The narcotic substance is not permitted to be advertised on other major search engines like Google or Yahoo. AdWords have strict policies against promotion of drug-related products.

To counter this problem, the Medical Cannabis Network (MCN), launched Cheeba; a one-of-a-kind platform for promotion of legal marijuana.

Jason Draizin, CEO of MCN said,

“MCN was created to fill the gaps in the marijuana industry, and what we’ve been seeing over the years is that cannabis-based businesses are continually denied services from online ad networks.”

With Cheeba, users can explore through a vast database of medical marijuana related products. Companies that legally produce and sell marijuana can also advertise on Cheeba.com.

Though this may not seem as a major threat to the big search engines, a small population of Google loyalists may just turn to the new search engine to gather more detailed information about Marijuana related products.

Like other social networking websites, users can create their profiles, add friends and start/ join discussions about the disease among other things. The website also lets users search for people suffering from a similar type of Cancer. Users can find and build contacts by location, gender, type of treatment etc. on the website. Users can get in touch with others in similar situations in order to gather information of available treatments that can ease the burden of this dreaded disease.

The website also has a tab called ‘Dear Cancer’ where you can send a fictional message to the disease. This tab is probably is the major highlight on the website with many patients voicing out their veiws on Cancer.

The founder of the website, Mailet Lopez, a cancer patient herself, was longing to look for people who were undergoing the same problem as her, during her treatment. This was her motivation to create the website.

“Four in 10 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetimes, When you add to that number all of the friends, family, and other people who surround those battling the disease, you quickly realize that almost everyone has a story to share.”

, Lopez said.

The website has already attracted a lot of members and is growing at a steady rate. The website ihadcancer is the first of its kind and the website is a relevant example of the difference that can be made in people’s lives with the power of Social Media.

The company has devised a unified UI search within various channels. This new service, which was apparently announced earlier today, is an attempt to deliver a range of results for any query that is put forth by the user in the wdyl search box.

For example, you type in the word ‘batman’ and you receive pictures, news, books, products, translations of the word ‘batman’, patents, blogs and related videos for batman. You will be taken to the displayed Google product upon clicking the button that appears below the widget. However, rumor has it that this may appear to be a promotion of sorts for Google products as opposed to something majorly constructive.

A striking feature about this new offing is its exceptional design. Something Google usually does not pay detailed attention to.In the meanwhile, why don’t you give it a shot with ‘What Do You Love?’

The company’s new homepage is a result of several tests and experiments. So, what can the users expect? Well, the new AOL will focus on videos, local and sourced content. The day-part programming will be an added feature that will keep changing content and inputs according to the user needs throughout the day.

The development is expected to be a result of the site’s falling popularity and revenue. With the redesigning of its home page, the company believes to be back in the game. The site’s home page will have its general news, but now it will give priority to the local events.

AOL had a bitter turn of events in 2009, when its merger with media giant Time Warner failed. And ever since, the American website is on a constant endeavor to revamp itself.

However, media experts are not excited by the move. They believe that more has to be done by AOL think-tanks if they have to catch up with other sites since sites like Yahoo are going more social.So the fate of AOL is yet to be decided and it will take some time before the results are known.

Influencing and grabbing the world like flu, today owning or sharing a virtual space is like an identity. And certainly the whole concept of social media is much more than, “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content”. Today, it is more of consumer-generated media where every user is an advertising tool.  From brands to birthday cards, the virtual media did not only changed the entire concept of traditional marketing and bridge distances but rather brought us together once again to live on one big virtual Gondwanaland. Best part is, now it also pays!

Unfortunately, what started off as a global plan now caters to only countries like America, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Israel; the rest of the world is termed as “foreigners” and they would not be able to earn “tick bugs” as of now and this part is left under a rather politically correct statement, “We will setup a group called Foreigners Making Money on Sidetick where we can have an open discussion on how people from all countries can make money on Sidetick” and “Sidetick members from countries other than those listed above, however, can earn points redeemable for a prize for obtaining U.S. friends.”

With users from all around the world, helping it to grow, this came as a big blow to the foreign users when the news was announced on 24th February, 2010.

No matter how pure as its intention maybe, with a started head like that, what we will be watching for is when the “Foreigners Making Money on Sidetick” tab opens. Foreigners? Did we say that right?

GoJi­yo.com is their exciting new online portal. It’s an expansive and exhilarating 3D world that allows users to interact with each other via personalized avatars – the unique personifications of themselves. The portal will let them undertake activities, such as skydiving and bungee jumping, as well as go treasure hunts within the enticing setting of six swanky worlds. According to a company statement, these six worlds are Turqua, SnowFlash, MauryaPrasth, Re-Janm, Solaria, and Noom.

The portal will deftly integrate popular Godrej brands across the furniture, consumer durables and FMCG space. The idea is part of their youth-centric marketing and brand strategy aimed at re-emphasizing of the unique Godrej brand.

