The power of Google
January 14, 2008
Google’s power and influence in the online world has been demonstrated again today with the news that IncrediMail has had it’s Adsense deal with Google stopped abruptly.
IncrediMail received a large amount of its revenue from displaying Adsense adverts to its users. Now this has suddenly stopped and IncrediMail is feeling the ramifications reflected in its share price which dropped 40%.
No real news as to why the deal has ended but the Adsense account that was used has been suspended so it’s looking like it could be less than amicable.
This really shows the power Google holds over many websites that are considered to have good revenue streams. Switch off the major source of that revenue and what is left for them to survive on. Perhaps some of these websites find they are making so much off Adsense that they neglect other revenue sources and leave their eggs in the one basket.
Microsoft / Yahoo rumour back again
January 10, 2008
The perennial rumour of Microsofts impending acquisition of Yahoo has resurfaced in an article in the NY Post today. I last posted on this in September. See the last line of this NY Post article for the hint supposedly from an insider at MS, apparently the deal is still being debated at Microsoft.
I’m actually less unconvinced than I was about this rumour now. Microsoft are still failing to build the traction around their MSN portal and get significantly less browse traffic than Yahoo and have significantly less advertising real estate available to them. They are also lagging behind in search (although that could change soon). Yahoo would still be a great buy for them, and instantly propel them up the charts in terms of eyeballs and ad clicks.
Yes Google does get DoubleClick!
December 20, 2007
This just in…
After my post earlier today about the murmurs that Google would get DoubleClick approval I can now inform you that it’s happened!
That was quick! The FTC voted 4-1 in favour of the deal and concluded that the deal would not substantially lessen competition.
Well done Google! Look forward to seeing the first development come out of this partnership!
Link of the day: Internet Marketing Mind Map
December 7, 2007
Just in case you haven’t covered all the bases here’s an excellent reference for all you online marketers! It’s in the form of a mind map as well, so really useful!
Top marketing opportunity… SEO??
November 30, 2007
A report has been released by Anderson Analytics as the results of a survey of the Marketing Executives Networking Group (a 1,700 strong network of marketers at VP level or higher). The survey asked what marketing concepts these executives thought were going to be the top trends and concepts in 2008.
Worryingly, when asked which marketing concepts they felt were going to be most important the second highest answer turned out to be SEO!
Now, I don’t know whether marketers are unsure what search engine optimisation is or perhaps this was a particularly ‘offline’ group of marketers, but SEO is already hugely important and in my eyes if you haven’t grasped that yet then it’s a bit late. Saying that it will be the second most important concept next year is amazing to me. It’s been part of my life for 12 years and is really just part of the routine I go through for any digital project.
Here’s the rest of the list:
If you had to ask me what some of the concepts I thought were important for next year were (in digital), I’d say:
- Offline/online translation (getting your offline campaigns translated in a seamless manner onto digital media, something that really isn’t being done very well at the moment)
- Viral (campaigns should always be thought of as viral if they touch the web)
- Widgets (cross pollination of marketing campaigns online using widgets)
- Social media (yes, it’s huge this year, but next year should see it mature and the launch of OpenSocial will make it more important than ever)
- Banners (controversial one this but we are now at a stage where banners should become more like widgets and really start to become properly engaging, whether this will happen I’m not sure as most agencies who design banners aren’t particularly forward thinking)
Underpinning all of those, and every other online marketing concept, should be SEO.
What do you think the key concepts of 2008 will be?
EU to look into targeted web advertising
November 26, 2007
Reuters reports that the EU is planning to look into targeted web advertising with increased scrutiny. They’re concerned about the increasing risk to privacy and protection of data that some of the new advertising developments bring with them. The Article 29 working party will be looking into the issues, that’s the same working party who got Google to limit the amount of time it stores web searches to 18 months.
This potentially doesn’t bode very well for companies like Facebook. Their new beacon advertising system is getting enough scrutiny from users, the last thing they need is someone official looking into it too. This also doesn’t bode too well for the Google-DoubleClick acquisition.
