Michael Jackson's death triggered surges to the web that slowed Google,
crashed Twitter and saw millions of tracks downloaded in days. The
horrors in Iran drove people online both inside and outside the country,
and the single actions of Iranians with cameras and web connections
revealed the truth to the world.
The web has given everyone a voice and it's at times like these the
scale of change is clearest. We've been tracking the rise of social
media for five years and there are more examples here:
www.DigitalTrainingAcademy.com/socialmedia.
Meanwhile in the advertising industry the switch to the web remains
unfaltering - even though growth appears to be stalling in the US,
brands in every country continue switching budgets online because
pressured marketers are looking for accountability. This is something
we've seen first hand in auditing the effectiveness of brands' marketing
spends.
This month we've also included links and comment about the UK's 'Digital
Britain' report and the framework for developing our own digital
economy.
Best from all @ Digital
Danny Meadows-Klue
Founder and Chief Executive
Digital Strategy Consulting
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Statistics |
Here are the latest stats and figures from the
past month.
Consumer internet behaviour: Worldwide
Monthly internet use: key indicators for web
users based on global data, May 2009
Internet audience in Europe
Total internet users by country
across Europe, April 2009
Consumer internet behaviour: Germany
Key indicators for monthly
internet use: in Germany, May 2009
Internet audiences in Germany
Time per person for top 10 parent companies,
Germany May 2009
Top
10 internet services in Germany
Audience reach for top 10 parent companies in
Germany, May 2009
Consumer internet behaviour: UK
Monthly internet use: key
indicators for UK web users, May 2009
Internet audience: UK
Time per person for top 10 parent
companies, UK May 2009
Largest UK internet sites
UK audience reach for top 10
parents companies, May 2009
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Advertising |
European online adspend grew 20% in 2008
The latest European online advertising study
from IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has revealed that online
adspend grew 20% during 2008 to reach €12.9bn (£11bn), writes Brand
Republic. The study examined the markets in 19 European countries.
Although some mature markets showed less than 20% growth, only France
and the Netherlands came in below 19% (with 18.5% and 9%
respectively).
Online search advertising led the way with 26% growth, rising to
€5.6bn (£4.8bn). Overall, search accounted for 43% of all European ad
budgets in 2008 (from 41% in 2007). Classified adspend was up 17% on
2007 (to take 25% of all advertising), reaching €3.8bn (£3.25bn).
Display advertising increased 17% to €3.3bn (£2.82bn) and email spend
remained flat at €200m (£171m).
From Media Week:
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk, 11/06/2009
IAB Europe:
http://www.iabeurope.eu36% of all UK adspend to be online by 2013
PricewaterhouseCoopers's (PwC) latest
Entertainment and Media Outlook report predicts that online
advertising in the UK will take 36% of all adspend by 2013, writes
Brand Republic. According to the firm, online ad expenditure grew
17.1% (£540m) year-on-year during 2008 to reach £3.35bn, giving it
19.2% of the UK ad market (from 15.5%). The report also predicts that
the UK's total internet access market (including both wired and
mobile) will grow at a compound rate of 7% between 2009 and 2013 to
reach £8.84bn (from £6.32bn).
PwC expects the UK's entertainment and media market to decline until
2010 before growth resumes. Not all sectors will fully recover
however: PwC forecasts that the only sectors which will be larger in
2013 than in 2008 are internet access, internet advertising, TV
subscriptions and license fees, filmed entertainment and video games.
From Brand Republic:
http://www.brandrepublic.com, 16/06/2009
PricewaterhouseCoopers:
http://www.pwc.com
Internet advertising: European markets
Online advertising spend growth
slows in maturing markets, December 2007-2008
Internet advertising: Europe
Growth in online advertising
categories across Europe in 2008
Internet advertising: Europe
Total online advertising in
Europe 2007-2008
Online adspend drops 5% in US to reach $5.5bn
The latest US figures from the IAB and PwC show
that online adspend fell 5% year-on-year in Q1. Against the previous
quarter the decline was even higher at 10%. The results represent the
first time that year-on-year figures have been negative since 2002.
