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MediaWhiz acquires ScribeFire, launches QuickAds

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Online advertising company MediaWhiz has acquired ScribeFire, the blog editing technology for Firefox. MediaWhiz also announced the release of a beta version of ScribeFire QuickAds, online advertising’s first point-and-click advertising optimization technology.

ScribeFire enables users to easily drag and drop formatted text from the web into their blogs, as well as post entries and take notes, directly through the Firefox browser. ScribeFire currently has over 150,000 active users, and is compatible with all major blog services.

ScribeFire QuickAds’ ‘point and click’ ad optimization technology, the first to enable web publishers to serve fully optimized banner ads without the hassle of adding additional code, greatly facilitates online advertising integration on blogs. Web publishers can add IAB-standard in-page ad formats (e.g. Leaderboard: 728×90, Wide Skyscraper: 160×600, and Medium Rectangle: 300×250), and in-text advertisements to their blogs via an easy three-click process.

ScribeFire QuickAds’ ad optimization decision engine automatically selects the highest revenue producing banner to display on the user’s website. Ads are selected from the MediaWhiz ad inventory pool, which is fueled by MediaWhiz’s experienced sales team and relationships with over 100 ad networks. Web publishers can access comprehensive ad inventory performance and earnings data on the ScribeFire website.

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Originally posted on July 3, 2008 @ 10:20 am

Huffington Post to launch Chicago version

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ChicagoTribune.com reports that Arianna Huffington is planning to launch a version of The Huffington Post website in Chicago. It will be staffed by a single editor. This move is seen as the first of dozens of local websites for U.S. cities.

“We are aspiring to be a newspaper in that we want to [be] covering all news, not just the political blogging the way we began,” Huffington said.

Originally posted on June 20, 2008 @ 9:06 am

LiveJournal user elected to its Advisory Board

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livejournal.jpgLiveJournal concluded its inaugural LiveJournal User-Representative Election with Jennifer Brady of Mesa, Arizona emerging as winner. Ms. Brady will formally join the LiveJournal Advisory Board on June 1, 2008.

Ms. Brady is a long-time LiveJournal user. Her current LiveJournal account is under the name of legomymalfoy. After garnering the required number of endorsements, Ms. Brady announced her candidacy on May 16. Following her election victory, Ms. Brady will join current Advisory Board members danah boyd, Esther Dyson, Brad Fitzpatrick and Lawrence Lessig.

As earlier announced, LiveJournal allocated two positions on the Advisory Board for elected representatives from its user base. This move is unprecedented for a major social network and will offer LiveJournal users a defined role in the development of the service for the first time.

Ms. Brady received 36.5% first place votes, which led to an instant run-off under the terms of the election. Under the terms of the instant run-off, Ms. Brady was the ultimate winner. Candidates ‘jameth’ and ‘rm’ came in second and third, respectively. All told, 25,875 votes were cast in the election.

Originally posted on May 30, 2008 @ 4:47 pm

b5media teams up with PicScout

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b5media.pngPicScout has begun working with b5media to use the PicApp platform of premium, licensed images and photos for enhancing news and creative content across a select group of blogs. PicApp provides licensed images from a broad group of premiere news and stock photo agencies, giving bloggers and other online publishers legal access to millions of images, while addressing content owners’ usage tracking and copyright concerns.

PicApp is currently in beta. News and photo agencies licensing images to PicApp include Getty Images, Corbis and Image Source with more content partnerships coming soon.

This is a welcome move from b5media as it professionalizes the job of blogging, including the proper usage of licensed images.

Originally posted on May 30, 2008 @ 4:36 pm

NYTimes.com to cover Olympics with blog

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The New York Times announced launch of a special online section for the 2008 Olympic Games with a new blog called Rings. Rings is dedicated to the full range of topics surrounding the summer Games in Beijing, from the competition itself to the social, political and economic issues attached to them. Rings brings together analysis and perspectives from sports, foreign and business reporters at The New York Times and in its bureaus around the world.

During the Olympics, The Times’s special online section will include:

• Contributions from more than 25 Times journalists in China, including “Sports of The Times” columnists George Vecsey and Harvey Araton

• An interactive guide to the Games where readers can view daily and hourly event schedules, up-to-the-minute results and corresponding Times coverage

• Forums for readers to post comments and share their stories

• Audio and video interviews and features

• Highlights from archived coverage of past Games dating back to the 1988 summer Olympics in Seoul.

Originally posted on May 18, 2008 @ 9:54 am