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Online Ad Spending Up—in China & Russia

posted on May 29, 2007

eMarketer reports that online advertising spending is on the rise in China and Russia.

China

Last year, online advertising generated over $500 million in revenues, up 54% over 2005′s revenues. With news like that, you’d think online adveritising would have a corner on the market, but television advertising spending was still 56 times that of online ad spending, for at least five months of last year.

eMarketer says that this growth is fueled in large part by the ever-growing Chinese population. They also cited Nielsen//NetRatings as saying that 81% of Chinese advertising dollars renminbi goes to television, newspaper and magazine advertising.

Russia

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Google in the Streets

posted on May 29, 2007

Google Maps has launched street-level maps for several major US cities today. Currently available only for New York, Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Miami, the new features enable you to get a street-level view of the city. According to CNET, on this street level view you can even zoom in to see street signs and bus stops.

According to the unofficial GEarthBlog, these views come from actual street level photographs. They also link to a video tutorial on how to view the street views.

CNET notes that in addition to these developments, Google Maps has another update in some cities:

Google also launched Mapplets, a tool that enables developers to create mini applications to be displayed on Google Maps. Developers can combine information such as real estate listings and crime data with distance measurement and other tools to create their own embeddable mashups directly on the Google Maps site.

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Blue Nile to Hit $1 Billion in Internet Sales Within 7 Years?

posted on May 29, 2007

In a conversation with Internet Retailer, CEO Mark Vadon claims that Blue Nile could hit $1 billion in annual internet sales within seven years. Blue Nile had just over $250 million in sales during 2006.

The secret to Blue Nile’s success is pretty simple. They have a very specific niche and they do what they do very, very well.

Blue Nile’s niche is men looking for expensive jewelry–especially engagement rings. The average shopper on Blue Nile spends over $1,500, and the average spent on an engagement ring is $5,500–close to double the industry average.

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New Standards to Eliminate Email Spam

posted on May 29, 2007

By Roderick Ioerger

Technology is constantly advancing, yet efficient and effective protection from e-mail spammers and phishers is still a challenging problem for many individuals and organizations. In 2005 Yahoo, Cisco, and a number of other major corporations worked together to develop DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM).

DKIM is a validation method that allows an e-mail message to be identified by the actual domain from which the e-mail was sent and the e-mail can also be traced back to its origin creating the ability to have only highly legitimate e-mail messages delivered.

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Yahoo Panama Comes to the UK – Nearly

posted on May 29, 2007

It’s been a while, but it seems Yahoo have finally got round to launching their new advertising platform in Great Britain. It’s been with our American cousins since Feb but it’s taken a while to migrate across the Atlantic.

At the moment it’s still in testing with selected partners but it shouldn’t be long before it’s available to all. For those of us using Yahoo for PPC in the UK it’s good news, the old system was getting pretty creaky but it’s unlikely to make a huge impact on the paid search market.

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Hong Kong Spammers Beware

posted on May 29, 2007

Government officials in Hong Kong have recently enacted tough new anti-spam legislation. According to a Yahoo News article the new law will “regulate all messages sent by electronic means that advertise or promote goods or services, including faxes, emails, SMS text and pre-recorded voice messages”.

Penalties for violating the new anti-spam legislation include fines up to $128,000 and jail time for up to 5 years. This new legislation does not address mainland China specifically; however, it does seem to be an evolution of September 2006 legislation in China concerning email data retention.

In addition to enacting legislation addressing spam, China has also recently been trying to take legal and enforcement measures to address rampant copyright infringement within their borders. All of these efforts are an attempt to foster growth in their surging market economy by improving transparency within the normally closed communist nation.

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Mobile advertising will grow but not without a challenge

posted on May 29, 2007

By Paul Bennett

Despite a recent warning by mobile phone operators about the difficulty of establishing mobile advertising whilst in the shadow of other successful content services, ranging from music downloads to lottery tickets, world-wide mobile ad spend is still expected to increase nine fold by 2011 – reaching US$19 billion (Source: ABI Research).

Global brand managers tend to agree, recognizing the challenge that mobile advertising represents. Campaigns that go beyond the one-off promotion and make a measurable impact on bottom-lines will undoubtedly lay down the much needed confidence.

Leonardo O’Grady, Integrated Marketing Communications Director, Coca-Cola Pacific, commented:

“For us, it’s becoming less and less about reach, and more and more about clear effectiveness”