Simply Everything

By Peter K. Lam

Microsoft and Yahoo! Team Up

It was announced today that Microsoft and Yahoo! are teaming up to improve the new Microsof search technology, Bing, and hopefully be a tough contender to the dominant Google. Google has remained the most popular and powerful search engine favored by the general public. Yahoo! remains the second most popular but they are still not playing on the same level as Google. The new partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo! could very well spell the end of Google’s dominance in online advertising and search results.

I haven’t used Bing yet so I don’t know how well it works. Microsoft claims it’s just as good as Google, if not better. Yahoo! is ok but is also somewhat lacking in terms of its searching capability. Microsoft and Yahoo! together are far stronger and have a good chance in taking down Google. I personally like Google simply because their search engine is very simple and is very powerful. It usually returns the best results even with very specific keywords whereas Yahoo! search returns some irrelevant results back.

I guess time will tell how successful this business venture will be for Microsoft and Yahoo!. Google still remains a force to be reckoned with but the new partnership will truly give Google a formidable challenge.

By Peter K. Lam

SyFy - Imagine Greater

When I first heard about NBC Universal’s Sci Fi was planning to rebrand, I was very skeptical of it’s success. I was looking at the rebranding from an internet marketing perspective and not as the business as a whole. In terms of internet marketing, NBC Universal owns a very rich and hard to obtain keyword as their brand. They always get the highest traffic and many hits whenever anybody searches using the keyword “sci fi.” Their shows appear on page one of most search results and people who are just looking for general sci fi may also stumble upon their site. As an internet marketer, having the domain “scifi.com” is SEO gold!! So for me I wonder why NBC would want to rebrand? They’ve had so much success with their current business model. Changing the brand could be a huge mistake.

A day after Sci Fi evolved into SyFy, CNNMoney.com release an article talking about the financial and business implications of the rebranding. Turns out that the executives over at NBC Universal actually knew what they were doing. They were expanding their program base to be more than just sci fi oriented programming. Sci Fi as a brand was missing out on so many potential advertisers because advertisers were not willing to be on a network that’s just sci fi. Rebranding and expanding the program base for the network allowed more possibilities to increase revenue with potential advertisers who may have passed if the network remain as “Sci Fi.” Today Sci Fi Wire, the news site powered by SyFy, broke the news of SyFy’s record-breaking July.

Having operated for the past month, I look back and see that NBC Universal made a very smart business decision. The brand “SyFy” is very unique and can truly exist as a brand. The phrase “sci fi” cannot really be trademark since it’s such a generic term that’s used to describe all types of media, not just sci fi televison. Rebranding would not only make the network more identifiable but also more profitable with bigger advertising opportunities. So all in all, SyFy is pretty successful. They’ve already built a lot of SEO with “sci fi” so it will take some work to regain the lead with the most hits for “sci fi” keyword searches but I don’t think it will take too long. The new brand is already becoming wildly popular and pretty soon those keyword searches for “sci fi” will start bringing up content from SyFy again in no time.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tumor Cover

Los Angeles, CA (July 28, 2009) – Meeting the growing demand for more digital content, Archaia announced that it would produce original graphic novels (OGNs) exclusively for the Amazon Kindle, which will include the Kindle’s iPhone and iPod touch apps.

Archaia will initially premiere four OGNs on the Kindle over the next 12 months. The new collaboration kicks off with Tumor, an original story from Joshua Hale Fialkov and Noel Tuazon, the creators of the Harvey Award-nominated Elk’s Run. Tumor, a Los Angeles noir about a private investigator with a terminal brain tumor trying to close one last case before the cancer kills him, will be released as eight individual chapters over the next six months, to then be collected into a hardcover edition. The first chapter of Tumor is available now on the Kindle for free, with subsequent chapters priced at 99 cents.

“Archaia is consistently working to break the boundaries of comic book distribution,” said Stephen Christy, Archaia’s Director of Development. “I’m psyched to be able to say that we will now be the first comic book company to produce a full-length graphic novel exclusively for the Kindle. Working with a partner like Amazon has been amazing, and I couldn’t be happier that we’re launching this partnership with Tumor, from one of my favorite writers in the industry.”

“We’re excited to offer our customers this new content for Kindle,” said Laura Porco, director of Kindle books. “We know that even the best reading device is useless to our customers without deep selection, and we’re thrilled to be able to expand the selection of comics available to Kindle users.”

“I’ve loved my Kindle from Day One, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted Tumor to be available for the platform,” said Fialkov. “Archaia understood that the Kindle is a unique opportunity to get their comics out there and into the hands of a whole new fanbase who are avid book readers, but may have not read a graphic novel in years.” In addition to the Kindle version of the book, Fialkov will be running an online “behind-the-scenes” site at www.tumorthecomic.com that promises to include DVD-style Special Edition features, including scripts, production art, interviews and a live chat with the creators upon the release of each chapter.

The first chapter of Tumor is available for free now at the Amazon Kindle Store.

Here is a condensed link:

http://tinyurl.com/mvx84k.

Chapter Two will be released during the week of August 3rd, and each subsequent chapter will be released every three weeks.

In the pipeline is another upcoming title to be produced by Archaia exclusively for the Kindle. Mr. Murder Is Dead, a black-and-white OGN written by Victor Quinaz and co-published by Before the Door Pictures, the production company of actor Zachary Quinto, is scheduled for a spring 2010 release.

For more information about Tumor, please visit www.tumorthecomic.com.

About Archaia
Founded in 2002, Archaia has built an unparalleled reputation for producing meaningful content that perpetually transforms minds. With a slate including such popular Eisner-Award winning titles as Mouse Guard and The Killer, as well as Awakening, Gunnerkrigg Court, Robotika, Killing Pickman, Artesia and the Publisher’s latest additions of Titanium Rain, God Machine, Roddenberry Productions’ Days Missing, and The Jim Henson Company library, Archaia has become synonymous with quality content. For more information on Archaia or any Archaia titles please visit www.Archaia.com.