Inexpensive, Instant & Interactive Ways Of Online Branding

To perform online branding more effective, instantaneous and interactive, advertisers can opt for cheaper branding techniques too. And the good news is they are not required to lose stacks of cashes on online advertising. Voila! Yes, in the world of web based advertising and marketing strategies there are many ways to bring relief to people desperately seeking for cheaper but not certainly cheap looking online branding effects. You can make your visitors behold your site with literally “eyes wide open” and then, hold a firm grip over them with cost effective and truly effective online branding techniques. Email marketing, online banner ads are the two ways to capture those viewers who are eyeing for creative, attractive, informative websites.

Email marketing offers much fairer deals to advertisers looking for less expensive and much faster online branding solutions. fairly effective. Email marketing professionals are fetching newer and more client-centric strategies for helping them in capturing attractions of wider base of patrons – quickly and conveniently. Email marketing aids in “one-to-one”online branding solutions, decreases high costs and time required for receiving visitors' responses.

Another equally effectual, appealing and inexpensive online branding technique is banner advertising. Convincing visitors to click at your ads were never so easy and immediate until banner ad came to picture. With the strength of simple HTML link, a catchy headline and eye-candy graphics – banner advertisements are way to captivate and caste spell on your viewers. So what are you waiting for?

Why go for affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the most widely accepted form of marketing in the Internet marketing business.

Have you ever given it a thought how could you have purchased any product without the concept of marketing? I think it was not possible for me to buy any product and life would have been absolutely dull. Thank God marketing concepts are there to make us aware about the latest things in the market. With the coming of web, Internet marketing has also shown a tremendous growth, as people now are so technical savvy that it makes easy for marketers to promote things through Internet. Among different forms of online marketing I must say that affiliate marketing is doing quiet well. The reason why affiliate marketing is performing extraordinarily is because this kind of a marketing technique benefits the merchandiser and the affiliate both.

I am sure many of you by now must have made your mind to move into this business and some of you would still like to know more about affiliate marketing. I can help you in telling the ways that will update you with the latest information related to Internet marketing. Simply search web for any kind of information about online marketing techniques and for any kind of confusion post a query to the online affiliate marketing forums. The number of online companies have also increased with the growth of affiliate programs. So, just think and give yourself a chance to make a move into this business.

Spread information about affiliate marketing

With the growth of Internet business things have become so easy that any kind of information you need just simply refer to the Online services. Communication has become so simple and even queries can be resolved through web. For those who love to write and share their knowledge with others must go for blogging. Nowadays the concept of affiliate marketing can be seen in the online marketing business. I must say that people who have good writing abilities must create a personal blog and post information about affiliate marketing to educate people more about this concept. Try writing on the latest topics in demand that a person would like to read, as this will make your blog gain more traffic.

If you feel confused about affiliate marketing then you must refer different affiliate marketing websites or simply search web to update yourself with the latest information related to Internet marketing. Make sure that an original blog is written, as any kind of plagiarism will not be accepted. People involved in the affiliate business will surely visit your blog if they find it informative. So why sit idle rather write powerful blogs to gain name and fame.

So, just encourage your friends and relatives as well to start writing blogs just like I am encouraging you!

Flash Web Designing: Represent Your Website With Style

Websites represent a company so they represent it in the most presentable way. In fact, the most important task associated with the website is to represent a company and eventually help to gain excellent return on investment. But if a web design doesn't have a professional look then customers may be discouraged to consider it seriously.

That is why flash web designing has become in vogue because websites act as visual interface and it must be a visual treat for the audience. The different factors of website design like color effects, visual effects, lights, positioning and size of contents are gaining importance day by day. It has become very important to prepare a website which is well designed, easy to navigate and have enough functionality.

It is necessary because any website needs to retain its visitors for longer time and make them come back again. Flash web designing solutions are gaining recognition because they are making the websites as such. It has provided a scope for unlimited creativity. In such web designing solutions sound and animation come together to develop world-class websites.

Most people think that these solutions make websites just beautiful. It is not true. In fact, flash web designing solutions can be much more than an eye candy production. The solutions are integrated with HTML, 3D Graphics, Audio and Video and it provides a fully interactive multimedia platform for any website.

Therefore, choose this contemporary technology and give your website fresh look and your audience a nice web experience.

SEO Services: The Search Engines and the sites

This blog discusses techniques as to how to optimize your website such that it appears on the top of search results and is mentioned properly in every category and directory.

A Search Engine Optimization Service may not put your site on top positions of major search engines overnight, but you do indeed get a satisfactory web presence by optimizing your site's pages. Your visibility on the web will be in turn improved, and thus your target audience will be easily able to locate you on the web.

Well, SEO services differ in the case of every website. But as a general rule, they use a standard compliant coding for site's tags, file names and URL's. These are the key features that are meant to be receptive to search engine spiders. SEO services involve the restructuring of your entire site to meet the optimum requirements of many programming languages. These SEO services may also include Keyword filtration and incorporating top paying keywords into the content of your website. It also involves optimization of inbound linkage, and a buck-up service essentially to take care of as to how your site is searched through the Internet.

These SEO services are also site specific, that is, they take into consideration the product, service and the target audience. So that it positions your website in the appropriate categories and directories.
SEO services are continuous. In order to maintain top rankings, steady monitoring is required on your side. Keep changing the content, structuring and linkage of your web site in regard to your competitors.

Very Important: Since SEO services focus on the abilities that you need the most, what an SEO service provider does is that it improves your e-commerce by means of providing a content management system, and applying new branding strategies.

Search Engine Marketing Service: Are These Really Significant?

Are you planning to launch your website or do you have a brand new website? If yes, then it is essential that you understand the significance of a search engine marketing service company.

To be or not to be? This famous question is certainly not an appropriate one for a website. Because with it there is no place for any negative response. A website must be successful, must be popular and for that it must be search engine optimized. In that case opting for a search engine marketing service company becomes imperative. Because you must know what your prospect wants and your prospect must have the knowledge that you are providing the services that he or she is searching for.

It is also true that with the growth of Internet, competition has also increased among websites. But you can survive this competition by implementing the search engine marketing services. Companies providing such services do a lot of research to identify which keywords and phrases can bring quality traffic to your website in good numbers.

A search engine marketing service company provide certain tools to make your website crisp and attractive as well as search engine optimized. The key segments of your website are designed by them and the services also make it to turn up with various search engines and directories. It improves the value of your website and also increases number of linking websites. All these factors improve your website visibility.

A keyword rich content is necessary for your website to be search engine friendly. A search engine marketing service company makes your website more interesting for its users The navigation structure is enhanced which makes the pages well linked.

Therefore, you can try for a search engine marketing service firm to provide mobility to your website in marketing terms. Whether you are going to launch a website or if you have a brand new website, these services are really significant.

Can You Do Without Flash Web Designing

Flash is a very popular tool in website development. Many websites make use if flash designs. Not all websites necessarily require flash. Know if your site requires flash designing.

I know flash makes websites more attractive and enhances it's beauty, but it is not mandatory that your website MUST have a flash page in order to make it appear good. More than doing good to your site, the flash designs do a lot of harm to your website. They make your site slow, and also reduce its ranking in the search engines. Hence to ensure a good site performance, it is not necessary that your website should require a flash web designing. Your website can do without flash web designing.

In my suggestion I would advise people to make minimum use of flash designing, since it causes a lot of difficulty in search engine ranking of the websites. 90% of the websites online can do without flash designing as they do not really have a requirement or compulsion to have them in their site. As a matter of fact apart from fully interactive websites or sites that provide interior designing, musical bands, interactive kid's bands, photo galleries are the only sites that need compulsory flash web designing. Websites that have less of information and more of features are the only ones that require flash, others who can easily put across their views through text need not unnecessarily load themselves with flash designs.

