Search Engine giant Google generated substantially more revenue in advertising than ITV1 did in the third quarter, according to The Times, with £327 Million compared to £317 million in this three month period.
ITV1 had a huge boost in revenues from advertising during the Rugby World Cup. but despite this Google romped in first in the financial stakes for the first time ever. In the year to September 2007, Google generated £925 million in the UK and is expected to attain £1.25 billion by year end. Compared to last year’s £871 million, the growth of this titan is a substantial 43.5%.
Despite the initial drawing ahead of the search engine, fourth quarter advertising revenues for ITV1 are expected to be substantial in the run up to Christmas pipping Google to the post with an expected £1.3 billion by year end. The ITV group (1,2,3) are expected to generated £1.45 billion in total, but with growth in online advertising spend with the search engine collossus - which currently has 75% of the search advertising market - it is expected that it will overtake the ITV traditional and digital channels by the close of the financial year, 2008.
Faced with this information, ITV has called for a reduction of the regulation on ‘traditional’ ‘brand builder’ advertising compared to ‘brand finder’ search advertising.
Advertising in the UK hit £9.1 billion in the first 6 months of this year, according to the IAB & PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which included an increase of 41% in online advertising as businesses realise the potential of the internet and the online advertising environment.

A new study by Burst Media has shown that the female population of the UK are particularly active on the Internet to the extent that 66% would be lost without access to the technology for a whole week. For Women in Britain, the internet has become an integral part of daily life and the thought of not having online access would be as devastating as any of us would feel about going out without a mobile phone.

The Burst Media study of 25+ year olds finds that over a half of women say that the World Wide Web is their main source of information when conducting research into items that they might purchase. This, naturally, has a massive impact for anyone who has females as their target customers: from car manufacturers to clothing, from technology to toys, lingere to leather sofas.

Internet useage, identified by the study, indicates that the about 70% of women are online for personal use from 7pm to midnight and about 50% online from 4-7pm shopping, browsing, researching with over 55% of females not online before 7am. During most parts of the day, over 80% people are online at any one time. These are great statistics for anyone targetting lady customers using PPC as it informs the ad scheduling that they might like to engage in.

The latest data from comScore has confirmed that it is Britain which is leading the way in internet use in Europe. According to their research, the average Briton spends 34.4 hours per month surfing: looking for information, engaging in social media and shopping online. The usual british ‘have a go’ spirit is completely in evidence in the cyberspace mediums! Coming second to the UK is Sweden with 31.7 hours per month, followed by Espagne at sound 30.6 hours per month. Would that be, perhaps, due the not unsubstantial number of Brits who reside in Spain - would that be helping the Spanish figures, one wonders?

The ‘highest percentage of people online award’ goes to the Netherlands, which has 83% of its population online, whilst Germany has the most users - at a staggering 32.5 million during may alone.

With 122 million Europeans online every day, spending on average 24.1 hours online every month, the internet has to be the main part of any marketing campaign for any serious online business.

ComScore’s Bob Ivins states that the correlation between broadband “roll-out” and internet useage is incontravertable: the more widespread broadband becomes, the greater the number of internet users (and regular internet users).

I was delighted to attend the pricegrabber birthday party at the penthouse at One Leicester Square. A fabulous venue (and scene of the MTV Show, One Leicester square, we were delighted to go up to the top floor at this very cool location to join the guys of Pricegrabber.

Upon arriving on the top of the world, we were warmly greated by Pricegrabber PR Guru, Michele, and PRBite who had helped put the bash together before a great waiter with something that included blueberry and vodka came directly over to help us to unwind after a long day in the smoke!
It was fantastic to see our host, the gorgeous Ben Hadley, and catch up with him this side of the Atlantic and to meet Paul, Jeff, Warren and Sean from DMG Media, amongst others.

Guests included the lovely Amanda Carmen, recently returned from high profile interviews in the states, product owners, online stores and various publications.

