Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research - May 2004

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May 23 2004

1 in 6 British people bank online

According to recent figures released by Nielsen Netratings, In March 2004, over 9.6 million Britons visited a retail bank or credit union website, making this category the 6th most popular online destination. Over half the visitors to these sites did so on connection speeds of less than 56k.

May 21 2004

Google tools - RankPulse

RankPulse is an online tool that provides a look at the daily fluctuations of Google results based on the movements of rankings of sites in relation to keywords that the company monitors. Check out the RankPulse site or view our directory of other free Google tools available online. While these tools won't increase your ranking as such, they can help with understanding how the Mighty G works.

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May 20 2004

Bill Gates - Monopolist Philanthropist

Hate him or love him, you have to admire such people as Bill Gates in terms of achievements. In fact, if it wasn't for Bill, I wouldn't be writing this now (long story). Let's forget about the tales of who stole what program from whom; Mr Gates is a genius.

These days, there's not many famous people I would dive at the opportunity to meet, but Bill is definitely one of them. To spend just an hour with him to try and understand him instead of relying on what the press reports would be a truly fascinating experience. What motivated him then? What motivates him now? What is his biggest personal fear and dream? 

Conspiracy theories concerning Microsoft aside, something that's always impressed me about Bill is what he does with his money. Microsoft donates around $600 million a year and has a charitable foundation (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) with a $26 billion endowment. Sure, this may provide him with huge tax write offs, but his donations aren't limited to technology. In 1999, he donated three-quarters of a billion dollars towards the creation of vaccines.

Learn more about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

May 15 2004

Browser battles - statistics

To me it still seems that when you think of Internet browsers, you immediately think of Internet Explorer. Although Opera and Mozilla aficionados will claim that alternate browsers are making huge inroads in regards to uptake; I haven't seen anything over the last few years to indicate this. IE's share has remained pretty static.

So what are the stats these days on who's using what? According to TheCounter.com's March statistics, based on 263851494 visitors, the breakdown is as follows:

Our own stats over the past week for TTB's primary domain; based on nearly 140,000 visitors:

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Broadband vs. Narrowband statistics

And while on the subject of statistics - according to Nielsen Netratings, broadband saturation is definitely on the increase, but recent figures still seem to indicate that the price of broadband will need to drop further in order to penetrate lower income demographics:

Broadband/Narrowband March 2004 USA Statistics
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, March 2004

The Internet via TV bandwidth?

Plans to utilize unused television channels to transmit high-speed Internet access have been welcomed by the Federal Communications Commission. The greatest benefits would be an unclogging of current carrier systems and also the delivery of high speed services to rural areas.

Other devices under the proposal that could use the bandwidth include wireless networking cards, wireless connections to printers and keyboards and wireless headsets. 

May 12 2004

Google IPO overview

After much fanfare last month, the dust is settling regarding Google's upcoming share offer - but what does it all mean? If you're like me and understand very little about the stock market - and the effects of "going public" could have on the mighty G; you may want to take a look at this Google IPO overview by Roy Troxel of the Web Server Times.

Company takes on SpamCop

OptInRealBig.com, a mass email marketing firm has been successful in having a restraining order issued against the well-known anti-spam organiztion, Spamcop.

SpamCop, at this stage until May 20, is prohibited from including the company in its blacklists which are used by other companies to block unwanted mail.

May 10 2004

The price of ID theft

I came across an oldish article today, but the figures were fresh enough to still be of interest. According to a report by the FTC relating to 2002, identity theft losses to businesses and financial institutions came to nearly $48 billion and consumers who were victims reported $5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses.  The interesting point was at that stage, web sites that collected personal information did not constitute a significant portion of the losses. 

The last 12 months especially has seen an estimated 1200 percent increase in "phishing"; so it would be interesting to see another set of survey results - my guess is that the proportion of web based identify theft would be significantly higher. The web is evolving rapidly, but criminal activity even more so. It's sad to see the trust we fight so hard to build be eroded by these parasites.

May 2 2004

Lawmakers and Spyware

Spyware is software that secretly records information on a users' computer about the browsing habits of the user. While most of this information is used for advertising purposes, some spyware can also transmit passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive information. Spyware is usually "piggy backed" on free applications that people download, installing itself, as well as the desired software usually without the person's knowledge.

The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee has recently rebuked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for not taking sufficient action to stop the spread of spyware and has vowed to pass tough legislation to thwart its use. Learn more in this article on Internet News.

Google tools abound

Since the release of Google Web API's, tools for making the most from the mighty G, developed by other companies, have become commonplace. 

It's quite amazing what has been developed over the last couple of years, so I've put together a Google Tools summary page for my picks of the best webmaster-oriented applications available. All the tools are free to use and can help with optimization by providing a better idea of how the search engine works.

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