FACE TIME SELLS! - Analysts from eMarketer are forecasting that Facebook's display advertising revenues will jump nearly 81% this year, easily overtaking Yahoo for command of the online ad universe. That's not to say that Yahoo's display revenues are going away, either. The company stands to post a 16.4% gain of its own to bring in $1.65 billion in display earnings. The Facebook's unstoppable trajectory will allow it to grab 21.6%($2.19billion)of all U.S. display ad dollars this year-up from 13.6% of the market last year and 7.3% in 2009. Google, meanwhile, is also expected to overtake Yahoo and settle into the second position with 16.7% of the market in 2011.
ANALYZE THIS! - Social media marketing and measurement has become a necessity for success on the Web, forcing many companies to expand their staffs, outsource to expensive firms or both. HootSuite has been an effective and affordable option for many for many online businesses in the short time the space has existed, and the recent launch of a new analytic platform has been welcomed by more than a million users. Updates to the Web-based dashboard include a brand new interface, much-improved reporting capabilities and new metrics that allow for deeper monitoring of Twitter, Facebook, Google and other services. The demand for social media management and analytics tools is rapidly approaching the supply, and companies such as HootSuite, Radian6, Involver and Sprout Social are doing their best to keep up.
THE EXPRESS LANE! - According to a recent Ipsos Public Affairs report, 83% of e-commerce merchants say their sales have increased since offering Express Checkout from PayPal. Of the online retailers that are able to track their revenues, sales have increased an average of 18% since adding the service. Among that group, 84% of the merchants said that their sales increased within the first three months or longer after offering PayPal's service, while 8% said it took four to six months to longer to notice an increase in sales. Express Checkout is PayPal's one-stop payment option intended to streamline the checkout process for online shoppers, similar to the ordering options now offered by Amazon and Google Checkout.
APP STORES GALORE! - We wrote here last month about the enormous potential for revenues in mobile apps, estimated by Forrester to reach $38 billion by 2005. Now Opera Software and Appia have announced the opening of a new mobile apps store for the more than 100 million Opera users. Given the excitement surrounding the market, this may indicate a trend in which independent app stores start competing with Apple's App Store and Google's updated and much-improved Android App Market for attention not only from consumers but also developers. In addition to Opera and Appia, Verizon and Amazon have each recently launched their own app stores and others include GetJar amd AppBrain.
ON SALE (RIGHT) NOW! - The much-anticipated convergence of the "daily deal" platforms with location-aware mobile services finally appears to be gaining some traction. Called Instant Deals by LivingSocial, Reward Alerts by Loopt and ShopAlerts by AT&T, to name a few, the goal of each new service is to lure mobile users into brick-and-mortar stores by sending them real-time updates about time-sensitive deals taking place in their current locations. A restaurant that is experiencing a slow lunch rush, for instance, can attract customers already in the area by creating an instant special and sending out an alert. It presents an ideal marriage between local and mobile commerce, and it will be worth watching as dozens of these programs roll out across the U.S.
CHECK IT OUT! - Mobile users "checking in" to establishments through services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places and Google Places has proved to be a powerful marketing tool for local merchants, but a new feature from Bizzy puts the emphasis on checking out. The mobile service for personalized business recommendations recently updated its iPhone and Android apps with the new feature that allows users to check out of a business by leaving an emoticon-style description of the experience. The checkout process acts as a future recommendation for friends, as in "Love it", or a negative review such as "No Thx".
T.G.I.F. !!! IT'S FRIDAY - SMILE SMILE SMILE & BE KIND TO YOUR BROTHERS & SISTERS :)
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