Google is close to an exit from China, following a feud with the country’s government over censorship, according to a new report. The Financial Times quotes a source familiar with the matter that the search giant's proposed departure from China is now "99% certain" to go ahead.

Google has been embroiled in an ongoing feud with the Chinese government since mid-January, when an executive announced on the company's official blog that it was no longer willing to censor search results in the country, as required by local authorities, following a cyberattack on its intellectual property. At the time, it admitted that this could result in the company pulling out of the Chinese market. The company has since continued to filter results on google.cn, but says it will not do so forever.

16/03/2010

Continue reading "Google '99.9% certain' on China exit- FT " »

Microsoft has launched a free online video player for the UK, which will rival existing services such as BBC iPlayer and 4OD. MSN Video Player contains 1,000 hours of programmes including Skins, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Footballers’ Wives. Over the next few weeks the service will also begin to include a selection of HD shows.

While MSN Video Player is free to use, viewers will have to watch 30 second adverts before, during and after the programme. The service, which is currently only available in the UK, also allows users to view certain clips, viral videos and news footage from the web. In addition, users can create their own playlists and point friends and followers to MSN Video Player videos via Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live, MySpace, Diggit and other social media tools.

12/03/2010

Continue reading "Microsoft takes on iPlayer with free video player " »

Google users viewed on average 94 videos each during the month of Jan 10.

Google attracted 136.5 million unique viwers during the month of Jan 10

More than three quarters of electors – 77 per cent - would vote on the Internet if they could, according to a new survey released today. The poll also found 56 per cent had visited political websites – signalling a substantial interest in online politics among voters. The survey of 1,000 people by social media consultants LEWIS Communications was conducted to gauge public attitudes to the use of social media and digital technology by political parties.

12/03/2010

Continue reading "UK election: most Brits want online vote " »

Google is set to launch its Street View service for many parts of the UK so far neglected by the service.When launched in the UK last year, Google Street View initially covered 25 towns and cities. Subsequently, further sites of interest were added, some of which were not accessible to Google's Street View car and were instead explored by the ‘Google Trike’.

From this week, Google will make images for "almost all of the UK's roads, both rural and urban" available on the Street View service.The tool, available on Google Maps, offers a 360-degree photographic treatment that users can explore and move around online.

11/03/2010

Continue reading "Google takes Street View to more parts of UK " »

Microsoft has launched a three month TV ad campaign for its new search engine Bing, in an attempt to gain ground on Google in the UK. Starting this week, the campaign will attempt to increase Bing's market share from the three per cent it currently holds.

The adverts, which are part of a £2billion marketing campaign, feature the slogan ‘Bing and decide’ – which appears to be a sly dig at rivals Google.Using the tagline 'Bing and Decide', the campaign features people suffering from "information overload", and, as such, positions Bing as the search engine which delivers the more accurate, effective and streamlined search results. The ads will run for 3 months, and will be complemented by an online campaign.

10/03/2010

Continue reading "Microsoft debuts first Bing TV ads in UK " »

Mobile network operator Vodafone is to slash up to 500 jobs in the UK as the mobile network operator is reportedly mulling a bid for rival 3.

The European telecoms carrier plans to cut 500 staff from its headquarters in Newbury as part of a cost-cutting drive.

Vodafone, which has around 9,000 staff in the U.K., said "the roles affected are in a number of areas, across a number of locations, primarily in back office functions."

It also cautioned that there will "also be additional changes as further efficiencies and natural attrition in these functions take effect."

09/03/2010

Continue reading "Vodafone to axe up to 500 UK jobs, eyes rival network 3 " »

Marketing services giant WPP has begun hiring staff again, with a focus on its digital division and Asia markets. The move comes after WPP slashed nearly 14,000 staff last year as part of a cost cutting drive to counter to ad downturn.

Group CEO Sir Martin Sorrell hopes WPP will do better than flat revenue growth this year but has budgeted conservatively after being "once bitten, twice shy" on forecasts in 2009. The company has said that digital services will make up two-thirds its revenues in “three or four years” and that it expects 2010 to be a stable year. WPP reported an 11 percent drop in profits to £663 million ($1 billion) after a “brutal” 2009 and a particularly low second quarter. New media sales accounted for 27% of the advertising and marketing group’s revenues, or $3.6 billion.

08/03/2010

Continue reading "WPP starts hiring again- with a digital focus " »

Apple is to start selling its iPad tablet PC from the 3rd April in the US, although it is yet to confirm the launch date for its international rollout.

The US launch date comes slightly later than originally announced. Unveiling the touchscreen multi-media device on January 27, the California company behind the iPod, iPhone and Macintosh computer had said the iPad would be "available in late March worldwide." Apple said it would be accepting pre-orders from US customers at its online store from March 12 for the iPad, which allows users to watch video, listen to music, play games, surf the Web or read electronic books.

08/03/2010

Continue reading "iPad set for late April UK launch " »

Ads on social media sites will soon have to comply with the same code of conduct as traditional media, following a new industry-wide initiative. The move has been designed to help increase protection for consumers and children, by holding online ads accountable for being honest and responsible.

Set to begin this Autumn, the UK internet industry (including the Internet Advertisising Bureau) has joined forces to agree an extension to the CAP Code to claims on companies’ own websites, which would extend the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) remit in digital media. This code is designed to ensure that the marketing industry adopts the same self-regulatory standards for all marketing communications on the internet as it does across traditional marketing channels.

08/03/2010

Continue reading "Ads on social networks forced to comply with ASA standards " »

Email marketing firm ExactTarget has acquired Twitter business app CoTweet for an undisclosed sum.Founded in 2008 and based in San Francisco, CoTweet is a Web-based collaboration platform that allows companies to manage multiple Twitter accounts from a single dashboard.

The tool supports multiple editors, track conversations, assign roles and create follow-up tasks. The company has a growing client list, including Whole Foods, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Ford, Dell, Pepsi, Sprint, Intuit, Salesforce.com, USA Today and Coca-Cola.The deal will see ExactTarget incorporate Co-Tweet’s technology, creating a tool for marketers to manage social media, email and mobile communications. CoTweet will operate in San Francisco as a business unit of ExactTarget and will lead the company’s social media product development.

05/03/2010

Continue reading "ExactTarget buys Twitter app CoTweet " »

New powers have been given to the UK government department tasked with policing data protection, including the right to issue fines of up to £500,000 for serious breaches of personal data. Speaking at the DMA annual data protection conference, the Commissioner talked of email and online marketing as sectors that have forced the regulator to focus on the new types of data challenges, giving a clear warning to the digital marketing industry to ensure compliancy.

05/03/2010

Continue reading "Data protection: New mandate for Information Commissioner, large fines, new powers " »

The switch to web marketing, email and database driven profiling has prompted marketing regulators to go on the offensive in the run up to the election. “In the past some parties have flouted the rules”, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham told us. “That’s why today I’m issuing updated guidance for political parties covering email, direct mail, phone calls, automated calls…”

05/03/2010

Continue reading "UK election marketing: Tighter restrictions on party campaigning " »

ITV has reported online revenue growth of £6m for 2009 on the back of an overall profit of £25m last year. The news comes as a welcome relief to the broadcaster, which made a staggering loss loss of 2.55 billion pounds in 2008. ITV attributed much of the growth to cost cutting and increasing its share of a declining TV advertising market.

The broadcaster increased its online revenues to £24m, excluding Friends Reunited, in 2009. Video views across itv.com reached 215m, up from 85m in 2008, and monthly unique users grew by 33% to 8.7m.

04/03/2010

Continue reading "ITV web revenues up £6m, but still trails competitors " »

Apple is taking legal action agaianst phone manufacturer HTC, the company behind Google’s Nexus One handset and other Andriod-based smartphones, for allegedly using patents and technology seen in the iPhone.Apple claims the phone manufacturer has infringed 20 iPhone patents, using the company's "underlying hardware and architecture" for its own phone models.

Sales of HTC handsets that use the techonology could be blocked in the US if Apple's lawsuit is successful, though not in the UK. Although Apple has not named Google in the suit, many of the named patents relate to operating system processes. Google’s Nexus One handset is expected to launch in the UK in April.

04/03/2010

Continue reading "Apple sues Google’s mobile handset maker HTC for 'copying iPhone' " »

Profits at Trinity Mirror sank 41% last year as the severe economic downturn hit advertising revenues and budgets shift online. The publisher, which owns the Daily Mirror newspaper and 120 regional titles, remained cautiously optimistic, saying it had seen signs of an improving advertising market, and the trend should continue.

Pre-tax profits at the media group tumbled to £72.7m, from £124.2m, with revenues down 11.8% to £763.3m. Trinity's chief executive Sly Bailey said she was still cautious about prospects for 2010.

04/03/2010

Continue reading "Trinity Mirror profits fall 41% amid ad downturn " »

The Financial Times is to introduce new payment options for reading stories on FT.com, including accepting Paypal payments, as the publisher looks to bolster its successful online subscription model. John Ridding told the FT’s Digital Media and Broadcasting Conference in central London on Tuesday that the FT would begin trialling eBay’s PayPal, for daily or weekly access to FT.com.

