Welcome to the première edition of Right On The Spot.
This must be comparable to giving birth to a first child. It is a
very special moment in the lives of the creators of this newsletter
and a tremendous opportunity for all parties involved in its
sustentation, including you the reader.
Right On The Spot is the answer to many of IMC-Update
and Marknadsforing.nu's subscribers requests for regular information
of interest to professional Internet marketers. Right On The Spot
will, from now on, keep you in touch with the latest developments
around the world on the Internet marketing scene.
In 10 issues a year, Right on the Spot will provide
you with essential news, reviews and interviews to help you stay
right on the spot in the professional Internet marketing field. The
joint editorial staff, comprising of Lennart Svanberg (LS), Robert
Swick (RS) and Kalle Blomqvist (KB), would like to extend a warm
welcome to old and new subscribers.
The 2004 IMC-Expo and Conference promises to be a much
larger event as interest and needs grow for this forum. The theme
for 2004 is "Localization and Globalization" – stressing the
importance for a website to reach out to local and global
markets.
To celebrate the 5th Anniversary of the event, the
organizers are giving you a golden opportunity to be one of the
first 25 lucky participants to register for the event and obtain a
ticket for less than half the regular price. Yes, you can save CAD $
600 ($450 US) by registering now and paying CAD $ 399 ($299 US)
instead of the regular price of CAD$ 999 ($749 US).
Speakers at the conference will cover every aspect of
importance to Internet marketers of the 21st century. As John Cokos,
editor of "The Gazette" distributed to 200,000 subscribers tells us,
"IMC is very much a professional event, very much geared towards
educating you during every waking hour." With the success last year
of new topic streams, this year, several talks will focus on some of
the Internet’s biggest industries, including travel, retail, and
health.
One more newsworthy for IMC2004 is the ability to
follow streams. Our main stream is intended for marketers, but we
will also have a special stream for designers and one for
programmers, with practical workshops incorporated into the overall
conference mix.
In 2004 IMC is going to have sessions in French as
well as in English. At this stage in our planning process we’re open
for having simultaneous translation of some sessions as well as
having sessions in only French and English. If you’re a
French-speaking speaker you’re especially welcome to submit your
paper.
For users of the Internet Explorer Browser this is not
much different than the method of using MSN as a resolving mechanism
for nonexistent domain names. Again the power of domain names is
shown. Search Engines, Browsers & ISP’s are in the end depending
on how users type in domain names.
However, after criticism from ICANN (the Internet
Corporation for the Assignment of Names & Numbers), the service
was shut down. Probably the service will be up again - in one form
or another. One loser is MSN, if they don’t get the mis-directed
traffic from unresolved .com’s, how many visitors will they have
then?
Read more:
http://www.verisign.com
http://www.icann.org
>>>>> Domain
names--three strikes you're out
Recent research has found that many companies are
losing the opportunity to make millions due to the difficulty for
consumers to locate the company’s website. The research found that
the majority of Internet users (60 percent) will try a total of
three times at guessing a domain address before they move on to
another company. It was then revealed that 71 percent would then try
a competitor’s website after being unsuccessful in locating the
website of choice.
Read more:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5075465.html
>>>>> E-mail 60%
spam by 2004, report says
By J.KYLEFOSTER
Bloomberg News
Tuesday,
September 30, 2003
Spam will account for 60 per cent of all e-mail
traffic by the middle of next year, rising from half this year and
threatening efforts of legitimate marketers to reach potential
customers, market researcher Gartner Inc. says.
Marketers must act immediately to distinguish their
e-mail pitches from junk e-mail or risk being blocked by content
managers, spam-blocking software and Internet service providers,
Gartner said in a statement. Such barriers will undermine 80 per
cent of all e-mail marketing campaigns by 2005, the researcher
said.
Companies that send vast quantities of "low-value,"
low-cost e-mail's among the 60 billion forecast to be sent each day
by 2005 can avoid being blocked by asking Internet users for
permission to message them and by personalizing what's delivered,
Adam Sarner, a Gartner research analyst who wrote the report, said
in an interview.
"They need to come up with decent e-mail," Mr. Sarner
said.
Read more
Full text from The Globe and Mail
>>>>> Google
Launches Search and Advertising Program in Spain
Mountain View, Calif. -- September 25, 2003 -- Google
Inc., developer of the largest performance-based search advertising
program, today announced its continued global expansion with the
opening of its Spanish office in Madrid. This important addition to
Google’s growing number of European offices will bring Google’s
performance-based keyword advertising program, Google AdWords™, to
marketers and advertising agencies in Spain. Google now has 21
offices worldwide and more than 150,000 advertisers participating in
the Google AdWords program.
