AuctionAds Wins eBay Star Developer Award

MediaWhiz Division AuctionAds Wins eBay Star Developer Award for ''Most Innovative Application-Buyer'' eBay Developers Conference

 June 21, 2007 - NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AuctionAds, a division of MediaWhiz Holdings Inc., today announced it received the eBay Star Developer Award for "Most Innovative Application-Buyer" at the sixth annual eBay Developers Conference. AuctionAds (www.auctionads.com) enables users to monetize their website by displaying live eBay auctions next to their related copy.

"We are honored to accept this prestigious award, which recognizes that AuctionAds is a successful tool for leveraging the lucrative eBay affiliate system, in a way that is easy for publishers to use," stated AuctionAds CTO David Dellanave.

"The eBay Star Developers Awards recognize developers for their innovation and commitment to the eBay platform," said Max Mancini, senior director of disruptive innovation at eBay. "AuctionAds was awarded for its efficiency using innovative caching techniques, allowing it to serve up 30 million impressions a month with only 200,000 API calls, an impressive volume of traffic per API call."

The eBay Developers Conference in Boston brings together more than 500 third-party developers, entrepreneurs and affiliates to meet with technologists and business leaders from eBay, PayPal, ProStores, Shopping.com and Skype.

About AuctionAds

AuctionAds (www,auctionads.com), a division of MediaWhiz Holdings Inc., users to monetize their website by displaying live eBay auctions next to their related copy.

About MediaWhiz

MediaWhiz is a leading online marketing company delivering a fully integrated solution for brand advertisers, direct marketers and publishers by leveraging its suite of marketing services to achieve measurable results. Services include affiliate marketing, lead generation, email marketing, list management, display advertising, text link advertising and search marketing. MediaWhiz delivers more than 3 million monthly leads to over 3,000 advertisers through its database of more than 100 million consumer email addresses and relationships with over 20,000 publishers. Private equity firm Lake Capital first invested in MediaWhiz in August 2005. Through acquisitions and organic growth, MediaWhiz has established its position as a leading provider of integrated marketing. More information on MediaWhiz is available at www,mediawhiz.com.
Contacts

Berns Communications Group
Joshua Greenwald / Megan Prock
212-994-4660

150 Million Cell Phones In Junk Drawers And Closets

Cell Phones Always Top the Wish List of Grads and Dads

Anyone buying a cell phone as a gift this year should make selling the old one to CellForCash.com a part of their buying decision.

Ocala, FL (PRWEB) June 16, 2007 -- With Father's Day and graduations around the corner, a new cell phone can make the perfect gift. Gift givers upgrading their Dad or the graduate in the family have a rewarding option for disposing of their old cell phones - sell them online at CellForCash.com.

According to industry statistics more than 150 million cell phones will be upgraded this year - that means 150 million will be retired. Most of those retired cell phones will be stockpiled in the junk drawers and closets of America.

"For most people, selling their old cell phone is an afterthought," said James Mosieur CEO of RMS Communications, the company that operates CellForCash.com. "When people upgrade, selling their old cell phone should be part of their buying decision." Prices range from just a few dollars to as much as $300. "With over 600 models listed there's a good chance that the cell phone you're retiring will bring you a couple of bucks" Mosieur added.

The process is easy and can be started before the actual upgrade. Here's how it works. The user finds their old cell phone in the list of phones CellForCash.com accepts; they enter their shipping and payment information; CellForCash.com then sends them a postage paid box to return their old cell phone; after the cell phone is tested a check is sent. The whole process takes 30 to 45 days.

Mosieur recommends that gift buyers start the process at CellForCash.com, determining what the soon to be retired cell phone will be worth and starting a transaction. This will help in determining the budget for the new purchase and get a postage paid box on the way.

"Since the box will take a few days to arrive, users can start their transaction just before they buy their upgrade," said Mosieur.

The market changes so quickly and new cell phone models are introduced nearly every week so there is a chance that your old cell phone has no value. In those instances CellForCash.com will recycle it for free or make it available to victims of abuse and senior citizens through their national partnership with the 911 Cell Phone Bank.

