An Italian national newspaper has reported that Google plans to launch a service allowing publishers to hide content behind a paywall before the end of the year.

The report in La Repubblica newspaper suggests the system will be linked directly to Google’s search results and will allow consumers to buy paid content directly via Google Checkout with one click. Observes say it could provide a valuable revenue boost for cash-strapped newspapers.

Google is said to be approaching publishers to gauge their interest in its own version of a micropayment system it linked directly to Google’s search results, which would let consumers buy paid content directly via Google Checkout with one click.

According to UK marketing industry magazine Brand Republic, the launch of Newspass would certainly head off some of criticism that has been levelled at Google by the likes of Rupert Murdoch who dispute Google’s claim to send valuable traffic to newspapers.

Murdoch said last year: “We’d rather have fewer people coming to our websites but paying.” And his latest manifestation of this vision is the paid for TheTimes.co.uk website, launched in early June 2010.

La Repubblica has quoted Google’s Vice-President of global media, Henrique de Castro, as saying that his company wanted to forge partnerships with other media organisations, rather than rival them.

According to Brand Republic, it is unclear whether the system is being developed locally in Italy by Google where it already faces an investigation by the country’s Competition Authority. The investigation has been running since last year, after the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers complained about the lack of transparency in how Google News calculates its rankings.

The Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers complained that Google was using its dominant position to stop publishers from earning their fair share of online ad revenues.

It seems likely, however, that the plan is one Google hopes to launch globally in that it sounds similar to an idea that it proposed to the Newspaper Association of America last year, which looked at how a successful micropayments model might work.

Online fashion retailer Missguided has launched its own iPhone app in a bid to expand its online retail offering.

The business, which specialises in “catwalk looks and celebrity inspired women’s fashion”, hopes to use the application to strengthen ties with customers by providing access to its online catalogue as well as fashion industry news for shoppers on the move.

Missguided’s venture is the latest sign of a growing trend among fashion retailers to connect with potential buyers through mobile and smartphone devices. And after research released last week suggested that in three years time mobile owners may be spending over £250m a year on goods bought through their phones, it’s not hard to see why the fashion sector is taking such an interest.

In an effort to widen the customer experience and make its iPhone app more than simply a sales tool, Missguided has included a host of features on top of its online catalogue. New fashions are sent to users’ phones each day, and social media fashion links to the firm’s blog, Facebook and Twitter pages are provided.

By Richard Morris

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All businesses should be considering the role social media can play within their company.

Twitter has become a significant part of the jigsaw and is now considered to be a valuable tool for online marketing specialists and digital agencies.

According to rumours in a report by Last Click News, the micro messaging site could be about to become even more valuable. It is being suggested Twitter is about to launch a new feature aimed at helping website developers to boost their site’s profile.

A new SEO-friendly tool will allow annotations to be embedded into tweets, letting developers provide users with the most up-to-date information. Currently, Twitter allows members to type up to 140 characters, but the new feature would allow people to add meta data to their Tweets such as websites, locations, reviews, and events details.

As a result this could prove to be a major bonus for companies, helping them to attract traffic and as a consequence expose more users to advertising. The changes might also benefit SEO campaigns by allowing a company to rank for targeted keywords through live search.

By Steven Connor

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Spanish fashion retailer Inditex has announced it will start online sales later this year.

The company, which owns brands including Zara and Massimo Dutti, is due to open an online store on September 2 covering the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Inditex currently has more than 4,700 stores in 77 countries.

In an announcement this morning, Inditex said it would ensure the internet service is designed to be accessible not only through conventional internet access networks, but also through smartphones and tablet devices.

Firms across the world are now starting to grasp the growing importance of providing a usable web offering through mobile devices to customers. A new report has said mobile phone users purchased almost £123m worth of goods in the UK last year, and this figure is set to more than double in the next three years.

Last month, Andy Murray, head of in-store marketing agency Saatchi X, admitted he had never seen times like this before in the retail sector, saying: “Mobile is changing everything in retail”.

As part of this morning’s announcement, Inditex said net sales reached 2,67 billion euros in the first quarter of 2010, 14 per cent up year-on-year. Net income for the quarter was up 63 per cent.

Analysts and traders responded positively to the announcement, and the company’s shares jumped by 2.32 euros (5.3 per cent) to 46.2 euros during early trading in Madrid according to Bloomberg.

Karen Howland, an analyst at Barclays Capital in London, said: “Emerging-market growth and the launch of its online business this autumn will drive above-consensus top-line and earnings growth.”

By Richard Morris

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The majority of businesses in the UK are set to up their digital marketing spend next year according to new research.

Data compiled by Econsultancy from a survey of 500 client-side digital marketers and agencies reveals 52 per cent of companies plan to increase their paid search (PPC) budgets next year, up from 45 per cent.

The proportion of companies looking to increase their search engine optimisation (SEO) budget over the same period has increased by 10 per cent, to hit a total of 60 per cent.

According to the report, almost half of all companies (49 per cent) are now spending at least £50,000 on PPC in a year – an increase from 39 per cent in 2008. In addition, the number of firms spending less than £5,000 has decreased significantly from 25 per cent last year to 14 per cent this year.

When it comes to SEO, the report said 22 per cent of firms are now investing at least £50,000 – up from 16 per cent in 2008.

Spending on social media ventures is still small in comparison, with 57 per cent of companies putting aside less than £5,000-a-year.

However, it seems the potential benefits of implementing a sound social media strategy are starting to become clear to business owners, with 65 per cent looking to increase spend during the next 12 months. Out of those companies, 15 per cent plan to double their budget.

