IAC Announces the Launch of Black Web Enterprises Inc.
IAC’s Online Destination for the Black Community Prepares to Introduce First Site in the Coming Weeks
NEW YORK – February 4, 2008 - IAC (NASDAQ: IACI) today announced the launch of Black Web Enterprises Inc. (BWE), the company’s online destination for the Black community, and its newly appointed executive management team. The announcement solidifies IAC’s previously publicized commitment to launch an interactive community platform for the U.S. Black population.
“With a phenomenal management team in place, we are on the cusp of unveiling the first initiative under the Black Web Enterprises umbrella… a site that will revolutionize the internet for the Black Community,” said Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., President & CEO of BWE. “Rather than compete with existing sites already geared toward the Black community, our goal with the initiative is to expand this market in order to bring the absolute best and most relevant web experience to Black people everywhere.”
Mr. Taylor will lead BWE. His executive management team includes:
Brad Gebert, Vice President, Technology – A proven technology expert, Mr. Gebert brings outstanding experience as a Technical Development Manager to BWE to lead application development and ensure that the business will run on the most advanced technological systems available. Brad also brings to BWE a keen understanding of IAC’s brands, having spent 7 years prior at IAC’s LendingTree and GetSmart.
Kevin McFall, Vice President, Products – An accomplished executive of the media and technology industries, with experience spanning a number of interactive media companies including Zap2it.com and BlackVoices.com (Tribune Company), Mr. McFall brings more than a decade of digital product development experience to guide strategic planning, as well as product management and execution for BWE.
Katrina Witherspoon, Vice President, Marketing & Business Development – With more than 12 years of product management and marketing experience with Reach Media Inc.’s BlackAmericaWeb.com and IAC’s Match.com, Ms. Witherspoon will lead BWE’s marketing, sales, and business development strategies.
Heather Keets Wright, Managing Editor – A seasoned journalist with 15 years experience in writing and editing for national magazines (Essence), newspapers, (The Washington Post) and websites (MarthaStewart.com), Ms. Keets Wright will oversee all editorial content related to BWE initiatives.
BWE will house a number of yet-to-be-announced online destinations catering to the distinct needs and interests of the estimated 50 million Black people living in the U.S., from African Americans to Blacks from Latin America and the Caribbean. The business is a part of IAC Programming, established in 2006 under the leadership of Michael Jackson to grow branded online content properties.
“Johnny and his colleagues have spent the greater part of a year engulfed in the task of building a site that understands and meets the needs of the Black community unlike any other that exists today,” said Mr. Jackson. “Beyond our enthusiasm for bringing this venture to the forefront of IAC Programming, we look forward to building upon the knowledge and success of this first launch for future endeavors tailored to very specific audiences.”
Today’s move comes after IAC’s November 2007 announcement of plans to separate IAC into five publicly traded companies, spinning off HSN, Ticketmaster, Interval International and LendingTree. Expected to be completed in the second or third quarter of 2008, the new IAC will include:
The businesses currently comprising its Media & Advertising sector: Ask.com, Bloglines, Citysearch, CursorMania, Evite, Excite, IAC Advertising Solutions, InsiderPages, iWon, My Fun Cards, My Way, Popular Screensavers, Smiley Central, Webfetti and Zwinky;
Match.com, ServiceMagic, Shoebuy.com, Entertainment Publications and ReserveAmerica;
Emerging Businesses including Pronto and Gifts.com, Green.com, Primal Ventures, and InstantAction;
IAC Programming businesses including Black Web Enterprises, BustedTees, CollegeHumor, GarageGames, Very Short List, Vimeo and 23/6;
IAC’s current investments in Active.com, Brightcove, FiLife, MerchantCircle, OpenTable, Points.com and SHOP Channel.
About IAC
IAC operates leading and diversified businesses in sectors being transformed by the internet, online and offline... our mission is to harness the power of interactivity to make daily life easier and more productive for people all over the world. To view a full list of the companies of IAC please visit our website at http://iac.com
Contact Information:
IAC Communications Office
Stacy Simpson / Leslie Cafferty
(212) 314-7470 / 7326
IAC Investor Relations
Eoin Ryan
(212) 314-7400
Showing posts with label gasta new services launched. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gasta new services launched. Show all posts
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Gasta News:New domain to be web's phone book
source: BBC
The .tel addresses will be reachable via mobiles too
From 3 December companies will be able to buy addresses associated with a new web domain.
