."

DoubleClick Performics experienced a system outage due to a complete power failure at their data center at approximately 9:30 a.m. CST on Saturday, Dec. 8, 2007. While data was protected, the issue affected tracking, links and system availability. Power was restored and tracking and links were operational by approximately 2:30 p.m. CST. The interface experienced intermittent downtime throughout the afternoon but tracking is operational. We sincerely apologize for this situation. The root cause remains under investigation and updates will be forthcoming as more is known.

Representatives makes Do-Not-Call Registry permanent
The US House of Representatives voted to make the Do-Not-Call Registry list permanent. The measure still needs approval from the Senate. Before the passage of the Do Not Call Improvement Act, consumers had to renew their participation in the registry every five years. The bill also requires that the FTC remove disconnected and reassigned numbers periodically.

Ask.com starts AskEraser for users seeking privacy
Ask.com yesterday launched AskEraser, a new product that aims to give Internet users more control over their privacy when they search online.

Mixx (a la Digg) + LA Times = ??
Mixx, a social news startup from McLean, VA which announced its first round funding in October, has now added an interesting strategic investor: Los Angeles Times, part of the the hopefully-soon-to-be-private Tribune. Mixx is a bit like Digg, though for non-geeks, and LAT will now integrate the service within its website: Mixx buttons will show up o each LAT story, and LAT's stories will also be syndicated within Mixx' site/service. Mixx sports a number of established media veterans among its ranks: CEO and founder Chris McGill was formerly at USA Today and Yahoo while board members include former AP chairman Burl Osborne and former Yahoo VP Dave Mandelbrot.

Autobytel Sues Insweb Corp
News on the online lead generation front... Autobytel Inc. said Tuesday it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against online insurance quote provider Insweb Corp. in a U.S. District Court seeking damages and a permanent injunction. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Autobytel said the suit also names as defendants Leadpoint Inc., Internet Brands Inc. and Auto Internet Marketing Inc. The company alleges infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,282,517, entitled "Real Time Communication of Purchase Requests," but said it can't be sure the patent will be enforceable or the action will be successful.

Posted by Editor on December 19, 2007 10:01 AM

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