New York, February 12 - Microsoft Corp, the world’s largest software firm whose $44.6 billion takeover bid was rejected by Yahoo! yesterday, said it will move ahead with its offer for the internet major.

Yahoo! had said its board rejected the offer as it undervalued the company.

Replying to it, Microsoft said in a statement that it was offering shareholders of Yahoo! a superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company.

According to the statement, the combination would create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising.

“It is unfortunate that Yahoo! has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies. Based on conversations with stakeholders of both the companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties,” Microsoft said.

“The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo! shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realise the value inherent in our proposal,” it said.

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Health services companies spent $2.4 billion on direct marketing in 2007, according to a February report by the Direct Marketing Association.

By 2012, that figure will rise to $3.9 billion.

Most of the dollars currently go toward offline channels, particularly telephone marketing and direct mail.

However, spending on the Internet is expected ramp up quickly over the next few years. Double digit increases are predicted for each year through 2012.

“The importance of the online channels—Internet marketing and commercial e-mail—will grow considerably during the next five years,” says Anna Chernis of the DMA. “Both as promotional tools and as sources of sales.”

Health services companies might benefit from increased business-to-business targeting. The report found that 90% of direct marketing was aimed towards consumers, but that the B2B market had a greater ROI.

Source : Emarketer.com

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While doing some research for a presentation, I was checking out the WordPress.com site on “types of blogs” looking for creative ways to categorize them. And what did I come upon, but this page which separates blogs types into two overall categories of “popular” and “banned”. Guess where SEO blogs fall?

Even WordPress which so many search engine optimization professionals sincerely love and prefer as a blogging platform, is misinformed or at least, subject to making sweeping generalizations. This is the “banned” category:

And here are some examples of blogs that are banned from WordPress.com (all of these fall under the general heading of “spam blogs”, or splogs, and we will be deleted as soon as we find them or they get reported):

• Scraper blogs: Blogs that take content from other blogs and re-publish it without permission (this is sometimes called scraping). If a blog contains all or mostly stolen and unoriginal content, it’s gone!
• SEO blogs: Blogs that are written for search engines instead of humans. These blogs are dedicated to trying to fool Google and other search engines into ranking them highly. WordPress.com is not meant for this type of activity.
• Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs and get-rich-quick schemes (”Make six figures from home!!”, “20 easy steps to top profits!!”, etc). To be clear, examples like people writing original book or movie reviews and linking them to Amazon, or people linking to their own products on Etsy do NOT fall into this category.
• Warez blogs: Blogs that promote pirated copies of ebooks, software packages, music, movies, games, etc

Source : News.stpwebhosting.com

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