Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: July 21 - 31 2005

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31 July 2005

New article - Search engine relationships

With all the changes and acquisitions in the search engine world in recent years, it's becoming rather confusing as to who owns who and where their search results come from.

My new article is a breakdown of the various search companies and their relationships with other engines.

30 July 2005

Marketing to teens - more stats

There's been a lot of press releases and studies released recently regarding teenagers in terms of online activity and marketing. Another report made available a few days ago, and well worth a read is from The Pew Internet & American Life Project; over 57 pages of facts and figures relating to online teens. Included in the findings:

• Approximately 11 million U.S. teens are online daily. In 2000, it was 7 million.
• 87% of U.S. teens aged 12-17 use the internet compared 66% of adults
• 76% of teens access the news online
• 43% of teens have made online purchases, a 71% growth since 2000
• 31% gain health information via the web.

• Approximately 32% of all teens use Instant Messaging applications every day.

It has been interesting watching Instant Messaging evolve. In our family, having two teenage girls, the telephone was hot property. I introduced the girls to IM a few years ago as I thought it be of interest to them - quite an understatement. IM has become a very important part of their lives. Their "friends" lists are mind boggling - how they keep track of everyone is beyond me. It's not unusual for them to have half a dozen conversations happening at once. 

Our telephones now sit for the most part unused. How rapidly things change in this online world :). For companies who can tap into the IM market more effectively than what's being done now, the resulting revenue will be huge.

Download the Teens and Technology report (PDF 454kb)

27 July 2005

Russian spammer murdered

According to MosNews.com, Russia’s biggest spammer, Vardan Kushnir, was murdered recently. Police state that his death was not related to his online activities, but was a bungled robbery.

Something I didn't realize that was raised in the article is that spamming is *not* illegal in Russia, although lawmakers are making moves towards implementing anti-spam laws similar to the US and other Western countries. As I mentioned a couple of years ago, while even one country does not have laws in place (and exercised), the battle against spam cannot be won. Spammers simply pick up and move operations from country to country - without even having to move out of their chairs.

Learn more about spam issues:

Email filtering and spam blocking services guide
How spam winds up in your inbox

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25 July 2005

New article - buying text link advertising

Buying text link ads with the purpose of boosting search engine rankings is a becoming increasingly popular. Does it work? Can it actually hurt your rankings? Where and how do you buy them? Learn more in my guide to buying text links.

23 July 2005

Search engine growth Q1 - Q2 2005

Nielsen Netratings has released figures relating to the number of searches carried out on the major search engines; Q1 compared to Q2 2005. The results:

I bet the team at Ask Jeeves are doing a happy dance and the MSN Team are still ruing the day in the early 90's when Bill decided that the web wasn't all that important :). *But* like all things MS related, never underestimate the company in terms of search; I sense some major strategies brewing. Although MSN is showing negative growth, it still accounts for 12% of searches according to the report.

Read more of the report on search engine growth (pdf 98k)

22 July 2005

Browser battles - current statistics

So how are things shaping up this month in the battle for the hearts and minds of users in terms of browsers? TheCounter.com provides these July figures based on over 170 million visitors across their network:

Free web traffic statistics How many visitors hit your site? How long do they stay? Try a free traffic monitoring service

Community sites lead in online ad revenue growth

According to a report from Nielsen Netratings, general community Web sites led the way in growth for online advertising revenue (214%), followed by health and fitness (80%), business (46%), men’s general interest (45%), and shopping and auctions (42%).

Read the Online Advertising Spending report. (PDF 103kb)

The dangers of jargon in marketing

So many of us live and breathe the Internet that we tend to forget there's a slew of people to whom the web is just an aspect of their life, not the whole enchilada :). A recent survey by Pew Internet shows that while most users are somewhat familiar with terms such as cookie, firewall and adware, terms such as phishing and RSS feed are still widely unknown. We need to bear in mind that the jargon we use today can sometimes take years to arrive on Joe Surfer's awareness radar. This is especially important in terms of marketing. 

Read more of the Public Awareness of Internet Terms report (PDF 263kb)

Marketing, image, jargon and slang - an opinion

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