Kozlen Communications

EBay and Yahoo just inked a deal to combine their efforts on several projects over the next several years. By next year expect to see more eBay search results on Yahoo!, an increase of text and graphical ads on eBay, PayPal to power Yahoo! Wallet, a co-branded Toolbar, and click-to-call advertising with Yahoo! Messenger and Skype.

The partnership is set to take on rival Google, who has recently become a threat to EBay with the arrival of Google Base and soon-to-be-announced Google Wallet (or “G-Money” – a name a friend of mine feels is better). More important to advertisers and online sellers are the collaborative options that will be available through pay-per-call, increased seller presence though auction listings in Yahoo! search results, and the delivery of ads on eBay listings.

Have you ever wanted to match the paint on your walls to a certain item you’ve seen. Benjamin Moore claims to have more colors available, but is taking a different type of approach to show the possible matches to their paint. Here is some cool creative outdoor media for the paint maker.

When your target market is young men tasteless humor and gorgeous women are often no-brainers for marketers. Axe Bodyspray is one company (like Maxim Magazine) that’s taken it to the next level. They’ve had several viral campaigns over the last few months that have been somewhat cheezy (such as their webcam site with cheerleaders and pillowfights), but I think this one’s a winner (at least among the target audience). In this campaign – http://ipsh.net/campaign/axert/ – they’ve done what every teen guy wants to do… put the perfect ringtone with their feelings on a certain female.

The Leichtman Research Group recently reviewed figures from the 20 largest cable and DSL providers in the U.S., and reported that top DSL providers added a record 1.66 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2006, representing 54% of the net broadband additions for the period. It marked the sixth consecutive quarter in which DSL providers added more broadband subscribers than cable, acquiring 1.1 million more customers in the last year and a half.

Cable also achieved a quarterly record in Q1 2006, signing up 1.4 million subscribers. Overall, the top 20 broadband service providers had 46 million high-speed subscribers. Cable maintains its lead in the U.S. with 25.8 million broadband subscribers, a 56% share, compared to DSL’s 20.2 million. However, cable is leading the way when it comes to access speed, with 85% of cable broadband lines offering speeds over 2.5 Mbps versus just 14% of DSL lines.