Internet Marketing Weblog
Julian Sharpe | 9:01 am | August 27, 2008 | Events, Mobile, News, Social Media
Broadband coverage has now reached 56% of UK house holds; this is up from 51% a year ago, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Overall, 16.46m (65%) of all UK household have access to the web in some form, which is an overall increase of 1.23m last year, with 86% of those having a broadband connection, as it becomes cheaper with the current deals being offered by Sky and Virgin Media.
The latest update from the National Statistic Omnibus said that 15% of people access the web via the following methods:
GPRS mobile phone
3G mobile
The report also revealed the following activities as the most popular:
> Sending and receiving emails was the most popular (87% of people)
> Finding information on products or services (84%)
> Travel or accommodation (63%)
> Online banking (49%)
This year also confirmed the increase on shopping online with 55% of all UK adults have bought online within the last 12 months, with a split of 59% of men and 52% of women, travel-related was the most popular (48%), closely followed by clothes or sports goods (42%) and films or music (41%).
Julian Sharpe | 11:10 am | August 26, 2008 | News, Social Media
BBC has added another widget to its portfolio with the pending release of the new 5 Live Football Player it will offer live football commentary and additional content including exclusive interviews.
5 Live Football Player has the ability to be embedded on blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and iGoogle and will offer 192 live English Premiership commentaries as well as action from the other leagues and cup competitions including:
The Championship
Champions League
UEFA Cup
FA Cup
Carling Cup
Scottish Premier League
Scottish Cup
International matches.
Further features will allow it to carry 5 Live’s popular 606 phone-in shows and webcam views of the studio. It can also be re-skinned to match the user’s team colours with the content is customisable, to allow personalisation. We have yet to try it out but will review and report and lets hope its as good as the BBC iplayer.
Julian Sharpe | 9:05 am | August 21, 2008 | Affiliate Marketing, News, Social Media
Ebay’s is looking at revising its auction model after the No 1 auction site revealed it was looking at making significant changes to its business model.
Ebay said that it was likely to place more emphasis on its fixed-price listings, claiming sellers will see listing fees fall. Changes are due to come in to effect in the UK on 24 September; this will include an overhaul of its site search, making it easier to find fixed-price items, and the dropping of image upload fees.
Quote:
Lorrie Norrington, presidentof Ebay marketplace operations in the US, said, “I’d say this is the most fundamental change we’ve made, ever, to the marketplace. It’s a huge shift from where we’ve been.”
Likewise, Clare Gilmartin, director of marketplaces for Ebay in the UK, said, “Today’s improvements will remove barriers for sellers so they can make the most of this opportunity and offer even more goods for sale on Ebay. That means even greater choice for buyers and in turn greater success for sellers.”
Current Ebay figures show that as many as 178,000 people earn their primary or a secondary income from running an Ebay-based business.
Julian Sharpe | 2:21 pm | July 16, 2008 | News, Social Media
Junk food brands are continuing to target children online and via mobile phones this is despite growing concerns about childhood obesity, a new report from Which claims.
Various media sources including Social networking, SMS and viral promotions were all named in the report cleverly titled ‘Food Fables - The Second Sitting’ as more methods are used to target children, this is despite 88% of consumers saying brands need to be more responsible.
The main culprits have been identified as Bebo, MySpace and YouTube as the main channels for promotions and competitions from junk food brands.
The report also highlighted Cadbury, Mars and Fanta as examples of brands, which used ‘complex’ brand sites and social networks to pick out young people. Mobile was also highlighted as a further channel exploited by brands to target children, through mobile promotions and WAP sites.
Its not all bad news as Which also credited brands such as Kellogg’s, Nestle and Weetabix for reducing or closing down sites which previously targeted children.
However the advertiser body ISBA has criticised the report claiming it is “seriously misleading” and accused Which of wrongly highlighting practices aimed at people aged over 16, and not young teens.
Ian Twinn, public affairs director at ISBA, said, “Any under-16s seeing these ads will have had to lie about their age.”
“The report simply misses the point. Where obesity is concerned, advertising is not the issue. Tackling the problem needs to involve a much wider range of factors such as parental responsibility, healthy diets and activity levels.”
