Posted 10/08/08 at 06:15:21 PM by Alex Castle
It’s no secret that YouTube has yet to turn a profit. Despite steadily growing advertising revenue, the massive bandwidth costs required to stream a bazillion videos a day has kept the video giant out of the black. However, the company has announced an ambitious plan to monetize all those page-views by embedding their watch pages with “click-to-buy” links to retailers offering products related to the video.
YouTube is starting small, with iTunes and Amazon links on videos posted by certain record labels and trailers from Electronic Arts, but it plans to “slowly but surely expand the program to additional content and product partners.” They also plan to allow their advertising partners the opportunity to attach retail links to copyright-infringing videos posted by users, as long as they allow the video to remain on the site.
The program will initially only effect viewers in the United States, but if you live elsewhere and feel like you’re not seeing enough advertising in your daily life, don’t worry; YouTube plans to expand to other markets soon.
Posted 08/30/08 at 04:48:28 PM by Justin Kerr
Microsoft’s quest for online dominance it would seem, will take more than just cash to realize. The aborted Yahoo deal was but a small part of a multifaceted approach towards capturing long term search engine market share, the most lucrative of which involves e-commerce. For those who can’t remember back that far, on May 31st 2008 Microsoft announced plans to offer consumers cash back for transactions with select e-retailers which were found using the Live search engine. The comScore US market share results show a slight increase after the first month which represents a boost of about 0.7%. But July’s results saw the search engine give back 0.3% to its competitors. Even though the promotion has only been running for about two months, tech critics seem to think the idea is already running out of steam and express doubt that it will have any meaningful long term gains. It remains to be seen if Microsoft will continue the program as it may see any gain in market share to be a success. This seems even more likely when you consider how slowly search engine market share moves these days. To put it in perspective, during the same two month period Google’s market share rose only 0.1% to 61.8% and Yahoo dropped, but only by 0.1% to 20.5%. According to eMarketer Inc., U.S. online retail sales are projected to grow to about $335 billion by the year 2012. Even today, 68 percent of all online transactions began through a search engine.
Do you think Microsoft can make a comeback with cash back? Click the jump and let us know.
Posted 07/30/08 at 05:40:38 PM by Paul Lilly
For many geeks, Newegg has become the de facto standard for shopping online for computer parts, and those of us living in the U.S. have had to endure the moans and groans from our brethren north of the border lamenting having to order PC peripherals elsewhere. Those cries will soon end as Newegg readies its Canadian website.
Having established itself as the "second-largest online-only retailer in the U.S.," Newegg will look to duplicate its success up north taking on the likes of NCIX.com and TigerDirect.ca, but the company isn't saying whether it plans to open warehouses in Canada or will simply ship across the border. Nor is it known exactly when Newegg.ca will officially open for business, only that it will take place sometime in 2008, and presumably sooner rather than later. In the meantime, when not chewing on delicious bacon or awaiting free health care, Canadians are encouraged to sign up for Newegg Canada's newsletter to "be the first to know about pre-launch sweepstakes, giveaways, and events."
Aboot time, eh?
Posted 01/04/08 at 04:12:21 PM by Mark 'Marcus Soperus' Soper
The biggest name in PC graphics goes head-to-head with the PC nerd's best friend when it's end of the year shopping time. Find out who delivers the goods, and who delivers a headache instead.