Websites for women are a paradox in the media industry. Despite being among the most successful properties on the Web, they are rarely mentioned in the never-ending discussions about how to make money from online content.Sugar Inc is a case in point.
via Sugar Inc’s female content empire: example or outlier? — paidContent.
Jason Del Rey for AdAge:
For most of its history, Amazon has banked on knowing consumer-buying habits to fuel its tremendous growth. Jeff Bezos’ company is now using its rich data on those habits to help advertisers all over the web market to the right customers at the right time.The development makes it a potential competitor to internet heavyweights such as Google, which is also selling targeted display ads using audience data. Amazon already sells display advertising and product advertising on its own properties. But its recent hiring of Yahoo ad executive Seth Dallaire to run North American ad sales indicates that the company is getting more serious about pushing deeper into the digital-advertising business.
via Amazon Has Big Ad Plans, But Trading Desks Obstruct | Digital – Advertising Age.
Last April, Gamestop Corp. GME opened a store on Facebook to generate sales among the 3.5 million-plus customers who’d declared themselves “fans” of the video game retailer. Six months later, the store was quietly shuttered.Gamestop has company. Over the past year, Gap Inc., J.C. Penney JCP Co. and Nordstrom JWN Inc. have all opened and closed storefronts on Facebook Inc.’s FB social networking site.Facebook, which this month filed for an initial public offering, has sought to be a top shopping destination for its 845 million members. The stores’ quick failure shows that the Menlo Park, California-based social network doesn’t drive commerce and casts doubt on its value for retailers, said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
via Gamestop to J.C. Penney Shut Facebook Stores: Retail – Bloomberg.
Spotify will open its API to third-party app developers, adding a layer of content to its music-streaming service, the company announced today.
The move comes in response, in part, to criticism that Spotify doesn’t provide enough curation and guidance to users compared with digital-steaming competitors like Pandora, MOG, or Radical.fm.
“Everyone’s had the experience of ‘What should I listen to?,’” said David Goodman, president of CBS Interactive Music Group, which owns Spotify app partner Last.fm. Opening the platform should change that.
Wealthfront, the Silicon Valley start-up with more than $10 million in its own kitty, finally officially launched its long-planned Online Financial Advisor product today, with a focus on attracting techies interested in more easily managing their money.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, which started off as a social investing site called kaChing, shifted over to the new plan just over a year ago. Its aim now is to try to solve the thorny problem of delivering actionable and easy-to-use tools for making investments online, for those who have some money but little time or expertise.