In terms of potential stumbling blocks with regard to PPC spending, 41 per cent of companies cited a lack of internal resources while 30 per cent pointed to poorly converting websites. In terms of SEO, companies highlighted a lack of internal resources (49 per cent) followed by budget problems (26 per cent).

By Richard Morris

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Mobile phone users bought nearly £123million of goods in the UK in 2009 using their smartphones, according to a new report, and this figure looks set to more than double in the next three years.

As total online retail spending in 2009 was £21.2bn – or a market share of 0.6 per cent – this means that by 2013, mobile internet sales could reach £275million, or the four per cent of the overall market, claim analysts Verdict and Ovum, who have released a joint study.

They claim that, in the last year, only 2.1 per cent of the UK adult population shopped using internet access on their mobile. This is less than a tenth of the 28 per cent of the population who have mobile internet access.

“Consumers are not spending significant amounts via mobiles and, for now, we believe the true potential for m-commerce is to provide consumers with a valuable tool for research, comparison shopping and retailer interaction,” said Malcolm Pinkerton, senior analyst with Verdict Research.

“However, with internet-savvy consumers now accustomed to the multichannel environment, they are beginning to embrace m-commerce,” he told Brand Republic magazine.

Christine Bardwell, senior retail technology analyst at Ovum, added: “The opportunities are there for the most proficient multichannel retailers to claim a share of the growing cross-channel expenditure by exploiting the possibilities provided by mobiles to seamlessly link the online and in-store environments.”

Global energy firm BP is using Google AdWords in an effort to help stem the tide of bad publicity that has washed up on its shore following the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to news agency AFP, the company has already spent $1.25bn on containing the spill, which occurred following an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in April.

And as well as trying to minimise damage to the environment, the company is also attempting to minimise further damage to its reputation with a PPC campaign.

BP has bid on keywords including ‘BP oil spill’, ‘BP oil spill lawsuit’ and ‘BP suit’. All searches bring up a sponsored listing on Google which links through to the company’s page detailing its response to the disaster.

“Info about the Gulf of Mexico Leak. Learn more about how BP is helping,” say the adverts.

Speaking to ABC News, a BP spokesperson, said: “We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer.”

Commenting on the move, the chief executive of one US marketing firm, said: “…they’re getting so much bad press that directing traffic to their own site is a great PR strategy”.

By Richard Morris

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Yahoo has today officially announced a raft of site changes, highlighting the importance businesses are now placing on social media.

The California firm said in a statement that from this week it will expand its relationship with social networking site Facebook. Users of both sites will be able to link their accounts and share and view updates. Their Facebook news feeds will be available through the Yahoo homepage, Yahoo Mail and other company services.

Similar functionality for Twitter users will be implemented later this year, according to Yahoo.

Cody Simms, senior director of Social Platforms and Yahoo! Developer Network, said: “More and more, people rely on social sites to share and discover information that matters to them, making Yahoo! uniquely positioned to provide people with all of the mainstream methods of content discovery – social, search, communications, and editorial.

“Starting with Facebook, we are bringing all of these elements together to give people one simple, trusted place to share information and connect. We think this offers great benefit to people across the web, and it’s key to helping Yahoo! extend our reach and increase engagement.”

Unsurprisingly, following the criticism recently levelled at Facebook, Yahoo has gone out of its way to stress the importance of privacy in an effort to maintain users’ trust.

The changes being announced today include a refresh of Yahoo Profiles, which was launched in 2008 to allow people to manage all their personal details in one place. A new version of the system, called Yahoo Pulse, will “make its privacy settings easier to use and to give people a central dashboard to manage what they share on Yahoo!”.

Making sure no one misses the point about its commitment to protecting users’ privacy, the company adds: “Yahoo! is deeply committed to privacy – not just as a written policy, but as a fundamental consideration applied to each and every Yahoo! site and service.

“Yahoo! offers simple controls so that everyone can change who sees their updates, or turn off their updates stream at any time.”

By Richard Morris

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Home furnishings and women’s fashion retailer Laura Ashley has announced a 74 per cent increase in online sales during the first 17 weeks of its current financial year.

Continuing growth from its web operations helped lift the business’ total UK revenues by 6.2 per cent for the period, according to a report by Reuters.

The company, which has 229 stores across the country, said like-for-like sales were up 5.3 per cent between February and the period finishing the end of May.

By Richard Morris

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Britain’s online retailers are sure to be cheering on the England team during this year’s World Cup in South Africa. They stand to rake in over £200m if Rooney and palls reach the final, according to shopping comparison website Kelkoo.

The data, which was collected by the Centre for Retail Research, suggests that every goal scored after the group stages will be worth around £126m to online and high street retailers. The results are based on analysis of the impact of the 2006 World Cup, trade estimates, and past research reports.

Internet sales are expected to hit £116m by the end of round two, and this will increase to £205m if the team makes it to the final. The amount would be equivalent to around 10.2 per cent of total World Cup retail sales.

Pre-planned online spending during the tournament is expected to be significant, with an estimated 15 per cent (£93m) being spent on televisions and electrical goods, 11.9 per cent (£43m) on sportswear purchases and 11.6 per cent (£11m) on memorabilia, according to Kelkoo.

Bruce Fair, managing director of Kelkoo UK, said: “The World Cup is the largest sporting event in the world, second only to the Olympic Games. As a result of its mass appeal and viewership figures, it has natural implications for consumer spending and retail businesses.

“The World Cup is not just a lucrative event for pubs and bars, online and high street retailers will reap the benefits as well.”

By Richard Morris

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