knewworld.com

Google dominates the where professionals search frequently

IainFletcher — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:29:00 GMT

I note from the Convera sponsored E-consultancy survey of professional search behavior, titled the "Vertical Search Report 2008", that Google is particularly dominant amongst those who use Web search a lot. Business people who use Web search engines between 1 and 5 times per day, according to the survey, are more likely to use Yahoo! or a vertical search engine from a B2B website. Google only ranks third amongst this group. In contrast, professionals who deploy more than 20...(read more)

Are social networks and vertical search a threat to consumer search engines and an opportunity for publishers?

Andy Black — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:13:00 GMT

With Microsoft buying a slice of Facebook, News Corporation owning MySpace (and rumoured to be bidding for LinkedIn) and Google announcing OpenSocial and releasing API's for building applications across Bebo, Engage.com, Friendster, LinkedIn, mixi, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com and XING - what's going on? Microsoft, Google and News Corporation have realised that as audiences, content, desktop, devices and distribution fragments and atomises - the...(read more)

European Union Examines BT

IainFletcher — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:43:00 GMT

Following on from yesterday's article about the use of private data in the targeting of advertising, the EU it seems now want to take an interest in how advertising systems use private data to boost online advertising revenue. A part of the European Union that regulates the protection of consumer data is to begin investigating BT, reports Reuters Further information can be found at MediaPost...(read more)

Google admits using data from Facebook to target AdWords

Chris Weiss — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:54:00 GMT

For anyone who has read John Battelle's "The Search", it will come as no suprise that the big search players like Google might consider using any data they can get their hands on to fine hone the targeting of advertising to increase their online advertising revenue. One of the primary reasons for the success of search advertising is that a search requests represents a very easy to use nugget of information for targeting advertising. Elsewhere on the web, there is discussion of this story...(read more)

What does OpenSocial mean for Facebook and other publishers?

Andy Black — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:51:00 GMT

Google’s newly announced open social networking platform OpenSocial is a set of API's that allows developers to create applications that work on any social network that joins Google’s open partnership – newly announced members include Orkut, LinkedIn, MySpace, hi5, XING, Friendster, Plaxo, Ning, Salesforce.com and Oracle. This strategy follows Facebook’s rapid growth based on opening its “social graph” to developers and Microsoft’s $240 million investment for 1.6 percent of the company. However,...(read more)

Convera named by Outsell as Rising Star for 2008

Andy Black — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:14:00 GMT

Outsell Inc, the leading analyst of the publishing and information industry, has just named Convera as one of five rising stars in the Search, Aggregation & Syndication segment in its influential and highly regarded Information Industry Outlook for 2008. The Outsell annual Outlook draws extensively from Outsell’s unique industry metrics and analytics, as well as Outsell’s daily contact with people in the information industry and deep industry experience of their analytical staff. Their data...(read more)

New York Times ditches subscription charges for advertising dollars

Andy Black — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:45:00 GMT

The New York Times is to stop charging for access to articles on its site, opting for generating money through advertising instead. The newspaper says that there is a "greater potential for revenue from online advertising", via search engines and links from other sites. The subscription service, called TimesSelect, required readers to pay $49.95 per year or $7.95 a month to read the work of popular columnists such as Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. ...(read more)

When will B2B online revenue exceed print revenue?

Andy Black — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:55:00 GMT

The leading analyst firm Outsell is forecasting a major crossover in 2009 – they are forecasting that B2B trade publishing print revenue will have fallen to 34.3% of total revenue, lower than revenue generated from online products (38.6% of total revenue) for the first time ever. They are also forecasting the growth rates for 2009 compared to 2008 to be -2.0% for print and 13.0% for online. Outsell's underlying growth rates for B2B trade publishing online revenues as: 22.5%, 17.0%, 13.0%...(read more)

Is there no such thing as bad publicity?

Andy Black — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 09:51:00 GMT

As the growth of media channels proliferates, the reputation of governments, businesses and brands can quickly be affected by negative coverage in the press and online media. But the links from authoritative sites generated by such stories create search engine optimisation opportunities. As we all know, links play a very important role in determining positions in the search engine results and the more inbound links from authorative sites, the higher the rankings - so any...(read more)

Universal Is Not Vertical

Chris Weiss — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:41:00 GMT

Another blog was applauding Google Universal Search today and again I noticed several references to vertical search. While I too have to congratulate Google on their universal approach to search, we should all be clear that Google Universal is anything but vertical search. Google aggregates a myriad of different sources, not just different media types but broad topics across many silos, and they have been good at indexing them and making them available to searchers. But Google...(read more)

Are Facebook , YouTube and video games the new television?

Andy Black — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:31:00 GMT

Research released by Ofcom, the UK media regulator showed UK online ad revenue surpassed ITV1 and Channel 4's combined ad sales last year, as internet consumption ate into TV audiences. Google’s UK turnover of £800m was equivalent to 80% of ITV1, Channel 4 and Five’s total ad revenues. But while TV ad revenues fell 2.2% last year to £3.47bn, earnings from TV subscriptions, like Sky TV, exceeded £4bn. These findings are consistent with other industry research and confirm...(read more)

The Search Slippery Slope

Chris Weiss — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:20:00 GMT

Search arbitrage is annoying and just another reason why professionals are leaving the broad consumer search engines for vertical search. The Search Anywhere Blog tipped me off this morning to a concise YouTube clip showing how search arbitrage works in Google. When we hear professionals who use search as part of their daily business complain about the wasted time associated with consumer search, it is things like this and link farming that they are usually most annoyed by. ...(read more)

Blended Vertical Search Isn’t

Chris Weiss — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:44:00 GMT

It seems the blogs are buzzing about “blended vertical search” after a packed house at this year’s Search Engine Strategies Conference (SES) in San Jose. But we need to be very careful as we all buzz about blended vertical search that we get our meanings and definitions right. Blending results across multiple disparate data sources to provide focused results is one thing. And a good thing if done properly. But blending in search results from other sources not focused...(read more)

Are online revenues growing for B2B trade publishers?

