BBC News reports that Google has signed a $900 million deal with News Corp to become the sole provider of search and advertising on Myspace.com and other sites owned by Fox Interactive Media, excluding the FoxSports.com property. News Corp purchased Myspace.com last year for $580 million.
The Topix search engine, which covers both blog and news sources, has updated itself with an interesting new feature: When searching for a particular news or blog item, Topix provides an interactive graph that shows the highs and lows of mentions over a one year period. Clicking on a portion of the graph will narrow results to that particular period of time. You can also easily segregate blogs and news sources. This is a valuable tool for PR professionals who regularly monitor and report on news and trends.
An article by The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield highlights efforts by bloggers and reporters who are trying to raise money to turn their blogs into money making businesses. The article points to Rafat Ali as an example with recent backing to expand his indepent blog PaidContent.org. As his site indicates, “it’s about the economics of content.” Ali is biz-tech journalist and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles.
TechCrunch has an interesting article up about Bix, an online service (currently in invite-only beta) that allows sponsors to easily create and control contests. Sponsors can allow entrants to submit video, audio, or photo content and can even allow voting if they are really after the “American Idol” feel. For marketers, Bix provides an opportunity to interact with target customers and provides opportunities not just to increase brand visibility, but to offer such things as coupons and offers.
Blog SolutionWatch reports the launch of new service Commentful, a tool that allows users to keep track of discussions on new media sites. Users create a watchlist of sites to track and are notified of updates when they log into their account. A FireFox extension is also available, which provides real-time updates. This is useful for anyone who needs to keep track of ongoing discussions that might affect their clients, but doesn’t have the resources to baby-sit the conversation. Oh, and Commentful isn’t the first in this space – competitors include coComment and co.mments.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is leveraging Second Life in some interesting new ways as part of their Relay for Life campaign. According to 3PointD.com, the ACS recently held an auction for a virtual car. The hot pink convertible raised $2,000. The ACS also plans to hold a virtual relay on Second Life on July 22 and 23. Second Life users will be able to participate or watch for free.
del.icio.us
Digg this