What makes some of the top execs at leading digital marketing and publishing companies tick? Want to learn from their past successes (and sometimes failures)? Then dig in to our Five Questions column. This week, we ask Neil Salvage, EVP of advertising at IAC-owned Citysearch about why the company decided to invest in an SEO firm, and how he really feels about competition from Yelp.

From a techy point of view the new features are called “integration with FBML exporting, conditional content and expandable ad functionality.” Sprout is hoping that its connection from display to Facebook page breathes new life into displays ads and rich media.

It's not a popularity contest. Social-media marketers need to define the value of a user beyond simply the number of friends or fans in order to measure value and estimate marketing budgets. The message came from executives with Facebook, Razorfish and Forrester Research at digiday:Social LA.

The company says its new system will be a personalized advertising recommendation engine offering content creators, brands and agencies a cost-effective way to tap into StumbleUpon's community of over 10 million users.

Video viewers at YouTube.com watched 93 videos on average during the month, representing an increase of 50% versus a year ago. Hulu ranked second with the rest of the content owners seeing increases in users but chasing market share.

After earning its place on various social networks with virtual hugs, birthday cards and the like, with the launch of a new platform gives developers an opportunity to monetize up to 25 percent of their social gamers and increase average revenue per user (ARPU) by up to 20 percent.

For the past ten years, David & Goliath has remained independent, churning out ad campaigns for brands like Kia, Zoo York, and even the Weingart Homeless Center. As the agency celebrates its 10th birthday, find out founder David Angelo's take on how the shift to digital has transformed the creative process, as well a sample of some of the most "brave" campaigns he's seen.

OK Go teamed up with State Farm for a groundbreaking viral music video, but will its nearly two million views translate into a boost in State Farm's brand equity? And what does OK Go's digital premiere -- since it didn't roll out the first video from its new album on TV -- reveal about the power of online video for other music artists?

Does the iPad need a new content publishing platform? New ad executions? The debate is on after CondeNast voted early in the week with its pocketbook.

In an after business hours announcement yesterday, Comedy Central served Hulu notice that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would be pulled in favor of running exclusively on ComedyCentral.com. Viacom is not an equity partner in the Hulu venture, which may be the problem.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World -- but not all of them are worth your time or money. So how do you cut through the clutter? Every Tuesday, digiday:DAILY gives you the rundown on the app that should be on your radar. This week's app: Foursquare for BlackBerry.

January was a big month for the 20 percent rule. Apple took a 20 percent bite out of the OS market and M-commerce took 20 percent of all campaigns run on the Millennial network, according to its new research snapshot.

What makes some of the top execs at leading digital marketing and publishing companies tick? Want to learn from their past successes (and sometimes failures)? Then dig in to our Five Questions column. This week, we ask Sean Krankel, newly-appointed Creative Director, Digital, at Midnight Oil Creative, about setting clear goals for social media campaigns, as well as the components of a great ARG.

The Custom Publishing Council says total spending on branded content was over $1.8 million per company in 2009, with 51% spent on print publications, 27% on Internet media and 22% on categories such as video or audio, which were measured for the first time this year. Even allowing for the addition of new categories, 2009 spending was double that of 2008 and the highest amount since the CPC began conducting the survey in 2003.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World -- but not all of them are worth your time or money. So how do you cut through the clutter? Every Tuesday, digiday:DAILY gives you the rundown on the app that should be on your radar. This week's app: Redfin Real Estate.

While apparel brands like K-Swiss and Rocawear have launched successful campaigns in virtual worlds, the value proposition for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands isn't as clear. For Hot Pockets though, offering virtual "snacks" to the teens in Meez turned into a distinctly digital way to increase brand awareness.

The good news for Facebook is they passed Yahoo in January to claim the number two spot in total audience. The really good news for Facebook is in its engagement metrics.

Today's bites: Netflix comes to Sony's "Dash," why retargeting has become the tactic of choice for many video ad networks, and the dangers of emails and online ads full of hyperbole.

Using technology ripped right out of Bell Labs, Thomas Quinn, CEO of Real Time Content is bringing the promise of "real-time video" to life online. Using technology that allows content producers to iterate and personlize literally millions of permutations of video, RTC can engage each individual viewer in ways not possible before. View DM2PRO.com's exclusive video interview in the upper right viewer of digiday:DAILY, and read on.

Looks like online access is taking its place along with chips, dip, and beer as Super Bowl party must-haves. Nielsen says 14 percent of all viewers were online for at least a half hour. Now if they could just figure out how much of that chatter concerned how bad The Who performance was ...

Content searches can be early indicators of economic activity. That's the track record shown by Blue Kai, which released a report today based on its user data. It is very good news for the staggered travel industry.

Can't say Google takes a week off. After unsettling the social media world with Google Buzz, today it announced an initiative to launch ultra-high speed broadband networks, putting out a consumer request for test markets.

Those E*Trade babies will be back and all over your email, social media and online pages.

The jury's still out on whether the iPad will have as big an impact on online publishing as the iPhone has had on mobile content. After all, people can't even buy the device until the end of March. But a pair of online media vets is already banking on an iPad App boom--setting up a "multi-million dollar" AppFund designed to encourage development of new apps that will "support the long-term success" of the touch-screen device.

Pew Internet clocks teen Twitter usage at eight percent of total audience, which makes it about as common among teens as visiting a virtual world, and far less common than sending or receiving text messages as 66% of teens do,

At the AlwaysOn OnMedia Summit, Mark Cuban, HDNet and Mavericks owner, warned newspapers that if they continue to make their content available free to search engines et. al., they'll be sucked dry by the "vampires" stealing their content. Unless users are typing in your URL, "people just default to Google. You reinforce actions that hurt your brand and reinforce Google's brand."

A pair of fundings in the online ad technology space: Local online and lead-generation firm Yodle has raised $10 million, while data targeting exchange BlueKai has added $21 million. The investments, which come on the heels of positive earnings reports from Google and Yahoo, are just the latest indications that the online ad market is in the midst of a rebound.

Nielsen analyzes more than 40,000 mobile bills every month to determine what consumers actually are spending their money on. The results are staggering: American teenagers are using 3,146 messages a month, which translates into more than 10 messages every hour of the month that they are not sleeping or in school. Even the under 12 segment are sending 1,146 messages per month, which is almost four text messages per waking hour that they are not at school. While the 13-17 year old age bracket is already highly saturated, the last holiday season was good to the under 12 segment when it came to text messaging. [...]

As more brands embrace social media, measurement companies are finding ways to quantify those efforts. Dynamic Logic announced today a new strategic partnership with Kantar sister-company Cymfony, that will integrate analysis of the millions of discussions occurring everyday on social media sites, blogs and message forums into their established suite of digital, media and marketing solutions. The partnership offers marketers research techniques for a more complete view of brand performance from the perspective of the consumer. [...]

According to Nielsen, global consumers spent more than five and half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82% increase from the same time last year when users were spending just over three hours on social networking sites. Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent in December, followed by online games and instant messaging. With 206.9 million unique visitors, Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination in December 2009 and 67% of global social media users visited the site during the month. [...]

The New York Times brass continues to treat its paid content plan like a national security issue. A few more clues were made available today in an online Q&A between readers and Janet Robinson, president and chief executive of the company, and Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president for digital operations. The session did yield information on pricing. It will be one flat fee for a monthly or annual subscription for access to the entire site, rather than micropayments. Web-only subscriptions are for individual computer addresses; while home delivery subscriptions allow for multiple online accounts in a household. [...]

Despite the occasional talk about social media putting in a dent in the usage of email as a marketing tool, it didn't happen during the past holiday season. Smith-Harmon, an arm of Responsys Inc., says that in 2009 the 100 largest online retailers sent out an average of 132 promotional messages to each subscriber, an increase of 12% over 2008 and 39% more than two years ago. According to Internet Retailer, on a monthly basis, the biggest year-over-year gains came in June, July, August and November, the study says. [...]

He has a lot of nicknames, like "The Shaqtus" and "The Big Aristotle." Now Shaquille O'Neil is the latest poster boy for augmented reality. Muscle Milk is using its local endorser with a campaign targeted to consumers in Ohio. On each bottle of the high-energy drink, there is a square with the number "33." Parent company CyloSport will make its Muscle Milk chocolate flavor available in a limited-edition 14-ounce bottle with a special code marker on the label in the form of "33"—O'Neal's game number with the Cavs. [...]

Das Auto is representing Deutschland at the Uber Bowl, but don't take its first appearance as a lack of online commitment. Volkswagen of America, Inc. announced today it will premiere a 30-second spot during the 3rd quarter of Super Bowl XLIV. The spot will debut a new approach to the Das Auto tagline and positioning, and is the first step in a much larger multi-faceted campaign to increase model awareness and familiarity by reminding consumers of all the new Volkswagen products on the road. Immediately following the Super Bowl, Volkswagen will kick off a two-month campaign that will run extensively throughout February and March to support its national sales event. [...]

To say mobile ads will grow this year is a gvien with the competition expected between Apple and Google for those dollars. But eMarketer is going out on a limb with their prediction. eMarketer predicts that mobile advertising across all principal formats -- display, search and messaging-based -- will reach $1.56 billion by 2013. That's a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.3 percent between 2008 and 2013 -- considerably higher than online ad spending as a whole, but more in line with emerging online formats such as digital video. [...]

