Archive for June, 2008

MySpace has announced details of a new partnership with Vodafone that it hopes will help to unlock the advertising potential of the social networking website.

The telecoms giant’s Vodafone Music Reporter platform will be hosted on MySpace and will offer users the chance to gain extra information about its programme of summer festivals.

It will also allow users in the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy - the four territories where it was launched on June 30th - to upload their own content, which Vodafone and MySpace hopes will encourage the creation of new online communities of music fans.

Nick Reid, head of UK sales for the News Corporation-owned social networking website, said the arrangement would allow Vodafone to tap into a creative community across a number of countries.

He added: "It’s a perfect fit for Vodafone and highlights the possibilities available to advertisers on MySpace."

Vodafone already has partnerships with a number of major internet businesses, including eBay, Yahoo! Mail and Google, which allow its customers to access popular websites via their mobile phones.

Google is to conduct a trial involving the distribution of online programming via its AdSense service.

The search engine giant has struck a deal with Seth MacFarlane, the man behind Family Guy, to distribute a series of 50 original two-minute cartoons, reports the New York Post.

Although the cartoons are for entertainment purposes only, Google hopes they will act as a vehicle to attract viewers in specific demographics.

Links to MacFarlane’s work will be placed on websites identified by Google’s AdSense as likely to be visited by the target audience of young males.

Those clicking to watch the cartoons will find they are accompanied by either television-style commercials or banner adverts, some of which MacFarlane has agreed to animate.

Although the service is not set to launch for several months, Google told the newspaper that it has already secured advertisers for many of the films, including some of the biggest deals in AdSense’s five-year history.

News of the service comes just weeks after Google announced it had agreed a deal which will see Yahoo! begin using Adsense technology.

Almost seven million searches for the Apple iPhone were conducted in the US this April, according to new figures from comScore.

These were carried out by 1.3 million US web users who, according to Dan Lackner, senior vice president of comScore, may have been intending to buy the device.

"Search is frequently a harbinger of purchase intent," he said, pointing out that the increase in volume of iPhone searches shows how intense consumer interest has been in the gadget.

The next generation iPhone was unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, yet the comScore figures from April demonstrate how even rumours about the possible existence of a new product can spark fierce curiosity on the web.

The data also reveals that the vast majority of iPhone searches occurred on Google. According to Mr Lackner, such consumer behavioural data is extremely important to companies designing online marketing campaigns.

"Different search engines perform better for particular brands and products," he explained, adding that in this case iPhone users appeared to favour Google.

Separate figures from comScore show that US web users carried out 10.8 billion core searches in May, 61.8 per cent of which occurred on Google.

Global spending on online marketing is expected to rise this year as businesses around the world take advantage of the advertising power of the web.

According to figures from IDC, some $65.2 billion (£32.9 billion) will be spent worldwide on online marketing in 2008, representing almost ten per cent of marketing spend across all medias.

John Gantz, chief research director at IDC, said that compared to more traditional types of advertising, internet marketing is growing at a "phenomenal" rate.

Indeed, IDC expects online marketing spending to have reached $106.6 billion worldwide by 2011, with keyword ads remaining the dominant form of web advertising.

"Marketers already recognise that online advertising must be incorporated into any comprehensive ad strategy," said Mr Gantz.

Separate research from IDC shows that this year almost a quarter of the world’s population will use the internet regularly, highlighting the potential reach of online marketing for firms that choose to utilise it.

Mobile internet users will top 1.7 billion by 2013 thanks to Web 2.0, new research claims.

Juniper Research said it believes that Web 2.0, a term for various collaborative applications, will spur a boom from the current figure of 577 million users in the next five years.

A shift towards direct-to-consumer models, driven by such applications as instant messaging and user generated content, means mobile network operators and handset manufacturers are pressured to give some of their control of the value chain to third parties.

Ian Chard, Juniper Research analyst, said major web players had already entered the mobile domain.

He added that business models for the mobile Web 2.0 market were "in a state of flux", allowing mutually beneficial partnerships to open up.

Despite this, Mr Chard warned that the "window of opportunity, however, is closing".

