About one of every five Internet display ads in the United States is viewed on a social networking Web site like MySpace and Facebook, according to a new report.
The report by analytics firm comScore underscores the increasing prominence of social media sites in the Internet landscape and broadening acceptance of the sites by brand advertisers.
It also illustrates the increasing competition between social media sites and established Internet companies like Yahoo Inc and Time Warner Inc's AOL which have long billed themselves as the top online destinations for brand advertisers.
The study by comScore, released on Tuesday, said social media sites represented 21.1 per cent of US Internet display ads in July, with MySpace and Facebook accounting for more than 80 per cent of those ads.
"Because the top social media sites can deliver high reach and frequency against target segments at a low cost, it appears that some advertisers are eager to use social networking sites as a new advertising delivery vehicle," said Jeff Hackett, senior vice president of comScore.
According to comScore, AT&T Inc, Experian Interactive and IAC/Interactive Corp's Ask Network were the top three advertisers on social networking sites in July.
While social media sites have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years -- Facebook is now the world's fourth-most visited Web site -- some observers have questioned whether the sites can be effectively monetized.
Because the content on social media sites is created by users, and could therefore prove racy or offensive, some have questioned the willingness of marketers to place their brands alongside that content.
"They are sensitive to some extent, but nowhere near to the extent you might think," Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsay said of advertisers.
The price of placing ads on social networking sites is significantly less than on a Web portal like Yahoo or AOL, said Lindsay. The vast amount of Web pages available on social networks means that advertisers can purchase a massive volume of ad impressions at bargain prices.
The strategy may not be ideally suited to smaller marketers, or advertisers seeking a direct response from their ads, said Lindsay.
"For big, national brands it works just fine, just like TV," said Lindsay. "It's a huge, huge volume game."
Agencies
Showing posts with label ComScore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ComScore. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Microsoft to hire Yahoo staff for the online search business
Microsoft Corp will hire at least 400 workers from Yahoo Inc if government regulators approve the companies' proposed Internet search partnership, and Yahoo will receive $150 million to cover any unexpected costs during the switch to new technology.
The details emerged in a regulatory filing that elaborated on an agreement announced last week. Sunnyvale-based Yahoo said then that an unspecified number of its 13,000 employees would be offered jobs at Microsoft after the Redmond, Washington-based software maker assumes control of the search results and search advertising on Yahoo's Web site.
The transition is supposed to begin early next year, assuming the alliance is approved by antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe.
Microsoft will pay $50 million annually during the first three years of the 10-year contract to supplement the revenue that Yahoo will receive from the ads appearing alongside its search results. The $150 million in guaranteed payments weren't mentioned last week.
The filing said Yahoo can use the $150 million to pay for unforeseen transition costs. Yahoo's stock has fallen by about 15 per cent since it unveiled the Microsoft deal, largely because announced terms didn't include a large upfront payment.
The disclosure probably won't ease the disappointment much, given analysts had anticipated Microsoft paying $1 billion to $2 billion for access to Yahoo's search engine.
Most of the revenue from the Microsoft deal will flow from ad commissions. Yahoo will receive 88 percent of the search ad revenue during the first five years of the contract. After that, Yahoo's commission will range from 83 percent to 93 percent, depending on whether it still handles some of the ad sales in the partnership.
The main reason Yahoo decided to turn over its search engine to Microsoft was to save money. If Yahoo wants to save even more on technology, it
has the option of adopting Microsoft's online mapping service replace of its own, according to the filing.
Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz has already made it known she isn't impressed with Yahoo's online maps. As it is, transferring 400 workers to Microsoft would prune Yahoo's current payroll by about 3 per cent.
Yahoo will lay off some workers if the Microsoft deal goes through, Bartz said last week. Tuesday's filing didn't provide any layoff projections. Although it also has been jettisoning workers because of the recession, Microsoft finished its latest fiscal year end in June with 93,000 employees -- an increase of about 2,000 people from the previous year.
Microsoft is counting on the Yahoo partnership to help it reverse years of losses in its online operations and siphon some traffic -- and ad sales -- from Internet search leader Google Inc.
