Japanese Internet mall Rakuten expands into US (AFP via Yahoo! News)

Japanese Internet mall Rakuten expands into US (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Japan’s biggest online shopping mall, Rakuten, said it had struck a deal to buy New York-based Internet marketing agency LinkShare, laying the foundations for a launch in the United States.
Online Marketers Help with Katrina Relief Effort
Hurricane Katrina’s rampage across Louisiana and the other Gulf Coast states on Monday left a broad swath of destruction and the affiliate and performance marketing community are stepping up to the plate to help aid the relief efforts. Say what you want about the online marketing community, but one thing is for sure ? this is an extremely generous group. They responded quickly to the devestation and there are many efforts to donate money, resources and even ad space to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Advertisers and marketers are all pitching in. The Red Cross has issued a call for donations of online ad inventory to support fundraising for its Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Online marketing community message board, AbestWeb.com has created a new forum dedicated to Hurricane Katrina. Affiliate network ShareASale.com has generously set up a program where they will match donations to the Red Cross made by their affiliates. Google is also making an effort to help displaced hurricane victims and their families. Ad hoc communities of Internet users are using mapping technologies from Google to track storm damage, analyze aerial photos and try to make sense of what little information is available. Some are providing resources for marketing, advertising and public relations professionals. Others are helping non-profits raise money online. Here is a list of agencies that are supporting Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Of course, when so many people are opening up their hearts and wallets, there?s an opportunity for scam artists to take advantage. Check out Charity Navigator if you want some guidance about intelligent giving. The Internet is proving a pivotal information point for people to get news coverage about Hurricane Katrina. On Thursday MSNBC reported that since Hurricane Katrina started a new record of 9 million individual streams of hurricane coverage had been downloaded. The blogosphere is also a key component for disseminating Katrina information and also for discussions related to the disaster. Some figures say that 4 out of the 5 most-linked posts and 3 of the 5 most-linked news stories on Monday were about Katrina. You can do your own searches at BlogPulse to see how much of the blogosphere is talking about Katrina and its aftermath. Our thoughts are with the victims of this horrible tragedy. Please do your part to help in the relief efforts. And, if you know of any online marketing efforts to aid those impacted by Katrina, please let me know. lisap@revenuetoday.com
Japanese Internet mall Rakuten expands into US (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Japan’s biggest online shopping mall, Rakuten, said it had struck a deal to buy New York-based Internet marketing agency LinkShare, laying the foundations for a launch in the United States.