SEOmoz recently scoured the Web to compile its Web 2.0 Awards. The results include winners and rankings across 41 categories. Zango.com earned the 1st Place Award in the “Games and Entertainment” category.


SEOmoz had some of the Web’s best bloggers, entrepreneurs and business people vote on winners, narrowing the field to 174 place-getters and Honorable mentions. SEOmoz said this about Zango.com: “Zango houses a virtually limitless database of free games, tools, videos and applications. Monetized by advertising and thus free to use, Zango offers hours of online entertainment.”

Placing 2nd in the Games and Entertainment category was Galaxiki, a science fiction and fantasy wiki; doof, a “social gaming Web site, placed 3rd. Honorable mentions went to Guess The Google and Arcaplay.

Winners in other categories included del.icio.us for “Bookmarking,” craigslist for “Classifieds and Directories,” Google Maps for “Maps,” Zillow for “Real Estate,” and YouTube for “Video.” View the entire list of sites here.

Apparently so worked up by the thumbnail of the "Nice But" video (does the spelling suggest where this is going?) – part of Ben Edelman’s "research" posted today – that he was unable to watch the video itself, Edelman’s soon-to-be-classic descriptions of that video (which, again, he didn’t watch – you’ll agree in just a second) merit full quotation:

“[O]n May 27, Zango's fourth-most prominently featured video was entitled "Nice But" (s.i.c.) – featuring a full-screen display of a man's naked buttocks, so large that even the thumbnail rendering showed explicit detail. Thus, explicit content remained prominent and, indeed, unavoidable to anyone even flipping through Zango's video library” and “As to "Nice But" (s.i.c.), Zango affirmatively shows an explicit image (namely, a male buttocks) to users who never requested any such thing.”

This image is so "explicit" that Edelman obscured with a big red dot the screen capture of the thumbnail in his report:



Edelman even complained in a comment on another blog that "Zango does not respond to my demonstration of Zango showing explicit content unrequested."

Enough is enough. Those descriptions and that complaint overlook the simple fact that, well, the “Nice But” is anything but a butt. Screenshots hardly do this justice. Watch for yourself by searching Zango.com for "Nice But." If anyone besides Edelman is offended by those naked (male) hands, please let us know. The “explicit detail” is absolutely stunning in its explicitness.








This kind of content is ubiquitous on the Internet. See the following examples.

Taking a Memorial Day weekend break from his day job as "an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets unit,” Ben Edelman devotes hundreds of online words to “a man’s naked buttocks,” all glimpses of Angelina Jolie – gasp!, and prank phone calls by a pair of Canadian disc jockeys.

All of this entertainment content and more is available at Zango.com. That apparently irks Edelman, although the “why” is much less obvious – even after reading his “research.” Here are the facts about our business. Zango licenses and aggregates online entertainment content from approximately 100 different content providers. Edelman does not – thankfully – review our legal agreements relating to the licensing and use of that content. More to the immediate point, however, he does not let that lack of knowledge get in the way of biased, unqualified blogging.

Like all companies our size and larger in the online entertainment space, we make every effort to abide by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provisions regarding copyright infringement claims. We occasionally do receive copyright-related inquiries about content available at Zango.com and via our syndication platform. In each and every instance, we investigate those claims quickly and resolve them on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the DMCA and its safe harbor. That job starts with the hard work of our content licensing specialists, who have secured permission to utilize the content available to Zango users on our site and via our platform.

Edelman does not like our business model or our content. He never has liked our model, and he probably never will. We’re fine with that, in large part because millions of consumers every day, month after month, year after year, accept the value proposition and do enjoy the content. But what are a few million happy folks amongst “friends”?

On that score, one thing can be said for certain: consumers enjoy Zango a lot more than they do Edelman’s content offerings, at least according to a recent comparison of Alexa rankings. In case you can’t see it, the barely visible line in dark red at the bottom of the chart is his traffic; the dark blue line at the top is Zango’s.

After it conducted additional research into the Storm ‘AdPack’ exploit that it first blogged about last Thursday (May 15), Trend Micro has confirmed two important things to us in conversations over the last several days: 1. Trend sees no indication that Storm is working with, “in cahoots” with, or otherwise connected to Zango (a fact we already knew, but a nice one to have independently verified); and 2. while the Storm exploit attempts to install some piece of our software without first delivering (and receiving) the required notice and consent, those attempts have failed.

In an update at the bottom of its original May 15 blog post, Trend Micro “apologize[s] for the confusion.” We at Zango thank Trend for its close contact with us during these last several days and for its more in-depth analysis since May 15 closing the book on this issue.

Last night, the 23rd Annual CODiE Award winners were announced. Zango.com was one of four finalists for the Best Video Content Aggregation Service.

And the winner was? The CODiE went to National Geographic’s Digital Motion stock footage service. Congratulations to National Geographic and to the other two finalists, The NewsMarket and Voxant.

Presented by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the CODiE Awards celebrate achievement and vision in software, education technology and digital content. We are very proud and honored to have been selected as a finalist.

