Web 2.0 gains momentum in Europe, with companies looking for new ways to stay productive
LONDON – 26 May, 2009 – The year 2008 and economic downturn have changed the way companies are going about their daily business. In response to the current recession in Europe, businesses are seeking new ways to stay productive while significantly cutting costs with the help of Web 2.0 solutions. From lower-cost versions of enterprise applications, to utilising cloud computing, ‘crowd sourcing’ business owners are taking advantage of what Web 2.0 has to offer.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.conferencing.frost.com), Web 2.0 Technologies in the Recession-hit Europe as a Solution for Small and Medium Businesses, finds that Web 2.0 will supplement both Web and Audio-web markets that were valued at $190 million in Europe in 2008 and are likely to grow to $860 million by the end of 2014.
“Web 2.0 solutions may be part of the cure for the recessionary headache that many European businesses are now experiencing; social networking sites, wikis, and blogs are just some of the more well-known examples of Web 2.0 technologies that can play an important role here,” observes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Iwona Petruczynik. “These solutions are becoming more prevalent in the European small and medium businesses (SMBs) arena, especially at a time like this, when workers are being forced to do more with less.”
There has been an increase in the usage of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 solutions like Blogger and WordPress. Until recently, they were primarily associated with consumer applications; however, currently, they are finding usage in more professional areas.
“As an interesting side note, social networking sites are gaining popularity in unexpected places, for instance, the world’s most popular online virtual reality, Second Life, was used by Sweden to open their ‘embassy’ in the virtual world to promote Sweden’s culture and image,” remarks Petruczynik. “In addition, Second Life is used in the Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration, where the Ministry has a room, which a person can visit to find out what the Ministry is doing and even ask the Minister questions.”
However, experts are unable to agree on one definition of Web 2.0 and this becomes a challenge in defining its market size. Yet, it is unlikely that Web 2.0 will become a stand-alone market, as it is a set of technologies and ideas driving the development of existing products and services. The full potential influence of Web 2.0 is only now playing out, as the concepts and technologies are finding their use in manufacturing, customer service, product development and sales.
Innovative modes of interaction among workers, enabled by Web 2.0, contribute to company cohesion and employee retention. Telecommuting staff too can collaborate with each other speedily and effortlessly, outside of the formal e-mail stream.
Despite the evident advantages, some businesses are apprehensive about fully embracing Web 2.0 tools. The popularity of companies’ in-house intranet and concerns about security and confidential information leaks are just a few examples of the restraints faced by the European Web 2.0 market. Moreover, a culture of ‘busyness’ retards the adoption of Web 2.0. If employees are not seen working all the time, they are assumed to be inefficient and unprofessional, when, in fact, they could be conducting their business through utilising solutions such as blogs or social networking sites, like Twitter or LinkedIn. In addition, Europe tends to be more conservative in accepting new solutions. Therefore, the adoption rate of Web 2.0 in Europe is lower than that in the United States.
“In Europe, there is a common misconception that a true deliverable is measured in how many kilograms of paper one produces and hands over to a client,” explains Petruczynik. “This belief is hindering the adoption of Web 2.0 solutions, as more end products are being delivered in the form of a wiki or a blog.”
Moreover, the security concerns that many chief information officers (CIOs) face are equally important. Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), a programming technique used by Web 2.0 programmers, poses security risks that in the worst-case scenario include uploading malicious codes onto someone’s computer or hijacking an account.
According to the European Commission, small and medium businesses (SMBs) constitute 99.0 per cent of all enterprises in Europe and provide almost 75.0 million jobs. With such significant market potential, Web 2.0 vendors should not have problems with deploying their solutions in the SMB sector.
“The best practice for those employing Web 2.0 solutions include creating and implementing clear and easy policies, describing how to use social media to avoid security risks, and leaks of confidential information, adapting their corporate culture to promote openness and collaboration, and educating employees on how to use Web 2.0 tools to become more productive and efficient,” concludes Petruczynik. “On the other hand, Web 2.0 vendors should help in creating supportive policies, providing seamless integration with existing advanced corporate communication tools, and offering a variety of ‘a la carte’ Web 2.0 technologies.”
