Microsoft will aim for more "graphically rich" SEO

Microsoft is intending to make its Bing searches more "graphically-rich" in order to compete with Google, says an industry commentator.
Microsoft will aim to produce a more "graphically-rich" style of search engine optimisation (SEO) on its Bing program, says an industry insider.
Laurie Sullivan, writing in the Online Media Daily blog on Media Post, commented that it will begin to allow websites to include more graphics in search results pages, rather than just two lines of text.
He pointed out that Microsoft will also try to avoid ambiguity in organic searches by allowing users to specify whether it is a product, service or information that they are looking for.
Kevin Lee, co-founder of Didit, an advertising consultancy, noted: "The general mission to come up with better search formats will become more important over time. Microsoft has talked about allowing advertisers to include mini logos."
Mr Sullivan highlighted that Microsoft is trying to encourage marketers to spend more advertising money specifically on Bing rather than Google with these innovations in its searches.
Google has just launched its DoubleClick Ad Exchange which allows advertisers real-time bidding on online promotional spaces.

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Google releases online lead generation development

Google has released DoubleClick Ad Exchange which it claims will allow real-time bidding for promotional spaces.
Google may have enhanced lead generation possibilities for marketers with the release of DoubleClick Ad Exchange.
The new program will involve real-time bidding in what it the search engine has described as an open marketplace.
In terms of buying up the advertising space, Google has said that it will be aimed at advertising agencies that will then connect marketers with interested websites.
Google AdSense sites will be available on DoubleClick AdExchange, as well as many major branded sites.
Neal Mohan, vice-president of product management at the search engine, said: "Better technology can help make display advertising work better for all involved. We're focused on growing the display advertising pie for everyone."
The company have stated that this new product will make it easier for marketers to make the most efficient use of their time and money and give publishers the most revenue possible.
Last week, Google released Web Elements, allowing businesses to embed any of the company's products into their websites.

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Users invited 'inside the walls of social media site'

The release of Facebook Prototype will allow users to try out experimental applications that have not been launched yet and offer feedback.
Facebook users have been invited to look at new ideas and applications being developed inside the walls of the social media service.
People can access Facebook Prototypes within their application directory and leave feedback on how well they work or offer suggestions on how to improve the programs, according to a post by Lee Byron on the company's blog.
He listed several examples of applications that were never released to the mainstream user base such as Enhanced Events Emails, which allows people to add Facebook Events directly to Microsoft Outlook or Google calendars.
Mr Byron added: "You'll be able to test any of the products and features we launch as Facebook Prototypes and then provide feedback directly to those of us who built them."
Some applications, he pointed out, can be a little esoteric to be given a full-scale launch on the social networking site, but Facebook Prototypes offers developers a chance to tweak their creations from customer suggestions.
This week, the founder of the social networking site Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company now serves 300 million users.

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Social media site hits positive cash flow

Facebook announced that it broke even in the second quarter of this year and that it now has 300 million users globally.
Social media site Facebook has announced that it broke even in the last quarter, which is at least six months ahead of its original target.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the social networking website, stated that the plan had been to achieve a positive cashflow in 2010.
He claimed that this is an important step for the company, because it allows it to stay independent and sustainable in the long term.
As well as reaching this financial milestone, he also commented that the site now serves 300 million users across the world.
Mr Zuckerberg added: "We'll continue building new and better things to make connecting with the people you care about as easy and rewarding as possible."
This week, a spokesperson for Facebook announced that the site had developed the status update feature so people will now be able to tag friends, events and groups within them by writing the @ symbol before their name.

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'Only a matter of time' before social media adopted in other languages

Twitter is currently most popular in English-speaking countries, but this will soon change according to a technology website.
It is only a matter of time before the social media website Twitter becomes popular in languages other than English, predicted a technology website.
Research by Pingdom indicated that nine out of ten of the countries where the micro-blogging platform enjoys the most popularity are at least partially English-speaking.
This should not come as a surprise though, according to the website.
It said: "To get the most out of Twitter and its existing user base, English is a must. On the other hand, it’s probably just a matter of time before other languages take off."
The countries with the most interest in Twitter are the UK, the US and Canada, but the anomaly is Brazil, noted Pingdom, which sees the fourth highest global interest.
This week, eMarketer upwardly revised its estimate of how many users Twitter would have in 2009 from 12.1 million to 18 million and claimed that it is a conservative forecast.

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Improve SEO through new Google product

Google has released Web Elements which allows people to embed the search engine's products within their websites and improve their SEO ranking.
The new Web Elements product can improve a company's search engine optimisation (SEO) results, according to Google.
On the companies Adsense blog, it describes how Web Elements allows you to embed any of the search engine's products such as YouTube videos or Google News, which will then improve the SEO ranking of the website.
Embedding videos has been an option that has been available for some time now, but Web Elements expands this system.
The Adsense blog said: "With the official launch of Web Elements, you can choose to include Web Elements from products like Google Custom Search, Calendar, Docs, Friend Connect and more."
These Web Element additions will add interactivity and increase your Adsense revenue through optimisation, claimed the website.
Google also announced the launch of its Fast Flip service this week, which allows users to flick through bundles of stories in the same way as they would do in a real newspaper, but the articles can come from a variety of news providers.

