People on the Move
Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone Steps Down
|
Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 10, 2008 | Share This
|
|
IAC announced yesterday a management shake up that sees Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone leaving the company. Jim Safka, who will retain his position as CEO of IAC’s investment arm, Primal Ventures, will be taking over as Ask.com boss. Lanzone is going to Redpoint Ventures, a VC firm where he’ll be entrepreneur-in-residence, but during his time at Ask.com he led forward-thinking initiatives, like privacy-protecting AskEraser. And it looks like Safka is ready to take over. From the press release:
Mr. Safka, 39, served as CEO of Match.com from 2004 to 2006. Under his leadership, the company grew revenue and operating income before amortization at an annual rate of 25% and 52% respectively. Today, Match.com has more than 15 million members in 35 countries…
“Jim Lanzone was the principal executive responsible for Ask.com’s turnaround over the last two years. His passion for innovation and his every day dedication to the business and its people have been everything anyone could ask for,” said Mr. Diller. “He is a superb executive and leader and I’m hopeful we can be associated in the future.”
Silicon Alley Insider reported what sounded like frustration about Ask.com’s relative lack of market share from IAC head Barry Diller when he spoke at a press conference Tuesday. Diller said, “We certainly have not bitten an inch out of the hide of Google…I’ve been daunted by the progress of that.” Indeed, Diller rightfully noted that the challenge Ask.com faces is getting users to give it a chance. Could Safka’s Match.com experience help find a way to convert Google users?
It’s clear from the rest of Diller’s statements during Tuesday’s press conference that IAC is aiming to make Ask.com its crown jewel. So 2008 could very well be the year that Ask.com proves it’s the little engine that could.
Reprise Media Commits to Corporate Social Responsibility
|
Written By Kate Zimmermann | November 16, 2007 | Share This
|
|
Today we’re excited to announce the launch of Reprise Media’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. We’re publicly committing to allocate our expertise and time to help nonprofit organizations advance their marketing efforts.
Over the last four years, Reprise Media has earned terrific recognition for our thought leadership in search engine marketing (SEM) and social media. Though we’re proud of the work we’ve done to help our clients reach consumers, we think there is an even greater opportunity to use search and social media to rally people to worthy causes.
We’ve thought a lot about how an online marketing agency might promote social change, and believe that it is our expertise in search and social media that offers the greatest potential benefit to non profit organizations. We are inspired by the chance to make a difference and we’re eager to share our findings through a series of case studies with the greater non-profit world and our industry peers.
To that, Reprise Media’s first client under this initiative is the Center for Global Development (CGD), a nonprofit think tank that provides independent research and practical ideas for global prosperity. In July 2007, we launched a full SEM campaign the Center’s main website (CGDev.org), and have since expanded the campaign to include GlobalDevelopmentMatters.org, an online video site developed to raise awareness about global poverty, and CARMA.org, a user-friendly global database that reveals the CO2 emissions of approximately 50,000 powerplants and the companies that own them.
Since the campaign’s launch, we’ve increased CGD’s average monthly search traffic by 1500% while more than doubling their click-through rate. In the month of October, our SEM work drove nearly 30% of the site’s visitors.
In addition to managing paid search, Reprise Media has developed an integrated search and social media marketing strategy for CGD’s “Global Development Matters” website. Working with See3, a Chicago-based media company, we’ve established a plan for CGD to use their blog, social network profiles, widgets, and other types of social media to generate discussion about global development issues in advance of the 2008 presidential election.
Encouraged by our initial success with the Center for Global Development, we’ve launched an online application process for other nonprofit organizations that are interested in receiving pro bono SEM, SEO and SMM services. Interested nonprofits can reach out to us through our website, to receive more information about our work and potential partnership.
More about our CSR pledge: CSR Media Release
Algorithm Wins All? Competition and Success in Web 2.0
|
Written By Kate Zimmermann | January 29, 2007 | Share This
|
|
Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures has a written a very insightful post on “What’s Next” for internet technology. He’s articulated some of my own thoughts about the direction of online services and how economies of abundance develop,
“The web services that seem to explode onto the scene like Facebook and YouTube did not get there by providing exceptional reliability, accessibility or security. In fact many have suffered outages that would have killed other service providers. These services succeeded because they effectively gather and use data. They are differentiated not by the quality of their service but by its nature. Competitors can offer much better service levels but without access to the same data, they can not offer the same utility.”
“The genius of Craigslist is in its governance system…that allows 21 people to administer 300 sites in 35 countries. I believe that the basis of competition in web services will shift from the data to the system that manages the acquisition, and use of that data.”
This is especially well exemplified by the emerging online music industry. Last.fm uses behavioral data to make their recommendation engine perpetually more relevant to individual users. Sellaband is an independent music label funded and promoted virally by community members who in turn profit from the company’s success. AmieStreet, similarly, uses popularity to set purchase prices for music downloads. Each of these companies has found a way to profit from their innovative systems of governing community-generated data.
Perhaps, however, the Onion says it best.
August Hires: Yahoo! Nabs ComScore Man; Google Snaps Up Linux Programmer
|
Written By Reprise Media | August 14, 2006 | Share This
|
|
Two search hires in one day…well, we won’t call it a frenzy - yet.
