Digital Intelligence

A study entitled Digital World, Digital Life from TNS Global has found that Chinese internet users under 25 spend on average 50% of their leisure time online, writes ZDNet. Japanese and Koreans shared second place behind the Chinese, with each countries respondents claiming to spend 40% of their free time using the internet. Chinese internet users are very engaged with social media, with 94% of those polled using online forums or message boards and 60% contributing on a regular basis. Nearly 90% read or contribute to blogs and 85% use chat rooms.
In the UK, the report found that adult British internet users spend on average 28% of all their free time on the internet (rising to 32% for 18-24 year olds). British housewives came top for leisure time spent online, whiling away 47% of their free time on the internet. Top activities for British internet users include searching for information (80%), using online banking (76%) and reading the news (75%).
In total the study polled 27,522 internet users across 16 countries. On average and across all those surveyed people now spend 30% of their leisure time online.
From ZDNet: http://news.zdnet.co.uk, 01/12/2008
TNS Global: http://www.tnsglobal.com

01/12/2008

Amazon UK has opened an online MP3 music store offering over 3m digital rights-free tracks from 59p and full albums from £3, writes Brand Republic. In contrast, the cheapest price for a single track on Apple's iTunes Music Store is currently 79p. All four major record labels (SonyBMG, Universal, EMI and Warner) are offering music through the new Amazon MP3 store, in addition to a number of independent labels such as Beggar's Banquet.
In total, online music sales in the UK were worth £163m in 2007.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 03/12/2008
Amazon MP3: http://www.amazon.co.uk/MP3-Music-Download/b?ie=UTF8&node=77197031

03/12/2008

Internet research firm comScore has launched its first white paper examining how people in the UK are using their mobile and Internet together. The report, entitled U. PC & Mobile Internet Usage, provides a comparative insight into Internet behavior across the country’s mobile and PC Internet screens. The UK paper, which is comScore’s first dual-screen publication in any of the global markets it currently tracks, aims to address the key concerns of marketers and content providers operating in this rapidly developing industry, providing:

• A trend analysis of PC and mobile Internet growth over the course of the past year.
• Demographic profiles of these audiences.
• Cross-platform trend analysis of key online sectors including social networking, search and email usage.
• An overview of U.K. smartphone usage, examining subscription rates as well as a comprehensive analysis of the most popular online domains being visited by this key mobile audience.
• A thorough introduction to comScore’s new M:Metrics mobile monitoring methodology.

03/12/2008  |  Full story...

ITV is planning to rename its online "Catch Up TV" service to the "ITV Player", writes Marketing Week. The service was launched in March 2007 and provides access to popular ITV shows such as Coronation Street and the X Factor. The news follows the announcement of a new deal between ITV and Google to serve AdSense text ads alongside search results on ITV.com. Google already powers the site's search listings which have seen traffic grow from 500,000 queries in August 2007 to almost 5m in November 2008. In total ITV.com receives an average of 5.2m monthly users.
From Marketing Week: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk, 05/12/2008
ITV: http://www.itv.com

05/12/2008

GroupM have forecast that online adspend in the UK will slow significantly during 2009, writes ClickZ. According to the firm's "This Year Next Year" report, GroupM expects year-on-year growth of just 3.7% in 2009, compared to 22% in 2008 and 36% in 2007. However the firm also anticipates that online will remain the only advertising sector to experience growth during 2009. Total UK adspend for all media is expected to fall during 2009, according to the study.
Further research from eMarketer also predicts much lower growth in 2009, with the firm now predicting a year-on-year rise of 7.2% (£3.58bn) in the UK.
Globally ZenithOptimedia expects total adspend to fall £14bn (down 0.2%) though online is still predicted to rise by 17.7%.
From ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com, 05/12/2008
GroupM: http://www.groupm.com

05/12/2008

Media analyst Screen Digest has released a report examining the market for mobile music in 27 countries worldwide, covering Europe, the US and Asia Pacific. With a number of companies now offering mobile music bundled for 'free' at point of delivery via the mobile, 'Mobile music, the end of the beginning: market assessment and forecasts', examines the different business strategies the players have adopted and forecasts the state of market in 2012. Screen Digest believes that mobile music revenues from consumer sales will have doubled from €1.6bn in 2007 to €3.2bn by 2012. Although personalisation services such as mastertones and ringback tones will still account for more than half of this sum, full track and video service revenues will have increased to 46 per cent in 2012 from 29 per cent at 2007 year end.

05/12/2008  |  Full story...

According to Hitwise, UK searches for discount vouchers have risen 133% during the last year. Visits to voucher websites have also grown, increasing by 45% during the same period. British internet users searched for over 20,000 variations on the term "voucher" during the 12 weeks ending 15th November. According to Hitwise consumers are more likely to visit retailers who offer sales and reductions in the run up to Christmas. Marks and Spencer recently attracted one in every 33 UK internet visits to online retailers (coming behind eBay and Amazon). Share of visits to the store nearly doubled as they reached 15.72% (up from 8.32% the day before).
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.com, 09/12/2008

09/12/2008

New figures from the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) show that Monday 8th December was the biggest online shopping day in 2008. Sales volumes were up 18% as sales values rose 14%, reaching £320m as consumers looked for bargains online. It was not the busiest day for online retail traffic however. According to Hitwise, traffic to retail sites accounted for 12.32% of all UK visits - the third highest result for 2008. The IMRG reasons that consumers are using the weekend to search for products before buying them online on Monday.
A number of online retailers broke sales figures on the day. Play.com had their busiest ever day with order volumes up 45% year-on-year. At peak trading time the firm processed over 1000 orders per minute – compared to 700 orders per minute at the same time in 2007. Sales for the day saw over 500,000 units shipped, including 115,000 copies of Batman: The Dark Knight. Firebox.com also had their busiest day ever with a record number of orders placed.
Research carried out earlier this year had found that 68% of shoppers were more likely to buy products online this Christmas with 77% of shoppers planning to purchase half or more of their Christmas shopping online (from 56% in 2007).
IMRG: http://www.imrg.org, 09/12/2008

09/12/2008

The third Measurement of Internet Delivered Audio Services from RAJAR has found that 31.7% of UK adults have listened to the radio via the internet. According to the study 16.1m people now claim to have listened to the radio online compared to 14.5m people in May this year. 15m people listen to the radio live and 13.5 use a Listen Again service. 89% listen at home, with 21% at work and 6% elsewhere.
The study also found that 7.2m people have now downloaded a podcast (from 6m in May), while 4.1m clam to listen to a podcast each week (from 3.7m in May 2008).
RAJAR: http://www.rajar.co.uk, 10/12/2008
Third Measurement of Internet Delivered Audio Services report (PDF)

10/12/2008

The BBC has suggested a range of possible partnerships with other UK public service broadcasters which include the sharing of its iPlayer technology and the development of a free-to-view broadband internet-enabled digital TV set-top box, writes The Guardian. The proposals were included in the corporation's final submission to Ofcom's public service broadcasting review. Other measures put forward include sharing regional news offices with ITV and scrapping fees for TV listings. Both ITV and BT have responded favourably to the BBC's suggestion to create an internet-based Freeview box and the three organisations are now working in partnership to promote a common industry approach to the delivery of TV services over the internet.
Were the BBC to share its iPlayer service with other broadcasters, it could eventually develop into a general video-on-demand platform. The service has received over 237m viewing requests since its official launch last Christmas and the corporation has recently said that it intends to launch its new version 3 in the first half of 2009.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 11/12/2008
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk

11/12/2008

Google has published a list of this year's top internet searches, writes Netimperative. The global top ten list includes two non-English language social networking sites: Spanish-aimed Tuenti and Polish-speaking Nasza Klasa. In the UK the success of the BBC's iPlayer service has seen the word come top of the fastest-rising terms list. The most popular search results in the UK are "Facebook", "BBC" and "YouTube".
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 11/12/2008
Google UK: http://www.google.co.uk

11/12/2008

The latest forecast from Informa Telecoms & Media predicts that annual revenues for the global mobile market will surpass $1.03tn by 2013, with total worldwide subscriptions passing 5.3bn, writes Telecoms.com. The firm estimates that the world's mobile market will increase by 56% between the end of 2007 and the end of 2013. While it took over 20 years for the world to reach 3bn mobile subscriptions, a further 1.9bn additional subscriptions are expected in only six years, with the 5bn point being crossed in 2011. According to Informa 78% of global net additions between 2007 and 2013 will come from Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America. Over half of these will come from only five markets: India, China, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia. By 2013 global subscription penetration will have reached 75%.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 15/12/2008
Informa Telecoms & Media: http://www.informatm.com

15/12/2008

Virgin Media has become the UK's first ISP to launch a super fast residential 50Mbps broadband service, writes Telecoms.com. The premium service costs £51/month, though this is reduced to £35 for users with Virgin phone lines. The service uses FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet) technology in conjunction with copper connections to the home. Virgin has been testing the network since the summer and aims to have it rolled out over its cable network during the next six months.
Virgin has also announced that it will be using use Yahoo's oneSearch service to power its Virgin Media mobile search engine. The firms intend to deliver search ads and sponsored search results on the service from early next year. The deal brings Yahoo's market share of the UK's mobile search audience to 80%.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 16/12/2008
Virgin Media: http://www.virginmedia.com

16/12/2008

New research from Nielsen has found that online adspend in China grew 42% year-on-year to reach $541m in Q3, writes eMarketer. eMarketer predicts that the China's total online adspend will reach $1.4bn during 2008, up 37% on 2007.
From eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com, 16/12/2008
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

16/12/2008

This list features the most popular websites based on UK Internet usage for November 2008, ranked by market share of visits across all Hitwise industries.

Source: Hitwise Datacentre, November 2008, based on market share of visits
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter

18/12/2008

Despite warnings of turmoil throughout the global economy, growth in mobile messaging shows no signs of slowing, according to new research. The study, commissioned by mobile messaging firm Airwide Solutions and conducted by comScore M:Metrics looked at the use of mobile messaging across the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The study shows that the number of people sending text messages (SMS) across the EU is growing 3.3% year on year, a figure only beaten by MMS which is growing by 9.2%.

18/12/2008  |  Full story...

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

20/12/2008

We hope you have enjoyed this year's editions of Digital Intelligence and in this final monthly review we show you how despite tough times on the high street online retail continues to break new records. In China online adspend continues to show extremely strong growth - no real surprise considering the majority of under-25s now spend half their time online. Further news from the broadcasting sector also continues to emphasise how the worlds of television, radio and online continue to converge and blur.

Best wishes for the holiday season from all of us here at Digital.
Read December 2008

23/12/2008

Here are the latest stats and figures from the past month.

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

23/12/2008

MySpace in implementing a novel way of generating ad revenues and resolving copyright issues with regards to copyrighted video clips uploaded by users, writes Netimperative. Using new technology from Auditude all clips uploaded to the social networking service will be scanned and compared against a library of 1bn minutes of content. The system can then automatically insert ads into videos which contain professional content, with MySpace sharing revenues with the original content copyright holders. Clips will also feature system-generated overlay bars with information about the clip and links to buy original episodes or films. MTV Networks have already signed up as partners to the service and MySpace have said that further ad formats and partners will follow. The firm has also said that it will still remove clips at the request of copyright owners.
MySpace has also launched its new "Profile 2.0" user interface, giving users new tools and features for editing their profiles. Layouts can now be changed using a drag-and-drop interface and users can create categories for different contacts allowing them to select what information different groups of people can see.
MySpace has now overtaken Yahoo! as the leading publisher of online display ads in the US, accounting for 15.9% of all display ads in June. According to comScore the site attracted 75m unique users in the US and 122m unique users worldwide.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 06/11/2008
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com

06/11/2008

The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index forecast that online retail will grow 15% year-on-year during the fourth quarter to reach £13.16bn, writes Netimperative. The figure represents a £215 online spend for every person in the UK. However growth will be significantly lower than last year when online retail rose 54% from 2006. Monday 8th December is expected to be the busiest day for online shopping with sales of up to £320m predicted.
Further research from JupiterResearch commissioned by LinkShare estimates that the average UK consumer will spend 40% more online than the average US consumer and will make 24% more of their purchases online. UK consumers are eight times more likely to carry out online research across multiple sites before buying online and are also 13% more likely to be frequent online shoppers than US internet users.
According to the annual Deloitte Christmas Retail Survey which looks at total retail spending, British shoppers are expected to spend on average £655 in total this Christmas - equivalent to 7% less than last year. However 19% of consumers still intend to spend more.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 10/11/2008
IMRG: http://www.imrg.org

10/11/2008

Revenues from mobile phone sales are expected to grow at 6.8% between 2007 and 2013, and should exceed $200bn by the end of 2013, according to Informa Telecoms & Media in its latest Future Mobile Handsets report. Emerging markets, including Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) and Africa, will make up the majority global handset market value, with 60% share in 2013. Growth disparities between developed and emerging markets will become apparent within the next five years. Growth will not exceed 2% CAGR in developed markets according to the report, handset market value growth rates are slowing significantly in developed markets and, if the current economic slowdown persists, could even turn negative after 2009.

10/11/2008  |  Full story...

Yahoo! has launched a new service that lets mobile users search the web using voice commands. Yahoo!’s ‘oneSearch’ service is designed to allow users to conduct searches more quickly than entering text. For example, a search query like ‘Arsenal’ returns a rich set of results highlighting the latest results and schedules, breaking news, team profiles, images, and Web links.

13/11/2008  |  Full story...