04/03/2010

Continue reading "FT to accept PayPal for micro-payments " »

Rupert Murdoch has hinted he may issue a lawsuit against Google if it did not stop indexing content from his media empire.

In a recent interview with New York Magazine, a senior media executive claims Murdoch is ready to see the search giant in court. "He’s pretty tightly wound up over Google and has been ready to sue them,” the executive claims. “He doesn't trust them at all.” Another unnamed executive from MySpace, the flagging social-networking site that Murdoch paid 580 million U.S. dollars for in 2005, claims Murdoch is ill at ease in the internet sphere.

03/03/2010

Continue reading "Murdoch mulling lawsuit against Google? " »

AOL has sold its affiliate marketing business Buy.at to UK affiliate marketing network Digital Window for an undisclosed sum. Digital Window (formerly known as Affiliate Window) has acquired Newcastle-based Perfiliate, which runs Buy.at.

The deal will see Digital Window and Buy.at combine their technology and serve customers in territories such as the UK, USA and Scandinavia. Perfiliate’s clients include the AA, Barclays and Marks & Spencer.

03/03/2010

Continue reading "AOL sells affiliate network Buy.at to Digital Window " »

The BBC have confirmed its plans to cut back on its website as part of a company-wide strategy review. The corporation will cut spending on its website by 25 per cent and cut back on the number of webpages on the site by up to 50 per cent, it has been announced.

Sections of the site including BBC Switch and BBC Blast, both aimed at a younger audience, will be shut down, the BBC said. The move was announced by BBC director general Mark Thompson, who has been under pressure from critics who believe that the corporation is stifling competition in many markets and costing too much money.

03/03/2010

Continue reading "BBC confirms website closures " »

The proposed merger between Orange and T-Mobile in the UK has been cleared after the Office of Fair Trading withdrew a request for an EC investigation. Having investigated the merger, the EC decided that it could see no direct competition concerns relating to providing services to end users, or consumers, or the wholesale telecoms market. The European Commission has cleared the way for T-Mobile and Orange to merge its operations in the UK after receiving advice from a UK consumer body that it will "not now have an adverse impact on competition within the UK".

03/03/2010

Continue reading "Orange and T-Mobile merger gets green light " »

Google has bought online photo editing suite Picnik, in a bid to bolster the capabilities of its existing image altering and photo-sharing software Picsa. Formed in 2005, Seattle-based Picnik works directly with online photo libraries such as Flickr (owned by Google's rival Yahoo), Facebook and Picasa web albums. Users can also upload files to the service and download them again when they are done. The 20-strong team will start working on Picasa, Google's online photo sharing service.

02/03/2010

Continue reading "Google buys photo editing site Picnik" »

Twitter is testing a hashtag-based ad platform that might be launched in a few months, according to a news report. The move was rumoured by Seth Goldstein, CEO of socialmedia.com, during the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting 2010 in California.

Declining to confirm exactly when Twitter would release the platform, Anamitra Banerji, head of product management and monetization at Twitter, told MediaPost following the panel that "we are working on an ad platform, but it's only in the test phase." Banerji told MediaPost that the ad platform, it will make it "explicitly clear that a sponsor paid for the ad", and make it "relevant and useful".

These ads will appear as Twitter messages with hashtag in update as a temporary "workaround" and Twitter says its engineering team is still working on better idea.

01/03/2010

Continue reading "Twitter to launch hashtag-based ad platform next month? " »

Consumers are most likely to fork over their cash for online movies, music and games, according to a new international survey looking into paid content.

The findings, from Nielsen Online, revealed that vast majority (85%) prefer that free content remain free. However, the survey, which covered more than 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, revealed some people are more willing to at least consider paying for particular categories, especially if they have done so before.

Continue reading "Online content: What will consumers pay for? " »

Publishers using Google’s Ad Manager system to control their sites ads will soon be moved over to DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). Google said the move is designed to make the ad management process easier and faster for publishers. Google acquired DoubleClick in March 2008, and has since upgraded DFP to include a variety of new features.

In a statement Google said: "DFP comes in two flavors, tailored for different publishers’ needs: DoubleClick for Publishers, for the largest online publishers, and DFP Small Business, a simple, free version designed for growing online publishers. We’ll be upgrading current DART for Publishers publishers to DoubleClick for Publishers over the next year as we continue to add features and modules, and we’ll be moving Google Ad Manager customers to DFP Small Business in the coming weeks."

01/03/2010

Continue reading "Google to ditch Ad Manager for DoubleClick " »

Microsoft is to give IE users the option to switch to rival browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Opera or Safari, as part of new competition rules.The move follows a legal agreement between Microsoft and Europe's Competition Commission in December 2009.

Starting from March 1st, Microsoft will let Windows PC users across Europe install the web browser of their choice, rather than having Microsoft IE as a default. Figures suggest that over half the world's internet users have IE. Testing for the update is already underway in the UK, Belgium and France.

01/03/2010

Continue reading "Microsoft forced to give IE users option to switch to rival browsers " »

Google has completed its $125m acquisition of video compression specialist On2, as the internet giant looks to expand further into the growing online video market. The deal closed after gaining approval from On2 shareholders and was valued at $124.6m. The figure was about $18 million more than the value stated when the acquisition was first announced last year. On2 provides video compression technologies for mobile video, embedded devices, Adobe Flash Player and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol).

01/03/2010

Continue reading "Google buys online video firm On2 " »

Social networkers and businesses looking to sell to them will soon be able to use the PayPal online payment network to purchase goods and services on Facebook. The two companies announced a partnership Thursday under which Facebook will allow advertisers to use Ebay-owned PayPal's transaction system in order to pay for ads.

The companies said it would make it easier for smaller businesses, especially those outside the U.S., to purchase advertising on Facebook. 70% of Facebook's users live in countries other than the U.S. "We want to give the people who use Facebook, as well as advertisers and developers, a fast and trusted way to pay across our service," said Dan Levy, Facebook's director of payment operations, in a statement.

01/03/2010

Continue reading "Facebook to accept PayPal payments for games and apps " »

UK video-on-demand service SeeSaw has started its launch campaign, worth £5m, beginning with 10 second commercial. The campaign will start with a series of ten-second teaser ads across Channel 4's portfolio of TV services, expanding to run on ITV, Channel Five, digital multichannel stations and high-traffic websites.

SeeSaw has signed advertising agency Fallon to develop the series of three teaser commercials, which feature the SeeSaw logo acting out scenes of romance, comedy and action. The campaign also introduces the service's strapline, "If you love TV, SeeSaw.com".

01/03/2010

Continue reading "SeeSaw begins $5m ad campaign " »

Search engine marketing firm Bigmouthmedia is to merge with marketing agency LBi International, to create the largest marketing and technology agency in Europe. The deal was made through Bigmouthmedia’s holding company Obtineo, a combination of Bigmouthmedia and EU40m of new capital which will expand the combined entity.

The merger will combine LBi’s digital media, marketing, communications, design, brand and technology services with Obtineo’s SEO marketing to meet customer demands within on agency.

01/03/2010

Continue reading "Bigmouthmedia merges with LBi " »

The BBC is planning large scale cuts in its online, television and radio services reports The Times. The plans have come to light following Director General Mark Thompson's strategic review of the broadcaster's remit and services, due to be published next month following sign-off from the BBC Trust.

01/03/2010

Continue reading "BBC to cut websites by half " »

In a landmark case, two managers and a former executive of Google have been found guilty of privacy violations by an Italian court. The ruling represents the first such conviction for employees of Google, and the internet giant has vowed to appeal the decision. The move could have wide-ranging implications for all websites in Italy that allow users to upload their own content.

Milan Judge Oscar Magi ruled that David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president of corporate development, and Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel, as well as George Reyes, a former chief financial officer,were guilty of privacy violations. They were on trial on charges related to a clip uploaded to Google Video in 2006. The clip was created and posted on the Web by a group of Turin school students, who filmed themselves bullying a disabled classmate.

01/03/2010

Continue reading "Italian privacy: Google officials convicted in video bullying case " »

Pepsi ditched the Superbowl, The Guardian newspaper ditched its regionals, TV adspend took another nail in the coffin, and UK politicians decided to make 100meg broadband an election issue. Brands, media and policy makers: channel switches are everywhere.

The mobile channels will dominate this year's switch the way social media did last year. Mobile wars are intensifying with Nokia's Ovi Maps set to decimate TomTom, Blackberry getting Kindle, and Google refocusing on the small screen ahead of a fusion with social media. But mobile isn't just for global giants - every brand needs a mobile digital strategy to reach customers in the right places through the routes they want. Building the technology and platforms is the easy bit; translating customer needs into the right services is way tougher.

Read February 2010

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Following from the launch of the PC e-book reader application, and iPhone e-book reader application, Amazon has now made their free Kindle application available on the BlackBerry platform. The free ‘Kindle for BlackBerry’ app will be accessible in the US for customers of networks including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, offering most titles for less than $9.99.

Amazon Kindle vice president Ian Freed said: “Since the launch of our popular Kindle for [Apple’s] iPhone app last year, customers have been asking us to bring a similar experience to the BlackBerry." The new BlackBerry Kindle application is designed to let readers view more than four hundred thousand books on their BlackBerry.