Apparently the marketing blitz surrounding youth-comedy Youth In Revolt is translating to social media. Fizziolo.gy, a new company measuring the positive and negative social buzz around entertainment products, has found that buzz for Youth in Revolt has grown more rapidly over the past week. Volume of chatter for Youth in Revolt increased by 41% this week over last week versus only 12% week-over-week growth for the " takes over the world movie" Daybreakers. Positive sentiment for Youth in Revolt has grown over the past few weeks. [...]

The challenge of 2010 could very well be getting paid for content. A sample from a new global Nielsen study on the topic shows it will be a complex but perhaps rewarding challenge. “The big question in the new Internet decade is whether consumers will pay for content online,” writes Nic Covey, Director of Cross-Platform Insights, The Nielsen Company. “It turns out that millions of global consumers are, in fact, willing to pay up… but not for everything. For example, consumers are three times as likely to pay for online music than for a blog. [...]

With an eye toward increasing response rates and brand engagement metrics for online video, Tremor Tremor Media has rolled out six new ad formats and features. With the video advertising network’s Acudeo video monetization platform already in place for more than 1,000 major video publishers, today’s announcement is aimed at making video more effective and scalable. “With our Acudeo technology tightly integrated within the player-environment across all of the sites in our in-stream network,Tremor Media is able to continually introduce new and innovative ad formats that can be reliably delivered at scale. [...]

The demographic profile and growth of the Internet may be slowing down according to a new survey conducted in December by the Pew Internet project. The survey found that overall internet use, broadband connection and even wireless access have not changed significantly over the past year. The survey does include a specific effort to include more interviews with Spanish speaking internet users. In some cases, according to the Pew report, this may have flattened some year-to-year data. Among the specific findings: • 74% of American adults (ages 18 and older) use the internet -- a slight drop from the survey conducted in April 2009, which did not include Spanish interviews. [...]

The summary is 96 pages. That will give you some idea of the scale of the Morgan Stanley report on the mobile market. Only a few websites have received and ventured into the 900 page plus monster, and we give props to ArcticStartup who ventured a manageable summary. 1. Worldwide only 260 million of 4 billion mobile subscribers are on 3G in 2009. The 20-25% inflection point for 3G penetration in emerging markets will depend on falling equipment prices. Asia and Africa is better positioned than Eastern Europe & Middle East due to subscriber growth. [...]

While the world is trying to figure out what happened over the past 12 months, we like what Nielsen is doing about the next 12. While it admits that the overall advertising environment in 2009 was a gloomy it expects some lessons from it will be applied in the year ahead. For example, accountability metrics beyond the simple “click-through” and on to campaign-specific performance will be critical. Advertisers will also to embrace burgeoning social networks and consumer generated media to bring consumers closer to a product or brand. [...]

Here's what we talk about when we talk about mobile. The line between phone handsets and other mobile devices such as netbooks is about to blur. ABI Research reports that mobile device shipments will grow from 1.2 billion in 2009 to 2.25 billion in 2014. For mobile marketers, says ABI, the trend indicates that mobile marketing opportunities as more than just those designed for smartphones and other mobile handsets. “The next five years we will see a shift in the breakdown between types of mobile devices shipped,” said ABI analyst Michael Morgan in a statement. [...]

You know the Lyle Lovett song: "You can have my girl, but don't touch my hat." Now Stetson is bringing the hat and other products a little closer to its customers. Big Fuel has launched a new website for The Stetson Hat Company. Millions of consumers know the Stetson brand for its signature western hats and dress hats along with fragrance, apparel, footwear and eyewear. The new site (www.stetson.com) has been designed to highlight the brand's traditions, history, and social identity. The site dynamically pulls content from popular social networks to showcase how the brand is woven into the fabric of American culture to create the Stetson "American Quilt. [...]

To paraphrase Yogi Berra "it ain't a deal until it's a deal." So it goes with Google and Yelp. What was a done deal Friday afternoon, seemed to come apart over the weekend, and was still up in the air when we hit "send" today. However, the confirmed interest and $550 million price tag shows the unmistakable trend toward local advertising and content. As David Carr wrote Monday in The New York Times: "How serious is Google about local, with or without Yelp? Well, consider that they’ve begun distributing stickers to local businesses that contain bar-codes that can be scanned into a smart phone to access information like reviews and coupons. [...]

Engagement and targeting metrics continued to show impressive month-to-month gains for consumer mobile usage. The November installment of Millennial Media’s SMART report showed that average monthly page views per user increased from 106 to 113 in November and average user session time increased from 4:46 to 5:02. The use of custom landing pages increased 8% in November - a potential indicator that advertisers were focusing on campaign specific microsites to promote end of year specials and promotions on products and services. [...]

Check that perception of Facebook as a white and Asian dominated network. A Facebook blog reported Wednesday that blacks and Latinos have joined the social networking giant at a rapid clip in the past several years. Facebook researchers found that about 11 percent of the social network's approximately 100 million U.S. members were African-American, about 9 percent were Latino and 6 percent were Asian, a much higher share for blacks and Latinos than four years ago.

As Internet marketing wisdom goes, if Google buys a technology it’s worth looking into. So when Google bought dynamic display ad optimizer Teracent in late November, suddenly a lukewarm ad platform got hot. Many companies have been the beneficiaries of this newfound attention, among them is San Francisco-based Dapper, which has made a name for itself integrating effective content into dynamic display ads. “The Teracent acquisition definitely focused attention on the dynamic display space, for a lot of reasons,” says marketing director Paul Knegten. [...]

Teens and their mobile phone behavior continues its microscopic analysis. Today the Pew Internet Research project released a study that shows one in seven American teens with cellphones say they have received nude or nearly nude photos by text message, according to a new survey on the phenomenon known as "sexting." Helping to define the little-understood trend in teen life, the poll found that 15 percent of adolescents ages 12 to 17 have received sexually suggestive photos or videos on their personal cellphones. [...]

Lotame has a new CMO. The data-driven audience marketing platform that has made its name focusing on integrating social data with audience insights today announced that Eric Porres has joined the fast growing company as Chief Marketing Officer. “Eric will use his respected experience to explain, position, and demonstrate to brand marketers why social data revolutionizes their approach to online marketing,” says Andy Monfried, Lotame’s CEO to whom Mr. Porres will report. “He will be our leading voice to pioneer an evolutionary change in understanding the value of social data and its resulting return on marketing investment for brand marketers. [...]

No secret that social media usage among women is prevalent but a new study finds it close to unanimous. Social network marketing agency SheSpeaks has released its 2nd Annual Social Media Study. It surveyed members to understand their adoption and usage of social networks and their interactions with brands. It found that 86% of women now have a profile on a social network, up from 48% last year, a huge jump. Participation among women 50+ is now up to 71%. 95% of women with social network profile have one on facebook, while MySpace is down to 42%, from 63% last year. [...]

Creating an application popular enough to boost the presence of a brand is still far more of an art than a science, judging from the conflicting opinions of panelists at the digiday:Apps conference in Los Angeles today. How much to spend, how much to charge, and where to target applications were all points of contention among a group that included Weather Channel Vice President Cameron Clayton, Disney.com VP Jason Davis and appssavvy President Michael Burke.While Burke preached the value of laying out as specific an objective as possible, Clayton said the low cost off creating applications allows for more of a shotgun approach. [...]

Social media hasn't bypassed email, yet. A Silverpop analysis of B2C email marketing campaigns leading up to the holiday selling season found more emails being sent to more people as open and click rates held steady. Silverpop reviewed the email marketing programs of 70 retail and consumer product companies, comparing last year's campaigns with those sent last month. Overall, the companies' list sizes grew by more than 124 percent, and they sent 25 percent more emails in November this year than they did in 2008. [...]

It’s a mad marketing world— how’s a marketer to wade through the insanity and find quality placement—and the right audience? How do brands find the right mix online, allowing their creative to run where its best placed but where brand integrity can be maintained? In this confusing setting is it every brand for itself? Who’s really protecting the brand? The Brand Protectors addressed this and more when they assembled at the W at Union Square this morning to hash out brand safety. And who better to discuss the theme than Louis Giagrande, Senior Manager of Online Marketing at Samsung Electronics America and Griff Long, Senior Director of Global Carsharing at Connect by Hertz? Joining Hertz and Samsung were technologists Helene Monat, President of AdSafe Media and Kirby Winfield, Chief Revenue Officer, Mpire and Andrew Marc Goldman, SVP of Strategy and Integration at agency RAPP. [...]

Are automated buying networks dumping your ad into inventory space that is neither relevant to the editorial or the subscribers to the editorial? Are you thrilled to see you ad for Toll House Cookies next to a display ad for Slim Fast? Can ROI be tracked with global fragmentation due to remnant ad inventory being passed along to the hundreds of ad networks? Coming into their own are ad networks driving high-quality, controlled contextual content placements that can help protect brands.

Digital Brand Management is becoming the critical new discipline for marketing in the digital age. Digital can no longer be looked upon as a “post-strategic’ channel or as a simple one-off, add-on or after-thought. It reflects the new paradigm of this transforming world of ours; that digital must be at the core of a brand’s strategic platform. Marketing companies that continue to think of digital only as a series of tactical channels or platforms will do so to their long-term detriment. The discipline of Digital Brand Management applies the techniques of traditional brand management: analysis, planning, implementation and measurement, but with a much more rigorous, robust approach. [...]

The DPAC AWARDS will honor the winners and finalists at The DPAC Awards Gala on 12/8 at The W Hotel Union Square, New York. The DPAC Awards judging committee has selected the finalists and winners for the awards in each category, as well as the Best in Show. This is your chance to network and congratulate the winners and finalists like American Express * IBM * Walmart * Intel Corp * The Coca-Cola Company * Visa * Publicis Modem * Subway * New Balance * Initiative * 20th Century Fox * Cadbury/ Trident * Ogilvy * Kia Soul * Oakley * PGA Tour. [...]