But if you are too keen on having a flash design for a reason specific to you, I would suggest that you also create a full HTML version of your site, which will fight as a substitute for your flash site.

Online Marketing: Yahoo's New Relationship after a Failed Courtship

Yahoo and Google have reached a search deal and both are looking forward to make this deal more profitable for the sake of online marketing.

Yahoo and Google have reached a search deal after the courtship between Yahoo and Microsoft failed. On Thursday, 12'th June, Yahoo rushed into Google's arms with a hope that an alliance will improve its drooping fortunes. According to the Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, Google and Yahoo began discussing an alliance in early February, shortly after Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo.

The sources believe that the deal will start small and gear up over time depending on its success. So, it is a small deal and thus would attract far less regulatory scrutiny and it will also contribute less to Yahoo's bottom line. The deal would put the Internet search king's expertise to work pumping money from advertising posted next to Yahoo Internet search results.

Also, the deal breaks down the wall between free instant messaging services offered by Yahoo and Google. Now, users of either service will be able to chat online with each other in a way not possible before.
The alliance focuses on text ads posted alongside Yahoo online search results and can expand to include display advertising. It can be a good news for the sake of online marketing industry.

Till now the deal is limited to Yahoo web properties in the US and Canada, but Google said there is potential to extend it to other parts of the world.

Online Marketing: Yahoo's New Relationship after a Failed Courtship

Yahoo and Google have reached a search deal and both are looking forward to make this deal more profitable for the sake of online marketing.

Yahoo and Google have reached a search deal after the courtship between Yahoo and Microsoft failed. On Thursday, 12'th June, Yahoo rushed into Google's arms with a hope that an alliance will improve its drooping fortunes. According to the Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, Google and Yahoo began discussing an alliance in early February, shortly after Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo.

The sources believe that the deal will start small and gear up over time depending on its success. So, it is a small deal and thus would attract far less regulatory scrutiny and it will also contribute less to Yahoo's bottom line. The deal would put the Internet search king's expertise to work pumping money from advertising posted next to Yahoo Internet search results.

Also, the deal breaks down the wall between free instant messaging services offered by Yahoo and Google. Now, users of either service will be able to chat online with each other in a way not possible before.
The alliance focuses on text ads posted alongside Yahoo online search results and can expand to include display advertising. It can be a good news for the sake of online marketing industry.

Till now the deal is limited to Yahoo web properties in the US and Canada, but Google said there is potential to extend it to other parts of the world.

Online marketing: Is Yahoo Renovating?

The growth of online marketing is vigorous. It is profitable and revenue generating. That is why all Internet behemoths are planning to get maximum profit from this stream.

Be it Google, Microsoft or Yahoo!, every Internet stalwart is striving to achieve excellence in the field of online marketing. These companies do not want to leave any stone unturned to make maximum use of this marketing spree. Now latest buzz is that Yahoo! has come up with a broad vision for online advertising transformation.

The Internet giant has highlighted opportunities and solutions for the industry. Speaking at the 2008 Advertising 2.0 New York conference, Sue Decker, the president of Yahoo!, confidently declared that the industry was 'on the cusp' of a 'renaissance' of display advertising.

She further added that new technologies, products and platforms will make it more efficient to reach customers. She also described the importance of getting a balance between monetisation and customer experience. Yahoo! is developing the technology, products and platforms to help advertisers find the right audiences and publishers find the right advertisers.

This is necessary for online marketing because until and unless advertisers find the right audience, revenue generation would be a distant dream. And if revenue is not there then everything else is useless. Hence, Yahoo's decision to launch new technologies, products and platforms would make a big difference in the field of Internet advertising and online marketing. So let's wait for Yahoo's new face.

Search Engine Marketing Services: Customers Calling

As far as Internet marketing is concerned, search is important. People are searching for various items. And if a website becomes available to them then it is due to the search engine marketing services.

These services make a website content-rich and keyword rich. People opt for on-page or off-page SEO services and they are getting benefit from it. The impact of search engine marketing services can be realized by the UK Search Engine Marketing Report, produced by E-consultancy.

The sample size of the survey was about 1000 respondents from both agencies and companies with first-hand experience of search engine marketing. The results offer a valuable insight into the changing search engine marketing landscape.

The report says that the industry is thriving with 63% of companies planning to increase their paid search (PPC) budget and 61% planning to increase their Search Engine Optimisation budget. And the contribution is ,again, of search engine marketing services to a great extent.

Hence SEO field is growing, and the pace of growth suggests that the growth won't stop, at least in the coming decade. Because various market segments are still unaware of the opportunities of SEO.

Overall Online Marketing Spends Increases

Instead of investing in the traditional banner advertising the oldest way of marketing online, the online marketers these days are spending most of their online advertising spends in search engines, email marketing and pay per click campaigns. A recent survey on the marketing habit of the individuals suggest that search marketing and online campaign planning are the most essential areas of advertising.

This rise in accountability of online marketing is supported by the finding that says that almost 75% of the marketers who use online marketing as their means of advertising generate a higher return on investment than those who follow the traditional marketing tool.

The survey also indicated that apart from the rise in online marketing streams like ppc, emails and search engines, a good amount of marketers are also willing to invest on the social media marketing techniques, as they find it to be a convenient and free mode of advertising online.

These findings collectively suggest that the face of online marketing has undergone a great transition which has not only increased its demand in the industry but has also formed a new genre of marketing strategy which is undoubtedly more beneficial and targeted than the current one.

Online marketing: Growth in Social Media And Viral Marketing

Recently a survey was carried out by the Online Marketing and Media Show (OMMS), according to which the marketers are spending a big share of online budgets on search, pay per click and email. They are no longer spending on traditional banner advertising to make ways for the growth in interactive mediums like social media and viral marketing.

This online marketing survey was targeted at exhibitors and delegates who will be attending the OMMS 2008 event which will take place on 24th & 25th June 2008, at the Business Design Centre in London.

Also, it has been revealed that overall online marketing spend continues to increase. Over a third of all respondents revealed that up to 25% of their marketing budget will be dedicated purely to online marketing and media this year which is a 15% increase over predicted spend in 2007.

The survey further revealed that 75% of respondents produce more accountable ROI from their online marketing and media activity than their traditional marketing tools. And 62% said they would feel comfortable while advertising their brand on a social networking site.

According to the OMMS conference producer, the survey results show that marketers want to extend their understanding of new marketing tools before trying them out. Hence it can be said that emerging online marketing tools have a bright future.

SEO Services: Big Role to Play

The market belongs to online marketing. It is growing vigorously in a country like India. About 46 million Indians were using the Internet in September 2007 and it was a jump of nearly 43% from a year earlier. According to the industry sources, the revenue from Internet advertising in India is to rise by over 3.5 times from current levels to more than 200 million Dollar in 2012.

Now, the buzz is that, due to such growth, SEO services have to play a big role in the Internet arena. A website must earn revenue otherwise it is just there, doing nothing and attracting no audience. Any company would not like its website to be like that. So naturally it will choose SEO services to get the website search engine optimized.

Keyword analysis and content management would be the most sought after facilities. Because people search for any product through keywords only.

In fact, this is the effect of online marketing and SEO services that a company of the height of Microsoft has decided to pay those viewers who would search and buy through its Live Search Cashback Program. This is the impact of online advertising and that is why role of SEO is the latest buzz.

Online marketing: Worldwide Phenomenal Triumph

Everyone knows that online marketing is a booming field and the phenomenon is widespread. It is successful not only in UK and US but also in the other parts of the world. And the latest buzz is about the phenomenal success of online advertising in New Zealand.