Google is bringing in a variation of its AdWords model to YouTube in an effort to raise revenues from the leading online video site, writes The Financial Times. The new YouTube Sponsored Video service will allow YouTube users to promote their videos in a special sponsored video section. Users can then bid on keywords to promote their sponsored videos, paying for them on a cost-per-click basis. The service has no minimum spending requirement and users can specify a daily budget. If the service takes off Google can look forward to a whole new search-based profit stream: recent figures from comScore found that YouTube received more search queries in September than any other website other than Google and Yahoo!.
YouTube is also going to start offering ad-supported full-length feature films. The site has announced a new deal with studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which will see a number of branded content channels offering free-to-watch films and TV shows including "Bulletproof Monk" and "The Magnificent Seven". The news follows the deal announced with CBS reported in last month's Digital Intelligence.
From The Financial Times: http://www.ft.com, 13/11/2008
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com

13/11/2008

The "2008 Annual Global Mobile Attitude and Usage Survey" from the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has found that 8% of Western European consumers have taken part in some form of mobile marketing during the last year, writes ClickZ. In addition, one third of consumers have said that they are "interested" in mobile marketing. In the UK, the survey found that 64% of respondents have used text-based contests or voting with their mobiles, while 25% use SMS alert services. It also showed that 10% of those polled in the UK use mobile internet services each week.
From ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com, 17/11/2008
MMA UK Chapter: http://www.mmaglobal.com/uk

17/11/2008

67% of Brits now think that internet access is more vital than access to a car (54%) or washing machine (58%), writes Netimperative. The results, taken from new research by YouGov on behalf of AMD also found that 57% of respondents use social networking sites and that 56% would rather shop online than go shopping on the high street at Christmas (54%) or socialise with friends (49%). 78% of Brits have also uploaded digital photos, while 75% have gone online to watch YouTube videos (88% of men against 63% of women). In general, men prefer content (71% have downloaded music against 62% of women), while women prefer communication (53% use instant messenger against 47% of men).
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 19/11/2008
AMD: http://www.amd.com

19/11/2008

British viewers will be able to watch both BBC1 and BBC2 live online through the bbc.co.uk website and the BBC's iPlayer service from the end of November, writes Brand Republic. The corporation already provides BBC News, BBC3, BBC4, CBBC and CBeebies online in real-time. The online live broadcast service is being run as a 12-month trial. Speaking of the launch BBC Vision director Jana Bennett said, "The launch of BBC One and BBC Two online completes our commitment to make our portfolio of channels available to watch on the internet."
iPlayer usage has continued to grow all year, and according to the new "Olswang Convergence Consumer Survey 2008" 24% of consumers now use the service to watch programmes for at least one hour per week. The service is set for another big upgrade following approval from the BBC Trust for upgrades to the iPlayer which will enable users to pre-book programmes up to 7 days before broadcast and download them for viewing.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 19/11/2008
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk

19/11/2008

The latest online adspend figures from IAB US and PwC show that revenues grew 11% year-on-year to reach $5.87bn - the second-highest quarterly result ever achieved. Against Q2 though, revenues only grew 2%. For the first nine months of the year US online ad revenues totalled $17.3bn (from $15.2bn in 2007) - up 14% year on year. Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of IAB US said: "Interactive advertising continues to be the most measurable and cost-effective way to reach consumers, and we see more and more marketers seeking to harness its power."

Quarterly $ Revenue Growth Comparison - 2000-2008 YTD

Source: IAB US
IAB US: http://www.iab.net

20/11/2008

The latest wave of research into consumer attitudes for mobile advertising is confirming consumer acceptance of lower call charges in exchange for exposure to advertising, writes Marketing Vox. What began as a youth behaviour appears to be spreading with two-thirds (61%) of mobile users willing to view advertising on their handsets in exchange for discounts off calls. The research by Transverse and iGR reflects a changing culture in consumer expectations of access.
From Marketing Vox: http://www.marketingvox.com, 20/11/2008
Transverse: http://www.gotransverse.com

20/11/2008  |  Full story...

61% of mobile users would be willing to view advertising on their mobile phone in return for a discount on their monthly bill, November 2008

20/11/2008

50% phone bill discount is top incentive in "ads for calls", November 2008

20/11/2008

The third International Communications Market Report from Ofcom has found that the UK has the highest penetration of digital TV services of all the larger countries surveyed, with 86% of British households now using digital services on their main TV sets (up 9% on last year), writes Brand Republic. The US and France follow with 70% and 66% respectively. The study has also revealed that ad revenues are no longer the main source of commercial TV funding as a result of the growing use of pay-TV services and Digital Video Recorders (DVRs). Global TV advertising generated 49% of revenues (£81bn) - a decrease of 50% on 2007. However, subscription revenues rose 2% to 43% to reach £71bn.
The UK also leads Europe in the number of High-definition (HD) enabled households, with 700,000 (6%) - higher than the combined figure for France, Germany and Italy (500,000). The US has the highest number of households with HD subscriptions at 6m (6.2%) though Canada leads on penetration at 17.6% (with 2m households). British consumers also come first for DVR use, with 30% using the devices compared to 21% in both Italy and Canada, and 20% in the US.
According to the report the UK benefits from competitive pricing bundles with a typical triple-play package (with landline, four mobile phones, pay-TV and broadband access) costing £104/month compared to £114 in Italy and £131 in France.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 20/11/2008
Ofcom: http://www.ofcom.org.uk

20/11/2008

Based on the latest Q3 e-commerce data from the US Department of Commerce (DOC), eMarketer now predicts that online sales (excluding travel) will grow 7.2% year-on-year in 2008 to reach nearly $137bn. This compares to last year when online sales grew 19.8%. The firm expects that consumers will spend $30.3bn online this year during November and December - equivalent to year-on-year growth of 4%.

From eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com, 24/11/2008

24/11/2008

The first Mobile Media study from Nielsen Online has found that mobile internet use has grown eight times more than traditional PC-based usage during 2008, writes Brand Republic. Between Q2 and Q3 mobile internet use rose 25% (from 5.8m to 7.3m users) while PC-based use grew only 3% (from 34.3m to 25.3m). Mobile internet use is rising among young people, with one-in-four users aged 15-24 compared to only one-in-eight PC-based users.
BBC News is the most popular mobile internet website receiving 1.7m unique users in Q3.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 24/11/2008
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

24/11/2008

Alex Wright, Agency.com

November 2008

Alex is a fan of Brands 2.0, eagerly talking about how people value brands and brands value people. Chatting with him at the regional internet congress in Zagreb, his passions about where brands are vs where they should be come through.

25/11/2008  |  Full story...

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

25/11/2008

This list features the most popular websites based on UK Internet usage for October 2008, ranked by market share of visits across all Hitwise industries.

Source: Hitwise Datacentre, October 2008, based on market share of visits
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter

26/11/2008

The number of unsolicited mobile marketing messages is on the rise, according to a new pan-European study. The independent study, commissioned by Airwide Solutions and conducted by comScore M:Metric, looked at the way mobile subscribers use their phones across five European markets - the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. Of the most significant findings were the dangers surrounding mobile spam. Despite some mobile operators leading the way in deploying anti-spam solutions, the study found that there is still some way to go with the number of people in the EU receiving unwanted text messages growing 21.3 per cent year on year.

26/11/2008  |  Full story...

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

27/11/2008

Tough times trigger changes in strategy. As growth in the US online ad sector slows to just 11%, Google and MySpace unveil new models for monetising their social media content. In the run up to Christmas retail sales forecasts make depressing reading for high street shops, but online stores confidently plan to poach their consumers - accelerating the restructure in retailing. And as the UK's flagship BBC channels launch online simulcasts, mobile internet use rises steeply; more channel shift is to come.

Follow the links to find out more in this month's round-up, and if you're working on strategy reviews for 2009 then let us know if our specialists can support.
Read November 2008

28/11/2008

Here are the latest stats and figures from the past month.

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

28/11/2008

New US figures from the IAB and PwC show that online adspend grew 15% year-on-year in the first half of 2008 to reach $11.5bn, writes ClickZ. Q2 adspend was up 13% year-on-year to $5.7bn but was down 0.3% from Q1 this year. Search revenues were up 24% to $5.1bn or 44% of all online adspend. Display advertising rose 19% to $3.8bn (33% of all online adspend).

07/10/2008  |  Full story...

The latest IAB/PwC figures show that online advertising in the UK grew 21% year-on-year in the first half of 2008 to reach £1.7bn as the total ad market fell 0.7% to £9bn. Online took 18.7% of UK adspend, behind total press display (19.3%) and TV (21.7%). Search advertising led the growth increasing 28% to account for 58.3% of all online adspend. Display was up 16.3%, while online classifieds grew 30.2%.

Overall, growth rates were down on the first half of 2007 when they reached 41.3% on online adspend of £1.3bn. Guy Phillipson, IAB UK's Chief Executive Officer said: "Online is not immune from the economic downturn, but while other sectors see falls in expenditure the internet is still experiencing an incredible increase and is propping up the entire advertising market."

IAB UK: http://www.iabuk.net, 07/10/2008

07/10/2008

A new study from Hall and Partners has found that nearly 75% of 18-34 male internet users spent over 10 hours/week online during Q2 2008, writes eMarketer. The study, carried out for Break Media, reported that 69% of those asked said that they could not live without the internet, against 31% who said the same for television. Nearly 60% said that they could recall online ads when they were not online and 47% had purchased a product or service because of an online advert.

From eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com, 09/10/2008
Hall and Partners: http://www.hallandpartners.com

09/10/2008

A new survey by Vanson Bourne on behalf of 02 has found that budgets for mobile marketing are expected to rise 150% by 2013, writes Brand Republic. 60% of those polled thought that mobile marketing was better for close targeting, in particular for financial services advertising.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 10/10/2008
Vanson Bourne: http://www.vansonbourne.com

10/10/2008

Two significant moves from YouTube this month point at how Google plan to effectively monetise the online video giant. Brand Republic report on a new deal with iTunes and Amazon which will see YouTube integrate "Click to buy" buttons directly into videos. Consumers will be able to move directly from a music video, for example, to a store offering the mp3 track for sale. However, the initiative is not limited to music purchases - Electronic Arts will be using the programme to drive sales of its new game 'Spore'. YouTube will receive a commission for each sale made through the process.
The second move, reported by Reuters, sees the firm offering full-length TV shows from the CBS archive, including "Star Trek" and "Beverly Hills 90210". These will be available in the website's new "Theatre View" format which fills the screen horizontally against a black background. In a first for YouTube, episodes will include pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll and banner advertising as the site capitalises on the new content. Ads on the first wave of shows will be exclusively sold by CBS.
The plans follow news of the latest comScore figures which show that YouTube has overtaken Yahoo! as the second biggest internet search site in the US after Google.
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com, 10/10/2008
Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 08/10/2008

10/10/2008

Source: Point Topic
Point Topic: http://point-topic.com/

13/10/2008

The latest Bellwether Report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has found that 35% of companies revised their marketing budgets down in Q3 against only 12% reporting a rise, writes The Guardian. The last quarter has seen the worst advertising budget cuts in the report's nine year history with all marketing sectors other than online and internet search seeing budget cuts. "Main media" and the "all other" categories were each slashed by about 26%, sales promotion was cut by 6% and direct marketing was down by 5%.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 13/10/2008
IPA: http://www.ipa.co.uk

13/10/2008

Barack Obama's presidential campaign has gone after the youth vote with a high-profile use of in-game advertising, writes Brand Republic. The election campaign paid for adverts across 18 video games including "Burnout Paradise", "Guitar Hero" and "Madden 09". Adverts in the racing game "Burnout Paradise" on the Xbox 360 Live network featured realistic billboard ads at the side of the road for both Barack Obama and VoteForChange.com.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 14/10/2008
VoteForChange.com: http://www.voteforchange.com

14/10/2008

The 2008 Digital Music Survey from Entertainment Media Research has found that for the first time the majority of music downloaders are using legal means, writes Netimperative. 51% of consumers now use legal download services, up 9% from 47% in 2007. The growth in legal downloading is predominantly being driven by older music fans with 39% of over-45s and 44% of 35-44 year-olds now using legitimate services (from 28% and 36% respectively). 40% of over-35s are now buying music downloads at least once a month. The survey also found that the number of illegal music downloaders in the UK has dropped by 10%.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 14/10/2008
Entertainment Media Research: http://www.entertainmentmediaresearch.com

14/10/2008

New research from Point Topic shows that China overtook the US in high-speed and broadband lines in August, writes ClickZ. China is also adding new broadband subscribers at twice the rate of the US. In the US, the number of new broadband lines fell from 3.4m in Q4 2007 to 1.1m in Q2 2008. During the same period the number of new lines added in China rose from 3.5m in Q4 2007 to 5.0m in Q2 this year.
From ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com, 14/10/2008
Point Topic: http://point-topic.com/

14/10/2008

Source: Point Topic
http://point-topic.com/

14/10/2008

Third quarter revenues at Google were up 31% year-on-year, beating Wall Street expectations, writes ClickZ. Revenues for the quarter totalled $5.54bn, up 3% on Q2.
Net income in Q3 was $1.35bn (from $1.25 in Q2). 67% of revenues came from its own web sites, up 34% from the same point in 2007. 30% of revenues ($1.68bn) came from partners through the firm's AdSense network. In total 51% (or $2.85bn) of Q3 revenues came from outside the US.
Google has also announced two expansions to its AdSense ad system. Firstly the firm is rolling out contextual ads in its online mapping service, by serving text ads which are geographically relevant to individual searches. In addition the firm is making its first move into the in-game advertising market with the launch of "AdSense for Games". In-game advertising is set to become increasingly significant - new figures from comScore show that 25% of internet users play online games ever week - equivalent to 200m users worldwide.
From ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com, 16/10/2008
Google AdSense: http://www.google.com/adsense

16/10/2008

A new study from price comparison site Shopzilla.co.uk has found that over 11m British consumers buy products online at least twice each week, writes Brand Republic. The study further found that 9 out of 10 consumers shop online at least once each month.

21/10/2008  |  Full story...

Yahoo! has announced that it is to cut 10% of its staff (over 1,500 people) following poor quarterly results, writes vnunet. Q3 profits were down 64% to $54.3m, compared to $151.3m in 2007. The firm now hopes to save $400m through the redundancies and other cost-cutting exercises.
From vnunet: http://www.vnunet.com, 22/10/2008
Yahoo! UK: http://uk.yahoo.com

22/10/2008

The latest data from the US digital audience market flags up micro-blogging technology Twitter as being the hottest of the toolkits in terms of growth, writes CNET. Rising almost 350% in the last period, Twitter is a great tool for delivering simple messages about what people are engaged in at that moment. Under the direction of internet whiz Seth Godin, this "presence" application has spread among the web heads and early adopter youth markets but now looks set to find a solid commercial footing.
From CNET: http://news.cnet.com, 22/10/2008
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com

22/10/2008

Challenges in the wider economy spilled onto the web, pushing ad rates in the US down 27% according to PubMatic. Their AdPrice Index tracked a big slump in Q3 2008, with prices down 21% from Q2 and 27% from Q1.

23/10/2008  |  Full story...

Third quarter profits at Amazon were up 48% with revenues climbing 31%, writes The Financial Times. Net income was $118m, from $80m in 2007, while revenues reached $4.26bn from 3.26bn in 2007. International sales continued to grow and represented 46% of all revenues. Q4 sales are expected to fall between $6bn and $7bn with year-on-year quarterly growth ranging from 6% to 23%. The firm now expects full-year sales of $18.46bn-$19.46bn - down from its previous estimate of $19.35bn-$20.1bn.
In the UK, the firm has cut its threshold for free delivery from £15 to £5, mirroring moves it made in the US last year.
From The Financial Times: http://www.ft.com, 23/10/2008
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk

23/10/2008

Vice-President and General Manager, MySpace Brazil

October 2008

When we interviewed Emerson Calegaretti in Caracas on the eve of their launch in Venezuela, it was clear why Latin America is so compelling. Social media has been big in Latin America since YouTube opened up the market and showed people how to connect social networks with media assets. The passion and enthusiasm for social networking accelerated early, and the region has some of the highest volumes of social media activity anywhere in the world. MySpace pioneered making personal home pages easy to build and fun to connect through, opening up access to personal publishing and changing the model for consumer engagement with the web. MySpace sets itself out as supporting people’s lives in three ways: self-expression, discovery and connection and the resulting behaviour playing out on their pages typifies the sharable and tearable content of Web 2.0 digital assets.

