This section is dedicated to in-depth articles on web technologies, online marketing and all things digital. Feel free to comment on the articles and suggest any other articles you have come across.
Despite the BBC’s recent announcement about cutting back its ventures, the future is looking bright for the North of England’s relationship with the corporation.
MediaCityUK is located at the old docklands in Salford Quays. Image courtesy of Peel Media
The huge media development site in Salford Quays, Manchester, is getting ready to welcome five of BBC’s departments in 2011 – Radio 5Live, Children’s, Sport, Learning, and Future Media & Technology.
Despite consistent predictions to the contrary, the huge success of social media is not showing signs of cooling down.
Statistics from last year showed 82% increased usage of social networking sites. The Nielsen Company report also shows that together with blogs, social networks are the most popular online category ranked by the average time spent online in December 2009.
With its reported 350 million active users, Facebook is the uncrowned king of social media. As global users spend nearly six hours per month on the site, it’s becoming more and more difficult to bypass Facebook as a serious marketing opportunity anymore.
Google’s recent threat to pull out of China has once again provoked debate on an ever-present issue in the online world: the battle between freedom of speech and censorship.
As online ad budgets are growing, marketing experts are putting their heads together to debate how best to exploit the potential of digital marketing to the full.
We took a look at the year gone by to round up the changes, challenges and opportunities for the marketing industry and to get an idea of what 2010 might bring.
In 2009, the industry saw a rapid increase in companies adapting social networking websites to their marketing strategies. Now, after facebooking and tweeting, the next big thing on everyone’s lips is mobile advertising. It still remains a fairly untouched market even though many have predicted that the ‘year of the mobile’ is just around the corner.
OK, so that’s cleared that question up then. Or not. According to John Foley of Information Week, the chief complaint about cloud computing isn’t that it doesn’t exist, but that we’ve been doing it for years. “As that argument goes, ASPs, outsourcing, Web site hosting, and browser-based applications are all forms of cloud computing, so what’s really new here?”
The term has been bandied around for a year or so now and even now, in late 2009, debates still rage on the web as to what it is, what it is not, and whether it’s good or bad. NMM has noticed a flurry of seminars and workshops springing up to talk about Cloud Computing with speakers including the Great and the Good from industry and retail. So what IS it? Well, we’ve borrowed John Foley’s definition here, because it’s pretty good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZtXgvxVsrY
If you have ever been to Japan or Korea there is a good chance that you will have come across people taking photos on their mobile phone of posters or groceries or even phone booths. It’s not hit the UK with any strength yet but this is a sign that QR codes are on their way. They have wide appeal in the Far East and are appearing on everything from CDs to soft drinks cans, biscuits to fashion catalogues. If you’re not already QR-familiar then here’s what you need to know. QR codes are a way of instantly getting information on your mobile about any product or service they see around with a code. Confused??? Look at the video below:
Know your audience
Many marketers now comfortable with social media and the power of online product reviews have also started to lose their timidity about approaching bloggers.
In fact, some women bloggers report marketers may be becoming overeager.
Ketchum, conducting a survey of registrants for July’s annual BlogHer conference—billed as the largest gathering of female bloggers in North America—found that nearly one-half of respondents were contacted by PR professionals weekly. A further 30% got such messages on a daily basis.
Some of that contact, however, appears to be unwanted. Respondents to the Ketchum study indicated that marketers were not doing the necessary research when looking to stir up online word-of-mouth about their products.
The right kind of contact
Blogging has become a major social media marketing phenomenon over the years—so much so that even the US Federal Trade Commission is considering rules for bloggers to follow when working with marketers. Worldwide research from Text 100 shows just how close that relationship has become.
Nearly nine in 10 US bloggers told Text 100 they welcomed contact from PR firms or corporations with information, comments or suggestions. E-mail was bloggers’ preferred means of contact, especially in the US.
eMarketer
Measurement remains a challenge
The social media marketing bandwagon is filling up, according to the “2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report” from Equation Research. The survey of US brand marketers found the majority already using social media.
Some marketers were planning on adding social media activities over the next year, including 15% of respondents in businesses with fewer than 50 employees and 24% of those whose companies had at least 500 workers. But most brand marketers interested in social media were already using it.
A slightly disturbing new trend seems to be happening in the world of interface design, requiring people to move their mouse around to tell what is a link and what is not.
When you start messing around with the basic building block of the web – the hyperlink – trouble is sure to follow.
Two recently redesigned websites – the LA Times and National Public Radio (NPR) – are featuring a new clean style on their pages that seems to be emulating the visual style of an actual newspaper. All the text in black and white, with no underlining or different colour text for hyperlinks.
new media monthly is proudly powered by
WordPress
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).