Web Development Live

Microsoft Corp. announced the departure of several executives Thursday, among them a Silicon Valley veteran recruited to help fix its unprofitable Web business and one in charge of marketing Windows Vista, and the promotion of more than a dozen others across the company.
The changes come just two weeks after Microsoft offered to buy Web portal and search competitor Yahoo Inc. for more than $40 billion, a move industry watchers broadly see as an admission that Microsoft’s own Web strategy had failed.
If the proposed Yahoo takeover is completed, Microsoft is expected to make more radical changes as it blends the two companies into a more formidable challenger to Google Inc., the dominant player in the lucrative Internet search and advertising markets.
Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said Thursday’s announcement is unrelated to the Yahoo negotiations.
Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online business group, will hand off his duties to three insiders: Satya Nadella, currently in charge of search and search advertising engineering; Bill Veghte, a Windows marketing executive; and Brian McAndrews, formerly the chief executive of online advertising group aQuantive, which Microsoft acquired last year.
Nadella and Veghte were promoted to senior vice president.
The top executive in Microsoft’s mobile phone software business, Pieter Knook, also is leaving Microsoft. He will lead a new division of cellular operator Vodafone Group PLC. Andy Lees, formerly of Microsoft’s server and tools division, was promoted to replace Knook.
No reason was given for Berkowitz’s departure. He joined Microsoft in 2006 after turning around Oakland, Calif.-based Ask.com, which, with related sites, was acquired by InterActiveCorp for $2.3 billion during his tenure as chief executive.
Brought in to help turn around Microsoft’s own Web business, Berkowitz was charged with expanding the audience on its disparate MSN and Windows Live sites _ making them more attractive to advertisers _ and forging new business relationships, such as the ad partnership announced last summer with social news site Digg.com.
“I don’t know if he was able to take control of the pieces he would have needed to take control of in order to really turn around the online business,” said Matt Rosoff, an analyst for the research group Directions on Microsoft.
Developing Microsoft’s Live Search and adCenter, both of which the company revamped to better compete with Google Inc. in search advertising, were Nadella’s parallel responsibility.
Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive brought it a large network of Web sites, but selling advertising across those sites stayed under McAndrews while Berkowitz’s team continued to sell ads on Microsoft-owned sites.
With Berkowitz’s departure, all advertising efforts will be consolidated under McAndrews. MSN head Joanne Bradford will report to Nadella.
Veghte will gain responsibility for strategy, sales and marketing for Windows, Windows Live, MSN and Search. Microsoft said Michael Sievert, who worked for Veghte and was responsible for marketing Windows Vista, is leaving to pursue new endeavors. Brad Brooks was promoted to replace him.
Microsoft said Berkowitz will stay through August to help with the transition.
“I wouldn’t read too much into this yet,” Rosoff said. “There will probably be further shake-ups as the integration with Yahoo happens.”
Microsoft promoted several other executives, among them Office leaders Chris Capossela, Kurt DelBene and Antoine Leblond.
The three currently report to Jeff Raikes, the top executive in its business software division. Microsoft recently said Raikes plans to retire in September, and will be replaced by an outsider, Stephen Elop, who most recently worked at Juniper Networks Inc.

