Online Ad Spending To Outpace Print In 2010
March 9, 2010
Spending on online advertising and marketing will surpass print in 2010 for the first time, according to a new report from Outsell.
Companies will spend $119.6 billion on online and digital strategies, from search engine keywords to webinars, while committing $111.5 billion to print such as newspapers and magazine ads. Overall, U.S. spending on advertising and marketing will increase in 2010, but only by 1.2 percent to $368 billion.
Outsell forecasts spending, share, and growth for five media categories including online, events, print, TV/radio and PR/other.
"Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding," said Chuck Richard, Vice President and Lead Analyst, Outsell.
"As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they're spreading their spending over a widening set of options."
Print magazine advertising will be up 1.9 percent to $9.4 billion even with the popularity of online channels.
Other key findings include:
*51 percent if B2B marketers rate Facebook as extremely or somewhat effective, followed by LinkedIn (45%), Twitter (35%) and MySpace (25%).
*B2B advertisers see cross-media marketing as most effective; 78% combine three or more major marketing methods.
*Methods creating the highest B2B ROI are topped by advertisers' own websites, followed by conferences, exhibitions and trade shows: direct mail; search engine keywords; and e-marketing/e-newsletters.
Google Announces Winners Of Street View Trike Contest
March 2, 2010
About five months ago, Google started a contest to determine where its Street View trike would take pictures in the U.S. Today, Google released some impressive stats concerning participation, and also announced the winning locations.
Let's start by establishing how many people took an interest in where Google will send its trike. A post on the Official Google Blog explained that nearly 25,000 suggestions were made, and that a whopping 238,000 folks cast votes.
Unless everyone was just trying to send the trike "somewhere else," this counts as significant indicator of Street View's popularity. Which is a bit interesting in light of the speed bumps the program's hit in Europe.
As for the places the trike will wind up, they include the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, the National Mall in D.C., and the Detroit Zoo. Then the Boulder Creek Path (a Colorado bike trail) is the last member of the group.
Google intends to photograph at least some of these locations in the near future. If you live close to them, either start planning a memorable getup or eyeing good hiding spots as you see fit.
Chrome Gains More Market Share
March 2, 2010
Most major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera, didn't fare well in February, losing market share. Net Applications found that Chrome managed to attract more than a few new users, however, increasing its market share by 0.39 percent on a month-over-month basis.
The fact that Chrome beat all of its competitors (at least at least with respect to short-term changes) is quite impressive. The small surge in popularity it experienced wouldn't exactly qualify as embarrassing under other circumstances, either, even if 0.39 percent isn't an overwhelming amount.
This may be only the start of a trend, too, since Microsoft is due to introduce its browser ballot box in Europe soon. Given an obvious choice, lots more people may decide to try Chrome instead of one of the more established options.
Anyway, Net Applications indicated that all of this left Chrome with a market share of 5.61 percent. Internet Explorer, meanwhile, wound up lording over 61.58 percent of the market after suffering a month-over-month loss of 0.54 percent. Firefox lost 0.20 percent, Safari lost 0.08 percent, and Opera lost 0.03 percent, as well, if you're curious.
We'll be sure to see if Chrome can maintain this momentum in March.
Twitter Celebrates 50 Million Tweets Per Day Milestone
February 23, 2010
Thanks to the Olympics, hockey sticks are easy to see this time of year, showing up during the actual games, on morning shows, and on talk shows. One's sort of shown up in a graph of Twitter's growth, too, as the number of tweets per day has been increasing at an impressive rate.
Kevin Weil, a member of the Twitter analytics team, explained late yesterday on the site's official blog that the following stats do not include tweets from spam accounts. Also, the stats correspond to original tweets, not tweet deliveries, which tie in to how many followers people have.
He then stated, "Folks were tweeting 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number was 300,000, and by 2009 it had grown to 2.5 million per day. Tweets grew 1,400% last year to 35 million per day."
As for the current rate, Weil continued, "Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day - that's an average of 600 tweets per second."
There isn't any sign of a slowdown occurring, either.
NBC execs must be more than a little jealous of this popularity.
