Digital Marketing Blog

New local shopping search engine launches in the UK

AskTheLocal is a new shopping search engine that allows users to search for products in their local area, with the intention of directing customers to the offline - rather than online - store.

The site aims to emulate the success in the US of sites like ShopLocal.com, which reached 1.8 million visits per month just a year after its launch in August 2004.

We caught up with AskTheLocal co-founder Peter Abrahamson to ask a few questions about the new site...

by Graham Charlton 16 November 2006 11:35am 4 comments

Are social news sites like Digg 'better' than Google News?

Muhammad Saleem at The Mu Life wrote an article last week claiming that social media is more effective at disseminating news than Google News.

Muhammad’s article, ‘Why Socially Driven News is Better’ used the news of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation as an example of social media beating Google News to a major story.

Interesting argument, but it doesn't stand up...

by Graham Charlton 16 November 2006 11:22am 2 comments

YouTube threatens to sue TechCrunch on copyright concerns

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has been hit with a cease and desist order by lawyers acting on behalf on YouTube.

His 'crime' was to post an article advising readers how to download videos from YouTube to an iPod, or a computer’s hard drive. Arrington had checked YouTube’s terms of use before posting this, and found nothing in there to prevent this.

Or so they thought…

by Graham Charlton 16 November 2006 11:01am 0 comments

Search engines aim to ease indexing process

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are teaming up to develop a unified way for webmasters to update their crawlers.

The three search giants will support a new version of the Sitemaps protocol, which was first released by Google in June last year.

by Richard Maven 16 November 2006 09:54am 1 comment

Understanding different types of keyphrases for PPC success

The majority of search queries consist of more than word - over the past decade searchers have gradually increased the amount of words per query, from 1.2 in 1998 to 3.3 in 2006.

Partly, this is because there is more noise to cut through on search engines like Google and Yahoo. But it is also about savvier searchers, finessing their query to return the most relevant results.

If you are running paid search marketing campaigns you need to understand how search queries indicate propensity to convert, and customer value.

Figuring this out can make a big difference to your return on investment from PPC campaigns...

by Chris Lake 15 November 2006 18:19pm 0 comments

Interview with AllPeers founders Cedric Maloux and Matt Gertner

Skype founder Niklas Zennström recently named AllPeers among Europe’s four most innovative tech start-ups - and you can't really argue with him.

Launched at the end of August after four years of development work, AllPeers’ private P2P platform allows users to share videos, photos, webpages and other paraphernalia with their family and friends.

But next year, it also intends to expand its technology to allow files to be shared publicly, and to offer content creators a chance to earn money through micro-payments, rather than through advertising.

We met up with CEO Cedric Maloux and CTO Matt Gertner to find out more.

by Richard Maven 15 November 2006 13:44pm 0 comments

Murdoch: MySpace worth $6bn

Rupert Murdoch has told a meeting of Australian investors that MySpace would be worth $6bn if News Corporation were to sell it now.

The media giant paid $580m for the world’s most popular social network site last year, and Murdoch now considers MySpace to be a vital part of his media empire.

by Graham Charlton 15 November 2006 11:52am 0 comments

Miniclip targets mobiles and China

Miniclip, the world’s largest games site, is preparing to move into the mobile market as part of an expansion plan which will also see it targeting the Far East.

by Richard Maven 15 November 2006 11:48am 1 comment

US internet ad revenues hit new high

US online ad revenues reached a new record of $4.2bn in Q3, according to figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

The report, conducted by PwC, showed a 33% increase in internet ad revenues from the same period in 2005, and a rise of 2% from Q2’s figure of almost $4.1bn.

by Graham Charlton 15 November 2006 09:25am 0 comments

Borkowski PR: 'it wasn’t us what uploaded it'

When a YouTube clip featuring London-based PR firm Borkowski moving offices achieved over 10,000 views, you would be forgiven for thinking that it was a canny piece of marketing by the company.

Not so, apparently. PR Blogger.com reports that the PR firm denies posting the Benny Hill-style clip on YouTube.

by Graham Charlton 15 November 2006 09:13am 1 comment