19/02/2010

Continue reading "Ebook readers: Kindle for Blackberry as fight with iPad heats up " »

The BBC will launch a range of free mobile applications to deliver its online content to mobile devices, with the possibility of an iPlayer application for smartphone users ready by the end of this year.The broadcaster is reportedly planning to launch mobile apps for BBC News in April followed by apps for BBC Sport in May. The BBC will launch both apps in a UK and a global version.

The news app will first be available on the iPhone from April, with apps compatible with the BlackBerry and devices based on Google's Android operating system and others following shortly after. The sports app will be launched in time for the football World Cup in June. Erik Huggers, the director of future media and technology at the corporation, yesterday announced plans to launch apps for BBC News and BBC Sport for the first time as well as a dedicated app for the iPlayer, its online catch-up service.

19/02/2010

Continue reading "BBC to develop news, sport and iPlayer mobile apps " »

Italian car maker Fiat has launched the first UK Facebook sampling ad campaign, promoting its Punto Evo model. The ads are targeted to 18-34 year olds in the UK, with some targeted specifically at car enthusiasts. As part of the campaign, Fiat will be using sampling ads on Facebook and will be the first brand to use this type of engagement ad in the UK.

Already launched in the US, sampling ads are designed to enhance the direct response element of the campaign. The new format enables brands to test any product and get valuable feedback – in Fiat’s case, this provides an opportunity for continued engagement with its target audience. Alongside advertising formats such as ‘become a fan’ or ‘attend an event’, Sampling Engagement Ads enable brands to offer free samples of a product to Facebook Users.

19/02/2010

Continue reading "Fiat launches UK’s first Facebook sampling ad campaign " »

Websites ranked by visits for the week ending 13th February 10

Sites ranked by visits for the week ending 13th Feb 10.

SeeSaw, a free online aggregation service offering a selection of UK broadcasters’ content, has launched after completing beta tests. So far, SeeSaw has signed content partnership deals with BBC Worldwide, Channel 4, Five and several major independent production companies. However, the company could not ink a deal with ITV.

SeeSaw is completely funded by advertising with Ikea and Kraft among the advertisers that have already signed up. The service has been trialled by 20,000 people during its beta phase. It will go live with over 3,000 hours of content. SeeSaw's owner Arquiva hopes to cash in on the growing trend of viewers watching back catalogue shows online via each broadcaster's own website.

18/02/2010

Continue reading "SeeSaw launches TV site in UK " »

LinkedIn and Microsoft have launched a new service allowing LinkedIn members to bring their professional network right into their Outlook Inbox. The new tool, called the LinkedIn Outlook Connector, can be accessed by LinkedIn in three steps to begin using their professional network within Outlook.

As soon as LinkedIn and Outlook are connected, Outlook will begin feeding in information about their LinkedIn network. Profile photos and LinkedIn activity for any connection that emails the member will start to appear. Members can see the latest activity for any LinkedIn connection who emails them right at the bottom of that email. See who they are connecting with, the articles they are reading and sharing, and the questions they are asking and answering.

18/02/2010

Continue reading "LinkedIn syncs up with Microsoft Outlook " »

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt predicted a massive shift of adverting revenues from the fixed web to mobile platforms similar to that from print publications to the internet. The change would happen because mobile advertising could be more precisely targeted, making it more effective, he said in a keyote at the Mobile World Congress, taking place this week in Barcelona.

“The reason is that we know more about the person [using the mobile]. For a start, we know where they are,” he said, referring to the fact that many handsets pack GPS and other location technologies." Schmidt also echoed Ericsson chief Hans Vestberg’s warning that mobile pricing will have to change as speeds increased. “Operators will have to introduce some kind of tiered pricing to deal with the fact that one percent of the users consume 70 percent of the bandwidth,” he said.

18/02/2010

Continue reading "Google predicts ad revenue shift from web to mobiles " »

Engines ranked by visits for the week ending 13th Feb 10.

Engines ranked by search volume for the 4 weeks ending 6th Feb 10.

Microsoft has unveiled its latest operating system for mobile handsets, Windows Phone 7. The OS was first shown this week at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. Including a completely redesigned interface Windows Phone 7 also brings more entertainment-based features from its Zune music player devices and Xbox Live gaming. Previous versions of Microsoft's OS for mobile phones were known as Windows Mobile, whereas the new version is called Windows Phone.

"In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience," said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

17/02/2010

Continue reading "Microsoft debuts Windows Phone 7 platform for mobiles " »

Adobe has made long-awaited updates to its Flash video player to support Google's Android phone platform, but iPhone users will still miss out. Adobe, whose Flash software delivers most video viewed online and made YouTube possible, also said it believed Apple would eventually bow to market pressure and include Flash on the iPhone and the new iPad tablet computer.

Apple has until now rejected Flash on these grounds, and has also said Flash is "buggy," blaming it for instances of its Mac computers crashing -- although almost every other device manufacturer, including hundreds of brand names -- supports it. On Monday, at the start of the week-long Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Adobe unveiled Adobe AIR for mobile devices, which provides developers tools to create Flash applications to be delivered through application stores for a variety of devices.

16/02/2010

Continue reading "iPhone misses out as Adobe brings Flash video to Android phones " »

Yahoo has partnered with Nectar, Sainsbury's loyalty card scheme, to provide targeted advertising for brands. The program is called Consumer Connect, and mirrors a scheme called Consumer Direct that Yahoo has been running in the US since 2003.

The aim is to combine Yahoo's online purchasing data and Nectar's consumer spending data together to allow brands to target their digital advertising.According to reports, Cadbury has already signed up to the program, along with five more FMCG brands. 20,000 'sample' Yahoo and Nectar customers have opted to be part of the trialling of the scheme. Their buying behaviour will be measured to make sure the resulting advertising is targeted correctly.

15/02/2010

Continue reading "Yahoo ads target Nectar customers based on shopping habits " »

British gamers spent £280m playing online casual games in 2009 according to a new report. The UK National Gamers Survey estimated that there are 13.3m Brits playing on various game portals but only 2.4m pay to play - an average of £117 per person per year.

Casual games are defined as those that can be played on social networks or online in short bursts, such as popular apps Farmville, Mafia Wars or Bejeweled Blitz. UK gamers also spent around £170 million playing their favourite games on their mobile, with all these figures set to rise in the future.

15/02/2010

Continue reading "Brits spend £280m on casual games online" »

The number of users accessing Facebook via mobile devices has increased by 54% to 100m mobile users in the last six months, according to stats released by the social network. According to an official release, this has happened in less than a period of six months after Facebook had announced a figure of 65 million people using Facebook via their mobile devices. The figures alos come less than a week after Facebook announced it was set to exceed 400 million users in total.

15/02/2010

Continue reading "1 in 4 Facebook users are mobile " »

Uk audience reach for top 10 parent companies, Jan 10

Time per person for top 10 parent companies, UK, Jan 10

Monthly Internet use: key indicators for UK web users, Jan 10.

Google is to make changes to the privacy settings on its new ‘Buzz’ social network amid concerns over privacy, after it emerged the network creates a profile for new users by drawing on their Gmail contacts.

Early users of Google Buzz had complained that they found the settings too complicated, especially the ones that relates to privacy. Privacy advocacy group the Electronic Privacy Information Centre's head Marc Rotenberg said he would lodge a complaint on the network's practices with the US Federal Trade Commission, adding: “People are surprised that Google treated a private [email] contact list as a public ‘friends’ list."

12/02/2010

Continue reading "Google's Gmail privacy challenge: 'private' contacts become 'public' social media friends? " »

Lloyds Banking Group has sold 70% of its stake in Esure, the online insurer, to the company’s founder Peter Wood.

The stake has been bought by a management buyout vehicle to be called Esure Group Holdings Ltd, led by Esure chairman Peter Wood. The stake has been sold for a cash consideration "slightly in excess" of £185m. As at 31 December 2008, esure had gross assets of £975.5m (including assets backing insurance liabilities).

12/02/2010

Continue reading "Lloyds sells off Esure stake for £185m " »

More than 1.2 billion 'tweets' were posted on micro-blogging website Twitter in January. Figures from web-monitoring firm Pingdom showed that there were 16 times as many tweets in January 2010 than there were in January 2009.

"Twitter is as of December processing more than one billion tweets per month. January passed 1.2 billion, averaging almost 40 million tweets per day. This is significantly more than Twitter was processing just a few months ago," it said.

In fact, January 2010 saw more tweets per day (39.5 million) than the whole of September 2008 and activity on Twitter has doubled since August 2009.

www.pingdom.com

In its continuing quest to speed up the Internet, Google has decided to build what it calls "ultra high-speed" broadband networks in some parts of the US, the company announced.The fibre networks will deliver a huge 1GB bps (bit per second) connections to homes at prices that will be "competitive," the company said. This would be 20 times faster than the highest speeds currently in the UK, which reach around 50MB. The services would cover between 50,000 and 500,000 people, Google said.

11/02/2010

Continue reading "Google to build super-fast broadband network in the US " »

The IAB has received the backing of publisher and broadcaster members to enforce Video Advertising Standard Templates (VAST 2.0) in the UK, to bring greater consistency to online video planning and buying.The inititive has been developed by the Internet Advertising Bureau’s Video Council – the group dedicated to the promotion of online video advertising.