Monday was a good day to work at AdMeld. The Real-Time Bidding (RTB) advertising optimization technology company announced it has doubled the size of its client base since June, with key additions coming from AccuWeather.com, Answers.com, Billboard.com, Daily Kos, Hearst Television, New York Post and Time Out New York. The company has reached 130 publishers in its client list and access to more than 160 million unique users in the US and 275 million unique users worldwide, according to Quantcast. [...]

My Favorite New iPhone App: An intuitive new iPhone application, developed by facial plastic surgeon Dr. Steven Denenberg, allows you to view hundreds of before-and-after photos, turn your iPhone around to take your own photos, and with the touch of a button, email them to the doctor with your questions - like a free online consultation - all while sipping your latte. "The iPhone app is the next powerful communication tool," Dr. Denenberg said. "Just as most plastic surgeons now have Web sites, soon most will realize the value of using this new technology to describe their practices, display their skills, and give patients easy ways to contact them. [...]

There's just one more thing you need to read about the Twilight/New Moon movies. One of the more interesting uses of social media and entertainment marketing comes from a company called Fizziolo.gy, which measures volume and sentiment of entertainment-related chatter on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and more. It has been tracking New Moon chatter for months, shared its "Team” results after 7 weeks of Twilight-related tracking with digiday. The first analysis is simple – Edward or Jacob? Which name is mentioned in social media more? And in this, Team Edward wins easily (58% to 42%). [...]

Sometimes search is a pure numbers game. Sometimes it’s a more creative challenge that begs the question, how do you go about integrating search as the return path for your more immersive campaigns? We’ve got two finalists in the “Best Search Campaign” category of the DPAC awards that hit the search challenge from both sides of the coin. As always, DM2PRO.com members won’t be left searching for insights.

It's getting harder to spin the newspapers in any kind of positive fashion for newspapers. The latest Newspaper Association of America stats show newspaper websites’ ad revenue got progressively worse in Q3, as the declines reached nearly 17 percent to $623 million. In comparison, newspaper sites’ Q3 '08 decline was only 3 percent. Total print and online plunged about 28 percent to $6.4 billion, worse than Q3 '08’s 18 percent decline. In other news:

Maybe the newspaper bleeding is stopping. New data from Scarborough Research (a joint partnership with The Nielsen Company and Arbitron, Inc.) finds nearly three in four adults, nearly 171 million, in the U.S. read a printed newspaper -- either online or in print -- on a weekly basis. “While our data does show that print newspaper readership is slowly declining, it also illustrates that reports about the pending death of the newspaper industry are greatly exaggerated,” said Gary Meo, Scarborough’s Senior Vice President of Print and Digital Media Services. [...]

Seeing the same talking heads at every one of your industry events? Thinking a heightened profile could help your career? Ever wonder how they got there? Brandon Gutman is an expert connector, business developer and a Founding Partner of FOCi Group, a digital brand management firm serving the Fortune 500 community. He has also coined the term “Executive Celebrity” and helps many of his clients step up their own brand presence as they turbo-charge their business development efforts and expand their horizons. [...]

On some level, it's not enough to build a great social app anymore; or perhaps it's that only the existene of an underlying community can demonstrate success. Whatever the case, DPAC Awards Contenders for Best Branded Social Media Community include BusinessWeek, American Express OPEN, and Real Estate leader Coldwell Banker. Coldwell Banker and FD kinesis conceived the first all-video destination for Real Estate by a national Real Estate brand. OnLocation was created to allow users to search and see video tours of properties in their area instead of the standard still images. [...]

Yesterday did more than renew the industry’s hopes for M&A resurgence. And it did more than make a healthy handful of future millionaires. To be frank, Google’s $750 million purchase of mobile ad net AdMob and Electronic Arts' multi-million dollar acquisition ($275 million up front and $100 million in earn-out) of social gaming firm Playfish proved industry confidence in previously "emerging" or "unproven" markets. Plenty has been said about the Google / AdMob deal and what it means to mobile; what does EA’s big move tell us? For one, EA's purchase of Playfish is a sign that social gaming is here to stay. [...]

It’s not a full-out price war, but the makings of one are starting to hit the e-reader market. Before the category spends its first competitive Christmas in the retail world, Amazon has consistently dropped the price of the Kindle as Barnes & Noble and Sony try to find a price position. With the discount happy mentality of the retailers involved in selling these products (Best Buy, WalMart, Target) e-readers could move down the price scale quickly. More than a few analysts are predicting a quick to drop to $100 by Christmas 2010 for the mid-line e-reader product. [...]

Apparently text messaging and social networking has found its way on to the radar of analysts that track activities called "entertainment." According to the latest update to the "Entertainment Trends in America" tracking study conducted by The NPD Group, many consumers expect to be spending the same amount on traditional entertainment categories during the coming holiday season, "even as their participation in newer forms of entertainment continues to rise." The most notable increases occurred in social networking and text messaging: More than a third (37 percent) of respondents reported visiting a social networking site over the prior six months, which is an increase of 11 percentage points since last year; 63 percent reported sending and receiving text messages, which is an increase of 7 percentage points over the prior year; while 9 percent used Twitter during the same time period. [...]

If you’ve read John Battelle’s “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture,” the single concept that blew you away was the power Google could potentially wield with it’s access to what Battelle called “the database of intentions.” Across the Web, every search reflects a need, and Google search now captures 80 percent of those searches. What might someone DO who could interpret and quantify that data stream?

The Atlantic has an excellent thread running on the future of newspapers. Megan McArdle stirred the pot last week after the Audit Bureau of Circulation published its numbers, and many readers have taken issue with her opinion that "the numbers seem to confirm something I've thought for a while: we're eventually going to end up with a few national papers, a la Britain, rather than local dailies. The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times (sorry, conservatives!) are weathering the downturn better than most, and it's not surprising: business, politics, and national upper-middlebrow culture. [...]

Lifetime Digital is ramping up it's social commitment to moms. Today the company announced the re-launch of MothersClick.com and the debut of LifetimeMoms.com, two major initiatives to "strengthen Lifetime Networks' bond with mothers by creating communities to connect with others like them." MothersClick.com is the first digital acquisition by Lifetime Networks, and features a dynamic conversation engine that empowers women to easily find discussion topics by keywords and to engage with other moms across thousands of subjects. [...]

As a digidayDAILY reader, you are entitled to a copy of an exclusive whitepaper, data packed with insights from the leading research companies about what actually is going on in the online display sector. Compete, comScore, DynamicLogic, The IAB, InsightExpress, Microsoft Advertising and The Nielsen Company have all contributed to this bigger picture of trends in spend, measurement and usage plus an update on ad networks and exchanges. * Marketers and Agency execs will get ad spend info and an update on how to improve the efficiency of their buys and the impact of their creative. [...]

Facebook keeps running away with social media market share. Experian Hitwise announced today that Facebook accounted for 58.59 percent of all U.S. visits out of 155 social networking Web sites in September 2009. The 58 percent was the highest among all social networking sites sites, as U.S. visits to Facebook increased 194 percent in September 2009 compared with September 2008. MySpace received the second-highest market share of U.S. visits for the month, with 30 percent. Tagged received 2.38 percent of visits in September 2009, the third-largest amount. [...]

We have extend the entry deadline for the DPAC Awards to Friday, October 30th. This will be the last and final date to enter. So please take this time to submit your campaigns or even add new work into the competition. The response to the DPAC awards has been amazing! Thank you! Deadline to Enter The DPAC Awards Has Been Extended! Final Deadline is October 30th Participating Brands Include: NBC Universal, Nissan, Showtime, P&G, Coca-Cola, Subway, 24 Hour Fitness, AT&T, Microsoft, Toyota, New Balance, Huggies, Oakley, Swatch, NBC Universal, Hearst, MTV, BusinessWeek, Zinio, Meredith, PGA Tour, 20th Century Fox, Quattro, Investor's Business Daily, Carl's Jr. [...]

Will Verizon need an iPhone? Or will it be satisfied by its new connection to the burgeoning Android platorm and handsets? Some tough questions are being asked today after Verizon reported some fixed financial results for Q3. In a business where new customers are everything, Verizon added 1.2 million net new subscribers in the quarter compared with rival AT&T added 2 million customers, as Apple’s iPhone helped it take market share from Verizon. In other news:

When times get tough retailers get social. That’s the main conclusion of Shop.org’s eHoliday Study, conducted by BIGresearch. It says continued economic uncertainty will bring changes in retail marketing and promotions this holiday season. It says that “with an understanding that many of today’s shoppers use Facebook and Twitter regularly, and because these tools are more cost-effective than traditional advertising, 47.1 percent of retailers surveyed will be increasing their use of social media this holiday season. [...]

Beating other search engines to the punch, Microsoft has inked a deal to add Twitter and Facebook feed updates to Bing. The Twitter deal was in the works for over a month, but was just finalized; adding Facebook updates was a tasty last minute surprise. Kara Swisher scooped the story in her All Things D “Boom Town” column explaining the significance of the deals: “The pair represents the hugest trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from their massive data streams.” This is a minor coup for Microsoft, and for Bing. [...]

Amidst the layoffs and magazine closures, Condé Nast gets creative with its mobile application strategy. A very cool idea indeed. Condé Rethinks Apps As Digital Mags Brand Management 3.0. What happens to your brand when you're not listening? Buddy Media has a client for that-- Buddy Media Rolls Out New Twitter and Facebook Client Get real, says Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week. The Mobile Net is “Bigger Than You Think." Further more, mobile users "tend to pay," especially for services they construe as premium services. [...]