Microsoft Corp. announced the departure of several executives Thursday, among them a Silicon Valley veteran recruited to help fix its unprofitable Web business and one in charge of marketing Windows Vista, and the promotion of more than a dozen others across the company.
The changes come just two weeks after Microsoft offered to buy Web portal and search competitor Yahoo Inc. for more than $40 billion, a move industry watchers broadly see as an admission that Microsoft’s own Web strategy had failed.
If the proposed Yahoo takeover is completed, Microsoft is expected to make more radical changes as it blends the two companies into a more formidable challenger to Google Inc., the dominant player in the lucrative Internet search and advertising markets.
Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said Thursday’s announcement is unrelated to the Yahoo negotiations.
Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online business group, will hand off his duties to three insiders: Satya Nadella, currently in charge of search and search advertising engineering; Bill Veghte, a Windows marketing executive; and Brian McAndrews, formerly the chief executive of online advertising group aQuantive, which Microsoft acquired last year.
Nadella and Veghte were promoted to senior vice president.
The top executive in Microsoft’s mobile phone software business, Pieter Knook, also is leaving Microsoft. He will lead a new division of cellular operator Vodafone Group PLC. Andy Lees, formerly of Microsoft’s server and tools division, was promoted to replace Knook.
No reason was given for Berkowitz’s departure. He joined Microsoft in 2006 after turning around Oakland, Calif.-based Ask.com, which, with related sites, was acquired by InterActiveCorp for $2.3 billion during his tenure as chief executive.
Brought in to help turn around Microsoft’s own Web business, Berkowitz was charged with expanding the audience on its disparate MSN and Windows Live sites _ making them more attractive to advertisers _ and forging new business relationships, such as the ad partnership announced last summer with social news site Digg.com.
“I don’t know if he was able to take control of the pieces he would have needed to take control of in order to really turn around the online business,” said Matt Rosoff, an analyst for the research group Directions on Microsoft.
Developing Microsoft’s Live Search and adCenter, both of which the company revamped to better compete with Google Inc. in search advertising, were Nadella’s parallel responsibility.
Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive brought it a large network of Web sites, but selling advertising across those sites stayed under McAndrews while Berkowitz’s team continued to sell ads on Microsoft-owned sites.
With Berkowitz’s departure, all advertising efforts will be consolidated under McAndrews. MSN head Joanne Bradford will report to Nadella.
Veghte will gain responsibility for strategy, sales and marketing for Windows, Windows Live, MSN and Search. Microsoft said Michael Sievert, who worked for Veghte and was responsible for marketing Windows Vista, is leaving to pursue new endeavors. Brad Brooks was promoted to replace him.
Microsoft said Berkowitz will stay through August to help with the transition.
“I wouldn’t read too much into this yet,” Rosoff said. “There will probably be further shake-ups as the integration with Yahoo happens.”
Microsoft promoted several other executives, among them Office leaders Chris Capossela, Kurt DelBene and Antoine Leblond.
The three currently report to Jeff Raikes, the top executive in its business software division. Microsoft recently said Raikes plans to retire in September, and will be replaced by an outsider, Stephen Elop, who most recently worked at Juniper Networks Inc.

The Wall Street Journal has just accepted Facebook’s request to be online friends.
Hoping to tap into the growing buzz of online social networks, the Journal is adding a feature to its Web site that will allow readers to see which Journal stories are popular among that user’s Facebook friends.
The feature, which goes live early Wednesday morning, is called “SeenThis?” and is powered by a company called Loomia Inc. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Loomia already provides WSJ.com with another feature called “People who read this … also read these stories” which appears on the right-hand side of the text of a story.
News Web sites will commonly feature lists of the most popular stories on the site, as measured by the most views, most e-mailed or most recommended or blogged about.
But by showing articles that were read by viewers who apparently had similar interests, the Journal is hoping to harness some of the magic of successful shopping sites like Amazon.com Inc., which will make recommendations to shoppers based on what other buyers also bought.
Adding the link with Facebook takes the idea a step further, by letting viewers see what stories their own friends are interested in, not only those of the general WSJ.com readership.
Daniel Bernard, general manager for Wall Street Journal Online, said the “SeenThis?” feature will be opt-in only, meaning it won’t start up unless the viewer expressly asks it to, and users can opt out any time.
The application also won’t collect personally identifiable information on which people are reading which articles, just aggregated information on which articles are being read most by those in a readers’ group of Facebook friends or networks.
Loomia’s chief executive, Dave McMurtry, said the Journal was the first media company to fully implement the “SeenThis?” application. General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and CNET have also signed up to use it.
The module that will be visible on the Journal Web site is something called a “widget” in Internet lingo _ a small, self-contained application that does a specific task.
The user can also add that application on to his or her Facebook page, where it would show users not only which Journal articles are most popular among that users’ friends and networks, but also video and other material from CNET or other providers.
Bernard said the Journal’s goal in adding the fixture was not only to help make the Web page more functional for its existing users but also to try and lure in new users from outside sources such as Facebook.
Other newspapers have also been developing widgets that people can post to their Web sites or pages on online social networks like Facebook in hopes of bringing in more online traffic and spreading awareness of their brand name.
The New York Times offers an online crossword puzzle through Google Inc.’s personalized Web pages as well as a news quiz application on Facebook. Gannett Co.’s USA Today also offers users widgets for various uses, as does The Washington Post Co.

