Financial Times Group Launches Newssift.com Beta

A Unique Search Tool for Business Professionals   NEW YORK, March 18 /PRNewswire/ — The Financial Times Group announced today the BETA launch of Newssift.com, a next generation search tool for business professionals. With the ability to search thousands of global business news sources, Newssift offers comprehensive, meaning-based results that contextualize the trends, opinions, and qualitative events that shape business decisions and impact corporate reputations. Newssift is a free-standing entity within the Financial Times Group.   As the media landscape continues to evolve, more people are using the Internet as their primary news source. Newssift allows you to look for up-to-date news and analysis online to know before you go, streamlining the process of search and search refinement for business decision makers. Newssift delivers precise and more relevant qualitative business news, moving beyond traditional key word search.   “Unlike traditional search, Newssift was developed to enable users to string together a query that can provide insight into the relationship between people, organizations, geography, and business theme, which ultimately facilitates more informed business decisions,” said Robin Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, FT Search, the creators of Newssift.com. “There are only a few search engines that employ relationship-based or semantic algorithms, and to date there is no other that accomplishes refinement using a business point of view.”   Much research has shown that many of today’s business users are dissatisfied with current search tools, finding traditional key word search technologies difficult to use and unable to comprehend contextual relationships. Newssift was launched to respond to this void — creating a user-friendly and meaning-based search that easily locates and compares qualitative business news across thousands of reputable sources. Each day, thousands of news sources are aggregated and annotated to ensure the most relevant and deep analysis of current global business news. Newssift then searches data based on meaning and relationships, cutting out the commercial clutter found in traditional key word search.   “Today, we’re introducing a resource for business that offers capabilities not available on any other search site,” saidJohn Greenleaf, Chief Marketing Officer of FT Search. “Newssift thinks the way business people think and interacts directly with the user, offering results that are meaningful, relevant and ultimately pertinent to important metrics like stock price valuation and corporate reputation.”   Similar to the way one would search and compare merchandise on retail websites, Newssift ultimately analyzes the relationship between people, organizations, geographies, and business themes. An example that highlights the Newssift.com difference and demonstrates how the tool works is that while traditional search results can help you to find a local florist in Florida for your mother’s birthday, Newssift can enable you to analyze the state of the floral industry in Florida.     About Newssift Newssift is a unique search tool for business professionals indexing millions of articles from thousands of global news sources. A next generation vertical search tool, Newssift.com searches are based on meaning, topic relationships and business themes, moving beyond traditional keyword search towards refinement. Newssift was created by FT Search Inc., an independent entity within the Financial Times Group.   Media Contact Amy Grabowski 203.564.1501 / Amy.Grabowski@newssift.com Danielle DeVoren 212.445.8188 / ddevoren@webershandwick.com

See the Genius in Yourself

This evening while listening to a TED Talks Podcast from Elizabeth Gilbert – the author of Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia I was inspired. During her talk, Elizabeth spans hundreds of years speaking about the idea that ancient man didn’t necessarily credit himself for the creative work he would do. Gilbert goes on to even side with this idea – citing that Socrates famously claimed to have a “damon” or spirit that was with him at all times. This magical devine entity would be with him and assist in his creative endeavors. The Romans called this spirit genius.

Elizabeth supports that we as a modern society should shift to thinking this way (perhaps not in a wholly literal sense), but rather in the sense that we should at least acknowledge that this creative force, this light, creativity inside us isn’t wholly of us.

She speaks of the ancient Moors who while dancing would recognize when one of them would dance so elegantly, so perfectly, and with such ease and grace that the would recognize it in the tribe by chanting Allah, Allah, Allah (God, God, God). When the Moors later invaded southern Spain you can hear their influence when the Spanish see something done well and chant Oley Oley Oley – a Glimpse of God.

Today – be creative – look for God in yourself. Love yourself enough to keep showing up and see that glimpse of what the Romans called Genius.  See the Genius in yourself.

Blockbuster, Inc. named AzoogleAds as its Search Engine Marketing “Agency of Record.”

NEW YORK – Azoogle.com, Inc. (www.AzoogleAds.com), the New York-based online marketing solutions provider, officially announced that Blockbuster, Inc. named AzoogleAds as its Search Engine Marketing “Agency of Record.” The account is managed under Bazaar Advertising, a division of AzoogleAds.

This announcement comes on the heels of the successful integration between AzoogleAds and recently acquired Bazaar Advertising, a San Francisco-based search engine management and advertising technology company. This move calls further attention to the company’s expanded suite of search marketing services and ability to work with leading, top tier clients.

“Our strategy is to continue to grow our client’s customer acquisitions by coupling science and technology with real direct marketing savvy, not through incentive offers or gimmicks. The results we are seeing so far from the Blockbuster partnership shows that we are doing just that,” says Randy Nicolau, CEO of AzoogleAds.

About AzoogleAds:

AzoogleAds (www.AzoogleAds.com), founded in 2000, is an end-to-end online marketing solutions provider for advertisers, publishers and online affiliates. Initially a pioneer in performance-based marketing, AzoogleAds generates the highest volumes of quality traffic through its affiliate network, its proprietary search technologies and optimization, its in-house CPM/CPA/CPC Media Buying and the company’s unparalleled industry expertise. The AzoogleAds team delivers the most comprehensive and cost-effective strategic online marketing campaigns for advertisers and publishers of all sizes and across all industries through innovative technology and unrivaled knowledge in search and performance based marketing and media buying.

AzoogleAds is headquartered in New York, with offices in Toronto and San Francisco. They are members of the IAB, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), Shop.Org, the DMA and the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee. The company is privately held and backed by private equity firms TA Associates and Stripes Group.