A Columbia University study published in Science (2/10/06 issue) sheds light on the role that social influence can play in driving consumer demand. Researchers recruited more than 14,000 people in a study to measure the impact of social influence on the choice of songs to download.

Participants were randomly allocated to one of two experimental conditions: [...]

Google says auditing firms can’t count! The company put out a report, claiming that third-party auditing firms that report fictitious clicks – clicks Google says were never made on Google’s AdWords platform – are implying that keyword advertisers everywhere are suffering inflated costs.

Despite past efforts to downplay it, click fraud – phony clicks that drive [...]

Apple’s iPod is the number one music player in the world. iTunes is the number one digital music store in the world. But customers don’t even seem to care that no one but Apple is allowed to make players for iTunes Music Store songs, and no one but Apple can sell you proprietary file-format music [...]

A recent issue of CIO magazine reported that engineers in China are busy working on a project that the Chinese government has already invested close to $200 million toward. It’s the China’s Next Generation Internet (CNGI), a faster, more secure, more mobile version of the current Internet, which the country’ plans to unveil at the [...]

A recent McKinsey report seems to suggest that we are reaching the maximum utilization of all online advertising. And, we could all be in for a spike in prices. Now that’s a Buzz kill!

The McKinsey research combined quantitative analysis with more than 50 interviews with leading digital advertisers, ad agencies, and media companies. The study [...]