ISBA said online ads are subject to the same degree of regulation as broadcast and print ads
Julian Sharpe | 8:51 am | July 15, 2008 | News, Social Media
Channel 4 Education will tonight launch a new show called the The Insiders, one of many online-only shows it aims to combine careers guidance with a comedy drama twist.
The Insiders will run over 12 week period and its aim is to reveal the true workings of six different styles profession, which including a doctor, police officer and actress.
Social network MySpace has joined with the Channel 4, which allows fans of the programme to meet the cast, ask them questions and become their friend.
The project is based on blogs of six professionals, aims to reveal details on the jobs that careers advisors fail to tell. Channel 4 claims the show is “an upfront, funny and honest account of the world of work”.
Julian Sharpe | 3:37 pm | July 7, 2008 | News, Social Media
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has asked for European Data Protection law to be upadted to reflect technological and social changes. The privacy watchdog believes the increase in social networking is making the current law outdated and ineffective.
Independent think tank RAND Europe has been assigned to review the current data protection laws and the any of issues surrounding it. A study of the findings will be made public in spring next year which may be too late at the current rate of new users.
At the annual Privacy Laws and Business conference the UK information commissioner Richard Thomas said, “European data protection law is increasingly seen as out of date, bureaucratic and excessively prescriptive.
It is showing its age and is failing to meet new challenges to privacy, such as the transfer of personal details across international borders and the huge growth in personal information online.”
Julian Sharpe | 7:58 am | July 6, 2008 | News, Social Media, Viral
Online lottery company MyLotto24 has agreed a partnership with The Mirror Group to offer readers a selection of online games.
Visitors to both the Daily and Sunday Mirror will be able to take part in daily lotteries from across Europe including MyLotto24’s Euromillions.
Quote
Jo Bury, head of online commercial partnerships at The Mirror Group, said, “We’re looking forward to working with MyLotto24 and excited about the increased opportunities it offers our readers to win more often and bigger
Julian Sharpe | 11:50 am | July 4, 2008 | Google, News, Social Media
Today in the US a Court has ordered Google to release You Tube user data, in a legal ruling that could have serious privacy implications across other social media sites.
Thousands of users personal details including log-in user IDs, IP addresses and video clip details will be passed to media giant Viacom, which requested the information to support a copyright case against Google.
Viacom, owner of MTV Networks and Paramount, filed a copyright infringement case against the search engine after over hundreds of thousands of its videos were been found on the video-sharing site YouTube.
Viacom claimed the data would only be used to support its case. “Any information that we or our outside advisors obtain will be used exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against YouTube and Google and will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner.”
YouTube remains the most popular video-sharing site with 130.5m unique users during May, according to Nielsen Online
Julian Sharpe | 9:36 am | July 3, 2008 | News, Social Media, Viral
Snickers is to revise and re-release its popular Get Some Nuts campaign with cult icon Mr T online, with original A team series now running on Bravo interest in Mr T is once again at a higher level so the timing is perfect.
The viral teaser campaign featuring a video of Mr T in a workshop building a huge cannon loaded with snickers chocolate bars has gone live across 100 sites. The teaser will also go out across Get Some Nuts branded social media locations at Bebo and Facebook profile pages and the GetSomeNuts.tv site.
The teaser will only be available online, before the longer video breaks during an ad break for Big Brother later in the month.
The Get Some Nuts campaign broke a year ago, the ad on YouTube has since had just under a million views.
Julian Sharpe | 1:46 pm | June 26, 2008 | News, Social Media
Girlguiding UK has release news on its plans for a full online strategy as part of the run up to its centenary year celebrations.
The upgrading of the website is an important element with new focus on more interactive functionality such as blogs, message boards and member facilities.
In addition it will also be looking to integrating its current member database as well as incorporating more content from related and associated campaign sites, community and youth sites.
Quote:
Aimee Lingman, digital strategic manager, Girlguiding UK said, “For a youth organisation like ours, online presence is so important, but with multiple content-rich sites, even straightforward maintenance is a drain on resources. We want to free up the web team to allow them to focus on quality and real added value, not just the basics.”
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