However, total US advertising figures from Nielsen suggest a slower
drop in online adspend. Their figures for online display advertising
show a 3.4% drop (to $2.11bn) against a total quarterly advertising
decrease of 12% (to $27.9bn).
At the other end of the scale TNS Media have bucked the trend to
report an 8.2% year-on-year rise in quarterly online display
advertising against a total fall in the US advertising market of
14.2%.
From ClickZ:
http://www.clickz.com, 08/06/2009
IAB US:
http://www.iab.net
Internet advertiser volumes: UK
Online display advertising
sectors and volumes of campaigns: January-April 2009
Online display ad activity up 21% in first third of 2009
Nielsen Online have released new research which
shows that activity in the UK's online display advertising sector grew
21% year-on-year in the first four months of 2009, writes Media Week.
The research studied the online display ad market by tracking three
metrics: the number of advertisers; the number of individual campaigns
they ran; and the number of ad creatives used. On average, 5,900
advertisers ran online display ad campaigns each month; 11,000
campaigns were run; and 32,000 ad creatives were used.
Growth was predominantly driven by big brand advertisers in the retail
and finance sectors such as Tesco, Marks & Spencer, HSBC and Barclays.
From Media Week:
http://www.mediaweek.co.uk, 04/06/2009
Nielsen Online:
http://www.nielsen-online.com
Online advertising spend: US
Internet advertising spend in the
US since the internet "boom" in 2009
Internet advertising: US
Advertising spend migration in
the US
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Government |
Government releases Digital Britain report
The Government has finally published its
Digital Britain report by Communications Minister Lord Carter. The 238
page report sets out the Government's "strategic vision" for the next
stage of the UK's digital development in order for the country to
remain at the "leading edge of the global digital economy". New
measures outlined in the report include:
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Universal UK access to broadband speeds of
2Mbps by 2012.
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Setting up a fund to invest in next generation
broadband using a 50p monthly levy on all fixed telephone lines.
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A three-year plan to raise digital
participation.
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Legal and regulatory changes to fight digital
piracy with an increased role given to Ofcom.
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A change in Channel 4's remit, with a new role
as the 'open new media authority' (instead of 'the open broadcasting
authority').
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Liberalising the mobile spectrum, extending 3G
licenses and improving 3G coverage.
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Holding a consultation to examine funding for
local, national and regional news (including the proposal to
redirect £130m from the BBC licence fee to pay for ITV regional
news).
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Setting the digital radio switchover date for
2015.
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Supporting public service content partnerships.
The following is our round-up of the most
useful and relevant Digital Britain stories from around the web:
Social networks: A first step towards European regulation
European regulators unveiled long anticipated
plans this week for guidelines about how social networks such as
Facebook and MySpace should handle European privacy rules, writes the
Wall Street Journal. Regulation in a young and fast changing space is
always risky, and many will argue lacks necessity because of the
existing data protection directive. However the guidelines appear to
have been set very low, simply reconfirming what would be common
knowledge even for novice internet users.
The WSJ confirms that key elements include...
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Sites should offer privacy-friendly default
settings.
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Users should be advised that pictures should only be uploaded with
the individual's consent.
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Sites must set maximum periods to retain data on inactive users.
Abandoned accounts must be deleted.
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Users should be allowed to adopt a pseudonym.
The reason why this matters is that global
players such as Facebook are based outside the EU's jurisdiction and
citizens from the 27 European nations would have different types
(usually weaker) privacy frameworks on these global sites to the
national equivalents. The recommendations also include getting social
network owners to place default security settings at a high level and
allow users to limit data disclosed to third parties. Sensitive
information, such as race, religion or political views are also
covered, along with behaviourally targeted advertising.
From the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com, 24/06/2009
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Companies |
Vodafone and MySpace extend partnership with launch of Music Studio
Vodafone are strengthening their ongoing ties
to MySpace by launching an online music studio, writes Netimperative.
The 8-month campaign will see the firms build a MySpace community
geared towards musicians and music fans in the UK, Germany and Spain.
The Music Studio will feature:
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an online remixing tool for musicians to play
with tracks by established artists;
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tips and tricks on playing and recording music
and using MySpace to promote artists;
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regular monthly competitions for bands and
artists to promote themselves and win recording time;
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news and interviews from Vodafone-sponsored
events across Europe;
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discussion forums and community tools for
musicians to link to events.