VAST 2.0 is a global initiative created by IAB in the US, originally launched to bring greater consistency to online video planning and buying, and make the format more comparable with other media such as TV. It allows advertisers to easily run multi-site video campaigns from one point of contact, third party ad servers.

11/02/2010

Continue reading "IAB sets industry standards for online video ads " »

UK advertising spend in 2010 will rise by 2.8% by the end of the thrid quarter of this year, with online's share growing 4.2 percentage points during 2009, according to new research. The modest rise comes despite nine consecutive quarters of year-on-year decline. according to new figures from the Advertising Association (AA) and Warc.

Total UK ad spend for full year 2009 is now expected to be down 12.7% year-on-year representing the worst recession for the advertising industry since the quarterly survey began in 1982, the data found. Internet and cinema advertising were the only two mediums to record actual ad spend increases in Q3 2009, up 4.2% and 10.2% respectively.

The internet, including search, now accounts for almost two thirds of all classified advertising. Across all areas of advertising, the internet’s share gain of 4.2 percenage points is mainly at the expense of press – which fell by the same amount.

10/02/2010

Continue reading "UK ad spend set to rise this year, as web increases market share " »

Trinity Mirror has bought Guardian Media Group's Regional Media for £44.8 million, as the local arm of the Guardian struggled to make profit last year amid falling ad sales and growing competion from the internet.

Included in the sale are both GMG Regional Media's subsidiaries, MEN Media which publishes the Manchester Evening News and 21 weekly titles in the North-West, and Surrey and Berkshire Media, which publishes ten titles in the South-East including the Reading Post. The businesses of Regional Media made no operating profit in the 12 months to December 2009 and have gross assets of £8.7 million.

10/02/2010

Continue reading "Guardian ditches regional newspapers for web future" »

Google is set to launch a new smartphone translator tool that will be able to hear speech and translate it instantly.

The Times reports that the software would take the information learned from the company's text translation software, and Google’s existing voice recognition tools for smartphones.

At launch, the software will only be able to analyse small segments of speech before translation, but Google is aiming to develop the technology to work over long segments of speech, essentially helping people conduct whole conversations in another language.

Continue reading "Google to launch instant speech translator for smartphones " »

Facebook is to ditch Microsoft’s banner ads in favour of its own, but is now using Bing to power its site search engine, as the two companies overhaul their 2007 search ad deal.The move comes as Facebook has made a number of changes to its social network to mark its 6th birthday, with a new homepage layout that focuses on status updates, games and chat.

Microsoft acquired a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million in 2007, valuing the social network at $15bn. As part of the restucture, Microsoft will no longer be responsible for display ads on Facebook. Facebook claimed that its own display adverts - which can target viewers based on personal information - are better suited to the site than Microsoft's alternative.

08/02/2010

Continue reading "Facebook ditches Microsoft banner ads- but makes Bing default search engine " »

Australian audience reach for top 10 parent companies, Jan 10

Time per person for top 10 parent companies, Australia Jan 10

Monthly Internt use: key indicators for Australian web users, Jan 10

The Office of Fair Trading has cast doubt on the planned merger of T-Mobile UK and Orange, warning it could threaten competition."The OFT's initial view, following consultation, is that the joint venture threatens significantly to affect competition in mobile telecommunications in the UK," the agency said in a statement.

T-Mobile UK, which is owned by Germany's Deutsche Telekom, and Orange, which is owned by France Telecom, are planning to join forces to create a mobile operator that would have a 37-percent market share in Britain, beating nearest rival Vodafone - which holds 25 percent of the market.

05/02/2010

Continue reading "OFT to probe Orange and T-Mobile merger " »

Mobile software maker Symbian has made its smartphone platform open source, letting developers use and modify the platform's underlying source code for any purpose. Until now, the source code for the platform was only open to members of the Symbian organisation. The Symbian 3 platform, including applications, middleware, and the kernel itself, will be offered under terms of the Eclipse Public License and other open source licenses.

05/02/2010

Continue reading "Symbian opens smartphone platform to developers " »

More than one in seven legitimate marketing emails sent in Europe are not being delivered to consumer inboxes, according to a new study. The findings, from Return Path’s Email Deliverability Benchmark Report, found that in the second half of 2009, 15 per cent of European permission-based commercial email either went straight to recipients’ spam folders, or weren’t delivered at all.

The report measured inbox placement rates across North America and Europe . Return Path collected data on the success of more than half a million email campaigns between July and December 2009 to gain the most comprehensive picture of true “delivered” rates.

The report also found that inbox placement rates varied significantly between Internet Service Providers (ISPs). For ISPs in the UK , the proportion of messages successfully delivered to the inbox ranged from a high of 98.25 per cent, to barely 75 per cent for the most marketer-unfriendly ISP.

04/02/2010

Continue reading "1 in 7 marketing emails ‘undelivered in Europe’ " »

Pepsi is to ditch its iconic Super Bowl ads for the first time in 23 years, putting its cash into a social media charity project instead. The drinks brand has launched the Refresh Project, an online cause marketing campaign that asks readers how the company should give away its $20m grant money.

The project began yesterday (February 1), letting readers vote to give grants to a number of health, environment, culture, and education-related organisations. Pepsi plans to give away multiple grants each month, including two $250,000 grants, 10 $50,000 grants, and 10 $25,000 grants. Visitors are also encouraged to submit their own organisations and grant ideas.

02/02/2010

Continue reading "Pepsi ditches Super Bowl TV ads for $20m social media charity giveaway " »

If elected, The Conservatives are promising to deliver super-fast 100mb broadband by 2017, challenging both BT and BBC in the process. The party said it is confident that the UK Kingdom can become the first major European country to have internet speeds of up to 100 megabits per second by 2017.

The Conservatives have said they intend to break up what they described as British Telecom’s monopoly on providing internet connections, if they win this year’s General Election. Private investors from companies such as Carphone Warehouse and Sky would be given permission to use BT cables to provide the service. And if the market did not deliver, then a Tory government would extend the 3.5 per cent levy on the BBC license fee, currently being used for digital switchover, to pay for broadband expansion.

02/02/2010

Continue reading "Tories challenge BT and BBC as part of ‘100MB broadband’ pledge " »

Amazon has begun re-listing Macmillan e-books, following a weekend row with the publishing giant over pricing. Macmillan has been pressuring Amazon to adopt a new model for selling e-books that would give publishers more flexibility in setting prices.

The publisher said it preferred the ‘agency’ model for selling books for its forthcoming iPad device to the current “wholesale” terms for Amazon’s Kindle, the current leader in e-readers. Amazon responded on Friday by pulling all Macmillan’s physical and digital titles from its website and Kindle e-book store.

02/02/2010

Continue reading "Amazon re-lists Macmillan e-books after pricing row " »

Microsoft’s has seen profits increase 60% in the final quarter of 2009, attributing the success largely to its high profile marketing campaign for its new Windows 7 operating system.

In its quarterly results, Microsoft reported a net profit of $6.66bn (£4.13bn) for the three months to 31 December 2009, up from the $4.18bn (£2.59bn) it made in the same period a year earlier. It also reported record revenues of $19.2bn (£11.9bn).

02/01/2010

Continue reading "Windows 7 campaign pays off for Microsoft " »

Facebook and The Nielsen Company has launched Nielsen BrandLift in the UK, a web analytics system that uses Facebook polls to measure the effectiveness of online brand advertising. The move follows the products US launch in 2009, and marks the first product available outside the US from Facebook’s and Nielsen’s global, multi-year strategic alliance.

The alliance, formed in September 2009, is designed to help marketers better understand the value of the Internet in the overall marketing mix. Nielsen BrandLift uses opt-in polls on Facebook to measure the impact of advertising on consumer attitudes including brand perception, ad recall and purchase intent. So far, more than 70 studies have been conducted in the US across the FMCG, Retail, Media & Entertainment, Technology, Telecom, Financial and Automotive sectors.

01/02/2010

Continue reading "Facebook and Nielsen offer ‘Brandlift’ analytics to UK advertisers " »

Nokia has reported a big jump in quarterly profits after the mobile phone maker grew its share in the increasingly important smartphone sector. Net profits came in at 882m euros ($1.2bn; £760m) for the last three months of 2009, a 53% increase on the 576m euros recorded a year earlier.

This was achieved despite a 5% fall in sales, from 12.6bn euros to 12bn euros. The strong results capped a tough year for Nokia in which 12-month profits fell from 3.9bn euros to 260m euros.

Continue reading "Nokia boosted by smartphone sales " »

CMW has been appointed to create the social media and broader digital strategy for the launch of new Kellogg’s brand, Krave.

The Krave brand marks two new directions for Kellogg’s. Firstly, it’s the first time the company has created a cereal exclusively aimed specifically at the youth market (16-25 year olds) and secondly, it’s the first time that Kellogg’s has embarked on a heavyweight social media campaign to support a brand in the UK. Details of the social media strategy are yet to be revealed however it’s expected to build upon the above-the-line brand idea that has been developed by Leo Burnett.