Welcome the book Nook. Barnes & Noble is officially debuting its new e-reader at a press conference today: a full-color, wireless, dual touchscreen device it plans to call “Nook.” The Wall Street Journal scooped the gadget’s name and $259 price point, thanks to a little detective work-- the WSJ spotted an upcoming full-page ad for the reader, which was scheduled to run in this weekend’s NYT Book Review. All this before B&N's big shindig in NYC today. Sorry to spoil your surprise, guys. As crowded as the category is, I have to admit Barnes & Noble’s gadget looks like a dandy— a worthy competitor to Sony and Amazon’s existing models. [...]

More blog data from Technorati today. Today's installment deals with blog content, with bloggers now defined in a sense by the personal narrative, with 45% of all respondents (but only 12% of "Pros") reporting that they blog about their “personal musings.” The diversity of the blogosphere, and the passion for sometimes very niche topics, is also reflected in this question – even given 23 choices including most broad fields of inquiry, 30% of respondents say that their primary subject is “Other. [...]

As behavioral targeting continues to be a game-changer for digital content, the words themselves have found their own advertising momentum. Semantic targeting has attracted new add-on technologies, new clients, new suppliers and a new respect as content sites search for ways to monetize their inventory. “No technology is going to change the fact that around 50 percent of all inventory is still remnant inventory,” says Amiad Solomon, CEO of semantic web platform Peer 39. “And if you have fundamental problems like weak content or poor market positioning, no technology will save your business. [...]

Google is challenging Amazon on its home turf: the search giant confirmed its plans to roll out an e-book store which it plans to call “Google Editions.” If Jeff Bezos didn’t have indigestion yet, he will after reading the fine print— unlike Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s e-book stores, Google’s effort will not be device specific. That means digital titles purchased through Google Editions will be compatible with a much larger number of devices. That’s a very smart move on the part of Google, given the volume of e-readers reaching the market by next year. [...]

With a name like "Factual," you've already set the bar pretty high, but attaching Esther Dyson's name to this new collaboration in the cloud does carry clout. In her Twitter post, Esther describes the new service, for which she'll serve as an adviser, as "an open cloud service for managing and combing structured data." The company's Oct. 13 introductory/welcome letter from CEO Gil Elbaz says, "Factual wants to bring true accountability to data. Accountability means anyone can easily contribute their opinion, substantiate the data or disagree with the data. [...]

Big Fuel & DM2 original series invites you to "friend" some of the most stimulating people in marketing today. In each episode, host Avi Savar (Founder & CEO of Big Fuel Communications) will add a new "Friend" to his social network -- experts who have helped redefine the space and are ready to discuss how the changing economic landscape will mold a new way of marketing. "Friending..." will bring you insights from today's marketing, advertising and entertainment leaders on the subject of consumer engagement, branded content, social media and communications in today's new media landscape. [...]

Excellent piece in paidContent.com today about paid vs. free business models for publishing. As written by David Kaplan, a recent confierence on the topic included Buzzmachine’s Jeff Jarvis and media consultant Shelly Palmer— who argued that formal pay walls will only drive consumers away. In defense of the pay model, Stephen Brill, who is also speaking at the DPAC conference on Oct. 27, contended that businesses need to run on direct money, and advertising and promotions won’t keep the lights on. [...]

On one count with the FTC, Google looks to be in the clear. Responding to this morning’s announcement that Arthur Levinson—who served on both the Apple and Google boards—was resigning from his Google post, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz applauded the parties in a statement “for their willingness to resolve our concerns without the need for litigation.” That strongly suggests that a six-month-old inquiry into the overlap of directors on the Google and Apple boards—is over, although we have e-mailed the FTC to get confirmation. [...]

Don’t ever tell Peter Daboll that it’s just a game. The CEO of marketing technology innovator Bunchball has taken gaming to a new level for brands and content owners, counting a big win last week with the SyFy Channel to add to a list of clients that have made 2009 a very good year. “We are having a direct effect on viewer’s behavior and giving them a reason to return to the website that they might not have revisited,” says Daboll. “We’re seeing ad responses for our solution that I have never seen before. [...]

After three years on the MTV Networks team, EVP of Digital Advertising Nada Stirratt is departing for MySpace. Ms. Stirratt joined Viacom-owned MTVN after a stint as SVP and GM of advertising sales at AOL-owned Advertising.com. In her new role she will fill former MySpace ad boss Jeff Berman’s shoes; Berman exited the social network around two months ago, around the same time MySpace retained MediaLink consultants to shake things up within its sales and management teams. So far MediaLink’s work at MySpace has been headed up by Yahoo veteran Wenda Millard. [...]

Publishers have a new tool for managing the data that leads to monetizing content. Online data targeting solution provider eXelate announced today that they have launched teXi:DM, which it calls the “first toolset that empowers publishers to take back control of their audience data management and monetization efforts.” teXi:DM enables publishers to manage third-party data cookies in the same manner they would manage their media. Publishers can use the tool to create and price "data campaigns," traffic the data pixels and report on delivery in a simple to use interface. [...]

Showtime Networks unveiled its iPhone application this week, available to customers for free download through the Apple app store. Showtime partnered with mobile ad network and mobile video optimization firm Transpera on the effort. The app, unsurprisingly, is video-focused—allowing viewers to sample full episodes or clips of their favorite Showtime programs from Dexter to Weeds; Nurse Jackie to The United States of Tara. It also offers marketers an opportunity for targeted, dynamic mobile advertising—and a way of reaching Showtime’s lucrative viewing audience on a new platform. [...]

The bidding for BusinessWeek just got a little more complicated. Thomson Reuters declined interest in the McGraw-Hill title when it first went up for sale. Now it appears Thomson Reuters is a strategic partner of private equity firm Zelnick Media, which is making a bid. Why the change of heart? Thomson Reuters’ interest is fueled by multiple motivations. First, this could be a strong move towards the strategic diversification it has long sought— Business Week is an award-winning, consumer-oriented media product; an 80-year old, respected brand. [...]

Even music executives are turning to mobile apps as a way to pay for content. Fierce Wireless, reporting from San Diego’s Mobile Entertainment Live! Conference, quotes several executives as still frustrated with overall business, but remain high on the possibilities of next-generation mobile applications. "Mobile creates a connection between artists and fans like never before," said Ted Mico, EVP of digital with Interscope Records. TicketMaster VP of marketing and music, Adam Flick, agreed: "Connectivity has never been higher. [...]

Blogger or Flogger? was the way WSJ.com reported the FTC ruling, which mandates that bloggers who endorse a product reveal whether they've been paid in cash or promotions for their testimonial. The government won't go after consumers who've bought a product and raved about it to their friends. But if it's a business, which probably means if your blog profits from advertising or paid placement, you're subject to the rules banning undisclosed payola or payroll.

The rise of social media has given way to a new type of content discovery, notes Nielsen VP Media of Analytics Jon Gibs. Nielsen recently questioned over 1,800 consumers in an attempt to better understand their online behavior including their search behavior, use of portals, and social media habits. Search engines and portals are still consumers’ research tools of first resort, with 37% and 34% of respondents looking first to engines and portals respectively. However, Nielsen’s results confirmed what many of us might have guessed: something is changing in content discovery. [...]

Not a big shock, but a big development for mobile content today as Google releases AdSense for high-end mobile phones. Just as it does via online search, AdSense mobile enables advertisers to places ads beside content that is browsed on smartphones. VentureBeat calls it “a move that further highlights the search engine giant’s strategy for mobile: It wants to target high-end mobile users.It’s also significant in that it makes development of applications and content for smartphones so much more appealing. [...]

The big news today is about Time Inc’s attempt to provide a Hulu for the magazine business. Several sources have reported that Time’s digital problem solving exec John Squires has reached out to several partners about a joint venture that would generate a business model for putting magazine content on new devices such as the Kindle and Apple’s upcoming tablet. Rafat Ali at PaidContent reports that “the mag industry needs to take advantage of the touch screen, full browser, video capability, interactivity and portability in a better way. [...]

October 1 is the first day of the rest of Jim Spanfeller's life. In his 9-year tenure at the helm of Forbes.com, he's made the company very profitable and helped grow the audience to more than 40 million people, counting fans of all Forbes' extended digital content. Now, he's got a plan to help traditional media companies succeed online. From the extensibility of great brands, to the advisability of paid content models, not to mention what kind of talent the Spanfeller Group will need to hire to pull it off, DM2PRO. [...]

Numbers, numbers, numbers. Online marketers are always awash in them, online content owners rarely see good ones anymore. But a recent batch of numbers about online ads may have some good news at their core.

Google Mobile made a subtle announcement today about its “redesigned local search experience” that integrates with Google Maps on your computer and includes browseable categories that let you search without typing. It was announced by Joshua Siegel, Product Manager, Mobile Local Search Team on his blog. In it he described a recent vacation to Hawaii. “Before I left, I researched places to visit on Google Maps. I signed in to my Google account and starred the places I wanted to go,” he writes. [...]

The Business Week drama continues today with several sources reporting that Bloomberg appears to be in the lead, according to pieces from Reuters and BW. By this time next week we should know who the new owner is, and most likely we’ll know more abut staffing and content plans. A decision could come as early as next week. Reports also say that even a winning bid might not represent a done deal, because of the volatility still inherent in the financial markets and the possibility that a late entry might steal the deal. [...]