Pricegrabber really looked after us with great cocktails and excellent canapes before the CEO thanked clients for their support over the previous year and looked towards the future synergism of Pricegrabber with its customers and to a future laden with mutual benefits and profit! The DJ then let the music hit the decks and the party rocked on…

Not the glitz and glamour of SMX or SES, but a truly interesting and informative day nonetheless! UK companies and government agencies (even the MOD! - Ministry of Defence) plus educational and journalistic organisations attended the forum to learn more and to assess their progress with Blogs and Social Media. Chaired by Euen Semple, the conference kicked off with an introduction to the key players for the day, including Adriana Lukas of Big Blog Company and Ben Edwards from Economist.com.

Sound advice came from all avenues, including from CMS vendors Jadu, Motor Addicts, Headshift, Sun Microsystems and Bupa, the healthcare provider. One overall message which came from a number of speakers to the companies and associations in the audience was to be brave: relinquish control and hand over your social media to your home and outside community. Gone are the days of controlled press releases being the only avenue for information leakage, your company’s networks and community groups are the way forward in developing value, both internally and externally. Internal value is created through strengthening bonds, a greater degree of trust and responsibility, valuing contributions and individuals, organic and viral information sharing and, of course, building natural communities - especially in larger organisations. The external value of Social Media is generated through customer interations with each other and with the company, through potential clients approaching in a more informal way, whether as a ‘lurker’ (someone who reads but does not participate) or as a fully fledged community member. Sun Microsystem’s Mink Dimension, aka Simon Phillips, discussed how CEO Jonathon’s blog interaction with staff, customers and regulatory bodies(!) has created a marked increase on the company’s bottom line.

In addition to the speed networking hosted enthusiastically by LLoyd Davis of Perfect Path Consulting, the open session was a great way for the audience to mingle, network and mull over social media topics of interest. Based around subjects that were of concern for individuals, attendees offered to ‘host’ these sessions. Participants then had an ‘open foot’ policy whereby they could sit and contribute to the whole discussion or could get up and walk over to adjoining conversations.

Monetising Social Media

This worked extremely well for both those with a particular motivation - whether the dark side of Social Media, Monetizing SM (note: not S & M), Real World Social Media or Moderating posts or dealing with spam - and for those who just wanted to get the aroma of the conversations, pause for a deep inhalation or just merely whaft off to join another group (to use olfactory terminology).

Looking at Moderating Blogging & SM: pre moderation, post moderation and the implications for each method plus looking at CMS systems in tandem with blogging and social media.

The Dark Side of Social Media focused on the potenital for misuse of information. It referred to the information-gathering underworld who could employ too much data to ill intent, whether personally or professionally. Discussion also included concerns about children and their activity on the various social media forums from facebook to myspace to bebo; the recent prevention of the police by Google to use fake profiles to try to catch paedophiles and the danger that this impediment could place upon our law force; Googling potential and current employees (a phenomenon only just catching on in the UK - I think we have yet to start googling potential dates, like the US regularly do!) and how a compromising picture of a government servant / traditional organisation employee appearing could result in firing of that same individual. Also covered was how social media could be used to ‘brand’ individuals but, as someone pointed out, a facade could only be held for so long before the words belied the true persona!

All in all, a very positive day with an excellent host in the form of Euen Semple, quality attendees, great information sharing and a truly superb buffet lunch (SES take notes!) from the Marriott Grosvenor Square.

Despite missing SMX in Seattle, I am greatly looking forward to the UK Blogs & Social Media Forum 2 taking place on 5th June. With some top UK based companies contributing to the panels and the case study sessions, it should be a good one.

The Women Business & Blogging conference taking place on 8th June at De Montfort University, Leicester is hot on the heels of the Blogging and Social Media Forum in London. With UK industries catching on to the use of blogging as a serious and viable business tool and SEO tool, we expect to see these events becoming increasingly staged on British soil.

The UK is rife with SEO, blogging events and social media conferences at the moment - must be the season for it! From the LondonSEO… um… ‘get together’, which I missed due to client engagements to more formal evenings with Google and Saatchi & Saatchi to the official business events. I am very much looking forward to the Blogging and Social Media Forum on 5th June in London at the Grosvenor Square Hotel - and a big thank you goes to the gorgeous Matt and the team from Incisive & Reality PRwho have been promoting it!