Called .tel, the domain is intended to act as a universal contact point rather than as a hook on which to hang websites.
Owners of .tel domains will be encouraged to populate it with details about how they can be contacted.
The domain is designed to work on the web and with mobile phones such as the Apple iPhone and Blackberry.
"All other top level domains like .com use the net's domain name system in the same way," said Kash Mahdavi, head of Telnic which runs the .tel registry. "They all store IP address and they are all about websites."
By contrast, he said, .tel had been designed to act as a repository for all a company's or individual's contact details. A .tel domain, said Mr Mahdavi, could feature phone numbers, e-mail addresses, GPS data or buttons that kick off a Skype call.
Mr Mahdavi said it had some similarities to the Enum projects that aim to bind phone numbers and e-mail addresses into a unified contact system.
The flaw, he said, with Enum was that it demanded people be on the web. By contrast, .tel will work with many different devices such as smart phones.
Phase one
Owners of .tel domains will be able to manage their contact details via a simple dashboard and surrender as much or as little information as they desire, said Mr Mahdavi.
He added that .tel domains have a "friending mechanism" that will grant close friends access to private areas that give more ways for a person to be contacted.
"It will become their place on the cloud," said Mr Mahdavi.
Access to the domain is being granted in three phases. The first begins on 3 December and is the "sunrise" phase for trademark owners to get domains related to their brands.
The second phase begins on 3 February 2009 and is a "landrush" phase open to anyone though domains will be on sale at a premium.
The final general availability phase starts on 24 March 2009 when the domain will be open to all comers.
Phil Kingsland, director of communications for Nominet, the firm that manages the .uk domain, notes that a number of new domains will go online when a new process for allocating them rolls out next year.
"Businesses will need to be aware of the potential uses of .tel and how it can work for them," said Mr Kingsland.
"They should have a clear and robust domain name strategy in place, so that when new top-level domains such as these come onto the market, they are ready for them."
Mr Mahdavi would not be drawn on the final price for a .tel domain but said it would be in line with that charged for other domains.
The .tel addresses will be reachable via mobiles too
From 3 December companies will be able to buy addresses associated with a new web domain.
Called .tel, the domain is intended to act as a universal contact point rather than as a hook on which to hang websites.
Owners of .tel domains will be encouraged to populate it with details about how they can be contacted.
The domain is designed to work on the web and with mobile phones such as the Apple iPhone and Blackberry.
"All other top level domains like .com use the net's domain name system in the same way," said Kash Mahdavi, head of Telnic which runs the .tel registry. "They all store IP address and they are all about websites."
By contrast, he said, .tel had been designed to act as a repository for all a company's or individual's contact details. A .tel domain, said Mr Mahdavi, could feature phone numbers, e-mail addresses, GPS data or buttons that kick off a Skype call.
Mr Mahdavi said it had some similarities to the Enum projects that aim to bind phone numbers and e-mail addresses into a unified contact system.
The flaw, he said, with Enum was that it demanded people be on the web. By contrast, .tel will work with many different devices such as smart phones.
Phase one
Owners of .tel domains will be able to manage their contact details via a simple dashboard and surrender as much or as little information as they desire, said Mr Mahdavi.
He added that .tel domains have a "friending mechanism" that will grant close friends access to private areas that give more ways for a person to be contacted.
"It will become their place on the cloud," said Mr Mahdavi.
Access to the domain is being granted in three phases. The first begins on 3 December and is the "sunrise" phase for trademark owners to get domains related to their brands.
The second phase begins on 3 February 2009 and is a "landrush" phase open to anyone though domains will be on sale at a premium.
The final general availability phase starts on 24 March 2009 when the domain will be open to all comers.
Phil Kingsland, director of communications for Nominet, the firm that manages the .uk domain, notes that a number of new domains will go online when a new process for allocating them rolls out next year.
"Businesses will need to be aware of the potential uses of .tel and how it can work for them," said Mr Kingsland.
"They should have a clear and robust domain name strategy in place, so that when new top-level domains such as these come onto the market, they are ready for them."