01/02/2010

Continue reading "Kellogg’s begins social media push for new ‘youth’ cereal brand " »

Apple has unveiled its much anticipated new tablet device the iPad, with a likely UK launch this summer.Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive unveiled the touchscreen device at an event in San Francisco, describing the tablet, which will cost between $499 and $829 in the US, as a "third category" between smartphones and laptops.

The device, which looks like a large iPhone, can be used to watch films, play games and browse the web. The firm has also secured a deal with publishers including Penguin, Macmillan and Harper Collins to allow e-books to be downloaded directly to the device through a new iBook Store.

01/02/2010

Continue reading "Apple’s iPad set for June UK launch? " »

Yahoo posted its best results since hiring Carol Bartz as chief executive a year ago, as the online media giant plans a huge marketing blitz during 2010 to make up lost ground on market leader Google. Revenue remained in a funk during the latest quarter, slipping 4% to $1.73 billion. That still marked progress from the first nine months of 2009, when Yahoo's revenue dropped 12%. Yahoo's sales have now declined in five consecutive quarters, its deepest contraction in eight years.

01/02/2010

Continue reading "Yahoo makes profit, plans $100m campaign " »

It's 'make or break' time for digital marketing. The stories we've tracked as the year kicks off show the focus switching to ROI and getting digital marketing to drive real business results. Out goes 'reach', in comes 'engagement'; out goes 'buzz' and back comes 'conversion'; out goes 'last-click' thinking and in its place is 'lifetime value'. The recession has clearly forced through smarter thinking.

This should come as a great relief, because it wipes away the 'shiny object' obsession over the latest social media or iPhone app, and replaces it with a dose of sound business logic. Behind the scenes we're finding this in the digital marketing effectiveness audits we run for large brands. Often only small changes in process are needed to unlock much bigger shifts in results.

The Digital Training Academy team are seeing the same trends, but also removing ROI risks by getting the right capability in place. Their focus is giving teams the edge with competitive training that targets weakness in a rival's strategy.

And in terms of channels, mobile marketing and engagement is finally everywhere; it will dominate our digests this year.

Read January 2010

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Time per person for top 10 parent companies, UK, December 2010

UK audience reach for top 10 parent companies, December 2009

Monthly internet use: key indicators for UK web users, December 2009

UK shoppers spent £5.46 billion online in December – an equivalent of £88.93 per person, 17% up on December 2008, according to new research from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. Sales rose by 3.8% compared to November 2009, demonstrating typical growth for the month of December.

The peak week for online Christmas shopping was the second week in December. This was one week later than in 2008, as a combination of November postal strikes; shoppers holding out for bargains; increased confidence in delivery services; and Christmas falling on a Friday delayed the annual spending spree.

01/26/2010

Continue reading "Online retail sales up 14% in 2009 " »

Mobile ad network AdMob has released its December 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report, looking at regional changes in manufacturer and smartphone Operating System (OS) share. The report found that Apple and the iPhone OS leads in Western Europe, North America, Latin American and Oceania behind strength of millions of iPhones and iPod touches sold this year and heavy application usage.

Meanwhile, Nokia and the Symbian OS continues to lead in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe with its vast portfolio of devices. The December 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report breaks down, by region, trended manufacturer share across all mobile devices, smartphone OS share, and the top handsets and smartphones in the AdMob network.

26/01/2009

Continue reading "Global smartphone handset use: Apple and Nokia lead in different regions " »

Google has stressed it wants to continue to have a strong presence in the Chinese market, following its threats last week to pull out of the country altogether, amid security concerns and a sweeping cyber attack.

CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to analysts after the Q4 results were announced, saying Google remains "quite committed to being in China." But he reiterated that it would stop censoring its search results there, in “a reasonably short time from now. We like the Chinese people and our Chinese employees. We like the business opportunities there and we'd like to do that on somewhat different terms than we have.”

Meanwhile, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has called on authorities in Beijing to investigate the recent cyber attacks on Google. She said all companies should refuse to support "politically motivated censorship".

Continue reading "Google in China: Hackers, politics, strategy and new security patches for Internet Explorer " »

The government is today launching data.gov.uk, a website it hopes will enable developers to create new applications by offering free access to data collected by public bodies. The site will offer reams of public sector data, ranging from traffic statistics to crime figures, for private or commercial use.

The target is to kickstart a new wave of services that find novel ways to make use of the information. World wide web founder Tim Berners-Lee, was hired by PM Gordon Brown in June 2009 to oversee the project.

22/21/2010

Continue reading "UK government data: Open access for developers at data.gov.uk " »

Apple is reportedly planning a subscription style music streaming service for iTunes, offering a rival to Spotify’s business model. The Wall Street Journal reports that the rumoured move would follow Apple’s $85m acquisition of music streaming site LaLa in December.

It’s thought that LaLa’s infrastructure will form the framework of a newly rebadged iTunes music-streaming service to take on the likes of Pandora and Spotify. Along with free music streaming, the mooted iTunes overhaul will allow users to back up their music to online libraries, letting them stream their own tunes on their iPhones and the like while on the move, while an overhaul to the iTunes music store will see you able to buy and download music without first installing the iTunes software.

22/01/2010

Apple is reportedly in talks with Microsoft to turn Bing into the default search engine on the iPhone, as the company’s rivalry with Google deepens.

Google is currently the default search engine on the iPhone. A deal between Apple and Microsoft may mean iPhone owners would automatically get Microsoft's Bing as the main search engine, possibly requiring users to actively change phone settings if they want to search via Google. BusinessWeek magazine reports that the talks between Apple and Microsoft have been underway for weeks, citing ‘two people familiar with the matter’.

21/01/2010

Continue reading "Apple to make Bing default search engine for iPhone? " »

YouTube is launching a video rental service, initially featuring five movies shown at this year's Sundance Festival, with plans to expand later in the year. The first five films for rent are "The Cove," "Bass Ackwards," "One Too Many Mornings," "Homewrecker" and "Children of Invention." The service will go live on 22 January and will only be available in the US.

21/01/2010

Continue reading "YouTube tests online video rental market " »

Amazon is to stop paying commission to UK affiliates using paid and natural search techniques to drive customers to the retailer’s website.

The move follows similar action taken on the retail giants US affiliates several months ago. Amazon has sent an email to their UK affiliates preventing them from using certain paid search techniques and search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to drive sales to Amazon.

20/01/2010

Continue reading "Amazon drops payments to affiliates using search ads " »

Microsoft is to shorten the time it stores users' addresses from its Bing search queries from 18 months to six months, following a request from a European Union data privacy panel. It said the change would make its Bing search a better choice for privacy-conscious users than the world's leading search engine Google Inc., because Microsoft will delete the entire Internet Protocol address from search queries — the string of numbers that shows a computer's location.

"We believe that the balance between privacy and efficiency is very much in the mind of consumers," Microsoft's associate general counsel John Vassallo told reporters. "Getting the balance right does make the search engine more attractive."

20/01/2010

Continue reading "Search privacy: Microsoft cuts IP address storage to 6 months " »

YouTube is to begin streaming live cricket from India’s premier league, seeking sponsors in the process.The move marks the video sharing’s site first foray into live sport streaming, and is the result of a partnership between Google and Cricket’s IPL (India Premier League).

From March, 60 IPL matches will be shown and YouTube are on the lookout for a global sponsor as well as local ones. While this is the first sports event YouTube has agreed to broadcast, YouTube has streamed live concerts before, namely U2’s in October which had 10million viewers worldwide.

20/01/2010

Yahoo has claimed to become another victim of cyber–attacks in China, losing support from its own affiliate network Alibaba in the process. Last week Google issued a surprise challenge to the government in Beijing, threatening to pull out of China, after it suffered sophisticated cyber attacks on its network.Now its US rival, Yahoo, has been pulled into the dispute. Yahoo said that like Google, it too, had been a target of similar attacks in China.

Yahoo said it supported Google's position that the cyber attacks were deeply disturbing, and that violation of internet privacy should be opposed. But Yahoo's decision to support Google prompted its own partner in China, Alibaba, in which Yahoo owns a 40% stake, to call the move "reckless".

19/01/2010

http://cn.yahoo.com/

Google plans to submit a formal request to the Chinese government “in the coming days” for information about the hacking attacks launched from the country. The world's most popular search engine said last week it was thinking of pulling out of China after a “sophisticated” attack on its network that resulted in theft of its intellectual property.

Sources said the attack, which targeted people who have access to certain parts of Google networks, may have come from Google China's office. “We're not commenting on rumour and speculation. This is an ongoing investigation, and we simply cannot comment on the details,” a Google spokeswoman said.

19/01/2010

Continue reading "Google and China: Hackers, government and a stormy 2010 " »

The huge success of comparethemarket.com’s ad campaign featuring meerkat character Aleksandr Orlov has given a boost to the TV ad sector, according to a news report.

Speaking to the Guardian this weekend, Ian Millner, co-founder of ad agency Iris, said price comparison websites are “ploughing money into TV advertising, where agencies can make their name with creative ideas, because with no real-world presence these websites win or lose on their brand marketing”.

