Much has been made of Google’s willingness - and now need considering the economic downturn - to monetize Google Images search. Google has even suggested that it may mean an incremental $200 million. But they’ve been cautious to add AdWords to Image search - perhaps because it is a difficult balance between matching user intent and relevancy…. Until today - the first day I noticed prominent ads within image search. I don’t believe that this implementation is effective - and certainly not capable of generating $200m. The trouble is that it does a poor job of matching ads with what...
In a month when some 533,000 jobs were lost nationwide, Americans bought an astonishing amount of videogame paraphernalia–$2.91 billion worth, according to market research outfit NPD Group. That’s a 10 percent increase over November 2007. Shipments of Nintendo’s Wii for the month totaled 2.04 million, while those of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox came in at 836,000. Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 ranked a distant third, with shipments of just 378,000 units. Said NPD analyst Anita Frazier, “With $16 billion realized for the year so far through November, the industry is still on pace to achieve total year revenue of $22 billion in...
Despite the recent (and undoubtedly temporary) drop in energy prices, the fact remains that because of the economic downturn and an aging housing stock, many families will struggle to heat their homes this winter. At the same time, the need to create jobs, stimulate the economy, create sound investment opportunities and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions has never been greater. There is no silver bullet for solving all these challenges, but an innovative financing mechanism for renewable energy and energy efficiency could go a long way toward putting the country on the right track. Here's how it works. Homeowners Need...
We’ve read a few articles lately claiming that survival is not a strategy. The arguments in Anand Rajaraman’s article on GigaOM last month are sound, and if we understand them correctly include not prolonging a business that will never likely “win” or be healthy or have an exit resulting in wealth creation for the shareholders. It’s hard, or more appropriately put, impossible to argue with that logic. A quick death of a company that would otherwise die is a good thing for shareholders and employees. That said, we think it is very hard in these times to look into a...
Sanyo was the pioneer when it came to releasing one of the first transistor radios in the world over five decades ago, and you know that the company is forward looking if it is still around today. This time, Sanyo has updated their transistor radio with a modern twist - it comes with Internet radio capability, packaged in a design that looks contemporary and yet features the comfortable and familiar functionality of a clock radio. It also boasts the sound quality of a much more expensive audio system (according to Sanyo anyways - audiophiles might beg to differ in this...
These will be decidedly unhappy holidays for hundreds of thousands of workers who won't have jobs thanks to the steep economic downturn and the financial crisisJobless Claims Remain High Where the Job Losses Are...
Any notion that Christmas will be cancelled this year has been greatly exaggerated, according to the 14th Annual Christmas Retail Survey from Deloitte. The global auditor and advisory firm reports that for most of the UK population, the economic downturn will not be getting in the way of Christmas, with 57% of consumers saying that they plan to spend the same amounts as they did last year....