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27/10/2008  |  Full story...

Profits at Microsoft reached $4.37bn during Q3 from $4.29bn in 2007, writes Netimperative. Turnover rose 9% during the same period to $15.06bn. However the firm has now warned that it is unlikely to meet Wall Street predictions during the next quarter due to economic conditions. Chief Financial Officer, Chris Liddell, said: "We, like most companies, saw a slowdown at the tail end of the quarter in particular. We're now taking a more conservative stance on the balance of the year."
The firm has also revealed its new cloud computing platform dubbed Windows Azure. The firm is following Amazon and Google in providing web developers and others a place to store content and applications without the need for them to have dedicated servers but with enough capacity and bandwidth to withstand a sudden rush in online demand.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 27/10/2008
Microsoft Azure: http://www.microsoft.com/azure

27/10/2008

Clients and agencies believe that mobile advertising will become a mainstay of UK marketing plans over the next two years, but there is a current disconnect between usage and understanding of the medium, according to new research by the IAB. The IAB’s Mobile Council surveyed 115 agencies, media planners, creatives and advertisers to uncover the state of the mobile market, their level of understanding, perceived barriers to entry and how to plan best for the future.
The research found usage within agencies is split down the middle, with 50% having used mobile, and the remainder having no experience in mobile advertising at all. However, while mobile advertising accounts for a small proportion of overall digital spend, many (62%) foresee that it will grow over the next two years and will become a standard part of budgets in 2010.

28/10/2008  |  Full story...

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

28/10/2008

This list features the most popular websites based on UK Internet usage for September 2008, ranked by market share of visits across all Hitwise industries.

Source: Hitwise Datacentre, September 2008, based on market share of visits
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter

29/10/2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

30/10/2008

New research from comScore has found that 14.5m people in the UK visited at least one blog in August, writes Netimperative. The figure equates to 41% of the UK's total internet audience. The top individual blog for the month was Engadget.com (with 243,000 visitors) followed by UnrealityTV.co.uk (225,000 visitors) and Gizmodo.com (with 223,000 visitors). The most popular blogging platform in the UK remains Google-owned Blogger.com (with 9m visitors) followed by WordPress (4.8m) and Six Apart-owned sites (2.7m).

A selection of leading blog platforms ranked by total UK unique visitors (000) *

Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations, August 2008

Source: comScore
comScore: http://www.comscore.com

31/10/2008

Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations, August 2008

Source: comScore
comScore: http://www.comscore.com

31/10/2008

A new study from Key Note predicts that online adspend will continue to show strong growth through the rest of 2008 and into 2012, writes Brand Republic. The firm expects online to grow 31.4% in the UK over the course of this year. Figures from IAB UK put online adspend at £1.7bn for the first half of 2008, up 21% while the latest Bellwether Report forecast that online would remain strong as companies cut their marketing costs. Online advertising in the UK continues to be driven by the growing use of broadband services with Key Note reporting that 93% of respondents to their survey go online at home. The report also found that marketers had so far "under-exploited" the possibilities presented by social networking sites as a means of engaging consumers.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 31/10/2008
Key Note: http://www.keynote.co.uk

31/10/2008

Tough markets trigger creative thinking, which means a wave of rebuilds on the way for failing brand sites, weak online media and under performing e-retailers. Collating this month's stories for Digital Intelligence, we're seeing the innovation start. For those getting it right, the prizes are rich: here in the UK, the switch to online shopping continues with the latest research showing that over 11m Brits are shopping on the web at least twice a week.

For many firms it also means a leap into long delayed training of their teams to find smarter uses of precious marketing budgets; getting more value from agencies and online media. The web will prove the deciding factor for many consumer brands and B2B services.

We're wishing our friends and partners a big slice of digital cake in the run up to the biggest e-commerce Christmas so far.
Read October 2008

31/10/2008

Here are the latest stats and figures from the past month.

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

31/10/2008

A new study from the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) remains confident that the UK online advertising market will remain strong in the face of the global economic slow-down. The firm predicts that internet advertising will grow 17.6% during 2008 and 12% in 2009. Online is expected to show growth in all advertising categories other than financial services during 2009, as budgets in traditional media are redirected online.

01/09/2008  |  Full story...

Nokia is close to launching its Comes With Music subscription service, with Carphone Warehouse already taking pre-orders for phones with the platform pre-loaded, writes Telecoms.com. The service was first mooted at the end of 2007 and will launch in the UK on October 16, with the US following in 2009. Nokia has now signed deals with all four major record labels in addition to many significant independent labels. A one-year subscription gives unlimited access to music from the Nokia Music Store and allows users to keep tracks they have downloaded after their subscription has ended.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 02/09/2008
Nokia: http://www.nokia.com

02/09/2008

Google celebrated its ten year anniversary this month with the beta launch of a new browser in 100 countries, writes Brand Republic. Google Chrome will be competing with Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer (which claims 72% of installed browsers) and Firefox (with 20% of the market). The browser is open source and designed to be fast and designed for rich media. Mac and Linux versions are still to come.

The firm had other cause for celebration with the news that it had joined Interbrand's top ten list of the most valuable global brands. The survey put the firms brand value up 43% at $25.59bn (£14.57bn), from last year's figure of $17.8bn (£10.18bn).

From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 02/09/2008
Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome

02/09/2008

Online retailer Amazon US has launched its new Amazon Video On Demand service, writes The Financial Times. The service replaces its digital download service Amazon Unbox which launched in 2006. The new service focuses on paid-for instant streaming of advertising-free films and TV shows, without the need for downloading. Streamed content can be watched through web browsers, internet-equipped Sony TVs, Tivo digital recorders and Xbox 360 consoles.
Amazon has also announced that its subsidiary website IMDB will be making over 6,000 films and TV episodes available for free. Content will include new episodes of TV shows such as "30 Rock" available to view prior to their first TV broadcast.
From The Financial Times: http://www.ft.com, 04/09/2008
Amazon Video On Demand: http://www.amazon.com/Video-On-Demand/

04/09/2008

The BBC has announced that it is about to launch a version of its iPlayer service for Nokia N96 mobile phones. This will be the first mobile version of the service which will allow users to download and not just stream programmes, unlike the iPhone and iPlayer versions. The BBC now plans to roll the service out to other models of mobile phone.
The Corporation has also been busy on other fronts with the launch of a specific EastEnders YouTube channel featuring clips from the entire 23-year history of the show. The news follows the launch of the BBC's Top Gear channel on YouTube in August.
Finally, results are in from the Olympics with the BBC reporting that it served around 50m sport video streams during the event. Daily averages were around 3m streams/day but the service peaked at 5.5m streams on Tuesday 19th August.
From BBC news: http://news.bbc.co.uk, 08/09/2008
BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

08/09/2008

Yahoo! has re-launched its online advertising network, and now claims to be able to reach 80% of web users in the UK and Ireland, writes The Guardian. The renamed Yahoo! Network now provides access to a combined audience of over 29m unique users/month and includes inventory with Bebo, British Telecom, Loot and Channel Five in addition to Yahoo's own in-house products (including Yahoo! email, news and Flickr). The firm can also provide ad placements on the UK's five major mobile networks: Orange, O2, Vodafone, T-Mobile and 3.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 08/09/2008
Yahoo! Network: http://uk.media.yahoo.com/yahoonetwork

08/09/2008

Mobile network operator 3 has launched a new service for small firms, giving them free unlimited email. 3 Business, the new small business division of 3 (www.three.co.uk), now lets small businesses to send and receive work email, as well as web-based email from sites such as Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail, by adding unlimited email use to the existing £4.26 Internet Max package at no extra cost.

12/09/2008  |  Full story...

New research from Juniper Research has predicts that total revenues from mobile user generated content (UGC) will reach over $7.3bn (£4.1bn) in 2013 from $1.1bn (£617.5m) in 2008, writes Telecoms.com. Social networking will become the leading mobile UGC revenue generator (ahead of dating and personal content delivery) as the number of active mobile users of social networking sites grows to nearly 730m in 2012 (from 54m in 2008). Advertising will represent nearly one third of all UGC revenues and over 50% of all mobile social networking revenues.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 16/09/2008
Juniper Research: http://www.juniperresearch.com

16/09/2008

A new study by Ipsos Mendelsohn in the US has found that the average number of hours spent online increases with income, writes eMarketer. The study surveyed affluent heads of household and found that users in the highest earning tier (above $250,000) spent nearly 6 hours more online each week than those with incomes between $100,000 and $150,000. Affluent internet users who used PCs went online 25.9 times/week on average.

From eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com, 16/09/2008
Ipsos Mendelsohn: http://www.mmrsurveys.com

16/09/2008

New figures from comScore Video Metrix show that over 27.4m UK internet users (or 78% of the UK's internet population) watched 3.2bn videos during June, writes Netimperative. The average British online viewer saw 117.7 videos during the month - the highest figure of any country tracked by comScore Video Metrix (including the US, Canada, France and Germany).

Top UK Online Video Properties* Ranked by Videos Viewed - June 2008

Total UK - Age 15+, Home & Work Locations**
* Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.
** Excludes videos viewed from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Source: comScore Video Metrix
comScore: http://www.comscore.com

Top UK Online Video Properties* Ranked by Total Unique Viewers - June 2008

Total UK - Age 15+, Home & Work Locations**
* Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.
** Excludes videos viewed from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Source: comScore Video Metrix
comScore: http://www.comscore.com

17/09/2008

MSN Mexico

September 2008

Eight years ago Mariate left the world of management consultancy and joined the team of just over a dozen people at MSN in Mexico City. She has played an instrumental role in helping to expand the role of commercial media on the internet in Mexico, growing the scope of online marketing in the country and raising advertiser confidence. Today the team at MSN is over 50 people and the scope of the website is a hundred times greater than back in 2000. Along the way Mariate co-founded the industry trade association and has helped accelerate the migration of marketers’ focus to online. In this interview she talks about the role of reach in media planning, why high-end demographic audiences have switched to the web, and why many brand managers still don’t understand what online is about.

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24/09/2008  |  Full story...

Google is to launch its much-anticipated mobile operating system ‘Andriod’ on T-Mobile’s upcoming G1 handset. The handset, set to launch on 22 October, will use the open source Android platform. It will include a full-featured Web browser and support for Google services such as Google Maps Street View, Gmail, YouTube and others.

24/09/2008  |  Full story...

Sony Ericsson are launching their own version of an all you can eat mobile phone music download service, writes Telecoms.com. The new service, dubbed PlayNow plus, will go live in Q4 and will be based on the firm's current PlayNow music store. The service includes a social aspect with subscribers able to recommend music to other users. Users will also have access to a free PC music player letting them listen to all their tracks via computer. Finally, subscribers will be allowed to keep up to 300 of their most-played tracks DRM-free once their subscriptions have ended. Sony Ericsson have signed up all four major record labels as part of the deal.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 24/09/2008
Sony Ericsson: http://www.sonyericsson.com

24/09/2008

The IAB has officially widened its remit to serve the mobile advertising industry, partnering with the ‘Big 5’ UK mobile network operators in the process. As of September 2008, the five UK networks - 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone UK have formed a Mobile Steering Group (MSG) to oversee and advise on the trade body’s strategy to educate the advertisers and agencies about the benefits of mobile advertising. The IAB will now build upon the work they have already done in the mobile arena to formally extend their offering with a series of initiatives.

24/09/2008  |  Full story...

MySpace has launched its new MySpace Music service with content from Sony BMG, EMI, Warner and Universal, writes Brand Republic. The service allows users to listen to free streamed content, buy MP3s and create music playlists. Users can search for music by artist, album or track title - songs are then played through an ad-supported online music player which also provides links to buy tracks through Amazon's mp3 music store.

Future developments will include links to merchandise and concert tickets as the service expands to offer a one-stop shop for music fans. The initial launch integrates four major sponsors: McDonald's, Sony Pictures, Toyota and State Farm and currently features over 5m major, independent and unsigned artists.

Earlier this month MySpace also announced that it is working with Research In Motion to develop a Blackberry version of the social networking site.

From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 25/09/2008
MySpace Music: http://music.myspace.com

25/09/2008

Mobile phone networks are now more a more popular to access the Internet on the move than Wi-Fi, according to new research. Point Topic’s recent survey of mobile broadband users shows that the UK mobile phone companies have managed to grow their market share to 47% of users accessing the internet away from home or work. This compares to 42% who prefer Wi-Fi hotspots. A year earlier the ratio was 40:30 in favour of Wi-Fi.

25/09/2008  |  Full story...

With financial markets in turmoil and marketing budgets tightening we're going against the trend by forecasting relatively strong times for online marketing. When marketing budgets need proof, marketers will stick with the internet. Partly it's the accountability of knowing you only pay for banners that get downloaded or search listings that get clicked, partly it's the way that sites fuel the sales teams of most firms, and how even in FMCG their web presence is the gateway to relationship marketing programmes.

We also cover the latest announcements from Amazon and the BBC, as well as research from ComScore which confirms that here in the UK, video on the web has certainly crossed its tipping point: watch next year as video advertising follows.
Read September 2008

30/09/2008

Here are the latest stats and figures from the past month.

Monthly internet usage statistics for Germany, August 2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

Monthly top ten German parent companies for August 2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

Top 10 popular websites in the UK, August 2008

This list features the most popular websites based on UK Internet usage for August 2008, ranked by market share of visits across all Hitwise industries.

Source: Hitwise Datacentre, August 2008, based on market share of visits
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter

Worldwide Active Internet Home Users, July 2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

30/09/2008

New research from Hitwise has tracked how the behaviour of British internet users has changed since the onset of the credit crunch, writes Netimperative. Firstly consumers are heading online to save money: traffic to price comparison websites was up 20% year-on-year in July 2008, while searches for summer sales were three times higher this year than last. In addition traffic to discount voucher websites has grown 130%.
Secondly, traffic to property websites has fallen from 0.85% of all UK internet visits to 0.55%. Searches for property sales were also down 53.1% year-on-year in August 2008. In contrast visits to Hitwise's House and Gardens category rose from 0.49% to 0.59% during the same period as consumers chose to focus on DIY improvements and new home furnishings.
Finally, online searches for energy efficiency terms such as "loft insulation" have more than doubled during the past year. Traffic to energy suppliers has also doubled in the last 12 months as consumers look to switch to cheaper deals.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 30/09/2008
Ofcom: http://www.ofcom.org.uk

30/09/2008

Online ads on branded sites consistently perform above those on other sites, writes Netimperative. Research from the US-based Online Publishers Association (OPA) has found that sponsorships on branded content sites perform 36% above those on portals and 42% above Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms average. Similarly, brand favourability towards online ads is 29% higher on branded content sites than the MarketNorms average. Consumers are also 20% more likely to purchase following advertising on branded content websites.

