Brian Morrissey

AOL continues its strategy of segmenting its audience with a recent upgrade to Black Focus, its African-American content area. Belinda Hankins, executive director and general manager of Black Focus, told this publication that an expanded Afro-American service allows the company to better cater to member needs. AOL is adding new content and community to the […]

LookSmart on Thursday took aim at search industry heavyweights Google and Overture Services with the introduction of a rival keyword listings product. The company’s Sponsored Listings, however, will have limited distribution compared to Google’s and Overture’s. For now, the listings will appear on CNET, Road Runner and Cox Internet, as well as metasearch engines like […]

Yahoo! reached a settlement to end an investigation of its marketing practices by the office of New York’s attorney general. Under terms of the settlement, Yahoo! will halt plans for a program that would have opted-in some customers to receiving Yahoo! telemarketing solicitations. Yahoo! also agreed to pay $75,000 to cover the investigation’s costs. The […]

Yahoo! added another piece to its evolving small-business strategy on Wednesday by rolling out a suite of online marketing services that includes products from Yahoo! rivals like Google and Shopping.com. Yahoo! Small Business customers can now create accounts for online marketing with a half dozen marking providers, with services ranging from product-search listings to pay-per-click […]

Google on Tuesday announced it acquired Kaltix, a three-month old search technology startup at work on improving search results relevance through personalization. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. A Google representative said the Mountain View, Calif., company gains three engineers and all technologies Kaltix developed. The representative declined to go into detail about […]

Terra Lycos said Tuesday it will use Google’s contextual paid listings on 11 sites in its network. The multiyear agreement calls for Google’s paid links to be delivered on a number of Terra Lycos U.S. properties, including Tripod, Angelfire, HotWired, Lycos.com, Matchmaker, and Raging Bull. Terra Lycos joins iVillage, Weather.com and Switchboard as major distribution […]

E-mail marketers are braced for any number of unintended consequences from the vague wording of California’s new anti-spam law. The law, which is set to go into effect Jan. 1, has caused widespread confusion in the industry. The only thing that’s clear so far is that lawyers will be busy deconstructing what many e-mail marketers […]

Project Lumos, the effort to address the spam problem through a registry for bulk e-mailers, released a detailed plan for how the registry would work on Monday. Despite its progress, however, the effort has yet to gain the support of Internet service providers. The Project Lumos proposed e-mail architecture hopes to take on spam by […]

FindWhat.com said on Friday it’s entering the Japanese market through a partnership with holding company Mitsui. Under terms of the multiyear licensing deal, FindWhat will provide the technological backbone to power a keyword-advertising program for Mitsui in Japan. Mitsui will sell listings and provide customer service for the offering, which will route queries back to […]

Google continued to extend its tentacles Thursday, starting operations in Spain just one week after Overture Services flung open the doors of its own Spanish offices. The rival paid-search providers have battled in a number of markets abroad, in both Europe and Asia. In Spain, Google will rely heavily on its Google.es domain, which is […]

While AOL tried to win back the hearts of fans with a free Dave Matthews Band concert in New York’s Central Park Wednesday night, the Internet service has waged a quieter, yet equally important battle behind the scenes to win back the respect of agencies. Two weeks ago, in her first public comments since she […]

Traditional advertisers like financial services companies, telecommunications firms and auto manufacturers are driving online advertising growth, according to a new study. The research, published Wednesday by Nielsen//NetRatings, found that business and consumer services companies spent $576.3 million in the first quarter, a 17 percent increase from a year earlier. Automakers spent $57 million, a 90 […]