Analysis: Amazon's advertising push gains steam (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Amazon.com Inc is known as the world's largest online retailer, but the company is aggressively expanding in online advertising, putting it on course for a clash with Google Inc, the leader in the space.

Amazon Product Ads, which promotes other companies' products on Amazon's website, emerged this holiday as a major online sales channel for some retailers.

Amazon is actively hiring for its Display Ad business. And its Adzinia Media Group advertising unit recently doubled its office space in New York to 60,000 square feet.

Amazon is capitalizing on the more than 100 million monthly visits to its websites by selling ads to other companies that are willing to pay to reach this huge base of potential customers. While the effort risks losing sales to rival retailers, it is also a potentially lucrative business for the company.

"It's higher margin than their traditional business and they've shown a lot of interest in expanding it," said Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie.

Online advertising will grow by more than 20 percent to over $30 billion in the United States this year and may reach $50 billion by 2015, mainly driven by a surge in display ads, according to eMarketer.

Display ad providers generate profit margins of 20 to 25 percent, while Amazon is used to margins of 5 to 6 percent, Schachter noted.

ADS FOR OTHERS

Amazon is running product ads and display ads on its own websites, including Amazon.com, IMDb.com and DPReview.com. But Schachter expects the company to branch out to other websites.

That would put Amazon in direct competition with Google, Yahoo! Inc and Facebook, the top three players in online advertising, according to eMarketer data. ValueClick Inc would also become a rival, Schachter noted.

Amazon has detailed data on customers and could use that to create more relevant and timely display ads on websites, the analyst said.

When someone visits a site, Amazon data may help identify the person as a resident of a particular state who recently bought a specific product, like diapers, from an Amazon website. The display ad that pops up would adjust in real time to promote baby products, Schachter explained.

JOB LISTINGS

Schachter began tracking Amazon's display ads for the first time in the fourth quarter, along with Yahoo, AOL Inc, Google's YouTube, and MSN, owned by Microsoft Corp.

Display ads appeared often on the Amazon.com homepage in the fourth quarter and over a quarter of them were for consumer packaged goods from companies including Philips and Procter & Gamble, the analyst noted.

Amazon is tight-lipped about future plans, but the company has posted over 30 job openings for its display ad business since the end of February.

"We are building next-generation advertising products by leveraging Amazon's world-class personalization technologies, unparalleled customer data and engaging video content," the company said on its website this week.

An Amazon spokeswoman said the company's Product and Display ad businesses are working with "thousands" of advertisers including Procter & Gamble and Microsoft. She declined to share more details.

"TWO TITANS"

The ad push shows how Amazon and Google are increasingly clashing over each part of the online shopping process. Google has traditionally dominated when consumers search online for something to buy, while Amazon focused more on the back end - selling products and processing orders.

Google is in talks with retailers about a delivery service that would compete with Amazon's successful Prime program, which charges an annual fee of $79 for free two-day shipping in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

"The two titans are going head to head as their businesses are overlapping more and more," said Jeffrey Grau, e-commerce analyst at eMarketer.

A lot of shoppers start product searches on Amazon.com now, rather than Google's search engine. This online traffic, combined with Amazon's data on customer purchases, can help the company create more targeted ads, Grau explained.

"That's got to be very troubling to Google," Grau added. "Amazon is a threat to Google because it's catching consumers earlier in the purchase process."

PRODUCT ADS TAKE OFF

Amazon has been working on its advertising business for at least three years.

Amazon Product Ads has been around since 2008, but it really caught on this holiday season, according to Eric Best of Mercent, which helps retailers sell more through websites including Amazon.com and eBay Inc.

Mercent clients got about 10 percent of their Amazon sales through Amazon Product Ads during the early part of the holiday season, up from almost nothing in the same period last year.

On Cyber Monday, Mercent clients saw year-over-year sales growth of 35 percent on Amazon's third-party marketplace. Sales growth via Amazon Product Ads was 88 percent, Best said.

Companies including HSN Inc, Wayfair, a big online furniture retailer, Wine.com and US-Mattress sell through this channel.

MBM Company got 44 percent of its sales on Thanksgiving though Cyber Monday from Amazon Product Ads. That was up from 4 percent of total sales in the same period of 2010.

"It's really exploded for us," said Jon Ozaksut, e-commerce marketing manager at the jewelry retailer.

MBM has diverted some of its ad spending away from other channels and into Amazon Product Ads, he said.