Read more:
Pressrelease from Google
>>>>> Overture
Launches in Spain; Leadership in Commercial Search Strengthened
through Further European Expansion
PASADENA, Calif., Sep 17, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Overture Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:OVER), a global leader in commercial
search services on the Internet, today announced it has launched in
Spain.
Spain is one of Europe's fastest growing online
markets, with more than 14 million Spaniards online and 95 percent
of those using search engines on a regular basis, according to
Nielsen NetRatings.
Read more:
Pressrelease from Overture
>>>>> FindWhat.com Announces Plans to Acquire Miva
Corporation
September 3, 2003
Fort Myers Florida,
FindWhat.com
FindWhat.com today announced plans to acquire privately-owned
Miva Corporation, a leading supplier of e-commerce software and
services to small and medium-sized businesses, for $5.5 million,
plus the assumption of approximately $2.5 million in notes and other
liabilities.
From press release:"Together with Miva, FindWhat.com would
offer a more complete, comprehensive business solution to
small-to-medium sized enterprises (“SMEs”). SMEs can utilize Miva
Merchant software to create fully operational online storefronts
with shopping cart capability and can purchase other complementary
e-commerce services through Miva’s additional plug-ins and modules.
Through FindWhat.com, online marketers are able to cost-effectively
promote their websites and find highly qualified prospects who have
already expressed an interest in their product or
service."
Read
more:
Pressrelease from Findwhat
>>>>>
JimWorld – relaunch
The late Jim Wilson left a great legacy to John Cokos,
whom he chose to take over virtualpromote.com. At its height, the
site had a community of more than 300,000 people involved in
everything from forum building to software development. John had
developed the worlds most widely used search engine software.
John Cokos has revamped Jim's sites, developed new
software and given a brand new look to JimWorld. Being one of the
Jim Guides of the forum, I am very proud to invite all you readers
to the daily discussions on issues such as SEO, email marketing,
etc. The new, revamped site was launched in late August and although
the forum software is still being fine-tuned, we recommend you sign
up today for the weekly newsletter, "The Gazette".
Read more:
http://www.jimworld.com
http://memorial.jimworld.com
http://www.hyperseek.com
Review – who is Right
On the Spot?
>>>>>
This month’s Right On the Spot is – Findwhat!
The news that Findwhat acquired Miva Corporation shows
that Findwhat is Right on the spot. Integrating an e-commerce
company with a marketing company is a natural progression in
providing advertisers with better solutions. This integration
enables measurement of effectiveness on each dollar spent on
advertising for every single purchase.
Findwhat has understood that a pay-per-click solution
is a commodity like anything else and not a unique feature any
longer. Yahoo and other companies have found ways to integrate
pay-per-click solutions but Findwhat is now going their own way,
which is quite brilliant.
Although not one of the largest companies, as yet,
Findwhat, by making a profit in its core business, has the financial
capacity to buy other companies such as Miva Corporation. Sooner or
later further business acquisitions will undoubtedly make Findwhat
one of the larger companies in the industry. Congratulations to CEO
Craig Pisaris Henderson and the management team for being the first
to be Right On The Spot!
Read more:
http://www.findwhat.com
Interview with
Craig Wax, Senior Director Marketing, Overture
"Content
Match, Integration of Alltheweb & Altavista & International
Expansion"
By Lennart Svanberg, Editor, Right on the Spot
L(ennart): Thank you Craig for taking time to do this
interview. It’s the first issue of Right On The Spot – a News Letter
for 3,500 International Marketers.
C(raig): Thank you Lennart for having us. A lot is
happening at Overture so I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.
L: Overture launched Content Match in June of this
year. Quote from press release “Content Match links will be placed
in various locations on partner Web site pages and embedded within
their content, appearing on the side or bottom of Web pages.
It has now been 2 months since the launch of Content
Match. What are the initial reactions from advertisers and
distribution partners?
C: The overall response is fantastic; our advertisers
are getting more leads to their sites and the distribution partners
have found a new source of revenue. It’s a win-win situation.
In order to get advertisers to try Content Match they
have received 20% off the ordinary bidding price in the United
States (a “dollar bid ” from a paid placement listing only costs 80
cents on Content Match) and this has worked really well. Our
advertisers tell us that their return on investment from Content
Match is good.
