Digital Marketing Blog

Lovefilm launches 'download to burn' service

Lovefilm.com, the online DVD rental company, has announced the launch of the UK's first legal movie download service, which will allow customers to burn downloaded movies onto blank DVDs.

The move is prompted by Lovefilm's research into its customer's preferences, which found that 57% wanted the opportunity to create their own discs from their downloads.

by Graham Charlton 16 March 2007 13:11pm 0 comments

A lesson from America

In last week's post, I misquoted Terry Duddy when he predicted (and this is the corrected version) that online retail sales wouldn't be much more than 10-15% of total UK retail sales by 2015 – my apologies Terry.

With my fingers somewhat burnt, I thought I’d play it safe this week and take a quick look at what’s being said in the US about online sales, now and in the future, to see if this helps inform the debate in the UK.

by Steve Borges 16 March 2007 11:43am 0 comments

German keeps Euro Gmails close to his chest

A German businessman who owns the 'G-mail' trademark so desired by Google says he would refuse to sell the name, even for millions of dollars.

Hamburg-based Daniel Giersch registered the name for his postal service in 2000 and launched an e-mail adjunct in 2003, before Google launched its web-based mail client a year later.

by Robert Andrews 16 March 2007 11:26am 0 comments

Ask.com admits to secret anti-Google campaign

Ask.com has launched a guerrilla-style marketing campaign designed to encourage British internet users to broaden their choice of search engine.

In the last couple of weeks, posters featuring a megaphone, a link to information-revolution.org and the slogan "stop the information monopoly" began appearing on tube trains, lamp posts and elsewhere. They warn libertarians about Google's 75% UK market share, although the name of the organisation behind the campaign was not disclosed.

by Robert Andrews 16 March 2007 09:28am 1 comment

Returning online purchases is too much hassle - survey

A survey by shopping comparison site PriceRunner has shown that while customers love the convenience of shopping online, etailers' return processes leave much to be desired.

PriceRunner surveyed 400 online shoppers, all of whom have been shopping online for up to five years. Almost 40% were unhappy with the processes for returning goods bought online.

by Graham Charlton 15 March 2007 14:18pm 1 comment

10 reasons why mobile advertising is doomed

Isn’t it funny how we’ve been hearing that ‘This Is The Year For Mobile’ every year since, oh, about 1863?

This seems to have been driven by hugely bullish forecasts from various analysts over the past decade, and the desire among investors to get this message out to market in order to Make Things Happen. Yet mobile marketing has never been the big story, for any number of reasons.

by Chris Lake 15 March 2007 14:07pm 12 comments

Why online PR and SEO go hand in hand

Once you’ve optimised your website copy, you’ll find that the most important part of optimisation happens off the page – where links from external sites back to yours play a vital role in telling Google and other search engines how important your site really is.

by Ken McGaffin 15 March 2007 12:01pm 15 comments

Apple UK site slip-up sets tongues wagging

A product listing that appeared and was hastily removed from Apple's UK website has whet observers' appetites for a forthcoming hike in processor speeds.

Searches for Mac Pro machines on the Apple Store on Monday revealed a listing stating: "Now quad-core or 8-core processing power".

by Robert Andrews 15 March 2007 11:21am 0 comments

Online banking fraud on the rise

Online fraud figures released yesterday by APACS, the UK payments association, show a 44% rise in online banking fraud last year.

Offline credit card fraud at UK retailers fell by 47% to a total of £72.1m, from 2005's figure of £135.9m, thanks largely to the introduction of chip and pin.

by Graham Charlton 15 March 2007 11:00am 1 comment

comScore metrics re-jigged to acknowledge AJAX

Web stats auditor comScore has introduced a new 'visits' metric to augment its 'page views' tracking after conceding its previous system unfairly represented Yahoo!

Yahoo! protested in December after comScore data placed it behind MySpace for pages viewed. Yahoo!'s increasing use of AJAX means users create fewer page views because tasks can be completed without reloading pages.

by Robert Andrews 15 March 2007 09:41am 0 comments