Mobile video network Transpera has a new president and COO. Jason Weisberger was appointed to the newly created spot today, coming from agency Federated Media where he was Chief Operating Officer. He brings more than 15 years of technology experience to Transpera ranging from early-stage venture-backed start-ups to multinational telecommunications giants. Prior to Federated Media, Weisberger held leadership positions at Cable & Wireless, Digital Island and SoftAware Networks. “Transpera has become the clear leader in mobile video,” said Weisberger. [...]

CNN Breaks iPhone App … Madonna Comes Back to YouTube … Mobile Phone Apps Improve Overseas Healthcare … Obama Warns Kids On Facebook … Experian Predicts Online Holiday Trends …

Signs of the App Apocalypse (or is that appocalypse?): LifeInsuranceAgency.com, an online insurance broker, introduced its new iPhone app this week called LifeValue. LifeValue is a free iPhone application that helps people answer the at-times confusing question: What is the value of their life? LifeValue calculates the financial value of one's life and leaves the philosophical questions to be answered by philosophers. And of course, LifeValue also serves as a quote finder that can be used right on the iPhone. [...]

The Buzz on Twitter and Crowdsourcing…How Mobile Phones Can Change the World…Smartphone Social Use Triples…WSJ Confirms Paid Mobile Plan…Positive Vibes For Web Ads

The FTC announced yesterday that it will hold public hearings that will move the agency toward issuing guidelines for pharmaceutical companies that have so far shied away from social media. Pharmaceuticals, in their defense, have had every reason to shy away from social media, and that needs to change. It needs to change not for the pharmacos, and not for the sake of social media as a marketing platform, although that will dominate a lot of the coverage on this issue. It must change for the sake of the customers of these companies that currently have minimal access to the people who make the drugs that affect their lives. [...]

Mobile video may not follow the now standard exponential growth pattern toward consumer adoption. Nielsen’s latest mobile video report shows that the medium will achieve expected success, but at a rate more in-line with DVRs that smartphones. “What outlook should we have when contemplating the future of mobile video? For content providers, carriers, advertisers and consumers, mobile video is often a glass-half-full / glass-half-empty scenario,” says Nic Covey, Director of Insights for Nielsen. [...]

Curated links from around the web reflecting some of today's big stories: More Bad News For Newspapers... Social Media Steps Up Ad Profile... Nokia May Buy Dopplr... Microsoft Debuts Social Monitoring... Writers Weigh E-book Formats...

Watch out Kindle; move over, Sony. Here comes a new kid to the e-reader game. Verizon announced it is teaming with iRex technologies on a new digital reader. The device should hit stores including Best Buy sometime next month and retail for $399. Considering the device is collaboration with Verizon, one of its features should come as little surprise: the iRex DR800SG (let’s hope they come up with a catchier name) will feature 3G access over Verizon’s network. Sprint currently provides Amazon’s Kindle with wifi; AT&T signed deals with Sony and Plastic Logic for its forthcoming device. [...]

Very, very smart these Facebook people. Sly, too. I never realized how sly they are. Sly like Apple and Google can play sly. Facebook’s just announced deal with Nielsen is sly and brilliant not for the measurement possibilities, but for its competitive fence. First, let’s give props to Facebook on the surface of this deal. By inviting Nielsen as a measurement partner it is taking the mystery out of its audience and its advertising. It has nothing to hide. Its audience keeps growing, it is highly engaged with content, and any kind of affirmation from a third party will only cement its place as the most vital social media vehicle. [...]

It’s Advertising Week, and we’re spending some money! How'd you like to see what you can buy with $100 million big ones? As part of a press blitz Yahoo unveiled its new $100 million re-branding campaign as part of the Ad Week festivities. CMO Elisa Steele kicked off the press conference by introducing the new “Yahoo, It’s Y!ou” effort, which combines print, online, video, out-of-home ads which will roll out in 10 countries. No, that was not a typo. Yahoo paid a couple million for that awkwardly placed exclamation point, thank you very much. [...]

Facebook was expected unveil a new ad product today at Advertising Week in New York, and unveil it did. Just days after shuttering its controversial Beacon ad program, COO Sheryl Sandberg keynoted at Advertising Week and publicly introduced the social net's newest ad product. The effort includes a multi-year collaboration with Nielsen, “aimed," as Paid Content’s Tameka Kee notes, "at shedding light on how campaigns running across the network impact metrics like purchase intent and brand affinity. [...]

Before the Advertising Week deluge starts let’s not let the anniversary of the financial precipice and Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy pass without drawing a few lessons for the digital content and advertising business. Because there are lessons to be drawn. It may not seem to be obvious on the surface, but the more I read about the events of that week in September 2008. The more it became clear to me that smart people were clueless. The people in command of the boardroom had no command of the information. [...]

Facebook’s Beacon nightmare is coming to a close. On Friday the social net settled a year-long class action lawsuit related to the Beacon ad system, which launched in fall of 2007. The suit alleged that Facebook and its Beacon affiliates were in violation of the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and other cyber privacy laws. PC World's Juan Carlos Perez notes, “Intended as a key piece of Facebook's "social ads" strategy, Beacon was designed to broadcast back to their friends the actions that Facebook members took on participating Web sites… The idea was that these notifications would act as a new form of "social" advertising, because they amount to endorsements of products made by trusted friends. [...]

I’m biased, I know. But the coolest thing about the digiday event structure is the sheer amount of people on the panels and the amount of ideas flowing through the rooms. One attendee emailed me Thursday afternoon to say, “my head is spinning.” And this is an expert in social media who has worked with several major brands. I had to play a little catch up with myself after it was all over, so forgive the somewhat random observations here: • There is a huge gulf of creativity and effectiveness in the mobile space between campaigns that work and campaigns that don’t. [...]

The Travel Channel, along with its agency Rapp “kidnapped” the Sammy Awards last night as the digiday two-day mobile and social marketing conference came to a close. The channel’s Kidnap Facebook app took home the Best In Show award for the Sammy’s as well as Best Social App, and Best Engagement Campaign. All three awards recognized Kidnap!, a Facebook application that challenges users to “kidnap” their friends to their favorite hideout city using a variety of methods. To escape from the hideout city and begin kidnapping their own friends, kidnapped players must answer a trivia question related to that city. [...]

There is a sense of caution surrounding mobile marketing that mystifies me. It is the most exciting and direct method of marketing in the tool kit. It is uncluttered at this point, unlike most every other media. Yet brands still treat it like it might blow up like one of those defective iPhones. They toe the water when mobile is involved and they should be diving in. This caution and balancing sense of possibility was on display at the digiday:MOBILE event in New York on Thursday. The sense of possibility, which should dominate any mobile conversation, is made possible by innovation. [...]

Does social media cannibalize or fortify email? Email marketers have been apprehensively awaiting the answer as social media continue its explosive growth. A new report "Emails Gone Viral: Measuring 'Share-to-Social' Performance, says “social sharing” of emails is becoming a promising trend. The study, published by email marketing provider Silverpop, found that “social sharing” is already achieving click-through and reach rates several times that of the long use forward-to-a-friend functionality. [...]

Retailers are being advised to reach their most influential customer group through social media. According to a new Retail Advertising and Marketing Association survey conducted by BIGresearch, Women with children at home are more likely to use Facebook (60.3%), MySpace (42.4%) and Twitter (16.5%) than average adults (50.2%, 34.4%, 15.0%, respectively), according to the survey. Additionally, 15.3 percent maintain their own blog. “Retailers who aren’t engaging customers through social media could be missing the boat,” said Mike Gatti, Executive Director for RAMA. [...]

Redbeacon, a new competitor to YellowPages, local online publishers and Angie's List, won the tech industry's version of the Palm D'or at TechCrunch 50 yesterday. Today San Francisco, next month your backyard?

It has always been very trendy for columnists to predict the demise of something that can never really die. But it’s convenient and provocative. God is dead. The website is dead. Conservatism is dead. In light of the bizarre and often graceless events of the past week, it’s tempting to say that buzz marketing is dead. But let’s stay closer to reality. Buzz marketing has been severely wounded. First we had Joe Wilson screaming “you lie.” Did he really act spontaneously? Or did he know he was about to tweet his way from local yokel to the most blogged about house member in memory? I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. [...]

This one can be filed under “unsurprising news.” Consultants McKinsey & Company completed their review of Condé Nast—and have recommended cuts across all titles. McKinsey & Company began reviewing the publisher’s cost structure mid-summer. In light of plunging ad revenue, McKinsey’s recommendation comes as little surprise—where to begin the cuts is the next question. Last week Condé Nast’s Chief Operating Officer John Bellando directed a memo to the publishers and editors of the company’s 21 print titles, a list that includes Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Vogue, and the New Yorker. [...]

When BusinessWeek first went on the block this summer, Michael Bloomberg's Bloomberg LP was dismissed as an uninterested party, mainly because he deemed BW overpriced. Bruce Wasserstein was long considered the most likely buyer. However, plenty of other bidders were in line to look: private equity firm Platinum Equity; OpenGate Capital; Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto; Warburg Pincus; and ZelnickMedia. It appears Bloomberg is back in the running. The New York Post’s Keith Kelly reported late last week that Bloomberg is back in the mix and could even be a “frontrunner. [...]

DoubleClick’s Ad Exchange jefe Michael Rubenstein exited Google to pursue an undisclosed opportunity last week. While it might look like an ordinary executive departure, Rubenstein’s former boss David Rosenblatt just left Google in May, joining a number of other high-profile Google execs who have jumped ship this year. As Business Insider’s Nicholas Carlson points out, “it's always shocking to hear that a company so successful and so famously pleasant to work for has lost top-tier employees. [...]

