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Mergers. Internet's next trend?
It looks like Yahoo! will encourage people to use eBay's PayPal to buy services and pay for things on the Yahoo! Portal, writes Deepak Mankar.
A mid-May 2006 post by Bill Tancer ('Google Properties: Understanding the breakdown') had me totally foxed and intrigued because of the use the words 'properties' (meaning 'virtual real estate') and 'breakdown' (as in 'division'). I could deduce the meaning given in the brackets only after I went to the Hitwise Weblog at weblogs.hitwise. His post explains how the Google pie was divided (Google: 79.98% market share; Google Image Search: 9.54; Google Mail: 5.51; Google News: 1.49; Google Maps: 0.82; Froogle: 0.46; Google Video Search: 0.45; Google Groups: 0.43; Google Scholar: 027; Google Book Search: 0.25; Google Earth: 0.22; Google Desktop Search: 0.18; Google Directory: 0.10; Google Answers: 0.09; Google AdWords: 0.07; Google- Local: 0.05; Google Finance: 0.03; Google Calendar, Google Talk and Google Labs: 0.01 each). His pithy comment sums it well: "As has been the case since we started reporting on Google in 2003, Google Images remains the most popular subdomain past the main Google URL. Interestingly, some of the latest Google offerings have yet to capture significant market share in their category (Google Finance currently ranks 39th in the Business & Finance - Business Information category, with 0.29% market share of visits to the category, Yahoo! Finance in contrast, ranks #1 in the same category with 35.6% of market share). However, vertical sites not withstanding, the collection of Google properties continue to grow, in total, accounting for 4.3% of all Internet visits for the week ending 5/13/2006." I must add here that Google launched 4 new products (Co-op, Desktop 4, Notebook and Trends) in early May. These new entrants - all meant to "enhance and improve the search experience for our users" - naturally have no significant market shares in their own categories. digimashaghen. New product description: googleblog.blogspot.
Mergers. Internet's next trend?
It looks like Yahoo! will encourage people to use eBay's PayPal to buy services and pay for things on the Yahoo! Portal. In its one-good-turn-deserves-likewise mood, EBay too has agreed to make Yahoo! the "exclusive provider of graphical advertisements" on eBay.com. Both have said they will explore adding tools to allow customers to use Yahoo Messenger with Voice and Skype to call advertisers. It reads like a run-of-the-mill announcement of a "multi-year strategic partnership designed to mutually benefit the companies". marketwatch. Then comes the Reuters story, 'Mergers may be next trend for Internet' msnbc.msn with a carrot attached. It's a JP Morgan's 56-page research report that can be downloaded at jpmorgan-research. Among other pronouncements, it says that "a partnership between eBay and Yahoo is the most strategically feasible." And, later, it kind of contradicts itself saying "Investors worry that gains by these companies (merging, partnering, eloping, whatever) are likely to come at the expense of one another." Does it mean the pie in the online sky isn't getting bigger and bigger?
No dot triple-X? No giving up hope, though
Just last week hindustantimes I wrote about the sorry plight and "a mood of gloom and doom in the ICM Registry LLC, the company behind the proposed .xxx internet porn domain". ('GAIN SOME. Lose some.') There's a recent EWeek.com report that hints at the hand of Karl Christian Rove, George W. Bush's unpopular and controversial Deputy Chief of Staff, heading the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the White House, working with conservatives frc.org to oppose creation of an adult domain. EWeek says a "Stop.xxx" campaign followed a meeting between Rove and James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family. foxnews. The 30 e-mails showing interest by the US Department of Commerce in the creation of a domain for adult Web sites can be read here: internetgovernance.
How many active online? In 10 advanced nations
Go here clickz to learn the movement in active Internet use between March and April 2006 in Australia (-0.73%), Brazil (-4.79), France (0.78), Germany (-4.55), Italy (1.05), Japan (090), Spain (-3.40), Switzerland (2.63), UK (0.72) and US (-053). The overall decline is 0.57%, according to Nielsen//NetRatings estimate netratings. The US with the highest active Internet user population showed a ½ % decline while Switzerland at the other end of the scale registered a healthy 2.63% gain.
True confessions. A news junkie bares his soul
In 'Is "The New York times" Too Big?' clickz Mark Kingdon unveils the findings of his "single-person study" with himself of the subject. The object of it is mentioned in the title of his interesting article. Here's what's happened to his reading habits as a news addict: "I'm keeping my computer on the kitchen table. I still get the 'NYT' and 'WSJ,' but instead of reading them at home over coffee I put the most interesting sections in my bag to read on the go. Only on Sundays do I close the laptop and spread out the paper. Why? It's become a luxury, a leisure activity, definitely best enjoyed on the day of rest." Also: "It's pretty clear why the newspaper business is under so much pressure and why readership is falling off. Our media consumption patterns are changing dramatically and rapidly. We've all read reports and written articles on it. As online marketers, we've changed our media strategies to accommodate this change in behaviour, sure. But, it doesn't seem real until you fundamentally examine how you've changed or how those around you have changed."
Gigablast. Bates recommends a second look
Mary Ellen Bates suggests a serious second look at the nearly six-year-old Gigablast Search Engine. gigablast. She gives valid reasons for doing so. According to her, "It's a search engine for search-logic geeks -- you can do some very subtle searches that aren't supported in most other search engines." Also: use "the Advanced Search button to take advantage of the usual search engine features -the ability to combine AND, OR and NOT (you must put the Boolean operators in ALL CAPs); phrase searches, site search ('restrict to this URL), and link search ('pages that link to this URL'). You can also specify for each search how many results you want per search-results page (10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 100." I strongly urge you to try it. batesinfo.
Does kitsch sell? A geek's eye-view of how to write a kitschy sales letter
Ionut Alex Chitu, a computer science student at the University of Bucharest, Romania, who "likes AI, solving interesting math problems, weird books and movies, and he tries to improve with every new day" has these ten nerdy hints to offer on the subject. 1. "First put a big header." 2. "Write short lines with a lot of bold text, and highlighted text." 3. "Use lists to split your content." 4. "Be redundant, repeat the same 3 ideas many times. This way you'll have more content." 5. Don't forget to write how much money your visitor will get if they buy your products. The sums should be huge." 6. "If you promote an AdSense book, include screenshots with your reports. It's easy: save your reports, open the source with Notepad and instead of $5, type $512." 7. "Your offer should be exclusive and time limited. Even if you sell videos or PDF files, you should say there's a big demand. So buy now!" 8. "Put testimonials with enthusiastic text, beautiful photos and random names." 9. "You should always say you offer 30 days money back guarantee. Nobody knows what that means, but it must be there. It gives you a feeling of comfort." 10. "But wait, that's not all: along with our great products, you'll also get a bunch of useless tutorials, screensavers and another copy of our great book. All for just $99.99, instead of $299.99. So buy now!" blog.outer-court.
Finally, I want to tell you what Dhananjay Varma, "a Sydney-based journalist who last month launched (sic!) India's first gossip website for the IT and BPO industry" asked me to do via e-mail. He asked me to check out techgoss. They aim to condense Indian IT news in 250 words per item. Admirable!
That's all for now though there's plenty more out there. Join me again next week, same place.
Copyright (c) 2001- 2006 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved. Deepak Mankar, an advertising practitioner on the creative side since 1965, is also intensely passionate about the web and web content creation. Read his online articles at asiaondemand.com. Website: http://www.addgandhi.com/original/. You may e-mail him at dmankar@bom8.vsnl.net.in. Blog: popgoestheslop.blogspot.com.
