Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: July 11 - 20 2004

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Search Engine Marketing:  The best practice guide book (ebook). Instant download available. Mike Grehan is a SE Marketing veteran. His guide book to Search Engine Marketing includes over 350 pages of how-to's, solid strategies & interviews. Learn more - The Essential Guide.

July 20 2004

Capture a journalist's attention with email

Bennett & Company recently surveyed journalists across America on topics including their preferences for receiving information and story leads. Some of the results from their 14th Annual Media Survey:

• 58% of journalists stated they prefer to receive information via email, yet only one-third of the correspondence they receive arrives via this medium. 
• 70% of journalists stated that they read every email, except for blatantly obvious spam, yet 65%  of those who received the Bennett and Company media survey via email did not even open it.

Journalists telling fibs? I can hardly believe that ;)

Read more interesting results from this survey.

Demand for search ads outpaces supply

Nielsen Netratings has reported that growth in demand for paid search advertising is outpacing availability. This is in turn raising prices and threatens to ultimately slow search advertising growth as advertisers turn to other avenues.

According to Nielsen Netratings, Americans performed 1.2 billion search sessions during May 2004, which constitutes a rise of 30 percent over May 2003. The main reason for the increase was a 15 percent growth in the online audience. The number of search sessions per person has also increased by 11 percent.

July 19 2004

Microsoft awarded $4 million in spam case

In a landmark victory in the battle against spam, a Californian man has been ordered to pay four million dollars in damages to Microsoft. The man had been sending emails to Microsoft clients, masquerading as the company, and directing people to download a toolbar that it stated was part of a security update. This successful suit well and truly opens the door for other site owners to gather together to take up class actions against spammers. Read more.

July 18 2004

Stealware - hijacking affiliate commissions

The issue of stealware has been hitting the headlines in a number of industry publications lately. While not a new practice, companies using stealware as a means of parasitical revenue generation (at the expense of hard working affiliates) are being "unmasked" at an increased rate. Knowing little about the subject, I decided to study up on stealware and was quite amazed by the ingenuity and sinister nature of this practice - and the high-profile companies reported to be involved. View my research on stealware impacting affiliate commissions. 

July 17 2004

Ever wanted to "go IPO"?

IPO is an abbreviation for Initial Public Offering."  - the first sale of a company's stock to the public. The World Wide Web has sparked off more IPO's than any other vehicle in the history of the stock exchange. For some people venturing into online business, it's their dream and major motivator - to "go public". Why anyone would want to turn over a large part of their business to greedy shareholders is beyond me :). Anyway, if this is your goal, you may want to take a look at this article - Is Going Public the Right Move for Your Company? Good luck with those blood thirsty shareholders ;).

Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act 

The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act (ITPEA) has now become law in the USA. The law adds a mandatory two years prison sentence to those convicted of identity theft, and an extra five years for those people who use stolen identities for "terrorist" (yes, that word again) offenses.

George Bush's comments regarding the ITPEA

Text of Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act

July 15 2004

The "father of the web" knighted

Yep, it's finally happened - after being awarded over $1 million dollars for his efforts in establishing the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. It's been a huge year for Sir Tim and it's nice to see his achievements being recognized. One of my favorite quotes of his relates to the original intention for WWW - it's a great snippet to use when debating with someone who says that the web was never meant to be been commercialized:

"Buying books from Amazon.com and stocks from E-trade is not all there is to the Web. Neither is the Web some idealized space where we must remove our shoes, eat only fallen fruit, and eschew commercialism."

- Tim Berners-Lee "Weaving the Web".

... you can't beat that as an authority statement! ;)

While on that topic, read more about the great web advertising debate

Broadband users more likely to purchase online.

According to research carried out by Forrester recently, 23 million + North American households accessing the Internet via broadband more active in shopping and banking online. They are also more likely to be early adopters of new technology.

I use a broadband connection for 90% of my Internet access. Tonight I am surfing the web via a dialup connection and I think I understand why many dialup users don't bother with online shopping. Average income levels of that demographic aside, more and more companies are building sites suited to high bandwidth connections. Surfing can be a very frustrating experience on a 56k connection; and as we all know, a frustrated client isn't particularly open to sales copy.

July 12 2004

Will your site work with Windows XP SP2?

Something I hadn't given much thought to regarding the release of XP Service Pack 2 are issues relating to web site design. With the service pack due for release within the next month and given the amount of promotion going into it, uptake should be swift.

There's a number of changes in the new service pack that will affect the way sites display and function in Internet Explorer. If your web site uses any of the following:

• Microsoft ActiveX Controls

• Downloads offered directly from your site

• Pop-up Windows

• Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (MSJVM)

• Special browser window positioning

.. then you should take a look at this guide from Microsoft.

July 11 2004

Rather go to a dentist than read spam?

People, generally speaking, dislike spam.. really, really dislike it. It's reported that in the UK alone, spam and viruses are costing the economy over 12 billion dollars a year. Dealing with spam was regarded by survey respondents in the UK as more stressful than being stuck in a traffic jam - now that's saying something! Learn more about just how much people are hating spam and what they are doing about it in this article on eMarketer.
 

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Women online - a powerful force

I published an article a couple of years ago relating to women and their involvement in online business. I was reminded today of the subject and started to delve a little more into the current activity of women in general on the web - and I was blown away by what I discovered. 

If your marketing material is still male or neutrally oriented, you could be missing out on many sales. Learn more in the article resulting from my research - Web marketing and women - 2004. The article also contains a link to download a very interesting survey report.

Iraq .iq tld registrar jailed

As if the people of Iraq didn't have enough challenges, it appears that the people behind the company responsible for the administration of the .iq extension have been jailed. This has left the future of the extension in limbo, once again denying the people of Iraq a unique identity online.

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