March 15th, 2008 | by Tommy | published in Business, Technology
Microsoft has announced they plan to acquire Rapt Inc., a privately held online advertising management firm based in San Francisco.
Rapt’s software and consulting services help Web site publishers tweak how they package and price display-ad space. Scott Howe, a general manager in Microsoft’s advertiser and publisher solutions group, said Rapt’s system is similar to the […]
February 7th, 2008 | by Tommy | published in Business, Stuff
How cool is this. As any marketing person knows the best way to grow a niche business is to help to grow the entire industry. It appears Samuel Adams gets that if more and more people move from Miller Lite and Budweiser to microbrews they are going to pick up some of that new […]
February 4th, 2008 | by Tommy | published in Advertising, Business, Technology
Via their Corporate blog, David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer (gosh that is a long title) outlines Google’s thoughts about Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Yahoo!. As you might expect they’re not fans of the idea.
The openness of the Internet is what made Google — and Yahoo! — possible. A […]
February 4th, 2008 | by Tommy | published in Advertising, Business, Technology
In a battle of blog posts and press releases Microsoft responds to Google’s response to their attempt to purchase Yahoo!. I think it is more than a little telling that Google used their corporate blog while Microsoft issued a press release in response that includes the below statement, followed by about eight paragraphs of boilerplate […]
February 3rd, 2008 | by Tommy | published in Advertising, Business, Technology
Late last week news broke that Microsoft had offered to acquire Yahoo! for almost $45 billion, or $31/share, a 62 percent premium over Thursday’s closing price of just over $19. This would be Microsoft’s largest acquisition to date.
Now I have nothing against Yahoo! or even Microsoft for that matter, but this acquisition makes no sense […]
October 10th, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Business, Technology
The cost to try to influence the 2008 election could exceed $3 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group.
This is nearly twice as much than what was spent in 2004 ($1.7 billion). Well happy days for the networks and cable outlets, but my gosh, as an active TV viewer I am not looking […]
July 6th, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Advertising, Business, Culture
Look, I’m an ad guy and proud of it. But it is a sad day in American with a fairly large American city, can’t afford to replace 100 of their 140 car fleet so they are now selling 3 by 1 foot ads on the rear quarter panels of each car for $15,000. Toledo, Ohio’s […]
July 2nd, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Business, Culture
TNT seems to be the first major media outlet that gets why having videos of their programs on their site is important. Other channels run ads pushing viewers to their sites, but generally the reasons cited to visit are pretty weak IMHO. I mean I don’t want to join a message board about Lost, download […]
June 20th, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Business, Support
This is a wonderfully powerful video about how little things can make a huge affect on customer support from one of the author’s of Raving Fans. I’ve always been a huge fan of Ken Blanchard’s Raving Fans. The editorial review on Amazon says:
The story of a golfer and his male fairy godmother who guides him
through […]
June 16th, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Branding, Business, Culture
I think this is just great news. Kellogg announced a few days ago that it will stop advertising its products to children under age 12 unless the foods meet specific nutrition guidelines for calories, sugar, fat, and sodium. In the same press release Kellogg also announced that it would stop using licensed characters or branded […]
May 12th, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Business, Webinars
Solid presentation skills are learned over time. That means if you want to dazzle your clients and prospects with your slide show or have them cheering after your speech you need to practice. Unfortunately since formal presentations for many business executives are an infrequent occurrence, you can’t become a master overnight. Below are a few […]
May 6th, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Business
Rupert Murdoch, the owner of News Corp, has offered up $5 billion to buy The Dow Jones Company, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal. This upsets me on multiple levels. I love the WSJ. Without a doubt it is one of the best newsletters around. The writing is stellar. Stories are complex and […]
March 14th, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Business, Technology
I did something a few weeks ago that I would have found unfathomable just a couple months ago. I did the reverse switch, moving from a Mac to a Windows machine. This is the first time since 1987 where my personal computer isn’t a Mac.
But I have to admit the choice to switch wasn’t that […]
March 1st, 2007 | by Tommy | published in Business, Culture
The Onion has a great story up that could just as easily be true: Viacom Demands YouTube Pull 400,000 Ex-TV Viewers From Its Site. The article reads in part:*
In a cease-and-desist letter sent to Google’s attorneys last week, media conglomerate Viacom demanded that YouTube immediately pull 400,000 ex-TV viewers from its industry-leading video-sharing site.
"These viewers […]
October 17th, 2006 | by Tommy | published in Business, Technology
What an amazing inside look at the rise and fall of Friendster. Once a darling of the Internet, Friendster was a social networking powerhouse with millions of users. Today, it is a shell of itself and most would say Facebook and MySpace have lapped them many times over, even though Friednster had a massive headstart.
Founder […]
