Big media puts the pressure on Google
Times are tough and that's especially true for big media companies, including publishers like newspapers.
Advertisers are cutting back and that means that all online publishers are competing for a piece of a smaller pie. While traffic figures aren't the be all and end all of ad sales, traffic does matter.
The Web Week in Review
It was an interesting week. As news of the debate over the possible bailout of the United States' struggling automakers captured the headlines and largely dictated the mood in the major financial markets around the world, newspaper titan Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy and the Pulitzer Prize Board decided to fully embrace online journalism.
ITV updates its video player
ITV has been tweaking its online catch up TV service, and has introduced a few improvements for customers viewing video on its website, using Microsoft Silverlight.
The service is going to be rebranded as the 'ITV Player', which is at least a bit more distinctive than 'catch up'. As well as a new name, ITV needs to be improve the usability of its online video, so what difference has Silverlight made to this?
'Ad nausea' an online problem too?
Last week, AdAge.com published an article discussing the disgust consumers are developing for the increasing number of ads that are being aired over and over again.
AdAge.com's Brain Steinberg cites an ad that Toyota has flooded the airwaves with that led to the creation of a Facebook group with nearly 9,000 members that is calling for the ad to be killed.
The Web Week in Review
Perhaps I'm simply tiring of the economic news (or becoming immune to it). Increasingly, I find myself being drawn more and more to random news stories unrelated to the flurry of bad news that seems to come on the economic front.
Tis the season to be jolly, right? Here's this week's hodgepodge of news and it's not all bad.
The BBC is still not sure how to link out
The BBC has released the results of its experiment with in-text links, and it seems the corporation is still not sure how to deal with the issue of linking out from its articles.
The BBC Internet Blog reports on the results of the experiment, which used the Apture service to add links to the text of articles. 90% of the feedback received during the two week trial.
A case study in 'social media' success
I'm a professed 'social media' skeptic. I believe that much of the hype around social media is unjustified.
I believe anyone arguing that every corporation should be seeking out 'conversations' and becoming 'friends' with customers on social networks largely reflects a misguided and naive marketing philosophy.
The Web Week in Review
In a week that that saw a rally in global stock markets and is seeing some of the best Black Friday deals in recent memory, it seems like the world has been able to recapture some sense of normalcy.
Here's the news that caught my attention this week.
Site comparison: newspapers on mobile
Despite being pretty advanced online, The Guardian's mobile site is well behind the times, and the newspaper has now hired a consultant to improve its mobile strategy.
The mobile edition doesn't match up to the web version and, with this in mind, I've been taking a closer look at the Guardian's and some other newspaper's mobile sites...
Newspapers battle each other for advertisers, could online publishers do the same?
Bloomberg.com published an interesting article last Friday that highlights just how competitive it's getting in the newspaper world as newspapers struggle to not only survive the woes of their industry, but struggle to survive a tough economic environment.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
