Internet Marketing Weblog
Julian Sharpe | 2:10 pm | June 30, 2008 | Mobile, News, Online Media Planning (OMP)
Telecoms giant Telefonica, which owns Mobile phone operator O2, has put in place a group-wide mobile advertising platform in a bid to drive a new source of ad revenue.
It has announced the launch of a single mobile ad server this year for its operators in the UK, Spain, Mexico and Colombia with others to follow in 2009. The server, which is managed by platform provider Amobee Media Systems, allows a range of ad formats to be delivered including display banners, in-game, video, messaging and applications It will have the potential to reach 170m subscribers.
The operator said the platform will give agencies a single point of contact to buy, manage and track contextual and behavioural campaigns.
Quote:
Julio Linares, chief operating officer for Telefonica, said the group’s single ad platform gave it cost savings and quicker campaign deployment.
“The key to successful mobile advertising is doing it in a contextual and non intrusive way,” said Linares.
Julian Sharpe | 11:05 am | | News
Cheapflights has re-launching its UK site with a host of new features and advertising opportunities in Beta. One of the UK biggest travel comparison site is planning to roll a host of new features including deal filters, improved navigation and a larger library of travel guides, based on a successful trial on its US site.
The UK site will also attempt to offer advertisers more opportunities to cross and up-selling across the selected deals, targeting users by their choices of car hire, accommodation or airport parking.
The UK site will trial the new features in a beta version for an unspecified lead time, giving selected users a chance to try the features before a full roll out is confirmed.
Quote:
Francesca Ecsery, UK general manager at Cheapflights UK, said, “We are fortunate to have had the benefit of our US site’s re-launch in helping us to prepare for the UK site’s roll-out. We anticipate that our advertisers and users will embrace the full UK launch within a relatively short period.”
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.”
Julian Sharpe | 2:38 pm | June 25, 2008 | News, Social Media
MTV Games has finally rolled out its Facebook application to support the release of My Rock Band, its new game available on the Microsoft Xbox 360.
The Facebook “My Rock Band” application was created by Digital Outlook, will only be available on Facebook initially on the UK and France social media portals it will enable fans to create a band by choosing their name, role and band mates from their list of friends. It’s being promoted through ads on Facebook, which were created by AKQA.
Quote:
Mark Dawson, CRM manager, at Xbox EMEA, said the application was the best way to engage a broader market.
“Rock Band is all about getting together with your friends, forming a band and rocking the world, so the My Rock Band Facebook application is the perfect way to capture this in a social networking environment.”
Garret Cunningham | 2:39 pm | June 24, 2008 | Google, News, Online Media Planning (OMP)
Google have just unveiled their new Ad Planner tool. Designed specifically for Online Media Planners, it looks like another step in the Google DoubleClick integration.
The tool will allow Planners to enter websites and demographic data relating to their advertiser and the tool will provide information on related websites, both on and very importantly, off the Google content network.
The tool offers great potential in the level of information which can be retrieved in terms of sites, trends, demographics and (it wouldn’t be Google without) related searches!
The new tool however will also have a convenient easy integration with DoubleClick as plans can be exported to DoubleClicks’ MediaVisor management tool.
Its only available by invite, so ensure you sign up quickly!
We have signed up and can’t wait to use it!
Julian Sharpe | 2:25 pm | June 19, 2008 | News
Mozilla has claimed a download record for the release of its latest uploaded to Firefox version 3 It is claimed that in the first 24 hours the web browser was made available the software was downloaded over eight million times. Currently statistics from the download servers are being reviewed to give an official figure that will then be passed to the Guinness World Record organisation.
However the attempt to set the download record was scheduled to begin at 1300 PST (2000 GMT) on 17 June was almost stopped from the start as the servers handling the downloads crashed under the volume of visitors checking to see if new version was available yet.
At their maximum level the servers were handling more than 9000 downloads per minute. Within five hours the number of downloads for Version 3.0 exceeded the 1.6 million set by Firefox 2.0 in October 2006.
