Google announced today that it has purchased Wildfire, a social media marketing startup. Wildfire is only four years old, and since its inception its been helping businesses keep track of their presence across various social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Neither company is talking about how much Google paid for Wildfire, but AllThingsD says that sources close to the deal reckon the amount is somewhere around $250 million.
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- Opera web browser for Android leaves Beta: we go hands-on
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- Google Glass creators talk of final consumer device release
- Google I/O 2013 on-site Wrap-up: Glass, Developers, and Services on tap
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‘advertising’ Stories
Not all Foursquare updates are created equal: Paid ads added
Foursquare has launched a new Promoted Updates pilot scheme, offering businesses the chance to boost their listings to the top of the page if they grease the algorithm with a little cash. Building on the existing Local Updates system, which allowed businesses to post their own status updates, Promoted Updates will be found in the Explore section of the Foursquare app, and the company says will benefit from the same personalized recommendations as regular updates.
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Google wants election ads on all of your devices
The folks behind Google's advertising initiatives have released a program called "Four Screens to Victory" encouraging political campaigns to work with all devices, not just the television. The outline of this program includes statistics such as 14.7 sources of information being used per voter to get all manner of voting knowledge. With Google's push here, you'll soon not be wanting for an advertisement for President on not just your TV, but your tablet, smartphone, and laptop as well.
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Google Q2 2012: “mobile is where search was in 1999″
During Google's quarterly earnings call this week for their financial second quarter, the company's Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora spoke up on how big the mobile environment is in 2012. Responding to a question on mobile advertising trends and their very near future, Arora noted that Google has been seeing no less than "phenomenal" growth in both the tablet and the smartphone space for advertising and beyond. He also noted that in terms of accelerating their plans for working with users for content acquisition on mobile device, they've made "tremendous" headway with the Nexus 7.
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Microsoft shows first public loss ever in financial Q4 2012
It’s a bittersweet day for Microsoft as their financial fourth quarter is being announced today as having both a $192 million dollar operating income before taxes and a loss of $492 million after a company writedown. This writedown is being attributed to a failed investment in the advertisement company aQuantive, purchased by Microsoft in 2007 and since eclipsed by the likes of Google’s adsense online. For the first time ever in its history as a public company, Microsoft is reporting a loss per share.
Facebook partners with Yahoo in surprise exit from patent battle
Earlier today it was leaked that the end of the legal war between Facebook and Yahoo was at hand – this afternoon it’s been announced that Yahoo and Facebook will officially be tying the knot, so to speak, with portfolio cross-licensing, event cross-branding, and more. This update certainly takes the cake as far as businesses finding ways out of legal damages – and what better way to do it, after all, than with a good ol’ cup of tea and a dash of patent sharing?
Samba launches free ad-supported 3G data
We’ve seen schemes from the likes of FreedomPop which offer "free" mobile internet access, but a company in the UK called Samba is taking the idea one step further. It’s partnering with Three UK to provide 517MB of free internet access on iPads if users agree to watch two and a half minutes of commercials. It also requires a app to be installed on the iPad to keep track of internet usage and serve up the ads.
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GM and Facebook said to be rekindling advertising flame
Back in May, General Motors suddenly ceased advertising on Facebook. No specific details were given, although it was believed that the advertising campaign had little impact. Now the Wall Street Journal reports that GM and Facebook are in talks to resume advertising on the social network. Senior executives have confirmed that both companies are currently in talks.
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Facebook Advertising expands to greater web
It began with Zynga, or that's what they'll say, when the advertising world saw Facebook expand this day. Facebook spokesperson Tucker Bounds has been charged with letting the world know that Zynga is the first place where Facebook's advertising program will be expanding to - and you'll likely be seeing yourself happening upon these ads starting today should you head there. Zynga.com is where they're appearing, and not Zynga nor Facebook is commenting today beyond that.
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Facebook Main News Feed Sponsored Links begin to appear
This week Facebook has begun to fully implement their long-planned set of Sponsored Links in users main news feeds globally. This update takes advertisements generally reserved for the righthand-side of user layouts and places them front and center for major click-ready power. This upgrade is sure to drive up contention between Facebook and its masses of users because of how users have trained themselves to see the site's layout thus far.
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Prometheus Yutani viral addresses deceased Weyland
A brand new viral advertisement has been released today for the blockbuster science fiction film Prometheus, taking on this time the hereto-unmentioned Yutani corporation. Fans of the original Alien series will remember that the company that acts as antagonist in many situations goes by the name Weland-Yutani, this the combination of the company headed by Peter Weyland (played in this film by Guy Pierce) and the not-yet-mentioned (until now) Yutani group. This video shows the main protagonist of the film, researcher Dr. Elizabeth M. Shaw addressing none other than Weyland himself even though by the time she's the age she appears in the video here, Weyland should be long dead.
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Prometheus “terror” trailer brings spoilers galore
This week a trailer has been released of Prometheus - the Ridley Scott Alien universe movie coming out this summer - which shows more than its fair share of terrifying elements thus far kept under heavy wraps by the company. The company I'm speaking of is not Weyland Industries, but it may as well be since the press materials released for the movie up until now have been a straight up graphic design fantasy straight from the minds of the future science industry which will be sending our heroes to a far away planet to explore our past.
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