First, Yahoo! hired Peter Daboll away from ComScore Networks, where he was president and CEO of the firm’s Media Metrix division. And, says ClickZ, Yahoo! created a brand new position just for him; he’ll become Yahoo!’s “chief of insights and head of global market research.” Says Daboll:
“This position was created to bring together the external world of market research and the wealth of internal data that Yahoo collects…They’ve already been doing that, but they wanted to bring in someone at a more senior role to pull the pieces together.”
Daboll hopes his status as a “Yahoo! outsider” helps bring a “fresh perspective” to his new team, but he should also beware Yahoo!’s gentle hazing rituals. Actually, we don’t know if Yahoo! has any kind of initiation rites, but doesn’t it seem like a company with a name like that ought to? They should probably involve some sort of embarrassing hat.
What were we saying again? Google announced a splashy hire of its own today. They lured programmer Andrew Morton from Digeo Interactive, where he worked while drawing a paycheck from Open Source Development Labs, carrying out (stay with us) his duties as a close deputy to…Linux guru Linus Torvalds!
News.com says that Morton will still be involved with maintaining the 2.6 Linux kernel (on which most up-to-date Linux products are based), while working at Google. Says Morton, “It is beneficial to me (and to Linux) that I be in day-to-day contact with people who use Linux for real things. Hence Google is a good all-round fit.”
Google Friday: Big G Round-up
|
Written By Reprise Media | August 4, 2006 | Share This
|
|
We will make absolutely no jokes about bringing you “just the facts.” Nor will we claim to have changed names “to protect the innocent.” We hope our restraint is appreciated. Now…here’s the Google news we dredged up in our dragnet:
Out of Time, exec joins Google AdAge says that Google’s just tapped the former president of Time magazine to be their new head of ad sales in New York. Eileen Naughton, a 15-year Time, Inc. employee, was once in charge of that company’s interactive undertakings, and later the Time website. She’ll start at Google in a few months, having left Time in December.
Now you tell us In a deal that’s been on for two months, but only made public Wednesday, the Associated Press announced that Google has agreed to compensate them on a pay-per-click basis for using news stories and photographs in Google News. That’s got to irk Agence France Presse, who sued Google last year over copyright infringement for including fragments of their stories in Google News search results. Says News.com, the AFP hopes the Google-AP deal will bolster their legal arguments (although Techdirt doesn’t think so).
Cali-come-lately The University of California, whose 100 libraries boast 34 million books (making it “collectively the largest academic research library in the world”), might be interested in jumping on the Google Books Library Project bandwagon. According to the LA Times (free reg. req’d), a UC spokesperson emphasized the need to preserve texts from natural disasters, and the fact that Google would subsidize the scanning sweetens the deal. UC regents would have to approve, though, and the project, controversial due to copyright issues, may not get a passing grade.
Once, twice… …three firms a tie-up (oy). Google, Mozilla and RealNetworks are in cahoots to help co-distribute each others’ software, says Macworld. According to the terms of the multi-year partnership, users who download RealPlayer, Rhapsody, and RealArcade will be given the option to download and install Mozilla’s Firefox browser and Google’s toolbar application. RealNetworks says it “distributes more than 2 million pieces of software a day,” which could make for lots of new toolbar enthusiasts.
Yahoo! Two-Step: New Partners in Social Guru, Security Firm
|
Written By Reprise Media | July 25, 2006 | Share This
|
|
Nothing fancy, here, just a good ‘ol fashioned Yahoo! quick hit post. Let’s start with step one:
“Face your new partner!” Yahoo!’s spent the better part of the last couple years picking up various and sundry Web 2.0 companies that emphasize social functionality. Now, they’ve found a man who can make sense of it all.
Reuters UK says that the engine’s hired Dr. Raghu Ramakrishnan, a database expert, former computer science professor and co-founder of Quiq, a community site launched in 1999 that once worked with Ask.com on their question-answering service. He’ll be in charge of developing Yahoo!’s social strategy. Says the Dr.:
“At Yahoo you have this unique opportunity to integrate conventional search with Flickr, Del.icio.us, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo Groups and Yahoo Mail…How do you take all this search activity and learn from it?…How do you make all of this as natural as possible to users?”
We’re not sure ourselves, but we think the good doctor’s history in the answering business will have him on the right track in Sunnyvale (via SE Roundtable).
Security, yeah yeah! On another tip from Barry Schwartz, we’ve got a BetaNews story that says Y! has a deal with Symantec to push the latter’s ‘net security products.
Symantec applications would be embedded in the likes of Yahoo! Mail and other popular Yahoo! services, and Yahoo! will also market a “co-branded version of Norton Internet Security” throughout its sites. It would be free to use for 30-days before inviting users to sign up for a year-long subscription at the low-low price of $49.99.
‘Boom Lowered on Popular Video Blog Host
|
Written By Reprise Media | July 5, 2006 | Share This
|
|
Rocket news always seems to come in threes. First, Discovery launched yesterday without a hitch (knock wood). Then, North Korea fired off some rockets of its own. Finally (and significantly for the Internet-o-sphere), the popular video blog Rocketboom and its telegenic host Amanda Congdon parted ways this morning.
