New Business Week Site to Function As Social Media Wiki

Business Week magazine will go public in late September with “Business Exchange,” a Web site consisting of topic pages that resemble social networks. That means it will allow user-generated content and popularity rankings.

Available from Business Week’s Web site, the topic pages will feature links to articles and blog posts from many different sources including auto-generated aggregated content from competitors. Topic pages can be as narrow as “Toyota Camry” or as broad as “the auto market,” thus serving as topic verticals. The purpose is to gain new readers, funneling them into niches that will attract advertisers.

What’s interesting is that users can post articles, creating a new page by choosing the subject and title, and writing a brief introductory description. Users can also add new material to an existing topic page. However, this requires editorial approval and objectionable posts will be removed. They promise editorial review in 24 hours.

Search Engine Activity

Search is closing the gap with email as the most popular Internet activity.

Pew Internet and American Life Project 2008 shows that the number of Internet users making search engine queries on a typical day has increased to 49 percent, inching closer to the 60 percent of users checking and sending email on a typical day.

Worldwide Internet Ad Spend Grows at Phenomenal Rate

IDC’s Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast estimates total worldwide Internet advertising at $65.2 billion in 2008, climbing to $106.6 billion in 2011.

However, compared to traditional advertising, Internet advertising still trails by substantial margins. For instance, it trails direct mail by over $30B, and spending on TV and print ads is nearly twice as much as online ad spending.

The IDC report shows the following:

Keyword ads will dominate Internet advertising through 2011, getting over one-third of the annual online ad spending budget worldwide.

Display ads are next in popularity with over 20% of annual worldwide spending through 2011.

Classifieds are next, with almost 19% of all online ad spending per year.

Rich media ads will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 50% during the 2007-2011 forecast period.

Additional highlights from the study:

The US will lead the world in both total advertising spend and online ad spend throughout the forecast period with expenditures of over $265 billion and $45 billion respectively in 2011.

Over $5 billion will be spent worldwide in 2008 in each of the top four categories of online ads: adult content and gambling, information, electronics, and computing. These categories will continue to lead in 2011.

Search Engine Indexable Flash Sites

As reported on TechCrunch, Adobe now provides a way for search engines to read SWF files and index all information contained therein. Therefore, any text or link in a Flash application can now be indexed.

Evidently Adobe is releasing technology to Google and Yahoo enabling them to crawl and index SWF files, making them searchable. This will give searchers access to millions of Flash files.

As pointed out by TechCrunch, this will not take Flash sites to the top of the SERPs any time soon because in the past, Flash files were difficult to find and link to.

The Importance of Web Design in Search

Have you seen the new “visual” search engines, Viewzi and SearchMe? They both give you a preview of the websites in their search results. You can see a thumbnail of the page before you click.

With Viewzi, you type in your query and then pick among many different formats: video x3 view, 3D photo cloud view, basic photo view, simple text, web screenshot, etc. Then you see the thumbnail in that format before downloading the page.

With SearchMe, you type your query and then select categories below (advertising & marketing, search engines, computer networking, business news, radio or search all). Then you see some nice size thumbnails you can click on to download the page.

This makes Web Site and page design more important than ever. While Google isn’t doing this yet, Ask provides page previews.

Imagine how such a feature might affect search marketing as the trend toward social and visual interaction takes hold on the web. The impression your page preview makes before eliciting a click will be crucial as web design and content drive traffic.

Google Infers User Intent Through Ads Viewed

The New York Times reports that Google is using its own brand of behavioral targeting by serving ads to users based on the ads they previously viewed.

That means if you view ads for certain items, Google would put 2 and 2 together to later serve you ads for related items. A search for canoes and vacations might elicit ads for trips to Vermont.

Source: New York Times

Google and Yahoo Dominate Mobile Search

Nielsen Mobile reports that Google and Yahoo lead Microsoft in mobile search. Google and Yahoo together account for 79% of the mobile Internet search market, which breaks down:

· Google 61%
· Yahoo 18%
· MSN 5%

Nielsen reports mobile search usage frequency as follows per person:
· Google 9 searches per month
· Yahoo 6.7 searches per month

The top 3 mobile search categories for Q1 2008 were reported as Information, Local Listings and Websites/Navigation.

Source: Nielsen Mobile

Google + Yahoo = no MSN

Google and Yahoo signed an agreement yesterday that will potentially give Yahoo $800 million in extra annual revenue and $250-$450 million in additional operating cash flow; pending anti-trust review

The deal could go on for 10 years with an initial 4-year period and option to renew for two 3-year periods at Yahoo’s discretion. If the deal is canceled before the initial 4-year period, there is a $250 million penalty. That makes it hard for any deal with Microsoft because obviously, Microsoft would want to negate the arrangement with Google.

Yahoo also has an employee severance plan in place that would require payment of $2.4 billion in potential severance payouts to departing workers, making it too expensive for any future Microsoft deals. Yahoo investors are currently suing over this severance plan.

If the Google-Yahoo deal goes through, experts say there’s no hope for Microsoft in Search. Google co-founder Sergy Brin said, “We are very excited to be working with Yahoo and that Yahoo remains a very strong company.” Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said, “Clearly, it’s time to move on.”

Yahoo will continue its regular search results and many of the PPC ads generated by Panama, but some search users in the US and Canada will also see Google ads that will give Yahoo a cut of the fees paid to Google by advertisers. Google ads will be placed next to selected Yahoo search results.

Google and Yahoo also agreed to combine their Instant Messaging platforms, and Yahoo may also help Google improve its display ad business.

Microsoft said in a statement that it is still open to its alternative offer to buy Yahoo’s search business; however Yahoo is not willing to sell the search business because it feels search is key to its display advertising business.

In the meantime, Icahn is still trying to replace the Yahoo board with his own group of nominees and has accumulated 10 million shares in Yahoo and has options to buy 49 million more. Yahoo’s Board meets on August 1.

Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer

Online Advertising Is Strong and Search Dominates

The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers report online ad revenues totaled $21.2 billion in 2007, a 26 percent increase over 2006. The “2007 Internet Advertising Revenue Report” states 2007 Q4 Internet advertising revenues were $5.9 billion, 24 percent higher than Q4 in 2006.

eMarketer charts US online advertising revenues from 1997 to 2007, showing $0.91B in online ad revenues in 1997 versus $21.21B in 2007.

Search Leads the Way

The report shows search revenues at $8,805 million in 2007 with 41 percent market share. Display ads are second with $4,455 million and 21 percent market share. Consumer ads accounted for 55 percent of 2007 Internet advertising spending, an increase from 52 percent in 2006. eMarketer also reports online video ads will boom by 2012, along with paid search and classifieds.

Source: eMarketer

Google Resurecting Newspapers

Newspaper advertising drives online traffic and consumer purchasing.

The Google Print Ads program began in November 2006 with a test that included 50 newspapers and a small group of advertisers. Since then, the program has grown to include more than 750 newspapers representing 48 of the top 50 DMAs and covering 70 percent of U.S. paid circulation.

Of those who said they researched at least one product they saw in the newspaper, 67 percent said they conducted research online, compared with 48 percent who visited a store, 23 percent who called a store and 23 percent who asked a friend.

Source and more information: Newspaper Association of America NAA