Newsletter November 2007
Dear readers,
We have just entered the unofficial start of the busiest online shopping season. We have seen an increase in our clients budgets this year and a greater focus on optimising their websites for the shopping surge. Since more and more people rather shop from their homes, than fighting their way through busy shopping centres, online marketing has really become a crucial element in companies’ sales growth. Are you as well prepared?
Leif Eliasson, Chief Executive Officer
NEWS
New Search Engine FindingDulcinea Relies on Human Judgement
Google, Yahoo, and MSN are the undisputed heavyweights of Web search, commanding more than 90% of the market. But that hasn't stopped scores of startups from challenging them with a variety of specialized search sites catering to niche audiences or those frustrated with the major search engines. Among the latest is findingDulcinea, an online directory that relies on human judgment rather than algorithms to find what someone is looking for on the Web. "We're the librarian of the Internet," says Mark Moran, co-founder and CEO of findingDulcinea, which formally launched Monday. "We don't give you the answers--we tell you where to find the right information." The underlying premise is that Internet users have needs unmet by Google or other big engines. Moran points to a Harris Interactive study commissioned by Yahoo that found 85% of search engine users don't find what they're looking for on the first try.
MoveOn Protests Facebook Privacy Issues
Liberal Advocacy Organization moveon.org is protesting to stop Facebook from revealing members' online purchases. Specifically, MoveOn is protesting a new Facebook feature called Beacon that allows members to automatically update friends about purchases or other actions taken on third-party sites. The activist group says the mechanism violates users' privacy rights despite policies that allow members to "opt out" of the program. MoveOn is calling for an "opt in" policy instead. In a statement issued last week, Facebook said MoveOn misrepresents how Beacon works, and that information from other sites is only shared with a trusted network of friends. The new feature is part of a broader advertising platform that Facebook launched earlier this month for the social networking site.
Judgement Google-DoubleClick: Tough sell in EU
Google's megamerger proposal with DoubleClick could face greater scrutiny in Europe than the United States if antitrust regulators decide the deal takes the companies into new markets. The European Commission, which announced that it has pushed Google's merger proposal into its more rigorous "second phase" review, tends to follow two lines of investigation--current and future markets--when it looks at the antitrust implications of mergers. American trustbusters, on the other hand, take a narrower view.
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