GoJiyo.com marks the coming together of virtual reality, social networking and online gaming. It creates for users an integrated experience, a release stated. The executive director & president, marketing of Godrej Group, Tanya Dubash, has been quoted as saying, “This venture is a significant step toward consolidating our positioning as a younger, vibrant and brighter brand.”

She added: “This as an integrated platform for (offering) a brighter brand experience is well geared towards building the brand’s perception and relevance to a new India and building the Godrej franchise even amongst the 480 million consumers who use one Godrej product or the other, but who may not be online yet.”

The company, prior to the GoJiyo launch, only had online presence for the group as a whole, Godrej Interio and its division of consumer products (GCPL). In future, the platform might well project some non-competitive brands.

Cricket is a religion, a way of life in the Indian sub-continent. With Bollywood personalities and business tycoons getting drawn to it, the IPL has clearly acquired a huge glamour. With theatrical rights as well as the Google, Youtube mega deal in the pocket, revenues for the third edition are expected to touch nearly Rs 700 crore.

According to industry estimates, this is almost 50 per cent jump from the season two revenues last year. However, a section of experts feel that more needs to be done in terms of innovation to exploit the online medium adequately and effectively.
Brand strategy specialist Harish Bijoor mentioned that fans could well watch match replays or even come together to conceive something like a second life where sites create a social platform for them to interact with their friends or even with the teams.
Having their sights firmly set on grabbing more eyeballs, the franchisees are now imparting more fun element with a host of ‘cricketainment’ related activities for the fans on their sites. Kolkata Knight Riders plan to offer ‘better online experience’ is an example. A new initiative KKR online fan club is also on the cards to involve over 40,000 registered users.

Red Chillies (the company, which owns KKR) spokesperson, has been quoted as saying: “We are making it (our website) more interactive. Visitors can buy match tickets and merchandise online. Mumbai Indians has begun selling online tickets for the home matches. Fans can get their favorite view seats, as all seats in the Brabourne Stadium (except a few) have been mapped online.

There’s an increasing realization of the fact that monetization and greater revenue can materialize only with focused e-commerce strategies.

According to the findings by the renowned Internet research firm, comScore, nearly 10.4 million Internet users, of the estimated 37.2 million in all, invariably visited one sports site or the other in January 2010, in comparison to just about 5.2 million users in the corresponding month a year ago. The cumulative number of net users at home or at the office then was about 32.5 million.

Incidentally, comScore doesn’t monitor online habits and patterns of cyber café users as well as sites visited through handsets. But the report points to a broader trend. It reveals that the time spent and the page views in the sports websites have almost doubled. The latest data indicates that on an average, a sports lover spends about 30 minutes at a site, views 41 pages and visits any sports related sites around 6 times as compared to 29 minutes, 39 pages and 4 visits to sports category sites in January 2009.

No surprise that the cricket sites top the category in both January 2009 as well as 2010.  Yahoo! Cricket has grabbed the top spot among the sports websites. The website has garnered nearly 3.9 million unique visitors. It has logged a phenomenal growth of 305 per cent over January 2009. Cricinfo.com is ranked second with an estimated 3.5 million unique visitors. Sify Sports is another site in the category that has recorded a tremendous traffic growth. The website, ranked third, has grown by a whopping 379 per cent with nearly 1 million unique visitors, in comparison to 2 lakh visitors a year ago (January 2009).

Executive vice-president (Asia Pacific) of comScore, Will Hodgman states, “The sports site category has seen tremendous growth as more Indians are turning to the Internet as their prime source of updated news on their favorite teams and players.”

Mumbai Indians is all set to show its online presence in the IPL Season 3 with the help of MSN India. In earlier seasons, team Mumbai Indians managed its website “MumbaiIndians.com” on its own.

Head of MSN India, Sanjay Trehan said that, they have a deal with the owners of the team to set up, generate content and manage their new website. The website will be developed on a revenue sharing basis.

The new website of Mumbai Indians will be live in the mid of February and it will be hosted on the servers of MSN India. Users can visit the website on two URLs –MumbaiIndians.com and MumbaiIndians.in.msn.com. Both of them will help the users to go on the same homepage.

Trehan further added that the team will also have its presence on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The official website of Mumbai Indians will also have a Twitter box which will have all the conversations that takes place on their Twitter account.

Besides social media integration, the Mumbai Indians portal will also have features such as score card, photos, news, player details and merchandise.

This is not the first time for MSN India, as in IPL 2008 and 2009 they hosted and powered the website of the Bengaluru team, Royal Challengers.

99labels is founded by three partners; Ishita Swarup, Ankur Prakash and Anchal Jain, with Ishita as its CEO.

The venture works on an ‘event based sale’ module that revolves around sales that last anywhere between five to seven days wherein the ‘members only’ website will notify it’s users about upcoming sales a couple of days in advance. 99labels promises an interactive ‘online showroom experience’ where members can evaluate a product with options like zooming in, size matching systems and guide charts specific to individual brands with multiple payment options like cash on delivery, net banking and credit card payments.

Click here to get an overview of the module and service on offer at 99labels.