the Web Chef's e-Bytes

Search Engine Market Shares all over the Place

There have been some conflicting reports on search engine market shares by different analysts. CNET is reporting that Nielsen Megaview Search research results for August 2008 show that Google's market share in the U.S. was at 64.6% in contrast to StatCounter reporting a 77.83% market share for the same period of time.  While ComScore did not appear to have August data yet, their reports for July 2009 more closely parallel those of Nielsen, with Google reported to have a 64.7% market share.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Search Engine Market Share

Given the emerging battle between Bing and Google, not to mention other search engines, this discrepancy in data analysis and reporting could have significant repercussions for advertisers, investors and consumers alike.

Online Video Players Continue to Expand

Online Video is increasingly viewed by a wide range of demographic segments.  The choices of sites continue to expand with innumerable players scrambling for a piece of the pie.  Among the players out there are Vuze, ranked #9 in market share in the UK according to Hitwise (Feb '08).  On the specialty side, we have music video site PluggedIn, offering access to a wide range of music videos; AtomFilms, focusing on comedy and animation; and VideoJug claiming "Life Explained. On Film.. 

We are also seeing expansion in the video search category with companies like Truveo, part of the scene.  Their site has a quote from The Wall Street Journal that claims them to be "the best video search engine I've ever seen".

All of these video players are creating opportunities for content creators and advertisers alike.  Stay tuned for future postings or articles on this topic.

Google Search Wiki

Google announced the launch of Google SearchWiki yesterday.  Among the features of this new search utility is the ability for you make notes about a site, move it in your search results and eliminate it from search results all while you are signed in to your Google account.  Here's a YouTube video announcing the service

You can see what Seth Godin has to say about the new Google Search Wiki with his recent blog posting "Google gets jiggy", i.e. people gaming the system and more attention to Google by searchers.

Web Tidbits - So What's in Store for 2008?

I thought I'd look at a few projections for online marketing in 2008 from prognosticators around the Internet.  Reflecting the continued interest in online video, eMarketer is projecting that online video ads typically pre-rolls will increase 70% according to BrandWeek.  Search engine marketing will still capture the bulk of the projected $27.5 billion in expenditures with 40% of all online dollars. 

ZenithOptimedia is projecting that online advertising will surpass radio advertising in 2008 and will do the same for magazine advertising in 2010 according to PaidContent.org. 

2007 is touted as the year that page views as an online advertising metric begin to disappear due to the changing nature of served ads that are often not delivered in the same fashion according to MediaPost.  Newer metrics like time-based viewership are taking over.

In mobile advertising, Business Week reporter Olga Kharif, reports on Didier Kuhn's, Screen Tonic's CEO  sense that projections for mobile advertising are way too high.  He cites Gartner and Strategy Analytics estimates of $11 and 14.4 billion by 2011 as being way out of line.  He and others feel that consumer acceptance of mobile browsing still lags and that wireless carriers have also been slow to implement online advertising.  The growing number of iPhone users is seen as a positive in this area.  Another factor that could move this along is the growing convergence of the web and the phone worlds according to analysts.

JupiterResearch is estimating that e-mail spending both "relational and sponsored" will grow from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2 billion by 2012 according to Online Media Daily.

The Consumer Electronics Association reports in enGadget, that over half of Americans now have a digital television, a good thing given the upcoming demise of analog delivery.

AdWeek reports on trends that they see in overall marketing that could impact online as well.  These include growth of branded entertainment, casual gaming, handmade goods, faux traditionalism and the growth in authenticity and transparency.  Mmmm, I wonder if any of the Presidential candidates have tuned in to these... 

One Potato Two Potato... Couch to Web Potato

Couch potatoes are being joined by web potatoes and intermixing in the media consumption fields.  I'm more of a web and print potato myself, so was interested to read a recent posting in Business Week's Blogspotting on how offline is driving search according to research by iProspect. 

Their research found the following:

• 37% of searches result from television
• 30% of searches are generated from print ads
• 36% of searches are generated by word-of-mouth

Given that the Online Publishers Association says that only 4.6% of our Internet activity is search-related this isn't necessarily the biggest win for offline content providers.  They'd be better off looking at the growing percentage of time spent with content online.  This has grown from 39.6% of all consumer Internet Activitiy in July 2006 to 50.9% in July 2007, a startling shift away from communications and search among the four major items that the OPA tracks in their bucket of activities (communications, search, content and commerce). 

