A news from the Wall Street Journal reports that Agency.com has filed a lawsuit against iCrossing for poaching employees, illegally.
A lot of employees from iCrossing are named as defendants in the suit. Some of them are the CEO of iCrossing former Agency.com CEO Don Scales, Colin Turney, Marlin Jackson, and Lori Wilson.
It was approximately the same time when all the employees were hired in the year 2006, a few months after the CEO himself left.
The lawsuit deals with the fact that iCrossing raided the clients and staff members of Agency.com and is worth $19.5 million dollars.
The accusation specially falls on Martin Jackson, who is blamed that he helped iCrossing in getting assignments from Marriott/Ritz-Carlton while he was still working with Agency.com.
In its complaint, Agency.com claims "employee raiding" by Scales and iCrossing "led to the closing of Agency.com's Dallas office in November 2007, and decimated Agency.com's Chicago office."
The suit also deals with a settlement that was applied between the two companies in the month of July, 2006. According to the same, Scales agreed to refrain from soliciting the staff members and clients of Agency.com for a duration of 18 months.
But on the other hand, iCrossing says the defendants "extended offers of employment to at least a dozen Agency.com employees before the restriction against iCrossing soliciting or hiring Agency.com's employees had expired."
Dienstag, 11. November 2008
Google Ad Planner: new features, available to everyone
Since we launched Google Ad Planner a few months ago, you've suggested more ways we could help improve your media planning process. First, we're excited to announce that Ad Planner is now accessible to anyone with a Google account. Second, we've released a number of new features that we built based on your direct input.
Define your audience by keywords and geography
In response to your requests for more audience definition options, we've enhanced Google Ad Planner to support search queries and geo-targeting. For example, now you can find video game enthusiasts based on their likeliness to search for keywords such as "video games" or "video game codes." You can also drill-down to specific states or metros (region or cities in geographies outside the US).
Manage your site results
With three new site ranking methods, you can decide how you want your site results ranked and displayed. You can choose between sites most likely to attract your target audience, larger known sites to increase your campaign scale, or a balance between the two. By applying other site filters, you can narrow your search to only sites that accept ads, sites in specific categories like "Video Games," or sites that end with a particular domain suffix like ".edu."
(Click the image for a full-size version)
Analyze your media plan
With Google Ad Planner's new interactive bubble chart, you can compare sites in your media plan by demographics, frequency, traffic, and unique visitors. In the example below, the red bubble shows a site heavily skewed towards females under 35, which is inconsistent with other sites in the media plan. By discovering such outliers, you can easily refine your media plan targeting.
(Click the image for a full-size version)
International demographic data
We've expanded demographic audience data to include France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. We look forward to continuing to expand the number of countries Ad Planner covers.
Sign in today to see the latest improvements, maybe check out a training video or two, and let us know what you think.
Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew
Define your audience by keywords and geography
In response to your requests for more audience definition options, we've enhanced Google Ad Planner to support search queries and geo-targeting. For example, now you can find video game enthusiasts based on their likeliness to search for keywords such as "video games" or "video game codes." You can also drill-down to specific states or metros (region or cities in geographies outside the US).
Manage your site results
With three new site ranking methods, you can decide how you want your site results ranked and displayed. You can choose between sites most likely to attract your target audience, larger known sites to increase your campaign scale, or a balance between the two. By applying other site filters, you can narrow your search to only sites that accept ads, sites in specific categories like "Video Games," or sites that end with a particular domain suffix like ".edu."
(Click the image for a full-size version)
Analyze your media plan
With Google Ad Planner's new interactive bubble chart, you can compare sites in your media plan by demographics, frequency, traffic, and unique visitors. In the example below, the red bubble shows a site heavily skewed towards females under 35, which is inconsistent with other sites in the media plan. By discovering such outliers, you can easily refine your media plan targeting.
(Click the image for a full-size version)
International demographic data
We've expanded demographic audience data to include France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. We look forward to continuing to expand the number of countries Ad Planner covers.
Sign in today to see the latest improvements, maybe check out a training video or two, and let us know what you think.
Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew
Spam-Studie: Große Umsätze trotz winziger Konversionsrate
Eine Gruppe von sieben Forschern der Universitäten Berkeley und San Diego (UCSD) hat in einer Studie (PDF) die Ökonomie des Spam-Business unter die Lupe genommen. Ihre Vorgehensweise ist einzigartig, dürfte aber für Diskussionen sorgen, denn die Wissenschaftler sind selbst unter die Spammer gegangen. Für ihre Untersuchung haben sie das Storm-Netzwerk infiltriert, ein Botnet, das zum massenweisen E-Mail-Versand verwendet wird, und selbst mehrere hundert Millionen Spam-Nachrichten versendet.
(aus CT)
Dabei haben sie so genannte Proxy-Bots in das Netzwerk eingeschleust, das sind Server, die als Vermittlungsstelle zwischen den infizierten Rechnern und den Master Servern des Netzwerks dienen. So konnten sie nach eigenen Angaben einen kleinen Teil des Storm-Netzes unter ihre Kontrolle bringen, gut 75.000 Rechner. Über diese versendeten sie in mehreren Wellen rund 350 Millionen Spam-Nachrichten, die für einen selbst aufgesetzten Pseudo-Shop mit Potenzmittel warben.
Nach 26 Tagen kamen dabei nur 28 "Verkäufe" zustande – eine Konversionsrate von weniger als 0.00001 Prozent. Alles in allem hätten sie gerade mal einen Umsatz von 2,731.88 US-Dollar gemacht. Allerdings hätten sie auch nur einen kleinen Teil des Storm-Netzes unter ihrer Kontrolle. Unter der Annahme, dass ihre Untersuchungen repräsentativ sind, rechnen sie ihre Ergebnisse auf einen Umsatz von mehr als 3,5 Millionen US-Dollar im Jahr hoch, wenn sie das gesamte Netz verwendet hätten.
Die Untersuchung ist nicht die erste Studie, bei der das Storm-Netz infiltriert wurde. So war es Forschern der Universität Mannheim und des Instituts Eurécom in einer Arbeit über Ausforschen und Stören von Peer-to-Peer-Botnetzen bereits gelungen, den Sturm-Wurm zu analysieren, zu infiltrieren und schließlich empfindlich zu stören.(aus CT)
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