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Facebook releases v2 of it’s iPhone application just in time to hit their promised end of September deadline. (more…)

Google, Microsoft and many other companies have been pushing for the FCC to make TV white space frequencies available for broadband purposes whilst others attempt to stop it. (more…)

Facebook Connect after many months of hacking has finally been released! So what is this Facebook Connect and what does it mean for the average internet user? (more…)

Google CEO says he is not planning to delay the search advertising deal with Yahoo Inc any longer. (more…)

It’s only been 48 hours since news of bank mergers begun to leak out, but already potential domain names corresponding these mergers are being hoarded and sold on eBay. (more…)

In June of this year Google and Yahoo brokered a deal in which Google would provide a portion of the advertising on Yahoo for a slice of the revenue. (more…)

With all the problems of the current National & Global economy many people in the industry would have predicted that TV advertising was going to suffer. This along side the predicted ‘Death of TV’ which has been speculated over for years due to the accountability offered by digital advertising, making television advertising a lot less compelling.

However in a report in AdWeek, “national advertisers are expected to finalize fourth-quarter prime-time upfront advertising ‘holds’ to ‘orders’ of more than $2 billion.“

AdWeek then goes on to say that :
“…most advertisers will not abandon national television in the fourth quarter, with just about every marketer planning to spend as much, or even more, than they committed in the May upfront.“

This has obviously got many people in the industry confused, but it would seem there is an easy explanation; one of the media buyers, AdWeek spoke to, believes that the main contributor to the surprisingly buoyant television advertising market is the digital advertising market.

“One media buyer said he believes the broadcast networks’ ability to offer digital ads as an extension of TV buys also has motivated many advertisers to stick with Plan A. ‘I sense clients are realizing that TV and digital ads are very complementary, and driving TV viewers to a Web site for more information can help close a sale,’ the buyer said.“

If this is true then this can only be good news for everyone, and it would suggest that there is a definite opportunity for advertisers who offer multi-platform advertising deals TV, Web, Magazines, Newspapers etc…

To put it simply digital doesn’t need to be positioned as a superior competitor to broadcast, print, etc… but in fact part of the mix, just another advertising medium!

It stands to reason that the companies who will benefit most from this “integrated advertising” are broadcast networks and other big media companies. However this does not rule out the smaller guys, who as long as they act smart can also look to combine the best of all worlds.

In more recent years that the worlds of media and advertising have become highly-specialized and those who will thrive in the media and advertising business today will be those who focus their energies on taking advantage of synergies, not those who are focused on creating conflicts.

To talk to a completely impartial eBusiness consultant call 0800 6226 975 or contact us here.

If you need to edit a photo and you’re not at your own computer, there is a simple solution, and it’s FREE!

With the explosion of online publishing such as blogging & social networking, we find ourselves with an ever increasing need to edit photos on-the-go.  More often than not at computer that doesn’t have the right photo editing software.

Online photo editing suites provide users with access-anywhere tools to crop, rotate, fix and save their own images online.

We’ve hand picked a couple of our favourites for you to add to your bookmarks folder.

SPLASHUP

Splashup.com provides a familiar photo editing suite interface with the ability to use similar features to a software based programme.

Splashup.com On-line Photo Editing

Features include:
-Layer functionality
-Filters and effects
-Cut and paste ability
-Edit images from facebook, flikr, Picasa and URLs
-Sharing albums

Splashup.com is a comprehensive and familiar set up to most photo editing suite users.

PHOTOSHOP ONLINE

Photoshop.com is an online facility for storing, editing and sharing your photos.

Features include:

-Facebook, Flikr, Photobucket and Picasa compatibility
-Basics including Crop, rotate, resize & Touch up
-Tuning such as white balance, brightness, sharpness
-Effects options like colour , hue, sketch & distort

Photoshop.com allows users to easily create galleries and share photos with an easy ‘image link’ for embedding your photos into blogs and websites.

These are our two favourites from the many available editing suites on-line. We recommend you try a few editing suites before deciding on a favourite.

A huge number of companies rely on Google’s AdWords system to deliver visitors to their sites, with many hours invested in setting up, developing and refining their Campaigns. However Google is planning the release of a  new judging system in the next few days that could have a major impact for current AdWords users.

The main change that the company announced on Monday is how AdWords calculates Quality Scores, this is used to determine the order of each ad for the the Keyword/Phrase entered. The update it is that this will now be calculated in real-time as a Google user performs a search, this happens along side the current practice of analysing click-through rates. In addition Google have said that it will be analysing landing page quality less frequently than previously.

Other changes are that Google is halting its practice of “inactive for search’ for keywords that it deems would yield little (if any) impressions.  Google said that all keywords will now be available on Google and although those keywords will probably still yield less than ideal results, they may add some impressions for those sites using them.

Finally, and probably most importantly, Google announced it will replace “minimum bid” prices with “first page bid estimates,” which will probably see rates go up. I real term this means on those keywords that have few advertisers bidding for placement, the new bid estimate should be close to the old minimum bid. But for those companies that want first-page placement on keywords that are more popular among advertisers, the cost could be “significantly higher.”

Google didn’t give any word on exactly when the new system will be rolled out, but it should happen over the next few days.

Call NetInsight on 0800 6226 975 or email us here.

Tim Berners-Lee. www.w3.org

The creator of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee told the BBC that he has become concerned about the amount of unfounded information on-line. He used information about the Large Hadron Collider as an example of how we need to differentiate rumours from the truth. Several rumours that made their way across the Internet referred to the Collider creating a black hole and swallowing up the Earth.

Sir Tim and several others have created the World Wide Web Foundation, in order to increase worldwide access to the internet and keep it open & free increasing its stability & capability into the future.

The Foundation will provide accreditation to websites that satisfy a number of criteria to prove they are trustworthy sources of information.

Read more on Sir Tim’s Interview
Read More about the World Wide Web Foundation
Read More about the Large Hadron Collider
Read Stephen Fry’s Article on Sir Tim Berners-Lee