Andy Black — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:11:00 GMT

Three leading B2B trade companies have recently issued trading updates and quarterly results, and reported that online is delivering strong growth rates. The Haymarket Business Media division of Haymarket Group reported 2006 online revenue growth of 41%; Centaur Media plc online is growing at an estimated 30%; and TechTarget reported second quarter 2007 online revenue grew 27%. All three exceeded Outsell's benchmark total average B2B Trade Publishing online revenue growth rate of 22%. Online...(read more)

The Online Publishing Game

Chris Weiss — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:42:00 GMT

A Q&A with Steve Ennen of American Business MediaAugust 7, 2007 Steve Ennen is Vice President of Digital Business Strategies for American Business Media. Steve’s primary role is to assess the digital landscape—including changes in user habits, new tools and media/information delivery systems—and educate member companies on how these issues affect their business structure and growth. What are the key trends you see in how business professionals are consuming media?...(read more)

Who Will Lead Vertical Search?

Chris Weiss — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:28:00 GMT

A recent article in the Economist examined the promising future of vertical search and proposed three possible fates for vertical search sites. The article did not, however, suggest what factors will lead to victory or failure. Having worked closely with successful vertical search providers worldwide, here’s my take: Fate #1: The strongest vertical search provider will dominate specific industry categories Take healthcare verticals. Here is a well defined...(read more)

Will media buyers and planners use vertical search websites?

Andy Black — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:21:00 GMT

Media buyers and media planners traditionally work for an advertising agency and work with the agency account directors to plan and execute an advertising campaign on behalf of their clients. They use Nielsen and other data sources to examine the best demographic audiences and then define a campaign across media, such as radio, TV, newspapers, outdoor and online to target the required demographic audience for their clients. However, with the fragmentation and increasing audience shift away...(read more)

Is Click Fraud a major problem?

Andy Black — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:55:00 GMT

The advertising guru David Ogilvy famously said “I know that half my advertising works, I just don’t know which half”. Perhaps this statement has become a truism in the age of click fraud. A new report on the Click Fraud Index from Click Forensics has analysed pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the second quarter 2007. Key findings include: The overall industry average click fraud rate was 15.8 percent for Q2 2007. This is an increase from 14.1 percent for the same quarter in 2006...(read more)

Is Google dumbing down or empowering our culture?

Andy Black — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:53:00 GMT

A growing number of intellectuals are now commenting that the immediacy of information is creating knowledge illiteracy. They fear that future generations will lack the reasoning, visualisation and analytical skills that are created by detailed research, collaboration and peer review and that the propagation of a sensationalist, instant, narrow culture without context and values will dilute us. Are they being elitist or do they have a point? ...(read more)

SAD

Chris Weiss — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:01:00 GMT

It looks like advertising is coming to the ASPs. Let's call it SAD, short for Software as a service ADvertising. It’s inevitable. As Dana Gardner points out in his ZDNet blog post Only a matter of time, advertising is likely to be the next logical step for the Software as a Service players. You can't help but realize how inevitable it is after reading his entry on the subject. But there may yet be some hope for professionals relying on web search service providers...(read more)

How do you drive traffic to vertical search websites?

Andy Black — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:30:00 GMT

Publishers are have a challenging time - they know that their traditional print based advertising revenues are declining and that they must create an integrated business across print, online and events ("the power of three") that transitions advertising revenue across these areas. The fundamental issue is to drive their print readers as traffic to the online sites and then keep them there doing regular searches. B2B and STM publishers should ask their audience "do you use Google for work related...(read more)

Why is Murdoch buying Dow Jones?

Andy Black — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:34:00 GMT

In financial circles when the Fed sneezes, the World markets catch a cold. Perhaps in the media, when Rupert Murdoch makes a move, others should clench their buttocks. You can love him or loathe him, yet nobody would dispute that Murdoch is a media genius and in over 4 decades he has proven himself as a man with a Midas touch and an unsurpassed intuition in understanding content, distribution and audiences at every generational zeitgeist. This is a man who launched satellite broadcasting...(read more)

Are Google and other consumer search engines failing the search needs of professional users?

Andy Black — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:53:00 GMT

Following on from my last KnewWorld post regarding the recent report by Dogpile and Infospace that showed that the major search engines deliver dramatically different results. A new report argues that without utilising the insight of editors and information specialists, consumer search engines will never deliver the search results a professional user needs. The report said Google "hides the existence and the extent of relevant sources on most topics" by "burying the good sources...(read more)

What is the best search engine?

Andy Black — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:36:00 GMT

A report just released by Dogpile and Infospace says that the major search engines deliver dramatically different results. It found that on Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask the first page results overlap by less than 1% and that only 3.6% of the top ranked organic search results were the same across all search engines for any given query, down from 7.0% in July 2005. It also found 88.3% of all results were unique to one search engine, while 8.9% were shared by two search...(read more)

Will Niche Marketing replace mass markets?

Andy Black — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:25:00 GMT

As a market matures, choices increase. New entrants come in and drive up competition, which then pushes down prices to the point at which products and services become standardised and commoditised. In a global market where India and China are quickly becoming the manufacturing superpowers, one way for US and UK businesses to succeed is by creating more relevant, personalised, up market, focused and differentiated products and services. Google is impacting publishers the same way that India...(read more)