About CellForCash.com
CellForCash.com pays cash for used cell phones, and makes the process simple by displaying the phones it will buy and the prices it will pay for them right on the web site. It also provides sellers with already-addressed, postage-paid mailing boxes. The site lists over 600 models from 21 manufacturers including Motorola, Nokia LG and Samsung. For more information visit the web site at www.CellForCash.com.

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Press Contact: Linda Zimmerman
Company Name: RMS Communications
Phone: 352-369-3888
Website: www.CellForCash.com

Wine Spectator Magazine

Wine Spectator

by Larry Dobrow, Tuesday, June 26, 2007

I'M NOT A WINE Spectator so much as a Wine Participant. I had the good fortune to attend a college that offered 800 or so of its 21-and-up matriculants the opportunity to take part, for actual course credit, in a massive weekly tasting session each semester. I left school functionally illiterate, but with a bulletproof liver and the knowledge that Thai food should always, always, always be paired with a piquant Gewürztraminer. If you take one thing away from this column, let it be that.

I'm told that Wine Spectator has bulked up its staff in recent months, but mostly it seems to have bulked up its repertoire of adjectives. Words used to describe new wines in the June 30 issue include "ultraripe," "superripe," "ultrajammy" and "superjammy" -- somebody get those crazy kids some new prefixes. Here's a question: Which of the following is more worthy of the description "a zesty spice bomb," the Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley Lytton Springs 2005 or Shakira? The mind boggles.

Wine Spectator is the best at what it does by a wide margin, mostly owing to the staggering volume of information it conveys. I can mock the dippily worded reviews all I want, but they do a fine, if verbally redundant, job of describing a particular wine's appeal in a mere 50 words. The "Savvy Shopper" and "Collecting" sections play to the zealots, while the lifestyle content hits broader. In recent months, Wine Spectator has consistently excelled at the latter, whether a comprehensive Bordeaux region travelogue or the "Tastes" bits about brining pork chops.

Of course, the magazine mostly concerns itself with wines and the sniffing/sipping/immediate palate-preserving expulsion thereof. You won't find a better analysis -- and "analysis" is the right word -- of the 2006 Bordeaux or 2004-2005 Zinfandel wines anywhere on the planet. My interest was similarly piqued by the "Up Front" mix of news blurbs, especially the one on dogs sniffing out the "destructive mealybug." Get that mutt a dish of Portugese Albariño.

The mag's columnists, however, are a fairly humorless lot. The "Spirits" columnist weighs in on rum (his verdict: it's OK!), while another devotes several hundred words to debating whether pinot noir has become boring (it says here that such a determination should hinge upon whom you're drinking it with). Much more involving is the piece on high-alcohol wines, which calmly assesses both the pro and con arguments.

A quick thought: From the smiling-vintner-guy photos in the June 30 issue, it appears that it is no longer a requirement that one wear wire-rimmed glasses in order to enjoy wine. Can anybody confirm?

As for the cover story on "Green Revolutionaries," it's thoroughly reported and snappily written and all that good stuff. I just can't stomach another going-green/if-we-don't-save-the-earth-who-will?-surely-not-the-Republicans! story, is the problem. I beseech you, trend-grubbing editors of motives pure: stop assigning these pieces. The world's a mess and we need to do something about it -- we get it. At this point, I'd much rather hear about environmental scofflaws or cafeteria fiends who sprinkle asbestos "flavoring" on kids' cheeseburgers.

But that's just me; folks who aren't condemned to reading tens of magazines every week might feel otherwise. So yeah, the occasional spill (get it?) aside, Wine Spectator mostly works for me. To summarize my feelings, I'd like to borrow a few descriptive phrases from the issue's wine buying guide. While shy in aroma and a bit steely with tannins, Wine Spectator fleshes out beautifully if you're patient. It may be tight on the nose, but it is as untamed as its name suggests.

****** Since I don't feel like working on July 5, either, we'll be running a third edition of Uncle Larry's Magazine Rack Funtime Family Mailbag that day. Send questions to me at Larry@mediapost.com or post 'em to the Magazine Rack blog thing, assuming it still exists.