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Video production presented on demand 'set to be regulated'

Ofcom have released a statement saying that they will begin regulating video on demand services from December 19th, regarding content, adverts and any complaints made.
Ofcom has announced that it will be regulating video production for on demand services such as BBC iPlayer and 4OD.
The Association for Television On Demand (ATVOD) will begin regulating their output from December 19th in terms of what programmes are presented, the advertising that appears with content and the complaints that are made about these services.
Pogrammes released on these on demand services must not incite viewers to hatred based on prejudices, nor mentally or physically corrupt the development of children.
Any complaints will be looked at by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) or the ATVOD, while the ASA will also deal with the use of adverts, something it already does for television and radio.
Ofcom stated: "The directive seeks only to regulate TV-like services which make programmes available for members of the public to view at a time of their choice."
The BBC recently announced that it is planning on releasing a new version of its iPlayer, which can be used by third parties to show their content.

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Smaller brands could find online lead generation success

Smaller brands can market themselves effectively online and see successful lead generation, according to a new report.
Smaller brands can market themselves effectively online and see successful lead generation, according to a new report.
The study by comScore looked at brands that have a category buyer penetration of around five per cent or less, who would normally not be able to launch advertising campaigns on television or radio and get value for money.
Dr Magid Abraham, chief executive officer of the company, pointed out that online adverts for smaller companies are a cost-effective way of marketing and offer a much greater ability to target customers than television.
He said: "The good news for brands in these types of smaller categories is that they may be able to advertise affordably for the first time by using the internet."
By investigating the efficiency of targeting the top 20 per cent of customers who are most likely to buy a smaller brand's product, the report found that campaigns can reach up to 84 per cent of a company's target market.
Dr Abraham commented in a recent post on the comScore blog that the company has begun focusing its research on emerging markets in South America and Asia, rather than only the US.

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Pay per click 'retains accountability'

Pay per click marketing offers a simple and accountable metric for measuring the success of an advertising campaign, according to a marketing website.
Pay per click marketing is effective because it can retain its results-driven accountability, according to an online marketing organisation.
MarketingSherpa pointed out that conversion metrics for other forms of marketing can often be more complex, such as in the case of online banner advertising.
Through the accountability of pay per click ads, advertisers will have more data with which to make decisions relating to the company's marketing strategy.
The website said: "Ideally, an organisation will collect multiple conversion metrics in order to gauge the effectiveness of search marketing throughout the purchase funnel, not just at the end."
Another problem pointed out on the website is that conversion events can be anything the marketer decides it wants to be, because in analytics it is a user-defined event.
Recently the website looked at a case study of the best ways of reaching international audiences with pay per click campaigns, which suggested tweaking keywords gradually and building a basic website with plenty of in-country inbound links.

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Lead generation 'too focused on clickthrough rates'

Even though most online adverts are judged on their clickthrough rates, they can still have a positive effect on a brand without necessarily directly selling the product, says an industry expert.
Online lead generation is too concentrated on getting high clickthrough rates when a brand can make an impact without this, says an industry expert.
Jack Wallington, senior programmes manager at the Internet Advertising Bureau, made his comments following the news that Google is releasing a new product which will allow people to flick through news stories online similar to a newspaper.
He pointed out that even though someone may not click through on an advert, just by seeing it in on the screen or in a newspaper that person will be aware of a brand or product that is sending out a marketing message.
"Sometimes the focus is moved away from the actual branding power that an advert can have, so if they do move back to that I think this particular technology could help," Mr Wallington said.
The new service, Google Fast Flip, was announced this week and the company claimed it will allow users to browse through bundles of stories from different news providers.

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Target your 'mobile audience, not just novelty technology'

Despite the popularity of the App Store, it is vital that businesses concentrate on providing applications on platforms that they actually use, says a technology expert.
Businesses should focus on capturing the attention of their target audience within the mobile market, rather than chasing any new technology that comes out, recommended an industry expert.
Chris Cunningham, chief executive officer of Appssavvy, made his comments to Beth Snyder Bulik in her Digital blog on Advertising Age, when asked about the popularity of building applications to be downloaded from the Apple App Store.
He pointed out that it can often be smart to concentrate on creating a program to be used on all smartphones or perhaps on regular phones, because the most important factor is whether the target audience will be able to access the application.
"Look at what your customers are actually doing on mobile. How many people in your target have an iPhone? If it's not many, consider waiting," Mr Cunningham told the marketing website.
An analyst from Juniper Research recently described the App Store as revolutionary in terms of how it has changed how customers use applications.

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Social media site 'sees healthy growth'

Twitter is estimated to have 18 million users in 2009 according to an expert from eMarketer, but they claim their prediction is conservative.
Twitter has seen healthy growth in the last three months, but predictions of increased use in the future should be conservative, according to an industry commentator.
These comments came after eMarketer reported that there will be a 200 per cent increase in Twitter users in the US between 2008 and 2009 to 18 million people.
Paul Verna, senior analyst at the marketing website, claimed that despite healthy growth there had been signs that a lot of people are trying the service and then deciding not to use it, or not using it very often.
He said: "With these trends in place, we felt it was prudent to take a conservative outlook on Twitter's user growth over the next 18 months."
However, the company has revised its previous estimate of Twitter's popularity in 2009 from 12.1 million users up to 18 million, with the figure set to reach 26 million in 2010, according to its predictions.
This week, a report from Box UK indicated that the average user of the micro-blogging site is aged between 18 and 21.

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Search engine 'to begin marketing itself on a big scale'

Yahoo! will begin a marketing campaign to show that it is still a powerhouse of the online world at Advertisting Week in New York, says an industry analyst.
The search engine Yahoo! will begin marketing itself again to try to show customers how big a force it is in the digital world, according to an industry analyst.
Kara Swisher, co-producer of All Things Digital, stated that Advertising Week starting on September 21st in New York will be the beginning of Yahoo!'s campaign, since many of its senior executives will be there to speak to its biggest clients.
She claimed that the key message that the top brass will be looking to deliver is that the search engine is still huge in terms of online display advertising, even if its search power is set to be reduced when its proposed deal with Microsoft goes through.
The agreement will see Microsoft take over the back-end of Yahoo!'s search on a ten year deal while they both continue to compete on the front end.
However, Ms Swisher said: "Yahoo! - despite all the internal and external turmoil it has undergone in recent years - remains one of the largest sites on the Internet."