According to a report published in the New Zealand Herald, online advertising in the first quarter of the year 2008 grew 67.2 per cent from a year ago to new record $46 million.

The report shows dramatic increases over last year in all three categories of advertising measured by the report. Display was up 68.3 per cent to $11.5 Million, classified up 52.4 per cent to $19.2 Million and Search & Directories up 93 per cent to $15.1 Million.

According to the online marketing analysts, the growth is an evidence that more advertisers are starting to spend money online. The trend is here to survive as not any country can afford to loose such a huge opportunity that Internet marketing is
throwing.

Thus, the magic of online marketing is spreading all over the globe. Be it banner ad, display ad, affiliate marketing, Email marketing, PPC or any form of Internet marketing, every form is showing profit and the world is getting ready for it.

Online marketing: Microsoft Live Search Cashback Program

Online marketing has become such a vast area, and profitable also, that every software and PC company wants to make profit out of it. Specially in the field of search marketing and Internet advertising. Hence till recently, Microsoft has tried almost everything to get more people to pick its search site over Google. And now it is offering a little cash.

This is the idea behind a new Microsoft search program. It will return money to online users who find and buy products through its Live Search engine. This is the magic of online marketing and search engine advertising profits. Now, Microsoft wants you to use its search and for that it is willing to pay also.

Now, how it will work. According to the plans of the Redmond based software giant, users who sign up for accounts can search for eligible products on the Live Search cashback site.
If a user clicks on a merchant's website and buys eligible products, a particular percentage of the purchase price, that may range from about 2 percent to more than 30 percent, will be deposited into the user's Live Search cashback accounts.

Refunds will accumulate in the account and be available via direct deposit to a bank or PayPal account or by check. There are certain conditions for which you can check the Microsoft website. Also, Microsoft will charge merchants for the Live Search cashback advertisements only when a user makes a purchase.

Now, let see the impact of this service on the Internet search king Google, which is getting the maximum benefits of the search marketing and online marketing boom.

Online marketing: Google Would Allow Third Party Ads

Internet advertising is the revenue-churning species in the online marketing garden. Really. Perhaps that is why websites are experimenting a lot with online advertising avenues. The latest buzz is that the online behemoth, Google, has allowed third party ads on its content network.

Google is doing this because online marketing and Internet advertising have a very promising future. So the search engine Goliath has decided to accept third party ads on its content network through certified vendors. In fact, Google content network is a large group of websites and other products, such as email programs and blogs, who have joined Google to display AdWords ads.

Since, Google has just started it, so the third party ads will be available in English only but later Google content network will accept third party ads in other languages also.

According to Google sources, “this was a long standing demand from their AdWords advertisers who use third parties to create and manage their online campaigns.”

Sources further added that “by accepting third-party ads, we can attract a greater variety of advertising on the Google content network, which we believe will result over time in increased revenue for publishers and more relevant advertising for end users.”

Hence, it can be said that for Google, there is no stopping as far as innovation is concerned. Its game with online marketing would continue just like this.

Online marketing: Face-Lift of Facebook

The web design affects a lot to the business of any website. US-based social networking site Facebook also realized this fact. That is why it has planned for a small face-lift to present even more beautiful face for the social networks, who are playing a major role in the online marketing arena. Due to the more and more information on Facebook like more photo albums, more applications, and more history, profiles became cluttered. Page navigation was also a little bit harder.

So Facebook has come up with a new design of its users’ profile pages which will now move away from a single flat page to a tabbed design. The move has made the profile page cleaner and more simple, giving users more control over their profile pages. The core tabs on the new designed profile page are Feed, Info and Photos.

Also There are four categories listed as Profile, Friends, Networks, and Inbox. Under each category, there are some subcategories. For example, you can browse through friends who have just updated their profiles or who are online right now in the 'Friends' category.

There is a Custom Applications tab. Another new feature being added to the top of the Feed tab is a Publisher Box. This particular feature would allow users to add content directly to their profile, instead of going to different pages.

So, the website has become more faster, more Spam-free and less cluttered. And it has become more user-friendly.

Google's Safe Browsing Diagnostic

Google has recently announced a new feature safe browsing diagnostics to help the owners of compromised sites. Google has been protecting its users from the implication of malicious sites ever since. This step too is just another move in the same direction. The online marketing giant has bit an infrastructure which will automatically determine if web pages carry risk to users. This is a highly accurate service, except in some cases when the attackers use sophisticated obfuscation techniques or insert malicious payloads into the system.

To overcome this difficulty, the company has introduced new Google's safe browsing diagnostic system, that will now provide detailed information about the automatic investigations and findings that the search engine conducts on malicious websites.

This diagnostic system is already showing a number of benefits to the owners of compromised websites. The diagnostic system is such that it will store data for only 90 days, but the 90 days period as actually sufficient to take note of the activities of the malicious websites. This system is also able to track other domains and websites where the malicious activity is spread or is connected with. This will help in tracking the root of the activity more effectively.

The new service indeed is an amazing step taken by Google to control the malicious activities in the website and will definitely ensure a safer browsing experience for Google users.

Online marketing: Waiting For The Hot Deal

The day of 19'th May, 2008, would be a memorable day for the online marketing, search engine advertising and social networking. There are two reasons for this.

First reason is that, on this date AOL is completing its takeover of social networking site Bebo, which means that Yahoo is going to loose a key deal to supply advertising to the social networking site.

And second reason is that Yahoo has confirmed its willingness to discuss a new and more limited deal with Microsoft over combining the two companies. The combination is likely to affect online marketing and advertising businesses.

Both of these happenings may bring great changes in the worldwide environment of online marketing, Internet advertising and social advertising.

Earlier Microsoft had proposed an online advertising deal with Yahoo, two weeks after the failure of talks about a takeover of the Silicon Valley firm for 47.5 Billion USD or £24.4 Billion.

The buzz is that Yahoo has said that it will evaluate each of their alternatives, including any Microsoft proposal, consistent with its fiduciary duties. The firm would focus on maximising stockholder value. At the same time Yahoo and its board of directors would consider a number of value maximising strategic alternatives.

Meanwhile, buzz is also that talks between Yahoo and Google are intensifying. Two are trying to push an online marketing and online advertising deal through ahead of any renewed approach from Microsoft.

Yahoo and Google might explore an open platform on which the two firms could jointly bid to serve ads alongside search results. The project could be announced within two weeks.

Online marketing: Microsoft-Yahoo Talk for Fresh Deal

It is true that Microsoft-yahoo partnership would bring significant changes in the online marketing world. But the deal is becoming speculative day by day. Recently, news was that Microsoft has officially withdrawn its bid for Yahoo. It withdrew its 33 USD-a-share buyout bid on May 3, after the two sides failed to agree on a price.

Now latest buzz is that Microsoft Corp. has announced that it had consulted Yahoo Inc. with a possibility of a fresh deal that does not involve an acquisition of the Internet company.

Microsoft would do it to improve its online marketing business. The alternative deal would involve a transaction with Yahoo but not an acquisition of all of Yahoo.

Microsoft not at all want to acquire all of Yahoo at this time, but the transaction would improve and expand its online marketing services and advertising businesses.

Also, Microsoft reserves the right to reconsider this alternative depending on future developments and discussions with Yahoo or with shareholders of Yahoo or with other third parties. Speculations are that Microsoft has in mind a partnership or joint venture for search-related advertising, which is very profitable among various online marketing ventures.