Apple’s App Store gets the lion’s share of press coverage in the mobile applications space. But don’t fall asleep, Steve. The Android Market is gaining momentum. Last week the Android Market quietly passed the 10,000 applications mark, a milestone that shows Android is definitely on the upswing. As Mobile Crunch’s Robin Wauters notes, “In the mobile OS world, Google’s Android is still a challenger but with the amount of devices that will be running the system that are due to come out in the coming months alone in combination with its open approach it is definitely a contestant to watch closely. [...]

I have never been able to get over the absolute personification of a company the way that Steve Jobs has come to personify Apple. This week’s “Steve was great, the products were not” type of press coverage proved it to me again. Steve Jobs is not Apple. There’s a glory in being that strong a brand within a brand, but there’s a danger too. If I had anything to do with IR, HR, or PR at Apple, I’d get some other people out in front of the press as well as the analyst/investor community. Sept. [...]

You quit work for the day, kick back, shake a martini, check in with the kids, and check in with Facebook. Social media is apparently part of a trend of using the Internet as a diversion like music or TV, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The center created what it calls a segment of online economic users. This represents 88 of the entire Internet user population who use the Internet to keep up with news about the economic recession or their own personal finances. [...]

Many large brands have begun questioning the ability of their agencies of record to handle the rampant emergence of technology and new media resources. This reaction is causing huge concern with marketers about what type of relationship they should have with their agencies going forward in the digital age. Marketers are realizing that digital is a technologically driven sector and they need an alternative support group to help them achieve success in this new world. Advertising agencies and marketing services companies provide critical roles from generating the next big ideas, developing creative and executing across traditional programming areas. [...]

If only Joe Wilson would have behaved, if he could have been professional, if he could have kept “you lie” for his Twitter account rather than his verbal assault rifle, last night’s speech on health care it would have been a perfect opportunity to gauge social media’s metamorphosis. As it happened, I think it’s a reasonable conclusion to day that the ability to blog, share, tweet, retweet and Facebook this issue raised the level of debate considerably. But Wilson’s comment made it tough to see. [...]

While they struggle with the finances of current healthcare premiums and the uncertainty of pending reforms, several regional insurers are taking to social media. For example, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin is using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to connect with patients, answer complaints about customer service and distribute information on healthy lifestyles. It’s even working with one of the stars of the TV show The Biggest Loser. "Tools such as Twitter and Facebook provide an additional means of communicating with our members and all consumers in the communities we serve in a way that's convenient and of interest for them," said Anthem president Larry Schreiber. [...]

It was another one of those numbers that stands out in a world of numbers. 15.4 percent. US ad spending dropped 15.4 percent in the first half of this year according to Nielsen. The decimals are all in the right place. Business Insider called it right when they labeled it the “advertising apocalypse.” Let me suggest something a little deeper and darker. It’s not just an advertising apocalypse. This is a content apocalypse. I’ve always felt that content attracts the audience and the audience attracts advertisers. [...]

You won’t find much social consistency among some of the biggest spenders in the packaged goods business, which is the energy drinks category. Vitaminwater has called new attention to the category by recently announcing a three phase social program that taps users to help decide the next flavor or new bottle design. According to AllFacebook, the program is being rolled out in three phases. The first phase is the “flavor buzzmeter” which is tracking conversations from around the web to determine which flavors people are talking about. [...]

The Economist may soon move its website to an all-paid model. For the past two years the site has only charged for archived articles over a year in age; however, the publisher is closely considering charging for all its online content. While MediaWeek deemed the news a near certainty, The Economist has not yet finalized its position in the paid vs. free online debate. The magazine is reputedly considering multiple paid models, including an iTunes-like micropayment model; the site may shift to paid within the next six months. [...]

It was early April when the Weinstein Brothers shocked the entertainment world and NBC Universal when it took Project Runway from Bravo to Lifetime. But while it might have been celebration time at some offices, for Lifetime Digital it was time to work. “We already knew that Lifetime had a strong and vibrant community, but we knew that Project Runway was bringing a vibrant community of its own,” says Christian Martin, Lifetime Digital’s VP of Broadband Strategy and Development. “We wanted that audience to come to us for a social media-centric experience. [...]

This will be a big week for social media content. In fact, if Michael Jackson didn’t die, it would be the biggest week ever. It will not be the biggest week because every one that took a stroll by the beach will need to report what they did on the last week of their summer vacation. It will be the biggest week because there is a very thick issue on the table-- and a social media superstar is weighing in on it. Barack Obama, at 6.6 million friends, is in fact the highest-ranking live person on Facebook, still beating out Vin Diesel and Megan Fox. [...]

It’s confirmed: an SEC filing verifies that Union Square Ventures has funded Foursquare, a location-based mobile social application. Union Square’s Fred Wilson also confirmed the funding in his blog, A VC. The popularity of Foursquare's iPhone application has helped rapidly expand the company's user base to over 40,000 since its March debut. Wilson riffed about the app on his blog quite a lot this summer, hinting that he “was playing Foursquare” and that he had a “crush on the service. [...]

As summer hangs on and the working world starts to pick up the pace again, I saw a convenient number (three) things that brought the season to an interesting close: One: I thought Time.com’s co-branded strategy for social media was more innovation than I’ve seen from that company in a long time. To summarize, Siemens will be is the first advertiser to participate in the experimental “Stay Connected” program, which includes placement on the company’s social media outposts on those sites. [...]

Nearly a quarter billion Facebook users have been "Kidnapped" by the Travel Channel. Seats in the premium-priced Yankee Stadium have been filled. McDonald's Southern-style Chicken sandwiches made their social debut during the Olympics, as did less storied athletes from around the world using Lenovo's social channels. In short, it's been a landmark year for the social marketing professionals who will be honored at this year's inaugural SAMMY Awards, Sept. 17 at the W Hotel in New York City. (Tickets to the gala are available here http://www. [...]

Finalists Selected; Winners to be crowned Sept. 16 in NYC Hundreds of top brands and content producers vied to be the best of breed in mobile content and advertising in the first annual MOBI Awards, to be held Sept. 16 at the W Hotel in New York City, hosted by DM2Events.com, producer of the digiday:MOBILE conference. The judges, who are listed below all the finalists, focused on innovation, creativity, usability and the results or distribution that distinguished the winners. All came away impressed that these masters of the medium grasped the unique nature of both the mobile audience and how to engage them in the brand or the utility of their application. [...]

That’s what almost 400 attendees learned at social media blog Mashable’s first Social Good Conference at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan last Friday. The conference closed out Mashable’s Summer of Social Good initiative to raise $35,000 via social media for the Humane Society of the United States, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Oxfam, and LIVESTRONG. Instead, presenters from these four organizations, along with Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, non-profit blogger and social media coach, Beth Kanter, MediaSauce Cause Marketing Director Scott Henderson, Case Foundation Kari Saratovsky and many others stressed using social media to build social connections that ultimately lead to social activism. [...]

Robert Scoble is a big fan of Twitter, make no mistake about it. The Web personality and technology guru blogged over the weekend, sharing his thoughts about Twitter, which can be summed up with his post’s title: “why Twitter is underhyped and is probably worth five to 10 billion dollars.” His attention-grabbing (and traffic-driving) headline hammers his POV home, but the full post is worth a look-see. His points include this bold (if unsupported) statement: “Twitter has taken over the business world and this should be very worrying for other companies like Google, Yelp, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and others. [...]

Can Time.com monetize its social media popularity? Engineering firm Siemens is banking on it. Siemens is running a co-branded campaign on Time’s social properties. With Time.com’s Twitter page boasting over 1.4 million followers and its Facebook page numbering 72,000 fans, it makes sense why Siemens might be interested. But how are those campaign being integrated into Time's social profiles? Paid Content’s David Kaplan explains, “On Twitter, the words “Sponsored by Siemens” are integrated all over the background on Time. [...]

When it comes to social media content, grownups are playing in the kids’ sandbox, according to a report released last week by Burst Media. Even though baby boomers (ages 49-66) make up more than 25 % of all US Internet users, and even though the majority of this group spends over five hour per week online, Burst found that only 14 % of boomers feel that the content on the Internet is focused on people their age. An even smaller number of boomers (9.9%) think that Internet advertising is focused on their demographic. [...]

High-Octane Insults: I’m wondering if I can get one of those emoticons, you know like the smiley face things, that represents a middle finger. Or better yet, one that represents an oil-soaked bird. I would send a few to ExxonMobil. After pillaging the average customer for two or three years, and clocking the most excessive profits in the history of profits, now they want to know how we can save gas? Here are the details: The company is running a video contest inviting consumers to submit a two-minute video illustrating one or more gas- and money-saving tips. [...]

After they’ve texted, apped, called, and emailed their way through mobile devices, will consumers watch live TV? A new report from Mediamark Research & Intelligence. MRI says they will. Close to 21% of U.S. adults who have cell phones or personal digital assistants (PDA’s) are currently interested in watching live television on these mobile devices, according to data released Thursday. Several companies are in the live mobile TV, including MobiTV, which claims to have north of seven million paying subscribers. [...]

Are social networks like Twitter and Facebook making RSS “irrelevant?” ZDNet tech columnist Sam Diaz wonders if they haven’t pushed RSS in that direction. Riffing on a Google Reader blog post about Power Readers, Diaz notes that while he was “Once a big advocate for Google Reader” he hasn’t “logged in weeks, maybe months.” It's not that Diaz has stopped reading or keeping tabs on industry trends. Instead he trolls breaking news through a collection of browser tabs and favorite sites (Techmeme is one of his favorites). [...]

