Were reports of the entertainment industry's death greatly exaggerated?
There has been a lot of talk about the decline of the traditional entertainment industry the past several years.
As a growing and maturing Internet has become a much more powerful medium for the distribution of media, traditional entertainment enterprises, from television networks to record labels, have increasingly faced new challenges that many argued threaten their survival.
The Great Usability Debate: Internal vs external testing?
There is an ever-urgent need for companies to both acquire and retain online users, especially in today’s economic environment. Our new Usability and User Experience Trends Briefing highlights this, but which is best for achieving reliable results - internal or external testing?
Site review: thomascook.com
Travel operator Thomas Cook introduced a number of improvements before Christmas, including an improved holiday search function, and the addition of more multimedia content.
Since I had written a post last year listing ten different problems with the Thomas Cook website which were affecting the user experience, it seems only fair to give credit for some of the improvements that have been made since then.
Affiliate Census goes live in US and UK
This week we’ve gone live with our 2009 Affiliate Census surveys which are aimed at producing comprehensive overviews of both the US and UK affiliate marketplaces, from the perspective of publishers.
This research follows our inaugural Affiliate Census published in 2007 which gave some much-needed insight into affiliate businesses, the affiliate lifestyle and relationships between publishers and networks.
Are paid links dead as an SEO strategy?
Instant results are always the most appealing. When it comes to SEO, climbing up the SERPs can take a lot of time, effort and money.
A popular technique amongst some marketers for acquiring the inbound links that search engines like Google love has been to pay for them.
Report: US retailers upped paid search spend before holidays
Facing perhaps the toughest retail environment in decades, multi-channel retailers in the United States turned to paid search in the run up to the holiday shopping season in an effort to boost sales.
SearchIgnite, a search management provider, today reported that US multi-channel retailers increased their spending on paid search by 12% in Q4 2008 as compared to Q4 2007.
Cisco launches new hosted social network platform
Two years ago, Cisco raised some eyebrows by purchasing two social networking companies - Five Across and Tribe.net.
The acquisitions were curious because Cisco is best known as a manufacturer of networking and telecommunications equipment.
Gap.com's single checkout not a good idea after all: report
US clothing retailer Gap.com launched a nice new e-commerce site in June last year, but it seems the decision to integrate its four brands into one checkout function hasn't worked as well as it hoped.
The retailer has designed its site so that users can shop from Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Piperlime, as well as Gap itself, and checkout at the same time, but this has had the unintential effect of undermining perception of the brand, according to Foresee Results.
Silicon Valley's irrational focus on 'disruptive technologies'
Kevin Kelleher of GigaOM believes that: "2009 may smile on disruptive startups." In his opinion, "There is, however, a way for startups to not only stand out in this recession, but thrive in it: By being as disruptive as possible."
'Disruption' is one of those words Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, VCs and observers have come to love.
Veoh wins one for user-generated content
In denying a motion for summary judgment requested by Universal Music Group (UMG) against online video service Veoh, a Los Angeles court became the latest court to interpret the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in favor of a web service that offers user-generated video content.
At issue is whether or not Veoh was eligible for the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. Veoh, like YouTube, transcodes videos its users upload into the Flash Video Format (FLV). Universal Music Group argued that this made Veoh ineligible for DMCA protection because this transcoding essentially made Veoh an active party to the copyright infringement alleged.
Analyst forecast for 2009
Silicon Valley's irrational focus on 'disruptive technologies'
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Online Advertising