Google, Microsoft and Ebay tops in January

source: comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released its January rankings of the largest and fastest-growing Internet properties and site categories in the U.K. based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service. The month saw increases to travel, career, tax, and real estate sites as U.K. Internet users took stock of the past year and made plans for 2008.

Top 25 Properties for January 2008

*Ranking based on the top 100 U.K. properties in January 2008.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
*** Beginning with January 2008 comScore data, Time Warner Network has now been divided into AOL LLC, which includes all AOL related entities, and Time Warner - Excluding AOL

Google has updated their popular FREE Analytics service

Haven’t heard yet?  Google has finally made substantive changes to the Urchin software they bought in March 2005.  Can you believe it took the mighty Google nearly 3 years to make substantive upgrades to a product that although popular for being free was easily falling so far behind that paying for Analytics was becoming a real consideration for us small websites.

I just recently found out and it does look promising as word on the street is that pages are loading faster.  Most users have never realised that the Analytics code placed on their web pages using JavaScript (Google Analytics) rather than server-side can slow down how fast their pages load.

For most this is not a big issue but it can be depending on how the JavaScript (JS) is implemented, as I have seen sites that were so ‘modular’ by design that they actually loaded the JS several times turing a site that may be as quick as a Porsche into a VW Beetle.

Anyway I digress as I don’t want to get too techie.

Google Analytics (GA)  is again worth a strong look and not because free but because they are reviving its feature set and it is again a serious contender at the bottom of the market.

• As stated it is a faster service but that could be just new servers running the new version of GA.
• Has new languages which should be awesome for GA and I guess everyone in those countries but really I think reflects Google’s tardiness in releasing regular updates that reflect a linguistically diversified Internet
• And my personal favourite e-commerce.  That is what Google calls it but I call it eRecruitment.  Many many companies are getting aggressive in their recruitment technology and advertising online and some of the e-commerce functionality should come in handy here.

If you want to read more about the ‘new’ GA then check out this list of resources (the top one is Google’s own site for official information)

• Google Analytics Blog - Homepage & related article
• Analytics Talk - GA.JS: New Google Analytics Tracking Code
• Niall Kennedy - Upgrade your Google Analytics tracker
• Occam’s Razor (Written by a Google Employee) - GA is Re-launched:Do these 5 things first
• ProBlogger - Google Analytics Gets an Upgrade

I will be covering Google for the next two weeks so be prepared to have everything Google Analytics (GA) thrown at you.  Most of the articles will be for those on the rookie to intermediate side of the knowledge spectrum so you ‘hard-core’ guys don’t get your hopes up, but hop in when I make errors or to add your own tips.

UK Predictions for Online Marketing by eMarketer

eMarketer: UK online ad spending will pass £3 billion ($6 billion), and will show healthy growth despite financial and political uncertainties in Britain. This will be the first major wobble in confidence to occur since the UK became a mature wired economy.  

In the UK, pensioners say they would rather surf the Web than garden. Online seniors constitute an expanding and generally affluent market for certain goods and services, including travel and financial products

Top UK Web Rankings for December

comScore released its December rankings of the largest and fastest-growing Internet properties and site categories in the U.K. based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service.

For the first time, Facebook broke into the top 10 web properties for the UK.

ASK.com UK Hires Former Google Exec

According to various reports, ASK.com has hired former Google executive Cesar Mascaraque as its new European managing director.  Scheduled to begin this past week, Mascaraque said in a statement that Ask.com is the fastest growing search engine and that it is “an exciting time to join”.

Mascaraque will run European operations for Ask.com, having previously held the position of head of strategic partnerships and business development for southern Europe at Google.

About Ask.com

Ask.com is a leading search engine, combining world-class search technology with one-of-a-kind search tools to help people get what they are looking for faster. Ask.com is a division of IAC Search & Media, a wholly-owned business of IAC.
Ask.com re-launched in June, now offering a richer search experience. Bringing together information from the best range of sources available, yield results in from – the web, music, news, video, reference, image and blog content.