Yahoo's search engine is the second largest, making it the quickest way for Microsoft to gain ground on Google. Even so, Microsoft and Yahoo combined have less than 30 percent of the US search market compared to 65 percent for Google, according to comScore Inc.
To keep Yahoo happy, Microsoft will have to produce ad revenue per search that is within a certain percentage of Google's industry-leading rate. If Microsoft doesn't hit the target, Yahoo can abandon the partnership before the contract expires.
The filing didn't specify how close Microsoft has to come to Google's revenue per search. Microsoft estimates that Google gets 7 cents in ad revenue for every search, while Yahoo gets 4.3 cents and Microsoft gets 3.9 cents, according to a PowerPoint slide Microsoft mistakenly posted online.
Agencies
The details emerged in a regulatory filing that elaborated on an agreement announced last week. Sunnyvale-based Yahoo said then that an unspecified number of its 13,000 employees would be offered jobs at Microsoft after the Redmond, Washington-based software maker assumes control of the search results and search advertising on Yahoo's Web site.
The transition is supposed to begin early next year, assuming the alliance is approved by antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe.
Microsoft will pay $50 million annually during the first three years of the 10-year contract to supplement the revenue that Yahoo will receive from the ads appearing alongside its search results. The $150 million in guaranteed payments weren't mentioned last week.
The filing said Yahoo can use the $150 million to pay for unforeseen transition costs. Yahoo's stock has fallen by about 15 per cent since it unveiled the Microsoft deal, largely because announced terms didn't include a large upfront payment.
The disclosure probably won't ease the disappointment much, given analysts had anticipated Microsoft paying $1 billion to $2 billion for access to Yahoo's search engine.
Most of the revenue from the Microsoft deal will flow from ad commissions. Yahoo will receive 88 percent of the search ad revenue during the first five years of the contract. After that, Yahoo's commission will range from 83 percent to 93 percent, depending on whether it still handles some of the ad sales in the partnership.
The main reason Yahoo decided to turn over its search engine to Microsoft was to save money. If Yahoo wants to save even more on technology, it
has the option of adopting Microsoft's online mapping service replace of its own, according to the filing.
Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz has already made it known she isn't impressed with Yahoo's online maps. As it is, transferring 400 workers to Microsoft would prune Yahoo's current payroll by about 3 per cent.
Yahoo will lay off some workers if the Microsoft deal goes through, Bartz said last week. Tuesday's filing didn't provide any layoff projections. Although it also has been jettisoning workers because of the recession, Microsoft finished its latest fiscal year end in June with 93,000 employees -- an increase of about 2,000 people from the previous year.
Microsoft is counting on the Yahoo partnership to help it reverse years of losses in its online operations and siphon some traffic -- and ad sales -- from Internet search leader Google Inc.
Yahoo's search engine is the second largest, making it the quickest way for Microsoft to gain ground on Google. Even so, Microsoft and Yahoo combined have less than 30 percent of the US search market compared to 65 percent for Google, according to comScore Inc.
To keep Yahoo happy, Microsoft will have to produce ad revenue per search that is within a certain percentage of Google's industry-leading rate. If Microsoft doesn't hit the target, Yahoo can abandon the partnership before the contract expires.
The filing didn't specify how close Microsoft has to come to Google's revenue per search. Microsoft estimates that Google gets 7 cents in ad revenue for every search, while Yahoo gets 4.3 cents and Microsoft gets 3.9 cents, according to a PowerPoint slide Microsoft mistakenly posted online.
Agencies
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Has Microsoft's Bing gained marketshare from Google?
Microsoft Corp's Bing search engine won more market share from rivals last week, according to new industry data, but still trails Google Inc and Yahoo Inc considerably.
Challenging market leader Google -- which in turn is looking to break into Microsoft's core software market -- is a long-term project, said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.
"We have had some very good initial response," Ballmer said at a conference in Detroit. "I don't want to over-set expectations. We are going to have to be tenacious and keep up the pace of innovation over a long period of time."