If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides a brief synopsis of the research and a table of contents, then send an e-mail to Joanna Lewandowska, Corporate Communications, at joanna.lewandowska@frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country. Upon receipt of the above information, a brochure will be sent to you by e-mail.
Web 2.0 Technologies in the Recession-hit Europe as a Solution for Small and Medium Businesses is part of the Conferencing & Collaboration Growth Partnership Services programme, which also includes research in the following markets: web conferencing, audio conferencing, video conferencing, telepresence, unified communications and collaboration market. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 35 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.
Web 2.0 Technologies in the Recession-hit Europe as a Solution for Small and Medium Businesses
Joanna Lewandowska
frost.com
Showing posts with label Globalisation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Globalisation. Show all posts
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Gasta Advertisng slots model: increases in popularity
Leading economists are calling the current economic meltdown the worst crisis in history, and are stressing the need for a new and more responsible capitalism. This is notable, but by no means new. As far back as 1848, Karl Marx theorized that unconstrained capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction, the dialectic of capitalism.
Marx argued that there was an inherent conflict between the base of capitalism and its superstructure. The economic base of capitalism was industrial production. The superstructure was the system of private property, under which people owning the technical apparatus received the lion's share of the returns. The two were mutually incompatible with each other.
Why?
According to Marx, the base (industrial production) relies on community members working together in an organized and interdependent manner. On the other hand, the superstructure (private property) was highly individualistic. A complex capitalistic society would need rigid structure and direction, but capitalists themselves would seek out a ruinous freedom.
There are important lessons for online advertising professionals here. There are a variety of pricing models available today, and it is important to examine the dialectic within each of them to see which of them would prompt a race to the bottom, and which would result in a steady state.
To be more specific, this argument especially applies to the rapid growth of the cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model that is ascendant in the marketplace today. According to eMarketer, search engine marketing accounted for as much as 40 percent of the internet advertising spend in 2008.
The CPC pricing model has moved from strength to strength since the last recession in 2000-2002. As you might recall, even as online advertising declined by 27 percent, CPC advertising grew by a staggering 820 percent.
The shift was primarily driven by the fact that CPC advertising allowed advertisers to pay for clicks and not for wasted impressions. Advertisers warmed up to the offerings of Google and other search engines, and since then, the growth of CPC advertising has continued unabated.
However, like the example of unconstrained capitalism referenced earlier, CPC advertising cannot maintain its growth in its current state. It contains within it factors that run counter to its promise of increased returns and measurability of online advertising, which in turn will cause it to slow down, and in the long term give way to other pricing models.
These factors include:
Increasing costs of keywords
You might have heard of Jama, the Portland-based software company that moved money away from search engine marketing toward charitable contributions to see if the resulting publicity could generate business in a more affordable way. Jama is not alone in worrying about the rising cost of keywords. If you are a search marketer, you probably have worried about your marketing ROI.
A 2007 DoubleClick Performics Search Trends Report shows that there were nearly six times as many keywords with a cost-per-click of more than $1 in January 2007 than the prior year. The cost-per-keyword increased by 33 percent and the cost-per-click rose by as much as 55 percent.
That, to say the least, is a lot.
Increasing click fraud rate
In the third quarter of 2008, the Click Fraud report maintained by Click Forensics showed a 16 percent industry click fraud rate. The report said that average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks (e.g., Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network) was as high as 27.1 percent.
With sophisticated technologies like botnets used to perpetrate click fraud on the rise, advertisers could very well end up paying for fraudulent clicks, which in a bad economy is more than wasteful -- it is criminal.
Lack of transparency
Search engines commonly deploy algorithms to determine the cost-per-click and the position of the advertisements. Yahoo, Ask.com, and Google have their own algorithms to determine the amount marketers will have to pay for a given advertisement.