MAG STATS
Published by: M. Shanken Communications, Inc.
Frequency: 16 issues per year
Advertising information
Web site

Post your response to the public Magazine Rack blog.

Larry Dobrow (larry@mediapost.com) is a Contributing Writer. 

Magazine Rack for Tuesday, June 26, 2007: http://publications.mediapost.com

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Sell Old Cell Phone To Help Finance New iPhone

iPhone Shopping? Check CellForCash.com First

With prices starting at $499, iPhone shoppers may want to sell their old cell phone using CellForCash.com to help cover some of the cost.

Ocala FL (PRWEB) June 25, 2007 -- A May poll by research firm M:Metrics revealed that about 19 million U.S. cell phone users are ready to fork over as much as $599 for the new iPhone. CellForCash.com wants to help every one of those iPhone buyers pay for their purchase.

"Many people don't realize that their old cell phone has a value," says James Mosieur, CEO of RMS Communications the company that operates CellForCash.com. "The price of the iPhone puts it out of reach for a lot of people; CellForCash.com may help make it affordable."

CellForCash.com buys over 600 models of cell phones and with prices ranging from $5 to over $300 chances are your cell phone will have some value. For instance a Samsung T509 that T-Mobile gives away for free will fetch $21 at CellForCash.com. A Motorola RAZR v3xx that sells for $79 on the AT&T Wireless website is worth $63 when you sell it at CellForCash.com.

"CellForCash.com is a natural place to start when shopping for a new cell phone" says Mosieur, "in this market $20 could make the difference between getting the phone you want and settling for the one you can afford."

Selling an old cell phone to CellForCash.com is quick and easy and can be started before the new cell phone is purchased. Here's how it works. The user finds their old cell phone in the list of phones CellForCash.com accepts; they enter their shipping and payment information; CellForCash.com then sends them a postage paid box to return their old cell phone; after the cell phone is tested a check is sent. The whole process takes 30 to 45 days.

CellForCash.com wants you to be ready when the iPhone goes on sale on June 29th so they are encouraging shoppers to start the process of selling their cell phones now. "Cell phone shoppers can accomplish two things if they start right way. First they can see what their old cell phone is worth; second they can get a box on the way," said Mosieur. "Since the box will take a few days to arrive, it's a good idea to start their transaction just before they upgrade."

The market changes so quickly and new cell phone models are introduced nearly every week so there is a chance that your old cell phone has no value. In those instances CellForCash.com will recycle it for free or make it available to victims of abuse and senior citizens through their national partnership with the 911 Cell Phone Bank.

About CellForCash.com
CellForCash.com pays cash for used cell phones, and makes the process simple by displaying the phones it will buy and the prices it will pay for them right on the web site. It also provides sellers with already-addressed, postage-paid mailing boxes. The site lists over 600 models from 21 manufacturers including Motorola, Nokia LG and Samsung. For more information visit the web site at www.CellForCash.com.

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Press Contact: JAMES MOSIEUR
Company Name: RMS Communications
Phone: 352-369-3888
Website: www.cellforcash.com

eBay Teams Up With GE Money

GE Money teams up with eBay

Card is latest offering in exclusive agreement for GE Money and eBay

15 Jun 2007, Boston : GE Money, the consumer lending unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), announced the eBayT MasterCard®, an expansion of its partnership with eBay. The card, announced at eBay Live! today, will be available to customers in late June.

eBay MasterCard customers will benefit from a new rewards program, earning one Reward Point for every $1 spent in purchases. Reward Points are also earned with non-Internet, everyday purchases wherever MasterCard is accepted. Points are redeemable for shipping discounts and vouchers that can be used to shop on eBay or to pay eBay seller fees.

Cardholders will enjoy other benefits with the eBay MasterCard, such as the ability to choose from one of three card designs, and the option to add their eBay User ID to the card. The card also features Safe Shipping, which protects them if their item never arrives. The card fits perfectly with PayPal, as customers can view their account activity within their existing PayPal account. Additional benefits include zero percent liability for unauthorized purchases, 24/7 customer service and no annual fee.

eBay will provide promotional and branding support for the eBay MasterCard. GE Money Bank will be responsible for issuing the card, and providing customer service, billing and credit management.

