Graham Charlton
Graham Charlton is Editor of the Econsultancy blog, covering e-commerce, SEO, and more. He also contributes to our Best Practice Guides and other reports. You can contact him at graham.charlton@econsultancy.com.
Read more
Social networking site Bebo today announced the launch of several new features in the site’s internal mail system, designed to enhance users’ ability to share content among their friends while reducing spam.
The new mail system now sorts incoming messages into two inboxes – one for personal one-to-one messages, the other for messages among groups of two or more users.
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
17 November 2006 12:15pm
2 comments
UK retail sales were higher than expected in October, with sales boosted by the growth in online shopping.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the volume of retail sales increased by 0.9% in October, higher than analysts’ predictions of 0.3%. This represents the biggest monthly rise since November last year.
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
17 November 2006 12:14pm
0 comments
Jason Calacanis has announced the hiring of more Netscape ‘Navigators’, and revealed he may spend up to $2.4m a year on more user-generated content for the bookmarking site.
Netscape now employs 23 of these navigators on what Calacanis calls a ‘very part-time’ basis, paying them $12,000 a year each to submit stories, lead discussions and generally do housekeeping tasks, such as closing down duplicate stories and eliminating spam comments.
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
16 November 2006 15:45pm
0 comments
Polar Rose, a startup based in Malmö, Sweden, has announced the receipt of $5.1 million from Nordic Venture Partners for its facial recognition and visual search technology.
Polar Rose’s Bloom technology uses a combination of automatic facial recognition with 3D modelling to look for photos on the Internet. In addition, Polar Rose’s image search will allow users to tag photos to improve recognition.
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
17 November 2006 12:12pm
0 comments
Research from comScore has detailed the habits of US digital music player owners, finding that they are likely to have an above-average income, and thus represent an attractive target for electronics marketers.
These consumers are more tech-savvy than the average surfer, and were found to be fans of online shopping - 49% believe online is the best way to shop, while 94% had made online purchases in the past six months.
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
16 November 2006 15:55pm
0 comments
New research from the Royal Mail suggests that, for those employees who like to do their online shopping from work, Friday lunchtime is the most popular time.
Of those online shoppers who have internet access at work, 65% are likely to buy during the week - and Friday afternoon at 1pm is the most popular time for one in eight.
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
16 November 2006 14:07pm
0 comments
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…
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
16 November 2006 11:01am
0 comments
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...
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
16 November 2006 11:22am
2 comments
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...
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
16 November 2006 11:35am
4 comments
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.
Read more...
by Graham Charlton
15 November 2006 11:52am
0 comments