01/08/2008  |  Full story...

A new analysis of the global mobile payments opportunity forecasts that 2.1bn mobile subscribers will "pay by mobile" for digital goods downloaded to their mobile phones by 2013. Juniper Research defines digital goods as music (ringtones and full tracks), tickets, TV, user-generated content, infotainment and games - in fact any content bought by phone and delivered to the phone.

06/08/2008  |  Full story...

Vodafone UK has launched "Vodafone Music" a new mobile music store. The service lets customers preview songs for free or download tracks straight to their mobile and immediately play them through the music player on their phone. Singles and albums cost on average £0.99 and £7.99 respectively, while browsing the music store is free of charge.

07/08/2008  |  Full story...

According to the annual media sector study from Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) online advertising will surpass newspaper adspend by 2011, writes The Financial Times. VSS expect online to grow over 21% per year to reach $62bn (£30.63bn) in 2011 against a predicted figure of $60bn (£29.64bn) for newspaper advertising.
From ENN: http://www.electricnews.net, 07/08/2007
Veronis Suhler Stevenson: http://www.vss.com

08/08/2008

A new study from NPD Group has found that Extreme Gamers play games for an average 45 hours per week and have bought 24 titles in the past three months. The "Games Segmentation 2008" report identified 7 gamer segments based on usage, ownership and frequency. Of the 174m gamers who use PCs, Macs and video game systems 3% are Extreme Gamers, 9% are Avid PC Gamers, 17% are Console Gamers, 14% are Online PC Gamers, 15% are Offline PC Gamers, 22% are Young Heavy Gamers and 20% are Secondary Gamers.
Young Heavy Gamers represent at least 1/3 of any system's owners and are strong users of portable platforms: 60% of Nintendo DS (NDS) and PlayStation Portable (PSP) owners are Young Heavy Gamers. Although the PC is used for gaming more than any specific console, Console Gamers, Young Heavy Gamers and Extreme Gamers are all more likely to play games using a console.
NPD Group: http://www.npd.com, 11/08/2008

11/08/2008

The latest Wireless Trends Outlook from Strategy Analytics predicts that global mobile adspend will reach $2.4bn in 2009 up from $1bn this year, writes Cellular-news. The firm predicts that the increased use of Adobe's Flash and the launch of Nokia's "Comes with Music" service will both help to further stimulate the mobile advertising sector.
Similar research from eMarketer goes much further in accounting for the growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. eMarketer expects total mobile advertising expenses (including creative, IT and other related spending costs) to reach $6.44bn in 2009, rising to $19.15bn in 2012.
From Cellular-news: http://www.cellular-news.com, 12/08/2008
Strategy Analytics: http://www.strategyanalytics.com

12/08/2008  |  Full story...

Spend is predicted to increase to $2.4 billion in 2009, 2008-2009

12/08/2008

New research from Hitwise shows that UK internet users are moving away from generic search terms such as "cheap flights" in favour of brand names and terms. In May 2008, 88% of UK searches for the 2,000 most popular search terms were for branded terms - a 65% year-on-year increase. All of the top 10 most popular search terms were brands. The most searched-for term during the month was "facebook", accounting for 1 in every 72 searches. The top ten list also featured four other social media search terms: "bebo" (2nd place), "youtube" (4th), "you tube" (5th), and "myspace" (6th).

14/08/2008  |  Full story...

The summer report from the UK government's Ofcom group revealed a stark picture of a nation migrating into the digital networked society. The latest figures show that online adspend in the UK overtook spending across the mainstream analogue channels. According to Ofcom, online adspend grew 40% during 2007 to reach £2.8bn, or 19% of all UK advertising. TV advertising however remained static at £3.5bn with the mainstream commercial channels (ITV1, Channel 4, S4C and five) taking £2.4bn or 67% of all UK adspend (from 83% in 2002).

In addition the report revealed increased leaps in use of the web and laptops as ways to view TV. More than a third of 25-44s often go online while watching TV. Since we started Digital Intelligence in 2000 we've tracked hundreds of technology shifts, and in the UK we've argued that the arrival of wireless broadband at home would create a step change in viewing behaviour. This latest research explains the nature of shifts in consumer use of media, but should be seen as simply a snapshot of what continues to be a journey not yet finished.

14/08/2008  |  Full story...

The summer report from Ofcom report has quantified the emergence of high levels of multi-tasking between the TV and other channels and how they have become the norm. TV attention is now clearly divided as many consumers switch on their mobiles and their laptops, with the TV acting as background entertainment, getting only a shrinking portion of their focus. Three quarters of 20-34 year-olds 'regularly' use a mobile while watching TV. The use of mobiles at home as well as outside also becomes more interesting and can be tied back to the way personal phone books have now become so device dependant that many consumers will use their mobile at home or work for convenience rather than a landline.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 14/08/2008
Ofcom: http://www.ofcom.org.uk

14/08/2008

This summer's news from MySpace confirmed there's no slowdown in sight to the growing desire for people to build their own web pages and footprints online, writes MarketingVOX. While Facebook offers the simple 'plug-and-play' approach to templates, the more advanced interface of MySpace continues to draw new audience, clocking up a record 75.2 million unique visitors in the US (July 2008), a leap of over 2 million on the previous month.
From MarketingVOX: http://www.marketingvox.com, 15/08/2008
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com

15/08/2008

Retailers need to be ready to face a new breed of savvy consumers, according to new research into the way people use broadband-enabled mobile devices to access the web while they are out and about. The research, which was carried out among early adopters of the internet-capable Broadband Anywhere BT ToGo smartphone, points to a growing trend for shoppers to compare prices and look up product reviews and recommendations by other consumers when they are on the move.

18/08/2008  |  Full story...

The latest e-retail sales index from IMRG and Capgemini shows that online retail grew 11.3% in July from the previous month, writes vnunet.com. Total online sales for the month reached £4.8bn, equivalent to £79/person in the UK, as consumers avoided the rain and used the internet to look for deals and save money. Data from the British Retail Consortium shows that high street sales were down 0.9% during the same period. Clothing, footwear and accessories was the fastest growing online category in July, rising 22.8%.
The figures echoed the latest Experian National Retail FootFall Index which predicts that the next twelve months will be the slowest period for retailers since the early 1990s.
From vnunet.com: http://www.vnunet.com, 20/08/2008
IMRG: http://www.imrg.org

20/08/2008

The latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe) show that traffic to the Guardian.co.uk website grew 28% year-on-year in July to reach a record 20,622,063 unique users (up 1% on June 2008). Other sites also had record months: traffic to the Times Online grew 56% year-on-year to reach 16,391,514 unique users, while Sun Online achieved 15,972,490 unique users with year-on-year growth of 69%. The three sites also saw record levels for page impressions with Guardian.co.uk registering 186,430,603 page views, Times Online registering 123,978,303 and Sun Online registering 292,031,461.
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 21/08/2008
ABCe: http://www.abce.org.uk

21/08/2008

Polar explorer, Motivational speaker

August 2008

Ben Saunders is a record-breaking polar explorer and by his own admission an "extreme blogger". From the North Pole he wrote to millions using his blog, a PDA, a matchstick and a satellite phone. While becoming the youngest person in history to walk solo to the North Pole, Ben was able to keep us up to date with the progress.

Blogs are the most diverse of digital publishing platforms. They can be harnessed by anyone, anywhere for almost any publishing reason. Ben's blogs demonstrate their power both to amplify an offline event and to make intimate connections with millions.

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25/08/2008  |  Full story...

Nearly 16.5m UK households are now connected to the internet according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), reports the BBC. The figure represents a year-on-year increase of 1.2m homes and represents almost two-thirds of all UK households. According to the figures over two-thirds of British adults now go online every day. Education is also a defining factor: 93% of adults aged under 70 with university degrees or similar qualifications have internet access at home. In comparison only 56% of people without formal qualifications use the internet. Further recent figures from Ofcom show that use of PCs and laptops has grown fourfold since 2002.

Index of internet connectivity

Source: ONS
ONS: http://www.statistics.gov.uk

26/08/2008  |  Full story...

The BBC is to expand the selection of episodes available to watch through its iPlayer service with the implementing of series staking in September, writes Brand Republic. Individual episodes of TV programmes will no longer be removed after seven days but will remain accessible for the entire duration of the series. Viewers will now be able to start watching a series half-way through its broadcast schedule and still have time to catch up.
In another move to widen access to the BBC's vast archive BBC Worldwide intends to launch an ad-supported online music service. The service will feature both audio and video content from the BBC's radio and television archives and content will be available as free streams or paid downloads.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 26/08/2008
BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

26/08/2008

Worldwide mobile phone sales grew 11.8% during Q2 to reach 305m units according to new figures from Gartner. Sales of mobile phones in Western Europe reached close to 42m units during the quarter, up 16% from the previous quarter. However, quarterly year-on-year sales were down 8.2% as the region reached total mobile penetration rates of 121.5% for the first six months of the year.
North American sales grew to 44.1m units, up 6.58% year-on-year and 5.3% over the previous quarter.
Gartner predicts that total mobile phone sales will reach 1.28bn units during 2008.
Gartner: http://www.gartner.com, 27/08/2008

27/08/2008

New research from conScore shows that Russia has the fastest growing internet population in Europe, writes Netimperative. Year-on-year Russia's online audience grew 27% to reach 17.m people in June this year, followed by France (up 21% to 31.5m), Spain (up 15% to 16.2m) and Ireland (up 15% to 1.6m). Europe's total online population grew 8% to reach 241.8m users.

Penetration rates were highest in the Netherlands with 82% of all over-15 year-olds going online in June, followed by Denmark (77%), Sweden (76%) and Norway (76%).

The UK remains the leading nation for time spent online at 28.5 hours/person, followed by Spain (25.1 hours/person) and the Netherlands (23.4 hours/person).

28/08/2008  |  Full story...

In this summer's edition we track why rain on the high street accelerated the growth of online retail, how China emerged as the country with the largest internet population, Russia as Europe's fastest growing digital nation, and the BBC iPlayer continued to enjoy success as it crosses tipping points in new markets with new features.

The team here at Digital for years have said 2009 would be the year mobile advertising really takes off, and several new forecasts are aligning with us: we're expecting to see big rises from the acceleration now underway. And if you ever thought you were spending too much time online, then spare a thought for "extreme gamers" who according to new research are clocking up more than 45 hours on the web every week.
Read August 2008

30/08/2008

Here are the latest stats and figures from the past month.

Monthly internet usage statistics for France, March 2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

Monthly top ten French parent companies for March 2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

Top 10 popular websites in the UK, July 2008

Note: This list features the most popular websites based on UK Internet usage for July 2008, ranked by market share of visits across all Hitwise industries.

Source: Hitwise Datacentre, July 2008, based on market share of visits
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter

Active Home Internet Users by Country, June 2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

30/08/2008

Flash media files (SWF files) will now be searchable according to a new announcement from Adobe writes IT Week. The firm is working with Google and Yahoo! so they can incorporate Flash Player code into their search algorithms. This will mean that dynamic websites featuring Flash code, including buttons, banners and menus can now be indexed by search engines and will feature in search results. Adobe plans to work with other content publishers and developers in the future.
From IT Week: http://www.itweek.co.uk, 01/07/2008
Adobe: http://www.adobe.com

01/07/2008

A new forecast from ZenithOptimedia predicts that online advertising is on course to take 10% of all global adspend during 2008, writes ClickZ. The firm has revised its last forecast from March to take into account the current economic problems. ZenithOptimedia now expect online adspend to reach $52.2bn (10%) in 2008, rising to $78.2bn (13.6%) in 2010. Their previous forecast put online at 9.7% ($47.5bn) for 2008, rising to 12.3% (66.9bn) in 2010.
From ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com, 01/07/2008
ZenithOptimedia: http://www.zenithoptimedia.com

01/07/2008

The latest mobile sector study from Juniper Research predicts that total payments made by mobile phones will be worth over $300bn by 2013, writes Telecoms.com. 40% of such sales are expected to come from mobile ticket purchases for transport, sport and entertainment events. Consumers from Western Europe and the Far East are expected to represent over 60% of Juniper's predicted mobile-based spending figure.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 01/07/2008
Juniper Research: http://www.juniperresearch.com

01/07/2008

New research from radio audience measurement body Rajar has found that 9.4m people are now using online radio services on a weekly basis, writes Brand Republic. In total 14.5m people listened to online radio services during April and May, up 2.5m from November 2007. Podcasts downloads were also up, reaching 6m (from 4.3m). 3.7m users say they listen to them every week. Nearly three-quarters of podcast listeners use iTunes to download them. 53% of those polled said that they would be interested in downloading podcasts featuring ads if those podcasts were free.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 02/07/2008
Rajar: http://www.rajar.co.uk

02/07/2008

New figures from Nielsen show that 15.6% of mobile phone users in the US (40m people), 12.9% of users in the UK and 11.9% of users in Italy are now using mobile internet services, writes BBC News. According to the firm a confluence of web-enabled devices, networks, new pricing plans and content has come together to create a critical mass of users.
In the US, portals, online email and weather sites remaining the most popular mobile internet destinations. Users are also getting used to seeing ads on their mobiles: 26% of mobile internet users remember seeing some form of advertising. Mobile internet users are also 60% more likely to engage with advertising than average mobile users.

10/07/2008  |  Full story...

