News
Thursday, August 23, 2007
AOL offers new advertising network
Time Warner Inc. said Monday its AOL online unit will offer advertisers access to targeting and measurement tools through a new integrated product as part of the company's switch to an ad-driven business.
AOL, long known as a subscription Internet service, also plans to move its headquarters to New York from Dulles, Va., "locating it in the center of the media advertising marketplace," the company said. Time Warner Inc. is based in New York.
AOL, which abandoned the subscription model last year, said the new access tool is called Platform A, and will allow potential advertisers to buy space across all AOL sites and third-party sites that are part of the AOL network. The goal is to give advertisers access to as many potential viewers through a single sales point.
AOL also agreed with computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. to have an AOL toolbar installed on the HP personal computers. AOL will also be the default home page on the machines, expanding its ability to offer more page views to potential advertisers.
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Google Strives to Further Improve Search Functionality
Despite Google’s dominant position in the search industry, the internet giant’s decision makers insist that search is not a “solved problem,” and that there is still much room for improvement.
“Our position is that search is a very hard problem. We have still a lot of work to do,” commented internal engineer, Douglas Merrill, noting that 70% of Google’s efforts still go into improving search, as opposed to developing other services.
“It is not enough to have the information, the information should be right,” Merrill went on to say. “Sometimes the problem is figuring out what the users mean, not what the user said.”
At this point, some of Google’s main projects include improving mobile web search, personalized search, and language translation features, as well as finding new ways to combat SEO spam.
By keeping its focus on core search functionality, the internet giant is demonstrating its belief that no search algorithm can be “too good,” while recognizing the continual progress of competitors. This goes to show that even the mighty Google must work hard to maintain the upper hand against rivals like Yahoo and Microsoft.
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$5.75 Billion Spent on Search Advertising in 2005
Category: Search Engines, SEO News
A recent study by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) has found that advertisers in Canada and the United States spent $5.75 billion on search engine marketing campaigns over the past year. This marks a 44% increase over the 2004 figures.
“This report confirms our belief that search engine marketing has almost single-handedly revived a flagging online advertising marketplace after the stock market crashed in 2000. As consumers have become increasingly reliant on search engines to navigate the web, investors have shown a renewed interest in the digital technologies — and in search marketing in particular,” SEMPO chairman, Kevin Lee was quoted as saying.
One other interesting finding was that about 80% of internet markets user some kind of organic optimization, yet of the $5.75 billion spent, only 11% of it was spent on organic SEO. This just goes to show that, if done correctly, SEO can be an extremely affordable (or even free) alternative marketing technique, in the midst of a highly expensive advertising market.
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» Predictions 2008 – battle of the giants between Microsoft and Google | ||
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Predictions are always a dangerous game. As Kara Swisher would say, “could we have predicted a tiny start-up with negligible revenues but explosive growth could be valued at $15 billion? Could we have guessed that Apple stock would be up 135%? Could we have foreseen that a devastating writers’ strike in
The New York Times had a great story over the holidays: Google believes that 90% of all computing will ultimately reside in the cloud, as connection speeds become faster and internet software improves. The launch of Google Apps (e-mail, instant messaging, calendars, word processing and spreadsheets) is a great illustration of this trend: 2,000 companies are signing up for Google Apps every working day. The battle for universities is very telling too - when But the NYT article does a poor job in my mind highlighting Microsoft’s Windows Live efforts. As Mary Jo Foley indicates on her blog, Windows Live wave 2 has launched with a comprehensive suite of apps (Messenger, Mail, Writer, Photo Gallery and Family Safety, along with the online Skydrive service), connecting cloud based apps with
What do you think? |
Boy my blogging has been really lazy in the last months – it is so easy to lose the rhythm… Anyways make it one of my new year resolutions….Posted by gzleus 11:54 PM
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