Mr Mahdavi would not be drawn on the final price for a .tel domain but said it would be in line with that charged for other domains.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Gasta Video News:
Online TV viewing doubles in past year
The regulator’s annual UK Communications Market Report found the number of people watching TV programmes online grew from 8% to 17%, and nearly a third of internet
The number of UK internet users who watched YouTube hit 9m in April, nearly 50% more than a year ago, while the BBC iPlayer delivered more than 700,000 daily video streams in May 2008.
The number of households with digital video recorders grew 53% in 2007 to nearly 6m (23%) and the majority (88%) use them to fast-forward through ads.
The findings were in line with increased online ad spend, which, according to Ofcom, grew to £2.8bn in 2007, attracting more money than the combined ad spend on ITV1, Channel 4, Five and S4C.
This was mainly driven by consumers upgrading from dial-up to broadband.
More than one in ten mobile phone users have accessed the internet on their phone and 3G mobile connections increased by 4.7m (60%) in 2007 to reach 12.5m subscribers.
According to the Ofcom report, the average UK adult spent seven hours nine minutes a day using various communications services, six minutes more than in 2002. This includes radio listening, TV viewing, time spent online, texting or talking on the telephone.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Gasta News:UK Government Open data
The UK government has launched a competition to find innovative ways of using the masses of data it collects.
It is hoping to find new uses for public information in the areas of criminal justice, health and education.
The Power of Information Taskforce - headed by cabinet office minister Tom Watson - is offering a £20,000 prize fund for the best ideas.
To help with the task, the government is opening up gigabytes of information from a variety of sources.
This includes mapping information from the Ordnance Survey, medical information from the NHS, neighbourhood statistics from the Office for National Statistics and a carbon calculator from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
None of the data will be personal information, the government is keen to stress.
Mr Watson is hoping to attract a wide range of people from "the technology community we already work with, to hard-core coders to adolescents in their bedroom".
He admits that throwing open public data could be a risk but he believes that it will yield results.
"If someone comes up with a great idea we will make a prototype and then hopefully a fully-fledged piece of technology that will make peoples' lives better," he said.
"I strongly believe in co-design and in the digital age it makes sense to work with citizens to make public service better," he added.
To help inspire ideas the team behind the idea has put dozens of examples of innovative ways of reusing public information on its Taskforce wiki.
These include a website which maps crimes around the UK, the FixMyStreet website, which allows users to alert others to litter, vandalism and graffiti in their local environment, and the prototype RateMyPrison, which invites those who visit friends and families in jail to comment on the experience.
Technology commentator Bill Thompson was one of the first to see the Show Us a Better Way website, which details the competition.
"It's great to see a government department with enough sense to realise that it doesn't have all the good ideas," he said.
"There are terabytes of expensively accumulated information sitting in databases, but it goes unused and unexploited because of restrictive licenses and lack of awareness," he added.
The government will evaluate the ideas over the course of the summer.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Gasta SEO: Oganic Search
If your company's organic search results aren't what you wish they were, check out these key tricks to know and implement. By Noah Elkin
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), there is no magic bullet. Effective SEO boils down to doing a lot of little things well. Imagine building a house -- each brick that goes into the foundation plays a vital role in creating a solid structure. A website is similarly comprised of a large number of building blocks, each of which needs to be given a proper level of attention to maximize your site's visibility. Following are 11 steps marketers can take to get more out of organic search.
1. Optimize your title tags: The title tag is the most important tag on a page. It's like the title of a book in that it should tell the search engine spiders exactly what the page is about. Also, bear in mind that the title tag forms the link in the search engine results page (SERP), so think about giving it a keyword-rich call to action to help it stand out from the crowd.
2. Add a robots.txt file: This is a simple file that sits in the root of the website. It's one of the first files a search spider will look for as it begins a site crawl, so make sure you have one -- it helps to control where the spider can and cannot go and hence what it can and cannot see.
3. Include sitemaps (HTML and XML): Google doesn't share much in the way of how to optimize for its algorithms, but the search giant does recommend that you add an HTML sitemap, and when Google talks, you should listen. Make sure you include the entire site, break it into multiple pages (no more than 100 links per page) and update it regularly so it accurately reflects the structure of the site. Add an XML sitemap designed specifically for search engines. This is particularly important for large sites that spiders are having trouble indexing. Verify the sitemap with the Google webmaster console and receive useful data back about your site.