Like.com used to be MBM's biggest comparison-shopping channel. Google acquired Like.com in 2010 and "sort of depreciated it and is not using it that as much," Ozaksut said. "We spent most of the year looking for a new leader for comparison-shopping-engine sales and Amazon is in that position now."

NEW CATEGORIES

Amazon Product Ads is also a way for the company to get into categories where it doesn't sell products itself.

Amazon doesn't sell wine, but the company has a new partnership with Wine.com that runs through Amazon Product Ads. When shoppers search for wine on Amazon.com, they are directed to the online wine retailer's website through a product ad in the corner of the search result page.

"It's small now but I suspect it will be much bigger next year," said Wine.com Chief Executive Rich Bergsund. "It's a way for Amazon to participate in wine sales without dealing with all the regulation and complexity of shipping wine across state lines."

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Richard Chang)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111206/wr_nm/us_amazon_advertising

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Cowon announces CE-based R7 media tablet, earns a few perplexed stares

Cowon makes some pretty slick looking Android PMPs, as well as some more underwhelming devices running Windows CE. The latest in the latter category is the R7 -- a 7-inch media player that's being billed as "full HD" (a claim that makes Cowon full of something else). Despite being the size of a small tablet the R7 display is only 800 x 480, though, it will output 1080p over HDMI. While the low-res screen and aging CE 6.0 OS are nothing to get excited about, there are some positives: epic battery life and support for an absurd number of formats and codecs. And, since the R7 comes packing up to 64GB of internal storage and sports a microSD slot, you'll have plenty room to keep you swimming in both audio and video. Sure, Android probably would have made more sense and a WiFi connection for browsing the web would be greatly appreciated but, you've got to admire Cowon's stubborn insistence on doing things its own way... right?

Cowon announces CE-based R7 media tablet, earns a few perplexed stares originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM names new India MD (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion on Tuesday named Sunil Dutt as its new managing director for India, one of its key growth markets, a month after its former top executive in the country left the company.

Dutt, who joins RIM from Hewlett-Packard Co's Indian unit, has also worked with Samsung Electronics and Nokia and is a 27-year veteran of the Indian mobile technology and telecoms sector, RIM said in a statement.

RIM, which has parted ways with a string of high-profile employees in recent months, said in November India managing director Frenny Bawa had left the company to pursue other interests.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Aradhana Aravindan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111206/tc_nm/us_india_rim_appointment

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Afghanistan opens bids on gold, copper deposits

The President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, leaves after he delivered his speech at the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, Germany Monday Dec. 5, 2011. A decade after the first Afghanistan conference the international community discusses the future of its engagement in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Oliver Berg, Pool)

The President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, leaves after he delivered his speech at the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, Germany Monday Dec. 5, 2011. A decade after the first Afghanistan conference the international community discusses the future of its engagement in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Oliver Berg, Pool)

The President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, delivers his speech at the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, Germany Monday Dec. 5, 2011. A decade after the first Afghanistan conference the international community discusses the future of its engagement in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Oliver Berg, Pool)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Afghanistan opened bids Tuesday on copper and gold deposits in four areas of the country that together are roughly half the size of the Grand Canyon.

Afghanistan has high hopes that its budding mining industry will generate billions in revenue to help rebuild the nation after 30 years of war. For Afghanistan, a violent, landlocked country with virtually no exports, the minerals are a potential windfall, although formidable obstacles remain, including lack of investment, infrastructure and adequate security in most of the country.

The Afghan Ministry of Mines invited investors to bid on multiple contracts to unearth copper and gold hidden beneath 846 square miles (2,191 square kilometers) in Badakhshan, Ghazni and Herat provinces and a fourth area that spans both Balkh and Sar-e-Pul provinces. The tender offers were posted on its web site.

Afghan Minister of Mines Wahidullah Shahrani was expected to officially announce the bids later in the day in London.

Geologists have known for decades about Afghanistan's vast deposits of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and other prized minerals, including rare earth minerals used in cell phones, hybrid car batteries, defense industries and wind turbines.

The U.S. Defense Department put a startling $1 trillion price tag on the vast mineral reserves, but the Afghan ministry calls that a conservative estimate, saying that other geological assessments and industry reports estimate the nation's mineral wealth at $3 trillion or more.

In late 2007, a $3 billion contract was awarded to China Metallurgical Group Corp. to mine copper at Aynak in Logar province, 21 miles (35 kilometers) southeast of Kabul. The mine is thought to hold one of the world's largest untapped copper reserves.

Mining the copper could create 4,000 to 5,000 Afghan jobs in the next five years and hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the government treasury, according to the ministry. The project also includes construction of two coal-fired electric power plants, a segment of rail and a roadway from the mine to Kabul.

In December 2010, Afghan officials approved a multimillion-dollar contract to mine gold in Dushi district of Baghlan province. It was the first mining project in Afghanistan backed by private investors from the West, who pledged $50 million for the project.

Last month, the Afghan government gave investors from India and Canada to mine an estimated 1.8 billion tons of iron ore in Bamiyan province, projects that government officials hope will reap revenue for the nation and jobs for its unemployed.

With rising revenues from mining projects, customs and taxes, the Afghan government predicts it can increase the ratio of revenues to its gross domestic product from 11 percent to 15 percent within four years and to 20 percent by 2025, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Still with the planned withdrawal of most international combat forces and an expected decline in foreign assistance, Afghanistan is facing a fiscal crisis.

At an international conference on Monday in Bonn, Germany, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that Afghanistan would need the financial support of other countries for at least another decade beyond 2014.

Afghanistan estimates it will need outside contributions of roughly $10 billion in 2015 and onward, slightly less than half the country's annual gross national product, mostly because it won't be able to pay for its security forces.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-12-06-AS-Afghan-Minerals/id-925fa1963c4f44688c608452a802451a

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Slovene center-left party surprise election victor (AP)

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia ? A center-left party led by a prominent businessman and mayor nabbed a surprise victory in Slovenian parliamentary elections on Sunday, reflecting mounting concern among voters over the economy in the small EU country.

Positive Slovenia, the party led by the former head of the country's largest retailer and mayor of the capital, Ljubljana, took 28.5 percent of the vote, according to nearly complete results.

The favored conservatives were trailing with 26.3 percent. The leader of the Slovene Democratic Party, former prime minister Janez Jansa, conceded defeat and congratulated Zoran Jankovic for his party's win.

Positive Slovenia did not win enough votes outright to form a government on its own, setting up a scramble for coalition partners.

In winning Slovenia's first snap election since becoming independent from the former Yugoslavia in 1991, Positive Slovenia will have to tackle the country's mounting debt, unemployment and a looming recession. Jankovic has promised swift reform, including austerity measures.

"The results show that Slovenia will go in the right direction," Jankovic said. "It is obvious that the citizens want an efficient state."

Serbia-born Jankovic won prominence in Slovenia first as the head of the country's biggest retailer, Merkator, running the company successfully for eight years, before he was removed from the post in 2005 by Jansa over disagreements that Jankovic claimed were politically motivated. The 58-year-old economist has served as the mayor of Ljubljana since 2006.

The snap vote was called after the center-left government of Premier Borut Pahor was toppled over economic troubles and allegations of corruption. The state electoral commission said the turnout was around 65 percent.

Pahor has said that he has done his best as premier to battle the global economic downturn and the European debt crisis. Pahor's Social Democrats were third with 10.5 percent of the vote, results showed.

Pahor said this was more than he had expected. He offered to meet Jankovic to discuss possible future cooperation.

A newcomer, former minister Gregor Virant, came in fourth, with 8.4 percent, followed by several smaller groups, who won between 4.5 and 7 percent.

Slovenia has been hit hard by the European debt crisis, with public debt swollen to 44 percent of GDP and unemployment at about 12 percent. The situation further deteriorated because of the political deadlock that followed the fall of Pahor's government in September.

Political analyst Tanja Staric predicted that "the period of instability is still not behind us."

"Now, all will depend on Jankovic's readiness and ability to form the government that will be strong enough to unblock the decision-making process," she said.

Final official results are to be released in about a week, after officials receive votes from abroad and any complaints. By Slovenian law, there a period granted for candidates to file complaints of election violations.

______

Jovana Gec contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111204/ap_on_re_eu/eu_slovenia_elections

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WikiLeaks' chief in vital extradition court fight (Providence Journal)

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Why Girls Don't Want Careers In Tech

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Why Girls Don't Want Careers In Tech
This week I was lucky enough collect an award at Red Magazine's Hot Women Awards 2011, which celebrates successful women in industry. What made the experience all the more rewarding was being able to spend some time with a group of women at the top of their fields.

Source: FastCompany
Posted on: Friday, Dec 02, 2011, 8:44am
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115685/Why_Girls_Don_t_Want_Careers_In_Tech

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