Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: April 11 -20 2005

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April 20th 2005

Yahoo co-founders vision of the future

Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo were recently interviewed by Business Week regarding their predictions for "the next big thing". David Filos response was "Anything that's off the PC". Curious? confused? Read the interview and then start planning ahead :)

Related article - WAP/WML tutorial for beginners.

April 19th 2005

Digital magazines a hit with subscribers

A survey carried out by 101communications has revealed some very interesting data about subscribers to digital magazines, i.e the online versions of their print counterparts. Amongst the findings:

• 35% of digital subscribers increased their use of the parent web site

• 31% increased their use of the magazine

• 22% increased their use the publication’s email newsletters.

• 55% subscribed to the digital version as it was easier to save

• 54% subscribed for convenience

• 51% of subscribers subscribed for search features

• 92% of subscribers stated they had taken some action as a result of reading an ad in the digital publication

• 90% are likely to renew their subscription

• 78% are satisfied or very satisfied with their subscription

Read more about the 101communications survey

April 18th 2005

Adobe to acquire Macromedia

This is sure to be one of the biggest and most interesting software company mergers of 2005.

Adobe has stated they plan to acquire Macromedia for at a cost of over $3 billion. Through the merger, the partners will attempt to dominate the huge handheld multimedia software market. Whether the new direction will delay the release of Flash 8 remains to be seen.

Read more

April 17th 2005

Bye-bye Overture, hello Yahoo Search Marketing

Yahoo had announced some time ago that it would be rebranding Overture, and it looks like it's just happened. The Overture logo still appears on the overture.com site, but in the account admin interface, it's nowhere to be seen. Nothing much else has changed that I can see, except a renaming to "sponsored search" and some changes in aesthetics.

Learn more about drop shipping Dropshipping - an effective & simpler way to make more from ecommerce!

B2B web sites strongly influence decision makers

Results from a recent survey conducted by the UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP) shows the strong influence of business-to-business (b2b) sites on business decision makers. Key findings include:

• 24% of business decision makers stated that B2B websites are the most useful sources of information, well ahead of the next medium, print (14%).

• 6% thought that email newsletters and alerts were the most useful resource, ahead of national and regional newspapers

• 83% stated they had take action as a result of seeing advertising on a B2B site

• 54% had purchased a product online or offline after viewing related advertising on a B2B web site

• 47% had registered with a B2B website.

• 75% use B2B websites at least once a week.

Read more of the Role of B2B Websites report. (PDF 1.07 mb)

April 15th 2005

Marketing to 18-34 year old males

If this demographic is your target market, bear this in mind: Industry experts state that consumers spend an hour a day playing video games on average - and a healthy chunk of that is in online gaming. In 2003, men aged 18-34 spent 30 billion hours playing video games.

An estimate from the Yankee Group is that in-game advertising in the USA will reach $800 million in 2009. In 2004, it was $120 million. 

It's thought that one third of the 2009 spending will via "advergaming". Advergaming is where a game is built around a product or service, rather that having those products placed in the game.

The global market for video game advertising is expected to reach $2.5 billion globally in 2010.

Read more about video game advertising trends.

April 14 2005

MP3 - continuing massive ecommerce potential

JupiterResearch has forecast that shipments of MP3 players in the USA will increase 35% to over 18 million in 2005 and continue with a compound yearly growth rate of over 10% through to the end of this decade. By 2010 there will be approximately 56 million MP3 players in use that year, up from 16.2 million in 2004. 

MP3 players will reach "critical mass" this year, meaning U.S. household penetration of 15% to 20%, fueling demand for digital music services and stores.

Read more

April 11 2005

Women the majority of US internet users

Our time has come; the male dominated web is a thing of the past. According to this article on eMarketer, up until 1997, men comprised 65% of all Internet users. In 2004, eMarketer estimates put females at being 51.6% of the US online population, with predictions of that figure increasing to 52.6 by 2009.

Related article - Marketing to women on the web

Email marketing delivery statistics Q1 2005

According to information provided in Lyris's Q1 2005 Email Advisor report, ISP's and other email service providers are currently averaging 92.5 percent deliverability on opt-in marketing emails, while the averages for inbox delivery is around 88.5 percent. European providers fared better in terms of delivery rates overall than those in the USA.

Read more of the Lyris Deliverability Report. (pdf-180kb)

Autoresponder software  & mailing list managers Get more from your email marketing - tips, reviews  & free trial software/services.

More spam, less outrage

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released the results of a survey on perceptions relating to spam. The survey of over 1400 users was carried out earlier this year. Amongst the findings:

• 52% of those surveyed feel that spam remains a big problem

• 28% stated that they are receiving more spam to personal email accounts than a year ago

• 22% said they are getting less spam email to personal accounts than a year ago.

• 21% said that their work email accounts are getting more spam than a year ago.

• 16% say they are getting less spam in their work email accounts

• 53% of Internet users stated that they have become less trusting of email due to spam, in comparison to 62% in the previous year.

• 35% of had received spam email requesting personal financial information (phishing).

• 22% of email users say that spam has reduced their overall use of email, compared to 29% a year ago.

• A very interesting point - 67% of those surveyed stated that spam is making their online experience unpleasant or annoying. Last year, 77% felt that way.

The upside to all this is that spam isn't forcing so many people offline as it was in previous years. What concerns me is the increasing acceptance of spam. If the outrage against spam turns to subservience, this will only encourage spammers more. The net will become increasingly bogged down and Internet users will become even more prone to using the delete button - including legitimate email marketing. 

The other disturbing trend according to the Pew report is that while pornography content in emails is decreasing, phishing incidents are increasing.

Read more of Pew's spam survey results - (pdf 398kb)

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