Gasta News:Microsoft’s Ballmer Seeks More Web-Search Agreements

Microsoft Corp. will aim to strike more agreements for its Web-search software to be included on computers and mobile phones, even though the deals may not always make money, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said.
“It might still be a good marketing investment for us to make,” Ballmer said today in an interview in New York. The deals may not make “economic sense” at the outset, he said.
Microsoft, Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. form partnerships to make their search engines the default setting on computers and mobile phones to attract new users. Google can pay more for the deals without losing money, Ballmer said.
Google, the most-popular search engine, gets an estimated 9.5 cents to 10 cents on average in ad sales from each search, while Microsoft and Yahoo get 4 cents to 5 cents, Ballmer said. That means Google can give its partners 8 cents from each search, while Microsoft may have to lose money, he said.
“Google can bid them to a point where we are not economical,” said Ballmer, 52. Microsoft will probably do a “bit of investment” in those agreements as existing partnerships that companies have with Google and Yahoo expire, he said.
Microsoft handled about 8 percent of search queries in the U.S. in February, compared with Google’s 63 percent and Yahoo’s 21 percent, according to researcher ComScore Inc. Outside the U.S., Microsoft’s market share is even smaller.
Dell, Verizon
Kim Rubey, a spokeswoman for Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo, declined to comment on how much revenue the company makes per search. Google, based in Mountain View, California, didn’t have an immediate comment.
Microsoft struck partnerships to put its search software on Dell Inc. computers and Verizon Wireless mobile phones this year, beating out Google for the deals. Last year, Microsoft reached agreements with Hewlett-Packard Co., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Facebook Inc. Hewlett-Packard, the world’s biggest personal-computer maker, had a deal with Yahoo.
The agreements mean that new computers come preloaded with a toolbar that lets them use Microsoft’s Live Search. The search engine also appears on the home screen of some Verizon handsets and is included when customers download Sun’s Java software.
Ballmer reiterated that he’s interested in a search partnership with Yahoo because it “makes all the sense in the world.”
Ballmer said earlier today at a conference that he has spoken with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and that they will talk when it’s appropriate.
“What’s she been there now -- all of a month and a half, two months?,” Ballmer said in the interview. The Web-search industry has been harder for him and other executives to learn than most businesses, Ballmer said.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, rose 18 cents to $17.14 today in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have lost 12 percent this year.

Gasta News: Yell Rollout

Yell.com adds more local content while BBC plans set back
Yell is rolling out a series of ultra-local sub-sites featuring town and city information as part of a move to ramp up content across its website.
The classified listings specialist is hiring journalists to create content, including advice on things to think about when hiring a serviceperson as well as quick facts about towns across the UK.
Yell is also considering including local news and event information, if the trial is successful. It plans to use the content to boost its position as a key destination for local services and information online, as well as its search rankings.
Its push comes in the week that local news services were thrust into the spotlight following the BBC Trust's decision to refuse permission for the BBC's planned rollout of local video sites (nma.co.uk 21 November).
The Trust halted plans to spend £68m of licence fee funds on local video, deeming it unjustified.
The proposed move was highly criticised by competitor commercial news providers, such as Northcliffe Media, which owns 151 sites under the Thisis brand. It said it would be unable to compete with such investment by the BBC.
Johnston Press claimed the BBC's Where I Live sites had already damaged its local sites, and Trinity Mirror accused the Corporation of losing sight of its purpose.
The rejection of the plans by the BBC Trust has received a cautious welcome by commercial rivals, with many concerned the setback won't keep the BBC away from local services for long.
Sam McIlveen, digital publisher at Independent News and Media, said, "I don't think this is the end of it. We're still worried because these plans were hugely disadvantageous for local media. Local sites can't compete with the BBC, especially when it's willing to spend £68m."
The Newspaper Society's director David Newell also expressed concern at the BBC not giving up on the area. "We must be on guard to ensure the BBC isn't allowed to expand its local services by other means," he said.
Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said that while consumers want better local services, video sites were unlikely to meet their needs.
Regulator Ofcom said the plans would have a significant negative impact on commercial providers.
Author: By Will Cooper & Luan Goldie | Source: nma.co.uk | Published: 26.11.08

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."

Gasta News:Internet feels the bite of Crunch!

Mixed News as internet feels the bite of Crunch!

A straw poll of media agencies from the NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies 2007 guide found budgets are under pressure as marketers alter their media plans ahead of the potential economic downturn. The findings are in conflict with market predictions. A report by analyst firm Enders Analysis this week said UK online ad spends was set to grow...
Meanwhile automotive brands plan to stop using dedicated campaign sites as budgets tighten and consumer’s tire of fragmented content. Car brands including Mercedes and Land Rover plan to pull back from campaign sites for car launches, switching to a central online hub. Mercedes has launched a global online hub, built by Digital Annexe that will house all its brand activity. It has been built to incorporate video streaming, an easily updateable back-end system and increased promotional space....


Online Video's Short Shelf Life

On average, video viewer ship peaks early in a video's life-cycle.
Thursday 19th of June 2008 12:00:00 AM
We set out with a simple question: throughout the life of a video, do most views occur in the first few days and weeks or are they distributed randomly over time? Since Tube Mogul tracks millions of videos, we turned to the data and were surprised to find such a robust trend: viewer ship peaks early.
Methodology
Our sample includes data for views by day for 10,916 videos over a 90 day time period. In order to exclude casual creators of online video (i.e. "Mickey’s Birthday"), each video in the sample achieved a minimum of 1,000 cumulative views over the 90 day time period.
On average, videos are time-sensitive. Trends pointed out elsewhere, such as "evergreen" (non-time sensitive) content always fetching views or videos randomly "going viral," seem more of a rarity than an underlying trend in the data.

Gasta.com to offer white label Hosted Search Engine Solution

Gasta.com is gearing up to offer geographical regions, companies, cities, and industrial sectors the opportunity to launch their own geo-targeted and white label branded hosted search solution. You can launch the branded search engine in a matter of hours and select from a variety of advertising and content partner solutions such as Google adsense, pay per click, you tube,blinx, Mirago, Ikojo, Yahoo mobile, Msn Live, and virtually any other content partner you sign up for. The fine details are not fully finalized as yet but this is a thrilling development.

CTO of Gasta search networks, Stuart Manning said " This is were the SME sector can build their own search brand, we will provide them with the platform and they can take in content from whatever source to build and develop revenue streams, there is no search boxes involved, everything is white label to meet the needs of the sites owners, and they controll the content, this is another innovation in the fast paced web 2.0 search development sector from Gasta.com"

Gasta will also build in the contextual advertising platforms of SearchMatch and InstantAds so site owners and operators can sell their own advertising inventory to their own clients and customers., track statistics and offer reports. More To follow.