Digital Marketing Blog

Google Finance to offer free real time stock quotes?

With a new proposal from the New York Stock Exchange to allow the use of real-time share prices, Google Finance and other sites may soon be able to give users free access to such data.

Google has been working with the Securities and Trade Commission (SEC) the New York Stock Exchange and NetCoalition to reach an agreement which will allow Google Finance to display real time market data free of charge.

by Graham Charlton 15 January 2007 13:33pm 3 comments

Bebo hires Google MD to expand international business

Social network site Bebo has announced the appointment of Joanna Shields, former Managing Director of Strategic Partnerships for Google EMEA to grow its international business.

At Google, Joanna Shields managed the company’s syndication network in Europe, working on partnerships with media and telecoms companies. She was behind Google’s broadband partnership with BSkyB back in December.

by Graham Charlton 15 January 2007 12:27pm 1 comment

UK newspapers compete to buy Google search terms

UK newspapers are becoming increasingly aggressive in their Google strategies, with more and more buying search terms to direct readers looking for news stories to their websites.

Back in October, we covered an article by Heather Hopkins at Hitwise UK, which looked into The Sun’s search marketing strategy. The article showed how the tabloid was pursuing a more aggressive paid search strategy, with some success.

by Graham Charlton 15 January 2007 11:11am 0 comments

Interview: Online mapping guru Ed Parsons

Ed Parsons is the former chief technology officer of the Ordnance Survey, and one of the most knowledgeable people in the UK’s geospatial industry.

Before his much talked about departure last month, he was one of the central figures in the debate over the Ordnance Survey’s licensing regime – i.e., whether it should offer low cost access to mapping data to encourage the development of applications and mash-ups. He had also been pushing for the organisation to launch an API for non-commercial services and to adopt an open source model in some of its projects.

I caught up with him last week to find out more about internet mapping and his plans for the future…

by Richard Maven 15 January 2007 10:49am 0 comments

AOL bids $900m for Tradedoubler

AOL could be set to pay almost $1bn for Swedish online ad group Tradedoubler in a bid to increase its ad revenues in Europe.

The internet giant said Tradedoubler’s board had recommended that its shareholders accept the bid, which at $900m (£450m) represents a 20% premium on the average price of the firm’s shares in the last 90 days.

by Richard Maven 15 January 2007 09:25am 0 comments

Wal-Mart ads 'keep Pirate Bay afloat'

Asda parent Wal-Mart is reportedly placing banner ads on under-fire BitTorrent trading site The Pirate Bay.

Sweden-based The Pirate Bay grew into the world's largest torrent tracker last year, doing a roaring trade in illegally shared TV shows, movies and more. Law enforcers shut the site down in May, but it resurfaced, more popular than ever, just days later to torment the entertainment industry again.

by Robert Andrews 15 January 2007 08:17am 0 comments

Beckham's US move sparks domain name frenzy

With the recent news that David Beckham is to head to the footballing backwater that is the US Major Soccer League, opportunists have been snapping up domain names related to the news.

According to domain name management firm NetNames, cyber-squatters started buying up every conceivable combination of the words 'Beckham' and 'Galaxy' as soon as the news broke. Within an hour, most variations were registered.

by Graham Charlton 12 January 2007 18:25pm 0 comments

AOL to use Napster for music subscription service

AOL has announced that Napster will become the exclusive subscription provider for AOL Music, replacing AOL Music Now, which has about 350,000 paying subscribers.

Existing AOL Music Now customers will have their accounts, including music libraries and playlists, migrated over to Napster unless they choose to opt out.

by Graham Charlton 12 January 2007 13:42pm 0 comments

Tips on optimising your blog for SEO and readers

Jennifer Slegg at Search Engine Land has some useful tips on optimising your blog, for the benefit of both your readers and the search engines.

Jennifer presents some tips for increasing your visibility on search engines, others, including tips on fonts and descriptive titles, to make your blog more accessible and easy to read.

Here is a small selection of tips:

by Graham Charlton 12 January 2007 12:53pm 2 comments

High street retailers make gains online

High street retailers that have developed a strong online presence received a major payback this Christmas, according to traffic figures from Hitwise.

The measurement group's Heather Hopkins has published a review of her pre-Christmas online retail predictions, including some useful information on traffic to UK retail sites over the festive period.

by Graham Charlton 12 January 2007 08:43am 1 comment