In total Firefox 3.0 was downloaded 8.3 million times over the 24 hour record setting period. The figure beats the five million Mozilla predicted before the day.
Logs from the download servers have been handed to the Open Source Labs at Oregon State University for auditing. The scrutiny will ensure duplicate and unfinished downloads are not counted. The verification process could take a week to complete. The increase of interest in Firefox 3.0 has continued and Mozilla has reported that the software has now been downloaded more than 10 million times.
Julian Sharpe | 10:46 am | June 18, 2008 | Events, MSN
Microsoft is to official launch its European Search Technology Center (STC) early next year as it attempts to increase the market share for its Live Search across the continent.
Mircosoft said it aims to “disrupt the search and advertising marketplace” by empowering the Search Technology Center in an attempt to make Live Search much more targeted and increase the relevance for European users.
Microsoft Quote Kevin Johnson
Kevin Johnson, president of the platforms and services division at Microsoft, said, “Success in search in Europe is paramount, and we see the investment in this new Search Technology Center as an important step in doubling down on our long-term investments.”
Microsoft Quote Satya Nadella
Satya Nadella, senior vice president of the search, portal and advertising Group at Microsoft, said, “Searchers have different expectations and experiences in every geography in the world, so we believe it’s critical to make deep investments in physical locations in multiple markets to ensure that we’re applying the best local expertise to our research and development efforts.”
The Search Technology Center is scheduled to open next year, however Microsoft said it had yet to decide on a location.
Julian Sharpe | 4:28 pm | June 17, 2008 | Google, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Google has final caved in to demand and is to hold talks with leading UK brands in an attempt to stop any future legal action over last month’s changes to brand keyword bidding which has opened the flood gates to brand leeching. Google has asked what it believes are the key brands to an informal meeting to discuss the overall affect the decision is having on the market, the questions remains however not all Google key brands are necessary brands that have a strong web standing with there Brand and not all key brands have the highest turnovers from ad words so will these be excluded, it certainly looks that way a the moment.
According to unconfirmed reports Google is understood to be trying to show the positive impact the changes have had on traffic volumes for brands, and to stop in there tracks any concerns over cost-per-click inflation as a result of the change.
Google is very aware that some brands have seen keyword rates increase after the change was implemented in early May in addition there have also been reports of a lawsuit from a combined group of these key brands. As previous featured on the Lake star media Blog, Teletext said it would take legal action against Direct line Holidays to prohibit the company from bidding on its brand terms, I think everyone knew it was coming, Google hoped it wasn’t, the outcome should be very interesting.
Julian Sharpe | 2:08 pm | June 16, 2008 | Online Media Planning (OMP), Social Media
Brewery biwigs Scottish & Newcastle has launched a new campaign site in support of its popular Fosters brand.
The new widget named Ride the Scuba focuses on the brand’s new in-can widget, which controls the size of bubbles that are released into the drink. The site allows visitors to control a scuba robot in a water tank in real-time, encouraging them to destroy bubbles in the water through the internet.
Visitors have a two minutes time limit to compete the game, the person in first place on the leader board by the end date of the 30 June will win a scuba diving trip to Australia, not bad at all.
Julian Sharpe | 1:52 pm | | Events, News, Social Media
The Times is set to released its long awaited online archive which contains almost every issue of the Times newspaper for the past 200 years and best of all its Free.
Times Archive is set to includes more than 20m articles, photographs and adverts for all but 100 issues between the years of 1785 and 1985, and will cover events for example Queen Victoria’s coronation, Crimean War and Scott’s doomed expedition to the Antarctic.
Quote from the times
James Harding, The Times editor, said, “The Times Archive is a remarkable resource. It’s a treasure trove for anyone interested in history, whether amateur or professional. From the personal and domestic to unforgettable events of the world stage, from the French Revolution to the Falklands War, it is all here in The Times Archive.”
Anne Spackman, Times Online editor-in-chief, said, “Many newspapers have digitised their archives, but our ambition at the start of this project was to set a gold standard.”
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