US has highest internet penetration across 16 measured countries, Q1 2008

10/07/2008

We're really interested in the latest developments at Yahoo. The decision to open up its search technology to let users create their own engines feels like a classic long tail strategy and one that could step-change the firm's search volumes. The Build your Own Search Service (BOSS) lets any webmaster create search tools that deliver a customized interface and results pages for the individual site (rather like the one we have here on Digital's sites). Yahoo have stressed that this is also about social media and the importance of getting at data from within the consumer generated content sector. More on Netimperative, but much more to come from Yahoo...
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 11/07/2008
Yahoo! UK: http://uk.yahoo.com

11/07/2008

The IPA's latest Bellwether report has found that online remained the only marketing sector not to experience budget cuts during Q2 writes Brand Republic. Growth in online marketing slowed to 6% over the previous quarter. In total 19% of firms surveyed increased their online budgets during the quarter, against 12% of firms who revised them down. Online search marketing remained strong with 18% of firms planning to spend more and only 9% planning to cut budgets.
The biggest cuts in marketing budgets came from the travel and entertainment, retail, consumer durables and FMCG sectors.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 14/07/2008
IPA: http://www.ipa.co.uk

14/07/2008

Latest research from IDC confirmed that almost a quarter of the world's population (1.4bn) were now connected to the internet, using it on a regular basis. This is another threshold in the progress towards a Digital Networked Society and the IDC are forecasting continued strong growth to exceed 1.9bn (30%) by 2012.
From MarketingCharts: http://www.marketingcharts.com, 14/07/2008
IDC: http://www.idc.com

14/07/2008

Apple has announced that it sold 1m of its new 3G iPhone during the first weekend they were on sale, writes The Financial Times. The firm also revealed that users downloaded over 10m application from the App Store in the three days following the launch. Many retail outlets across the world have sold out of the devices, including Carphone Warehouse, O2 and TeliaSonera in Europe. RBC Capital Markets has predicted that Apple will reach global sales of 5.1m of the new phones during Q3 2008.
From The Financial Times: http://www.ft.com, 15/07/2008
Apple iPhone: http://www.apple.com/iphone

15/07/2008

Microsoft is expanding its available catalogue of video downloads with the addition of 10,000 films and TV episodes from the Netflix library, writes ENN. The service will launch in the Autumn and will be free to users who have accounts with both Netflix and Xbox Live Gold.
From ENN: http://www.enn.ie, 15/07/2008
Xbox Live: http://www.xbox.com/live/

15/07/2008

Sony and Sky are teaming up to launch a video-on-demand service dubbed Go!View for Sony's portable PSP device, writes Netimperative. PSP owners will have access to films, TV Shows and sport from a range of media suppliers including the BBC, Disney, ABC and Sky Sports. Users can get monthly subscription packs for Comedy, Sport and Entertainment, while TV shows and films can be rented individually. Content is ported to the PSP via the user's PC.
Sony is also launching its PlayStation 3 video rental downloads service in the US with an initial selection of around 1,200 TV shows and 300 films. Users can download in both SD and HD with TV episodes costing around $2 and films around $3. Users have a 14 day period in which to watch their downloads.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 15/07/2008
Go!View: http://www.goview.tv

15/07/2008

Internet retail in the UK was up 38% in the first half of 2008 as consumers headed online to go shopping, writes The Guardian. According to the IMRG-Capgemini online sales index £26.5bn was spent online during the period, equivalent to 17p in every £1 spent by British shoppers. Online spending on clothing and footwear showed the highest growth with sales in March up 31% year-on-year.
IMRG predicts that online could take 50% of all UK retail spend within the next five years.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 18/07/2008
IMRG: http://www.imrg.org

18/07/2008

Note: Data is based on a custom category of 57 of the leading social networking websites ranked by market share of U.S. visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context.

Source: Hitwise
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk

22/07/2008

Higher Mac and iPod shipments have contributed to Apple posting higher-than-expected quarterly results, writes Silicon.com. The firm reported revenues of $7.46bn and net profits of $1.19 for its third fiscal quarter, ending 28 June. Mac sales rose 41% with 2.5m units shipped while iPod sales were up 12% to 11m units shipped. Sales for the iPhone reached 717,000 during the period.
From Silicon.com: http://www.silicon.com, 22/07/2008
Apple: http://www.apple.com

22/07/2008

The UK's six biggest ISPs have signed a memorandum of understanding with music industry body the BPI and the Motion Pictures Association of America, writes The Financial Times. The deal was brokered by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) and the government is said to have made it clear that this is the internet industry's last chance to avoid legislative action or compulsory levies.
The memorandum commits the ISPs to work towards a "significant reduction" in illegal file-sharing and to develop legal music services. Under the plan ISPs will send 1,000 letters to highly active file sharers every week during a three-month trial. ISPs are working on a voluntary code of practice which will include agreed sanctions for dealing with persistent offenders. The code will be overseen by Ofcom.
From The Financial Times: http://www.ft.com, 23/07/2008
BPI: http://www.bpi.co.uk

23/07/2008

New figures from Hitwise show that traffic to Facebook in the UK has grown 188% in the last year, writes Brand Republic. The site accounted for 45.29% of all UK social networking traffic in June, 80% more than its closest rival. The top three sites (Facebook, Bebo and Myspace) now account for over 85% of all the UK's social networking traffic between them.
Facebook's position echoes last month's Digital Intelligence which revealed that the site has now overtaken MySpace in terms of global unique users.

From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 23/07/2008
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk

23/07/2008

Source: Hitwise
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk

23/07/2008

Microsoft has agreed a new deal with Facebook under which it will integrate its Live Search product and serve paid search ads on the social networking site writes The Financial Times. According to sources close to Facebook, the firm is aiming for advertising sales of $350m this year, from $150m in 2007. Microsoft invested $240m with Facebook last year, valuing the firm at $15bn.
From The Financial Times: http://www.ft.com, 24/07/2008
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com

24/07/2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

28/07/2008

New research from BT shows that 57% of all internet users now spend over 6 hours per week online, compared with 14% in 1998. writes Netimperative. In addition, 7% of users now go online for over 30 hours per week. Brits are also visiting more websites, with 19% visiting over 20 sites each week. 78% of UK users have shopped online, compared with only 19% in 1998. 56% have bought items in the last three months. 44% of households are now broadband enabled.

28/07/2008  |  Full story...

China has overtaken the US to become the world's biggest online market, writes the BBC. New figures from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) show that over 253m Chinese now go online, eclipsing for the first time the 223m people using the internet in the US. China's online population grew 56% in the last year although internet penetration currently remains low at only 19% (against 71% in the US). Analysts predict that growth will continue at about 18% p.a. to reach 490m in 2012.

28/07/2008  |  Full story...

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

29/07/2008

Note: This list features the most popular websites based on UK Internet usage for June 2008, ranked by market share of visits across all Hitwise industries.

Source: Hitwise Datacentre, June 2008, based on market share of visits
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter

29/07/2008

While marketing budgets across the board are feeling the pinch the IPA's latest data shows that online remains the only sector experiencing positive growth. In addition, revised forecasts from ZenithOptimedia now expect online to take 10% of this year's global advertising spend.

This month has also seen further evolutions in digital convergence - a trend we have been tracking in Digital Intelligence from the very beginning. Soon both Sony and Microsoft will have video-on-demand services for their various multi-function gaming devices, and both firms are now bringing in content partners to widen their offerings.

As consumers we're now used to the idea of things being connected and able to fulfil many roles - so it was no surprise this month to see that Facebook now takes over 45% of the UK's social networking traffic. Perfect timing then for us to tell you about a little Facebook app we've built to send you our latest news and headlines.
Read July 2008

30/07/2008

Here are the latest stats and figures from the past month.

Monthly internet usage statistics for the UK, June 2008

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings Home/Work Panel monthly statistics
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

30/07/2008

The latest IAB Europe / PwC figures show that online adspend in Europe grew 40% during 2007 to reach €11.2bn (£8.9bn) - from €7.2bn (£5.7bn), writes ClickZ. If current trends continue, European online adspend will overtake the US market by 2010.
Between them the big three markets of the UK, Germany and France accounted for two-thirds of the European online spending total (€7.3bn - £5.78bn). However some smaller markets saw big year-on-year increases: Greece was up by 91%, Spain by 55% and Slovenia by 49%.
IAB Europe forecasts that 10 of the 16 countries studied will spend over 10% of total ad budgets online by 2010. At present 7 nations have met this criteria.
Search remained the leading online ad sector accounting for 41% of the 2007 total, followed by display advertising, classifieds and lead generation ads.
From ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com, 03/06/2008
IAB Europe: http://www.iabeurope.ws/

03/06/2008

A new consumer study by Verdict Research has found that online retail spending grew 35% in the UK during 2007 to reach £14.7bn, writes Netimperative. Verdict expect the trend to continue as consumers become used to making make more frequent and more expensive purchases online. The study predicts that online retail sales will reach £44.9bn in 2012, equivalent to about 13.8% of total retail spend.
Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 04/06/2008
Verdict Research: www.verdict.com

04/06/2008

The BBC is to broadcast its flagship channel BBC One online as a live video stream, writes Brand Republic. This is the first time that the corporation has broadcast one of its original analogue channels via the internet. The BBC announced the plan in its latest Statements of Programme Policy and it intends for the move to take place later this year.
In the meantime the BBC has just launched the latest beta version of its successful iPlayer service. The revamped service now combines both TV and radio content and features live radio streams. Other upgrades to the iPlayer include better sound quality, TV listings and new recommendation tools in addition to improved "listen again" and "last played" features. iPlayer traffic has continued to grow with recent statistics from Hitwise revealing that The Apprentice had become the most viewed programme.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 05/06/2008
iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

05/06/2008

New figures from IDC show that online ad revenues in the US rose 24% year-on-year in Q1 to reach $7.1bn (£3.6bn), writes ClickZ. IDC predict that quarterly online ad revenues will continue to grow between 15% and 20% during each quarter of this year. The firm also predicts that US online adspend will more than double in the next five years from $25.5bn (£12.9bn) in 2007 to $51.1bn (£25.8bn) in 2012. Online's share of the total US ad market will grow from 8.6% to 15.6% during the same period. Globally, IDC predict that online adspend will reach $106.6bn in 2011 from $65.2bn this year, representing 13.6% of all worldwide adspend.
IDC's study also showed that Google's net share of the US ad market rose from 23.1% in Q1 2007 to 24.8% in Q1 this year.
From ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com, 10/06/2008
IDC: http://www.idc.com

10/06/2008

Total online adspend surpassed £3bn for the first time during 2007 according to new figures from the Advertising Association and WARC, writes The Guardian. Online now represents 16% of the total UK advertising market. Online grew 39.5% year-on-year to remain the UK's fastest growing sector while total UK adspend grew 4.2% in 2007 to £19.4bn.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk , 10/06/2008
The Advertising Association: http://www.adassoc.org.uk/

10/06/2008

Mobile broadband is now cheaper than ever and ‘free’ mobile broadband could be offered as early as 2009 according to broadband comparison site Top 10 Broadband. "With competition reaching its zenith in the mobile broadband market, it is only a matter of time before mobile broadband modems (aka ‘dongles’) are offered for free in conjunction with mobile phone packages in the same way as ISPs such as TalkTalk currently offer ‘free’ home broadband with home phone deals." Says Jessica McArdle from Top 10 Broadband.

12/06/2008  |  Full story...

Mobile advertising is nearly ten times more effective on 16-24 year-olds than alternative forms of advertising, writes Telecoms.com. The findings were revealed in new research commissioned by mobile ad firm JumpTap. 9% of 16-14 year-olds said that they would probably purchase a product following a mobile advert. Women find the format even more appealing with 15% saying they would be likely to make a purchase following a mobile ad. Overall recall rates were also higher with 10% of 16-24 year-olds and 28% of 45-79 year olds saying that they would try to find out more about a brand following a mobile ad.
The figures are echoed by stats from MVNO Blyk, the ad-funded mobile service, which recently announced average ad response rates of 29%.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 12/06/2008
Jump Tap: http://www.jumptap.com

12/06/2008

New research from Clash-Media has found that over half of an average marketer's budget is now dedicated to online marketing, writes Netimperative. The research shows that over 70% of firms use search engine optimisation, paid search and e-mail marketing. The use of offline marketing in general has decreased with only press and TV advertising showing growth.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 13/06/2008
Clash-Media: http://www.clash-media.com

13/06/2008

Enders Analysis predicts that internet advertising will overtake TV as the UK's biggest ad platform during 2008, writes Broadcast. The firm forecasts that online adspend will grow 26.4% to reach £3.56bn against TV which is expected to fall 2.5% to £3.39bn. The figures put online at 19% of all UK adspend.
Online video advertising is predicted to reach £35m during the year, with most advertisers using existing TV spots.
Google is expected to take 80% of all UK search advertising spend in 2008, up from 78% in 2007.
From Broadcast: http://www.netimperative.com, 18/06/2008
Enders Analysis: http://www.endersanalysis.com/

18/06/2008

The long-running acquisition talks between Yahoo! and Microsoft have finally come to an end following Yahoo's decision to work with Google, writes The Telegraph. The deal builds on the firms' recent ad partnership and will see Yahoo! displaying Google ads next to its search results in the US and Canada from this September. The firms also intend to make their instant messaging tools compatible. Analysts expect Yahoo! to gain up to $800m in additional annual revenues from the deal.
Google has had other reasons to be happy this month with news that year-on-year traffic to the site was up 12% in the UK in May. According to Hitwise, the search giant received 87% of UK searches during the month compared to 68% of US searches.
The firm has also made some changes to its ad business, integrating its Google Analytics and Google TV Ads services. The new system will allow marketers to track the impact of TV ads on website traffic by analysing the scheduling of TV ads against subsequent impressions and CPM. In addition it can provide region-specific reports to track web traffic from localised TV campaigns with data being updated throughout the day.
Google has also launched a beta version of its latest tool Ad Planner. The service helps advertisers to track which websites their target audiences are visiting, helping them to target their campaigns more precisely.
The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk, 13/06/2008
Google Ad Planner: https://www.google.com/adplanner

18/06/2008

Types of connection with their respective use and percentage reach

19/06/2008

65% of all mobile phone ad requests in Western Europe come from the UK, writes Netimperative. The research from AdMob show that it served 196,323,883 ad requests in the UK during May, equivalent to 65.1% of the total Western European figure. Spain showed the greatest increase with growth of 270% from September 2007, followed by Italy (up 210%).
In total AdMob's network impressions grew 16.9% and the firm now serves 100m impressions per day. 22.4% of impressions came from smartphones.
Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 20/06/2008
AdMob: http://www.admob.com

20/06/2008  |  Full story...

65% of mobile phone ad requests in Western Europe come from the UK, June 2008

20/06/2008

Facebook has surpassed MySpace in terms of global unique users according to new data published by ComScore, writes Brand Republic. Facebook's user base grew 162% year-on-year from 47.2m to 123.9m in May 2008. MySpace grew 5% during the same period from 109.5m to 114.6m.
According to the Wall Street Journal, VISA has partnered with Facebook to offer $2m of advertising to small businesses. VISA will offer $100 (£50) of targeted on-site advertising to each of the first 20,000 US-based firms which download an application to join VISA's new business network on Facebook.
Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 23/06/2008
VISA Business Network: http://apps.facebook.com/visabusiness

23/06/2008

GroupM predict that global interactive marketing (including online, mobile and gaming) will take 15% of all adspend budgets by 2009, writes Brand Republic. GroupM expects interactive to continue to grow as traditional advertising media decline. According to the firm's study "Interaction: Addressable, Searchable, Social and Mobile" interactive media accounted for 11% of all adspend during 2007. The study surveyed 35 countries and ascribed interactive's growth to the development of more advanced handsets, cheaper laptops, faster broadband connections and the increasing use of Wi-Fi connections. In the UK, GroupM expect interactive adspend will reach 30% by 2009 (from 10% in 2005). The study also expects users to spend up to 46 minutes per day online (from 27 minutes in 2005).
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 25/06/2008
GroupM: http://www.groupm.com

25/06/2008

The figures are in for 2007, showing that online passed the £3bn threshold last year and now makes up 16% of the UK's ad market. In Europe online adspend grew 40% during the year and is on course to overtake the US by 2010. These trends are only set to continue with some analysts now predicting that online budgets in the UK could overtake TV this year.

