Google continues growing, slowly
All eyes were on Google yesterday afternoon when the search engine giant reported its earnings for the second quarter. Because of its position, Google has served as a sort of proxy for gauging the global recession's effects on the internet economy.
Based on Google's results, there's good news and bad news. The good news: things could be far worse. The bad news: things could be far better.
Mobile app review: ShopStyle for iPhone
Shopping aggregator site ShopStyle has launched a iPhone app which allows users to buy fashion items from a range of retailers, including John Lewis, Net-A-Porter and others.
The ShopStyle app, launched this week, lets you browse through 4,000 brands, and then either email links to purchase later, or buy straight from the phone.
Compete and Ad Impact: What works if not click-throughs?
Display advertising is currently suffering from growing pains. Online marketers are digging themselves out of the click-through ghetto, but the best way to measure the effectiveness of display ads online is still unclear.
This week, web measurement firm Compete launched a new service called Ad Impact that tracks what users do after being exposed to online ads.
It gets to a point about the impact of display advertising: if click-through rates aren't working to measure their effectiveness, what will?
Comcast brings its advertising everywhere
Television networks are desperately trying to bring their ad dollars from television onto the web. And Comcast's new strategy to earn ad dollars online is to simply shift put all of its content there.
A new partnership with Time Warner, called TV Everywhere, is bringing Comcast content online for their television subscribers. But while TV viewers might be glad to see that content on the web, they will be less enthusiastic about the fact that it comes with all of the network's television commercials.
Microsoft takes the Mac versus PC fight to the streets
Microsoft is stepping up the Mac versus PC battles by fighting Apple on its own turf.
The two companies have been running competing Mac Vs. PC ads. And this winter, Microsoft announced that the company would open retail stores similar to Apple's. Now, the software giant is saying those stores will be right next door to its competitor.
Google tells newspapers how to disappear completely
Newspaper publishers want the best of both worlds. They want the traffic that Google can deliver, but also think that the search engine owes them something. Specifically: “A fair share of the revenues being generated through the commercial exploitation of our content”.
Well, newsflash: Google owes the newspapers nothing. And now it has openly told the newspapers how to block web pages from the search engines by using the robots.txt no-inclusion protocol. If they want to, that is. There’s a barrier for those who want it. Now put up, or shut up.
Of course this isn’t new to anybody, but Google’s stance, as paidContent puts it, “effectively raises a middle finger to the 169 signatories to the Hamburg Declaration on Intellectual Property Rights, including Dow Jones managing editor Robert Thomson and News Corp Europe CEO James Murdoch”.
It’s going to be interesting to see if even one of those 169 signatories, or any other major newspaper, is actually brave, dumb and ballsy enough to take Google up on its offer. What’s the betting? I’ll wager that not one of them will go ahead with this.
The social media paradox: success & time.
Successful social media engagement for online businesses requires a lot of creative thinking, time and effort. Initially, the balance is tipped in favour of hard graft, dedication and eureka ideas and then you start to see some results. Better results and more followers means more time required to interact effectively with them.
A slippery slope or a stairway to heaven? Should we be spending all this time in the social web? Or is it time to take a step back and put the social media hype into perspective?
Twitter hack: insight into a hot startup that may be losing its edge
When Michael Arrington of TechCrunch decided to publish confidential Twitter corporate documents obtained by a hacker, I wasn't impressed. It's a bad decision that's hard to justify ethically.
But what's done is done and instead of admonishing him for using a different brand of moral compass, I thought there'd be more value in using the opportunity, no matter how unfortunate, to make some observations about one of the internet's hottest startups.
Are Google's UK search results broken?
There has been some discussion lately on Twitter and elsewhere, about Google's UK SERPS being 'broken', with some anomalous results appearing, and non-UK sites ranking higher than they perhaps ought to for some search terms.
I've been asking the opinions of a few SEO agencies on the issue, and the consensus is that there are some issues here that Google needs to look at...
Q&A: Hiscox's Mike Beddington on selling financial services online
Insurance firm Hiscox recently relaunched its UK website, as part of a strategy to improve the company's online performance.
I've been talking to Hiscox's head of online and customer experience Mike Beddington, as well as UK web manager Stephen Rumbelow, about the revamped Hiscox site, and the challenges of selling financial products and services online...
Holiday shopping forecast 2009: a lot like 2008, with more coupons
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
