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Netscape founder and angel investor Marc Andreessen is partnering with long-time co-investor and Opsware executive Ben Horowitz to launch a fund to focus on venture investments of about $500,000. Andreessen and Horowitz have been co-investing as angels for years, with average investments of around $100,000 per deal; they formed the new fund [...]

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The Internet is the only medium expected to reap advertising increases during 2009, according to the latest edition of ZenithOptimedia Group’s quarterly tracking study on the advertising economy. The report, released early this morning, reflects a dramatic downward correction by the Publicis media unit, which now predicts the global ad economy will [...]

The South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA) sponsored a great all-day Internet marketing workshop last Friday at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida. I attended, expecting to experience a very Google-centric event, since it was promoted as the GoogleWorld Search Engine Marketing  1-Day Workshop. There was also a lot of general Internet marketing information presented [...]

A recent collaborative effort by SEOmoz CEO Randfish and David Klein offers advice on how best to leverage advertising on Facebook and build investment confidence in the space.
The following is a summary of their findings, posted on SEOmoz.com.

Facebook, sporting hundreds of millions of users, makes a compelling case for investing (chart via Nielsen) in the [...]

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What ad models most effectively reach social networkers, today? According to the social networkers themselves, opt-in advertising works best, while behavior-based campaigns and randomly generated ads are far less successful.
About 40% of social networkers condone the practice of opt-in advertising, according to data being released today by market research firm InsightExpress.
social networks [...]

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A friend of mine recently told me that his new boss refuses to market the firm’s website because she thinks internet advertising is a ‘flash in the pan’.
When my poor friend eventually got a word in edgeways, he said he understands the value of the internet as a marketing platform but needs [...]

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WAKEFIELD, MA - February 8, 2007 -North American advertisers spent $9.4 billion on search engine marketing (SEM) in 2006, a 62 percent increase over 2005 spending, according to an annual industry survey conducted by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) www.sempo.org. SEMPO researchers also estimate SEM spending to double by 2011, [...]

In what it calls the latest “evolution” of its ad model, Facebook is testing a new set of ads aimed at boosting click-throughs and further tapping into the social graph on behalf of marketers.
The first three types of Engagement Ads now in trial let users post comments, become a “fan” of a brand’s Facebook Page [...]

Separately, Bear Stearns hosted a conference call recently to discuss ways Google may yet hit a stated goal of bringing in $100 billion in annual revenue. The company pulled in $3.87 billion in revenue in its second quarter ended in June.
Points in Google’s favor include “a nine- to 24-month lead over its competitors” in [...]

Some five months after launching AuctionAds with ShoeMoney Media Group–and seeing the new ad network rapidly grow to more than 25,000 participating publishers–MediaWhiz Holdings has bought out its partner’s two-thirds majority interest.
Combining keyword targeting with a publisher network, AuctionAds uses a downloaded widget that shows live eBay auction ads related to site content. When a [...]