UPDATED 0900 – AOL has confirmed it is to buy TechCrunch, following earlier reports, for what is said to be between $25m and $30m although there is no confirmation of the sale price.

According to Reuters AOL has paid $30m for the technology news site with an earlier report on the San Francisco Chronicle website saying AOL told insiders that it is “only paying $25m for TechCrunch.
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Twitter is planning to let advertisers buy a place in the ‘recommended users’ list, a new service dubbed ‘Promoted Accounts’.

AllThingsD reports that the new service will be formally unveiled today, saying that the service would also be available to individual tweeters who want to boost their popularity too.

So how valuable would it be to appear on the recommendation lists? Read More »

Google’s announcement earlier this month that it was showing consumers search results as they typed was big news in both the industry and mainstream press. But I’m not convinced brands should be changing their UK search strategies just yet.

What’s the reach of Google Instant?

One fact missed in much of the initial reporting was that not everybody searching at Google UK will see Google Instant results. In fact, most will not. Instant results are currently  shown to UK consumers with the latest browser version who are also logged into a Google (often Gmail) Account and search via the Google homepage (not a toolbar, browser box or 3^rd party site) . Read More »

Social book marking site Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks) has three months left before it bites the dust after failing to monetize its product.

In a blog post co-founder, Todd Agulnick, said that despite two million users across five million desktops and 3000 new accounts today money has just about run out. Read More »

Its here and it will be cheaper than an Apple iPad, but will Research In Motion’s tablet, they’re calling it the BlackBerry PlayBook, be any good? It has some plus points in that it is smaller (for now) and more portable than Apple’s tablet weighing in at less than 1lb (half a pound less) with a 7″ screen.

It has, unlike Apple right now, support for Adobe Flash and it is going to allow those who already have BlackBerry smartphones to pair them with their tablet to use the larger display. Read More »

If the Apple iPad, and the tablet computer in general, represents the future of magazines, and one where publishers can make real money, then as this infographic shows there’s a long way to go, but with new apps being launched almost daily that’s fast changing.

For instance did you catch the launch of the New Yorker magazine’s iPad app yesterday? The beautifully bizarre introductory video from ‘Rushmore’ star Jason Schwartzman showing the app off is so worth a watch. Read More »

Back in June Michael Arrington, the founder of tech blog TechCrunch, hinted that he could be ready to sell his blog as content becomes hot again and AOL is understood to be close to completing a deal to buy it.

According to a post on the blog Gigaom, AOL is on the verge of cutting a deal that will see it acquire TechCrunch and add it to its growing content business, which has been refocused under CEO Tim Armstrong. Read More »

Some new academic research is looking once again at measuring how influential a tweet – and individual tweeters – can be.

The research, published by Illinois-based NorthWestern University, and echoes previous findings that the largest number of followers does not equate to the most influence. So before you go chasing that huge follower count read on. Read More »

It’s very rare that I get excited about a brand I become a customer of. I’m one of those people who really doesn’t engage with marketing. I’m probably not alone. And yet this is my territory, my metier – I work very hard to create engagement strategies for clients that can be demonstrated to work. I am, as it were, my own worst enemy.

So how do you, as a brand, engage me, as a disengaged person with what I’d consider to be better things to do with my social time than talk about your brand? I’ve been thinking about this in the context of two recent occasions where I have actually felt like praising a brand in public. The first occasion: on the way to a meeting I spilled coffee on my shirt. I was in the city, and I spotted a TM Lewin. I went in, bought a shirt, explained my predicament, and the manager arranged for the shirt to be pressed, in the shop, there and then. I went for a walk for five minutes and hey presto, new, unwrinkled shirt. Read More »

The Wall Street Journal reports that Twitter is selling promoted tweets for as much as $100,000 a time having given away some initial test efforts to those who first trialled it.

Interesting to see a figure put on what advertisers are being asked to pay after more than 30 big brand firms, including Coca-Cola, Virgin America and Starbucks signed up to test promoted tweets. Read More »