Lyris Launches in UK

Email marketing specialist Lyris UK (http://www.lyris.co.uk/) is launching Lyris HQ, a unique new integrated online marketing tool. The move follows the successful rollout of the product in the US at the end of 2007 by parent company Lyris Inc. (http://www.lyris.com/).

Lyris HQ is the only truly integrated online marketing tool on the market today, with every technology component being owned and developed by Lyris. It simplifies the increasingly complex world of online marketing, bringing several disciplines under one platform to enable users to deliver more sophisticated, co-ordinated and cost-effective digital campaigns.

Email marketing and monitoring, web analytics, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising management and web content management are the key components of Lyris HQ, and Lyris is continually developing deeper integration between each feature. For example, users can track customers’ behaviour as they click from an email to the related website, as well as their activity on specific web pages and reaction to PPC offerings. Results are delivered via in-depth reports in realtime that enable marketers to understand how well each element of a campaign works and make adjustments accordingly.

Additional features of Lyris HQ include a calendar to show every online campaign and a messaging tool. Marketers can plan their own initiatives and collaborate on others with the benefit of 360 degree visibility of marketing activity across the organisation.

Digital marketing agencies will also benefit from Lyris HQ as they will no longer need to work with disparate suppliers whose products are not directly linked. Instead they can harness Lyris HQ to implement and tailor integrated campaigns for their clients, which will deliver more value at less cost and therefore improve margins.

About Lyris, Inc.
Lyris, Inc., (OTCBB:LYRI.OB), formerly J.L. Halsey, is a leading marketing technology company that provides hosted and installed software solutions for marketers at mid-size businesses.  Lyris UK will demonstrate Lyris HQ at Stand H12 at Technology for Marketing and Advertising 2008 at Earls Court, London on the 12th and 13th of February.

Casio Implements Omniture for UK Growth Strategy

Omniture, Inc. (NASDAQ: OMTR), today announced it has been chosen by Casio, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of consumer electronics products and business equipment solutions, as a foundation for the company’s online operations and to help drive its expansion in the UK. Casio is using Omniture SiteCatalyst® for Web analytics on its http://www.casio.co.uk/ and www.casio-online.co.uk Web sites. It is also using Omniture SiteCatalyst on its digital watches product Web site, www.g-shock.co.uk, and its digital camera site, www.exilim.co.uk.
 
Casio considers its Web operation integral to its future growth in the UK. The company has a corporate and an e-commerce Web site, and will soon be launching an online community portal. In order to measure the effectiveness of its Web sites, Casio will use Omniture SiteCatalyst to measure customer behaviour online.
 
“In the last three or four years, Casio has invested a lot of resources in its online activities which have become increasingly important in terms of the company’s expansion,” said Tim Gould, UK marketing manager, Casio. “We want to offer our customers choice. The Casio corporate and product sites allow customers to find out more about our products and what outlets stock them; the e-commerce site allows them to buy from us direct; while the community site will allow us to interact with our customers on a more personal level.” 

UK site analysis influences product distribution

“Being able to track and measure customer buying patterns allows us to make informed business decisions,” says Gould. “SiteCatalyst data provides such a high level of insight into consumer trends and preferences that it will have a significant influence on what products we’ll choose to ship from Tokyo and distribute in the UK.”
 
Omniture SiteCatalyst has been chosen by Casio because it generates data that is not only very detailed, but also presented in a manner that is easy to understand. “We compared three or four leading Web analytics platforms and it was clear that SiteCatalyst provided the highest visibility,” said Gould. “We’ll be able to see exactly what is happening on our sites – how and where visitors arrive at the site; which are the most and least popular pages; exactly what part of the page users are clicking on; and where and why visitors drop off the site, for example. Essentially, whenever changes or trends emerge or change, we’ll be able to see them and respond immediately.”

Google Finance UK Live!