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Increased coverage possible for iPlayer's video production

The BBC will offer its iPlayer technology to third parties if its governing body, the BBC trust allow the move.
The BBC is considering launching a version of iPlayer that can be run by third-party companies.
Its video production technology would be shared with other businesses that want to use it, but the BBC would not retain any hold over how content is presented, reports the Telegraph.
Erik Huggers, director of future media and technology at the BBC, noted that the proposals have not yet been accepted by the BBC Trust, but it would be a benefit to other businesses if it does go ahead.
He said: "It is about making sure each of the broadcasters around the world can continue to have a direct relationship with their users."
The project, known as OpenPlayer, would allow the BBC to divert customers towards competitors, if a customer searched for rival content.
This week, Ofcom announced that it will begin regulating video on demand services such as iPlayer and Channel 4's 4OD from the end of the year.

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Twitter: Teenage fans flock to social media site

The average user of Twitter is between 18 and 21 according to a new study, however the authors said that a direct survey would be needed to get a more accurate figure
The average user of the social media service Twitter is estimated to be between 18 and 21, according to a new report.
Box UK carried out the study by searching Twitter for phrases such as "I am 21" or "I'm 45" and omitting any tweets that were obviously references to birthdays in order to get some idea of the age of users.
Dan Zambonini, technical director at the consultancy company, pointed out that without a direct survey it is very hard to know a great deal about users since Twitter asks for so little information, which also leads to other problems.
"Some organisations and people take advantage of the openness and simplicity of Twitter by trying to cheat the system and find quick wins by not participating in the spirit of the platform," he explains.
Mr Zambonini called for the social media site to take action to prevent spammers from making their presence felt on the site.
Last week, Twitter announced that it will begin offering paid-for accounts in the last three months of this year, which may include an analytics dashboard.

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Status tagging begins on social media site

People will soon be able to tag their friends, events and groups within their Facebook status updates.
People will now be able to tag other people in their status updates on the social media website Facebook.
The new feature will be rolled out over the next few weeks and will see users being able to tag other people within their own status updates, according to a post by Tom Occhino on the social networking site's blog.
By adding an "@" symbol before writing someone's name in a status update, a drop-down menu will let you pick which friend is being referred to, with the same going for events or groups too.
He said: "We hope that tagging your status updates and other's posts from the Publisher will enable you to share in a more meaningful and engaging way and connect with even more people."
Facebook already allows users to tag each other in photos and videos, which Mr Occhino claimed is one of the most popular features of the website.
Last week, an industry insider, Tim Gibbon, commented that social networking sites have woken people up to new ways of sharing content such as photos and games.

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Apple has 'revolutionised the mobile market'

Apple has made the smartphones accessible and desirable to consumers and its App Store has revloutionised the way that customers find and use applications, says an industry expert.
With the iPhone and the App Store, Apple has revolutionised the consumer mobile market, according to an industry expert.
Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper Research, noted that Apple has made smartphones a consumer product instead of just a business device.
He claimed that other phone companies such as Nokia and Samsung have designed their most recent models with a number of clear similarities to the iPhone, with the most striking feature being the touchscreen capability.
"That's one side of things, the other is the App Store itself, which has completely revolutionised the way that consumers use applications," he said.
Mr Holden pointed out that there has been an "unprecedented" level of productivity in terms of new games and applications in the App Store, which was achieved by moving the whole market into a space where the consumer can contribute.
He made his comments following the news that sales of the iPhone 3G have gone up by 626 per cent from the second quarter of 2008 to the same period in 2009.

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Social media site plans revenue boost in the fourth quarter

Twitter will begin offering a paid-for account in the last three months of this year, which it hopes will be attractive to business customers.
Twitter will start charging some users for their accounts in the last three months of this year, as the social media site starts to become profitable.
Co-founder Biz Stone noted that it was not yet clear how much the paid-for accounts will cost, but they will be aimed at business customers with features to help them monitor their tweets, reported Bloomberg.
Features possibly in the pipeline are an analytics dashboard and the option to create verified corporate accounts.
In a separate project, the company is also designing a way of using Twitter accounts to help people find others who share hobbies or interests in their town or region.
Biz Stone claimed that there is still plenty of growth left in the company because many people know about the social media site but do not have an account, which he suggested is an opportunity for growth.
This week, research by Freshbusinessthinking.com indicated that 45 per cent of small to medium-sized enterprises are using social networking websites to market their products.

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Social media 'has awakened people to new ways of sharing'

Social media sites have shown people new ways of sharing and this effect is currently being felt in the casual games sector, says an expert.
Social media sites have opened people's eyes to new ways of sharing and this is a growing phenomenon in gaming too, noted an industry insider.
Tim Gibbon, editor and co-founder of the Social Media Portal, pointed out that games being shared at the moment are very basic, but still popular.
He highlights casual games - small scale and independently produced - as a sector which can benefit in popularity from the appeal of social networking.
"Social media sites have awakened how people can share all manner of activities, assets and content across the web including images, photographs, video etc and of course games as well," he observed.
Mr Gibbon commented that the increase in internet speed and the fact that consoles now have web access has been influential in the popularity of casual games, as well as the growth of competitions within online gaming communities.
Recent research by InsideSocial Games suggests that Zynga has a significant share of the online gaming industry, recording over 44 million separate users on Facebook in the US in June.

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'Click to call back' lead generation announced

Vonage telephone company will be releasing 'click to call back' adverts as a new form of online lead generation which will connect up with its call centres.
A new style of online lead generation has been launched by the internet telephone provider Vonage, which will see customers receiving an immediate phone call when they click on an advert.
Last year, the company created a calculator advert, where consumers could work out how much money they would save by switching to Vonage, with all of it contained within the banner ad.
This time around there will be a space for people to put their telephone number in, which will result in somebody from a call centre ringing them back soon afterwards, reports Russell Parsons for Marketing Week.
Vincent Potier, managing director of Vonage UK, said: "It is about integrating digital with other channels of acquisition."
He told Mr Parsons that he hoped it will allow for real-time lead generation by linking online adverts with its call centres.
At the beginning of this month, Vonage had their application for an Apple app approved, but has not announced when it will be released.

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18 Beware of outsourcing your company's social media output

Channelling social media through websites like YouTube can offer your company a larger audience but much less control, says an industry expert.

Businesses that outsource their social media output are opening themselves up to the possibility of losing a great deal of control, says an industry analyst.

For instance, by channelling videos onto your site through a service such as YouTube you can potentially reach a much greater audience, but it comes at a price, claims Jakob Nielsen in his Alertbox blog on useit.com.

He notes that the risk involved in using a social media site is that you lose control over the way your media is presented, which can often end up looking amateurish if they appear in an illogical order.

"These arguments count in favour of keeping social features on your own site where you can design them to provide a better user experience for your customers," he concludes.

Mr Nielsen points out that the needs of your own website will usually differ greatly from what a social media site is aiming to achieve and usability will suffer if this difference is too pronounced.

In an Alertbox post last month, he advised that the key to using Twitter effectively is to be as concise as possible and focus on a separate point in each tweet.

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18 to 25-year-olds 'are asking for more email marketing'

More permission-based emails are being requested by a significant proportion of 18 to 25-year-olds, according to new research.

18 to 25-year-olds want more permission-based email (PBE) marketing to be sent to them, according to a new report.

Research undertaken by Epsilon in their Global Consumer Email Study showed that 34 per cent of would like to receive a PBE more than once a day from an online retailer.

Kevin Mabley, senior vice president of strategic services at the organisation, noted that these results show how marketing strategies must change depending on which audience the adverts are aimed at.

He said: "This research emphasises the importance of segmented and targeted marketing campaigns since there's a clear difference in behaviour among age groups.

The report also indicated that 32 per cent of people want more than one entertainment PBE per day and 26 per cent want discount offers from retailers trading offline.

Recently Epsilon managing director Ian Hitt pointed out that it is the control and accuracy that email marketing allows, which makes it a powerful tool right now.

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Businesses must 'test for responses' to email marketing

It is essential that businesses test how much of a response they are getting from their email marketing campaigns to see how successful they have been, says an industry analyst.
Businesses have been told that they must test their email marketing campaigns to see if people are actually responding to them, according to an industry analyst.
Matt McNeil, founder of the email marketing site Sign-Up.to, commented that it is important to communicate with customers and make calculations as to what they will want, but there is no substitute for checking whether they are actually responding.
He noted that it was very important for companies to define their target market when they are starting an email marketing campaign, but once it is underway it is vital to look at valid analysis of its success.
"You can make as many assumptions as you like, but you really need to test with live data to see if people are responding to your campaigns," he said.
Mr McNeil stated that it is necessary to take a different approach depending on which age group is being targeted, because some generations can be harder to win over.
Recent research by Epsilon showed that 18 to 25-year-olds want to be sent more special offers by email, in some cases more than once a day.

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Social media 'could be incorporated into new online game'

Monopoly City Streets has been unveiled using Google Maps as its playing board, all of which would be well suited to social media interaction, says an industry commentator

The use of social media in the new Monopoly City Streets game would be well suited, according to an industry commentator.

Tim Gibbon, co-founder and editor of the Social Media Portal, suggested Google's proposed communication platform, Google Wave, as an ideal partner to an online game as people are able to interact in real time.

He commented that Google Wave was announced earlier this year and during a demonstration its potential for online gaming was hinted at.

"The game chess was shown as an example of real-time play, but just imagine if the functionality included a way to incorporate a game such as Monopoly City Streets," he said. Mr Gibbon noted that Google Maps was the perfect technology with which to re-launch Monopoly, because it will allow pin-point accuracy for gaming.

Monopoly City Streets is set to be released as an online game where players are invited to use Google Maps as the playing board and a greater variety of buildings will be available than in the classic version.

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Social media is 'popular marketing platform for SMEs'

Owners of small to medium sized businesses are using social media sites to advertise, which an industry insider claims is a cost-effective way of advertising.

Small to medium sized enterprise (SME) owners have been reported to be using social media sites as part of their marketing strategy.

In a study by Freshbusinessthinking.com, it was found that 45 per cent of SME owners use social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter to promote their company.

Lea Pachta, a spokesperson for the researchers, pointed out that in the current economic climate these websites can be a cost-effective way for companies to market their product.

She said: "The likes of Facebook and Twitter can act as valuable new marketing channels, generating new leads, sales and raising brand awareness."

The report also indicated that 70 per cent of SME owners use the internet to market their products or services.

A recent study by comScore showed that 20 per cent of all adverts that are viewed on the internet are on social networking sites, which the company believes makes them an attractive prospect to advertisers.

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Mobile hackers 'would need specialist equipment'

The level of technology used to transmit telephone calls from mobiles would make it very tough for hackers to listen to them, says a security expert.

Mobile hackers would have trouble listening in on people's phone calls because of the level of technology used, according to industry insider.