Yahoo india launches Search Marketing system

Yahoo launches its Search Marketing system in India. This Search Marketing System is a sponsored search system that will help advertisers in managing their online ad campaigns and increase their ROI.

According to Sandeep Deshpande " Yahoo search Marketing will allow Advertisers to run analytic on thier campaigns and run on different version of the same campaign to identify the best campaign.
To use this services you have to sign up option.

1. Self Setup - where you will Set Up your Own Account. In this no setup fees is required. Only you have to pay minimum deposit $30
2. Assisted Setup - Here you will get help to sep up your account. Here you have to pay setup fees
   

• * $199 one-time setup fee.
• * $100 minimum deposit required.
• * Plan to spend more than $300/month?
• * Here you will receive a full campaign proposal in 2-5 business days.
  

“The new and more powerful Yahoo Search Marketing platform will enable marketers to manage their campaigns with ease and potentially derive improved ROI,” Sandeep Deshpande, GM, search marketing and small business, Yahoo India, has said. “Additionally, it presents a significant opportunity for existing YSM advertisers across the world to target Indian consumers.”

Prashant Mehta, vice president and head, advertiser and partner group, emerging markets, Yahoo, has said, “We are very excited to introduce this new platform, which makes it easier for marketers to understand the performance of their campaigns and experiment more frequently with the medium.”

As asked "how YSM is different from competing products like Google’s AdSense", Prashant Mehta said, “Conventionally, advertisers that bid the most for specific keywords have the most chance of having their ads displayed. Our new platform will reward advertisers by focusing on contextually relevant ads, irrespective of the advertiser’s bid price. Apart from that, we have also added features like enhanced conversion tracking.”

Social Networking Sites: Friends Behind the Screen

Both Myspace and Facebook, the leading social networking sites have made a change in their website. Their website design now includes features which are being termed as 'Data Availability Initiative.' in Myspace and 'Facebook connect' in facebook. This feature will allow the users to share their Online photos, videos and texts from various websites.

Users will now be able to transfer data from one site and import it into another. You can exchange stuffs from websites like Yahoo, eBay, Twitter and several others too. Not only this, Google too has introduced a similar feature which it is calling as 'Friend Connect' This will help website owners to add various social features to their website with just simple code. Friend connect shall be acting as a shortcut to your connections that you have built somewhere else on the web.

This unison of various connections across the web, is a very convenient feature, which will help users to get connected to their various connections from any one place on the web. The new face of social networking will give Online users a unique face, an individual identity in the virtual world.

The day is not far away when every individual will have two identities one the real one where he is surviving and the other the virtual one, where he is literally living.

Get Live - MSN launches Messenger TV

MSN launched new service "Get Live". With the help of this surfers can exchange messages while watching online video.

Messenger TV, the new service of MSN combines the feature of windows live instant-messanging(IM) program with video software so that user can watch and share video clips.

The site will also display 4 minutes long clips of shows like Peep Show, Property Ladder, Father Ted and Shameless and also provide access to MTV content including clips from South Park and Pimp My Ride, as well as music videos from Kylie to Britney Spears.

Currently Messenger TV will be available in Europe and 95 million users of Windows Live Messenger. Video clips will have ads and a banner that runs at the bottom of the Messenger TV window.

Peter Bale, executive producer at MSN UK, called the new service "a powerful sharing experience".

This new move has been taken by the big giant MSN to expand its business into internet advertising. As msn did not disclose details of the deals with EMI.

Enjoy and have a fun with http://get.live.com

Online marketing: Its Next Big Thing

According to the website clickz.com, YouTube and other Google sites hosted more than 4.3 billion video views in March. The figure accounts for 38 percent of all U.S. video traffic. It means that during that month, U.S. Internet users increased their video intake by 13 percent gain compared with the previous month, and by 64 percent compared with March 2007. The figures are obviously mind blowing.

Due to these kinds of enthusiastic figures regarding online video, YouTube has begun offering advertisers the ability to pair their in-video ads with videos the site believes are on their way to becoming viral hits. The YouTube has created an algorithm that can identify videos that are on the up and up in terms of audience.

It makes that determination by looking at some factors like the early frequency of views on a given clip, along with the number of times it is 'favorited' and the number of ratings it receives. YouTube hopes the feature will appeal to entertainment marketers and it would affect a lot to the online marketing environment. The feature could be a strong marketing opportunity for any online advertiser.

Thus, this is the time to create attractive advertising videos for online people, to show your product to the millions of Internet users and to grab the latest opportunity which online marketing is going to provide.

Glue Pages, the new search feature from Yahoo India

Glue Pages, the new search feature launched by yahoo India which collect and adds the most relevant information/details from the world wid web into a single visible SERP. Example if you search for Sonia Gandhi, it gives biographical quick-facts, videos, newspaper ads, photos and content from Yahoo answers.

According to Yahoo India, Glue Pages contains mixture of text, images and video content and is available for selected search terms or category as health, sports, entertainment, travel, technology and finance. Web searcher will also see links for other Glue Pages on topics related to their query.

Gopal Krishna, head of audience, Yahoo India, has said, “The new Glue Pages Beta feature for Yahoo India Search supports our strategy to make Yahoo the leading starting point on the internet and demonstrates our commitment to provide a compelling online search experience.”

“Glue Pages Beta limits guesswork for the user by providing the best of web, all onto one 'at-a-glance' page. Over time, Glue Pages Beta will be made available to more categories that are relevant to users in India,” Sandeep Shrivastava, director, search, Yahoo India, has added.

Air Ads On Your Selected TV channels With Google Adword

Internet marketing has come to an age wherein users are facilitated to promote their brands in TV. Expanding to TV channels by online marketing campaigns for brand promotion is a futuristic step and hints limitless prospects of this side of marketing. Understanding profitable prospects of spreading brand awareness amongst TV viewers, Google AdWords have launched a new concept to reach out to new base of customers. Regardless of Internet and other media channels, television still has restored its position with a surge of networks and soaps, shows, programs. Advent of satellites has made most of the TV networks global and given a worldwide viewers. So, like internet, TV channels have also potential to grip huge mass of viewers across the world.

Google AdWords is hugely prospective approach in Internet marketing is once again proved through this initiative to launch ad on TV. Realizing creation of a TV ad more intricate than internet ad, Google is catering to its users with the Google Ad Creation Marketplace to create ads and air the network and programs that are viewed by targeted segment of audience. This ad creation marketplace is a directory of professionals proficient in media to help AdWords users to make catchy TV ads for them. Primarily Google has been charging $2,000 per week to run an ad for at least 4 back-to-back week.

Drive Key Audience to Site with Online Marketing

With everyday millions of websites budding on the web like dandelions, having a site is nothing but to participate in a crowd where you are not possible to be found out. Instead of belonging in a crowd if you perceive other sites as competition, you have got to push yourself to stay ahead. So how to stay ahead? Simply give an unique look and feel to your site, know your consumers' expectations to be clicked now and then by your prospective visitors. Performing this objective by yourself may seem impossible, however, online marketing companies handle this everyday and excelling in their approaches to enable their clients excel too.

These online marketing companies layering marketing strategies with latest techniques day by day. Starting from launching social media marketing sites, building video search engines, publishing blogs, newsletters – online advertising and marketing companies have taken web side of advertising to an endless journey of advancements. A recent online ad company has come up with 'word of mouth' solutions to aggregates information by keeping the pitch of conversation up amongst their targeted consumers. It has launched various communication enhancing programs like email services, blogs, social networking sites to aggregate information from what the target market wants from a product to improve and sell their advertisers' products.

Idée's image search engine TinEye would be launched today

Local tech startup Idée Inc. will publicly launch a search engine named TinEye that will function the same with images as what Google Inc. does with text.