4. Write high-quality, unique content: After all these years, content still rules. Good quality content will help attract links to your site as people refer to it and that same content will work to keep them on your site after they arrive. From a search engine perspective, spiders love content, so the more you can provide them, the better. And don't limit yourself to text -- images and video can help to showcase additional brand messages and attributes. But whatever content you do serve up, just make sure it is in an accessible format.
5. Insert meta-tags for top-level pages: While not nearly as important as they used to be, optimized meta-descriptions are still worth adding to your key landing and top-level pages. Well-wrought meta-tags will help entice users to your site from a SERP.
6. Conduct keyword research: There's no point in ranking for keywords that your target audience is not using, so make sure you know what your customers are searching for and the terms they're using to find you. To improve your chances of connecting with interested users, structure your site around keywords and themes that reflect their vernacular, not your internal marketing-speak. Remember that you want to help both visitors and search engines build a complete picture of your site.
7. Don't neglect your internal link structure: There's more to SEO and boosting your search rankings than getting links from other sites. Devote some attention to your internal link structure. Embed your target keywords into the internal links and help reinforce the key landing pages to the spiders; don't just use "click here," "next" and "more."
8. Think about pages you want to rank and those you don't: This is something that's closely tied to the internal link structure. For brand searches (typically the most significant source of traffic for any site), the home page often ranks first, followed by privacy policies, contact us and terms and conditions pages. The home page is a good destination to steer interested visitors, but the privacy policy and T&C pages generally are not the places you want your users to hit first, so try to sculpt the flow of page rank to the key site landing pages instead.
9. Get more from analytics: Make sure you set up your analytics package correctly so it separates the sources of your traffic. There's no point spending a lot of time and effort on search engine marketing only to find that your analytics software was not configured to separate the paid search traffic from the organic traffic.
10. Submit to the main directories: Make sure your site is listed in all of the main directories, such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, Business.com, JoeAnt, etc.
11. Emphasize internal education: Everyone within your company can make a difference, particularly when it comes to a natural search campaign. Make sure all departments, from marketing to IT to PR to product development, know why the company is undertaking an SEO program and how they can contribute. Run regular sessions to update staff and inform them about how the campaign is progressing.
Last, but certainly not least, remember that SEO is not a set-and-forget process, but rather, one of ongoing improvement. Anytime you make changes to the structure of or content on your site, review the relevant steps in the optimization process to make sure you get the maximum benefit from these changes. Search can help you connect with your customers, but you have to make sure you're supplying the search engines with the right connective tissue.
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), there is no magic bullet. Effective SEO boils down to doing a lot of little things well. Imagine building a house -- each brick that goes into the foundation plays a vital role in creating a solid structure. A website is similarly comprised of a large number of building blocks, each of which needs to be given a proper level of attention to maximize your site's visibility. Following are 11 steps marketers can take to get more out of organic search.
1. Optimize your title tags: The title tag is the most important tag on a page. It's like the title of a book in that it should tell the search engine spiders exactly what the page is about. Also, bear in mind that the title tag forms the link in the search engine results page (SERP), so think about giving it a keyword-rich call to action to help it stand out from the crowd.
2. Add a robots.txt file: This is a simple file that sits in the root of the website. It's one of the first files a search spider will look for as it begins a site crawl, so make sure you have one -- it helps to control where the spider can and cannot go and hence what it can and cannot see.
3. Include sitemaps (HTML and XML): Google doesn't share much in the way of how to optimize for its algorithms, but the search giant does recommend that you add an HTML sitemap, and when Google talks, you should listen. Make sure you include the entire site, break it into multiple pages (no more than 100 links per page) and update it regularly so it accurately reflects the structure of the site. Add an XML sitemap designed specifically for search engines. This is particularly important for large sites that spiders are having trouble indexing. Verify the sitemap with the Google webmaster console and receive useful data back about your site.
4. Write high-quality, unique content: After all these years, content still rules. Good quality content will help attract links to your site as people refer to it and that same content will work to keep them on your site after they arrive. From a search engine perspective, spiders love content, so the more you can provide them, the better. And don't limit yourself to text -- images and video can help to showcase additional brand messages and attributes. But whatever content you do serve up, just make sure it is in an accessible format.