The Wall Street Journal has just accepted Facebook’s request to be online friends.
Hoping to tap into the growing buzz of online social networks, the Journal is adding a feature to its Web site that will allow readers to see which Journal stories are popular among that user’s Facebook friends.
The feature, which goes live early Wednesday morning, is called “SeenThis?” and is powered by a company called Loomia Inc. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Loomia already provides WSJ.com with another feature called “People who read this … also read these stories” which appears on the right-hand side of the text of a story.
News Web sites will commonly feature lists of the most popular stories on the site, as measured by the most views, most e-mailed or most recommended or blogged about.
But by showing articles that were read by viewers who apparently had similar interests, the Journal is hoping to harness some of the magic of successful shopping sites like Amazon.com Inc., which will make recommendations to shoppers based on what other buyers also bought.
Adding the link with Facebook takes the idea a step further, by letting viewers see what stories their own friends are interested in, not only those of the general WSJ.com readership.
Daniel Bernard, general manager for Wall Street Journal Online, said the “SeenThis?” feature will be opt-in only, meaning it won’t start up unless the viewer expressly asks it to, and users can opt out any time.
The application also won’t collect personally identifiable information on which people are reading which articles, just aggregated information on which articles are being read most by those in a readers’ group of Facebook friends or networks.
Loomia’s chief executive, Dave McMurtry, said the Journal was the first media company to fully implement the “SeenThis?” application. General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and CNET have also signed up to use it.
The module that will be visible on the Journal Web site is something called a “widget” in Internet lingo _ a small, self-contained application that does a specific task.
The user can also add that application on to his or her Facebook page, where it would show users not only which Journal articles are most popular among that users’ friends and networks, but also video and other material from CNET or other providers.
Bernard said the Journal’s goal in adding the fixture was not only to help make the Web page more functional for its existing users but also to try and lure in new users from outside sources such as Facebook.
Other newspapers have also been developing widgets that people can post to their Web sites or pages on online social networks like Facebook in hopes of bringing in more online traffic and spreading awareness of their brand name.
The New York Times offers an online crossword puzzle through Google Inc.’s personalized Web pages as well as a news quiz application on Facebook. Gannett Co.’s USA Today also offers users widgets for various uses, as does The Washington Post Co.

The Wall Street Journal has just accepted Facebook’s request to be online friends.
Hoping to tap into the growing buzz of online social networks, the Journal is adding a feature to its Web site that will allow readers to see which Journal stories are popular among that user’s Facebook friends.
The feature, which goes live early Wednesday morning, is called “SeenThis?” and is powered by a company called Loomia Inc. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Loomia already provides WSJ.com with another feature called “People who read this … also read these stories” which appears on the right-hand side of the text of a story.
News Web sites will commonly feature lists of the most popular stories on the site, as measured by the most views, most e-mailed or most recommended or blogged about.
But by showing articles that were read by viewers who apparently had similar interests, the Journal is hoping to harness some of the magic of successful shopping sites like Amazon.com Inc., which will make recommendations to shoppers based on what other buyers also bought.
Adding the link with Facebook takes the idea a step further, by letting viewers see what stories their own friends are interested in, not only those of the general WSJ.com readership.
Daniel Bernard, general manager for Wall Street Journal Online, said the “SeenThis?” feature will be opt-in only, meaning it won’t start up unless the viewer expressly asks it to, and users can opt out any time.
The application also won’t collect personally identifiable information on which people are reading which articles, just aggregated information on which articles are being read most by those in a readers’ group of Facebook friends or networks.
Loomia’s chief executive, Dave McMurtry, said the Journal was the first media company to fully implement the “SeenThis?” application. General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and CNET have also signed up to use it.
The module that will be visible on the Journal Web site is something called a “widget” in Internet lingo _ a small, self-contained application that does a specific task.
The user can also add that application on to his or her Facebook page, where it would show users not only which Journal articles are most popular among that users’ friends and networks, but also video and other material from CNET or other providers.
Bernard said the Journal’s goal in adding the fixture was not only to help make the Web page more functional for its existing users but also to try and lure in new users from outside sources such as Facebook.
Other newspapers have also been developing widgets that people can post to their Web sites or pages on online social networks like Facebook in hopes of bringing in more online traffic and spreading awareness of their brand name.
The New York Times offers an online crossword puzzle through Google Inc.’s personalized Web pages as well as a news quiz application on Facebook. Gannett Co.’s USA Today also offers users widgets for various uses, as does The Washington Post Co.