Microsoft grabbed 12.1 percent of U.S. Internet searches for the work week June 8-12, according to data released by industry tracker comScore earlier on Wednesday.
That is up from 11.3 percent in the June 1-5 period -- the week in which Bing was launched -- and up from 9.1 percent the week before that.
For comparison, Google got 65 percent of U.S. searches in May, the last full month for which figures are available, followed by Yahoo with 20.1 percent and Microsoft with 8 percent.
Analysts and investors are keenly awaiting data for all of June to see if Microsoft can hold onto early gains.
Ballmer acknowledged the tough task of beating Google, which he referred to as "a big dog competitor".
The world's largest software company has long been determined to play a major role in the lucrative Web search market after watching upstart Google take a stranglehold.
At the same time, Google is looking to take advantage of its popularity to launch software that competes with Microsoft's, which has created a new source of tension between the two companies.
Microsoft ratcheted up that tension on Wednesday by claiming that Google's new Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook software -- which allows users to share data between their Outlook e-mail and Google's online offerings -- disables a key function in Outlook.
"The installation of the Google Apps Sync plugin disables Outlook's ability to search any and all of your Outlook data," Outlook product manager Dev Balasubramanian wrote on a Microsoft blog. "It is also important to note that uninstalling the plugin may not fix the issue."
The problem, though relatively unimportant to users, represents a crucial struggle between Microsoft and Google for e-mail customers.
Google's new product allows business users to continue using Outlook for email and other tasks, but the back-end functionality and data storage moves to Google, instead of residing on a company's internal servers running Microsoft software.
Google did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Microsoft shares closed up just less than 1 percent at $23.68, while Google's fell 0.2 percent to $415.16, both on Nasdaq.
Agencies
Challenging market leader Google -- which in turn is looking to break into Microsoft's core software market -- is a long-term project, said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.
"We have had some very good initial response," Ballmer said at a conference in Detroit. "I don't want to over-set expectations. We are going to have to be tenacious and keep up the pace of innovation over a long period of time."
Microsoft grabbed 12.1 percent of U.S. Internet searches for the work week June 8-12, according to data released by industry tracker comScore earlier on Wednesday.
That is up from 11.3 percent in the June 1-5 period -- the week in which Bing was launched -- and up from 9.1 percent the week before that.
For comparison, Google got 65 percent of U.S. searches in May, the last full month for which figures are available, followed by Yahoo with 20.1 percent and Microsoft with 8 percent.
Analysts and investors are keenly awaiting data for all of June to see if Microsoft can hold onto early gains.
Ballmer acknowledged the tough task of beating Google, which he referred to as "a big dog competitor".
The world's largest software company has long been determined to play a major role in the lucrative Web search market after watching upstart Google take a stranglehold.
At the same time, Google is looking to take advantage of its popularity to launch software that competes with Microsoft's, which has created a new source of tension between the two companies.
Microsoft ratcheted up that tension on Wednesday by claiming that Google's new Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook software -- which allows users to share data between their Outlook e-mail and Google's online offerings -- disables a key function in Outlook.
"The installation of the Google Apps Sync plugin disables Outlook's ability to search any and all of your Outlook data," Outlook product manager Dev Balasubramanian wrote on a Microsoft blog. "It is also important to note that uninstalling the plugin may not fix the issue."
The problem, though relatively unimportant to users, represents a crucial struggle between Microsoft and Google for e-mail customers.
Google's new product allows business users to continue using Outlook for email and other tasks, but the back-end functionality and data storage moves to Google, instead of residing on a company's internal servers running Microsoft software.
Google did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Microsoft shares closed up just less than 1 percent at $23.68, while Google's fell 0.2 percent to $415.16, both on Nasdaq.
Agencies
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Is India among top 2 emerging markets for Yahoo!
Internet search giant Yahoo! on Sunday said India is one of the 'top emerging markets' and it would release a slew of products over next few months for further consolidating its position in the country.
"India is one of the top two countries in the emerging markets segment and holds a lot of promise for us ... Products developed in the Indian lab and centres abroad are part of the pipeline of innovative products that will help us in the Indian market," Yahoo! Head of Audience (Emerging Markets) Gopal Krishna told media.