Mike Hawkes, security expert at the Mobile Data Association, pointed out that voice communications are sent in small "packets", which would all need to be separately decrypted in order for a potential hacker to work out what is being said.

As well as this, he noted that mobile phones switch cells as people walk around, so a hacker looking at one cell would be left with an incomplete piece of information.

He explained: "Trying to co-ordinate between those is a real challenge to do. We've not seen any practical demonstrations of anybody that can actually do anything sensible with things like voice."

Mr Hawkes said it is slightly easier to decode an SMS text message because they are simpler pieces of information sent backwards and forwards, although security technology is now available to protect text messages.

He made his comments following new that a Dutch hacker had exposed holes in the security of mobile technology.

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Lead generation through fan pages 'more popular early in the week'

Lead generation on brand pages of social networking sites is more effective earlier on in the week than at weekends according to new research.

Lead generation through social media fan pages is significantly more popular early on each week, according to a new report.

A report by ViTrue, posted on Mark Walsh's Online Media Daily blog on MediaPost, showed that there was an average clickthrough rate of 9.72 per cent from Monday to Wednesday when people visited the fan page of a brand.

In comparison, the clickthrough rate for Friday and Saturday dropped as low as 2.67 per cent for Friday and 2.7 per cent for Saturday.

ViTrue chief executive officer Reggie Bradford told MediaPost: "This highlights the importance for marketers of having a well thought-out communication strategy for updating their brand page and when to create wall posts to get the optimum response."

Mark Walsh pointed out that there is a degree of guesswork involved in clickthrough rate estimations because it factors in the likelihood that not everyone actually sees that advert on the screen.

It was reported last week that the social networking site Facebook is going to begin using direct response adverts, which will allow people to get products and coupons to be sent to their door.

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MSpotify launches mobile application

People whose mobiles have smartphone capability - such as the iPod or Android systems - will now be able to download a Spotify application.

The mobile application for Spotify is now available on a limited range of phones.

Users must be premium subscribers to the service in order to use it on their mobile, but once they are, they have full access to the whole catalogue, wrote Andres Sehr in the Spotify blog.

He stated that the application is currently only supported by smartphones such as the iPhone, iPod Touch and Android system, where it can be downloaded from Apple's App Store or Android Market.

"Launching these apps is our first step at going mobile and we'd like to thank all the people who worked hard on making this happen," Mr Sehr added.

The application has an offline mode as well, in which users can put together playlists and use them even when they have no internet connection.

In his previous post, Mr Sehr said that the Spotify music catalogue had recently been updated with another 184,795 new tracks.

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Social media 'can keep a myth going'

Social media has an ability to market myths even when they have been proved inaccurate, says a sector commentator.

Myths can keep going on social media, even when they have been proven to be false, according to an industry commentator.

Jack Neff, writing in his Advertising Age blog, claimed that it can be easy to spread industry gossip on social media such as Twitter or Facebook, but most importantly it seems to persist on this medium, even after correct accounts of an event are published.

He noted a case where a spoof letter to Proctor & Gamble was put up on a website and become hugely popular despite it being proved to be entirely false.

"It's part of a growing body of marketing myths and misinformation in social media: a sort of subsection of urban legends," he added.

The letter pertained to be from a disgruntled customer who disapproved of the company's Happy Period advertising campaign and rumours suggested there still endure today, commented Mr Neff.

In a previous Advertising Age Blog, Craig Daitch said it was a tough decision for brands to make as to whether they should "dip their toe" in social media, but the focus should be on sustained relationships with customers.

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Mozilla release new product for Windows Mobile

Mozilla has announced that its Fennec Alpha 3 product will now be available for Windows Mobile, which includes improved panning and quicker start-up time.

Mozilla has released Fennec Alpha 3 for the new Windows Mobile, which the company claims has come a long way since Alpha 2.

Nicole Loux posted the news on the Mozilla blog and highlighted the improved start-up time and panning as key advances that it has made in this new product.

She pointed out that the new programme also supports a greater range of screen resolutions.

In a Mozilla blog post from earlier this year, Brad Lassey said that the company made the panning better in Alpha 3 by using a tile cache rendering system, which he stated is similar to what you see on Google Maps.

He added: "In writing this blog post I realise just how much progress we've made since Alpha 2. I hope you'll give it a try, put it through its paces and enjoy."

Ms Loux announced the release of Mozilla AMO 5.0.9 at the end of last month.

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Twitter: Social media followers favour the popular

A new report shows the most popular 0.1 per cent of Twitter users have benefitted the most from the social media sites growth.

Following the growth of Twitter's user base, a new report finds that it is the most popular users of the social media site who have gained most followers.

The top 0.1 per cent of users increased their average number of followers by 275 per cent from March to June, according to a post on the Rapleaf blog.

In comparison, the top one per cent saw a rise of 146 per cent over the same period, while the top ten per cent went up by 126 per cent.

The report said: "Twitter's growth over the past few months resulted in the most popular users getting even more popular, with the most followed users experiencing the largest gains in follower count."

In the conclusion of the report it was stated that it will be interesting to see if these trends continue as Twitter's popularity carries on growing.

Last week, in his comScore blog Andrew Lipsman claimed that research indicated that Twitter is now becoming more popular with younger users as well as older people.

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Online video production 'will not replace traditional mediums'

A spokesperson from the BFI has stated that online video has an important role to play in the future, but will not fully replace other cinematic media.

Video production will not focus solely on online delivery in the future, but it will still be an important factor, according to an industry insider.

Nick Mason Pearson, director of press and public affairs at the British Film Institute (BFI), commented that online video still cannot offer the same experience that you can get from other mediums, such as the cinema.