The Wall Street Journal has just accepted Facebook’s request to be online friends.
Hoping to tap into the growing buzz of online social networks, the Journal is adding a feature to its Web site that will allow readers to see which Journal stories are popular among that user’s Facebook friends.
The feature, which goes live early Wednesday morning, is called “SeenThis?” and is powered by a company called Loomia Inc. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Loomia already provides WSJ.com with another feature called “People who read this … also read these stories” which appears on the right-hand side of the text of a story.
News Web sites will commonly feature lists of the most popular stories on the site, as measured by the most views, most e-mailed or most recommended or blogged about.
But by showing articles that were read by viewers who apparently had similar interests, the Journal is hoping to harness some of the magic of successful shopping sites like Amazon.com Inc., which will make recommendations to shoppers based on what other buyers also bought.
Adding the link with Facebook takes the idea a step further, by letting viewers see what stories their own friends are interested in, not only those of the general WSJ.com readership.
Daniel Bernard, general manager for Wall Street Journal Online, said the “SeenThis?” feature will be opt-in only, meaning it won’t start up unless the viewer expressly asks it to, and users can opt out any time.
The application also won’t collect personally identifiable information on which people are reading which articles, just aggregated information on which articles are being read most by those in a readers’ group of Facebook friends or networks.
Loomia’s chief executive, Dave McMurtry, said the Journal was the first media company to fully implement the “SeenThis?” application. General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and CNET have also signed up to use it.
The module that will be visible on the Journal Web site is something called a “widget” in Internet lingo _ a small, self-contained application that does a specific task.
The user can also add that application on to his or her Facebook page, where it would show users not only which Journal articles are most popular among that users’ friends and networks, but also video and other material from CNET or other providers.
Bernard said the Journal’s goal in adding the fixture was not only to help make the Web page more functional for its existing users but also to try and lure in new users from outside sources such as Facebook.
Other newspapers have also been developing widgets that people can post to their Web sites or pages on online social networks like Facebook in hopes of bringing in more online traffic and spreading awareness of their brand name.
The New York Times offers an online crossword puzzle through Google Inc.’s personalized Web pages as well as a news quiz application on Facebook. Gannett Co.’s USA Today also offers users widgets for various uses, as does The Washington Post Co.

But some media veterans worry that expectations for online advertising may be getting out-sized.

Increasingly, they say, too much media depends on advertising as the only source of revenue. With new players from software makers to cable operators also

trying to cash in, the dollars simply may not stretch far enough.

“I’m getting to the point where I feel like every answer to every business development pitch is ‘We’re going to be advertiser supported’,” said Beth

Comstock, president of Integrated Media at NBC Universal, which this year set up a fund to invest in media and digital companies.

“It’s just not going to be possible,” she said at a recent advertising conference. “There are not going to be enough advertising dollars in the

marketplace. No matter how clever we are, no matter what the format is.”

NBC Universal’s television networks, cable channels and Web sites compete for advertising dollars with everything from niche blogs to big media peers like

Time Warner Inc and Walt Disney.

In addition fast-growing Internet companies like Google Inc are snatching up advertising budgets.

But new rivals are entering the market. Comcast, the largest U.S. cable operator, expects at least $US1 billion in online advertising in the next five

to

six years.

Verizon Communications and AT%26T are looking at advertising opportunities on their video and wireless services, while startups like social network

Facebook

are seen as a new frontier for Web marketing.

Even Microsoft has made a bold move into advertising with its purchase of Web marketing firm aQuantive.

THE MONEY FLOW

Until recently, the focus was squarely on how much money is moving into online advertising, rather than whether too many companies are making a grab for it.

There is little doubt today that a hefty portion of advertising dollars will shift to the Internet from TV, radio, print and elsewhere in the coming years.

ZenithOptimedia forecasts that online ads worldwide will rise 28 per cent in 2007, while the rest of the market grows at 3.7 per cent.

Next year, ZenithOptimedia forecasts it to rise by 21 per cent, and climb another 13 per cent to $US43 billion in 2009.

At that point, Web advertising would represent almost 10 percent of the $495 billion spent on advertising worldwide - yet would trail spending on

newspapers, magazines, and TV.

“There are billion of dollars that can still move,” said Craig Lambert, Chief Digital Director of Colangelo, an integrated marketing agency.

“Is there enough money flowing to support the businesses out there? I’d guess there is, just because there’s so much money that has always been spent on TV

and print,” he added.

BIG SITES GET BIG DOLLARS

Others also take the position that there should be sufficient advertising money to spread around.

