Apple's iPhone Apology

Give me a break! Apple had to apologize for dropping the price of the iPhone?!? What bizarre alternative reality did I just enter? The Phone wasn't hitting sales projections so Apple lowered the price. Apple didn't have a diabolical plan. I can just see Steve Jobs in a dark room...

Quechup is SPAM

That is the subject of several e-mail I've received in the last few days. I can't tell you anything about Quechup. In fact, I don't even know how to pronounce it (is it Ketchup?) The sequence of events is I get an e-mail inviting me to join. It's someone I...

Hearst Acquires Kaboodle

The first social shopping site has been acquired. It seems a little early but the feeding frenzy may have begun. Hearst Corp. announced its acquisition of Kaboodle today for an undisclosed amount. Kaboodle is the best of the so-called social shopping sites. The problem with most is that they are...

ValueClick as a Publisher

ValueClick announced this morning that it is acquiring Mezimedia for $100 to $352 million. Mezimedia owns and operates Smarter.com, CouponMountain and a slew of other sites (e.g. Shopica and ToSeekA) that are used for search arbitrage. WOW! I may add commentary in the comments but for now, I'll leave it...

Class Action Lawsuit against Valueclick, CJ and BeFree

Here's an interesting one... Valueclick, CJ and BeFree are being sued by Settlement Recovery Center LLC for breach of contract, negligence, unjust enrichment and unfair business practices. The claims are based on CJ and BeFree allowing Publishers (I'll use the CJ terminology) to use loyalty software (referred to as adware...

Google's Advertising Everywhere

You've already heard that Google bought Doubleclick for $3.1 billion. That's a nice profit for JMI Equity and Hellman & Friedman, the two private equity firms that bought Doubleclick two years ago for $1.1 billion and took it private. The number is also about double what Google clicked for YouTube......

The 411 on Google

I'm not a big fan of Google as a company. So far, it's a one trick pony (start your hollering here). Google created a better search engine at the right time and we all flocked there. After saying paid search was wrong and irrelevant, Google added AdWords. Multi-billion dollar market...

Migrating Affiliate Networks

I'll give you a quick entry on affiliate marketing. I just mocked a friend. He's been in affiliate marketing for years at a network and is now a publisher. (I've noticed the move from network and merchant to publisher a lot and definitely more than the other way.) He was...

LinkedIn: An Unsocial Network

I received a note in response to my request for topics from long-time Revenews reader Nathan. He asked that I avoid religion, politics, sports and just about every other topic. He wanted something closer to Web 2.0. For today, I will oblige his request. Here is today's article from our...