The partnership complements the launch of the
Vodafone Music Reporter platform on MySpace last year and reflects
Vodafone's ongoing strategy to brand itself as a "key player in the
music industry".
MySpace has had a tough time this month, announcing staff cuts of
nearly 30% as the site restructures itself to try and play catch-up
with Facebook and Twitter.
From Netimperative:
http://www.netimperative.com, 24/06/2009
The Music Studio:
http://www.myspace.com/themusicstudio
UK
Twitter traffic up 22-fold in 12 months
New research from Hitwise has found that
traffic to Twitter has increased 22-fold in the last year. According
to the research, Twitter was the UK's 38th most-visited website in May
this year and the 5th most-visited social network. In contrast the
site only ranked 969th place a year ago in May 2008. 93% of Twitter's
growth dates from 2009 as media coverage and increasing numbers of
high profile celebrity users have raised public awareness and driven
online registrations.
Hitwise have also discovered that Twitter is now the UK's 30th biggest
source of traffic for other websites, responsible on average for 1 in
every 350 site visits. 55.9% of downstream traffic from Twitter goes
to other content-driven media websites including newspapers, blogs,
other social networks and news and entertainment sites. In particular,
Twitter is now the 27th biggest source of traffic to websites tracked
by Hitwise in the "News and Media - Print" category. Twitter is
less-successful in motivation shoppers however with only 9.5% of the
site's traffic going on to visit online retailers.
The Twitter effect can be tremendous though: online picture site
Twitpic is now the third most popular photo website in the UK after
Flickr and Photobucket as a direct consequence of receiving 1 in every
13 downstream UK visits from Twitter.
From Hitwise:
http://www.hitwise.co.uk, 24/06/2009
Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com
Self service ads trend grows: Yahoo! launch My Display Ads
New toolkits released from Yahoo! this month
apply the ease of search engine advertising creation to graphical ads.
It's another significant step in the restructuring of the advertising
sector, changing the role of small ad agencies as well as creating a
more efficient structure for taking messages to market. Look out for
more extensive toolkits from MSN, and widespread adoption by online
publishers from the print and broadcast sectors.
Yahoo!:
http://uk.yahoo.com, 22/06/2009
Facebook overtakes MySpace in the US
Facebook has finally overtaken MySpace in the
US according to new research from comScore, writes eMarketer.
According to the metrics firm, Facebook received 70,278,000 unique
visitors in the US during May this year, a 97% increase on May 2008.
Unique visitors to MySpace fell 5% during the same period to
70,255,000. Previously comScore had predicted that it would take until
2010 for Facebook to overcome its rival.
Further evidence of Facebook's current dominance was also seen in the
site's roll-out of personalised URLs. Over 3 million users logged on
in the first 12 hours to register their chosen suffixes which now
replace numerical identifiers for the first time.
In the UK, Facebook had further reason to celebrate this month as
comScore also revealed that the site had overtaken Yahoo! during April
to become the third most visited website, with 23.4m users.
From eMarketer:
http://www.emarketer.com, 18/06/2009
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com
Virgin Media to offer unlimited music download service
Virgin Media broadband customers will soon have
unlimited access to Universal Music's entire back catalogue for a set
monthly subscription, writes Marketing Magazine. Users of the service
will pay around £20 a month and will be able to stream and download as
much music as they want without limits. Users will be able to keep any
MP3 files they download and play them on any compatible device without
restriction. Virgin Media is currently in talks with other major
record labels to try and sign up further partners before the service
goes live later this year. Virgin Media also intends to offer a
cut-price "entry level" subscription for people who do not require
unlimited access.
From Marketing Magazine:
http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk, 15/06/2009
Virgin Media:
http://www.virginmedia.com
Dell generates £1.8m through Twitter
Global computer firm Dell has generated sales
of over $3m (£1.8m) through its presence on Twitter, writes
Revolution. According to the firm, sales have come from Twitter
followers clicking directly from tweets to purchase products online.
Dell has used Twitter for the last two years and tracks sales which
initiate from the microblogging site using its proprietary ecommerce
system. Sales from Twitter for the last six months totalled $1m
(£600,000).