However, he noted that in order for films to reach the widest audience it will be critical to deliver films online, as well as to open up access to the BFI's National Archive.

"At the end of the day, if consumers can access the films they want in a way that suits them and which offers value for money, then they will go for it," he said.

Mr Pearson's comments come after it was reported that Google are in discussions with film studios about allowing film rentals to be broadcast on YouTube.

He claimed that being able to trust the domain in which they watch a film online would make the process easier for consumers.

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Facebook Connect hits mobile internet

Facebook has announced that it now has 65 million users of its mobile application and will now be making its Connect service more widely available.

Social networking site Facebook has announced that its Connect service will now be available on mobile applications.

The news comes after the social networking site announced that 65 million people now use Facebook Mobile.

Henri Moissinac, a member of the Facebook Mobile team writing in his blog, commented that the Connect service will allow people to take their online identity when they use other applications and sites on the mobile web.

He said: "As we celebrate 65 million users, we want you to be able to take Facebook with you wherever you go."

Last week, the Connect link started to become available on several mobile applications, but Mr Moissinac claimed that this would become more common in the future.

The number of Facebook mobile users has increased by 20 million in the past eight months.

Recently the social networking site announced that it would start to use direct response ad units on its main internet site, so that users could be sent samples of products when they type in their address.

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Email marketing "particularly powerful at the moment"

The timing and accuracy of that email marketing allows businesses have been highlighted as the reasons why it is so powerful right now.

Email marketing has been highlighted as one of the most effective online advertising tools by an industry commentator.

Ian Hitt, managing director of Epsilon International, pointed out that the low cost and ability to contact customers more frequently is valuable now that more and more retailers are advertising online.

He commented that there are a lot of myths about subject line testing and about when is the best time to send emails to customers, but not all clients insisted on developing these strategies.

"It is that control over timing and accuracy, then the segmenting of that data that makes email marketing particularly powerful at the moment," he said.

Mr Hitt added that businesses should not use email marketing on its own though, as it works best when combined with other forms of communication, such as direct mail and social networking.

Recent research by Sign-Up.to showed that when somebody opened a B2C email 25.99 per cent of them clicked through to the business's website.

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Twitter now a social media for youngsters?

Twitter has now become popular with younger users which may be due to celebrity participation, says an industry analyst.

Younger users are fuelling the growth of a form of social media that had been associated with older people, says an industry analyst.

Andrew Lipsman, in his comScore blog, claimed that Twitter had been the subject of discussion, since people were not sure if young people were actually using the service.

But he commented that research by comScore showed they definitely are using the site and their numbers are growing, which he suggests may be due to more celebrities signing up to Twitter.

He added: "It will be the first example I can think of where the younger demographics were not the critical early-adopters of a new internet technology."

From a comScore "share of audience trend" graph for the past year, Mr Lipsman was able to show that under-24s actually now have the highest average representation on Twitter.

Recently it was reported by Robin Goad, on his Analyst Weblog for Hitwise, that Twitter had overtaken MySpace in popularity in the last week of August.

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Spotify iPhone mobile application awaited

An iPhone Spotify application is due to hit the market soon.

A Spotify mobile phone application for the iPhone would be beneficial to users.

That is the opinion of Will Cooper, deputy news editor at New Media Age, who has said that the iPhone was the "perfect platform" for the music application.

"Spotify has really effected the industry quite strongly and has done really well. It was almost inevitable that they were going to convert to the iPhone. It seems the perfect platform for it," he said.

Mr Cooper added that many people enjoyed Spotify as it "brought back the mixtape".

Late last month Spotify suggested that Apple had given them a "big thumbs up" to the mobile music application.

Users in the UK, Sweden, Spain, Finland, France and Norway will be the first to get the application.

Spotify has become hugely popular in recent months, with users able to create playlists for free from a huge bank of songs.

The service makes its money through advertising played during the playlists.

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Social media 'must innovate to sell brands to women'

Social media sites still have some way to go before they affect women's spending habits, according to a new report.

Women are not impressed by branding on social media sites, despite many of them using the services regularly, according to a new survey.

Undertaken by ad:tech Chicago and Q Interactive, the report was found that 83 per cent of women feel either neutral or negative when they come across a brand name on a social networking site.

However, 52 per cent of the women polled had become a fan of, or "befriended" a brand on one of these websites, which Drew Ianni, chairman of ad:tech Expositions, believes challenges brands to create a more meaningful relationship with women.

He says: "This tells us there is a willingness among women to partner with brands in social media - but the current dialogue is not where it needs to be."

The survey also found that 75 per cent of ladies responded that social networking sites either did not have much influence over their spending or none at all.

There will be a conference conducted by ad:tech in London later this month, which will be looking at digital trends and marketing providers.

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Social media landscape 'is changing for Twitter'

Twitter is now more popular than MySpace in the social networking site rankings, according to figures released by Hitwise.

The social media service Twitter is gaining in popularity, but it may be even more popular than statistics suggest, reported an industry analyst.

Twitter was more popular than MySpace in figures for the last week in August, but this does not tell the whole story, according to Robin Goad on his Analyst Weblog on Hitwise.

Mr Goad, who has worked for the Corporate Executive Board and Datamonitor, suggested that many people actually use the social media through third-party applications such as Tweetdeck or through their mobile phones.

"If anything, Twitter is even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website," he explained.

Mr Goad was commenting on figures released by Hitwise which show that Twitter was the 27th most popular website in the UK for the last week of August, while MySpace was 28th.

MySpace is now 5th in the rankings for social networking sites, behind Facebook, YouTube, Bebo and Twitter.

