Ad blocker: We're hot and getting hotter
Pop-under, pop-up and plus-size internet ads are springing up all over the web. But annoyed web surfers aren’t getting mad, they’re getting even, according to the maker of AdSubtract, a popular brand of ad-blocking software. AdSubtract maker InterMute says that its software has blocked more than five billion internet ads since last summer. The company breaks that down to 17 ads blocked for every internet user in the world, or 39 ads blocked for each of the U.S.’s 128 million web users. Most of those ads were plain old banner ads, since until recently, AdSubtract did not block all of the fancy new ad formats. On Monday, the company announced that it has upgraded AdSubtract to dispatch pop-ups, pop-unders and Flash/multimedia online ads.

Alloy will run CosmoGirl web site
Teen portal and direct marketing company Alloy Online will operate the internet edition of CosmoGirl magazine, the gushy, gossipy teen version of Cosmopolitan. Alloy is also running the web site of Cosmo Girl rival and Hachette Filipacchi property Elle Girl. Under the terms of the deal, Alloy will handle advertising and marketing for the CosmoGirl web site, which comes online and out of beta on Aug. 6. Alloy will also design the site and provide technology for posting content from the magazine online. CosmoGirl is published by Hearst, potentially giving Alloy access to the Hearst stable of magazines. Additionally, CosmoGirl has the ability to market to Alloy’s audience of 7 million-plus teenagers. Alloy’s forte is marketing to teenagers through magazines, the internet, email and direct-mail catalogues.

K-Mart: No more free access for BlueLight
Mass-market retailer K-Mart has given up on offering free, ad-supported internet access through its internet branch, BlueLight.com. Starting Aug. 29, free access via the BlueLight Basic package will be eliminated. Its replacement is BlueLight Unlimited, a new service that launched on Monday, with a price tag $8.95 a month. Customers who sign up before September can get the service for $6.95 a month. Like other formerly free services, K-Mart has found it impossible to support an ISP on ads alone in the current dismal advertising market. In March, BlueLight.com scrapped its unlimited free service, and started requiring users to buy goods off Bluelight.com in exchange for free surfing and email. At the same time, the company rolled out a premium service for $9.95 a month, which gave users 100 hours of access. Last week, K-Mart announced that it is buying out all remaining shares of Bluelight.com that it doesn’t already own. BlueLight.com was spun off two years ago.

German newspaper turning blue for AOL
How powerful is AOL Time Warner? The international media conglomerate possesses brawn and certainly the bucks, and this Saturday it is putting them to use in an interesting way. It has gotten the German daily Die Welt to agree to print the front page of its Saturday edition in blue. The color morph is part of a larger advertising campaign meant to lift AOL out of the No. 2 position among internet service providers in Europe’s biggest economy. The blue front page will coincide with the first home game at AOL Arena, the new name for the soccer stadium formerly known as the Volksparkstadion. Stadium sponsorship by new media companies is still quite new in Germany, a country used to venues named after companies like Bayer and General Motors’ Opel. T-Online International, Germany’s top internet provider and AOL’s main rival, already owns about a third of the online edition of Germany's most popular paper Bild, Die Welt’s corporate sibling.

Today's virus alert: Watch out for Code Red 
Security experts are gearing up for a possible blitz from a computer worm known as Code Red. starting at 8 p.m. EDT today. It’s the same worm that last month attempted to launch a denial-of-service attack against the web site of the White House, but was thwarted. Code Red is set to reactivate today. Officials from Microsoft, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and assorted trade groups yesterday asked businesses to install a patch that fixes a bug that makes Microsoft server software vulnerable to Code Red. That software helps run about six million web sites. If Code Red gets out of hand, it could clog corporate networks around the world as it spreads. Authorities have yet to determine who wrote Code Red, although some indicators point to Chinese hackers.

EBay sues rival upstart BidBay
Leading internet auctioneer eBay has filed suit against a much smaller rival, BidBay, that looks eerily familiar. For starters, there’s the name "BidBay," which sounds a bit like eBay. Other than having a slightly cruder layout, BidBay’s web site is similar to eBay’s in terms of its color scheme and design. BidBay’s colorful logo resembles eBay’s, too. EBay’s suit accuses BidBay of diluting its trademark and attempting to trick web users into using BidBay instead of eBay. BidBay’s CEO, George Tannous, has denied that the BidBay name is an imitation of eBay or that he’s trying to fool consumers. Tannous compares any similarities between the eBay name and the BidBay name to the similarities between the names of offline discount retailers Wal-Mart and K-Mart. Coincidentally, Tannous bought the BidBay domain name on eBay and has registered several other domain names that contain familiar brands.

July 31, 2001 © 2001 Media Life


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