Ecommerce & Web Marketing Research: September 11 - 21 2005

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September 20 2005

Online advertising ignoring older users?

According to a recent Burst! survey, participants aged 35+ believe online advertising to be focused on younger age groups. In the 35-44 age bracket, only 31.2% stated that online ads targeted their age group. 62.5% of those in the 45-54 group, and 72.3% of participants 55 years and older say online advertising is targeted towards older people.

Given our aging population, it's becoming increasingly apparent that web marketing is missing its mark when it comes to mature age segments.

Read more of the Burst! report

Learn more about marketing to seniors.

September 17 2005

New URL shortening redirection service

Long URL's can be a pain in the butt when emailing links or posting to forums. If this causes you grief as well, try a new free service called URL.fm - Just enter the URL in a text field on the URL.fm website and click the button to generate a short url. Speedy redirection and a totally free service.

Password hacking - disturbing developments

An article on Internet Week provides details of a new development in password cracking. By recording the sound of keyboard strokes and running it through specialized software, researchers claim that the keystroke sounds can be translated into text.

According to the research, the success rate for translating 5 character passwords is 90% based on 20 guesses and 77% for 8 character passwords.

Learn more about password security.

New article - Open Source software

Open Source applications, free software released under special licensing terms, cover a myriad of uses - from entertainment  to enterprise ecommerce. 

Free ecommerce related applications released under the Open Source initiative offer real alternatives for site owners; but there's a few issues you need to consider before implementing them in your online business.

Read my new article, Using Open Source software in your online business.

September 16 2005

Online ad spending projections

According to eMarketer  US Internet ad spending in 2005 will reach $12.9 billion dollars, nearly 33% more than last year. By 2009, it is projected to reach $22.9 billion. The following table shows US online ad spending, both historical and projected. It's been quite a marked recovery since the dot com bubble burst a few short years ago when spending actually decreased for a couple of years.

Much of the increase in online spend has been at the expense of other forms of media, most network TV and magazine budgets

Read more of the eMarketer report

Google blog search

It's had a lot of coverage, so I won't go into too much detail; but Google has released it's beta blog search. Like most Google search appliances, it's fast, relevant and fresh - at least on the search terms I tried. I especially like the date search function in the advance search preferences. It will be a great research tool for digging into current and past news topics. If you have a blog and only see a partial listing of all your posts; give it time.

There's no Adwords appearing in the results ... yet :).

September 13 2005

VoIP - do you want ice with that?

After a long hard day slaving on the web, there's nothing more refreshing than a VoIP on the rocks.

Pardon? 

It seems that the term VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) still has some way to go in terms of consumer recognition. According to a report on Yahoo, a Harrison Interactive survey commissioned by Verizon found that out of over a thousand US adults:

• 20 percent thought that VoIP was a hybrid car

• 10 percent believed it a low-carbohydrate vodka.

• Overall, 87 percent gave the incorrect answer.

Learn more about the real VoIP and how it works :)

September 11 2005

September 11 .... looking back/thoughts

Hard to believe 4 years has passed since 9/11 changed the world. I guess the change was always going on; but this event just accelerated the process. Since that time, so many other awful things have happened; Tsunami, fires, floods, global warming, disease, pestilence, hurricanes and war.

Sure, disasters have always happened; but don't you feel that these types of events have increased? Or is it just the data overload we receive via the web that makes it appear this way? Personally, I think as a species, the future is optimistic - but, not before many bad - even worse things happen. 

The web, even though it has its share of dark alleyways and parasites, contains a huge lesson waiting to be taught to us. Dig past your own prejudices and beliefs, scrape away the surface of what's being reported in mainstream news and allow these lessons to be revealed. Don't just take one article or report as gospel; cross-reference. 

You may be shocked and disgusted by what you learn, but it will also liberate you. But once you have knowledge; be warned that it also carries responsibility. As webmasters, communicating to the world - we can help fulfill that responsibility that belongs to all of humanity.

Browser usage statistics for August

According to statistics based on over 76.5 million visitors monitored by TheCounter.com during August; the status quo for browser market share has changed little from July. Internet Explorer has an 87% share and Firefox, 8%.

Mozilla has also recently released the first official beta of Firefox 1.5. Unfortunately, on the same day it was announced, information and proof-of-concept code for a major vulnerability was also published.

2 steps forward, one step back. Expect the same for IE as soon as it's released; it's just the way things are. Too many people with too much time on their hands; too few browser programmers with not enough.

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

Top 10 annoyances of site visitors

A survey recently conducted for Hostway by TNS research of nearly 2500 people revealed these top 10 annoyances:

When participants were asked what their reaction is when they encounter these annoyances, the response in the majority of cases was to: 

a) Refuse to visit the site again
b) Unsubscribe from communications from the company
c) Refuse to purchase from that Web site
d) View the company in a negative way
e) Complain about the Web site to friends/associates

Read more of the Hostway Pet Peeves Survey

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