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Online videos 'being watched at work'

People are now watching online videos during the traditional working day, while the concept of prime time television is disappearing, says a new report.

More than two-thirds of online videos are watched during the business day, according to a new report.

It was found that 68 per cent of such videos were watched during traditional working hours in research conducted by Yahoo!, Interpret LLC, Havas Digital, Warner Bros Media Research and PHD.

There were particular "spikes" in online video viewing between midday and 3pm, then again between 9pm and 1am, rather than only during the traditional prime time slot from 8pm to 11pm.

But Jeff Hecox, writing in the Yahoo! Marketing Blog explained that the concept of prime time television is basically over.

He said: "Online video has fundamentally shifted the concept of prime time. Prime time is now all the time, as high levels of video consumption occur throughout the day."

The report also indicated that nearly one in five online videos is watched after a friend or relative has recommended it via some form of electronic message.

Recent research by comScore revealed that 41.9 per cent of videos watched online are viewed on a Google site.

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'Most US universities need to work on their SEO'

Universities in the US are not using search engine optimisation to increase their visibility on natural searches, says an industry commentator

The majority of US colleges are not practising search engine optimisation (SEO) and are losing out as a result, according to an industry commentator.

In a study conducted by Ken Lyons for his Word Stream Internet Marketing blog, it was discovered that very few educational establishments figured in the top 100 rankings when sample searches for degrees were carried out.

He claimed that many colleges are relying on brand or paid searches for their online visibility, which means that the few institutions that are practising SEO well are achieving significant results in organic searches.

"This, to me, presents a clear opportunity to ramp up your SEO and take advantage of the lack of competition in the SERPs, because they're pretty much wide open," wrote Mr Lyons.

From the results of his study, he concluded that the top three colleges, in terms of SERP presence, were Drexel University, the University of Phoenix and Capella University.

MarketingSherpa recently reported that an effective way of improving your organic search ranking is to ensure that your Google Maps entry is accurate.

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Mobile phones 'take the lead' in new fitness applications

Smartphone technology is allowing mobiles to be used to download keep-fit applications, which dedicated sports devices cannot compete with, says an industry commentator

Using mobile phones with smartphone technology to download fitness software is becoming more and more popular, according to an industry commentator.

Richard Sharp, founder of Gadgetsandgizmos.org, claimed that when people are looking to buy an application to help them keep fit they will consider two factors - how much it costs and how easy it is to carry whilst exercising.

He added that as many people already own a smartphone, they will only have to invest in the application, which he noted will usually cost much less than buying a dedicated sport device.

"This saves money and also means you only have to carry one gadget whilst exercising," he concluded.

Mr Sharp pointed out that the smartphone is able to run these sports applications because they can access GPS, Maps and 3G.

Orders of sports and fitness devices have been falling in the current economic climate, whereas downloads of fitness application MotionX-GPS, for example, have now reached 1.2 million in 2009, according to new findings by ABI Research.

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Marketers using social media 'to give consumers a taste'

Direct response ad units are set to appear on Facebook, which will allow advertisers to send products to consumers.

Social media sites will be used by marketers to send out samples to consumers using new direct response ad units.

The adverts, set to appear on Facebook, will allow advertisers to offer samples and coupons, that can be sent to the user if they type in their address, reported Dianna Dilworth, a digital reporter for DMNews.

David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at 360i, claimed it would allow people to get actual products into people's hands.

He told Ms Dilworth: "When you are trying to give someone a taste for what you are offering, it is much more powerful."

Ms Dilworth claimed that one brand to sign up for the new adverts, Chich-fil-A, will offer to send the consumer a free chicken biscuit if they click on the advert and fill in their details.

This week, an industry analyst commented that social networking sites take up a "significant" portion of the time people spend on the internet and so have become an attractive prospect to advertisers.

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Make mobile marketing easy, implores Google

Google Retail has advised companies to make sure that their sites on the mobile internet are just as eas to use as their current internet sites.

Commerce on mobile phones should be an easy experience for consumers, says Google Retail.

It claims that a retail site on the mobile internet should be just as simple to use and understand as a normal website, advises Amy Adams Harding of the Google Retail team on the service's official blog.

It is also pointed out that not everyone has a smartphone - only 12 per cent of the population in the United States - so the page must be accessible to phones of all levels of technology, if you are going to reach the most customers.

She writes: "Most importantly, you must have a great landing page experience that spans device type. Easy navigation is critical. If the user is confused or frustrated, they are gone."

A total of 35 per cent of the 63 million people who use the mobile internet in the United States will access it every day, comments Ms Adams Harding.

It was reported recently that phones with smartphone technology were seeing a boom in the number of fitness applications being downloaded, while dedicated sports devices continue to fall, according to Richard Sharp from Gadgetsandgizmos.org.

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Improve your SEO by 'refining your Google Maps entry'

Improving your SEO ranking could be done by simply ensuring your Google Maps entry has no mistakes, says an industry commentator

Your search engine optimisation (SEO) ranking could be enhanced by simply making your Google Maps entry more accurate and informative, according to a sector commentator.

Your entry could contain mistakes in it, either due to human error or through the information simply being out of date, MarketingSherpa was told by Sean Reardon, director of sales and marketing at the Liberty Hotel in Boston.

He suggested analysing the entry that appears for your business to check for mistakes, but also to see if you could add an up-to-date picture or extra description, as he said that it will all help in organic searches for local businesses.

"Sometimes [listings] end up with pictures that aren't the right pictures, or an address that's just a number off - that's a problem," Mr Reardon told the website.

He also recommended taking control of your business entry, which can be done on the Google Maps website and confirmed on its Local Business Center.