What is very exciting for us is to see how sites with
great content have found Content Match as a way of receiving more
revenue. For example our partnership with MyFamily.Com makes it
possible for many small, but highly valuable sites to earn
revenues. We consider our network of contextual partners to be
the best with partners like MSN, Yahoo, MyFamily (as previously
mentioned) and Advertising.Com.
The combination of high-volume sites with small, but
high quality content sites, makes it very exciting to advertise with
Content Match.
L: If I own a site that I’d like to have contextual
advertising on, what are the criteria for being approved in
Overture’s Contextual network?
C:. Today there are no fixed criteria, it is decided
on a case by case basis. The most important criteria is the quality
of the site’s content Then we look at the amount of page views. If
you’re interested in becoming a Content Match partner, don’t
hesitate send us your site for review.
So far we have only scratched the surface with Content
Match. We think that Content Match is going to be an important part
of Internet Marketing for both advertisers & publishers. It
opens up a completely new opportunity for Web sites to earn
advertising revenue.
L: This year Overture bought 2 crawler-based search
engines. Quote from Overture Press release “Through this
combination [Overture, Altavista, Alltheweb], Overture expects to be
at the forefront of the industry in offering a full suite of paid
placement, paid inclusion and algorithmic Web search products and
services for syndication to portals, ISPs and other search
destination sites.” Can you after six months see the synergy effect
of this offering [paid placement, paid inclusion and algorithmic web
search] or is it too early to tell?
C: Absolutely, the advertisers are ready for more
products that drive targeted leads to their sites, and our
distribution partners like Lycos (who changed from Google results to
Overture), Sympatico & Knight-Ridder Digital see this
combination of offerings as the future.
The ability to both bid for placement as well as
making sure that thousands of URL’s are being indexed correctly is
of vital importance both for the advertisers and the searchers.
L: Even being in the Industry it’s sometimes hard to
understand the meaning of some terms. What is the difference between
Trusted Feeds and Paid Inclusion?
C: The overall term is Paid Inclusion. This means that
you’re paying to be included in the Search Engine’s index. Trusted
Feed is a term for those who have more than 500 URL’s that they want
indexed and use XMLfeeds instead of “manually” submitting their
URL’s.
L: How are you positioning the three brands: Overture,
Altavista & Alltheweb?
C: Well, as we integrate the AltaVista and Alltheweb
products and services into Overture, we’re maintaining all three
brands. It’s up to the users to see what service they think serves
them best.
L: Ok, great answers. Now a topic that is very close
to my heart. Overture is launching in Sweden later this year. Can
you give us an update on your International Expansion plans?
C: Yes, in the year of 2003 Overture has focused on
International Expansion. So far we have launched in United Kingdom,
Germany, France, Japan, Italy, South Korea, and Australia. Later
this year we will also launch in Austria, The Netherlands, Spain,
Switzerland, Sweden, Norway & Finland.
L: What is your experience so far of this
expansion?
C: It has been a different reception in each country.
Some countries, like South Korea, are highly educated on search in
general and in some countries it takes a longer time to educate the
advertisers.
L: One issue raised is that there needs to be a
certain amount of advertisers for each keyword in order to get a
bidding process. In smaller markets, do you think there are enough
competitors?
C: It’s still very early on and we’re learning about
each market. What we do know is that time and time again our
advertisers are reporting to us that they are getting incredible
Return on their Investments from Overture.
L: Thank you Craig Wax, Senior Director of Marketing
as well as Al Duncan, Director of Media Relations for making this
interview possible. Do you have any final words to our readers?
C: Yes, I’d like to thank our advertisers for their
continued business. We appreciate their support.
Read more:
http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ac/ba/cm.jhtml
Feedback &
sponsorship
Thanks for taking the time to read the very first
issue of Right On The Spot. Our next issue will be published in
November 2003.
Links
For daily news on marketing visit http://www.searchdomainpages.com
Visit IMC-Expo & Conference, http://www.internetmarketingconference.com &
http://www.imc-expo.com
To our
Swedish readers
Kurser i Internetmarknadsföring och
e-handel
21-24 oktober i Göteborg, 3-6 februari i Stockholm:
http://www.internetmarknadsforing.com
Seminarium om Internetmarknadsföring och
e-handel
6 november i Stockholm. Med Kalle Blomqvist och
Lennart Svanberg ifrån Digital Marketing Partner samt Christopher
Häggström ifrån Incordia:
Nyheter om marknadsföring på Internet: http://www.marknadsforing.nu