Hasta La Gadget!

Twitter’s advertisement program was only available for several businesses in the past, but in order to generate more ad revenue this year, Twitter has decided to make its advertisement program available to anyone and everyone. The ads program allows users and small businesses to promote their brand and their products through promoted tweets and accounts. The tweets can be adjusted to appeal to the general public, or only to a targeted audience.

In the past, the ad program was only accessible to businesses who received a personal invite from Twitter. Now all anyone needs to do is sign-up to be considered. All you need to do is answer a few questions and you’ll be on your way. You can choose to promote your tweets, or you entire account. The pricing system is similar to Google AdWords, where you can set a budget to control how much you spend, and you can place bids to decide how much you want to spend per follower/click.

This new move from Twitter is one of its first steps its taking to achieve its goal of generating $1 billion in ad revenue alone by 2014. Currently, its ad revenue for this year is expected to be a little over half that amount, but with the expansion of its ads program, and its more aggressive move towards mobile, its goal seems more and more realistic. It also helps that there are over 200 million people who are currently using its service and over 400 million tweets being sent out everyday.

Twitter has focused a lot of its efforts into expanding and developing its advertisement platform. Back in February, it released an advertisement API that lets businesses create more targeted ad campaigns. The program saw impressive results, with some businesses seeing a huge increase of new followers on a daily basis. Twitter also improved its keyword-targeted ads so that when a user tweets about a product, like soda, they would see an advertisement for soda quickly after. While increased advertisements may be deterring, Twitter’s ad program becoming available to users and small businesses should do wonders in helping them grow their exposure and their businesses.

[via Twitter]

Twitter makes ads program available to all users is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Best Buy has revealed a definitive agreement to sell its 50-percent share of Best Buy Europe to Carphone Warehouse, which it entered into a joint venture with back in 2008. The sale will take place for the equivalent of $775 million, with the majority of it coming in the form of cash and the rest of it being offered in Carphone Warehouse Group stock with a one-year restriction, during which time the group can sell the shares on Best Buy’s behalf at issued prices and higher.

If such happens, the agreement has Carphone Warehouse pegged to pay whatever difference may result under an approximate $99 million agreement based on the sum total of the aforementioned proceeds Best Buy receives in addition to the market value of whatever shares may remain. In addition, says the announcement, Best Buy has to pay nearly $45 million to Carphone Warehouse to settle some current obligations it has with the group.

Although it is a definitive agreement, it isn’t yet completely settled, something that is currently slated to take place this upcoming June. Carphpne Warehouse shareholders need to approve the deal, but its board of directions have agreed and signed letters of commitment to the transaction. Likewise, Best Buy’s board also agrees with the deal. There are currently Best Buy stores being run in eight countries as part of the joint venture between the two companies.

Best Buy’s President and CEO Hubert Joly said about the announcement: “After reviewing the business and spending time with our partners, we concluded that the timing and economics were right to enter into this agreement with CPW. This transaction allows us to 1) simplify our business; 2) substantially improve our Return on Invested Capital, one of the five pillars of our Renew Blue transformation; and 3) strengthen our balance sheet.”

[via Best Buy]

Best Buy to sell EU stake to Carphone Warehouse is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Internet tracking cookies may soon see their demise, at least according to Paul Cimino, the Vice President and General Manager at Brilig Digital Data Solutions, a company that looks through 1st and 3rd party data to leverage for marketing campaigns. He says that the internet cookie has “5 years at most” to live before its killed off. He continues to say that the internet cookie is flawed, invasive, and has privacy issues. There are many that agree with Cimino’s statement.

Cimino believes that there will be a new “value proposition” that will replace internet tracking cookies once they’re killed off. He says that the new proposition will allow users to opt into the personalization of their ads and searches. He describes this as “tailor don’t target” advertisements, and it will be more welcomed by consumers compared to the invasive ads brought on currently by tracking cookies.