Since hitting TV screens last January the meerkat character Aleksandr Orlov’s impact on the ad industry has been compared to that of Howard Brown on banking advertising after the all-singing, all-dancing Halifax employee debuted on TV on Boxing Day 2000.

19/01/2010

Continue reading "CompareTheMarket: Upbeat findings for TV ad campaigns " »

The former founder of file-sharing site OiNK was last week found not guilty of "conspiracy to defraud" by the Teesside Crown Court. Alan Ellis, aged 26, was the defendant in the UK’s first file sharing trial. He set up Oink 2004 as a BitTorrent (P2P) file sharing tracker website that hosted links to copyright content such as music and films.

OiNK was shut down in 2007 following a two year investigation by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a court case followed. It's estimated that the website aided in the download of 21 million music files. In the end it proved too difficult for Rights Holders to win a criminal case against a P2P torrent links website, partly because such activity is still considered to be a civil matter and P2P sites do not actually host any illegal content themselves. Alan Ellis, who made £35k per year from OiNK, was unanimously found not guilty by the jury of 12.

18/01/2010

Continue reading "UK's first file sharing trial: Mixed messages from copyright court " »

Marketing budgets at UK companies were cut for the ninth quarter running at the end of 2009, but the rate of decline was the slowest for two years as marketers switched their budgets to the web, according to a new report.

The latest Bellwether Report, released by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and accountancy group BDO, also found that companies were at their most optimistic for five years. The report said 25 per cent of companies reported a fall in total spending, while 18 per cent reported an increase. The balance of -7 is a marked improvement from the -15 the previous quarter and was "the highest since the first quarter of 2008, and well above the record lows seen in late 2008 and early 2009".

18/01/2010

Continue reading "Internet advertising trends: Bellwether shows how recession drove switch to web " »

Nine in ten (90%) of Brits always tick the opt out box on marketing communications to prevent their data from being passed to third party, according to a new survey. The study, from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), shows that marketers are continuing to underestimate the percentage of consumers who readily welcome items of direct marketing.

The 2009 Marketing-GAP Tracking Study, conducted by online market research company fast.MAP, found that the expert panel expected 57 per cent of consumers to always tick the ‘opt-out’ box on marketing communications to prevent their data from being passed to third party, when in fact 90 per cent of consumers always do so. The study looked into consumer attitudes to marketing has revealed that email is consumers’ favourite direct marketing channel.

15/01/2010

Continue reading "9 in 10 Brits tick third party opt out box for emails " »

Spanish audience reach for top 10 parent companies, December 2009

Time per person for top 10 parent companies, Spain, December 2009

Monthly internet use: key indicators for Spanish web users, December 2009

Habbo Hotel, a virtual world for teens, has signed up to Facebook’s Connect service to bring users of both services together. Sulake's 15 million regular unique users of Habbo Hotel can now use Facebook Connect to find their Facebook friends in Habbo Hotel.

Established in 31 countries and generally popular with a teenage audience, Habbo Hotel offers a more gaming orientated environment than Facebook, and encourages users to customise rooms, train pets and even invent social games. Founded in Finland, Sulake has also been exceedingly successful in courting big brands, which regularly invest in a virtual presence in Habbo Hotel.

14/01/2010

Continue reading "Habbo Hotels syncs users up with Facebook " »

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Schools Secretary Ed Balls have announced that 270,000 low income families are to get free computers and broadband access. The £300 million investment in the ‘Home Access’ programme is designed to give young people access to a computer and internet at home for their education, and help get parents better involved and keep in touch with their child’s progress.

Families with children in years three to nine, who are entitled to free schools meals, will be able to apply for a grant to buy a computer and broadband connection from an approved supplier.Looked after children up to the age of 18 will also receive laptops, and the scheme will offer bespoke packages to provide more support for SEN children.

13/01/2009

Continue reading "Low income families to get free computer and internet " »

Google has announced that it will no longer abide by China’s censorship laws, and may shut it’s ‘google.cn’ website altogether, following a cyber attack aimed at gathering information on human rights activists.

In a company statement, David Drummond, Google senior v.p., corporate development and chief legal officer, said: We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.” The search giant attributed its change in stance to cyber attacks from China on dissidents using its Gmail service and on companies.

13/01/2010

Continue reading "Google threatens to quit China over censorship rules " »

AOL plans to slash a third of its workforce will lead to a significant reduction in UK jobs, as the Internet media giant looks to cut 1,200 jobs worldwide. AOL, which spun of from Time Warner last month, announced in November it would be cutting 2,300 jobs around the world.

Since then, 1,100 employees have taken voluntary redundancies. AOL still needs to cut some 1,200 jobs to reach its goal of slashing its workforce by a third. In a statement, AOL said it would be announcing redundancies in the US tomorrow, and had begun meeting with European employees.

13/01/2010

Continue reading "AOL to cut more UK jobs as German and French offices close " »

Digital marketing group Latitude has been bought out of administration by its management team, following funding issues dating back to its aquisition in 2007. The Daily Telegraph reports that the move will write off millions of pounds in loans from Barclays as part of the ‘pre-pack deal’ to Latitude.

The bank provided a £10m loan to Vitruvian in 2007 to aid the acquisition of the company. Latitude management has team has now increased its stake in the company and has raised additional capital to accelerate the growth of the business.

13/01/2010

Continue reading "Latitude jobs safe after MBO " »

Carphone Warehouse is to drop the Tiscali name for its broadband service following its purchase of the company back in may last year. The move will see Carphone’s Talk Talk brand replace all Tiscali services. Carphone Warehouse paid £236m for Tiscali UK, making TalkTalk the largest ISP in the country, with 4.25 million residential customers. Tiscali UK's business customers are now subscribers to Opal, Carphone Warehouse's business ISP.

12/01/2010

Continue reading "Carphone Warehouse phases out Tiscali brand name in UK " »

France is planning a tax on search engine ad revenue to raise money to invest into creative industries weakened by the digital revolution. Besides Google, the tax would target other large operators in Europe such as Microsoft and Yahoo! whether or not their offices are in France.

Google's European headquarters are in Ireland, but under the proposal, the operator would pay a levy every time a French internet user clicks on an advertising banner or sponsored link on its sites. The proposal is outlined in a government-commissioned survey, and forms part of the counties latest drive to regulate the internet, which has seen it enact some of the world's toughest antipiracy legislation.

11/01/2009

Continue reading "France plans 'Google tax' on internet searches " »

Ford has unveiled new technology that could allow drivers to use Twitter, stream online radio and search the web from behind the wheel.The technology, Called MyFord Touch, the system is powered by Ford's SYNC technology and has been designed with Microsoft. It was revealed last week by Ford's chief executive Alan Mulally at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Mulally said: 'We are bringing the internet to the car. All the applications you can get on mobile phones, we'll bring in the car. It will all be absolutely hands-free and voice activated – keeping the driver focused on the road'. Some of the applications promised by Mulally include Wi-Fi connectivity for up to five users in the car, text messages or tweets read aloud to drivers, and the ability to stream internet radio.

11/01/2010

Continue reading "Ford launches first ‘Twitter car’ with web apps " »

Apple has acquired Quattro Wireless for a reported $275m, as the iPhone maker looks to challenge Google in the mobile advertising arena. Quattro announced the deal in a blog posting Tuesday by Andy Miller, now vice president of mobile advertising at Apple. "We are thrilled to let you know that Apple has acquired Quattro," Miller wrote. "We want to share with you our excitement about this news and what it means for our customers.

"We have built our business by enabling advertisers to reach the right consumers across the mobile web and in applications," Miller added. "We remain focused on delivering more engaging, relevant and useful ads to mobile devices, and improving the measurement and execution of digital campaigns. Together with Apple, we look forward to developing exciting new opportunities in the future that will benefit our customers."

Sources indicated Apple would pay $275m for Quattro. Quattro is a competitor to AdMob, which Google agreed to acquire in November for $750m.

07/10/2010

Continue reading "Apple buys mobile ad network " »

Disney has unveiled plans for its online storage service, called 'Keychest', that will give users access to the studio's movies and TV shows online, offering an alternative to DVDs and Blu-rays. Using Keychest, consumers would purchase access rights to a film or TV show, rather than have physical ownership of material on a disc.

Disney hopes the technology will be deployed before the end of 2010. KeyChest will let consumers buy films or television shows from various distributors, store them on remote servers, and play them on multiple platforms ranging from TVs to computers and phones. Disney said it plans to roll-out KeyChest for both the U.S. and the international market, and that it will soon announce partners who will participate in the program.

07/01/2010

Continue reading "Disney to launch online storage scheme ‘KeyChest’ by end of year " »

Facebook is testing a new application that allows its users to moderate content posted by others on the social network. The Facebook Community Council application is currently being tested with a very small number of users, selected on an invite-only basis.

An FCC member can check items published on Facebook for offensiveness along the lines of personal attacks, violence, drug abuse and so on. FCC members are only allowed to click on one of the following alert flags inside a special FCC members-only app if they find something objectionable: Spam, Acceptable, Not English, Nudity, Drugs, Attacking, Violence.

