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Microsoft and Time Warner Team Up Against Google
PlayfullyClever wrote to mention a Reuters report on an online advertising deal between Microsoft and Time Warner. The two companies are teaming up to take on Google's advertising network. From the article: "The [WSJ] said the two companies were now focusing on a deal that would combine their advertising-related assets, with little or no money changing hands. It said they expected to reach an agreement before the end of the year, but that it was still possible that Time Warner's America Online unit could strike a deal with competitor Google instead."
>> Internet Operations: Losses in the billions
Hundred million of pure, net profit last year.
In addition to posting blatant advertising for the BeatlesBeatles and Joel on Software and TheEscapist and other stuff in a very "Microsoft/TimeWarner future partnership ass-kissing networked" sort of way, they don't even have a problem accepting submissions and posting them from blatant trolls and rip-offs like the submitter of this article (see the following current headline on the site of the submitter of this article):
In short, the editors are such fucking incompetant idiots that they willingly and knowingly entertain the submissions of admitted plagiarists. On the other hand, it's a really great way to make sure that Slashdot is never taken seriously anywhere by anyone. Seriously, Slashdot editors (Malda, etc) -- get your shit together. Half the joy of even bothering to show up and check Slashdot out each day now isn't for the articles or discussions, but to see what careless, stupid, sell-out, dimwitted shit you guys will do next.
Win Slashdot? (12/05/05) - PyWiz
Some of the slashbots have started to take notice that all of our posts are blatantly plagiarized. They wonder out loud in their replies why we would do such a thing? Well for all you curious slashbots that wonder why we felt the need to beat the world's most famous News for Trolls website, your answer is here
Slashdot: News for Trolls. Stuff That Doesn't Matter.
Okay, first of all for all of your slashbots that are out of the loop, we (known on Slashdot as PlayfullyClever) are blatant plagiarists. Almost (and by almost I mean more than 90%) all of our posts are reposts found using the Anti-Slash Database Tool, which allows the user to search for high-modded posts on a particular topic. Basically when a new article comes out on Slashdot we skim the summary for key words and plug them into the database tool. When we find a relevant-looking (I say relevant-looking because we don't actually read the summary so sometimes our posts are a little off base) post, we simply copy paste it and post to Slashdot. The funny part about this is that almost all of our posts get rated 5, just as they were originally. It is especially amusing when we get a high rating in spite of the fact that someone spots our plagiarism and points it out in a reply, as happened here.
Why would we do this? Well, there are several reasons. First of all, we do it for kicks. As I said earlier, it is rather amusing how little new information is actually added in Slashdot discussions. Simply towing the party line will get you a 5 rating, even if, as happens in many cases with our reposting, the post is slightly or completely offtopic.
The second major reason is promoting our site. We have a link in our signature and of course when we submit articles we get hits from people clicking on our name. We've gotten over 500 unique hits in the past 3 days the site has been up, and considering the quality of site we have, that's some quality advertising.
Some of you might be thinking that we're selfish and that we're destroying what once used to be a respected discussion forum. Well, you're wrong. First of all, with all the FPs, Penisbirds, and GNAA trolls, our reposting is hardly degrading anything of worth. Second of all, the moderation system is build to handle just our type of cleverness (namely, playful) by allowing readers to mod us down if they don't find our comment interesting. Obviously, even though it is plagiarized, our comments still hold the interest of a large number of moderators. Of course there is the slight moral problem of representing someone elses work as our own, but I mean come on, this is the 21st century, get over it.
In conclusion, all you slashbots who whine about PlayfullyClever being a "blatant plagiarist": you're right. Now STFU. kthx, py
Dunno about about the search engine angle but as an advertiser I'd suggest that Google was successful because their Adwords program was
- Cheap
- Very, very, very easy to use
their nearest (small advertisers welcome) competitor Overture wasTry this link instead: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1896641,00.as p?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
Penny - plain text accounting
If your numbers are from TFA, I can't see it because the link is giving me a Yahoo! error page, so I went to Google to find some info.
Are your numbers for unique visitors to any page owned by the companies in your list? Do those numbers even matter- aren't we talking about ads in search results?
Of course, as anyone who has been around for awhile knows - email usually goes unanswered. Hell, as any subscriber knows, they don't even pay attention to their "email us if you see a problem with this story!" link.
And you don't have to be the world's greatest or most concerned editor. If you care about tech stuff and geek stuff, you'd at least be interested in weeding out the redundant stuff and advertising. And if they're understaffed, it's their own fault. They're not some little organization running out of some kid's basement anymore.