The New York Times has launched a new series of interactive interstitial ads inside its popular iPhone app. VISA and Siemens AG are among the first brands to give the new units a try; the expandable, rich media ads were created by Medialets, the New York-based mobile advertising firm behind innovative campaigns for Dockers and other brands. As Mobile Marketer’s Dan Butcher explains, the ads “encourage users to interact with the brands by taking advantage of functionality such as tilting, which is unique to the iPhone. [...]

The Federal Communication Commission is currently probing Apple’s recent rejection of Google’s Voice application for iPhone. Why does the FCC even care about this? Apple sells 65,000+ applications through the app store-- why the big stink over the rejection of one? Reuters explains, “The issue could have far reaching implications for the U.S. telecom industry.” The FCC’s response to “could either pave the way for new entrants or hinder their ability to use large carriers' phones to offer discount services. [...]

Affiliate marketing is a billion dollar business that extends far beyond the paid publishing referral market. MarketingSherpa estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned $6.5 billion in commissions from retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and lead generation other than contextual advertising, but experts tell us the market has grown substantially in just the last two years. In fact, recent studies indicate that a very large number of search affiliate marketers have been in business only for the last year and a half! What do you need to know to understand this marketing technique that -- according to leading paid site publishers we interviewed -- can generate from 30 percent to 50 percent of your total profits? DM2PRO takes an in-depth, three-part look at what the pros are doing to maximize their returns. [...]

The ink is dry: MySpace has formalized its purchase of music recommendation service iLike. MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta made the official announcement. Said Van Natta, “The iLike acquisition advances our relentless pursuit of innovation and the need to create new distributed social experiences in music and beyond.” iLike has established itself as the top music application across social networks, with 55 registered million users. It has also built out MP3 sales and a ticket sale business— something MySpace Music has just begun to experiment with. [...]

MSNBC and AOL may have just snapped up hyperlocal sites—EveryBlock and Patch respectively—but newspapers are dumping them left and right. This week the Washington Post announced it would close its hyperlocal “standalone” site, LoudounExtra. WaPo launched the site only two years ago; LoudounExtra was the publisher’s only foray into the hyperlocal space. It had planned to launch another local hub Fairfaxextra.com, but never pulled the trigger. Paid Content’s Rafat Ali explains, “The site will be turned off in September and all the content will be migrated to the main WaPo site. [...]

Since the Apple app store's debut just over a year ago the mobile applications space has exploded. By the close of 2008 the store's inventory passed the 10,000 app mark; by this June, that number had surged to 50,000 apps. Now, just two months later, some 60,000 applications are available for iPhone and iPod touch. With the apps-madness showing no signs of slowing, Alex Ahlund, founder of AppVee, asks an astute question in his TechCrunch guest column: “We are looking at a staggering 300 new applications being released every single day. [...]

Another one of America’s venerable magazine publishers fell victim to the economy this week: the Readers Digest Association has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The RDA also reveals it has negotiated to restructure its debt from approximately $2.2 billion to just under $550 million. The publisher announced it was not making a $27 million interest payment on one of its subordinated notes—saying it would be attempting to renegotiate with its lenders over the next month. Amidst the financial turmoil, nearly all members of the RDA’s board have stepped down; only the CEO Mary Berner remains. [...]

Twitter has a growing spam problem. While it’s not yet paralyzing the microblogging service, spam on Twitter is definitely on the rise. Research firm Pear Analytics took a closer look-- and found that some 3.75% of all tweets are outright spam. That number doesn’t exactly make Twitter Spamalot. For instance, that's nowhere near email’s spam-load (Pear found 90% of all email messages sent in May were spam). But consider how new Twitter is, and then ponder some of the other data Pear provided: the firm found 6% of tweets are overtly promotional; another 40% "pointless babble; 37% “conversational;” and only around 8. [...]

The tablets are coming. And all of us who love our shiny, pretty Apple devices may not have to wait long to get our hands on one. Apple’s forthcoming tablet device has been this summer’s most discussed tech gadget. The gossip has been flying; the foreshadowing heavy. First it’s a Kindle killer. Next the tablet is going to revolutionize music. Whatever this device ends up doing, there’s no disputing that Apple fanboys (and girls) are drooling to get a look at it. It’s been widely assumed that Apple would unveil the tablet sometime next year. [...]

VC Fred Wilson is a fan of Foursquare and he’s not afraid to admit it. Rumors have been flying that the notable venture capitalist is eying the application company. Now Fred seems to be backing those rumors up by commenting about the app across the web: on his blog, A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC and quipping on Foursquare's founder’s Flickr account. Okay. So, Fred Wilson likes Foursquare—what exactly is it? Business Insider’s Nicholas Carlson describes it as an “iPhone app that lets users "check-in" to restaurants and bars and let all their friends know where they're hanging out. [...]

While marketers may still be skeptical about mobile apps, research by GravityTank suggests marketers should reconsider given consumers' engagement with mobile apps.

By Steve Ellwanger When asked to write this article about apps, my initial thoughts were a) this editor has lost it, and b) she likes to frustrate the elderly (I’ll be 55 next month). I agreed to do it because I am in the PR biz and therefore supposed to be hip to the latest ways to communicate and commercialize via mobile devices and social networks. Or at least appear to be. One of my clients recently informed me of its desire to go on Twitter. My mental response: Good luck with that. My verbal reply: “That might be a very wise strategic and tactical move. [...]

How can every marketer can reach and engage the desirable audience that is using applications across platforms, including iPhone/iTouch, Android, BlackBerry and Palm Pre?

A recent survey of several hundred digital media and marketing professionals by our sister publication DM2PRO.com reveals some angst among those who haven’t tried social applications, but growing enthusiasm among those who have.

How will being 'open' allows for community driven applications?

Facebook has acquired rival social net FriendFeed for around $50 million, including at least $15 million in cash, according to the Wall Street Journal. FriendFeed’s social sharing system allows users to share links and their web-wide activity updates on one centralized page: think Facebook’s feed updates, but with a much wider net. While FriendFeed never enjoyed the stratospheric growth of Facebook, it gained a following with tech users and found quite a few of its features emulated by its more popular rival. [...]

Think mobile gaming is a fly-by-night fad? Think again. Pyramid Research studied the market’s prospects and forecasts a sunny future for mobile gaming: it should hit $18 billion by 2014, growing at an annual pace of 16.6%. Those are bullish numbers for these gloomy days. However, Pyramid makes these predictions based on increased mobile service and handset penetration globally. Better service, better phones = more mobile gaming customers. One of the more interesting points of Pyramid’s study, called "Mobile Gaming in Emerging Markets: Five Year Forecast and Impact Analysis," is that it takes a close look not at established mobile markets, but at eight emerging markets including Mexico, China, India, Mexico, and Russia. [...]

Before this week gets off to its logical “what will Microsoft buy or sell next” start, let’s consider a story from last week. Specifically the drop in traffic at Wikipedia, because it is a lesson in the impermanence of Internet content. Granted, Wikipedia has been teetering under a barrage of criticism for quite some time for presenting user generated content as expert generated facts. It has recently dodged a couple of defamation lawsuits, and is going to need some funding to fight off the suddenly awakened giant of Britannica. [...]

Now that the Boston Globe is officially on the market, who's looking? And for that matter, what kind of buyer can stomach the money-losing realities of purchasing an ailing newspaper these days? An opportunistic buyer with experience buying distressed media companies, that’s who. While Boston businessmen Stephen Pagliuca and Steve Taylor are still perusing the Globe, CA-based private equity firm Platinum Equity is the newest buyer to make a bid. Platinum is definitely a buyer with the chops to take on a beleaguered daily: it recently snapped up the San Diego Union-Tribune for $50 million big ones. [...]

Few people in this business blend vision, innovation, and practicality like CBS’ David Poltrack. He is very simply a man that uses data as both history and a clue to the future. So when he talks about pricing content online , listen up. His recent presentation on online video has been picked up by several sources, including the PaidContent site that includes a long to his PPT deck. As usual Poltrack cuts through the blue-sky high-end theory and shows how different demographic groups will or will not adopt it. [...]

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch believes in paid content. As paid Content’s (the pub, not the business model) Staci Kramer explains, “the steep decline in advertising has converted him into a pay evangelist, a pragmatic one with a belief in multiple revenue streams.” To that end, Murdoch intends to move the bulk of his digital properties towards a paid model. On a recent earnings call Murdoch declared, “We intend to charge for our news websites. The Wall Street Journal‘s WSJ.com is the world’s most successful paid news site and we will be using our profitable experience there and the resulting unique skills throughout News Corp to increase our revenues from all our content. [...]

As the e-reader wars wage on, Sony unveils not one, but two digital readers this week: the PRS-300 and PRS-600. Sony’s larger reader features a 6-inch touch-screen and will be priced at $299; the smaller, more basic version will be marketed for a mere $199. Both readers will be available to consumers later this month and will be sold at retailers including WalMart and BestBuy. This marks an aggressive price reduction on Sony’s part. Sony's previous e-reader sold for $399, while the new touch-screen model is now priced to compete directly with Amazon’s Kindle 2 (which doesn’t sport a touch-screen). [...]

Video ad network Tremor Media is in the throes of an internal reorganization, and as part of the shuffling and editing, two of the company’s key executives are departing. Co-founder and COO Andrew Reis and Chief Strategy Officer Jesse Chenard are leaving Tremor for unnamed startups. For now, Chenard and Reis’ replacements have not been named. In the interim, Tremor’s tech and product teams will look to Tremor CEO Jason Glickman for direction. It appears the reorg and executive shuffling is not tied to financial pressures; Tremor nabbed a $19 million round of funding this winter and reportedly doubled revenue in the last 12 months. [...]

