To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret.

The Pentagon assessed the danger WikiLeaks.org posed to the Army in a report marked “unauthorized disclosure subject to criminal sanctions.” It concluded that “WikiLeaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC and INFOSEC threat to the U.S. Army” — or, in plain English, a threat to Army operations and information.

WikiLeaks, true to its mission to publish materials that expose secrets of all kinds, published the 2008 Pentagon report about itself on Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/us/18wiki.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Google + iPad = Mobile Advertising Boom in 2010?

by Jason Hahn

If you yawn when you read another headline about mobile advertising and its ever-pending explosion, you’re surely not alone. It seems that year after year, experts are touting the mobile platform as the next big thing that needs to be on top of every marketer’s mind. This year is no different, but there are a few indications that 2010 might actually be the stage for mobile advertising’s coming out party.

The benefits of mobile ads are obvious: ease of tracking a user’s location, a booming user base and all the advantages of traditional online ads among them.

Millennial Media expects the mobile Web audience in the U.S. to reach 100 million unique users in 2010, which is equal to about half of the total Web audience. To add to the fire, Mary Meeker, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, forecasts that the Web will be accessed by more users via mobile devices than PCs in five years.

Still, less than one-third of one percent of total worldwide ad revenue, or $1.4 billion, was spent on mobile advertising in 2009, according to Juniper Research.

Source: DM Confidential

Worth it to go read the whole thing and bookmark or RSS the site if you want to make money online.

Marc

In my last post, I discussed why I was leaving newspapers after 25 years.

I thought I’d allow myself one more nostalgic post before this blog returns to what I hope will be its main purpose – discussing what’s new in the world of media from the point of view of someone who’s trying to make it as an entrepreneur, digital publisher and jack-of-all-consultancies (as well as some other stuff that might touch on the politics and economy of Birmingham).

And what better way to do this than with some good old-fashioned linkbait – a couple of lists?

Marc Reeves

Google could use the Yelp data for Place Pages and benefit from the new Yelp for Android app, which lets users search for nearby businesses, read reviews and manipulate a Google map to redefine searches.

Ideally, Google would enable Yelp for Android users to see retail sale and coupon alerts zipped right to their Motorola Droid, Droid Eris (or Nexus One?) Android devices, pairing offers and suggestions with contextually relevant ads.

Other good thoughts there as well. They weren’t thinking about the effect on newspapers and Journalism (with a big J), but it’s gonna have a bigger effect than Craigslist. (Sorry, Mr. Newmark. I do like how you’re giving eBay a hassle. Heh.)

Yelp = Gulp for Newspapers?

Rupert Murdoch

Malcom Coles has a write-up about Google Scholar and Murdoch that’s an interesting read.

Has anyone pointed out the workings of Google Scholar to Rupert Murdoch? He’s going to have a fit when he finds out …

Thoughts? I think Google is going to come out the victor. Is this good for journalism? We shall see, I guess.

CBS

CBS says it will stop doing business with the networks, which are ubiquitous on the Web, and will offer access to its audience of 60 million unique visitors solely via its own sales force.

AdAge’s Michael Learmonth says CBS (CBS), bolstered by its 2008 purchase of CNET, is the biggest publisher on the Web to cut off the hundreds of networks that try to match publishers and ad buyers.

Source: Wall Street Journal

First up is: The Data That Turns Browsing to Buying at the NY Times.

As it has quietly expanded, Next Jump has been gathering data, and not only from companies and customers. It also gets credit-card transaction data from American Express and MasterCard. This vast trove — accumulated over years — is the company’s most precious asset, analysts say.

Next Jump analyzes that data to draw inferences about what a person would be likely to buy, and at what price. Its network also includes 28,000 retailers who can specify the characteristics of customers — age, location, income, for example — that they are most interested in luring with certain products.

It still seems newspapers don’t have a source of information like this.

The second piece is Daily Mirror’s Matt Kelly: put SEO in its place by Robert Andrews at PaidContent/Guardian. Basically, it says to put journalism before SEO. Do big media companies even know what they’re doing with SEO? (Remember Love.com?)

Love.com Dead?

Maybe I missed the formal announcement, but it appears to be pretty much dead. (Aaron Wall over at SEO Book had some information on this in a comment recently – saying why their model didn’t work while other models similar have…)

Ah, but the meat maybe is that journalism should come first…

But if you’re starting out with nothing should you make money to make journalism or make journalism to make money?

Comments?

Rupert Murdoch

Google Living Stories lets you read the same reporting and analysis that you expect from The New York Times and The Washington Post, delivered on a highly interactive platform. Google is providing the technology platform, the journalists from the Times and Post are writing and editing the stories.

~SearchEngineWatch