Personals
push big growth in online content $
With an improving economy comes
greater consumer appetites, and apparently quite a few of them were
satisfied online last year. The Online Publishers Association and comScore
Networks released numbers yesterday finding that online content spending
rose 19 percent last year to $1.56 billion. Spending in personals/dating,
the top category, was especially strong, going from $302.1 million in 2002
to $449.5 million last year. The second-ranked category, business and
investment spending, rose a more modest 14 percent to $334 million.
Spending actually was down in entertainment and lifestyle, which went from
$227.5 million in 2002 to $214 million in ’03, though that doesn’t
count non-browser applications such as iTunes. Personal growth and sports
were the fastest-growing categories, both nearly doubling.
Sasser author
hoping to boost mom's business?
Was the Sasser internet worm merely an out-of-control
Mother’s Day gift? Verden prosecutors think so. After police arrested a
German teen Friday for allegedly writing and releasing the worm,
prosecutors in the case said that the teen not only confessed, but may be
blaming the bug on
a misguided
attempt
to help his mum.
Eighteen-year-old Sven Jaschan wanted to help his mom’s small
business called PC Help. He apparently wanted to cause problems in
order to drive business to Veronika Jaschan’s door. Of course,
prosecutors also say it’s possible Jaschan was simply trying to
out-geek past bug programmers with his astonishingly fast-moving
worm.
Game
wars: EA and Microsoft bury the hatchet
The bad blood between Electronic Arts Inc., the world’s
largest video game publisher, and software leader Microsoft Corp. is
apparently history. The two said yesterday that more than a dozen upcoming
EA sports releases would support Xbox Live. Last year EA said its sports
titles, which continually outsell the competition, would only support
online play on Sony’s PlayStation 2 consoles. The company says it will
continue to support Sony’s hardware while integrating support for Xbox,
the second-best selling video game console as well. Xbox, which dropped
its price earlier this year, is expected to outsell PlayStation for the
first time ever in April. EA had refused to partner with Microsoft last
year because of what it said were concerns about the business model. The
announcement came at the start of this year’s Electronic Entertainment
Expo (E3), the video game industry’s annual trade show. In other E3
news, Microsoft announced that Halo 2, the much-anticipated sequel to its
best-selling Xbox shooter, will be released Nov. 9. The oft talked about
Doom III and Fable were also among the games previewed on the show floor.
Google's
new ad-friendlier search on the way
Advertiser darling Google is adding another element to its
little black book. The web’s most-used search engine is developing new
technology that scans large advertisers’ web sites and compiles lists of
keyword combinations that could be used in search queries. Thus more
searches and advertisements would be hooked up, increasing Google’s
revenues. How much more room for growth is there in that area? Well,
comScore Networks says fewer than 45 percent of some 120 million daily web
searches are linked to an advertiser. Sponsored listings accounted for an
estimated 95 percent of Google’s nearly $1 billion in revenue in 2003.
|
