Web Shorts

Defunct LocalBusiness.com finds new owner
LocalBusiness.com, a network of local-business-news web sites that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection back in April, has found a new owner. The news organization, which was called dbusiness.com in an earlier incarnation, likely will be resurrected. TrueAdvantage, which bills itself as a “sales intelligence” company, scooped up several of LocalBusiness’s assets that were up for auction, including its content archive of some 48,000 news articles and company profiles; its Venture Tracker database of companies funded by venture capital; and a database of LocalBusiness’s 10,000 email subscribers. TrueAdvantage officials say that the relaunched network will be “new and improved,” in addition to boosting TrueAdvantage’s lead-generation business.

Simon & Schuster opens its own e-book store
Book publisher Simon & Schuster is launching an online e-book store of its own, SimonSaysShop.com. The e-commerce venture will offer hundreds of titles from just about all Simon & Schuster divisions. Books by writers ranging from pulp psycho-romance writer V.C. Andrews to historian Stephen Ambrose will be available. The publishing house’s initial offerings will come at a 20 percent discount. Some titles will cost as little as $5, and some titles will be free. Observers speculate that the publisher is considering selling hard copies of books online in the future. If that transpires, leading online booksellers Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com will probably have little to fear, given that consumers are generally interested in authors and titles, not publishing houses.

40 percent of Brits ‘accidentally’ see web smut
Forty percent of British internet users say they have inadvertently stumbled across porn sites in their travels online, according to a survey carried out by the Consumers’ Association. While the “accidental” part of it may seem like a lame excuse, many of the 7,000 people were parents who reported running across erotica while surfing the web with their kids. In looking for innocent fan sites on boy bands, for instance, some parents have stumbled upon sites featuring, instead, bands of naked men. The association says it is collaborating with U.K. search engines to reduce accidental encounters with online porn. The association’s magazine, Which? Computing, has published recommendations from parents to other parents about avoiding porn, such as not surfing in the presence of one’s children until the desired, clean-cut web sites are found.

Disney shutters Mr. Showbiz, paring staff
As it said it would back in August, the Walt Disney Co. has shut down its MrShowbiz.com entertainment site. MrShowbiz was one of the internet’s earliest celebrity and entertainment news sites. As of yesterday, its site carries nothing but a message saying, “After six years as the web’s best entertainment site, MrShowbiz has retired. Thanks for riding shotgun.” Visitors are then bounced to ABC.com’s entertainment section. At the same time that it closed MrShowbiz, Disney cut even more members of its internet staff, both within the Disney Internet Group and at ABCNews.com. While Disney has not confirmed the number of positions cut, reports put the numbers at 26 layoffs at ABCNews.com and 125 at the Disney Internet Group. The firings, according to Disney, are part of an overall restructuring of its internet business, as announced back in January, when it abandoned its Go.com portal.

Yahoo names new global marketing chief
Another bricks-and-mortar marketing veteran has come onboard at Yahoo in an effort to diversify the company's revenue stream. John Costello will become the new chief of global marketing. He will be in charge of fortifying the portal's marketing strategy and creating new subscription and pay services. Costello is a former marketing executive at Sears, Roebuck and a former president of MVP.com. He had been working as a consultant at Yahoo since August. The latest addition to the revenue-strapped company comes on the heels of Wenda Harris Millard's appointment as head of advertising sales last month. Millard previously worked as president and chief executive officer of the internet division at Ziff Davis Media.

Printer-Friendly Version | Send to a Friend
Cover Page | Contact Us