Jeff Brooks, Chief Executive of digital and direct marketing agency Euro RSCG 4D, sees a “huge gap” between the amount of time people spend on digital

media and the amount of advertising money it attracts.

“The thrust of ad spending online, while dramatic in its growth quarter over quarter, still represents a disproportionately small percentage of total

advertising dollars,” he said.

The catch, according to some, is that much of the money flowing toward the Internet is concentrated on a few dozen of the most popular sites.

That has left smaller, less well-known sites at a severe disadvantage when it comes to attracting advertising money and surviving.

In the United States, the top 50 Web sites accounted for more than 90 percent of the revenue from online ads in the first half of 2007, according to the

Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The top 10 sites accounted for 70 percent of the revenue.

All the while, the number of Web sites continues to grow, creating more competition for audiences - and advertisers - who can also choose among video games,

movies, TV, portable music and every other type of media entertainment.

“It’s not like the old days, when it was ‘if you build it, they will come,’” said Jonathan Sackett, Chief Digital Officer at Arnold Worldwide, a

Boston-based advertising agency. “Now if you build it, they probably won’t.”

One alternative for Web sites would be to bank on subscriptions rather than advertising revenue, but few existing outlets have been successful with that

model.

The reason is that unless the site offers extraordinary content, people simply refuse to pay for it, said Mark Miller, president of RMG Connect, an

advertising and marketing agency.

“If Warren Buffett wanted to put out his own subscription newsletter online, well, I’m sure he’d get a bucketful of people to subscribe to it,” Miller

said.

Wales told a conference of software developers in Portland, Oregon, that his commercial start-up, Wikia, has acquired Grub, a pioneering Web crawler that will enable Wikia’s forthcoming search service to scour the Web to index relevant sites. “If we can get good quality search results, I think it will really change the balance of power from the search companies back to the publishers,” said Wales, chairman of San Mateo, California-based Wikia. “I could be wrong about this, but it seems like a likely outcome.” Wikia %26#150; which has helped groups set up thousands of Wikipedia-style sites on topics ranging from popular TV shows to specialist health or travel %26#150; plans to develop an “open source” Web search service with the help of volunteers. Wales founded the anyone-can-edit Wikipedia encyclopedia, a non-commercial project that is one of the Web’s most popular sites. He also co-founded the Wikia ad-supported network of self-edited wiki sites. However, the two organisations have no formal ties. The new Wikia search service will combine computer-driven algorithms and human-assisted editing when the company launches a public version of the search site toward the end of 2007, Wales said in a phone interview. Human editors would help untangle terms with multiple meanings, such as palm, which can refer to location like Palm Beach, or generic topics like trees or handheld computers. Search results are generated via another open-source software project called Lucerne. Wales said he is looking at options to enhance Lucerne, but would not detail his plans. Grub was originally an open source project that was freely available to software makers to enhance as long as they shared any improvements they made. Wikia has acquired Grub from LookSmart Ltd., which had halted work on the project. Wikia plans to open up Grub to other developers to make improvements or to incorporate the crawler into other sites. Terms of the deal between Wikia (http://wikia.com) and LookSmart were not disclosed. However, last week, San Francisco-based LookSmart, which provides banner and search-based online advertising to Web sites, said it had agreed to supply advertising across Wikia’s network of wiki sites. Wikia had been using Google’s advertising service. “We have interest from a lot of other commercial players in the search space,” said Wales. Grub relies on distributed computing technology to power the crawler. Computer users who download the software at http://www.grub.org can share computer processing time when they are not using their machines, cutting the cost of Wikia developing its own network of computers to crawl the Web. Open search is part of Wikia’s broader push to promote the spread of free content publishing on the Web. Wales’ objective is to make explicit the editorial judgments involved in modern Web search systems. Proprietary search systems such as Google Inc. keep secret key details of how their search systems work to prevent spamming and for competitive reasons. Ultimately, Wales wants the Wikia search service to be available to other Web sites and smaller publishers who would be able to install a custom version of the service that points Web site visitors only to links with a specific site. Target customers might include local newspapers, for example. He detailed his plans at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Portland, an annual gathering of open source software developers. More details can be found at http://search.wikia.com. Wikia has raised $US14 ($NZ18.08) million in outside financing, including its latest round of $US10 million from Amazon.com, according to a regulatory filing by the company.