The problem is that there is little to no transparency in the algorithm. It is difficult for marketers to determine how landing page quality, the quality of the ad copy, and variations on the bid price work together to determine the exact position and price of the search advertisement.
There is yet another element that contributes to the lack of transparency.
Often, it is difficult for the online marketer to know exactly where the click is coming from. Search networks often encompass a large number of sites beyond the primary entity. Many search engines don't divulge the member sites of their "content network."
The lack of transparency can ultimately be an inhibiting factor in increasing return on investment.
Difficult to tie campaign to business metrics
Metrics such as clicks, click-through rates, and cost-per-clicks are far removed from actual business metrics like acquisitions and sales. As a result, many marketers are unable to correlate the two, and optimize campaigns in an effective manner that will help them drive revenue.
According to the "2007 Marketing ROI and Measurements Study" from Lenskold Group and Marketing Profs, only 9 percent of marketers say their ability to measure the financial returns across all forms of marketing is "a real source of leadership" or "as good as it needs to be."
A McKinsey report, "How poor metrics undermine digital marketing," written after a survey of 340 senior executives around the country, sums it up aptly: Hobbled by nascent technologies, inconsistent metrics, and a reliance on outdated media models, marketers are failing to tap the digital world's full power.
To prevent a race to the bottom, the online advertising industry will have to ring in important changes that will address the shortcomings of CPC campaigns as they exist today.
1. Change in pricing models: If the last recession saw the industry move from a CPM to a CPC pricing model, the current recession will see the logical progression towards the cost-per-lead (CPL) pricing model. A move to CPL advertising will solve the problems resulting from expensive keywords and high click fraud rates.
"The industry is moving towards CPL advertising," says Daniel Taylor, senior analyst in Yankee Group's Consumer Research group. "The CPC pricing model is a placeholder for CPL," he says. "Advertisers only want to pay for very specific consumer interactions, and not for wasted clicks or impressions."
2. Improved transparency: Be it for display advertising, search advertising, or online lead generation, there will have to be a move toward greater transparency. Stretched for dollars, advertisers will want to optimize their campaigns to the greatest extent possible, and transparency helps them identify better performing placements accurately.
3. Improved customer relationship management (CRM): Marketers will also have to focus to a greater extent on the campaign backend to ensure that their marketing campaigns convert into tangible returns and revenue.
Email service providers and other CRM solutions will reap the benefits of this holistic marketing approach. According to Datamonitor, the CRM industry is forecast to reach $6.6 billon by year-end 2012, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 10.5 percent.
Bad times bring about change -- that in turn lead to good times. The movement toward CPL advertising, improved transparency, and a greater focus on CRM are important ones will help online advertising deliver on its promise and hopefully prevent it from sowing the seeds of its own demise.
Zephrin Lasker is co-founder and CEO of Pontiflex.
Marx argued that there was an inherent conflict between the base of capitalism and its superstructure. The economic base of capitalism was industrial production. The superstructure was the system of private property, under which people owning the technical apparatus received the lion's share of the returns. The two were mutually incompatible with each other.
Why?
According to Marx, the base (industrial production) relies on community members working together in an organized and interdependent manner. On the other hand, the superstructure (private property) was highly individualistic. A complex capitalistic society would need rigid structure and direction, but capitalists themselves would seek out a ruinous freedom.
There are important lessons for online advertising professionals here. There are a variety of pricing models available today, and it is important to examine the dialectic within each of them to see which of them would prompt a race to the bottom, and which would result in a steady state.
To be more specific, this argument especially applies to the rapid growth of the cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model that is ascendant in the marketplace today. According to eMarketer, search engine marketing accounted for as much as 40 percent of the internet advertising spend in 2008.
The CPC pricing model has moved from strength to strength since the last recession in 2000-2002. As you might recall, even as online advertising declined by 27 percent, CPC advertising grew by a staggering 820 percent.
The shift was primarily driven by the fact that CPC advertising allowed advertisers to pay for clicks and not for wasted impressions. Advertisers warmed up to the offerings of Google and other search engines, and since then, the growth of CPC advertising has continued unabated.