The eBay MasterCard is an expansion of a relationship originally created in June 2004 for GE to offer PayPal Buyer Credit, a private label, revolving credit line available to registered PayPal customers. A PayPal® Plus MasterCard was introduced in May 2006.

"The eBay MasterCard is another great extension of the partnership we've built with eBay and PayPal over the past few years to offer rewards, security and convenience for their customers," said Margaret Keane, president and CEO of GE Money's Retail Consumer Finance unit. "With the eBay MasterCard, shoppers can apply and buy with an instant online credit process. As with PayPal Plus, there's no waiting for a card to arrive in the mail before making your eBay purchases."

"We are excited about the launch of the new eBay MasterCard, and believe eBay members will find the benefits of the card to be compelling," said Kip Knight, vice president of marketing at eBay.

About GE Money
With $190 billion in assets, GE Money, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), is a leading provider of credit services to consumers, retailers and auto dealers in 55 countries around the world. GE Money, based in Stamford, Conn., offers a range of financial products, including private label credit cards, personal loans, bank cards, auto loans and leases, mortgages, corporate travel and purchasing cards, debt consolidation and home equity loans and credit insurance. More information can be found online at www.gemoney.com.

GE (NYSE: GE) is Imagination at Work -- a diversified technology, media and financial services company focused on solving some of the world's toughest problems. With products and services ranging from aircraft engines, power generation, water processing and security technology to medical imaging, business and consumer financing, media content and advanced materials, GE serves customers in more than 100 countries and employs more than 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ge.com.

Ebay AuctionAds Debut Coup?

EBay cancels ads in tiff with Google
Los Angeles Times - CA,USA
EBay is one of Google's biggest advertisers. The search engine funnels millions of Web surfers to the auction site. But the two companies have grown ...

EBay threatens to pull ads off Google
MSNBC - USA
Google's retreat came only after Ebay cut some of its advertising spending on the company's search site, in what appeared to be a blunt attempt to warn ...

By now, ebay has to have taken notice of what the company behind AuctionAds has done and started to realize that at least where the content network is concerned, they could do a lot better. If you have not see the ads from AuctionAds yet, they are a cross between the small text ads that you see from Google, and the multi-tabbed ads (Which are cool) from that loser company Chitika (Don't get me started on them. It's enough to say they dropped me and treated me like shit. Try them at your own risk, but do some searches in Google first before you waste your time with them.).

 

AuctionAds are as easy to use as AdSense, but the two nice things are that 1) they include a small image from each auction, which most AdSensers know greatly improves click-through rates, and 2) you can choose the keywords to target the ads to your site. The keyword targeted takes a little extra work that you don't have with contextual ads like Google's, but from what I have seen it pays off. There's no learning curve and if you are not happy with the ads you see you can make some changes. To see a good example of how this works, visit our site: http://www.EbayAuctionAds.com and you can test out the results.

 

I think you have to have considerable site traffic to realize the best results, or a site that gets traffic related to shopping or products. We had positive results right away, but we still have to keep our day job for now. Most site owners are reporting results as good or better than ours so it's worth testing on at least one site for sure.

 

Since Google has been discouraging the use of images placed closed next to AdSense Ads, I can see more people trying AuctionAds, and perhaps in some cases replacing AdSense if the income is there. What I expect to see is Google responding to this new attention to ebay as a revenue generator by allowing advertisers to add small images to be placed next to their ads, OR providing a library of images that advertisers can select from as relating to their products and services.

Midwest Cornhole Played Late Into The Night

Enhance Your Game of Cornhole and Play Late into the Night

Gentech Products, LLC. introduces The Bag-O-Lantern.

Elmhurst, Il. (PRWEB) June 13, 2007 -- Gentech Products, LLC. Creators of The Holdem (www.drinkholdem.com) is proud to announce the addition of The Bag-O-Lantern to its line of unique innovative products. Now with the technology of high-brightness white LED's the game of cornhole can be played into the late hours of the night.