He, however, declined to comment on the details of the products. "Innovations around mail, instant messenger and front page (landing page) would be prime focus areas. We would also look at news properties like News, Bollywood and Buzz," he said.
Emerging markets contributes up to 65 per cent to the total users for some of the key global Yahoo! properties and is the fastest growing region from business perspective as well, he added.
One of the leading properties/products is Yahoo! Cricket, which attracted 2.4 million unique users per month emerging as the top cricket site in India, according to Comscore April 2009 data.
In February this year, Yahoo! India had entered into a three-year partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), becoming the exclusive online partner for all ICC events, including ICC World Twenty20, ICC Champions Trophy and ICC Cricket World Cup.
It has also partnered with companies like LG, Pepsi, Maruti, Tata Xenon, Honda, ICICI, Citibank and Cisco for advertising on the microsite. Yahoo! India also has a two-year partnership with Reliance, Krishna said.
Yahoo! India is also focusing on building its mobile business in the country. It is working on developing products, apart from the ones available on web to build its presence on mobile websites.
"We are looking at presenting users with a experience that is different from using Internet on PCs. Apart from the usual things, we are looking at developing applications specific to mobile handsets as well," Krishna said, adding that the mobile segment also presents a good opportunity in terms of advertising.
Worldwide spending on mobile advertising is expected to reach USD 19 billion in 2012, while the APAC market is forecast to touch USD 6.9 billion, according to eMarketer (March 2008).
Agencies
"India is one of the top two countries in the emerging markets segment and holds a lot of promise for us ... Products developed in the Indian lab and centres abroad are part of the pipeline of innovative products that will help us in the Indian market," Yahoo! Head of Audience (Emerging Markets) Gopal Krishna told media.
He, however, declined to comment on the details of the products. "Innovations around mail, instant messenger and front page (landing page) would be prime focus areas. We would also look at news properties like News, Bollywood and Buzz," he said.
Emerging markets contributes up to 65 per cent to the total users for some of the key global Yahoo! properties and is the fastest growing region from business perspective as well, he added.
One of the leading properties/products is Yahoo! Cricket, which attracted 2.4 million unique users per month emerging as the top cricket site in India, according to Comscore April 2009 data.
In February this year, Yahoo! India had entered into a three-year partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), becoming the exclusive online partner for all ICC events, including ICC World Twenty20, ICC Champions Trophy and ICC Cricket World Cup.
It has also partnered with companies like LG, Pepsi, Maruti, Tata Xenon, Honda, ICICI, Citibank and Cisco for advertising on the microsite. Yahoo! India also has a two-year partnership with Reliance, Krishna said.
Yahoo! India is also focusing on building its mobile business in the country. It is working on developing products, apart from the ones available on web to build its presence on mobile websites.
"We are looking at presenting users with a experience that is different from using Internet on PCs. Apart from the usual things, we are looking at developing applications specific to mobile handsets as well," Krishna said, adding that the mobile segment also presents a good opportunity in terms of advertising.
Worldwide spending on mobile advertising is expected to reach USD 19 billion in 2012, while the APAC market is forecast to touch USD 6.9 billion, according to eMarketer (March 2008).
Agencies
Friday, May 29, 2009
Microsoft's Bing to take on Google
Microsoft has unveiled a new search engine named Bing, renewing its efforts to challenge the dominance of Google in the Internet search market.
The company said the new service will begin to roll out over the coming days and will be fully deployed worldwide June 3.
"Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the web and find information, but they don't do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find," Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive officer, said in a statement.
"Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they've found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions," he added.
Microsoft said the Bing service, billed by the company as a Decision Engine, will initially focus on shopping, travel, local business and information, and health-related research - areas in which people want more assistance in making key decisions.
The software giant still has a long way to go to increase its share in the search market.
According to latest analysis by market research firm comScore, in April this year, Google led the US search market with 64.2 per cent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo with 20.4 per cent, with Microsoft a distant third with 8.2 per cent.