However, like the example of unconstrained capitalism referenced earlier, CPC advertising cannot maintain its growth in its current state. It contains within it factors that run counter to its promise of increased returns and measurability of online advertising, which in turn will cause it to slow down, and in the long term give way to other pricing models.
These factors include:
Increasing costs of keywords
You might have heard of Jama, the Portland-based software company that moved money away from search engine marketing toward charitable contributions to see if the resulting publicity could generate business in a more affordable way. Jama is not alone in worrying about the rising cost of keywords. If you are a search marketer, you probably have worried about your marketing ROI.
A 2007 DoubleClick Performics Search Trends Report shows that there were nearly six times as many keywords with a cost-per-click of more than $1 in January 2007 than the prior year. The cost-per-keyword increased by 33 percent and the cost-per-click rose by as much as 55 percent.
That, to say the least, is a lot.
Increasing click fraud rate
In the third quarter of 2008, the Click Fraud report maintained by Click Forensics showed a 16 percent industry click fraud rate. The report said that average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks (e.g., Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network) was as high as 27.1 percent.
With sophisticated technologies like botnets used to perpetrate click fraud on the rise, advertisers could very well end up paying for fraudulent clicks, which in a bad economy is more than wasteful -- it is criminal.
Lack of transparency
Search engines commonly deploy algorithms to determine the cost-per-click and the position of the advertisements. Yahoo, Ask.com, and Google have their own algorithms to determine the amount marketers will have to pay for a given advertisement.
The problem is that there is little to no transparency in the algorithm. It is difficult for marketers to determine how landing page quality, the quality of the ad copy, and variations on the bid price work together to determine the exact position and price of the search advertisement.
There is yet another element that contributes to the lack of transparency.
Often, it is difficult for the online marketer to know exactly where the click is coming from. Search networks often encompass a large number of sites beyond the primary entity. Many search engines don't divulge the member sites of their "content network."
The lack of transparency can ultimately be an inhibiting factor in increasing return on investment.
Difficult to tie campaign to business metrics
Metrics such as clicks, click-through rates, and cost-per-clicks are far removed from actual business metrics like acquisitions and sales. As a result, many marketers are unable to correlate the two, and optimize campaigns in an effective manner that will help them drive revenue.
According to the "2007 Marketing ROI and Measurements Study" from Lenskold Group and Marketing Profs, only 9 percent of marketers say their ability to measure the financial returns across all forms of marketing is "a real source of leadership" or "as good as it needs to be."
A McKinsey report, "How poor metrics undermine digital marketing," written after a survey of 340 senior executives around the country, sums it up aptly: Hobbled by nascent technologies, inconsistent metrics, and a reliance on outdated media models, marketers are failing to tap the digital world's full power.
To prevent a race to the bottom, the online advertising industry will have to ring in important changes that will address the shortcomings of CPC campaigns as they exist today.
1. Change in pricing models: If the last recession saw the industry move from a CPM to a CPC pricing model, the current recession will see the logical progression towards the cost-per-lead (CPL) pricing model. A move to CPL advertising will solve the problems resulting from expensive keywords and high click fraud rates.
"The industry is moving towards CPL advertising," says Daniel Taylor, senior analyst in Yankee Group's Consumer Research group. "The CPC pricing model is a placeholder for CPL," he says. "Advertisers only want to pay for very specific consumer interactions, and not for wasted clicks or impressions."
2. Improved transparency: Be it for display advertising, search advertising, or online lead generation, there will have to be a move toward greater transparency. Stretched for dollars, advertisers will want to optimize their campaigns to the greatest extent possible, and transparency helps them identify better performing placements accurately.
3. Improved customer relationship management (CRM): Marketers will also have to focus to a greater extent on the campaign backend to ensure that their marketing campaigns convert into tangible returns and revenue.