Cornhole is a game craze that is sweeping the Midwest and growing quickly. Cornhole or Corn Toss is similar to horseshoes but much safer; it is played with corn feed sewn into a cloth bag. The bags are tossed over a distance onto a slanted board and into a six inch diameter hole. The game is so addicting that most players don't want to quit playing at dusk.

The Bag-O-Lantern easily attaches to any regulation size board and encompasses the six inch diameter hole with high-brightness white LED's which provides enough illumination to play all night.

The Bag-O-Lantern employs eight high-brightness white LED's configured in a circle pattern and encased in an injection molded enclosure with an optically clear lens. The LED's are rated for 100,000 hours, operated with a one 9V battery that provides more than ten hours of fun.

The Bag-O-Lantern is a product of Gentech Products, LLC (patent pending) and another unique solution to an everyday problem. For more information about The Bag-O-Lantern or to be a distributor please visit our website at www.bag-o-lantern.com

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Press Contact: Mike Koczor
Company Name: gentech products, llc.
Phone: 630 832-2641
Website: www.bag-o-lantern.com

 

New Service Allows You To Easily Hear Text Articles On Your Computer

Odiogo's Web 2.0 'Listen Button' Lets You Instantly Hear Text Articles On Your Computer

Starter kits available for WordPress, Blogger and other blogging platforms

(PRWEB) June 7, 2007 -- Odiogo announced today the launch of the 'Listen Button' (http://www.listenbutton.com), a web 2.0 service which allows Content Publishers to provide visitors with an easy and instant way to hear regular text articles. Located near the familiar 'Email' and 'Print' buttons on top of each article in mainstream media and blogs, the Listen Button when clicked will open a player which will read aloud the currently displayed article.

"With the PC entering the living room as the brain of the home multimedia center, text content providers need tools which seamlessly turn readers into listeners," said Marc Kawam, CEO of Odiogo.com. "Our Podcast solutions and the Listen Button empower content providers to mobilize and boost the value of their text content by making it instantly audible."

"This audio feature is fast becoming a must-have capability for content sites," Kawam said. "This is an essential feature for a multi-tasking environment, where people can listen to articles from their favorite sites while working on their computer or performing other tasks. The Listen Button also expands the reach of a content site by allowing vision-impaired readers and language learners to easily access the site's content."

Amir Orni, CEO of Jpost.com, the Online Edition of the Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com), said: "The Podcast Service we launched with Odiogo was received positively by our readers and has quickly reached thousands of downloads on a weekly basis". Orni added: "We welcome the Listen Button feature as it answers a need many of our readers had. Now, one click gets stories read out-loud on the PC."

The Odiogo Listen Button has been adapted for major blogging platforms. Starter kits have been developed to quickly install the button on blogs developed in the WordPress, Blogger or TypePad environments. Bloggers can enable the Listen Button on their sites for free. This allows Bloggers to meet their constituencies' desires for a more 'easy to consume' media - as compared to written content - at no cost to themselves.

Nigel Powell, publisher of The Red Ferret Journal (http://www.redferret.net) said: "The Listen Button is a very cool way for my readers to grab a dose of the blog while they're busy doing other things on their PC at home or in the office. Just the very thought of it makes my teeth ache with joy."

Stacy Blackman from Stacy Blackman Consulting (http://blog.stacyblackman.com) said: "Readers of Stacy Blackman Consulting's blog are MBA candidates who are constantly on the move and have limited time online. Odiogo provides them not only with a way to listen to the posts on their iPod but also when they are on-line, while multitasking."

The Listen Button is already available on several sites, among them:
-    http://www.jpost.com
-    http://blog.stacyblackman.com
-    http://www.redferret.net
-    http://blog.prompt-speechapps.com
-    http://www.uneasysilence.com
-    http://www.gideononline.com/blog


How it works
The majority of publications on the Web use RSS feeds, the standard distribution format. Odiogo monitors all feeds of its Content Partners and automatically creates for each news item high fidelity audio files using cutting-edge text-to-speech technology. Unlike many of its predecessors, this new breed of artificial intelligence technology observes punctuation and more natural speech patterns to provide a superior listening experience, which the Odiogo linguistic team together with the Odiogo blogger community is continually fine-tuning. Files are hosted on Odiogo's servers which makes integration with any text content provider a simple activity, requiring at most a few hours of work.