CXOtoday
The company said the new service will begin to roll out over the coming days and will be fully deployed worldwide June 3.
"Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the web and find information, but they don't do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find," Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive officer, said in a statement.
"Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they've found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions," he added.
Microsoft said the Bing service, billed by the company as a Decision Engine, will initially focus on shopping, travel, local business and information, and health-related research - areas in which people want more assistance in making key decisions.
The software giant still has a long way to go to increase its share in the search market.
According to latest analysis by market research firm comScore, in April this year, Google led the US search market with 64.2 per cent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo with 20.4 per cent, with Microsoft a distant third with 8.2 per cent.
CXOtoday
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Do Indians lag behind in online social networking?
Internet users in the country may be growing substantially, but when it comes to networking online, India has been placed among the nations with least exposure to social networking sites in the Asia-Pacific region.
The US-based internet marketing research firm comScore in a report has said that only 60.3 per cent of internet users in India are used to social networking sites, making it one of the Asia-Pacific countries with least exposure to the activity.
In terms of the penetration of social networking sites, India is ahead of Japan (50.9 per cent), China (45.6 per cent) and Taiwan (42.4 per cent).
According to the report, Singapore has the highest number of social networking site users at 74.3 per cent in the region, followed by Australia (68.3 per cent), South Korea (68 per cent) and Malaysia (66.6 per cent).
Hong Kong and New Zealand have the same per centage of such users at 62.8 per cent, the report noted.
However, comScore said that the number of visitors to social networking sites has increased by 51 per cent in India.
In India, the number of internet users visiting such sites rose by 51 per cent to 19.37 million in December 2008, the report said. The number of visitors stood at just 12.8 million in December 2007.
Agencies
The US-based internet marketing research firm comScore in a report has said that only 60.3 per cent of internet users in India are used to social networking sites, making it one of the Asia-Pacific countries with least exposure to the activity.
In terms of the penetration of social networking sites, India is ahead of Japan (50.9 per cent), China (45.6 per cent) and Taiwan (42.4 per cent).
According to the report, Singapore has the highest number of social networking site users at 74.3 per cent in the region, followed by Australia (68.3 per cent), South Korea (68 per cent) and Malaysia (66.6 per cent).
Hong Kong and New Zealand have the same per centage of such users at 62.8 per cent, the report noted.
However, comScore said that the number of visitors to social networking sites has increased by 51 per cent in India.
In India, the number of internet users visiting such sites rose by 51 per cent to 19.37 million in December 2008, the report said. The number of visitors stood at just 12.8 million in December 2007.
Agencies
Friday, October 31, 2008
Blogger.com named popular blog platform in UK
ComScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released a study of blog visitation in the U.K. examining the top blog platforms and individual blogs as ranked by total U.K. visitors.
The report mentioned that in August, 14.5 million people in the U.K. visited at least one blog, representing 41 per cent of the total U.K. Internet audience.
"Blogs have become part of the essential fabric of the Internet today," said Herve Le Jouan, managing director, comScore Europe.
Jouan commented, "They live and breathe in real-time, helping quench media consumers' thirst for the most up-to-date breaking news, information, and analysis."
The Blog platforms provide publishing software, enabling bloggers to create and manage their own blogs, which are hosted on the parent site.
Google owned Blogger.com was reported as the most popular blog platform in the U.K. that attracted more than 9 million visitors, followed by WordPress with 4.8 million visitors and Six Apart sites with 2.7 million visitors.
In the individual blog section the gadget blog, Engadget.com was ranked as the top individual blog in August with 243,000 visitors and the Gizmodo.com that was ranked third with 223,000 visitors.
The reality TV blog UnrealityTV.co.uk (225,000 visitors), gamer blog Kotaku.com (210,000 visitors), and community blog Metafilter.com (207,000 visitors) was rounded out as top five.
Using the comScore segment metrix H/M/L service, which provides analysis of online activity by heavy, medium and light users of the Internet and specific site categories, we can gain insight into other interests of blog visitors.
The report stated that 142 per cent are heavy blog users who more likely than the average Internet user and are more often associated with blogging.
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