Email service providers and other CRM solutions will reap the benefits of this holistic marketing approach. According to Datamonitor, the CRM industry is forecast to reach $6.6 billon by year-end 2012, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 10.5 percent.
Bad times bring about change -- that in turn lead to good times. The movement toward CPL advertising, improved transparency, and a greater focus on CRM are important ones will help online advertising deliver on its promise and hopefully prevent it from sowing the seeds of its own demise.
Zephrin Lasker is co-founder and CEO of Pontiflex.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Gasta:Google Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity
Google Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity
Google index of gasta search network shows how effectively Gasta has maximised its global reach. Surprisingly on Google rankings Gasta Ireland lags behind some of the newer domains, while Gasta China, and Gasta India outperform even the UK Engine.
Google Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity
14,300 Gasta China
4,590 Gasta International
2,990 Gasta Japan
1,330 Gasta Europe
1,420 Gotagshare
1,420 Gotagspot
1,220 Gasta India
736 Gasta UK
397 Europasearch
395 Gasta Austria
363 Gasta TV
275 Gasta France
272 Baroneracing
263 Surfni
241 Gasta Germany
171 Gasta USA
232 Gasta Money
156 Gasta Spain
112 Gasta Ireland
101 Gasta Travel
19 Gasta South Africa
Yahoo Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity
(4,330) | Inlinks (426) Gasta International
1,764) | Inlinks (258) Gasta UK
1,458) | Inlinks (116) Gasta Ireland
(868) | Inlinks (51) Gasta USA
(806) | Inlinks Baroneracing
(530) | Inlinks (55) Gasta Europe
(410) | Inlinks (51) Gasta Austria
(359) | Inlinks (50) Gasta India
(312) | Inlinks (51) Gasta China
(261) | Inlinks (49) Gasta France
(247) | Inlinks (51) Europasearch
(243) | Inlinks (52) Surfni
(240) | Inlinks (51) Gasta Japan
(225) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Spain
(208) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Travel
(207) | Inlinks (51) Gasta TV
(110) | Inlinks (48) Gasta Germany
(101) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Money
(5) | Inlinks (45) Gasta South Africa
3) | Inlinks (41) Gotagshare
(5) | Inlinks (45) Gotagspot
(2) | Inlinks (9) Gasta Italy
Google index of gasta search network shows how effectively Gasta has maximised its global reach. Surprisingly on Google rankings Gasta Ireland lags behind some of the newer domains, while Gasta China, and Gasta India outperform even the UK Engine.
Google Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity
14,300 Gasta China
4,590 Gasta International
2,990 Gasta Japan
1,330 Gasta Europe
1,420 Gotagshare
1,420 Gotagspot
1,220 Gasta India
736 Gasta UK
397 Europasearch
395 Gasta Austria
363 Gasta TV
275 Gasta France
272 Baroneracing
263 Surfni
241 Gasta Germany
171 Gasta USA
232 Gasta Money
156 Gasta Spain
112 Gasta Ireland
101 Gasta Travel
19 Gasta South Africa
Yahoo Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity
(4,330) | Inlinks (426) Gasta International
1,764) | Inlinks (258) Gasta UK
1,458) | Inlinks (116) Gasta Ireland
(868) | Inlinks (51) Gasta USA
(806) | Inlinks Baroneracing
(530) | Inlinks (55) Gasta Europe
(410) | Inlinks (51) Gasta Austria
(359) | Inlinks (50) Gasta India
(312) | Inlinks (51) Gasta China
(261) | Inlinks (49) Gasta France
(247) | Inlinks (51) Europasearch
(243) | Inlinks (52) Surfni
(240) | Inlinks (51) Gasta Japan
(225) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Spain
(208) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Travel
(207) | Inlinks (51) Gasta TV
(110) | Inlinks (48) Gasta Germany
(101) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Money
(5) | Inlinks (45) Gasta South Africa
3) | Inlinks (41) Gotagshare
(5) | Inlinks (45) Gotagspot
(2) | Inlinks (9) Gasta Italy
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Gasta News: Playboy advances its digital turn
Playboy's latest 10K filing offers some new evidence for a claim the company has been making in recent weeks—that it is throwing more resources into the digital side. Offering some data that didn't come out in its fourth-quarter earnings reports or in the company's earnings call, Playboy (NYSE: PLA) (NYSE:PLA) said it increased production costs for exclusive online/mobile programming by 25 percent in 2008, to $7 million. Online/mobile production costs now account for 14 percent of total production costs, up from 9 percent in 2007. Much of the spending was on “webisodes,” typically are three- to five-minute clips, like Interns, a series rolled out at the end of last year about the lives of three college interns at Playboy's New York City offices. The series was sponsored by Audi's Quattro and included content sharing on Quattro sites as as well product placement.