The Wall Street Journal has just accepted Facebook’s request to be online friends.
Hoping to tap into the growing buzz of online social networks, the Journal is adding a feature to its Web site that will allow readers to see which Journal stories are popular among that user’s Facebook friends.
The feature, which goes live early Wednesday morning, is called “SeenThis?” and is powered by a company called Loomia Inc. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Loomia already provides WSJ.com with another feature called “People who read this … also read these stories” which appears on the right-hand side of the text of a story.
News Web sites will commonly feature lists of the most popular stories on the site, as measured by the most views, most e-mailed or most recommended or blogged about.
But by showing articles that were read by viewers who apparently had similar interests, the Journal is hoping to harness some of the magic of successful shopping sites like Amazon.com Inc., which will make recommendations to shoppers based on what other buyers also bought.
Adding the link with Facebook takes the idea a step further, by letting viewers see what stories their own friends are interested in, not only those of the general WSJ.com readership.
Daniel Bernard, general manager for Wall Street Journal Online, said the “SeenThis?” feature will be opt-in only, meaning it won’t start up unless the viewer expressly asks it to, and users can opt out any time.
The application also won’t collect personally identifiable information on which people are reading which articles, just aggregated information on which articles are being read most by those in a readers’ group of Facebook friends or networks.
Loomia’s chief executive, Dave McMurtry, said the Journal was the first media company to fully implement the “SeenThis?” application. General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and CNET have also signed up to use it.
The module that will be visible on the Journal Web site is something called a “widget” in Internet lingo _ a small, self-contained application that does a specific task.
The user can also add that application on to his or her Facebook page, where it would show users not only which Journal articles are most popular among that users’ friends and networks, but also video and other material from CNET or other providers.
Bernard said the Journal’s goal in adding the fixture was not only to help make the Web page more functional for its existing users but also to try and lure in new users from outside sources such as Facebook.
Other newspapers have also been developing widgets that people can post to their Web sites or pages on online social networks like Facebook in hopes of bringing in more online traffic and spreading awareness of their brand name.
The New York Times offers an online crossword puzzle through Google Inc.’s personalized Web pages as well as a news quiz application on Facebook. Gannett Co.’s USA Today also offers users widgets for various uses, as does The Washington Post Co.

The Wall Street Journal has just accepted Facebook’s request to be online friends.
Hoping to tap into the growing buzz of online social networks, the Journal is adding a feature to its Web site that will allow readers to see which Journal stories are popular among that user’s Facebook friends.
The feature, which goes live early Wednesday morning, is called “SeenThis?” and is powered by a company called Loomia Inc. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Loomia already provides WSJ.com with another feature called “People who read this … also read these stories” which appears on the right-hand side of the text of a story.
News Web sites will commonly feature lists of the most popular stories on the site, as measured by the most views, most e-mailed or most recommended or blogged about.
But by showing articles that were read by viewers who apparently had similar interests, the Journal is hoping to harness some of the magic of successful shopping sites like Amazon.com Inc., which will make recommendations to shoppers based on what other buyers also bought.
Adding the link with Facebook takes the idea a step further, by letting viewers see what stories their own friends are interested in, not only those of the general WSJ.com readership.
Daniel Bernard, general manager for Wall Street Journal Online, said the “SeenThis?” feature will be opt-in only, meaning it won’t start up unless the viewer expressly asks it to, and users can opt out any time.
The application also won’t collect personally identifiable information on which people are reading which articles, just aggregated information on which articles are being read most by those in a readers’ group of Facebook friends or networks.
Loomia’s chief executive, Dave McMurtry, said the Journal was the first media company to fully implement the “SeenThis?” application. General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and CNET have also signed up to use it.
The module that will be visible on the Journal Web site is something called a “widget” in Internet lingo _ a small, self-contained application that does a specific task.
The user can also add that application on to his or her Facebook page, where it would show users not only which Journal articles are most popular among that users’ friends and networks, but also video and other material from CNET or other providers.
Bernard said the Journal’s goal in adding the fixture was not only to help make the Web page more functional for its existing users but also to try and lure in new users from outside sources such as Facebook.
Other newspapers have also been developing widgets that people can post to their Web sites or pages on online social networks like Facebook in hopes of bringing in more online traffic and spreading awareness of their brand name.
The New York Times offers an online crossword puzzle through Google Inc.’s personalized Web pages as well as a news quiz application on Facebook. Gannett Co.’s USA Today also offers users widgets for various uses, as does The Washington Post Co.