07/01/2010

Continue reading "Facebook enlists users for ‘online safety council’ " »

Skype is now offering video calls on PCs in 720p high definition (HD), as well as Skype software embedded into Internet-connected widescreen televisions from its consumer electronics manufacturer partners.

The latest version of Skype for Windows can deliver up to 720p HD-quality video calling at 1280 x 720 resolution, at up to 30 frames per second. To make an HD video call, users will need a high-speed broadband connection, a new HD webcam, a PC with a 1.8 GHz dual-core processor and Skype 4.2 Beta for Windows.

Continue reading "Coming to a TV near you: Skype goes high definition " »

Google's Chrome web browser has overtaken Apple's Safari to become the third most popular web browser, according to new research. The data, from Net Applications, puts Chrome in third place with 4.63% of the market, ahead of safari with 4.46%.

Google’s browser, which launched just over a year ago, still has a lot of ground to make up to match market leaders Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (63%) and Mozilla’s Firefox (25%). Chrome's 0.7 percent jump from November to December can partly be attributed to the beta launch versions of the Chrome Web browser for Mac OS X and Linux.

04/01/2010

Continue reading "Google Chrome now third most popular browser " »

Google has finally launched its much-anticipated smartphone, Nexus One, which aims to rival Apple's iPhone. The device, made by Taiwanese company HTC, will be sold through Google's website from today and initially be available on T-mobile in the US followed by Vodafone in the UK in the first quarter of 2010.

A Vodafone spokesman said it was the first operator to "bring the Google phone to the UK" but stressed it was a "non-exclusive agreement", meaning that other networks could also offer it soon. Direct from Google the sim-free handset will cost £331. Google said the phone would ship from launch day.

06/01/2010

Continue reading "Google starts selling first-ever mobile handset 'Nexus One' " »

The Conservatives are planning on running a competition for web developers to create a website that would allow large groups of people to help shape new policies- provided they win the next general election. The £1m taxpayer-funded prize would be rewarded to the online platform deemed by the Tories to best harness 'the collective wisdom of the British people'.

The winning product must deliver an effective and available site for the public to post their ideas on, as well as a truly beneficial outcome for it to be worthy of the £1m payout, which the party says would be the biggest prize offered by a British government in the modern era.

05/01/2010

Continue reading "Tories to offer web developers £1m prize for user-generated policy site " »

The FT expects the revenue from subscriptions to overtake the money it makes from print ads for the first time this year.

FT Group chief executive, John Ridding attributed the growth to cover price rises, online charging and a rising number of corporate clients.

FT circulation revenues rose in 2009, despite a drop year on year in print circulation and it says revenues from FT.com digital subscribers rose 30% over the year, as readership rose around the world mirroring a strong appetite for financial news during the economic downturn.

05/01/2010

Continue reading "FT subscription revenues ‘to overtake ad income for first time’ " »

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has criticised Ryanair for introducing a new online fee on its customers, calling it "quite puerile," according to a newspaper report.

The low-cost airline last month started charging the five-pound (5.6 euro) fee per passenger for a ticket bought using a commonly-used Electron card, which had previously been free.

OFT chief executive John Fingleton has criticised the carrier for charging online customers for using a common type of bank card, adding it was operating within "the narrow letter of the law."

Ryanair advertises taxes and other fees upfront but only mentions charges for paying by plastic at the end of a booking on the grounds that customers could escape the fee by using a less-common prepaid card.

01/04/2010

Continue reading "Watchdog slams Ryanair over ‘puerile’ internet charges " »

The BBC Trust has provisionally approved the BBC's involvement in Project Canvas, a service that will allow UK viewers to watch free-to-air broadcasts and Internet content on television.

The trust, an independent body that oversees the license-fee funded BBC, said that "the likely public value of the proposal justifies any potential negative market impact," after it faced criticism from pay-TV companies, in particular British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC (BSY.LN).

Project Canvas is a joint venture between the BBC and ITV, BT, Five as well as recent additions Channel 4 and Carphone Warehouse.

01/01/2010

Continue reading "BBC allowed to take part in internet TV service ‘Project Canvas’ " »

YouTube has launched a new URL shortening service, putting the video sharing platform in direct competiton with market leaders bit.ly and TinyURL.

In a blog posting, Google engineering manager Vijay Karunamurthy announced youtu.be as a shortener for all YouTube video links. and nothing but YouTube links. So you can rest assured that when you see a link with this URL, you are indeed about to click on a YouTube video. Also, because the link contains the ID of the video you're going to see, developers can do interesting things like show you thumbnails, embed the video directly, or track how a video is spreading in real time."

01/01/2010

Continue reading "YouTube debuts own short URL service " »

The French government is fining Google the equivalent of $14,300 until it stops displaying excerpts from copyrighted literary works on its Google books service.

A Paris court also ordered the search giant to pay $430,000 in damages and interest to French publisher La Martiniere, which brought the case on behalf of a group of French publishers. Google attorney Alexandra Neri said the company would appeal.

22/12/2009

Continue reading "France fines Google $14,300 a day for book copyright breach " »

Twitter will make around $25m from the search deals struck with Google and Microsoft in October, enough to push the site into profitability, according to a report.C iting ‘people familiar with the deal’, Bloomberg reports that the deal to make Twitter’s messages searchable on Google netted the micro-blogging firm some $15m, while a similar deal with Microsoft’s Bing search engine will earn Twitter about $10m. Bloomberg’s sources asked to remain anonymous because the terms aren’t public.

21/12/2009

Continue reading "Twitter 'made $25m from Google and Microsoft search deals'" »

People in the UK watched more TV and sent more texts than people in many other countries, but had slower broadband, according to new research. The study, from telecoms watchdog Ofcom, found the UK remains the country with the highest proportion of households with digital TV on their main set - at 88%. The Ofcom study compared the UK with 12 countries including France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the US.

The Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Japan and the Irish Republic were among the other countries included in the study. The report also looked at the communications markets in four "emerging countries," namely Brazil, Russia, India and China. It found the UK had seen the highest average rise in TV viewing in 2008, up by 3.2% to 3.8 hours a day.

21/12/2009

Continue reading "Brits watch more TV online- but have slower broadband " »

Iran, Swine Flu, Michael Jackson, Susan Boyle and Harry Potter all featured in the top trending topics on Twitter during 2009. Twitter "helped us understand what was happening around the world, showing us that people everywhere can be united in concern," Twitter chief scientist Abdur Chowdhury said.

Twitter was born just three years ago from a day-long brainstorming session by the board members of a podcasting company, Odeo, but found its breakthrough at the South by Southwest music festival a year later.

Last year, businesses, media and celebrities latched onto the system, skewing the demographic toward older adults.But as 2008 unfolded, Twitter took hold during the U.S. presidential election and as a disaster communications tool during the attacks in Mumbai. CNN declared social media "came of age" in Mumbai as people used the medium to track victims and injuries.

18/12/2009

Continue reading "Twitter reveals top trends of 2009 " »

Britain's Got Talent star Susan Boyle's first audition was the most watched video on YouTube during 2009.

The talent show runner-up's surprising rendition of 'I Dreamed A Dream' has been watched by more than 120 million viewers worldwide, making it more popular than the next three most-watched videos combined. The list marks the first time YouTube has revealed its most popular videos.

In second place, with more than 37 million views, was ‘David After Dentist’ a video featuring a disorientated seven-year-old boy recovering from dental work. Third place went to JK Wedding Entrance Dance, which showed an convoluted dance routine featuring members of their entourage just before their wedding. The video garnered 33 million views, prompting Sony, which owned the rights to the Chris Brow song that provided the soundtrack to the video, placing a link next to the video allowing people to buy the song and also shared profits from sales of ads on the site.

17/12/2009

Continue reading "YouTube reveals top videos of 2009 " »

Only 13% of internet users would be prepared to pay for access to online media, although Brits show a higher than average willingness to fork over cash for Internet content, a survey has found.The research, carried out by GfK on behalf of the Wall Street Journal Europe, examined internet use in 16 European countries and the US.

80 per cent of respondents said they wanted continued free access to information online, and of the 13 per cent of users willing to pay, 8 per cent would accept a charge for advertising-free content, and 5 per cent would pay for content with advertising.

17/12/2009

Continue reading "Brits ‘more willing to pay for online content’ " »

Our final news round-up of the year saw more 2010 trends take centre-stage. Google's search getting more mobile and personal (long awaited, and sure to shift the market), and the paid for consumer content movement continued to push forwards (sure to trundle forwards, though with far less likelihood of success).

Government policy made headlines with a storm around the Digital Economy Bill and the 50p broadband tax that got the green light in the UK's pre-budget report. Linked to this is the way regulators will play a much bigger role in 2010 - the first spotlight will be on the MS/Yahoo tie-up and the second on privacy. Facebook's lead on safety (giving kids a special "panic" button) is a shrewd move in delivering what's needed, and here in the UK we've been helping the Information Commissioner's Office develop the thinking around what's needed for the hundreds of thousands of small firms now routinely using personal data.

You'll find lots more ideas to fuel your strategy in the news, research and data we've written up below. Click on the links for 50 full stories, forward around to colleagues, and let me know if you need more of the background as you develop your own 2010 digital strategy.

