Archive for the ‘News’ Category
YouTube/Google still top video sites list
Via comScore comes news that YouTube (owned by Google, of course) served one in every three online videos watched in the US in January:
comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released January 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, revealing that YouTube.com accounted for one-third of the 9.8 billion videos viewed online in the U.S. during the month. The total number of videos viewed in January was down slightly from the more than 10.1 billion viewed during a record-breaking December 2007.
Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property in January with nearly 3.4 billion videos viewed (34.3 percent share of videos), gaining 1.7 share points versus the previous month. YouTube.com accounted for more than 96 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 584 million (6 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 315 million (3.2 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 199 million (2 percent).
Google tests the water with video ads
Via The New York Times, Google is testing video ads in its search engine result pages (or SERPs, if you go for SEO acronyms):
Google has always had a love-hate relationship with advertising. Its power and wealth come from the $16 billion a year of advertising that it sells. Yet on its most important pages, the results from its Web search engine, it has limited ads to nothing more garish than a dozen words of text.
That is about to change. On Thursday, Google started testing video ads on some pages of search results. And it is developing ad formats with images, interactive maps and other more elaborate features.
More: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/google-tests-video-ads-on-search-results-pages/
Top 30 US newspaper sites for January
Via Editor & Publisher, an exclusive break-down of the top 30 US newspaper sites for January.
Top 10 below and the full list on the E&P site. Not surprising to see nytimes.com leading the pack with its outstanding year-on-year growth.
Brand or Channel — Unique Audience (000) — Year-over-year % Change
NYTimes.com — 20,461 — 45.1%
USATODAY.com — 12,314 — 19.4%
washingtonpost.com — 9,902 — 14.6%
Wall Street Journal Online — 6,962 — 81.4%
LA Times — 5,715 — 4.7%
Boston.com — 5,194 — 23.7%
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle — 4,255 — (-3.9%)
New York Post — 4,027 — (-3.5%)
Newsday — 3,764 — 59.2%
Chicago Tribune — 3,185 — (-15.7%)
Did you earn your £12.50 from Google last year?
Via good old Guardian.co.uk, Google is snapping at the ad revenue heels of ITV.
Google may have to wait another year to overtake ITV1 as the UK’s biggest single advertising income generator, despite announcing UK revenues of $2.53bn (£1.3bn) for 2007.
The web giant had been widely tipped to overtake ITV1 in terms of ad revenue during 2007 and may still achieve that when ITV unveils its full-year figures next month.
One key point to consider:
A US regulatory filing lists Google’s UK revenues as $2.53bn for 2007, though around 30% of these advertising revenues will be passed on to affiliate publishers.
That means $759m – around £389m – was paid out to Google’s UK-focused ad affiliates last year.
Or to put it another way, around £12.50 for each person in the UK.
More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/feb/19/digitalmedia
Brits unwilling to trust digital privacy
Via netimperative, four in five UK internet users admit to feeling unsafe sharing their mobile phone number via social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace:
Nearly 80% of all respondents in a recent Mobyko.com survey stated they would not publicise their own number in this manner. The findings reveal the reason behind this growing trend of cautiousness – is the innate lack of trust relating specifically to the people within an individual’s online social network.
Julian Saunders, CEO of Mobyko.com said: “We know that people freely share their mobile numbers in the physical world. But, when it comes to doing so in the virtual world different factors come into play.”
More: http://www.netimperative.com/news/2008/february/4/brits-2018lack-trust-in-digital-age2019
Top UK web rankings – Facebook keeps on growing
comScore reports that Facebook has made it into the UK’s top 10 web properties ranking for the first time:
“The Christmas season had a significant impact on the prevailing traffic trends in December,” said Bob Ivins, EVP of European Markets for comScore. “Eight of the top ten gaining properties were retail-related as consumers shopped for holiday gifts online, and online greetings also proved popular. That online coupon sites also grew so strongly suggests consumers may have been a bit tighter with their wallets this Christmas season.”
December’s Top 25 (rank in December, name of web property, total unique visitors that month):
1: Google Sites, 29,292,000
2: Microsoft Sites, 27,760,000
3: eBay, 21,683,000
4: Yahoo! Sites, 21,070,000
5: BBC Sites, 18,016,000
6: Amazon Sites, 16,309,000
7: Time Warner Network, 14,387,000
8: Ask Network, 13,937,000
9: Wikipedia Sites, 12,567,000
10: Facebook.com, 12,438,000
11: Fox Interactive Media, 12,224,000
12: Home Retail Group, 12,211,000
13: Apple Inc., 11,690,000
14: Bebo.com, 11,212,000
15: Lycos Europe Sites, 10,937,000
16: CNET Networks, 9,626,000
17: Tesco Stores, 9,587,000
18: DMGT, 8,238,000
19: Dixons Stores Group, 8,078,000
20: British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), 7,792,000
21: Play.com Sites, 7,666,000
22: Viacom Digital, 6,647,000
23: Adobe Sites, 6,280,000
24: Kingfisher, 6,109,000
25: Orange Sites, 5,864,000
Londoners most mad for Facebook
Via netimperative, London becomes most popular Facebook network.
Members of a city specific Facebook network have today reached an all time high, as London becomes the first city worldwide to have 2 million members on Facebook.
The total number of UK residents now signed up to the social network site has reached 8 million, a clear warning to organisations that protecting your brand reputation on social media is more important than ever.
More: http://www.netimperative.com/news/2008/january/28/london-becomes-most-popular-facebook-network