If I were a print publisher, I'd be ramping up my online content to an even greater extent. 

Newspapers and the Internet - Good, Bad and Ugly

Editor and Publisher has an interesting article "Web Editors Reveal Flops and Failures" discussing the ways that newspapers have succeeded and failed with their online initiatives.  For anyone with an interest in online content strategies the article is quite interesting in describing the lessons learned.  Among those referenced are the following:

1. Blogs can backfire - typically from lack of reader interest or from content that doesn't connect
2. Technology can flop - interesting discussion of how the The Denver Post added a feature where content was refreshed every ten minutes in an effort to be very timely only to find that crossword puzzle lovers complained after losing their work or the failure of contextual ads for example where one paper had a story about unusual adult coated brownies only to find a Google ad next to it for brownies.
3. Readers can get ugly - with reader opinions ready to go ( I know I've added my voice once in awhile), content filters that editors provide have been missed with racy or inappropriate comments.
4. Not everyone wants to chat
5. Local content might be limiting
6. Pay for content can backfire
7. Print stories don't always translate to the web
8. Be selective in Podcasts
9. Manage the obits
10. Watch out on the types of databases that you provide
11. Separate Web and Print Sales Staffs Don't Succeed
12. Traffic spikes can cause unintended consequences

Read the article for specific case studies for each lesson learned.

WVMC joins WOMMA and other web associations

I came across a new association that I hadn't heard of that might be of interest to readers.  The Web Video Marketing Council (WVMC) joins other web related groups like the following general and specialized e-marketing related groups that you might want to explore:

• EMA - e-Marketing Association
• EIAA - European Interactive Advertising Association
• IAB - Interactive Advertising Bureau
• IMRO - Interactive Marketing Research Organization
• IIMA - International Internet Marketing Association
• MMA - Mobile Marketing Association
• OPA - Online Publishers Association
• Podcast Guild
• SEMPO - Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization
• VBMA - Viral and Buzz Marketing Association
• Web Marketing Association
• WOMMA - Word of Mouth Marketing Association

The WVMC has a white paper available for download "Web Video Marketing: The Birth of a New Direct Marketing Medium" (PDF) that was published in July.

I'm sure that I've missed a few.  If you'd like to add to the list be sure to provide your addition in the comments section.

Paul Gibler

Search Updates - TubeSurf, All the Web

PCWorld has an article in the June 2007 issue "Search Engine Shootout" that compares some of the search engines out there.  For text info they rank the search engines they reviewed in the following order:

1. AlltheWeb
2. AltaVista
3. Google
4. Yahoo!
5. Microsoft Live Search
6. Ask

For Video search they rank the search engines

1. Google
2. AOL Video Search
3. TubeSurf
4. YouTube
5. Blinkx
6. Yahoo Video

TubeSurf was a new one to me.  Apparently it is a metasearch engine that combines results from Google, MySpace, Yahoo and YouTube.

Other search services referenced in the article are Rollyo where you can "roll your own" and create a Searchroll that will aggregate results for you from up to 25 search engines; Congoo that aggregates samples from paid content sites; Picsearch an image search engine and IceRocket, a blog search engine.

For additional information on new and specialty search engines see my article "Outflanking to Google, Yahoo, MSN Juggernaut" in Wisconsin Technology Network.   

Global Tastes - Chinese e-Marketing

iResearch reports that China's e-marketing expenditures rose 44% with online advertising (game ad revenue, e-mail revenue, online advertising revenue, digital magazine ad revenue and misc) spending increasing to 4.66 billion RMB (renminbi) and search engine marketing increasing to 1.35 billion RMB in 2006.

Meanwhile the CNNIC reports that 144 million Chinese are now online with 77 million broadband subscribers among them as of the end of 2006 according to Internet World Stats.

Search Updates - MyRide and Searchforithere

Autobytel has announced that they'll be launching a new vertical search engine for car purchasers called Myride.com.  The new search engine was announced in February at the National Auto Dealers Association meeting with Computerworld reporting that it will launch June 21st (a pretty long lead time for a press release). 

In other search news, Searchforithere was launched yesterday.  The press release about the site states "rather than charging for each click, the new site charges a monthly fee regardless of how much traffic the advertiser receives". 

For additional insights on developments in search see my article "Outflanking the Google, Yahoo! Juggernaut" in Wisconsin Technology Network.