David Moth

'Have You Seen' offers commissions for social recommendations

Traffic Junction has launched a new service that turns consumers into affiliate marketers through the use of social recommendations.

After signing up to Have You Seen, consumers can send unique links to their friends and family recommending products from a range of retailers.

It is compatible with email, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, and if the recipient buys a product through the link the original user is paid commission by the merchant.

by David Moth 25 April 2012 15:21pm 3 comments

Why was Dixon's response to its website crash so anti-social?

Visitors to Dixons’ website were greeted with an error message on Monday after the site went offline due to increased traffic volume during its annual sale.

Or at least that’s what the error message said.

However Currys and PC World, which are both owned by Dixons Retail Group, also went offline with a spokesman quoted as saying the outage was caused by fibre damage during roadworks.

by David Moth 25 April 2012 13:24pm 1 comment

The incredible shrinking Yahoo: infographic

Yahoo’s fall from grace is well documented, with its once dominant position in the search industry undermined by years of mismanagement.

New CEO Scott Thompson has a major task on his hands reversing the company’s declining fortunes, with his plans currently focused on boosting ad revenues and forging a closer alliance with Microsoft.

by David Moth 25 April 2012 13:03pm 2 comments

UK consumers spend 25% of disposable income online

UK consumers spend 25% of their disposable income online, according to a new report from WorldPay.

This is the highest percentage among European nations and is 2% more than the average US consumer.

WorldPay’s Global Online Shopper Report found that the top three online spending categories for UK consumers are clothes (36%), food (33%) and money spent with department stores (33%).

by David Moth 25 April 2012 10:28am 0 comments

Apps and free trials: Has The Telegraph got it wrong?

The Daily Telegraph released its iPhone and Android smartphone apps earlier this month, offering users a free one-month trial of its new service.

Users who sign up can access news content, live financial data and video and picture galleries.

The Telegraph has achieved successful engagement levels on its iPad app so it makes sense to add smartphone apps to its portfolio.

The apps cost £1.99 per month following the free trial, which is similar to pricing models offered by other publishers.

by David Moth 24 April 2012 14:38pm 0 comments

Q&A: Grapple CEO Alistair Crane on mobile app development

When creating a mobile app one of the key decisions is choosing what functionality to offer your customers.

For example, Comet’s app offered users product information and a price checking facility but didn’t offer customers the chance to make a purchase within the app.

In comparison, Premier Inn’s app allows users to manage their account and make bookings.

Both these apps were created by Grapple and achieved impressive download stats.

by David Moth 24 April 2012 13:01pm 0 comments

Just 10% of UK businesses monitor social media ROI

Only one in ten UK businesses is able to effectively measure ROI from social media, according to a new survey by EPiServer.

This is despite the fact that more than three-quarters of respondents said they are either running an online community or plan to do so in the next 12 months.

by David Moth 24 April 2012 11:51am 2 comments

Mobile ad impressions up 12% in Q1 2012: infographic

InMobi has reported that impressions on its mobile ad network increased by 12% in Q1 compared to Q4 2011, up to 9.5bn in total.

Apple’s iOS maintained its dominance over Android and RIM OS with a 45.7% share of available impressions, though this was actually down 2.7% on last quarter.

Android now accounts for 26.1% of mobile ad impressions on the InMobi network, an increase of 4% on Q4.

by David Moth 24 April 2012 10:18am 1 comment

Q&A: Autonomy's Elio Gambetta on social media monitoring

'Big data' is the latest buzzword describing the overwhelming amount of information businesses can access with in the digital age.

And while businesses are now well aware of the benefits of capturing consumer information, finding the best way to approach and analyse big data is still a massive challenge.

Social media presents a unique data challenge as much of what is captured is difficult to quantify as the value lies hidden in sentiment that it is difficult for computers to group and analyse.

One of the companies trying to bring some sense to social data is Autonomy's Promote Solutions.

We spoke to Promote Solutions SVP for EMEA Elio Gambetta to find out how brands should approach social media monitoring and how it can positively impact their business.

by David Moth 23 April 2012 14:42pm 0 comments

Dixons' website crashes due to sales traffic

Dixons’ annual sale got off to a bad start this morning when the website went offline due to a “high volume of visitors.”

One of the main aims of a sale is to drive increased volumes of traffic, so the outage suggests that Dixons failed to properly test and prepare its systems in the run up to the event.

And it’s not like the electronics retailer hasn’t had prior warning of this type of issue from other online retailers.

by David Moth 23 April 2012 12:20pm 4 comments