Playboy has struggled with its online identity, and has chosen to stick with its “gentlemanly” brand of adult entertainment as a growing number of hard-core and amateur porn sites pop up. The company's online revenue declined 24 percent last year to $15.6 million.
Playboy has struggled with its online identity, and has chosen to stick with its “gentlemanly” brand of adult entertainment as a growing number of hard-core and amateur porn sites pop up. The company's online revenue declined 24 percent last year to $15.6 million.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Gasta News: Brand turf war
Paid Search:Low intensity warfare on Google plains
Agencies aren't practicing what they preach when it comes to using paid search to market their brands, according to Adweek, and while these agencies are sleeping, some of their smaller competitors are using paid search to their advantage.
Buying your brand name would seem logical, but of the 56 agencies assessed by Adweek, only five had sponsored links tied to their names on Google. The others did not have paid search links, but their web pages generally appeared near the top of the search results.
"It's very difficult to recommend certain things to your clients if you're not in the game yourself," said Craig Conrad or Interpublic Group's Campbell-Ewald. "So often we're focused on our client business [that] sometimes it's easy to forget about our own brand."
While brand advertisers are up in arms over Google's lack of enforcement when it comes to piggybacking, it seems that some smaller agencies are actually using the practice themselves. A search for OgilvyInteractive yields a sponsored link for Stein Rogan + Partners, a small New York agency.
"Why not put ourselves out there as a viable alternative?" said Tom Stein, Stein Rogan's CEO. "It's a little bit of counter-marketing."
Friday, February 01, 2008
Gasta search convergence
The Register reports that
The software giant said it would pay 19 Norwegian kroner a share for the Oslo-based firm, which represents a 42 per cent premium to the closing share price on 4 January, the day before
Fast's board of directors and nearly half of its shareholders have already voted in favour of the buy-out and urged its remaining shareholders to accept
In recent months
The Fast deal, which should be completed in the second quarter of 2008 subject to the usual regulatory approvals, will give the firm tailored internet search functions for corporate customers that include the likes of United Parcel Services and Deutsche Telekom AG.
Publicly-listed Fast said it welcomed the arrival of the Bill Gates jamboree, perhaps unsurprising given that in its last set of results the firm reported a third-quarter loss of $100m.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Gasta , Fidel Castro "Globalisation:the new atomic bomb"
In an interview with The New Yorker magazine in 1999 Fidel Castro said that "Globalisation was the new atomic bomb" we here at Gasta HQ had a debate at the time about what that he could mean, we thought it might be a statement about the enviroment or an isolationist nightmare, but what is now apparent is that Fidel Castro was talking about the big bang of communication. Information is now spread so fast across the globe that a blip on the economic markets in Asia/Europe or one of the other 'emerging markets', can cause a nerve jangling pulse in the market worldwide, everybody is watching everything! We in Belfast are famous for our corner boy politics, now we have our corner boy economists and doomsayers! The recent credit cruch is a typical example of the 'rush to fear'; financial journalists and the media as a whole have been quick to deny any cause and effect of their reports, but every force has an opposite and althought the media may not have meant to start a run on the Northern Rock, they did! Is this the new atomic bomb that Castro predicated? Can modern communication cause widespread panic and fear at such a fast pace that the shockwave hits us all at once?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