MarketingSherpa published a case study last week which recommended using social media to enhance your SEO results, as it can be an effective way of generating leads.

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IBM applies for social media remote control patent

IBM have applied for a patent for a new way of blogging that people would be able to do with a remote control linked to their television set.

People watching TV could soon be able to access social media sites without having to move away from the set, if a new patent filed by IBM is accepted.

It is believed that the innovation could be the computer company's attempt to become more involved in social media, according to Paul McDougall on his Information Week blog.

He described excerpts from the patent application where it was made clear that this remote control was ideal for blogging on services such as Twitter and Facebook, while at the same time receiving blog posts from other people.

The papers filed to United States Patent and Trademark Office stated: "These blog communications may be accomplished without the viewer having to leave the broadcast receiver of the television."

It was pointed out in the application that people always enjoy discussing television programmes and this allows them to do that even when they are not in the same room.

Earlier this week a security expert, Nicki Wallace from RSA, warned that people's use of social media sites is responsible for the loss of a lot of corporate information belonging to their employers as well as their own confidential information.

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Advertisers 'eager to use social media'

Advertisers are becoming more interested in using social networking sites for advertising campaigns, particularly due to the sheer volume of users they generate, says an industry analyst.

Many advertisers are keen to use social media sites for their campaigns, according to an industry analyst.

Jeff Hackett, senior vice president of comScore, made his comments after the company released figures indicating that in June, more than 20 per cent of all display ads looked at on the internet, were viewed on a social networking site.

He pointed out that the low cost of social networking advertising is attractive to advertisers, especially considering how many consumers it reaches and its ability to segment them.

"Over the past few years, social networking has become one of the most popular online activities, accounting for a significant portion of the time internet users spend online."

Within advertising on social networking websites, the study also found that 80 per cent of the adverts viewed were on Facebook and MySpace.

Previous research by the company showed that use of search engines was up 41 per cent in July, from the same time last year.

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Businesses must 'learn from customer responses' to email marketing

Learning from customer responses and building long term relationships with them would help businesses improve the effectiveness of their email marketing campaigns, says an industry insider.

Businesses should be looking at customer responses to their email marketing campaigns in order to learn how to improve them, according to an industry insider.

Matt McNeil, founder of Sign-Up.to, suggested companies could build on the success of their advertising by listening to what the recipients of the emails had to say.

He also pointed out that retailers' email marketing campaigns are often more effective than advertising in other industries because they pay a lot of attention to getting the most out of them.

"Successful email marketing is all about building a long-term relationship with the customer, it's not about quick customer acquisition and it is certainly not about buying data," he added.

He commented that online retailers can also test how effective their email campaigns are, as they could see exactly how much income they generate from them.

Mr McNeil was speaking following the publication of recent research by Sign-Up.to, which tested how many of its clients emails were opened by recipients.

It found that government emails were opened the most, as they were accessed 49.35 per cent of the time.

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Contactless payment risk on mobiles 'not yet known'

An industry commentator has pointed out that there are still worries surrounding the use of contactless payments on mobile phones.

The risks associated with making contactless payments on mobile phones have yet to be worked out, according to an industry commentator.

Brian Turner, director of Brite Media and executive editor of MobileWire.co.uk, has pointed out that incidents of mobile phone theft and fraud could increase the risk of contactless payments being made illegally, but it is not yet clear by how much.

He commented that criminal gangs will always try to exploit technology such as this, no matter what precautions are taken, but he felt that most important question was who would be liable for covering the cost of unauthorised payments.

"Every method of transaction is open to risk. It remains to be seen how much risk may be involved with contactless payments," he said.

Mr Turner stated that he is also unsure of how secure the technology behind the payments is, as it has been compared to the Oyster card system, which he claims was cracked some time ago.

He made his comments following the news that a deal had been agreed between the government, card payment and mobile phone companies in order to stop criminals from using the contactless payment facility illegally.

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Google sites named as top for video productions viewed

New research suggests that more than four in ten videos watched online were on a Google website, although the majority of these were on YouTube, says a new report.

Four out of ten video productions viewed online in the United States in July are watched on a Google website, according to new research.

The report, released by comScore, indicated that 41.9 per cent of more than 21 billion online videos watched that month were watched on a site belonging to the search engine.

YouTube accounted for 99 per cent of more than 8.9 billion clips seen on a Google site.

The next largest share was held by Viacom Digital, which made up 3.8 per cent, while Microsoft sites came in third with 3 per cent.

These figures are the highest ever recorded for online video viewings, which were made up of those that had been streamed and also those progressively downloaded.

In the report, it was shown that the number of users was a record in July too, with 158 million people in the country taking part.

Google was named as the search engine that people trust the most by Dan Oliver from .net magazine last week.

He claimed it would take it would be extremely hard for any of its competitors to overtake them in popularity at this point in time because of the trust they have built up.

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Security incidents 'often caused by social media sites'

Corporate information is being shared on social media sites without employees realising it, says an security expert.

Incidents of corporate information being shared by accident are often down to people's use of social media websites, according to a business security expert.

Using Facebook and MSN Messenger at work, or even just on a work system, have been named as perfect examples of how this information is given away without people realising.

Nicki Wallace, global solutions marketing manager at RSA, explained that this is because people were updating their status with work-related topics.

She said: "There are a lot of different places where our customers are finding and causing vulnerabilities. Social networking is obviously causing a huge problem for our customers at the moment."

Ms Wallace pointed out that people are often not even thinking about what they might be giving away when they use new technology tools such as these.

In recent research by the International Data Corporation, 82 per cent of chief executive officers said that they were not sure if security incidents involving temporary or contracted staff were done on purpose or not.

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