Congdon announced the news on her new Amanda UnBoomed blog (thanks, Digg), implying that she had left Rocketboom against her wishes, but promising to resurface “hosting some crazy, crazy stuff” in the near future.
This probably rates as a split of CBS/Dan Rather proportion for the video blogging world, and appropriately, there’s some controversy. An unsigned announcement appeared on Rocketboom’s website saying that “Congdon has decided to move to L.A. to pursue opportunities that have arisen for her in Hollywood,” and that co-creator Andrew Baron will remain with Rocketboom in New York, producing and directing the blog’s segments. “Financial” realities and other unnamed difficulties were blamed in part for the blog’s reluctance to follow its host cross country.
Rocketboom, live since October of ‘04, claims a viewership in the tens of thousands for its daily installments of talking head pieces centered on internet culture. The blog will reportedly return Monday, July 10 with an interim host while in the “daunting process of recruiting a replacement for Amanda” - Scoble speculates as to who might take over. We hear Star Jones is available…(this obligatory reference brought to you by the Bureau of Obvious Jokes).
One More Miscrosoft Exec Takes Flight, Will Land at Google
|
Written By Reprise Media | June 29, 2006 | Share This
|
|
Stop us if you’ve heard this one: a top Microsoft employee has decided to leave the company to pursue philanthropic activities. Or, how about: Microsoft has lost an exec who was playing a key role in the company’s struggle against Google. We could easily be talking about Bill Gates and Martin Taylor, but we’re actually referring to Vic Gundotra, the latest notable Microsoft figure to get happy feet in the last few weeks.
According to CNNMoney, the blow will add insult to injury, as Gundotra has come to an agreement to work for Microsoft bete noir Google. A “noncompete agreement” prevents him from leaping to a rival company for at least a year after leaving Microsoft, so he intends to spend the interval laboring for charitable endeavors.
A 15-year employee and general manager for platform evangelism, Gundotra’s tasks included trying to get developers interested in building out applications on top of Microsoft’s products. Says CNN, “Most recently he had been working out a strategy to compete with the draw of Google’s newer, Web-based software applications.”
Gundotra also hired blogger Robert Scoble, whose well-covered departure marked the starting point of the recent exodus. However, it’s not exactly clear whether all the moves are related, and if so how.
Yahoo! Man Departs with Wink
|
Written By Reprise Media | June 28, 2006 | Share This
|
|
In a season when many in the search game are leaving for the beach, one Beach is jetting from Yahoo!. David Beach, senior product manager of Yahoo! Shopping Search, confirmed rumors of his departure on his blog yesterday (via Barry Schwartz; Laughing Squid broke it).
Beach joins Robert Scoble in the ‘Leaving for a Start-Up Society,’ as his next gig will be Director of Product Management at Wink. A social search engine, Wink “integrates tag results from multiple sources such as del.icio.us, Digg, Yahoo MyWeb” and “gives you the freshest information on the web by serving up the most relevant tagged links for your search” (that is, according to the FAQ).
Describing the company as an “ideal fit,” Beach praises the fast-paced, risk-taking “start-up environment,” comparing it to an independent record label. He says, “…they can capitalize on trends at a faster pace to maximize growth. They can build a following that can take the big boys by surprise.”
As for the big boys, Beach leaves Yahoo! with nothing but kind words. He does, however, have one regret; he’d hoped that his moment on Valleywag “would have been about some possible exploits in Bangkok that may or may not have taken place in the summer of 1988,” not just a quick note about his bolting to Wink. Good luck, David (and not just with getting something juicy in Valleywag)!
Man Overboard! Martin Taylor Latest Departure from Microsoft
|
Written By Reprise Media | June 21, 2006 | Share This
|
|
Something must have gotten into the water up there in Washington State. How else to explain all these Microsoft folks jumping ship in the last two weeks? First, resident blogger Robert Scoble took off for podcast start-up PodTech.net, a story that generated a teeny-tiny bit of interest online. Then (oh yeah), Bill Gates announced he would diminish his Microsoft duties over the next two years and depart in 2008 in order to spend more time on his philanthropy. Now, executive Martin Taylor has “abruptly” left the company, says the AP.
He may not have the star power of the former two personalities, but Taylor was a key figure in Microsoft’s counter-attack against Google, a 13-year employee who was close to Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. He’d been appointed to market MSN and Windows Live scant months ago.
Microsoft reps and Taylor both are pretty mum on the sudden embarkation; all we have to go on is this brief statement from the company that implies that Taylor didn’t leave under his own power:
“We’ve made the difficult decision to part ways with Martin, but we don’t comment on personnel matters.”
Ok, then.
If it was mainly a company decision, it seems a very strange time to make moves at that particular position. Microsoft has just started a big press push for its Windows Live platform, with Windows Live Messenger (newly unleashed from beta testing) as the centerpiece. We haven’t seen any news yet about a replacement, but we’ll keep you informed as we learn more.