The long-running Microsoft-Yahoo! saga has also come to a close with the clearest winner seeming to be... Google. Yahoo's determination to avoid being acquired has strengthened the search giant's position even further. It remains to be seen if and when their new ad deal will be rolled out worldwide.

This month also saw Facebook overtake MySpace with astonishing annual growth of 162%. Facebook is clearly no longer the underdog rebel upstart though at present its users seem to be staying loyal.
Read June 2008

30/06/2008

Mobile network operator Vodafone has launched a service that lets users share photos and videos of music events on MySpace. The "Vodafone Music Reporter" interactive profile, hosted on MySpace, builds on the 2007 launch of MySpace on Vodafone mobile internet. Vodafone will use the profile to share its existing music initiatives, including summer festivals such as Music Unlimited Cologne in Germany and Vodafone TBAs in the UK.

30/06/2008  |  Full story...

A new report from Datamonitor estimates that nearly half the UK will be using social network sites by 2012, writes The Telegraph. The UK already has the highest levels of membership in Europe, with 9.6m Brits members of sites such as Facebook and MySpace. By 2012 Datamonitor expect this figure to have grown to over 27m.
France came second in the study with 8.9m users, followed by Germany with 8.6m. Each country is expected to grow to 21.3m and 21.7 by 2012 respectively. In total European user numbers are forecast to reach 104.7m (from 41.7m).
The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk, 01/05/2008
Datamonitor: http://www.datamonitor.com

01/05/2008

Here in the UK, the latest radio listenership figures (Rajar Q1 2008) give an upbeat tempo for the radio industry with listening up one percentage point in a year. 45m adults tune into the radio each week and 31% now use digital platforms to listen radio listening also grew to 31% of the UK. Interestingly, 3.2% of audiences are now through digital TV and 2.1% are online, suggesting convergence is happening slower in practice than many in the digital industry expected.
Rajar: http://www.rajar.com, 01/05/2008

01/05/2008

A new joint study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Thinkbox has found that consumers who see an advert both online and on television are more likely to purchase products than those who have only seen an ad on one of those media. The study tested 3,000 people using six campaigns from car, FMCG and finance brands which featured both TV and rich media advertising. Taken across all six campaigns 40% of those tested said that they were likely to use or purchase a brand in future after seeing an ad in one medium. However this proportion rose to 61% when users had seen an ad in both mediums. According to Thinkbox the research shows that online is best used as a complementary tool to an existing TV campaign rather than as an extension which is trying to reach a new audience.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 07/05/2008
IAB UK: www.iabuk.net

07/05/2008

MySpace is to allow its users to share their public profiles and data directly on other sites, writes ENN. Yahoo!, eBay, Photobucket and Twitter have already signed up to the so-called data availability initiative. Users will be able to have single updates appear automatically across a number of sites. Users will also be able to have their MySpace content directly linked to their Yahoo! Instant Messenger service.
Last year MySpace also signed up for the Google-led OpenSocial project which aims to build a common framework for social networking applications to run.
Facebook is also preparing to open up its profiles with the coming launch of Facebook Connect. In a similar vein to MySpace this will allow users to "connect" their public profiles from other sites with their Facebook profile. The announcement was followed by news that Facebook had borrowed $100m to fund new servers and data centres. Facebook remains the UK's most popular social networking site with 14.35m UK unique users during April (up 7.2% from the previous month).
Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 09/05/2008
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com

09/05/2008

Americans spend more time on the internet than anyone else according to new data from Nielsen Online, writes The Telegraph. The average American spends nearly 28 hours/month online, way ahead of France and Spain on 20 and 18 hours respectively. The study also confirmed China's position as the leading online population: by February this year China had over 221m internet users, up from 137m at the start of 2007.
The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk, 09/05/2008
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

09/05/2008

A study from Juniper Research predicts that global Mobile Web 2.0 services (including social networking, user generated content (UGC), mobile search and mobile instant messaging) will be worth $22.4bn (£11.39bn) by 2013, from $5.5bn (£2.8bn) in 2008, writes Telecoms.com. Social networking and UGC are predicted to drive revenues growing from $1.8bn (£915m) this year to $11.2bn (£5.69bn) in 2013 as adoption and availability of Location Based Services (LBS) becomes more widespread.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 15/05/2008
Juniper Research: http://www.juniperresearch.com

15/05/2008

CBS is buying CNET Networks for $1.8bn (£0.91bn), writes Netimperative. The deal will propel CBS into the top 10 list of US websites with 54m unique monthly users and roughly global 200m users. CNET owns a stable of websites including ZDNet, GameSpot.com and TV.com. CBS is actively trying to grow its share of the online advertising market and expects the newly combined unit to reach revenues of $1bn (£508m) by 2010 or 2011.
Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 16/05/2008
CNET: www.cnet.com

16/05/2008

Yahoo! has signed an ad partnership deal with WPP which lets the latter firm buy ads on Yahoo!'s online ad exchange, writes Brand Republic. Under the initial deal WPP-owned GroupM and 24/7 Real Media will develop a proprietary media trading platform which will connect directly to Yahoo!'s Right Media Exchange. Long-term the two firms will work to build a WPP marketplace to give agencies and eventually outside publishers, direct access to advertising inventory.
Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 16/05/2008
Yahoo! UK: uk.yahoo.com

16/05/2008

Vodafone has bought social networking and online management service ZYB for £25m. The service is targeted at mobile users and allows users to back-up and share their contact and calendar data. The service also allows PC-mobile communication using SMS, pictures and IM.
Vodafone's purchase follows its revelation that the top two searches on its mobile internet service are for social networking sites Facebook and Bebo. Facebook has also become the site most visited by Vodafone users. Vodafone subscribers are increasingly using their phones for e-mail, IM and social networking. Vodafone has recently changed its monthly price plans to include 500MB/month free internet access - a £7.50 saving.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 19/05/2008
Vodafone: http://www.vodafone.co.uk

19/05/2008

1.4m people used the BBC's iPlayer on average each week during April as traffic rose 27%, writes Brand Republic.
Traffic has nearly doubled from January's weekly average of 750,000. Driven by "Doctor Who" and "The Apprentice" total monthly requests for April came to 21m downloads and streams - up from 17.2m in March and 11.2m in January. In total the service has now received over 75m requests for streams and downloads.43% of iPlayer users are aged between 35-54, 37% are aged between 16-34 and 21% are over-55.
In a further development Virgin Media has now fully implemented the iPlayer via its cable set-top box. Viewers accessing the iPlayer through Virgin will have direct full-screen TV access to all available programmes without the need for downloading.
Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 20/05/2008
iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

20/05/2008

Google has opened up its AdSense content network in the US to allow advertisers to serve and track ads using approved third-party providers, writes Netimperative. Previously advertisers had to use Google's own technology for managing ads through AdSense as Google did not have a review mechanism in place to ensure ads complied with its standards and policies. The list of certified suppliers includes Mediaplex, Eyeblaster and Dynamic Logic. Google aim to roll-out the changes in the UK and elsewhere in the near future.
Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 20/05/2008
Google UK: www.google.co.uk

20/05/2008

123play.com has launched offering over 40 mobile phone games for free in exchange for receiving mobile ad messages, writes Netimperative. The website has partnered with a number of games firms including THQ Wireless, RealArcade and Vivendi Games Mobile. Users are presented with an ad each time they launch a game on the site. If they don't click the game starts after a few seconds.
29% of users regularly play games on their mobiles according to data from M:Metrics.
Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 21/05/2008
123play.com: http://123play.com

21/05/2008

Nielsen Mobile has found that 44% of UK mobile phone subscribers are members of online social networks, writes Netimperative. 25% of this group now also use their mobiles for social-networking activities. Facebook comes top of mobile social networking sites, with visits from 557,000 UK users (9% of all UK mobile internet users).
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 21/05/2008
Nielsen Mobile: http://www.nielsenmobile.com

21/05/2008  |  Full story...

55% of Brits send messages or emails when social networking on mobiles, Q1 2008

21/05/2008

Facebook is the most popular social network on mobile, Q1 2008

21/05/2008

Microsoft has now enabled advertisers to run banner ads on Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail, writes Netimperative. The firm has launched the ads in the US, France, Spain and the UK. Microsoft also intends to roll-out keyword advertising on Live Search Mobile outside of the US in the second half of this year.
Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 21/05/2008
Microsoft Live Search Mobile: http://livesearchmobile.com

21/05/2008

The latest IAB US / PwC online adspend report puts total online ad revenues for 2007 at $21.2bn (£10.78bn) - up 26% on 2006's record figure, writes eMarketer. Q4 2007 revenues reached $5.9bn (£3bn) - the highest ever quarterly figure and a 24% increase year-on-year. The study found that search, display, classifieds and lead generation all continued to grow. Consumer advertisers remained the largest category representing 55% of all 2007 revenues (from 52% in 2006).
From eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com, 23/05/2008
IAB US: www.iab.net

23/05/2008

The latest "State of the Net" report by AMAS suggests that Irish consumers are highly influenced by online ads, writes ENN. According to the study 67-87% of visitors to 18 sites tracked went online to research offline purchases. AMAS also said that Ireland is close to reaching the 1m broadband subscriber "tipping point". The firm currently puts Ireland's broadband population at 900,000 - well above the OECD's estimate of 767,800 users from the close of 2007.
ENN: http://www.electricnews.net, 23/05/2008
AMAS: www.amas.ie

23/05/2008

The latest US online adspend data shows continued strong growth as brands continue to move budgets online. New research is also continuing to identify online's specific strengths and role in cross-media campaigns.

Days away from the launch of Apple's new model iPhone it's no coincidence that this month we have focussed on developments taking place in the mobile phone sector. Recent trends and developments suggest the mobile web is clearly on course to reach its tipping point - mobile-based IM and social networking are set to make us more connected than ever before. No surprise then that key players including Microsoft and Vodafone are jockeying for position to give consumers and advertisers the tools they didn't even know they needed a year ago.
Read May 2008

30/05/2008

Publishing Director, British Medical Journal

March 2008

Peter Ashman leads the strategic, commercial and operational development of BMJ Journals and has business responsibility for the Group’s flagship journal, the weekly British Medical Journal (BMJ). He was previously from Nature Publishing Group, where he successfully led the Group's strategic launch into medical publishing. Prior to that, he was publisher of the British Dental Journal and successfully negotiated the acquisition of the British Dental Association's entire journal portfolio. Earlier in his career, Peter worked for The Lancet, both in the UK and North America.

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01/04/2008

TradeDoubler has launched td AdMatch a new contextual ad service, writes Netimperative. td AdMatch works by scanning web pages for content and then contextually matching relevant ads using automated and manually specified keywords. The service supports text, image and display advertising and publishers are able to use their own customised ads. In addition advertisers only appear on pre-approved sites while advertisers only receive ads for advertisers they have applied to.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 02/04/2008
TradeDoubler: http://www.tradedoubler.com

02/04/2008

ZenithOptimedia has upgraded its predictions for online adspend's share of the total global ad market for 2008 from 9.4% (from its December forecast) to 9.7%, writes Netimperative. Online is expected to show strong growth despite a slowdown in US and Western European total adspend. For 2009 the firm is expecting online to take an 11.1% share of global adspend - up from its previous forecast of 10.4%.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 02/04/2008
ZenithOptimedia: http://www.zenithoptimedia.com

02/04/2008

The Hitwise UK Annual Online Performance Awards serve up a list of best in class category winners for website traffic throughout 2007. Published this month, the Hitwise team collate data and compare across a large number of services in the same category. What's interesting is that it's the dotcom pureplays who steal the show, nudging out the newspapers, magazines and broadcast media brands that compete in key industry sectors.
Read the full list at the Meadows-Klue on Media blog:
http://www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com/blogs
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.co.uk

02/04/2008

MySpace is close to signing a deal with Sony BMG and Warner Music to offer legal music downloads, writes The New York Post. The firm is also close to coming to an agreement with Universal Music. The joint venture is expected to offer a mixture of pay-per-download and ad-supported models. The deal is thought to remain cash-free with the labels expected to trade their content rights in exchange for minority equity stakes in MySpace Music and a share of all advertising revenues generated by the service. MySpace is thought to have between $50m to $100m (£25m to £50m) earmarked for the launch of the venture. MySpace currently attracts 15m unique visitors each month to its MySpace Music website.
From The New York Post: http://www.nypost.com, 03/04/2008
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com

03/04/2008

Latest data from Hitwise looks back on 2007 and firms up the most searched for terms on the web among UK audiences. Ranked in order: 1 ebay, 2 bebo, 3 youtube, 4 facebook, 5 myspace, 6 argos (the UK retailer), 7 amazon, 8 you tube, 9 bbc, 10 tesco.
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.com/uk/

03/04/2008

Online adspend in the UK grew 38% last year to reach £2.813bn - an annual increase of £797m. The figures, from the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers/IAB study, saw online spend break £750m in a single quarter. Search advertising grew £345m to reach £1.6bn (57.6% of the total), display advertising rose 31% to 592m, while classified advertising was up 54% reaching £585.3m. The study confirms the UK's position as the largest online advertising market in Europe with over 15% of all British advertising now online.
IAB UK: http://www.iabuk.net, 07/04/2008

Read Digital's commentary and analysis of the latest IAB UK / PricewaterhouseCoopers market study »

07/04/2008  |  Full story...

