Yahoo described as ‘Having their Pride back’ as the company predict further growth

Within a presentation to Financial analysts on the 26th May, Yahoo projected their net revenue growth to be 7-10% between 2010 and 2013, comparing to a 13% decline in revenue experienced by the company in 2009.

CEO of Yahoo, Carol Bartz commented saying that “Yahoo has its focus. It’s excited about its future and it has its pride back.”

Carol also said that Yahoo’s improved outlook was involved with their refreshed fortunes in the display advertising industry with a forecast of display ad revenues growing by between 13-16% annually to 2013.

This announcement has also come in conjunction with the news that they sign a global partnership with Nokia in order to power their Ovi Mail app.

MSN Relaunched with enhanced social media integration

Microsoft has recently overhauled their online portal, MSN, to allow users to access update and interact with their social networking profiles for the first time.

These services are also expected to be offered to Microsoft’s Windows Live and Hotmail services – Microsoft MSN UK Executive Producer commented saying that “Our readers told us they wanted a home page that downloaded faster, had the content they wanted easily to hand and helped them stay connected to their friends.”

According to NMA, the revamp of MSN features some similarities to Yahoo’s overhaul last year allowing for brands to develop apps for their homepage to maximise ad revenues.

Microsoft MSN have already signed multiple high value takeovers with brands such as PepsiCo ahead of the FIFA world Cup in June.

UK Online ad spend up by 4.6% Via the help of Search

According to an article published at Marketing Week, the IAB have reported that the amount of money spent within the UK on online grew by 4.6% in 2009 despite experiencing a 5% drop in display ad spend.

These statistics, generated by Screen Digest, report that the online ad spend within Europe grew by 4.5% to €14.7 billion (£12.3) in its entirety, however it’s growth was significantly less than the 20% experienced in the previous year.

Display advertising retained a pretty static state; with only a 0.3% increase whereas spend on Search grew by 10.8% in 2009.

Senior analyst at Screen Digest, Vincent Letang commented saying that “Search outperformed display last year as advertisers focused on achieving return on investment through direct response formats at the expense of brand advertising. In addition, some advertisers felt online brand advertising wasn’t yet delivering the enhanced measurement standards they needed to justify further investment in digital campaigns, particularly given the recession.”

The UK represents a 30% market share of the online ad spend throughout the whole of Europe, with the Nordics at 20-25% and France & Germany holding an equal 18% of the market.

Mobile Ad network, Admob reach 200bn served ads

This particular step means that Admob have doubled the amount of ads they have served since August last year after their decision to open up their Adwhirl service, allowing developers to place ads in apps, involving third party networks.

It’s no surprise to learn that the majority of ads served by Admob are presented to Apple devices, however the increase in popularity with Google’s Android device is causing an increase in ads served via this medium too.

Admob are currently awaiting a ruling from the US Regulator, the Federal Trade Commission as to whether Googles proposed $750m takeover would create a monopoly.

2010 set to be the year of the display ad

According to the Advertising Bureau and Comscore, digital advertising is now performing better than it did last year in addition; display advertising has had a strong start with record revenues in the first quarter of 2010.

The Advertising Bureau reported a 7.5 increase in revenues for the first quarter in 2010 with figures of around $5.9 billion being spent in internet advertising in the US.

It is thought that as advertisers are regaining their confidence after the recession, that display advertising is one of the first place they’re turning especially since a lot of big brands are up weighting their digital budget over traditional media.

However, there’s a contradiction in opinions. Many brands do not consider display advertising valuable to brand building, however, comScore reported 1.1 Trillion display ads were served, a 15% increase from a year ago – a new record.

Betfair to launch their Betting Exchange iPhone App

According to an article published at NMA, Betfair are the first online betting firm to offer their betting exchange via the use of an iPhone App.

Betfair chose to base their mobile betting exchange in the form of an App as they believe that Apps provide a smoother and far more finished user experience than mobile browser based software – they also mentioned that their mobile based revenue had increased by 50% from last year.

Head of mobile at Betfair, Charles Palmer, commented saying that ‘Our iPhone app takes advantage of the handset’s multi-touch interface and high-resolution screen, offering the same core exchange functionality as the main Betfair site.’

He continued to add ‘Our registered mobile users increased 40% in 2009 and continued investment in the mobile channel has contributed to a 50% increase in mobile revenues’

The launch of Betfairs iPhone app follows their recent launch of a TV widget, based upon the Yahoo engine.

Jack Media shortlisted for the EGR Marketing Partner of the Year!

Every year, EGaming Review holds their Awards ceremony to celebrate the outstanding efforts of the businesses that make the e-gaming industry operate within the UK.

New to 2010 is their range of B2B awards, launched by popular demand and are available to all companies who offer a B2B service within the e-gaming industry.

Sectors include Affiliate network supplier of the year, Mobile supplier of the year, Skill games supplier of the year, Slot provider of the year, Software/Network Rising star of the year, Sports betting supplier of the year, White label partner of the year and many more.

Within the services category, there are awards for sectors including Connectivity supplier of the year, IT partner of the year, marketing partner of the year, Recruiter of the year,
Services Rising star of the year and more.

Here at Jack Media London, we are delighted to have been nominated for Marketing Partner of the Year and will find out whether the award is ours on the 14th June at the EGR awards ceremony.

Facebook’s US Weekly traffic exceeds Google’s for the first time

According to an article at New Media Age, web analytics firm Experian Hitwise reported that Facebook was the most visited US website last week, with traffic accounting for 7.07% of all US web traffic which was higher than Googles 7.04%.

Even though Facebook have managed to achieve a higher volume of visits than Google on numerous days in the past, this is the first time that Facebooks average weekly figures have exceeded that of Googles.

Heather Dougherty, the director of Hitwise, considers this achievement over Google by Facebook as an ‘important milestone’ and again marks the importance of social media and these implications for businesses.

Coke opt for social media over bespoke campaign sites:

In a shift away from conventional campaign sites Coca-Cola are using more social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook for their advertising in 2010.

According to an article published at New Media Age, they have decided to move away from the bespoke sites designed for specific campaigns to online social communities stating that it is here that the future of marketing lies with these community platforms where there target audiences can be found.

“We would like to place our activities and brands where people are, rather than dragging them to our platform,” Pinakatt

Behavioural targeting unpopular according to a recent survey.

Behavioural marketers may have an dilemma to solve after a recent study found that 66% of online users in America do not wish to be tracked online. This number increased to 86% when user were told exactly how behavioural targeting worked saying they did not want to be targeted by specific tailored ads. This is controversial as last month Microsoft, AOL, Google, Sky and newly re-launched Yahoo all came together to convince brands that behavioural targeting was the way forward.