Feb 3 - Feb 10, 2006

Lots of stuff this week - mostly due to launch of new real estate sites, Jupiter report on online dating, and AOL's "announcement" re: Goodmail (w/ the resulting firestorm).

Of  special interest may be:

• Business Strategy - Murdoch on microchunking.  Why is having control over your content important?  Look at what Murdoch wants to do with Family Guy.

• Datafeed: AOL & Goodmail.  What might the effect be?  Negligible?  Significant?   What would take the place of email?  RSS?  Why?  Whole section is worth understanding.

• Personals - Jupiter says discounting can drive revenues.  Other industry commenters respond saying that price is a qualifier, and maybe the industry  should be raising prices. 

• Real Estate - Zillow launches (NYT - reg required)

• Retail: PayPal prepares for GBuy (W$J)

• Travel: Reviews not all they cracked up to be

The themes in this round-up are:

Business Strategy

• Meg Whitman believes everyone will play nicely and stay in their own corner
• Amazon thinks of launching an AdSense competitor using its affiliate network.
• Murdoch article

Search

• Y! stirs up controversy by doing market research on a possible search incentive program.BubbleGeneration suggests a slightly different path forward
• BlueNile states that CPC pricing is irrational
• Google hires Udi Mamber from A9

-  Social Media

• Jeremy Zawodny says: Trust your employees and your customer - they'll deliver.  Personally, I love the organizational applications of this piece.  What would happen if your company was managed like this?  Or, to the topic of social media, how do can users be allowed to organize like this?
• Identity = Reputation, according to Sxip.  Of course, I think this identity / reputation issue is critical 
• Branding 2.0 - Fox to try to monetize MySpace.  This piece hints at, but then misses,a critical point.  To me, lead generation is the future of advertising in community spaces, and structured community is what will drive lead gen.  The question isn't how will Fox sell advertising, but rather how will Fox let MySpace users interact with the advertisers?

Datafeed

• All about Goodmail and RSS.  As stated above. 

IAC

 

•  Earnings positive view and negative view
• Diller talks about possible content acquisitions

 

Autos

• Really, this belongs in a generic marketing section.  Ford airs ad featuring Kermit. GM buys "Kermit" keyword on Google, promotes its own line of hybrids.  D'oh.

 

Personals

• Discounting and reactions.  see above. 
• New execs at eHarmony.  IPO upcoming?
• Love@AOL releases survey.  Mr. Stevens and team generating PR.

 

Real Estate

• Zillow launches.  Good article about why Zillow could work - they increase liquidity of the market by making prices more transparent. 

Other Classifieds

• Michael Arrington launches Edegio.  Mathew Ingram reacts excitedly.
• Google Print Ads.  In my opinion, aimed squarely at print classifieds' inefficient space allocation.  Why push your print classifieds into just one spot?  Why not also allow people to put their classifieds into contextually relevant areas?  Why, hello Google.

Retail

• Forrester: Online Retailers Over Use Promotions
• PayPal v. GBuy  (W$J)

Travel

• Hotel reviews - see above
• Hotels start collecting data on guests.  (W$J)
  
• NYT recommends travel blogs / sites

Also of Note Section
Reserved for either long or off the beaten track pieces.  This week:

• Great series of pieces by Chris Anderson about the decline of the blockbuster in the 2000's.  Lots of interesting stats and charts.
  
• Ted goes public
  

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