AOL
In-depth analysis and expert insight into AOL’s network of premium and niche content sites.Automating the Herd Mentality
Investing social network Roboinvest now allows users to copy one another’s trades with a single click. They’ve prudently limited this to small dollar values, but it’s still a dangerous plan: market swings already tend to happen when investors overestimate the information content of others’ trades; letting them do this by default seems…
Which Sites Dominate Search Rankings?
SpyFu has some amazing stats on which sites most frequently show up in top Google rankings. The usual suspects are well-represented: Amazon owns product searches, Wikipedia owns proper nouns, and a smattering of other obvious sites own various common query categories. Interestingly, Amazon is trending upwards: whether this is due to…
Why do Car Comparison Sites Have So Much Pricing Power?
Digiday notes that car comparison sites are price setters, unlike nearly everyone else in the online ad world. This seems counterintuitive, especially since it doesn’t apply to sites one level downstream (e.g. eBay Motors) or one level upstream (like auto blogs).
Turntable.fm Signs Record Deals…
Google Updates Google’s new privacy policy is now in effect. Expect the sky to fall, or for all of your ads to be slightly better-targeted. Danny Sullivan points out that although Google+’s numbers don’t look good, Google is forgoing lots of revenue to promote the service. That’s telling. This Google search screenshot is making the rounds. The…
In a case study on journalistic objectivity, someone whose paycheck is derived from an established media paradigm lashes out at the business model of competitors that are eating his employer alive.
Irony is alive and well: this writer’s chosen means of digging into his competitors: their conflicts of interest.
The article doesn’t have to…
Google Updates SEOmoz analyzes how Google handles local results. In most cases, Google puts Places results ahead of local organic results, but generally behind at least a few national results. This is something worth tracking over time, though; Google has shifted their local-versus-national and Google-owned-versus-web leanings several times in the past. Google is truncating results…
Is Online Advertising Just Good for Direct Response?
Seth Godin notes that easily-analyzed, numbers-driven direct response ads are the dominant form of online ads, which has some negative side effects. But a Vizu survey indicates that advertisers will spend more online dollars on branding than direct response in the coming year.
What gives? First, there’s sampling: Vizu…
Quick timesaving tip: this edition of DDD Weekly will be abbreviated, but most people aren’t interested in lots of business reading during a near-vacation week, anyway. To save time on other sites, ignore any stories whose headlines include “of 2011″ or “for 2012.” These are uniformly filler.
Gogo files for an IPO
Gogo in-flight wireless…
Too Many Investors, or Too Many Powerful Investors?
GroupMe’s founder argues that more investors mean more time spent arguing with investors. That makes intuitive sense when you move from one investor to two. But it doesn’t seem to follow during an IPO, when a company moves from a dozen investors to thousands. The difference:…
Yahoo Update
As has been reported at length, Yahoo’s board fired the company’s CEO, who fired back with an infamous email and a furious interview with Fortune. Yahoo’s board is now rumored to be considering spinoffs, divestitures, or a buyout, especially with the encouragement of their 5.1% owner, the activist hedge fund Third Point.
As a…
Digital Due Diligence Weekly