Latest findings from Harris Interactive suggest that if privacy safeguards are in place, most consumers are okay with the ideas and models behind behavioural advertising targeting. With 15% of UK display inventory probably served through behavioural tools today, there's a lot riding on this. This type of targeting is key for giving a step-change in the precision of messaging for brands and an uplift in revenues to media owners who are running advertising funded content services. It's at the heart of the advertising models and the fact most US adults are uncomfortable that some websites use information about their online activity to shape web content and ad delivery will make uncomfortable reading for many publishers.
Key findings: 59% are not comfortable when sites such as Google, Yahoo and MSN use online activity to tailor ads or content, 25% are not at all comfortable, 34% are not very comfortable. The Harris Poll surveyed 2500 people in the US from March 11-18, 2008.
Harris Interactive: http://www.harrisinteractive.com, 10/04/2008

10/04/2008

UK digital publishers saw a total year-on-year increase in digital revenues of 52% according to the Association of Online Publishers' (AOP) sixth annual census. Online advertising revenues were also up 33% while content revenues grew 68%.
According to the census AOP members expect business growth of 8% during 2008 with digital revenues anticipated to rise 31%. In a further sign of confidence 80% also said that they would be hiring more digital staff during the year.From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 09/04/2008

10/04/2008

The BBC is to make its iPlayer catch-up service available through the Nintendo Wii, writes Brand Republic. This will bring the iPlayer directly to the televisions of the UK's 2.4m Wii owners. iPlayer usage has grown 25% each month during its first-quarter and 42m shows have now been accessed on demand since its launch on Christmas Day. The list of most popular shows includes 'The Apprentice', 'Gavin and Stacey', 'Ashes to Ashes', 'EastEnders' and 'Torchwood'.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 10/04/2008
BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

11/04/2008

Growth in the number of active devices in Brazil

13/04/2008

New research from Verdict Research predicts that the British online retail sector will grow by over £20bn in the coming four years to reach £44.5bn or 13.6% of all retail, writes Brand Republic. The research forecasts that online retail will grow 32% during 2008 to reaching £19.5bn (equivalent to 6.7% of all retail). In comparison, offline sale are only predicted to rise 1.2% this year.

From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 15/04/2008
Verdict Research: http://www.verdict.co.uk/

14/04/2008

The following story in the FT isn't unexpected, but it does have some uncomfortable implications for classic media and dotcoms alike. The Bellwether survey has been a pretty solid predictor of offline advertising trends in the past and the advertising budget are being cut for the second consecutive quarter. Only online escapes, with a net increase of 21 per cent.
The Financial Times: http://www.ft.com, 14/04/2008
IPA: http://www.ipa.co.uk

14/04/2008

New research from Verdict Research predicts that the British online retail sector will grow by over £20bn in the coming four years to reach £44.5bn or 13.6% of all retail, writes Brand Republic. The research forecasts that online retail will grow 32% during 2008 to reaching £19.5bn (equivalent to 6.7% of all retail). In comparison, offline sale are only predicted to rise 1.2% this year.

Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 15/04/2008
Verdict Research: http://www.verdict.co.uk/

16/04/2008

Juniper Research's latest study claims that mobile banking is set for a major surge in popularity, writes ENN. The study predicts that by 2011, 816m customers will bank via their mobile phones - a tenfold increase on the figure for 2007. The number of transactions is also set to explode, rising from 2007's total of 2.7bn to 37bn in 2011 as customers are able to carry out further types of transactions from their phones.
From ENN: http://www.electricnews.net, 16/04/2008
Juniper Research: http://www.juniperresearch.com

16/04/2008

Juniper Research's latest study claims that mobile banking is set for a major surge in popularity, writes ENN. The study predicts that by 2011, 816m customers will bank via their mobile phones - a tenfold increase on the figure for 2007. The number of transactions is also set to explode, rising from 2007's total of 2.7bn to 37bn in 2011 as customers are able to carry out further types of transactions from their phones.
From ENN: http://www.enn.ie, 16/04/2008
Juniper Research: http://www.juniperresearch.com/

17/04/2008

18/04/2008

Google has smashed analysts' expectations, with Q1 revenues of $5.19bn (£2.6bn), writes Brand Republic. The figures represent a year-on-year rise of 42% and an increase of 7% from the last quarter of 2007. Earnings rose 31% to reach $1.31bn (£656m). Google-owned sites generated $3.40bn (£1.71bn - up 49% from 2007), with international sales up 47% to $2.65bn (£1.34bn). UK revenues reached £402m.

19/04/2008  |  Full story...

Yahoo! has posted Q1 revenues of $1.35bn (£681m), beating analyst expectations, writes the Financial Times. Income reached $542.2m (£271.5m) in total against $142.4m (£72m) in Q1 2007. However profits were boosted by a one-off gain of $401m (£202m) from the IPO of Chinese firm Alibaba.com.

23/04/2008  |  Full story...

As the e-retail economy forges ahead, this month's summary of new research reports upbeat figures for the US and UK, along with a similar lifts in online advertising in spite of the wider concerns about the ad market.

Opinion polls suggest a gradual change in consumer attitudes towards some of the more advanced forms of targeting, endorsing the strong financial results from leading media owners such as Google and Yahoo, as well as middle tier UK publishers.

There's more on the click-throughs we've added, with deeper commentary in our Digital Insight Reports.

Read April 2008

28/04/2008

Microsoft plans to extend its contract with the UK company, Mobile Commerce, to continue providing RoundTown, MSN’s branded mobile location-based service. RoundTown is a mobile search service which allows users of any internet-enabled mobile phone to access a comprehensive range of location based information.

29/04/2008  |  Full story...

Mobile advertising using TV, video, user-generated content, games & music formats are forecast to reach $2.79bn by 2012, according to a new report. The report, from Media Analyst Screen Digest, is entitled 'Mobile media advertising opportunities: The market for advertising on TV, video and games'. The research examines the emerging market for rich media advertising delivered to consumers via their mobile phone in the form of TV, video, games, user-generated content (UGC) and music.

29/04/2008  |  Full story...

The announcement in March that Microsoft was interested in advertising yield management specialist Rapt (reported by vnunet.com) was particularly interesting because of the effect Rapt has had on the pricing of online advertising in the US domestic market. The smart technology creates a new landscape for advertising buying and sales which marks a step change in the way the industry works. Rapt's portfolio of clients includes Microsoft, Expedia, Dow Jones, The New York Times and Yahoo!.
From vnunet.com: http://www.vnunet.com, 14/03/2008
Rapt: http://www.rapt.com

14/03/2008

The announcement in March that Microsoft was interested in advertising yield management specialist Rapt (reported by vnunet.com) was particularly interesting because of the effect Rapt has had on the pricing of online advertising in the US domestic market. The smart technology creates a new landscape for advertising buying and sales which marks a step change in the way the industry works. Rapt's portfolio of clients includes Microsoft, Expedia, Dow Jones, The New York Times and Yahoo!
vnunet.com: http://www.vnunet.com, 14/03/2008
Rapt: http://www.rapt.com

15/03/2008

The latest estimate from Juniper Research expects annual revenues from mobile search to reach $4.8bn (£2.4bn) by 2013, writes ENN. 40% of mobile search advertising budgets will go to local search services.
From ENN: http://www.enn.ie, 18/03/2008
Juniper Research: http://www.juniperresearch.com

18/03/2008

Source: Hitwise
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.com

21/03/2008

Source: Hitwise
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.com

23/03/2008

Yahoo! has joined forces with Google, MySpace, Bebo and others in the OpenSocial initiative, writes The Guardian. The initiative was formed last November in order to make it easier for developers to create applications which will automatically work across numerous websites. The firms have now announced the creation of the OpenSocial Foundation - an independent non-profit organisation which will provide guidelines and set specifications for the future development of compatible applications. The Foundation will also help ensure that all members of the initiative will share influence over its future role and direction.
As yet neither Facebook nor Microsoft have joined the initiative.
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 25/03/2008
OpenSocial: http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial

26/03/2008

UK traffic to online video sites grew 178% year-on-year from February 2007 to 2008 reports Hitwise. According to the firm the top 25 video websites accounted for 2.22% of all UK internet visits - equal to one in every 45 visits that month. YouTube remained the most popular video site and the eighth most popular website in the UK overall. YouTube US & UK combined accounted for 69.31% of all UK visits to the top 25 video sites in February. BBC iPlayer was the third most visited video site, growing 423% since last December.
Hitwise: http://www.hitwise.com, 26/03/2008

26/03/2008

Online adspend in the UK is set to reach £3.4bn this year, up 27% from 2007 according to new findings from eMarketer, writes Brand Republic. Double-digit growth will continue for the next three years with online advertising expected to exceed £5bn by 2012. Search-related marketing accounted for 60% of all UK online adspend in 2007 and is forecast to top £3bn by 2012.
eMarketer's estimates of the UK's online ad market compares with forecasts from ZenithOptimedia and GroupM of £3bn and £3.4bn respectively.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 28/03/2008
eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com

28/03/2008

The outlook for digital advertising growth remains strong with new research putting online at 10% of all adspend in the US, and here the UK market topping £5bn by 2012 - that's on top of our own forecasts that now put UK online adspend ahead of TV by the end of next year.

We said that 2009 would be the year mobile advertising accelerates, and new forecasts are already sizing that sector at $4.8bn within five years. Also in our round-up of the last month's research and announcements, we look at MySpace entering the downloads market, how Brits are tuning into TV on the web (even though 22m homes now have digital TV), and the OpenSocial initiative.

Read March 2008

31/03/2008

Further projections from eMarketer estimate that US advertisers will spend $25.8bn (£12.9bn) online during 2008 - down from their previous forecast of $27.5bn (£13.77bn) made last October. However eMarketer predict that online is still on course to grow 23% from last year to account for 8.8% of all US adspend. Though growth is expected to slow, US online advertising is expected to reach $30bn (£15bn) next year, accounting for 10% of all US adspend.
From eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com, 31/03/2008

31/03/2008

Mobile network operator 3 UK has launched an ad supported, commercial mobile music video service in conjunction with record label Sony BMG. The service, powered by Rhythm NewMedia, is available to all 3 UK customers and is accessed through 3’s music homepage. The service is offered to customers with no data charges and is supported by ‘short, targeted video ads’.

31/03/2008  |  Full story...

Google has come top of a Nielsen Online study looking at the UK's most popular websites of 2007. Google search averaged 25.1m British users/month, followed by MSN / Windows Live Messenger (14.7m) and eBay (14.5m). Beat That Quote was the UK's fastest growing website, with annual growth of 1,165% (from 31,000 UK visitors to 392,000 UK visitors year-on-year), ahead of Facebook (781% growth from 1.1m visitors to 8.9m visitors) and Local.co.uk (648% growth from 71,000 visitors to 531,000 visitors).
Nielsen Online (PDF): http://www.nielsen-netratings.com

03/02/2008

February 2008

Read the discussion and post your questions to Digital’s moderator.

20/02/2008  |  Full story...

The latest Telecoms Market Matrix report from Analysys predicts that UK calls made on mobile phones will overtake those made on fixed networks by the end of Q2 this year, writes Computer Weekly. Mobile calls across Western Europe are expected to overtake fixed line calls by the middle of the year. Some countries, including France and Portugal, have already crossed this threshold. Italy and Germany are expected to pass it in 2009 and 2010 respectively.
From Computer Weekly: http://www.computerweekly.com,, 19/02/2008
Analysys: http://www.analysys.com

20/02/2008

eMarketer's latest look at the UK market has found that nearly 37m people went online in an average month during 2007 - over 60% of the UK's population. eMarketer expects the number to keep rising and predicts that 70% of the population will be regularly online by 2012. The high levels of internet usage mirror levels of online shopping as the UK is predicted to account for at least 40% of all Western European online sales during 2008. Average spend per buyer is also set to increase during the year to over £1900. eMarketer expects the UK's share of European online retail to decrease slightly in the next few years as other markets catch up though the UK will remain the single greatest European market in 2011.
From eMarketer: http://www.emarketer.com, 19/02/2008

20/02/2008

MySpaceTV is using pre and post-roll ads for the first time in a music video shown on the site, writes Brand Republic. The ads will feature in the Mark Brown featuring Sarah Cracknell single "The Journey Continues". MySpace signed a deal with EMI's Positiva Records allowing it to show the music video for the first time.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 20/02/2008
MySpaceTV: http://vids.myspace.com

20/02/2008

t's been a busy month for the BBC's iPlayer service with traffic stats and new partnership deals being announced at every turn. The re-launch of the iPlayer on Christmas Day certainly seems to have certainly been successful with the corporation reporting 17m online programme views in the first seven weeks according to The Guardian. Over 2.2m people used the service in January accessing an average of five shows per user. The BBC is now serving over 500,000 shows per day to an average 1.3m unique users a week. In total they provided 11m TV downloads and 15.9m radio streams during January. Traffic has also risen for the main bbc.co.uk website, up 29% year-on-year to reach 20m unique users per week during January.

21/02/2008  |  Full story...

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) has for the first time started to publish combined print circulation and website unique user figures in a single monthly report. The Multi-platform Monthly Report will cover circulations and unique user figures from the Daily Mail (and Sunday Mail), the Guardian (and Observer), The Sun (and News of the World), the Telegraph (and Sunday Telegraph), and the Times (and Sunday Times). The report will also break down audiences by geographical location: UK, Republic of Ireland and other countries.
ABC: http://www.abc.org.uk, 20/02/2008

21/02/2008

The latest digital TV forecast from Strategy Analytics shows that global sales of digital set-top boxes surpassed 100m units for the first time during 2007, rising 12% to reach 102.4m units sold writes DTG News. IPTV's market share for the year grew 5.9% (from 3.6% in 2006). Cable's share also increased to 36.2% while both satellite and terrestrial saw declines. The report predicts that global sales will surge during 2008 in reaction to the coming switch-off of analogue TV services in the US and that annual sales of set-top boxes will reach 200m units by 2012.
From DTG News: http://www.dtg.org.uk, 22/02/2008
Strategy Analytics: http://www.strategyanalytics.net

23/02/2008

Online shoppers looking for bargains sent sales figures soaring in January, spending £4.5bn during the month - a 75% increase on the year before, writes BBC News. According to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index the equivalent of £74 for every person in the UK was spent online during the month. Sales for electrical goods saw the biggest rise (up 38% year-on-year) followed by clothing (up 32%) and health and beauty (up 18%). The growth in sales volume over the last three months was over double the growth for the same period the year before.
From BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk, 22/02/2008
IMRG: http://www.imrg.org

23/02/2008

According to the latest Superbrands study Google is now the UK's strongest brand, pushing ahead of Microsoft and the BBC, writes Brand Republic. Google is the only brand in the list which was formed after 1990 - in comparison the average top-50 firm has 90 years of operation. The brand strength of firms such as British Airways and BP suggests that British origins and longevity remain important.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 25/02/2008
Superbrands: http://www.superbrands.uk.com

26/02/2008

Juniper Research predict that the global mobile music market will be worth $17.5bn by 2012, writes Netimperative. Subscription music services and full-track downloads will contribute to the rise as the ringtones market will shrink from 68% (in 2007) to 38%. Ringtone prices will decrease under pressure from rival services. The report identified 2007 as the tipping point for the mobile music market as more consumers than ever before used their phones to access music services. Apple's iPhone was also identified as having raised the general awareness of mobile music services.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com,, 27/02/2008
Juniper Research: http://www.juniperresearch.com

27/02/2008

New data from Point Topic shows that digital music sales now account for nearly 30% of the US market and 20% of the European market, writes VNUnet.com. Total revenues from digital sales grew 40% during 2007 to reach $2.9bn with revenues split roughly 50/50 between internet and mobile sales. Legal music downloads also grew during 2007, rising 53% to reach 1.7bn single music tracks.
In the UK the Entertainment Retailers Association new digital group (ERA Digital) predicts that digital music sales will surpass £160m during 2008. ERA Digital's figures found that album download sales in January reached £4.5m up 76% on January 2007. Single track downloads accounted for £6.3m in January as unit sales rose 45% year-on-year. If trends continue ERA Digital expects album download sales to total £69.4m this year, with single track downloads reaching £96.4m.
From VNUnet.com: http://www.vnunet.com, 27/02/2008
Point Topic: http://www.point-topic.com
ERA: http://www.eraltd.org

28/02/2008

The acquisition frenzy continues this month with some of the world's biggest internet brands still in battle for taking over each other (and still finding time to buy more smaller internet companies along the way).

