What I’m Reading

I’ve been traveling the past few days. Here’s a bit of a catchup post on what I’m reading these days.

BBC joins up with MySpace: This could have been written up in the Onion (maybe it already has). The BBC signed a content distribution deal with MySpace making selected videos available through a MySpace TV channel. A quick peek at the channel yields this video gem: “Stefan Eats Testicles” (the link fortunately, or unfortunately, did not work for me). Yum.

The Facebook Economy: Great piece from the Knowledge@Wharton folks. Features the commentary of Peter Fader, a longtime Internet marketing expert:

“Being based 100% on Facebook is very risky, because social networks are inherently unstable. Five years ago, we would have been talking about Friendster.”

Discussing the flap over Scrabulous, Fader says:

“Scrabulous has created value for the product in a way Hasbro would have never thought of doing. Hasbro’s challenge is to call off the lawyers, do better business development and come up with an online version of the game people will like even better. If people are playing more Scrabble, they should figure out how to tap into that.”

Google tests demographically targeted AdWords: Google is launching a test of a new feature of AdWords letting advertisers deliver targeted ads based on age and gender. The feature only works on sites that have gender and age information — many of them social networks.

Widget standards coming? GigaOm reports that widget industry exec may start working with the Interactive Advertising Bureau to create standards for widget advertising.