Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: August 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.

August 19 2004

Broadband use hits 51%

Nielsen/NetRatings have reported that broadband connections have exceeded the 50% mark for the USA home-user online population for the first time. 

51% of Americans are now accessing the web via broadband; in July last year utilized broadband access. Breakdown by age group:

Read the Nielsen Netrating Broadband report (PDF)

August 18 2004

Jumbled spam emails - the psychology

We've all seen the emails that litter our inbox, full of spelling errors and some nearly indecipherable. There is *some* method to this madness and it's not just due to illiteracy, well sometimes anyway :)

Here's some example paragraphs:

The rsaeon taht smoe smapmres mix up wdros in the way tehy do is to aivod sapm fitlres, but the mothed tehy use is qtuie itnretsnig. 

It smees taht the hamun mnid is qtiue good at rasseelmbnilg wdors as lnog as the fsirt and the lsat leettr of the wrod rmeian the smae.

Did you manage to read that? It's an exaggerated example that takes a little more effort than reading straight text, but it should be quite easy to decipher. In case you couldn't read it, here's a translation:

"The reason that some spammers jumble words in the way they do is to avoid spam filters, but the method they use is quite interesting. 

It seems that the human mind is quite adept at reassembling words as long as the first and the last letter of the word remain the same. "

Microsoft lists XP bug fixes

XP SP2 seems to be the letters and number on everyone's lips at the moment (second only to Google's IPO). Microsoft has just released a list of all the bug fixes in SP2; it makes for very interesting reading - view the XP bug fix list

August 16 2004

The Olympics - effect on web site traffic

It's been interesting to watch traffic on a number of sites I monitor over the last few days. I guess if you own a sports related site, you're rubbing your hands together at the moment. Comprehensive global sporting events such as the Olympics have a tendency to motivate many people - sales of sporting equipment etc. increase. My partner has gone to the lengths of having a small TV next to her computer so she can watch events and my girls are also displaying a more than passing interest.

The Olympics phenomenon is something I find rather strange. I can honestly say I'm not one of the "many" - if anything, I become even more sportsaphobic during an Olympics. Yet, I digress..

What I've noticed on the sites I'm monitoring is a substantial drop in traffic since Friday. While I put most of it down to the Olympics, Hurricane Charley hasn't helped things either - it affected so many people. Our sympathy goes out to all those who sustained losses from the hurricane.

There's also been a rather interesting update on Yahoo that has seen a rather big shakeup of rankings; so the last week has been a triple whammy for many webmasters - not to mention the usual seasonal dip for many ecommerce merchants. 

With any luck, the Olympics will lose their novelty over the next couple of days.

From this webmaster's viewpoint - roll on Olympics closing ceremony :). I've learned from this time around that even though my site has nothing to do with the Olympics, the next time it's being run, I will find some way to work it in.... there, I've just done it :).

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Banners - design and targeting tips

Hot off the virtual press is my new article: Banners: design tips, sizes & targeting. I have the benefit of viewing the results of literally millions upon millions of banners displayed on Taming the Beast.net over the years, and this article contains some handy hints for those who are considering a banner campaign. The article also contains recommendations of good banner networks to promote your creatives and also where you can find competent banner designers. If you intend on designing your own banners, there's also a set of free templates to download.

August 15 2004

XP SP2 presents challenges for marketing

The long awaited Window XP Service Pack 2 is alive and kicking. While it's great to see Microsoft release this update in terms of the many security issues it addresses, there are few drawbacks for those of us involved in ecommerce and web marketing.

I haven't yet installed SP2 as I have a policy of letting others bugtest first, but I've been keeping up with various reviews by others.

The first issue that I can see is that once SP2 is installed, the popup blocker is turned on by default. I can't really blame MS for doing this - popups and popunders are a major pain the in the butt; but for many web site owners this will mean lost $$; not only for webmasters who generate revenue from participating in ad networks, but also the site owners who use entry/exit pops for special offers and capturing subscriptions. 

It will be interesting to see how and if the ad networks get around this feature. There are some products readily available to site owners that will get around this feature, include the Popover Generator software solution.

The second issue impacting on marketing is in Outlook Express. Once the service pack is installed, images will not display by default in Outlook Express.

I'm sure both these features can be switched off, but the question is, how many average users will bother doing so?

August 14 2004

Happy 10th birthday web ecommerce!

I've been involved with ecommerce for some years now, it seems like a million at times. A news article on CNET reminded me that ecommerce, in terms of human commercial activities, is still but an infant.

It seems that the first web based ecommerce transactions took place in 1994. There are two contenders for the title of "first" - a company called NetMarket who sold a student a copy of Sting's then latest album; the other being The Internet Shopping Network who claim that they beat Netmarket by a month.

Regardless of who it was, I think back to that year and remember I was just beginning to learn about a great software product called Windows. Within a year I had my first computer business and within another year of that, I had my first web site. 

Some still complain that the web is too slow - that may be true, but one thing it does tend to do at lightning speed is accelerate careers and dramatically change lives. 

August 12 2004

"Blaster" teenager pleads guilty

Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Seattle, and faces over 3 years in prison and substantial financial restitution. Parson was responsible for releasing a variant of the Blaster worm last year that attacked tens of thousands of computers. 

When will kids learn that computers are not toys? When will parents learn that they must be responsible and supervise their kids properly? Sadly, perhaps jail time is the only answer. Let's see how "cool" these kids are when they have to face the Big House.

Mobinet releases cell phone data services results

Of particular interest to merchants selling cell phone related online services is the recent Mobinet survey. The study shows that 41 percent of global wireless phone users expect to be regular or heavy users of data services by 2005; but cost, privacy and security still are of major concern. I'm not surprised; I'd love to use my cell phone to access web services while on the move; but at around $US12 per hour here in Australia, it's still a little prohibitive.

Download the Mobinet Survey (PDF) 

FTC jumps on Messenger spammers

The FTC states that a USA company used the Windows Messenger Feature to inundate consumers’ computers with pop up marketing messages for the company's pop-up blocking software - hoow ironic..

It's alleged that the pop-up ads appeared as frequently as every 10 minutes and caused some computers to crash. The case has now been settled and bars the company from sending Windows Messenger Service pop-up advertisements, selling Windows Messenger Service pop-up blocking software, or selling Windows Messenger Service pop-up sending amongst other restrictions. FTC Press release.

August 11 2004

European online marketing stats sources

In case you hadn't noticed, I love statistics :). During my online journey today, I came across a page which may be useful to our readers who have a special interest in the European Market. The TradeDoubler Tracker is a monthly report detailing online sales volumes and trends from 700 advertisers across multiple sectors across Europe.  

Google stopping IPO registrations

Google is moving ahead with its $3 billion plus initial public offering, and has stated that it would stop registering potential bidders at 5 p.m. EDT, Aug. 12. The actual auction should commence shortly afterwards, probably running for around two weeks. Google expects shares to have a value $108 to $135 each and it's estimated by Standard and Poors that the IPO will give Google a market value of between $29 billion to $36 billion.

One of the headaches for Google in the leadup to the IPO has been an ongoing wrangle with Overture over a patent suit in relation to Google Adwords. Google has settled by issuing Yahoo, the parent company of Overture, millions of shares in G. The search engine industry has always been confusing in terms of who owns who and what goes where :).

Korean Internet usage climbs

The Korean government has announced results of research that show the number of active Internet users in Korea has now exceeded 30 million people. "Active" is defined as a person who uses the Internet at least once a month and is over the age of 6. The percentage of Internet users in term of general population is now over 68%. 95% of people aged 6 -29 now use the Internet at least once a month.

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