The economies of scale mean a service like email or photo-sharing once developed can be rolled out worldwide at very low cost, economics that pressure online services that are only national and trigger the race for growth.

At Digital we said that 2008 was the year television programming would hit the web, and here in the UK the BBC's iPlayer is making headlines with 2.2m people a month watching TV through the player. MySpace has launched video advertising (pre-roll and post-roll formats), helping create a framework for brands to reach video watchers, and with Joost and the IPTV pureplays growing fast, this year is the crossing point for television programming on the web.

For mobile telephony the middle of the year will a big crossing point as the volume of calls made on mobile networks overtakes those on fixed networks according to the latest predictions.

Read February 2008

29/02/2008

New data from Nielsen Online has found that British web users are getting older, writes StrategyEye. In October 2007 the average age was 37.9, up from 35.7 at the same time the year before. During the same period the proportion of under 25s online fell from 29% to 25%. In contrast the number of over 55s using the internet in the UK grew 22% during the 12-month period to 19%. Neilsen Online's Alex Burmaster commented: "New online offerings and technology are usually targeted at the young, but it's possible brands could be missing a trick if they continue down this path in the future."
From StrategyEye: http://www.strategyeye.com, 31/12/2007
Nielsen Online: http://www.nielsen-online.com

01/01/2008

Google is planning to launch its Print Ads service in the UK, writes The Sunday Times. The service launched last year in the US and lets advertisers bid on print inventory in the same way as Google AdWords. Google Print Ads now supplies over 600 titles in the US.
In the UK, Google's advertising revenues grew 40% during 2007 to reach £1.25bn.
From The Sunday Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk, 30/12/2007
Google Print Ads: http://www.google.co.uk/adwords/printads

01/01/2008

Radio advertising could fall up to 2% this year as the local advertising sector slows, writes Mediaweek. Revenues could drop below $20bn for the first time since 2002 as the industry faces its eighth year of slow-to-no-growth. Radio is said to be facing its worst crisis since the 1950s when it struggled through recession, the Korean War and the advent of television.
From Mediaweek: http://www.mediaweek.com, 31/12/2007
Netscape: http://www.strategyeye.com

01/01/2008

Radiohead have made more money from digital sales of In Rainbows than from all their other EMI albums combined, writes StrategyEye. The band's contract with EMI included no provision for digital rights, leaving them with nothing from official online sales of their music. Rumours of 1.2m digital sales of In Rainbows have been rejected by the band, though official figures are yet to be released. A CD version of the album went straight to number one when it was released at the start of January.
From StrategyEye: http://www.strategyeye.com, 02/01/2008
Radiohead: http://www.radiohead.com

03/01/2008

AOL is to discontinue its Netscape browser from the 1st of February, writes StrategyEye. The firm is to encourage users to switch to Firefox. Before the launch of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Netscape had over 90% of the browser market but has now been reduced to only 0.6%. Internet Explorer currently has 77% with Firefox on 16%.
From StrategyEye: http://www.strategyeye.com, 02/01/2008
Netscape: http://browser.netscape.com/

03/01/2008

GroupM predicts that UK digital advertising revenues will eclipse TV ad revenues by next year, writes The Guardian. The firm expects online adspend to grow over 30% during the next year, reaching £3.4bn. TV advertising will grow less than 1% during the same period. Alternative figures published by the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) conclude that online adspend could grow as much as 37.9% in the coming year.
While Group M expects the UK to become the first major economy with higher adspend online than on TV, the firm forecasts that Sweden will achieve this during 2008 with 19.5% of adspend going online against 19.2% going on TV ads.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 03/01/2008
GroupM: http://www.groupm.com

03/01/2008

Music retailers are reporting a sudden leap in sales of online music here in the UK, and a 100% growth in sales in the week after Christmas (based on year on year comparisons) - reports The Financial Times. This is more than just lots of iTune downloads and iPhone Christmas presents: the music sector is heading towards another crossing point where digital sales will replace physical CDs, probably in the UK and Scandinavia first, but then in the US and Western Europe.
From The Financial Times: http://www.ft.com, 03/01/2008

04/01/2008

Sony has confirmed that it is adding Skype VoIP functionality to its PlayStation Portable (PSP) gaming device, writes Telecoms.com. Sony are releasing a firmware update at the end of January for the PSP-2000 series which will allow users to make VoIP calls when they are connected to a wireless network. Sony are also releasing a range of additional peripherals such as microphones to take advantage of the new features.
From Telecoms.com: http://www.telecoms.com, 07/01/2008
Sony: http://www.sony.co.uk

08/01/2008

The European Commission has ruled that it is unlawful for Apple to charge more for iTunes downloads in the UK than in the rest of Europe. Costs for single downloads in the UK are 79p - nearly 10% higher than the continental rate of £0.99. Costs are expected to come down in the next six months and the EC is now ending its anti-trust action against Apple.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 09/01/2008
iTunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes

10/01/2008

Subscribers to T-Mobile's Web 'n' Walk 3G service are going to be offered free Wi-Fi access writes Netimperative. Users will be given free use of T-Mobile's network of 1200 UK Wi-Fi HotSpots (39,000 worldwide). Web 'n' Walk costs £12.50 per month in addition to any Flext price plan.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 10/01/2008
T-Mobile: http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/

11/01/2008

The rise of blogs to the heights of official news sources was confirmed this month when a survey by Brodeur and MarketWire reported by Marketing Pilgrim showed 75% of journalists using blogs as a place for story ideas and research. 30% of journalists surveyed said they had their own blog and 21% said they spent over an hour a day on blogs. Big implications for PR agencies and brands everywhere.
From Marketing Pilgrim: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com, 14/01/2008

Digital Insight Report for newcomers to blogging

14/01/2008

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has released its inaugural Mobile Attitude and Usage Study covering five markets in Western Europe. The study polled 1,535 mobile users in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain and suggests that conditions are right for strong mobile marketing growth. Key findings include:

• 1 in 10 mobile users is highly interested in mobile marketing with 3 in 10 showing moderate interest.


• Half of all Italian and Spanish mobile users are at least moderately interested in mobile marketing.


• 2-way text messaging is the most important functionality across all age groups. 7 in 10 consumers have used text messaging with Italy and Spain the most experienced markets.


• 15% of all consumers have experienced mobile marketing.


• Interactive voting, advertising and product or service information are the most common forms of mobile marketing.


• Users are most attracted to mobile coupons, special sales and alerts about accounts and purchases.

Mobile Marketing Association press release: http://mmaglobal.com, 15/01/2008

15/01/2008

The Telegraph website is planning to launch seven new online TV-style programmes covering subjects such as food and drink, culture, technology, finance, motoring, fashion and travel, writes The Guardian. The new line-up includes "Right On" a weekly politics talk show featuring Ann Widdecombe and described as "politically right, not politically correct".
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk, 14/01/2008
Telegraph TV: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

15/01/2008

Online viewers watched 3.5m programmes using the BBC's iPlayer service in the first two weeks following its relaunch on Christmas Day, writes Brand Republic. The iPlayer site attracted over 1m visitors during the period with an average of 250,000 programmes being downloaded or streamed each day. Figures from Hitwise show that traffic to the iPlayer site grew 14-fold between the beginning of December and the beginning of January. The site also entered the ranks of 100 most visited websites in the UK, peaking at number 62.

According to The Telegraph the BBC is also in negotiation with ISPs to cache copies of the most popular programmes directly at local exchanges. ISPs have voiced concerns about the amount of bandwidth iPlayer traffic could consume. "Project Cheetah" will see the BBC place around 200 servers at various points on the BT network, reducing the amount of traffic from the BBC's central servers.
From Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com, 15/01/2008
BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

16/01/2008

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has released its inaugural Mobile Attitude and Usage Study covering five markets in Western Europe, writes Mobile Europe. The study polled 1,535 mobile users in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain and suggests that conditions are right for strong mobile marketing growth. Key findings include:

• 1 in 10 mobile users is highly interested in mobile marketing with 3 in 10 showing moderate interest.
• Half of all Italian and Spanish mobile users are at least moderately interested in mobile marketing.
• 2-way text messaging is the most important functionality across all age groups. 7 in 10 consumers have used text messaging with Italy and Spain the most experienced markets.
• 15% of all consumers have experienced mobile marketing.
• Interactive voting, advertising and product or service information are the most common forms of mobile marketing.
• Users are most attracted to mobile coupons, special sales and alerts about accounts and purchases.

Mobile Marketing Association press release: http://mmaglobal.com, 15/01/2008

16/01/2008

China's online population grew 53% to reach 210m at the end of 2007 from 137m the year before, reports PC World. The figures, from the China Internet Network Information Centre, put China only 5m users away from becoming the world's largest internet population. 40% of new users (or 29m people) came from rural areas.
86.6% of those surveyed use online music services making music the most popular web application ahead of instant messaging (81%). E-mail is the fifth most popular application with 56.5% using it.
From PC World: http://www.pcworld.com, 18/01/2008
CINIC: http://www.cnnic.cn/en/index/index.htm

18/01/2008

The latest IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index has found that Q4 online sales grew from £9.61bn in 2006 to £15.2bn in 2007, writes Netimperative. Online shopping peaked in the first week of December with sales up 9% year-on-year. Firms with both online and high street outlets such as John Lewis did best.
Further figures estimate that 15% of all UK retail spending during 2007 was online. Total internet spending reached a new high of £46.6bn during 2007, up 54% on 2006's figure of £30.2bn. For each £1 spent on goods in 2007, 15p was spent online - in 2006 online represented 10p of every pound.
From Netimperative: http://www.netimperative.com, 18/01/2008
IMRG: http://www.imrg.org/

19/01/2008

Another depressing report for the print publishing industry as the latest WARC figures point to an acceleration in the contraction of the newspaper ad industry. The World Advertising Research Centre - the group behind the official Advertising Association stats for the UK market - sees newspaper advertising shrink by more than £1.6bn between now and 2019 (a move from £6.7bn to £5.096bn over 12 years). That contraction is in spite of bullish growth in the overall ad market, although with the concentration being on digital channels. With the profitability of the print sector already under extraordinary pressure, this will wound investor confidence even further. Our take: among the firms without strong digital strategies, watch out for the spiral of cost cutting, weaker products, lower engagement, and even weaker drivers for advertisers; among those with the master plan the big question remains - does the collapse of print revenue get properly offset by the growth of digital channels.
WARC: http://www.warc.com, 21/01/2008

21/01/2008

Staggering to reflect on, but half of the UK's single population are now logging-on to dating sites. That's the latest finding from web dating specialists Parship who reckon almost eight million Brits tried online dating last year, an increase of around 50% on 2005. The gender balance is pretty even (52 per cent of men vs 48 per cent of women use online dating). Parship's UK and Ireland director Tony Blin Stoyle sees higher rates among older people: "UK singles, particularly those aged 30 to 40, recognise that as they get older and their social networks become smaller, they need to maximise their opportunities in order to meet a partner. if you rely on traditional routes and wait for a chance encounter with someone special, you could end up waiting a very long time."
Parship: http://www.parship.co.uk/, 21/01/2008

22/01/2008

Another depressing report for the print publishing industry as the latest WARC figures point to an acceleration in the contraction of the newspaper ad industry. The World Advertising Research Centre - the group behind the official Advertising Association stats for the UK market - sees newspaper advertising shrink by more than £1.6bn between now and 2019 (a move from £6.7bn to £5.096bn over 12 years). That contraction is in spite of bullish growth in the overall ad market, although with the concentration being on digital channels. With the profitability of the print sector already under extraordinary pressure, this will wound investor confidence even further. Our take: among the firms without strong digital strategies, watch out for the spiral of cost cutting, weaker products, lower engagement, and even weaker drivers for advertisers; among those with the master plan the big question remains - does the collapse of print revenue get properly offset by the growth of digital channels.
WARC: http://www.warc.com, 21/01/2008

22/01/2008

Broadband connections in Central and Eastern Europe rose 44% during 2007 and three of Europe's five biggest telcos are moving in to take advantage. Research from Screen Digest shows that France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and Spain's Telefonica all now have stakes in the region. Broadband penetration across France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK reached 44% at the end of 2007. In comparison penetration in Central and Eastern Europe stood at only 13%. Russia has fewer than 7% of homes connected to broadband services.
Latin America is another growth market and consumer broadband access is expected to reach 30% of homes in the next five years. Connections grew 41% during 2007 compared to 23% across the "Big Five" West European countries. Telefonica is the leading European operator working in Latin America with stakes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Colombia.
Screen Digest: http://www.screendigest.com/, 22/01/2008

23/01/2008

Is the newspaper industry stuck in the wrong advertising model?

January 2008

Newspapers are still fishing for advertising in the wrong place. That’s the conclusion of newspaper veteran Bob Cauthorn in looking at how the advertising model has failed to adapt in spite of the massive leaps in content. His argument is that hyper-local is the way forward.

26/01/2008  |  Full story...

January saw a great start for the digital marketing, media and retail sectors.

Consumer spending was even greater at Christmas than most e-retailers had forecast with a leap of around 50%, online advertising looks set to overtake television spend in the near future as budgets are pulled from classic channels, and the switch to digital marketing is accelerating in Germany and across Central and Eastern Europe younger digital markets.

Our first international projects of the year confirmed the enthusiasm of marketers in New York to boost their integrated strategies with more online activities, and next month we are back in Sweden and Eastern Europe to see if the same trends are strong in those markets.

For details of new digital training and strategy programmes in your country e-mail me back, and in the meanwhile we all hope you enjoy this edition of Digital Intelligence. If you'd like to give a colleague access this year, then simply e-mail us back and copy them in, and we'll do the rest.

Read January 2008

31/01/2008