Trend Micro and Zango are in contact and are working together to understand the situation raised in the Trend Micro blog entry originally posted last night -- a blog entry updated twice today. 

At this time, we have no evidence that Storm is "pushing Zango." We confirm that we have no known business relationship with those behind the Storm bot -- nor would we seek, accept or authorize such a relationship. We look forward to getting to the bottom of this matter in a timely fashion and will report updates as necessary.

A blog entry from Trend Micro implies that Zango is “possibly in cahoots” with Storm.  To which we respond:  Seriously?  (And who uses phrases like “possibly in cahoots” as part of a so-called security alert or communication, anyway?)  The blog entry is woefully deficient in terms of detail, making verification of any aspect of it nearly impossible.  Nevertheless, because we give all reports and inquiries about our security the serious attention they merit, we have reached out to Trend Micro to see if it actually has any detail to share.  Trend Micro did not communicate with us prior to posting its blog entry late last night; indeed, to this point, our inquiries to Trend Micro have yet to be answered.  Surprising?  Perhaps not; there is already a healthy (and justified) skepticism about this “report” even amongst folks with “no love” for Zango.  We encourage Trend Micro to respond to our communications as soon as practicable.  Responses can be directed to Steve Stratz at sstratz@zango.com or via phone at 425.279.1321.

This week Ernst & Young announced that Zango Founder and CEO Keith Smith, is a finalist for the 2008 Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in the Pacific Northwest.

The Ernst & Young awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who demonstrate extraordinary success in the areas of innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.

Keith was selected as a finalist from nearly 60 nominations. Winners will be announced at a special gala event next month in Seattle. Congratulations Keith!

Congratulations to Zango’s 225 employees in six offices in four countries around the world. For the fifth consecutive year, Washington CEO magazine has recognized Zango as one of Washington State’s Best Companies to Work For.



This week, Washington CEO announced the list of the 100 finalists for the Best Companies to Work For 2008 competition. The best company to work for in each of four categories – Large, Medium, Small and Non-Profit/Government – will be announced at a banquet and awards ceremony next month.

Here’s to five years in a row!

Today we launched the first-ever Zango widget, which provides quick and easy access to Ultimate Arcade Empire’s Extreme Racing 2 game. There are lots of widgets out there, but this one is special – special enough for us to make this our initial foray into the widget world. 

Our inaugural Zango widget, featuring “Extreme Racing 2” from Ultimate Arcade Empire, is free and does not require the download of Zango’s desktop advertising software. Instead, the game is advertising-supported through a Zango text link – “More Cool Games.” That link appears at the start and finish of each game.

If clicked, that link showcases Zango’s library of free online games. Access to Zango’s complete library of games requires the download of Zango’s desktop advertising software, which can only happen if the quid pro quo of access to free online content in exchange for advertising is agree to by the Internet user. Learn more about Zango’s Best Practices here.

The widget can be played and added to a Web site from: http://www.zango.com.

Finalists for the 23rd Annual CODiE Awards were announced today and Zango.com is one of four Web sites up for the Best Video Content Aggregation Service CODiE.

Presented by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the CODiE Awards celebrate achievement and vision in software, education technology and digital content. Zango joined the SIIA as a member in 2007.

The 2008 CODiE winners will be announced at a gala event on May 20 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Win or not, we’re very proud and honored to be selected a finalist.

Zango’s latest video for the iMediaConnectioniMedia Spot was released today. Rip Warendorf, Zango’s senior vice president of sales, provides insights to advertisers trying to adapt to today’s media and reach target audiences through what we call Misfit Content.

Misfit Content is really any niche content produced and/or distributed outside of mainstream channels, and difficult to fit into conventional content categories or even formats. It is often consumer generated, and when it is not, it is often inspired by consumer generated. It is rife with opinion, attitude and often controversy (which in some cases is all the same thing).  And it vigilantly defends candor over accepted standards of appropriateness.

See Rip and hear what he has to say here and read a related article entitled: “Niche content: brand with an attitude,” here.

In follow-up to Friday’s blog post entitled Fortinet’s ‘Facebook Widget’ Advisory False, Zango earlier today issued a formal press release  confirming that the company had no involvement with the “Secret Crush” Facebook widget.

As a result of the press release, as well as a number of other communications, clarifications and corrections are starting to trickle in. Matt Hines of InfoWorld posted a blog this afternoon that disputes the accuracy and/or interpretation of Fortinet’s Advisory – particularly any assertion that the Facebook widget “secretly installed Zango adware.” In a post entitled “ Zango strikes back over reported Facebook hack ,” Mr. Hines graciously admitted that, “upon further review,” there was “at least” a mistake in interpretation of the Fortinet Advisory on InfoWorld’s part. Apologizing for “any confusion,” Mr. Hines cautioned that “we in the security community who picked up on this story so eagerly should also be reminded to look into all the details of any security bulletin before we report on it.”

For InfoWorld, the truth is this: “it does seem based on the reported details that Zango at least served up its EULA before allowing end users to click through and grab its programs, which is all it is required to do really.”