Monday was a big day for executive shuffling. While Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s exit from the Apple board was somewhat expected, Catherine Mathis’ resignation from the New York Times Co. was largely a surprise. Mathis, who served as the chief spokeswoman for the NYT Co., is departing after 12 years at the publisher. NYT Co CEO Janet Robinson announced Mathis’ resignation in a memo to staff Monday; The Awl picked the news up promptly, sharing the memo. Of Mathis’ role at the NYT, Robinson said, “She served as the chief communications strategist and spokesperson through some of the most challenging chapters in our history…she was always on duty, actively involved in managing the reputation of The Times brand, a major accomplishment, given the massive
 amount of coverage The Times Company generates on a daily basis. [...]

Microsoft’s Bing is steaming up slowly—gaining an extra percent of search market share in July. Significantly, it took much of that gain from the competition it aims to beat: Google. Web analytics outfit StatCounter shared the numbers, saying: “Bing again slightly increased the Microsoft share of the US search market in July to 9.41% from 8.23% in June.” Google’s shares dipped to 77.54% from 78.48%. StatCounter CEO and founder Aodhan Cullen said of the findings, "Bing continues to make slow but steady progress but the combined Yahoo! Figures suggests that the deal announced last week will have to demonstrate major future synergies if it is to make any dent in Google`s dominance. [...]

The Wall Street Journal’s first attempt at social, WSJ Community, never gained traction—but that hasn’t scared it away from the social space. In fact, WSJ is getting ready to roll out a new professionally-focused social network it’s tentatively calling WSJ Connect. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington shared details on the network, which WSJ is reportedly referring to as “The LinkedIn Killer.” With over 15 million visitors each month, LinkedIn may be a tough social net to kill. However, WSJ is clearly using LinkedIn as its inspiration for the new effort; and with all those potential revenue streams-- job listings, ads, etc. [...]

Despite an “intense rivalry” with Google, and much insistence that it would never build out an application to service Android, Facebook is indeed working on an application for Android phones. The new app will include some-- but not all-- of the features of Facebook’s highly popular iPhone app. While it lacks a few of the bells and whistles of the iPhone app, it will offer Facebook stream and status updates, which as TechCrunch’s Erik Schonfeld puts it, are “really all you need.” What motivated this change of heart for Facebook? Why an Android app now? Schonfeld explains, “for one thing, Android is now on the verge of becoming a serious competitor to the iPhone, with nearly two dozen new phones set to launch this year. [...]

Now that the dust is settling and the details of the Yahoo-Microsoft deal emerge, it’s worth asking: it is a good deal for both parties? Henry Blodget of Business Insider takes a close look. He admits that on paper, the “idea of Microsoft and Yahoo combining forces is smart. Neither alone has enough share of the search market to be a "must buy," and search relevance and pricing improves with scale.” However, as it was worked, the deal isn’t so hot for Yahoo; it received no upfront cash, which it could definitely use, and had long been mentioned as an imperative to the deal's structure. [...]

The deal we’ve all been waiting from is inches from happening. After the many months of haggling, back-pedaling, and public feather fluffing, Yahoo and Microsoft are closing in on a search deal. Things nearly fell apart last week when Yahoo demanded upfront payment— which could have added up to “several hundred million.” Search-ad revenue split was another contested item. However, discussions between execs started back up on Thursday and the official announcement could come as soon as this week. [...]

In a surprising move, Ben Silverman announced this morning he is departing NBC Universal for Barry Diller’s IAC. Silverman served as co-chairman of NBCU for the last two years. He joined NBCU after a highly successful run at his own production outfit, Reveille, known for such hits as Ugly Betty and The Office. Silverman failed to hit the same stride at NBCU and some called his future there uncertain-- particularly in light of the network’s flagging ratings. In his new role Silverman will head a new multi-platform production company for IAC. [...]

Google introduced Google Wave to a crowd gathered at the Google I/O Conference at the end of May. While not widely available to the general public (it is available to be previewed), tech circles ooh-hed and ahh-ed at the online communication platform’s possibilities. Wave’s introduction raised questions, namely: could Wave someday replace email? Mashable’s Ben Parr answers that question succinctly: “while our experiments with Wave have brought us to the conclusion that this platform may indeed be a game changer, it won’t happen if there isn’t widespread adoption. [...]

Yahoo unveiled its newly redesigned, much-anticipated home page this week. The new design is more attractive and easy to navigate than the old Yahoo.com— and it’s relatively clutter-free. But will it achieve the company’s goal? Or will the retool, as paid Content’s Joseph Tartakoff predicts, “fall short of its lofty goal of being the ‘center of people’s online lives?’” With the redesign, Yahoo brought apps front and center on the homepage. But a closer examination reveals these apps are light on content. [...]

Microsoft and Apple television ads maybe directed for the living rooms – and their viral online video versions for home, office, and mobile – but who is really answering the Call2Action? The space where digital technologies and advertising commerce collide is where the buzz is hot today. Microsoft exec Kevin Turner says Apple asked them to stop airing Laptop Hunters ads. Who is Kevin Turner? Turner came to Microsoft from Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart in 2005. During his reign, Sam’s Club was known for, “We are in business for small business. [...]

App portal GetJar predicts that by the close of 2009, mobile users will have over 100,000 applications to choose from. At the MobileBeat conference in San Francisco GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs went so far as to say, "Apps will be as big if not bigger than the Internet…They will peak at around 100,000 by the end of the year." 100,000 may not be an over-reaching number. Apple’s app store now boasts around 65,000 applications, according to a company release last week. Now for the inevitable question: with all those apps exploding onto the scene, how do the economics of an app eco-system work? Laurs conceded, “The reality is that this space is only so big and only able to support so many people. [...]

AOL’s new ad boss Jeff Levick sees there’s still work to do integrating and editing the company’s divisions. Levick, on the job for several months since arriving from Google, chatted with paid Content’s David Kaplan about all things advertising with AOL. Levick said that Platform-A isn’t going anywhere for now— but admitted strategic shuffling within AOL’s ad units is not yet complete. Levick also talked about the broader goal of “cohesion” within AOL’s units, how AOL is coping with the downturn in display, and hinted at new types of inventory the company is rolling out. [...]

Quadrangle Group is turning its interest in Alpha Media Group over to its investors, including Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm. Alpha Media Group is best known as the publisher of men’s magazine, Maxim. The news is not a surprise given the rash of bad luck Alpha Media Group has endured since Quadrangle acquired it from British “publishing maverick” Felix Dennis for $250 million in 2007. Quadrangle put up around $100 million of the purchase price. A snapshot of what Alpha's tumultuous last two years: the shuttering of the group’s print music title Blender (it’s gone wholly digital); Maxim’s plummeting ad revenues; Quadrangle defaulting on the original purchase debt it used to acquire Alpha; primary investor Steve Rattner stepping down to take a gig with the Obama Administration; and now, Quadrangle handing Alpha over to investors. [...]

Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller has stepped down from his post after nine years on the Forbes team. News of his resignation emerged Wednesday evening and Spanfeller himself confirmed it. While his replacement has not yet been named, Spanfeller told paid Content he plans “to launch a new business that would manage startups and turnaround businesses for traditional media companies.” He will stay on board until Labor Day to facilitate a smooth transition within Forbes' digital unit. He called his decision neither “sudden” nor “surprising” to Forbes ownership. [...]

With bad news splashing headlines every day, it almost comes as a surprise to report something good. However, while consumer magazines as a whole have plummeted in the face of the faltering economy—Publisher’s Information Bureau reported a 29.5% drop across categories last quarter— 10 magazines PIB tracks reported gains. One of the ten was Meredith’s Fitness. With a circulation of 1.5 million, Folio’s Jason Fell reports that “Fitness actually reported the biggest gain through the period, with ad pages rising 18. [...]

That didn’t take long. Apple’s app store has crossed the 1.5 billion mark in its first year of business. The company shared the numbers in a public release Tuesday. With over 65,000 apps available in 77 countries, Apple calls its app store “the largest applications store in the world.” That’s probably accurate, at least for now. In the release, ever-mysterious Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, “The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality…With 1. [...]

McGraw-Hill has responded to the rumors and confirmed it is seeking a sale for BusinessWeek. Paid Content shared the official memo, which while veiled behind corporate fuzz, lays it out: “The McGraw-Hill Companies today announced that it is exploring strategic options for BusinessWeek. BusinessWeek is a globally respected brand and one of the world’s leading sources of essential and trusted content that informs and inspires business leaders to make smarter decisions in their professional and personal lives. [...]

Peter Kafka never fails to make me think. In his “Media Memo,” he offers a piece that takes a hard look at the exploding popularity of applications—and the implications that apps could have on the media business. Kafka shares data from a survey Chicago-based consultancy Gravity Tank conducted with what is calls “app phone users.” For all us at home watching the unfolding apps-losion, that means iPhone or G1 smartphone users. The basic gist of the survey is that people like their apps-- they really like them. [...]

TweetDeck, the popular Twitter application that helps users organize their Twitter conversations, has pulled in “several million” in funding. Among the investors participating in this round: Betaworks, PRO Founders Capital, TAG Ventures, and others. TweetDeck has been downloaded over a million times—making it one of the most popular third-party Twitter clients. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux—and debuted an iPhone app just a week ago. This funding rounds out a $300,000 seed raise earlier this year, which Betaworks led. [...]