News Briefs

• “Reaping the benefits” may not exactly be the right term, but certain Web sites are certainly getting a lift from the downward economy. Visits to business-centric sites have surged amid the implosion on Wall Street and the $700 billion plan from Congress to stop the bleeding in credit markets. The Wall Street Journal recently reported an unprecedented two million visitors in a single day while activity is up 40% at Yahoo Finance message boards. Self-help startup PeopleJam.com has seen its interest in personal finance tips multiply nearly eightfold in the past month.   
• Consumers’ appetite for social networking online is growing. Nearly six out of 10 Americans who use social media interact with companies on social media Web sites, according to a September 2008 study by Opinion Research Corp. for Cone (per eMarketer). The study found that 85% of social media users thought companies should interact with their consumers through social media. Nearly four of 10 online merchants surveyed used social networks; of those nearly one-third said they had a page on Facebook, and more than one-quarter said they used MySpace and YouTube.  
• It’s a breath of fresh air for the beleaguered magazine industry: a new study of magazine advertising showing that magazines are the most cost-effective means of influencing consumer behavior during the “purchase funnel,” beating out TV and online media. The Marketing Evolution study is a continuing study based on a survey of 38 different studies commissioned by various clients in recent years, per MediaPost. According to the study, magazines dominated purchase intent, influencing 145 people versus 100 for TV and 68 for online. As a per capital expenditure, magazines cost about $1.23 per individual impact versus $1.77 for TV and $2.61 for online, the study said.  
• This was a real layup: YouTube has added ‘click-to-buy’ links in order for users to buy products related to the content they watch on the video site. First out of the gate are embedded iTunes and Amazon.com links, placed on the watch page beneath the video. Google says the retail links are just the beginning of building an e-commerce platform on YouTube (which Google acquired in October 2006 for $1.6 billion). In a related item, MarketWatch reports that as part of its copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube Viacom has targeted the venture capitalists behind the video-sharing site to find out why they chose to invest in it and subsequently sell it to Google.  
• Small and medium sized businesses have been somewhat reluctant to invest real coin into online video, fearing throwing bad money after good.  That reluctance has only been heightened by the ongoing credit and mortgage crises. But Jivox is betting that its new online-video platform tailored to the SMB, called AdSlate 3.0, will break through. AdSlate allows marketers to create video ads from scratch, target the ads and then serve the ads on online venues. The still images and video clips are provided to marketers via the Jivox Library; from there ads can be customized for each business and online ad campaign.  Since launching earlier this year, Jivox  has increased its publisher network to 600 local television, radio, weather and newspaper Web sites.       
• Web ad revenues in the first six months were $11.5 billion, a 15% increase compared with the same period in 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Revenue Report. The report, which was released on Tuesday, was conducted by IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). It found that search and display-related advertising continue to lead the way for online advertising. Search revenue in the first half was nearly $5.1 billion, compared with $4.1 billion in the same period in 2007; display-related advertising totaled nearly $3.8 billion in the first half, compared with $3.2 billion in the year-earlier period.  Although Web advertising revenues are bucking the generally downward trend compared with other media, the economy is taking a toll on online advertising: Web ad revenue was up 12.8% in the second quarter compared with the same period in 2007, but declined 0.3% from the first quarter.