Brian Morrissey

Interactive marketing company Avenue A announced on Thursday that it would change its name to aQuantive, in a move designed to give a clear identity to the company’s three business units, agencies Avenue A and i-FRONTIER and Atlas DMT. “Avenue A is a strong brand, and will continue to be the name of our core […]

Google, which has remained quiet during the paid search sector’s recent flurry of activity, has, without fanfare, rolled out a new ad product that will serve relevant paid listings on Web sites’ content pages. Through new program, called “Content-Targeted AdWords,” Google can syndicate its listings to Web sites beyond those with which it has long-term […]

Over 103 million Americans over the age of 12 have experienced Internet audio or video broadcasts, according to a new study of digital consumer trends by Arbitron and Edison Media. Forty-four percent said they had taken in an Internet broadcast, with nearly one in five saying they had in the past month. The researchers found […]

The number of African Americans online now tops 10 million, according to a new research by Nielson//NetRatings, but blacks still lag far behind the general population in online use. Nielsen//NetRatings found that blacks represent 8 percent of the Internet population with 10 million users. In August 2001, Nielsen//NetRatings pegged the African-American online population at 8.2 […]

With all the buzz Tuesday about Overture Services’ second purchase of a search technology company in less than a week, little notice was taken of the company’s plan to roll out new search products. In the coming year, Overture plans to offer contextual advertising, in order to capitalize on the success of its pay-for-performance advertising, […]

Paid search leader Overture Services backed up its talk of becoming a leader in all types of search by announcing an agreement on Tuesday to acquire the Web search unit of FAST Search and Transfer in a deal worth up to $100 million. Overture said it would pay $70 million in cash for FAST, with […]

Sunbelt Software Rolls Out IHateSpam for Enterprises Eight months after launching its well-received consumer anti-spam software, IHateSpam, Sunbelt Software announced on Monday the availability of an enterprise edition. The Tampa, Fla., maker of Windows-based management tools plans to position the anti-spam tool as a low-cost, low-maintenance alternative to expensive corporate anti-spam options like Brightmail. IHateSpam […]

ComScore Media Metrix said on Monday it had discovered flaws in its measurement methodology, causing it to revise its site counts for October through December 2002. The company said the methodology it introduced in October undercounted at-work users, with the restated figures causing some sites’ traffic figures and duration-of-visit data to increase sharply. Also, ComScore […]

Search provider Inktomi, recently acquired by Yahoo! , renewed its contract with MSN through December 2005, according to its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to the filing, MSN renewed its contract with Inktomi to provide paid-inclusion services for the portal’s search results. MSN has a number of search partnerships, including another […]

America Online reported a number of successes in its fight against unsolicited bulk e-mail, crediting subscriber use of the “report spam” button that’s caused some consternation in the e-mail marketing community. Every day, AOL blocks 22 spam e-mail messages, on average, from reaching a subscriber’s in-box. That totals up to 780 million blocked messages a […]

AOL has begun to offer advertisers space on its front page, an area previously off limits to ads, as it deals with the aftermath of its ad-sales meltdown. AOL Time Warner’s woebegone Internet unit has lifted its previous taboo on “Welcome Screen” ads in an effort to lure back advertisers, who have fled the company […]

USAToday.com on Thursday began requiring users to answer three demographic questions to access some stories, joining competitors like NYTimes.com and WashingtonPost.com in requiring information for access. In a cautious foray into registration, USAToday.com now asks users for their gender, zip code and year of birth to access certain articles. The test encompasses about 10 percent […]