"This is the early days of multimedia searching," said chief executive Leila Boujnane. "It feels like we're at the same place Google was at years ago."

With a small number of dedicated staff and their several years of R&D work, Idée has managed to develop a set of algorithms that takes an image, compares it to about a half-billion indexed pictures, and generates relevant images and their url within milliseconds.

"Anyone who actually sells content wants to know where it is," said Idée co-founder and chief technology officer Paul Bloore. "No one else can do this, especially on the scale that we're doing."

TinEye will be helpful for publishers, online retailers, brand marketers and copyright compliance officers who want to track how products are being distributed on the Web.

The release of TinEye is Idée's another step at becoming a king in the image recognition industry. Its existing service is to tracks down publishers who use their copyrighted pictures and bills them as per value.

"It has lots of business applications and I don't even think they've scratched the surface," said Rick Segal, a partner with private equity firm JLA Ventures. "It's the kind of stuff that gets greedy little suits like me excited."

"For this kind of technology, there's a lot deep pockets already," said George Goodall, a senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group.

"I think [Idée] has a one-year window of opportunity to build the technology. If they fail to execute on that strategy in the next eight months, they could get swallowed up."

AdMob Introduces Mobile Web Analytics Tool

AdMob, a US-based mobile ad network, has launched AdMob Mobile Analytics. This helps mobile site owners to track their site performance metrics such as unique visitors, duration of visit, page performance, as well as user details including geography, operator and device specifics. According to AdMob, the new service also allow mobile advertisers to track the success of their campaigns, run on any mobile ad network.

Omar Hamoui, founder and CEO, AdMob, has said, “We have been building some very sophisticated technologies for our own network and are now in a position to empower sites to take advantage of our engineering investments to optimize their mobile Web efforts. We hope AdMob Mobile Analytics will provide a further catalyst for the growth of the mobile Web.”

Alexa Updates its Web Ranking System

Alexa a well known search engine has updated its web ranking system. In the new updates, it combines data from various sources to present users a better way of website popularity among the entire internet users.

Earlier, the Alexa Rankings was based only on an analysis of internet usage of only those people who used the Alexa Toolbar.

However, the Alexa toolbar users' interests and surfing habits could differ from those of the rest of the internet user, so the company decided to improve its ranking algorithms.

As per the company, the new rankings result will be better, which reflect the interests and surfing habits of the entire range of internet user.

DoubleClick launches DoubleClick Mobile - solution to media companies

Google owned DoubleClick Inc., provider of digital marketing technology and services, announced the launching of DoubleClick Mobile. It will render solution to media companies to diversifies their digital advertising business to mobile. The solution incorporate the functional process for scheduling, targeting, selecting and delivering ads on mobile web pages with the existing digital channels. In this way, media companies can sell and manage inventory across online display, rich media, video and mobile.

“Publishers are starting to see mobile as an exciting revenue growth area as budgets move from experimental to mainstream. Our clients want to take on this opportunity and sell mobile display advertising directly,” said Ari Paparo, DoubleClick’s vice president of rich media and emerging technologies. “As media companies begin to offer integrated digital ad packages to advertisers that include online display, rich media, video and mobile, everyone wins. The launch of DoubleClick Mobile marks an important step in bringing mobile into the mainstream digital advertising ecosystem.”


Benifits of using DoubleClick Mobile :

• It will improve your mobile ROI.
• Will Manage mobile inventory like others digital advertising medium.
• Increase your existing ad operations and sale for your mobile business.
• It will support to publisher - paid models
  

To know more about DoubleClick Mobile Read DoubleClick Mobile

China claiming to have 221 million internet users

China is claiming to be the worlds largest online market, with a total internet users 221 million as of the end of the February, reported by the state-run china Daily newspaer thursday.

China proclaim that it has overtake US in the number of internet users, as US has 216 million interne users. However, China seems to be far lagging behind from US in the percentage of the respective populations that use internet.

According to a report by China Internet Network Information Centre (CINIC), China had 221 million internet users at the end of February 2008, the largest in the world. The Nielsen/NetRatings data put the number of internet users in US at 216 million, or 69.7 per cent of the country’s total population. In contrast, China is believed to have only 16 per cent of its people on internet. The world average for all countries on internet is 19.1 per cent.

Interestingly, CINIC defines an internet user as anyone who accesses internet at least once a month. On the other hand, the Nielsen/NetRatings data for the number of internet users in US include only those people who access internet either from home or work leaving out many people who are online from other places than just home and work.

[Source: ComputerWorld, iTwire]

Google & Microsoft India Launching SMS Services in India

Vodafone, a mobile service provider join hands with Microsoft India to render SMS-based search service at a rate of 30 paisa per query to its user. This SMS search service helps vodafone mobile users to search online mobile contents such as ringtones, images, local directory information.

According to Vodafone, this service will be initially available in eight cities -- Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad -- and the 21 more cities expected to be join in the list soon.

In SMS-based search service they have incorporated some specific features like local results based on the user's city location, keep tracking of the user's search session for 24 hours and delivering formatted results according to the user's phone capabilities.


So take the benefits of this services and enjoy![Source: Economic Times]

Google is the Leading Brand World -Wide

Google is the world's leading brand this year. The top five brands of the year are Google followed by General Electric, Microsoft, Coca Cola and China Mobile. The brands are unchanged since last year. What is surprising is the growth, Google has elicited in the past two years, when it was ranking seventh to the leader then, Microsoft.

Google is said to have started to concentrate more on China for its ad sales. Ever since, the brand has begun marketing itself in China, its sales has experienced a high rise. The Expansion of its services in China has helped Google grow its international revenue account by more than half of the sales it calculated last quarter.

The Google search engine that trails in China by the name of Baidu.com is growing in popularity and its ad services are on an all time rise. As a matter of fact China has also been identified as the world's second largest internet user's bay.

The top position that Google has been enjoying since last year is reflective of its, revenue, the market space, consumer attitude and the overall brand value which stands at an exuberant $US86.1 billion ($91.4 billion).

Adobe Media Player – The Latest from Adobe

Adobe announced the release of Adobe Media Player (AMP) on April 9, 2008. The Adobe Media Player gives the facility of ‘a push to provide content to end users’. Apart from this it also creates a platform where one can monetize and track online video. The main goal of AMP is to enable content providers the facility to modify and sort the whole media player experience. Through this sorting, the content providers are provided many analytical tools that can help them track the videos and monetize them.

The technology that enables a person to do so much is the Adobe AIR. It is because of this that AMP can help some one to take the video content offline. The AMP can also become the default player for FLVs and one can watch a FLV file that is there inside of AMP.

AMP enables you to watch full screen and supports up to 1080p resolution. Currently, there are content from CBS, MTV Networks, Universal Music Group, PBS, CondéNet, and Scripps Networks, plus there are other content about Adobe products.

The Official Launch of AdSense Scrolling Text Ads

AdSense has made the official launch of scrolling text ads where a visitor can scroll through an ad to check out if he / she wants to click the ad to go to the website or the landing page of the advertiser.

The scrolling would not cost the advertiser anything, but what makes me wonder is how profitable would this be to the advertiser. Going by the typical consumer behavior, a person would want to know everything that he / she can, before making the purchase. Therefore, I think this scrolling would give a visitor more information about the advertiser or about what he offers. This can work in favor or against the advertiser also.

The scrolling facility is available to all the CPC text ads. Small arrows help the visitor to go forward or backward to see the ad completely or a part of it. This will surely benefit the end users.

