If The Times Are Link Spamming, They’re Missing The Point
The Guardian has reported an investigation which suggests that an employee of Sitelynx, a search marketing firm working for Time Online, has been engaging in some good old fashioned link spamming.
It suggests that Piotr Wyspianski has been ruthlessly promoting content from Times Online on sites such as social search engine Mahalo (which I’ve written about […]
‘Silicon Valley Hippies Destroying Music’: U2 Manager Misses The Point Entirely
Following on from the Qtrax debacle, we now have more hilarity from the MIDEM conference. This time it comes from Paul McGuinness, who has managed U2 very successfully for 30 years. His speech titled “The Online Bonanza: Who is making all the money and why aren’t they sharing it?” has been covered elsewhere, but I […]
Google Beta Tests AdWords Demographic Targeting
Google has begun beta testing demographic bidding as a new feature allowing advertisers to target specific demographics on the Google content network, according to the official AdWords blog. The new feature of AdWords, which is being rolled out to selected groups of advertisers in the US and UK, will allow advertisers to target their ads […]
Qtrax: 25 Million Free Tracks? Or Pie In The Sky?
The Times reported today a news story claiming a new service, Qtrax, would allow users to download 25 million music tracks for free on an advertising sponsored basis, with full backing from all four major music labels.
With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly […]
Sony vs Nintendo: Game On!
It’s taken me a while to allow myself back into the gaming world. Having spent about 5 years as a freelance games reviewer for The Independent I lost my enthusiasm for the gaming industry in general somewhere between writing copy for the banal Mary Kate and Ashley: Mystery Mall (0.5 Stars) and the unending line […]
How To Get Ahead In (Digital) Advertising
I’ve been in the industry for coming up to nine months now and oh, what a journey it has been. I started withe Altogether Digital back in May 2007 having come straight from the University of Creative Arts, where I studied Advertising and Brand Management. So I’d say I was pretty prepared for the transition […]
Google Street In Golden Square
Whilst standing outside the office a moment ago (OK, I was having a cigarette), I saw the rather strange car that you can see in the image above driving round & round Golden Square. Reports last year suggested that the cars were being used by Google to bring it’s Street View to the UK (hopefully […]
Hotels & Airlines: All Hostages To Online Reputations
I met up for a drink last night with a cousin of mine who was over from Dublin on business. During the course of the evening, as we caught up on what we’d both been doing for the past 5 years, I asked here where she was staying. She replied that she was booked into […]
The Problem With Facebook Ads? Most Of Them Are Rubbish
There was an excellent article in yesterday’s Media Guardian bemoaning the lack of creativity in the Christmas advertising by the main British retailers. Naresh Ramchandani noted that most of these companies had seen disappointing sales over the festive period (although it’s likely that the general economic uncertainty played a part in that) and compared this […]
Is There Soma In My Coffee Or Is The 2012 Logo Doing Its Job?
Last night I was indulging in a bit of telly (misnomer, that; we should just call it “jamieolivervision” and be done with it), and during the ad breaks I found my eye regularly drawn to a small glyph, which was instantly recognisable as nothing less than the stigmatised 2012 logo, emerging now on our screens […]