However, Twitter-led sales currently remain small beer for the
computer giant which posted revenues of $12.3bn (£7.5bn) in Q1 2009.
From Revolution:
http://www.revolutionmagazine.com, 15/06/2009
Dell UK:
http://www.dell.co.uk
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Trends |
Media multi-tasking: a snapshot in changing behaviours of digital
consumers
There is a marked increase in the number of
people choosing to consume different media simultaneously, confirming
the evolution of media multi-taskers according to new research from
the European Interactive Advertising Association released in June
2009. The study highlights how consumers are entering a new phase of
communications and commerce online and how dual simultaneous media
consumption has become standard consumer behaviour.
From DigitalStrategyConsulting.com:
http://www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com, 23/06/2009
Digital Strategy Consulting:
http://www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com
Browser battles: Firefox market share
Possibly one of the fastest downloads in
history. Mozilla's new Firefox 3.1.11 browser clocked up a staggering
150m downloads in its first 24 hours, writes VNU. Apple's Safari is
logging a more sedate 11m for Safari 4 (over the first four days).
From Vnunet.com:
http://www.vnunet.com,
14/06/2009
Firefox:
http://www.firefox.com |
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Ecommerce |
Online retail set to grow 13.3% during 2009
A new report from Verdict Research estimates
that online retail in the UK will grow 13.3% in 2009, despite a
predicted decline in total retail of 0.6%, writes Telecoms Europe.
According to Verdict, online retail spending will reach £20.9bn by the
end of this year as both the number of online shoppers and expenditure
per head continue to increase. Verdict predict that online spend will
reach £31.2bn by 2013, accounting for 10% of all British retail.
From Telecoms Europe:
http://www.telecomseurope.net,
02/06/2009
Verdict Research:
http://www.verdict.co.uk
Online shopping: Biggest UK sites
Top 10 retailers in the UK, April
2009
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Mobile |
More mobile handsets get Flash
HTC and Adobe have announced that the Flash
content format that drives much of the high impact visuals on the web
will soon be available on Android, writes CrunchGear. It's another
small step towards achieving complete adoption of key content tools
and much needed if the web experience is to be effectively reproduced
on mobile devices.
From CrunchGear:
http://www.crunchgear.com, 24/06/2009
Adobe Flash:
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer |
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Broadcasting |
Channel 4: web-enabled archive
This weekend the UK's Channel 4 television
network announced 10,000 archived shows are being put online - and for
free. Media guardian reported that over 4,000 hours of content on the
way, and all viewable through the 4oD catch-up service. The
implications are that pressure will grow to release the BBC's content
archives which currently only run to 7 days. Great news for the web
and internet users, good news for advertisers who have a new high
volume channel for TV commercials, but in a world of television
on-demand will there be any role for the linear broadcast schedule?
From Media Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk, 07/06/2009
Channel 4oD:
http://www.channel4.com/4od |
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Comment:
tracking the digital networked society for over a decade
www.DigitalStrategyConsulting.com/blogs |
Lycos: A story of digital decay, diseconomies and disintegration
In the maelstrom of the dotcom days a lot of
heady deals were done in time periods too short, surrounded by too
much hype and too little strategy. The result was corporate debris
with globally presented brands that were disjointed behind the scenes...
More...
How
fast is your mobile broadband, no, really?
Shocking report from Epitro this week found the
average UK mobile broadband download speed only 0.9megs: that's a
quarter of the 3.6megs most suppliers claim...
More...
iPhone 3GS: gadgets you never knew you needed
Some of this stuff nobody could make up,
unreal.
More...
Digital minister quits UK government - by posting on Twitter
It's been a dismal week for the British
Government. The European elections will see a the tide turn against
the ruling Labour party, and as the newswires saturate with talk of
cabinet coups, party lines being broken and the parliamentary party in
disarray, one minister chose to resign - through Twitter...
More...
Digital society; analogue voting
It's voting day today here in the UK. As part of
Europe's election, millions of us are weaving our way to community
halls, churches and local government buildings, taking part in
democracy...
More...
Freedom of the web? Not for Facebook in Iran
Iran has blocked access to Facebook...
More... |
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