Yahoo India Maps – In Your Language

Yahoo! India, for the first time in India, started their new service by enhancing the Yahoo! Maps to show results in different languages. The new strategy is to attract more Indian customers to use internet. With this service, Yahoo! wishes to penetrate the local markets and influence varied target customers.

Some of the salient features in the enhanced Yahoo! Map are:

1) Use of local languages and user friendly features

2) Proper walking directions displayed

3) Flexibility to access via SMS, email, and web

4) Well-known landmarks displayed

5) Location of ATMs, Hospitals, restaurants, Malls etc are mentioned


Yahoo selected 9 different languages like Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam to start with the Yahoo India Map. They may add more languages later.

The users of Yahoo! India can search for different destination across 179 cities, 4,767 towns, and 226,114 villages. Also there is a facility for users to search for over 3 million points of interest. It’s really a good strategy to penetrate the market.

As India is the second largest country in world regarding population with an economic growth that is maintaining good pace, therefore it would be a good idea to penetrate into more local and niche markets to reap more benefits. This is perhaps what Yahoo! is now trying to do by influencing the general people and habituating them with Internet and the web.

It’s a good strategy to compete with the world’s leading search engine service provider Google. But will the Yahoo Map be able to compete with Google maps. Think about it.

Reviews on Google's App Engine from Software Pioneers

There is a round of buzz going on with Google's latest application for software developers. It has been named "Google App Engine" and it provides a platform to the developers in running their web applications.

After this development, the software pioneers have started analyzing it. There will be an environment of reviews and feedbacks for this latest technology innovation from Google.

Dave Wineris one of the software pioneer, knows about disruptive technology. Here is a small para what Dave had to say about google App Engine,

"Now, what Google announced is really exciting! I'm not kidding. It's even better than I hoped. Yes, it's only Python, but IBM's PC-DOS was only BASIC and Pascal when it first came out, and it didn't matter. Yeah, I preferred C, but I coded in Pascal because that's what you had to do to get an app running. What you're going to see here that you've never seen before is shrinkwrap net apps that scale that can be deployed by civillians. That's a mouthful, but that's what's coming. Why? Because here is a standardized platform that can be stamped out in the billions of units. Maybe Google can't do it, but the perception is that they can. Who is willing to stand up and say Google hasn't nailed scaling? What PCs did in the 80s, Google is doing now. PCs took the black magic out of owning a computer. Now Google is taking the black magic out of operating a scalable web app. Python is the new BASIC. "

According to Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWrite :

"The point is, Google App Engine may be neither competitive nor monopolistic - it might just be trivial as Google Pages or Google Base. So far it seems pretty simple and useful, though. We'll have to take a deep breath, hope that Amazon and others step up their offerings a notch or two in response, and see what the future brings.


However, the applications developed by Google have been well accepted by the various industries till now. No matter what stir the responses would create but the software professionals are sure to get help from Google's App Engine.

Google New Application for Developers - Google App Engine

Google has launched a new application for software called Google App Engine. Here developers can run their web applications with the help of google's infrasture. It is as similar to that blogger made it easy to creat a blog. Google app engine is designed ti naje ut east ti create and run web application.


With the help of Google App Engine, developers can write web applications based on the same building blocks that Google uses, like GFS and Bigtable. Google App Engine packages those building blocks and provides access to scalable infrastructure, hope it will make it easier for developers to scale their applications automatically as they grow. Wih the help Google App Engine, software professional can spend less time dealing with system administration and maintenance, and more time building and improving their applications.

Google App Engine is free to use during the preview release, but the amount of computing resources any app can use is limited. Later, developers will be able to purchase additional computing resources as needed, but Google App Engine is free to get started.

To know more about google app engine click here

This preview of Google App Engine is available for the first 10,000 developers who sign up. so developer sign up download the SDK

All Quiet on the Yahoo Front

The Microsoft and Yahoo upheavals seem to have settled down, but is it the calm before the real storm?

Yahoo is taking more time than expected to respond to the proposal by Microsoft. Is it waiting for Microsoft to lift the bid and let the transactions close? Is Yahoo turning to Time Warner or not?

According to Mark Mahaney, Citigroup analyst, "We believe that a Yahoo sale to Microsoft -- at a price likely higher than the initial $31 [per share] bid -- is the most likely outcome. While we continue to see no other competing bidders, we believe Yahoo is aggressively pursuing strategic alternatives. One possibility is a tie-up with Time Warner, whereby Time Warner would contribute its online content assets to Yahoo in exchange for a stake. We believe this could serve as a forcing function to a higher Microsoft bid."

While some of the industry watchdogs are suggesting that this is just a gimmick by Yahoo to get a higher bid, the rest simply can not come to terms with the Microsoft & Yahoo marriage.

You Tube Now Brings Video Analytics Tool for its Users

You Tube is now releasing a video analytics tool which they are calling the ‘You Tube Insight’. ‘You Tube Insight’ is free to all the users of You Tube. This means that if you have an account in You Tube, you can view detailed statistics about the videos that you upload to the site.

What all information will ‘You Tube Insight’ provide an up-loader with? An up-loader can see the frequency or number of times the videos are watched, different geographic locations from where viewers come to the videos, the time of the day or the time period when the videos are usually played and how popular are they, especially when compared to other videos in the same market.

With You Tube Insight, you can also get down to further details like the lifecycle of a video, long soon is the video getting famous, what all places are reporting maximum views and what happens once the popularity of a video reaches its peak position.

The You Tube Insight can be very useful for you from business point of view. You can judge from the statistics – what kinds of people are taking more interest in your videos. You can evaluate the performance of your videos with those of your competitors and know exactly where you are. You can use the metrics to increase your videos’ view counts and improve popularity on the site.

You Tube promises its viewers more features and additional information and asks them to find currently available metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under "My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos."

Brand Building Factors: Build Your Brand Effectively

Suppose you are the owner of General Motors (GM) and you want to sell the company. How would you sell it? At first, you would calculate the worth of factories, patents, machines, staff and other related assets. What would come as most costly among these assets? According to me the most costly thing is not in the list.

Yes, the most costly things are those two letters G and M, why, because GM is the most recognized brand of cars worldwide. It is priceless. The value of a brand is huge compared to other physical assets.

A brand is that thing which you can own that nobody can take away from you. Everything else can be copied. Your trade secrets can be copies and eventually, your patents may expire. Your physical plant will depreciate. Technology will change. But your brand can live for ever and ever. This is the power of brand.

And making of a brand is very tough process, it takes time. According to the industry experts 7 factors can affect the building of a successful brand.

1. Product Quality: Is the product useful for the consumer? Do check, as what are the good and bad features/attributes of your brand (company, product, service).
2. Brand Positioning: A brand should be positioned not only in the market but also in the mind of the consumers. Strong brands have a clear position in the target market.
3. Brand Repositioning: Strong brands can perceive the changing taste of its consumers.
4. Brand communication: The brand awareness is a must. What you are going to provide must be known by your consumers.
5. Early bird advantage: Pioneers and innovators make a big brand but there may be exceptions like Alta vista and Google, where the former was the pioneer but the later rules.
6. Brand credibility: Sometimes investment in brands is required at the expense of short-term profitability. Long-term perspective is an important factor in brand building as it results in brand credibility.
7. Internal marketing: The whole business must understand the brand value and perhaps that is why my friend wears a T-shirt with Google written over it and he works with Google.
   

So, if you are going to launch a website or a product, don’t forget to do branding. Branding is tough but it is possible.

Yahoo! Supports Open Social Foundation

With the support that Yahoo! has provided, Google’s OpenSocial Foundation has gained a momentum and the backing of the most visited Website in USA. OpenSocial was introduced in October in an effort to cut time and cost of developer by letting them create a single application that works on multiple sites. The OpenSocial software is aimed to enable developers put their programs on more social networking sites.

