Focus Ventures Joins Round to Support Enormous Audience and Sales Growth

LOS ANGELES – Buzznet, which operates the web’s largest community of pop culture web sites with an audience of 40 million unique monthly users, announced that it has changed its name to Buzz Media, Inc. The newly-named company will focus on the continued growth of its socially programmed web sites, including Celebuzz, Buzznet, the Superficial, SocialiteLife, What Would Tyler Durden Do, Stereogum, Idolator, Just Jared and Absolute Punk.

In addition, Buzz Media announced that it has secured a new round of financing totaling $12.5 million. Focus Ventures, a Palo Alto, California based venture firm with more than $830 million under management, joined the latest round. Existing investors, including Anthem Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures, also participated in the round.
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NEW YORK & CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Gabriels Technology Solutions, the leading private-label ecommerce technology provider and Endeca Technologies, Inc. a search and information access software company, announced the introduction of innovative search products for new media that provide a world class competitive advantage to media clients for increased site activity, higher lead generation, enhanced user experience and increased advertising revenue.

Gabriels portal search technology is based on the Endeca Information Access Platform designed to offer search simplicity with the analytical power of business intelligence. Through Endeca Search, Guided Navigation®, and Content Spotlighting capabilities, Gabriels delivers superior experience to site visitors, while offering site owners the tools needed to create contextual advertising and premium placement opportunities.
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Despite Weak Season Apple, Amazon, Wal-Mart and Sears Post Traffic Increases
 
RESTON, VA – comScore (NASDAQ : SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, reported its tracking of holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the holiday shopping season, beginning November 1 and ending December 23, the last day to purchase online with the possibility of delivery by Christmas Eve. Online spending reached $25.5 billion during that period, down 3 percent versus the corresponding shopping days in 2007.
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Sales Since Cyber Monday Up 9 Percent Versus Year Ago

RESTON, VA – comScore (NASDAQ : SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, reported its tracking of holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 35 days of the November – December 2008 holiday season. For the holiday season through December 5, $14.92 billion has been spent online, essentially the same level compared to the corresponding days last year. For the five days beginning with December 1 (Cyber Monday), the kick-off to the heaviest part of the online shopping season, sales totaled $3.74 billion, up 9 percent versus year ago. Two individual days in the past week achieved more than $800 million in online spending: Monday, December 1 (“Cyber Monday”) with $846 million, and Tuesday, December 2 with $823 million.
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NEW YORK – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) closed this year’s highly successful MIXX Conference and Expo with the presentation tonight of the fourth annual MIXX Awards. The MIXX Awards are the only honor devoted exclusively to interactive advertising, and the only juried competition that recognizes excellence in both creativity and effectiveness. For the first time, the digital advertising campaigns were evaluated by senior executives from agencies, publishers and marketing organizations deliberating together, sharing their distinct perspectives on what makes advertising creative successful. Tonight’s multimedia gala was emceed by Rob Norman, GroupM Interaction Worldwide CEO.

“The sheer volume of submissions coupled with the extraordinary level of creativity that cut across such a wide swath of platforms and technologies speaks to the vitality of the interactive advertising industry,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “Interactive advertising is breaking new ground in engaging consumers in ways that we had not even dreamed of, and the pace of change will only continue to accelerate.”
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IDG today announced the launch of the IDG TechNetwork in the UK. The IDG TechNetwork is a partnership between IDG and a range of small and medium sized IT and Tech related sites. This allows online advertisers to extend traditional advertising campaigns to give a wider and deeper reach to IT and tech buyers. Using the Adify vertical ad network platform, online campaigns, branding and content will be syndicated across a range of sites previously restricted in accessibility and by their ability to deliver online marketing campaigns.

IDG TechNetwork Ad Director Dan Shaw explained, “ Today around 30% of UK IT users and buyers visit sites outside the largest 50 (Source : Hitwise April 2008 ) These sites are growing in share and importance and have highly engaged audiences who visit these sites due to a strong sense of loyalty and because they find the content highly relevant and useful. The IDG TechNetwork makes executing campaigns into these sites simple and effective and acts as a complement to the direct relationships marketers they have with the larger sites”

Recent IAB figures show that 40% of all online advertising is channelled through networks (Source: IAB online research July-Dec 2007) but until now these have tended to be broad based and limited in their ability to target vertical niches. Unlike large advertisng networks that aggregate and sell remnant inventory, the vertical ad networks powered by Adify will enable IDG TechNetwork to focus on selling high value, branded and targeted advertising programmes, generating additional revenue across the network.The IDG TechNetwork is the first vertical network delivering extended reach to IT professionals and users and focuses on the ‘long tail’ that has grown in share of the UK audience.
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