5. Insert meta-tags for top-level pages: While not nearly as important as they used to be, optimized meta-descriptions are still worth adding to your key landing and top-level pages. Well-wrought meta-tags will help entice users to your site from a SERP.
6. Conduct keyword research: There's no point in ranking for keywords that your target audience is not using, so make sure you know what your customers are searching for and the terms they're using to find you. To improve your chances of connecting with interested users, structure your site around keywords and themes that reflect their vernacular, not your internal marketing-speak. Remember that you want to help both visitors and search engines build a complete picture of your site.
7. Don't neglect your internal link structure: There's more to SEO and boosting your search rankings than getting links from other sites. Devote some attention to your internal link structure. Embed your target keywords into the internal links and help reinforce the key landing pages to the spiders; don't just use "click here," "next" and "more."
8. Think about pages you want to rank and those you don't: This is something that's closely tied to the internal link structure. For brand searches (typically the most significant source of traffic for any site), the home page often ranks first, followed by privacy policies, contact us and terms and conditions pages. The home page is a good destination to steer interested visitors, but the privacy policy and T&C pages generally are not the places you want your users to hit first, so try to sculpt the flow of page rank to the key site landing pages instead.
9. Get more from analytics: Make sure you set up your analytics package correctly so it separates the sources of your traffic. There's no point spending a lot of time and effort on search engine marketing only to find that your analytics software was not configured to separate the paid search traffic from the organic traffic.
10. Submit to the main directories: Make sure your site is listed in all of the main directories, such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, Business.com, JoeAnt, etc.
11. Emphasize internal education: Everyone within your company can make a difference, particularly when it comes to a natural search campaign. Make sure all departments, from marketing to IT to PR to product development, know why the company is undertaking an SEO program and how they can contribute. Run regular sessions to update staff and inform them about how the campaign is progressing.
Last, but certainly not least, remember that SEO is not a set-and-forget process, but rather, one of ongoing improvement. Anytime you make changes to the structure of or content on your site, review the relevant steps in the optimization process to make sure you get the maximum benefit from these changes. Search can help you connect with your customers, but you have to make sure you're supplying the search engines with the right connective tissue.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Gasta Blended Search
COOPER on Search New Media NMA Daily Alert 21/02/2008 05:05
... The prevailing wisdom is that brands should produce multimedia content in order to provide compelling user experiences online. But will it soon be the case that they have to do so to remain visible in search results?
Engines, as with Google’s Universal Search and Ask’s 3D, are increasingly displaying multimedia results in their natural listings. Is this putting more pressure on brands to develop extra content like blogs and videos?
This was one of the subjects brought up regularly during conversations at Search Engine Strategies (SES)
I’ve always liked the concept of blended search, as its being increasingly termed, but the conversation has moved from understanding what it is to how to make the most out of every bit of content - video, audio, images - a brand has.
There’s now a feeling that blended search is posing tough questions for some brands, a point raised in today’s NMA Podcast.
If you’re promoting a
Is this creating a division between those advertisers that have the resources and those that don’t? Does every advertiser need to have a blog, a video, multiple images, in order to remain visible?
I think once Universal Search results become more common, a lot of brands will suddenly realise SEO just got that little bit harder.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Gasta launches new search platform
Gasta launches new search platform
Gasta has rolled it’s new search platform. Stuart Manning said “We are redefining how users search on the internet by breaking the traditional paged based search mould. Instead we are providing a new rich interactive application approach, allowing the user to search unlimited web, video, images and news on one page. Added to the search are bookmarking and history tools to help make those searches easier to find again.”
We have enriched the user experience with social bookmarking, recent search history and all-in-one page search. We believe that more and more search engines will follow this route and users understand the new language of web 2.0 and break away from traditional paper-based hyperlinking and move to application based search.
Our new engine also provides potential search partners like ASK or Google better information as to the nature of our site and already we are seeing increased page indexing for each site using our test site www.mysearchmachine.com.
Gasta Platform is now a rich web application that utilises the best of the web 2.0 technologies. We have rebuilt Gasta from the ground up to be an extensible white label product that can be quickly deployed over our partner network.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