The Google Blog reports that Google Finance UK is open to the public.  Some of the highlights from Google Finance UK include:

• Search with a preference for UK companies and mutual funds.
• Google News integration – With a preference for news from British sources. The news is organized in groups by news topic, rather than listed by date, so you won’t have to scroll through multiple headlines for the same news story.
• Interactive Charts – Map market data with corresponding news stories in a single interactive chart, so you can track news to stock performance. You can also click and drag on the charts to see different time periods, and zoom in for more detailed information.
• Front page market summary with FTSE indices and British pound exchange rates.
• Blogs – Incorporates blog postings for related company information from Google Blog Search.
• Discussion Groups – High quality discussion forums are part of the service. We have a team of folks dedicated to keeping the conversation experience free of spam and irrelevant posts.
• Portfolios – A fast and easy way for you to create and track portfolios of stocks and mutual funds in the currency of your choice.

Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/google-finance-uk-open-for-business.html

Using QDOS to Find Your Digital Status

QDOS (pronounced like Quodos) is currently being beta tested in the UK. For those not familiar, QDOS is a new way to manage your digital status and manage how you look online. It’s designed to give you a starting point for managing and taking control of your online status. Be seen how you want to be seen. Welcome to QDOS. It can be a great tool for online reputation management. According to QDOS, “…Recent research has shown that more and more Brits are making decisions based on digital status*. Already 16% have chosen their new home based on how their prospective neighbours appear online. 1 in 5 (20%) have researched a prospective boss online before accepting a job and 32% have searched online to find out more about trades people and professionals, from plumbers to lawyers, before hiring them to do a job…”

The name QDOS was derived it from the word ‘kudos’, meaning ‘glory, fame or renown’. Your QDOS is calculated based on analysis of tens of millions of records as well as searching the web itself to calculate your QDOS. The more you point QDOS to your online information, the more accurate your QDOS score will become.

At the heart of QDOS is a powerful mathematical representation called an eigenvector which is used to calculate everyone’s score for each of four dimensions - popularity, impact, activity and individuality. QDOS is powered by Garlik.

Visit QDOS to check the status of popular footballers, actors and celebrities as well as yourself. Here’s a brief video to check out QDOS for yourself.

Strong Christmas Season for UK and France

 comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR),  released its final study of the online shopping activity of U.K., French and German consumers during the 2007 Christmas season. This study tracked the number of visits to online retail sites each week for the complete period between October 29 and December 23, using data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service.

Online Shopping Activity Peaks in First Two Weeks of December

In the U.K. and France, online shopping activity built steadily throughout the season, peaking during the first half of December. The sixth week of the season (Dec. 3 – Dec. 9) recorded the highest level of online shopping activity, up 38 percent versus the base period (Sep. 3 – Oct. 28) in the U.K., and up 45 percent in France. Week 7 (Dec. 10 – Dec. 16) was the second busiest period of online shopping activity, up 35 percent in the U.K. and 39 percent in France.   Germany’s online shopping season built more slowly, achieving peak traffic that was only12 percent higher in the seventh week (Dec 10 – Dec 16) than in the base period. The high point occurred a week later in Germany than in the U.K. and France. The slow season in Germany appears to be the result of low consumer confidence and the rail strikes that brought the country to a stand still early in season.  
 

*Point index represents the percentage change in the number of visits to online retail sites compared to the pre-Christmas season base period average,  defined as the average weekly visits to online retail sites excluding auction sites for the period Sep 3 – Oct 28  **Total U.K.., French & German Internet Audiences, Age 15+, Home & Work Locations. Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs ***Defined as the average weekly visits to online retail sites excluding auction sites for the period Sep 3 – Oct 28   

U.K. Online Retail Traffic Leaders

Throughout the Christmas shopping season, visits in the U.K. to online retail sites were led by Amazon Sites, which attracted a 9-percent share of total online retail category visits for the period. Apple Inc., which also has high-street stores in the U.K., had a 6-percent share, while the Home Retail Group, owner of multi-channel retailers Argos and Homebase, had a 5-percent share. Supermarket chain Tesco and online pure-play retail property Play.com Sites rounded out the top five with 4 percent and 3 percent shares, respectively.  
 

*Average share of total visits to online retail sites (excluding auction sites)  by U.K. visitors for the period Oct 29 – Dec 23 ** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs