News

Yahoo Profit Rises Dramatically (free sub. req’ed)   

Yahoo Inc. yesterday reported hefty gains in revenue
and profit for the fourth quarter and all of 2004, a period that Terry
S. Semel, the company’s chief executive, referred to as "the year in
which we witnessed the beginning of a tipping point in advertising."   

The surge in Yahoo profit, officials said, was
largely attributable to dramatic increases in ad dollars spent by
businesses selling products and promoting their images on the Internet,
a sign of the increasingly mainstream nature of Internet advertising,
both in the United States and abroad.

The  Education Dept. paid commentator Wiliams $241,000 to promote the administration’s No Child Left Behind law. Only problem is that he didn’t tell viewers or anyone else that he was on the  payroll.

Media distributor severs ties with commentator

WASHINGTON — Armstrong Williams, who was paid by the Education
Department to promote President Bush’s education policies, says the
public outcry and his firing by the company that syndicated his
newspaper column are "the price you pay" for a mistake.

updates: Jay Rosen, of Pressthink, weighs in on the Ketchum/Williams affair:

Bloggers Are Missing in Action as Ketchum Tests the Conscience
of PR

"Maybe this is the way things are done all the time in PR today. It’s one of the most plausible explanations we have for the Ketchum contract, the apparent fraudulence of which is roughly parallel to the memos in the Dan Rather case."

 

The following was recently posted to the AdMarketing list.

—–Original Message—–
From: Prashant P Kothari [mailto:ppkothari@stringinfo.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 1:20 AM
To: mitch@tuvel.com
Cc: ppkothari@stringinfo.com
Subject: Tsunami update from Chennai, India

Hi Mitch Pls forward this to Ad-Marketers and any other list you deem appropriate

Tsunami update:

I’m in Chennai currently.  I went to school and college in this city, normally a peaceful, placid place.  This disaster is unparalleled in Chennai’s history –

The quake per se had minimal effect, at least in Chennai. Not too sure about other places – I hear that the entire island of Sumatra has been displaced by 100 feet!  That should tell you how powerful the earthquake was

The tsunamis were the real killers in South India, Sri Lanka and the islands of the Indian Ocean (Andaman, Nicobar, Thailand, Maldives).  Tsunamis don’t really gain height until they’re very close to the shore. And given their tremendous speeds, (up to 500 miles per hour), the danger was evident too late if you were unlucky enough to be on the water or near the shore.

Fishermen and their families..

Tourists and early morning strollers..

Children playing cricket on the beaches.

All gone.

And the death toll continues to mount.

A plea to all: even $10 can make a difference. 

Some relief agencies that my staff and I have donated to

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
http://www.oxfam.org/eng/
http://www.redcross.org/index.html
http://www.savethechildren.org

There’s information about other agencies and all other aspects of this disaster on Tsunami Help Blog at http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com.

A somber ending to 2004.

Peace to all and best wishes for 2005

Regards
Prashant

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