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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Nov. 25, 2005:

Archived blogs for the week of November 21, 2005

1051 - November 24, 2005 - 7.08 AM EST

The Web offers inexpensive ways to advertise

Affinity Internet conducted a survey on 2,725 of its small business clients in September of this year.

Respondents to the study varied in the degree to which they used online marketing. While many companies conduct 75 to 100 percent of their marketing on the Internet, almost an equal number conduct less than 10 percent.

Although small businesses rely most on word of mouth marketing, online marketing was rated the second highest marketing medium in Affinity's survey. The key seems to be cost.

As opposed to radio, TV and print, which were rated much lower by respondents, word of mouth and the Internet offer inexpensive ways to advertise. Even with online advertising, cost is a factor.

Posted on Businessblog™

1050 - November 23, 2005 - 5.52 PM EST

Happy Thanksgiving to all our US clients & friends!

From all of us at Rank for $ales we wish to extend our best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to all our many American clients and friends.

Have a safe and long weekend!

Posted on Businessblog™

1049 - November 23, 2005 - 1.42 PM EST

Google's new Click-to-Call service

Google is reportedly testing its new Pay-to-Call feature, called Google Click-to-Call or CTC. However, note that Google is only testing this new service in just a few assigned areas of the United States.

Unlike Ingenio's Pay-per-Call (which is currently testing its service with Yahoo Local), Google's Click-to-Call (CTC) actually sets up a live phone call between the user and the online advertiser. Google Click-to-Call advertisers only pay when the call has been made.

Google's Click-to-Call service doesn't simply serve a trackable toll free number in the Google AdWord advertisement.

Posted on Businessblog™

1048 - November 23, 2005 - 8.07 AM EST

Google donates $3 million to the Library of Congress

Google has donated $3 million to a U.S. Library of Congress project to digitize rare and unique items, and build an Internet library.

With this move, Google is now the first private-sector contributor to the Library of Congress’ World Digital Library project.

The Library of Congress will continue to seek donations from other private-sector companies for its project.

At this stage, the Library of Congress is looking to develop a plan to lay the technological foundations of the WDL, whose content will mostly be digitized unique items, such as manuscripts.

Google’s library-scanning activities have landed it in hot water recently.

Posted on Businessblog™

1047 - November 22, 2005 - 3.03 PM EST

Online advertising still growing

According to a new study by Forrester Research, Internet and online advertising revenues continued to rapidly increase in the third quarter, surpassing US $3 billion for the first time in history and growing nearly 34 percent over the same time in 2004.

In their quarterly report on Web marketing, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said sales totaled a record $3.1 billion for the quarter and predicted ad sales may top $12 billion for all of 2005.

That would shatter the previous annual record of $9.6 billion set in 2004. "More and more marketers have embraced Interactive as an essential medium to reach and engage their consumers in more immersive brand experiences," said IAB President and CEO Greg Stuart. "Interactive advertising continues to prove itself as the most cost effective medium in driving sales and changing consumer attitudes."

The recent expansion of online advertising has helped propel Google into the Internet and stock market powerhouse that it is today and brought new attention to Web properties such as Yahoo and America Online.

PricewaterhouseCoopers analyst Pete Petrusky said marketers like the fact that online, the gap between a marketing message and the desired action -- purchasing a product or service -- is narrower than in any other medium. He also noted that the double-digit growth rate is particularly impressive when the size of the advertising revenue base is taken into account.

Stuart said multi-media advertising that takes advantage of broadband connections will keep ad spending expanding for some time to come. Showing broadcast-quality video ads will enable marketers to target consumers in a way not possible on traditional television, he added.

Posted on Businessblog™

1046 - November 22, 2005 - 2.05 PM EST

Google fixes holes in Google Base

According to Google, it has repaired a security vulnarability in Google Base. Google says the security hole could have exposed personal and sensitive data stored by users of Google's Base service.

The cross site scripting vulnerabilities discovered by British Computer Scientist Jim Ley would allow an attacker to steal cookies.

Additionally, there are other information that could be stolen from users, while providing fraudsters with the facility to publish their own forms and receive input using an apparently reassuring Google Base URL.

Google Base will spearhead the search giant's entry into classified advertising and payment processing, where it will compete with established offerings from eBay and CraigsList.

If it succeeds, Google Base will likely accelerate a trend which has seen a growing percentage of advertising dollars shift to the web and away from television, magazines and especially newspapers, which rely heavily on classified ads for revenue.

Strong application security is important to gain user confidence in the service, as Google Base is eventually expected to integrate a micropayment system (presumably Google Payments). Google's move towards a single Google Account for multiple services exacerbates the problem, as the same account used by the Google Base site can also be used to access financially sensitive services such as AdWords and AdSense, and Google's GMail webmail service.

Posted on Businessblog™

1045 - November 21, 2005 - 4.18 PM EST

Yahoo more agressive with its patent portfolio

Yahoo plans to largely increase the number of its US patents in 2006 and subsequent years.

This move could largely be considered a sign that Yahoo is becoming much more mature. "During the first five years of the Internet era, the focus of most of the companies were on getting out there and just building enough visibility".

"There simply wasn't any time for anything else," said Joe Siino, Yahoo's vice president for intellectual property, in an interview.

"The company is of a size and a maturity that it can really begin to capture for the long term its innovation more." Yahoo, which spends about $500 million annually on research and development, declined to release specific figures on its patent applications, which take about two to five years to gain approval.

Posted on Businessblog™

1044 - November 21, 2005 - 2.10 PM EST

Innovation Interactive is acquired by Livedoor

Livedoor has acquired Innovation Interactive, parent of 360i and SearchIgnite. Livedoor entered the industry in February of 2005, when it acquired ValueClick-Japan for $24 million.

Livedoor is a Japanese-based Web and technology company that operates a number of businesses, including free ISP livedoor, an Internet advertising unit called "CyberClick" and an email marketing service.

"Innovation's domain knowledge, roster of large and small customers, and their technology across all spectrums of online media make them the most suitable partner for us to establish and expand our U.S. presence," said Noriaki Okubo, executive VP of Livedoor.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2005. All rights reserved.

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