About Odiogo
Founded in 2005 in San Francisco, California, Odiogo (http://www.odiogo.com) is in the business of mobilizing and vocalizing content. Products include a groundbreaking service that enables newspapers, magazines, and blogs to automatically create audible versions of their content. The Odiogo-produced sound files can be listened to on computers and mobile devices such as iPod™, MP3 readers and cellular phones.

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Press Contact: Patrice Khawam
Company Name: Odiogo
Phone: 1-888-220-4467
Website: http://www.odiogo.com

Community Site For Microsoft Zune Player Grows

Zune Community Site Goes International; Surpasses 2 Million Pageviews

Zunerama, an online site devoted to Microsoft's Zune digital media player, releases translated versions of its site, in response to increased international traffic. Offering user forums and technical resources for Zune owners, the site's pages have had over two million pageviews since its launch in July 2006.

Bellingham, WA (PRWEB) June 1, 2007 -- Zunerama, a website devoted to Microsoft Zune, has responded to its growing international audience by offering translated versions of its site in Spanish, French, German, Italian and Japanese.

"We've noticed more and more people coming to Zunerama from outside the U.S., and rolled out these translated versions of the site to respond to that," says Harvey Chute, who founded Zunerama last July. Zunerama is a leading Zune site and has had over two million pageviews since its launch.

Zune was released in the United States in November 2006. Microsoft has not yet announced worldwide roll-out dates for Zune or for its online music service, Zune Marketplace.

Despite Zune's limited launch, Zunerama reports that its site is frequented by readers in over 150 countries. "While the majority of our viewers are from the United States, increasingly we are seeing visitors and new members from around the globe," Chute noted. "In the past week, for example, we've had 38,000 visits from five continents."

According to Zunerama's visitor statistics, the countries with the most Zune enthusiasts, after the United States, are the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Venezuela, Spain and France.

While few options exist at this point for acquiring Zune players outside of the U.S., international Zune users are buying players while on trips to the U.S. or through indirect channels such as eBay.

Zune Marketplace cannot yet be used for music purchases from locations outside the United States; the service requires that Marketplace accounts have a U.S.-based credit card. Zune owners can, however, load most existing music from their PCs onto their Zune player, without using Marketplace.

Zunerama offers its translated pages through Google's Translate service, currently in beta release. "Today, the Spanish-language version is the most popular translation of the site," Chute said.

Zunerama offers resources for Zune owners, including user forums, daily news and analysis, answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs), accessory reviews, player tips and tutorials, and advanced tricks and hacks.

"Our aim is to be a one-stop for all things Zune, not just for people in the U.S. but worldwide," Chute said. "I expect we'll see even more international visitors as the Zune roll-out continues. And we want to be ready for that."

Established in July 2006, Zunerama (http://www.zunerama.com) is an online resource center for Zune. The site serves as a hub for the Zune user community, and provides Zune user forums, a blog with Zune news and commentary, FAQ, archived original Zune stories, reviews of Zune players and accessories, documentation library, specification sheets, buyer's guides and online store.

Microsoft Zune is a wireless-enabled digital media player, with a 30-gigabyte hard drive, 3-inch screen and built-in FM receiver. Through Zune Marketplace, Zune owners can download music either by purchasing individual songs or through a Zune Pass subscription service.
In Zunerama's user forum, Zune enthusiasts gather to share reviews, facts, tips, opinions and other information. In addition, Zunerama offers more Zune giveaways than any other website. The site has given away over 100 Zune players, cases, armbands, skins, software and other Zune accessories to its members.

Zunerama also publishes reviews of Zune accessories, and provides a "Recommended by Zunerama" rating to guide Zune enthusiasts on products that have passed Zunerama's accessory reviews.

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Press Contact: Harvey Chute
Company Name: Zunerama
Phone: (360) 319-6795
Website: http://www.zunerama.com