I am covering Impact of Social Media and Enterprise 2.0 conference and am very much looking forward to attending the day and, of course, meeting up with the esteemed UK SEO and Blogging community. Highlights of the event include how to manage your corporate brand through blogging, developing a social media strategy and a speed networking session where you get to chat for 3 minutes!
Watch this space….

The Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference was truly incredible. With industry founders and luminaries, plus up-and-coming SEO personalities presenting to packed audiences, the four day Search conference was a resounding success. The Hilton New York on the Avenue of the Americas played host to the conference and offered participants many networking opportunities in the numerous bars, lunch rooms and wi-fi lounge.
With fabulous people such as Lee Odden, Rand (and Geraldine) Fishkin, Greg and Barbara Boser, Jim Hedger, Matt and Elisabeth Osmeloski from Incisive, Becky Ryan, Alex Bennert, Mike Sack, Todd Friesen, Lauren Baker, Matt Bailie, Rory De Niro and numerous others it was sure to be an excellent week.

Sessions had different tracks, from Social Media, to Organic Optimisation to Search Advertising and something for everyone as the offerings ranged from basic to advanced.
The evenings offered a range of entertainment: from evening dinner parties to the full on Vintage Tub and Bath extravaganza that saw us shuttled in Epiar party buses to the penthouse venue for champagne and cheese tasting before dinner and rockem sockem!

I was incredibly honoured to be invited to attend the celebration of Persian New Year with some new friends this weekend. I have not been fortunate enough to encounter any Persians before and I have been delighted by the sophistication, culture and warmth of these second generation British persians. Although not officially Persian New Year until Wednesday, the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane played host to a fabulous gathering of Persian families, a minister and the Persian singer Arash.

Organised by a Heritage Art Foundation and with references to former times before the country’s current leadership, the new year celebrations at the Grosvenor Hotel marked the first day of spring and, logically, the first day of the year. 1386 by the Persian calendar, the New Year was heralded to the sounds of the funky Arash who had come over from Sweden especially for the event.

The evening kicked off with a welcome photograph and drinks before we were summoned to dinner by the toast master. With television cameras recording and playing back instantaneously for the guests. The ballroom was sumptuously decorated with beautiful flower arrangements on each table and the piece de resistance of the festival table at one end of the room.

When presented with such a different culture, it is important to research and investigate customs in an effort to understand the people. I am sure that I will have missed many of them, but this is what I understand so far: Traditions for the new year include spring cleaning of the house, visiting friends and relations and the purchase of something new to wear for the celebrations. Like Spring in any area of the world, it is about rebirth and renewal and the Iranian nation seems to hold this very close to their hearts. Part of the traditions of Noruz (Norooz) are to have a Haft Seen - a table containing the seven items beginning with s - including items like grass and fish - all of which represent such basic and fundamentals as joy, love, fertility etc.
The official list is (possibly not in the right order, so please forgive me):
sabzeh - which is a grain such as wheat or barley that is grown in a dish and symbolises rebirth
sir - which is garlic, symbolising medicine and healing
samanu - which is a sweet that is made from wheat germ and symbolises wealth
senjed - a dried fruit which symbolises love
sib - apples symbolising beauty and health
somaq - berries which symbolise sunrise
serkeh - vinegar which symbolises wisdom and patience

The New Year Celebrations contained the traditional meal of fish and rice created by masterchefs especially brought in for the occasion. The culmination of the meal was the beautiful array of fresh fruits and sweets adorning tables on two sides of the ballroom plus, of course, the traditional mint tea.

The dancing began after a charity auction raised over £50K for Heritage Art projects and top European Persian singer, Arash,

graced the stage with his band to blast out a range of funky and his world cup football song to the delight of the audience.

Ladies looked fabulous and the gentlemen looked terribly stylish, too. Children also were welcomed to the event and the Gorsvenor Ballroom resounded to the happy voices and laughter of nearly 2000 people. A completely new experience for me and a fantastic night that I feel priviledged to be a part of and very honoured to be invited to, which showed the culture and elegance of the Persian nation within Britain#.