One reason that Cimino believes internet cookies is dying is because many people are beginning to use machines that are “non-cookieable”. These devices include smartphones and tablets, which account for 35% to 40% of overall data traffic received by Brilig. Because the number of tracking cookies is being reduced drastically, companies have to find new ways of identifying users and their data.

However, Cimino says that cookies aren’t the only way to identify people. He says even if consumers use a non-cookieable device like the iPhone or an Android device, he can still see the device’s IP address as well as part of their user agent. He can use that information to identify the person behind the phone, which he can then use with his 10 different matching agents to use for marketing campaigns. He says,

“With these 10 matching agents we’ve built a cooperative of matching, because most of the matching that you see out there is a single-circuit. It’s “A’ matching agent and “A” campaign and “A” advertiser.

While you will still see ads after the supposed demise of the internet cookie, at least they will be more targeted and more relevant to your preferences. Hopefully these new “value propositions” that Cimino talks about will be more secure and private compared to internet cookies. How do you feel about internet cookies coming to an end?

[via Ad Exchanger]

Internet cookies get five year death sentence is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In a recent SEC filing, it was discovered that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg will only be taking a $1 salary this year. He will also be rejecting any potential bonuses he may receive this year as well. While the SEC filing confirms that he will only be making a dollar this year, Zuckerberg first revealed he would be taking a dollar salary in Facebook’s IPO filing.

Last year, Zuckerberg made about half a million dollars, and with his bonus, he made about 3/4 of a million dollars. But Zuckerberg isn’t working pretty much for free for no reason. He has an incentive to do so. He currently holds 60 million stock options that are currently worth 6 cents a piece. By only being paid a buck, he has more incentive to work and build up Facebook’s financial value.

Many other CEOs have reduced their salaries to a single dollar before. While they only get a dollar in the form of a salary, they are rewarded in other ways, including bonuses and stock options. Steve Jobs reduced his salary to a dollar back when he rejoined Apple in 1998, but he received stock grants in return (which he stopped taking after 2003). Google’s Larry page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt all reduced their salaries to $1 back in 2005.

Other notable figures include Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Capital One’s Richard Fairbank, Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca, Zynga’s Mark Pincus, and HP’s Meg Whitman. Most of these CEOs obtain bonuses or stock options (which could be exempt from a portion of payroll taxes). By being paid through stock options, its believed that these CEOs would increase their work performance, because how much they get paid is equal to how well their companies do.

[via Business Insider]

Mark Zuckerberg claims salary and bonus pay reduced to minimum is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Betaworks, the company that acquired Digg just last year, has just made a new acquisition. Marco Arment, the creator of the popular “read-it-later” app Instapaper stated on his blog that after much consideration, he has sold a majority stake of the app to Betaworks. He felt that Instapaper had grown “far beyond what one person can do” and decided that he needed to let it go in order for it to prosper.

While Arment could have sold the app to anyone, he thought long and hard about the company that would do his app great justice. He states that he had a sudden realization in the middle of the night, and he immediately hopped out of bed and emailed Betaworks to see if they were interested. Betaworks was immediately on-board because according to Arment, “we both knew it was a great fit.”

There’s a variety of reasons why Arment sold Instapaper. He stated that he isn’t one to lead, but in order for Instapaper to prosper, he needed to hire a full-time staff. He also felt like he wanted to explore more newer creative opportunities. He decided Betaworks was the company that should acquire Instapaper because any other company “would probably just shut it down in six months.”

With Betaworks in control of Instapaper, Arment states that the company will make “Instapaper’s health and longevity as the top priority”. The deal he made with Betaworks also states that there will be incentives that will ensure that the app will continue to prosper well into the future. Arment will continue to advise Betaworks on the app “indefinitely”, but Betaworks will handle all of the other aspects in growing the app. Just last year, Betaworks acquired the struggling social news service, Digg, and revamped it to the more organized news app it is today. It’ll be interesting to see how Instapaper will evolve now that its in Betaworks’s hands.

[via Instapaper]

Owners of Digg acquire the “read-it-later” app Instapaper is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.