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U.S.
Cable Giant Time Warner has just launched a service of providing
incoming telephone caller id on the TV set! Coupled with
a facility to activate a call via remote control unit, will this
make the TV
set the epi-centre of the household?
A by-product of "triple-play" (cable, Internet & telephone services
via single cable), this feature requires subscribers to sign up
for digital cable TV as well as telephone service. And the caller
id feature is currently available at no extra charge.
Whatever the benefits, this certainly does not augur well for our
couch potatoes!
Waiting for the Next Dotcom Bust !
For most of us, the dot-com bust is just a pale memory of the past.
(Certainly
doesn't seem like it happened just 5 years ago!). But this
is certainly not the opinion of Philip Kaplan & James Martin of
www.fu ckedcompany.com
(politely referred to as FC).
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More
on FC
Founded
by Internet entrepreneur Philip J. Kaplan, FC
can be classified as a "blasphemous" site known for
mocking Internet startups, especially those which (being
based on weak business models,) were going under in
the late 90s / early 2000s.
The popularity of this site is indicated by its claimed
4 million visitors per month in 2000 - 2001.
Based on this traffic, FC reportedly generated revenues
of $ 90,000/- per month by charging to view selective
content !
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Convinced of an impending dot com bust, Martin & Kaplan have put
FC on the block. Here's wishing them all the best.
DoubleClick's Digital Ad Exchange
DoubleClick is undoubtedly the world leader for delivering ads to
web sites along with monitoring ad clicks. With billings of $ 300
million in 2006, it has announced plans to set up an online exchange
to facilitate buying & selling of digital ads. Modelled as a cross
between an airline reservation system, stock exchange
& eBay, the new service will expose all bids made for an
ad (like eBay) to help publishers sell at the highest possible price
(airline reservation system).
Like Google, DoubleClick serves both buyers & sellers of digital
ads. But unlike Google, DoubleClick deals with major online agencies
& media buyers, helping them place their ads online & monitor their
effectiveness. (DoubleClick claims to service 1,500+ top publishers,
advertisers & agencies.) For web publishers, DoubleClick delivers
ads to their web sites with software that optimizes available web
space. Since the proposed ad exchange will link Web publishers to
buyers via a Web site where they can jointly participate in auctions
for ad space. So, the exchange seems to be a logical growth path
for DoubleClick.
P.S. With Google & Microsoft actively bidding for DoubleClick, one
can't help speculating that the online ad exchange "announcement"
is timed to fetch it a better price !
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