The OpenSocial concept comes from the fact that the social media sites have gained immense popularity and are doing rather well with people across the globe. The OpenSocial foundation is formed by the 3 industry giants – Yahoo!, Google and News Corp.’s MySpace. This is a non profit organization that is formed to promote the OpenSocial technology.

The OpenSocial software can also be the silver lining for Yahoo! at a time when sales growth at Yahoo! has sloped down from 22% in 2006 to 8%. It is through the popularity of the social networking sites, Yahoo! can hope to gain a better foothold in the industry back again, especially because advertisers have found potential target audience in such sites.

Will Google’s Search within Search spell Doom’s Day for the Flourishing Affiliate Marketing?

Google’s new Search within Search tool might create a chaos in the world of affiliate marketing and affiliate network. According to the report by IDC search analyst Sue Feldman - "Hijacking Affiliate Revenue: Google's New Search Within Search Tool,"- Google’s new destination search tool can invite serious risks for publishers, while it attempts to make information more available to the end users.

According to a newspost by Thoman Claburn, in Information Week.com, by introducing this tool, where a user can search specific data through a search box that comes in the result pages of the Google SERPs, the search engine would risk alienating its affiliates and other web site owners by keeping for itself traffic and the revenue thereof.

How is this possible? Visitors seeking specific information or an ad might have visited a particular site where ad is flashed. This would have helped the affiliate generate revenue for display of that particular ad and helping a visitor go to the site via the publisher/ affiliate’s site.

But having another search box in Google SERPs itself, visitors can conduct follow up searches without leaving Google.com. This would a visitor, the particular ad being searched directly from Google and therefore the revenue generated from the ad would go directly to Google and not the Affiliate.

According to Google spokesperson, “By showing ads on the results page from the 'search within a site' feature, we aim to help our users find ads that are both useful and relevant to their searches. Our goal is to provide the best user experience, and ads that are related to searches from competing providers are useful to consumers. If a site owner wants to present sponsored listings for these searches, then that site owner can participate in the AdWords auction."

While Google maintains that it developed this feature to improve the user search experience, some industry watchers view this tool introduced by Google, as another money making mechanism, others are skeptical about its impact on the flourishing affiliate marketing.

99 Million Euro for Quaero Project: Can Google Survive it?

Checking a data or fact? Planning a tourist vacation? Want information on a disease, a hotel or restaurant, a business event, pet care? What Internet users normally do? They Google the information. With around 85 percent of the search-engine market, including that of Germany, Google has become the market leader.

Now European Union is concerned about US hegemony in the worldwide search engine market. They aim to develop an Eurocentric alternative to the dominant Google.
European Union have launched a project under the name Quaero (Latin for ‘I seek’) to compete with the American behemoth. The project is headed by an Internet information company called exalead.com. The Quaero project is a coalition of 23 companies led by French technology giant Thomson.

Now, the European Union's competition watchdog has approved €99 million (£76 million) of French state aid for the consortium. This is also a fact that Google spent $7.5 million (6.3 million euros) on one lab with 10 students in its development stages. Can Quaero project become that tough? Also, the US search engine behemoth continues to spend $400 million annually on research and development. Can Quaero compete with the Google competency?

Anyway, the endeavour of EU is worth watching and the consortium plans to make the Quaero engine available for personal computers, mobile phones, televisions and other media platforms.

Google Loses To its European Cousin

The European Union’s trademark regulation agency did not accept the appeal made by Google to trademark protect its G-Mail mark in the European Union. This decision was made on the grounds that the G-Mail trademark was already provided to German businessman Daniel Giersch who has an electronic postal delivery business.

This similarity in name can lead to a lot of confusion and therefore Google, having entered later than the prevalent GMail, can not use the term. Though Google seemed to be disappointed with the judgment passed in the later part of February, this year, yet the decision seems to be quite prudent.

After the decision passed by the lower board of the trademark regulatory agency, Google now operates its free web based email service in Switzerland and also in UK under the name of GoogleMail.

Bebo is in the basket of AOL for Internet Advertising

Internet advertising is the latest medium of advertising which is generating revenue and advertisers are utilizing social networking sites very often for this purpose.

Social networking sites are valuable locations for online advertising because members post information about themselves and can then be targeted with useful products and services.

For this purpose, media giants are looking for social networking sites and latest news is that Time Warner's AOL internet division is buying the social networking site Bebo for 850 million Dollar or 417 million pounds in cash. Bebo is the third-biggest social networking site in the US, behind MySpace and Facebook. According to AOL officials, Bebo has more than 40 million members worldwide who view an average of 78 pages per day each.

Internet analysis experts are saying that, ‘it comes as no great surprise to see another traditional publisher buying in to the power of the social networking phenomenon. Microsoft did it with Facebook and News Corp did it with MySpace.
Furthermore, Bebo has an incredibly strong brand identity with the teenage and young adult market, so AOL can make best use of this powerful Internet advertising tool.

New Ad Service from Google: A Blessing for Internet Advertising

Internet advertising is growing by leaps and bounds and the world leader of the World Wide Web has all planned to utilize this boom in a great way. Google Inc. is planning to announce a new service that Web publishers can use to manage their online ad sales and serve up ads each time a consumer pulls up a Web page.

The offering is an early sign of Google's plans to diversify its ad offerings following the completion of its 3.1 billion Dollar DoubleClick Inc. acquisition this week. The move comes as Google looks to expand its online ad offerings beyond the small text ads that run alongside Web search results and other content which represent the bulk of Google's revenue.

The new Ad Manager service will provide the ad serving free, where companies such as DoubleClick have initially charged Web publishers to serve up their ads. Google is hoping that Ad Manager users will agree to carry some ads Google sells in ad spots on their Web sites they haven't filled themselves. Google would get benefit on revenue from any ads it sells.

Moreover, Google won't require Ad Manager users to carry the ads from Google's AdSense system. They can also choose to fill the spots with ads from other online ad networks in cases where they generate more money for the publisher. The Ad Manager service will handle graphical display, video and text ad formats.

Furthermore, Google Ad Manager will serve Web publishers with small to medium size sales forces, while DoubleClick's services are suited for higher-end ad-sales operations.

Google give Microsoft a shock: Double Click Acquired for $3.1 Billion

It seems that online advertising is the most revenue generating business in the Internet marketing. Perhaps that is why Internet giants are grabbing online advertising tools like hot cake.

According to the BBC news Time Warner's AOL internet division is buying the social networking site Bebo for $850 million (£417million) in cash. And now news is that Google is going to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion.

The outcome of the combination of Google and DoubleClick would be worth watching as both are the biggest players in online advertising. Their advertising styles are different. Google's AdSense business is algorithm-driven and is based on clickable links, whereas DoubleClick places targeted banner ads on sites like MySpace, The Wall Street Journal and America Online.

The move is also a big setback for Microsoft and other potential suitors like Yahoo and AOL. The DoubleClick acquisition may result in one of the significant deals because it was the pioneer in online advertising.

Using DoubleClick's services Google would extend the reach of its AdSense network, which now includes DoubleClick's DART for Publishers product.

Internet Explorer 8: Review

For the web developers, Microsoft MIX08 event was very significant. In this event, the Microsoft has released a web-browser which is very online marketing friendly. The name of this browser is Internet Explorer 8 or (IE 8).

On the first instance the IE 8 doesn’t seem much different from version 7. Most of the base features are the same and it looks like an Internet Explorer. However, this is packed with some new features. Let’s look at what these features are.