Read December 2009

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The overall number of entertainment & media (E&M) insolvencies has now reached record levels from the early days of the credit crunch, according to new research. Autumn 2009 marked a milestone of 1000 insolvencies in the UK entertainment and media sector since June 2007, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) business recovery analysis.

But publishing failures alone jumped nearly 25 percent this year (January to October inclusively) on 2008 despite a recovery for other sectors such as advertising. In fact publishing failures account for a third of all E&M insolvencies.

16/12/2009

Continue reading "Over 1000 UK media companies went bust in past 2 years " »

Twitter is testing a new feature that lets businesses run shared accounts on the micro-blogging service. The "Contributors" feature enables companies to have accounts that workers can share when it comes to sending text messages to customers or others. Accounts bear the names of businesses, but workers fielding questions or announcing developments would get bylines identifying their tweets.

16/12/2009

Continue reading "Twitter debuts first business app ‘Contributors’ " »

90% of European internet users go online weekly to search for information, while more than 4 out of 10 consumers search for information on brands and products via comparison, expert and user review sites, according to new research.

The new report, from Marketers & Consumers, Digital & Connected was conducted in 16 European countries.It also found that the web is the platform for a lively peer-to-peer economy, a third of European internet users have sold something to another user via online classified or auction sites.

15/12/2009

Continue reading "Study reveals European web habits " »

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has extended its remit to online-only publications.

Until now, online versions of newspapers and magazines have come within the remit of the PCC but online-only publications have not. The Press Standards Board of Finance (PressBoF) said the change will relate mainly to online magazines, where the publisher and editor must subscribe to the Editors' Code of Practice.

15/12/2009

Continue reading "Press complaint body extends remit to cover online-only publications " »

Scandinavian operator TeliaSonera has become the first mobile network operator to launch commercial LTE mobile broadband services, offering mobile download speeds 10 times faster than standard 3G services.

The services went live in the centres of Oslo and Stockholm on Monday, offering theoretical maximum speeds of 100Mbps and real-world speeds of 20-80Mbps. Mobile users in Norway and Sweden will be able to buy a mobile dongle that supports the ‘4G’ network (the official IEEE definition of that term cites 100Mbps as a minimum speed.)

15/12/2009

Continue reading "Norway and Sweden get world’s first '4G' mobile broadband " »

Google is working on the development of its own mobile phone device, which is currently being tested by the company's employees. The search giant has teamed up with handset maker HTC for the project. As yet, the company has not released an official name, although codenames are believed to include Phone 88 and Nexus One, a reference to the film Blade Runner.

15/12/2009

Continue reading "Google unveils plans for smartphone " »

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is facing a backlash from privacy advocates following comments made during a TV interview last week.

When asked during an interview for CNBC's recent "Inside the Mind of Google" special about whether users should be sharing information with Google as if it were a "trusted friend," Schmidt responded, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

14/12/2009

Continue reading "Google CEO faces privacy backlash after talk show comments" »

AOL and Time Warner have formally split after almost 10 years as one company. The companies merged back in 2001, in what was dubbed the "deal of the century" at the time.
However, AOL soon started loosing market share as it was slow to react to the shift from dial-up to broadband internet access. In 2002, AOL had 26 million dial-up customers, now it has 5.4 million. However, it still earns 43% of its revenue from these die-hard subscribers and runs several successful media sites including tech blog Engadget. On Thursday, investors will get their chance to rate AOL's prospects when the shares start live trading. The occasion will be marked by AOL's chief executive, Tim Armstrong, who will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

11/12/2009

The government's controversial broadband tax has been given the go ahead by chancellor Alistair Darling in his pre-Budget report. The £6-a-year levy will be imposed on all households with a fixed line phone. The money made will be put into a fund to ensure rural areas of the UK do not miss out on super-fast broadband services.

Mr Darling said the government would provide super-fast broadband to 90% of the UK by the end of 2017. Announcing the tax, Mr Darling said: "We are modernising the UK's digital infrastructure and, in the process, creating thousands more skilled jobs. We have provided funding to help extend the opportunities of the broadband network to more remote communities. We now want to go further, so we can provide the next generation of super-fast broadband to 90 per cent of the population by the end of 2017."

11/12/2009

Continue reading "50p broadband tax gets green light in pre-budget report " »

Sites ranked by visits for the week ending 5th Dec 09.

Search terms ranked by clicks for the weeks ending 5th Dec 09.

Sites ranked by visits for the week ending 5th Dec 09.

Nearly 100% of government transactions will be carried out online by 2014, saving £400m in three years, according to a new report. The Putting the Frontline First report outlines how the government expects to free-up money for public services by streamlining back-office processes.
The government hopes that putting all services online will lead to better services and free-up staff to deal personally with individuals.

09/12/2009

Continue reading "Government plans to put all public services online by 2014 " »

Online advertising overtakes TV for the first time during the first half of 2009.

Paid for search dominates with two-thirds of the digital advertsing spend during the first half of 2009.

Google has unveiled its much anticipated real-time search service, the result of a series of partnership deals struck with leading social networks facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Amit Singhal, Google fellow, introduced the real-time section during an event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. "We are here today to announce Google real-time search," Singhal said, describing it as: "Google relevance technology meets the real-time web".

Twitter messages and other fresh content streamed into a box on Google's main search page in a demonstration of the new feature, which will be rolled out at all English-language search sites in the coming days.

09/12/2009

Continue reading "Google links with Twitter, MySpace and Facebook for real-time search " »

Google has begun testing a new search product called ‘Goggles’, which lets users scour the Internet with mobile telephone cameras or spoken words in multiple languages. The service uses online using pictures taken with cameras in mobile phones based on its Android operating system.

"When you take a mobile phone camera and connect it to the Internet, it becomes an eye," Google mobile search vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said while demonstrating Goggles in Mountain View, California.

09/12/2009

Continue reading "Google uses phone pics to conduct searches " »

Google' has begun tracking the search behaviour of all its users to offer more refined results and targeted ads, expanding the service beyond those with a Google account. The move will see Google using a cookie placed on users' machines to track their search behavior and offer personalised recommendations, even when they are not logged into a Google account.

08/12/2009

Continue reading "Google expands personalised search to non-account holders " »

Google is in talks with US TV networks to charge viewers for streaming ad-free shows on YouTube, according to reports. Technology website All Things Digital reports that that "preliminary discussions" are taking place in the US between Google, which owns YouTube, and some of the major television networks. The move would see viewers charged around $1.99 to watch episodes of their favourite shows online, without any adverts, the day after they were first broadcast on TV.

08/12/2009

Continue reading "YouTube to start charging for ad-free shows? " »

News Corp. is joining a new, independent digital publishing consortium in the US, according to a news report. The Financial Times reports that the consortium - which also involves Time Warner's Time Inc., Conde Nast, Hearst Corp. and Meredith - could be announced this week. The paper reported that the five US publishing giants are set to this week target the e-reader market 'to wrestle control of its digital future' from the market leaders Amazon, Apple and Sony.

08/12/2009

Continue reading "News Corp joins US ‘digital newsstand’ " »

Yahoo has just launched its Ad Interest Manager designed to make online advertising more transparent. The opt-in service gathers information based on searching habits to provide relevant advertisements to the user. The Ad Interest Manager site lets the user see a summary of their online activity on Yahoo’s content network. They can then determine their level of exposure to interest-based ad served by the Yahoo Ad Network.

08/12/2009

Continue reading "Yahoo puts users in control of ads they see" »

Facebook and other networking sites are to install panic buttons enabling children to alert administrators if 'inappropriate' material is posted. The Sunday Times reports that 140 companies, charities and other groups have signed up to the code and that Home Secretary Alan Johnson is set to announce the new scheme today (Tuesday). The initiative also includes the obligation for sites to provide 'safe search' facilities, allowing parents to restrict access to offensive pages. The government will also launch a national advertising campaign aimed at parents, teachers and kids.

08/12/2009

Continue reading "Facebook forms safety board, gives children ‘panic’ button " »

Apple has bought US-based online music store Lala for an undisclosed sum, fueling rumours the company could be adding subscription-based music services via iTunes. The New York Times confirmed the purchase last Friday, citing a person with knowledge of the deal. Lala lets users listen to a catalog of around 8 million songs for free through the Web. According to Lala's site, users can pay 10 cents for unlimited plays of a song; they can also download an MP3 version for 89 cents.

08/12/2009

Continue reading "Apple’s Lala buy to pave way for iTunes subscription service? " »

Microsoft and Yahoo have finalized the terms of a broad search and advertising agreement intended to help them compete more effectively with Google. The deal was first announced in July, letting Microosoft’s new Bing search engine to power Yahoo’s search results. In return, Yahoo will provide premium search-advertising services for both companies. They had hoped to finalize the deal in late October but needed more time to work out the details.

08/12/2009

Continue reading "Microsoft cements Yahoo search ad deal– but still awaits regulator approval " »

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Senior researcher: Ben Le Foe

Ben moved into online in 1999 as a channel producer for AOL. His work began with the creation of content and quickly expanded to include the development and nurturing of communities in a pioneering publishing model we now know more familiarly as 'Web 2.0'. Ben joined Digital in 2001 and has been researching and writing for Digital Intelligence ever since.