Recent research by IDC predicted that the number of regular unique internet users will surpass 1.9 billion - 30 per cent of the world’s population - in 2012.

John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC, said the internet enabled people to "work, play and socialise any time from anywhere".

Analysing the target market and using a range of keywords are among tips being offered by Yahoo! on maximising the use of search keywords.

The information and search engine service suggests adapting to a target market of both window shoppers and those ready to buy, focusing less on promoting a product and more on what such customers would generally type in a search box.

Using both high and low-volume keywords is also recommended, in separate advert groups.

Yahoo! says this protects the quality index score and helps vendors to see which adverts and keywords are working.

Sellers are also advised to try both branding and niche marketing, know ineffective keywords and remember that customers may try to find their brand name without knowing its proper spelling.

Google engineer Matt Cutts recently told USA Today that proper search directions increase traffic to webpages.

He suggested spotlighting search terms on the page, filling in tags when creating webpages, getting linked by other websites, using free tools that show search action and blogging frequently.

A new survey of consumers has revealed just how important search engines can be in potential consumer purchases.

An Opinion Research poll revealed that 83 per cent of respondents admitted to seeking out "at least some level" of influence on products and services when they were shopping online.

These resources included customer written reviews, forums, message boards and blogs.

Some 70 per cent of those polled said that they "seek out" the information before they make a purchase and travel, recreation and leisure were at the top of the list of the services most researched.

A further 32 per cent claimed to have posted their own feedback on a product or service for other potential users.

Linda Shea of Opinion Research said: "Companies must be extremely mindful of the power of proliferating online forums and their ability to shape consumers’ perceptions about brands."

Online resource DM News has come to a similar conclusion, calling ratings and reviews an "integral" part of e-commerce over the last ten years.

Search engine Google has launched its own ad planning tool to aid media planners in buying online display ads.

Ad Planner is a media and research planning tool that claims to connect advertisers and publishers.

To use the tool it is recommended that users enter the demographics and websites associated with the campaign’s target audience and information will be returned about the sites that these consumers are likely to visit.

Drilling down further, the tool can also provide details of the demographics and related searches for a specific site or supply aggregate statistics for the sites added to the media plan.

Unlike the company’s other product Google Trends, which is designed for all web users, the planner has been created with media planners in mind, Emel Mutlu of the Google Inside AdWords blog said.

Google Trends was updated recently, adding the Google Trends for Websites application to its roster.

This allows users to examine the popularity of different websites, including ones they themselves may have created.

Information communication technology (ICT) could help fight climate change by enabling new ’smart’ product designs, a study has claimed.

Research by independent non-profit organisation The Climate Group and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) claimed that by transforming the way technology is used, it could reduce man-made emissions by 15 per cent by 2010.

ICT could "unlock the clean green industrial revolution we need to tackle climate change and usher in a new era of low carbon prosperity", noted Steve Howard, chief executive officer of the Climate Group.

Most savings could be made by "applying ICT to global infrastructure and industry", rather than replacing physical products with virtual alternatives, the report suggested.

The best solution, it concluded, is to use ICTs to help monitor and maximise energy efficiency.

Luis Neves, chair of GeSI, said: "The ICT industry is a key driver of low carbon growth and can lead transformation towards a low carbon economy and society."

A recent report from The Register and FreeForm Dynamics suggested that it is the smallest firms that are most concerned about green issues.

A new search engine matching businesses and their consumers has been introduced this week.

InverSearch has been hailed as a solution to click fraud by only charging firms for the responses they make to consumer searches rather than the hits they receive.

Meanwhile, consumer accounts are available free of charge and allow users to create confidential inquiries for desired products or services which are then delivered directly to InverSearch’s business clients.

Joseph Cibula, the engine’s founder and chief strategy officer, explains: "In many respects, InverSearch is like a dating service, matching consumers with needs to businesses with solutions."

He adds the service marks the start of "a paradigm shift" in searching from consumers to businesses.

In related news, a report on click fraud by IT research and advisory firm Outsell estimates 14.6 per cent of the clicks advertisers are billed for are fraudulent, representing approximately $800 million (£405.9 million) in spending for fraudulent clicks in 2005.