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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Nov. 17, 2006:

Archived blogs for the week of Nov. 13, 2006

1268 - Nov. 16, 2006 - 7.12 AM EST

The year's biggest online shopping day

eCommerce research firm Coremetrics just delivered new data that dispell certain marketing myths that Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) would be/is the largest eCommerce shopping day of the holiday season.

Coremetrics advises retailers that the highest traffic day and the biggest day in sales will actually come one week after Cyber Monday, around December 4.

What's more, Coremetrics even predicts that online sales on that date will be 19 percent higher than Cyber Monday, and that this year, overall holiday retail sales will increase 16 percent over 2005's holiday season.

After eDay (the week of Dec. 4) Coremetrics predicts the next four largest days for eCommerce retail sales will be the Monday one week after eDay, the Wednesday after eDay, the Tuesday after eDay and the Tuesday one week after eDay.

As a comparison, the Marketing Experiments Journal compiled the top 10 online holiday shopping days for the years 2002 through 2004. None of this may matter quite so much, because according to Shop.com, last-minute holiday shopping may be becoming a thing of the past.

In a survey of 2,405 U.S. online shoppers, nearly 44 percent said it's never too early to start shopping, and only 6 percent of them said they resort to "11th-hour insanity" to complete their holiday shopping.

Posted on Businessblog™

1267 - Nov. 14, 2006 - 5.31 PM EST

B2B marketing strongly increasing

Lisa Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst says "B2B (business-to-business) marketing has undergone significant changes in the last few years. Overall spending on B2B advertising and marketing has regained the momentum lost five to six years ago, and the Internet is causing major shifts in advertising strategies among businesses of all sizes."

Although various trade magazines and B2B publications will maintain a leading share of advertising for the foreseeable future, online spending in the B2B category will hit $2.4 billion in 2007, up 23.7 percent, according to Veronis Stevenson.

B2B marketing growth rates will increase by double-digit percentages through 2010, while spending on older media, particularly magazines, will decrease.

"Some B2B people have been behind the curve on digital spending, but everyone realizes that their future success really depends on adopting integrated marketing online strategies," said Tom Kemp at Veronis Stevenson.

"The Internet is now an integral part of doing business for US companies, large and small," says Ms. Phillips. "Virtually all, 98 percent of the 220 manufacturers surveyed by SVM e-Business Solutions have a Web site, and 87 percent have had one for over three years.

More than half consider their website to be their most powerful marketing tool." While B2B online advertising only grew 5 percent last year, local newspapers and consumer magazines saw declines in B2B spending.

Network TV spending increased by 4.8 percent, to $1.49 billion and cable TV networks saw a healthy 15.9 percent growth rate, to $1.12 billion.

So what online ad formats are the dollars shifting to? "Results for the first half of 2006, released by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers show that search advertising still makes up about 40 percent of all online ad revenues.

Posted on Businessblog™

1266 - Nov. 14, 2006 - 11.49 AM EST

Google closes its YouTube acquisition

Today, Google announced that it has completed its acquisition of YouTube. The closing price includes $15 million in cash, 3,217,560 shares of Google Class A Common Stock, along with an additional 442,210 shares of restricted stock and warrants.

Overall, the number of Google shares was determined by dividing the $1.65 billion acquisition price by an average value of stock over the last 30 days. After the transaction, there will be 12.5 percent of the stock held in escrow for one year.

Based on Monday’s closing price of $481.03 per share, the deal is worth $1.775 billion to YouTube's founders.

Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google stated “We are excited to have closed this acquisition in order to begin collaborating to offer the best in quality and depth of content, user experience and new business opportunities for our partners”.

Schmidt added “YouTube and Google will together provide innovative and exciting services for our users that will add a new dimension to on-line media entertainment. We look forward to working with content creators and owners to effectively harness the power of the internet to promote, distribute and monetize their content.”

Posted on Businessblog™

1265 - Nov. 13, 2006 - 1.53 PM EST

Google sued over copyright infringement

A new lawsuit was launched against Google over copyright infringement violations involving videos after Google acquired YouTube.

Google said it now faces additional litigation over its acquisition of the video download service, after it filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Nov. 8.

"Some entities have also filed copyright claims against Google, alleging that features of certain of the company's products, including Google Web Search, Google News, Google Video, Google Image Search and Google Book Search, all infringed on certain people's rights" Google said.

The company added "in addition, our planned acquisition of YouTube may also subject us to additional copyright claims upon the closing of the transaction". "Adverse results in these lawsuits may include awards of damages and may also result in, or even compel, a change in our business practices, which could result in a loss of revenue for Google or otherwise harm its business," Google's SEC filing said.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2006. All rights reserved.

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