IE8 has some new and improved features which can be beneficial for the end-user. Some of these features are…

1. Activities: Previously, if you needed to get the address and map a route to a holiday spot, you would go to their website, copy the address and paste it into a map website such as Live Maps.

Now, with Activities, you simply highlight your selection and the activities button appears. This button gives you the option to map an address (a preview of activities is available without launching a whole new tab or page).

2. WebSlices: in IE8 some of the websites are enabled for WebSlices, like eBay and Facebook. You can simply click on the WebSlice button and add it to your favorites bar and from any webpage your updated content will appear with bold type.

3. Favorites bar: The Favorites bar replaces the links bar from IE 7 which provided one-click access to favorite sites.

4. Automatic Crash Recovery: this feature is designed to recover your web pages in case of a crash or hang in your web browser. ACR might help in minimizing disruptions and it can improve your productivity.

5. Improved Phishing Filter: IE 8 have a safety filter that does more than block sites that are used for phishing. It blocks sites that are known to contain malicious software that may harm your computer.

There are speculations that these improvements may make Internet browsing easier and more productive. With IE8, Microsoft may change the Web browsing experience.

Microsoft MIX08: Announcement of Internet Marketing-Friendly Products

The date, the place and the event are of much importance for the web developers and web technocrats. It was a period from March 5-7, 2008, the place was The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, Las Vegas and the occasion was the unveiling of the Microsoft’s latest web-oriented products and technologies. Now, let me tell you the name of the event which is Microsoft MIX08 or we can call it simply mix08.

This event was of much significance, firstly for the Microsoft, then for various web developers and lastly for the technologies that would emerge after this event of the Microsoft.

Mix08 was not a product launch as such. What Microsoft has chosen to show at this event are not finished products, but the first wave of new products that will become generally available over the next six months.

The event shows that the Internet is going to become the core functional area of Microsoft and it will continue to develop web-based software. According to chief technology officer of Microsoft, Ray Ozzie, "We are placing the internet at the centre of our strategy." This shows that world would see more major Internet developments in the coming times and it would be beneficial for the Internet marketing as a whole.

Furthermore, internet aware devices are becoming more commonplace with us these days. We are carrying mobile gadgets which are totally Internet-based. So, the consistent research of the Microsoft is very useful for us, I think!

Also, in the event MS has announced some of its latest technologies among which the key release was beta version of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). This is the latest web browser from the Microsoft. Through this web browser, Microsoft has made it easy for websites that provide services to be used from any other website.

For example, if you highlight a street address in IE8, the right click menu will allow you to bring up the location on through the Live Maps service. Online buying and selling is a common process these days. Now, just find an interesting item you're looking to buy? Right click and be taken directly to the search results for that product. These innovations are going to make a difference in the online marketing.

Moreover, Microsoft's Silverlight technology is yet another tool which was demonstrated at the event. This is a set of tools that plugs into your web browser and allows websites to display rich media content and applications. Here, with a heavy focus on media, especially video, Silverlight can deliver very complicated and detailed web pages.

There are speculations that Nokia would make Silverlight available for the majority of their handsets and internet tablets.

Thus, Microsoft is keeping on striving for the excellence. Perhaps the company is also influenced by the advent of the Internet marketing that is why it is emphasizing on the online marketing friendly Internet browser. This is definitely a good news for all those people who are involved in affiliate marketing, search engine marketing or any kind of Internet marketing.

Google Services: For whatever you Search under the Sun

One name which is like a religion for the Internet is Google, without any doubt. If you are a regular Google user you must have seen many features of it. Google services include all its products under three broad categories.

1. Desktop Products
2. Mobile products
3. Online products

If we would count all these products the list would go very long. There are more than 100 Google products under these three categories. These all products are either a gold release, in beta development or a part of the Google lab initiative.

Now, gold release is the final version of a particular product, beta development is the first version released outside the organization for the purpose of evaluation and Google lab initiative is some new Google project that is not ready for prime time and which serves as a testing ground for new services being developed.

Here are some of the major products in each category…

Desktop products: Earth, Hello, Pack, Gmail/Google Notifier, Picasa, Talk, Video Player, web Accelerator, Blogger Web Comments, Browser Sync, Send to phone, Toolbar and other products.

Mobile Products: iGoogle, Mobile search, Calendar, Gmail, Google notebook, Reader, Picasa Web Albums, Google mobilizer, Gmail mobile, Maps mobile, YouTube and other products.

Online products or web products: Under this category there may be some sub-categories.

Advertising products: AdSense, AdWord, AdWord website optimizer, Audio Ads, Click- to- Call, TV ads etc.

Communication & Publishing: 3D Warehouse, Blogger, Docs, Calendar, FeedBurner, Dodgeball, Gmail, Notebook, Orkut, Page Creator, YouTube etc.

Development: Google Web Toolkit, Code, Android, OpenSocial etc.

Mapping: Maps, Mars, Moon, Ride Finder and transit.

Search: Accessible search, Alerts, Base, Book search, Directory, Finance, Groups, Patent search, Product search, Scholar, Video, Web Search etc

Statistics: Analytics, Gapminder, trends etc.

Hardware products: Google search appliance and Google mini.

Other products: GOOG-411 or Google Voice Local Search.

So, I hope that you would have got an idea about various Google products. One thing I want to say that as far as innovation is concerned, Google has achieved a dynamic success.

Online advertising scene would change forever in China

Do you know which region in this world have the most internet surfers? Is it Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, Middle East or Australia/Oceania?

The answer is Asia! Yes in Asia there are approximately 510 million or over half a billion Internet users approximately, according to Internet World Stats, December 2007 report.

Let see Internet scene in the China. According to a report by eMarketer, February 2008, there are 176.5 million internet users here. The numbers are increasing day by day and these users affect Chinese online marketing business to a great extent. These users are influenced by online marketing and its various tools so different manufacturers, advertisers and publishers want to get some benefit from these internet users.

Good news for them is that a business software company Omniture Inc., which is a leader in the online business optimization and Chinese search engine Baidu.com Inc., are together going to provide a technology that will monitor the effectiveness of Chinese marketing campaigns.

The confluence of these two giants will help the companies to determine the influence of the online marketing over the Chinese Internet users. Most probably this will change the face of the online advertising in China.

War for Capturing Internet Based Office Tools Market

Sometimes I get amazed that who is going to win in the war among software giants to get the biggest piece from the huge Internet marketing cake. I have been listening about brand India emerging in the field of software. I also have been listening about the monopoly of some of the giants in this field. I have been listening about the new developments in the software and applications domain.

One thing I am realizing that all software giants like Microsoft, Google, Dell, Yahoo! and other software hunks like these, are undergoing a war with each other. The war is on for supremacy.

Here you would ask me some concrete data to prove the above statement. So let’s start...

To provide competition to Google Apps, that allows users to create and store documents online, Microsoft has recently launched Office Live WorkSpace. This application allows people to create and store Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations online.

Again, for giving competition to Microsoft’s Outlook, Google has launched Google Sites, which allows people to create websites on which they can present documents as well as videos and other material.

Now, other companies are also not lagging behind. Dell has invested $155 million for buying MessageOne which is a provider of online e-mail archiving and management services. Furthermore, Yahoo! has spent $350 million for buying Zimbra, a web-based competitor to Microsoft Exchange.

The list can go on and on and here you can see how. Google has spent 625 million dollar to buy the e-mail filtering and security firm, Postini. Cisco bought WebEx, a supplier of online conferencing software, for 3.2 billion dollar.

Really, the war is on. Now, you would have been well convinced that really the war has begun. As a user of the software applications, I can say only one thing that let them fight with each other; ultimately the winner is me, i.e., the customer and the billions of active Internet users worldwide.