The EU will shortly have its own alternative to Google and Yahoo! in the shape of Quaero, a multi-partner, multi-language “second generation” multi-media search project. What are the chances you’ll set your homepage to Quaero rather than Google?
Monthly Archives: January 2006
China becomes number 2 online
China now has the second largest online population in the world according to SmartMob reporting US-based research firm eTForecasts. Some 20 millon Chinese went on line last year pushing the total to 120 million, second place in the world rankings. The US share slipped to 18% and will continue to slide as the developing nations, in particular China, India, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia, grow rapidly, SmartMobs says. The world internet population has now topeed one billion for the first time.
Million Dollar Home Page
The curious story of the Million Dollar Home Page takes an interesting turn as the last 1,000 pixels are auctioned on eBay. As of this moment the going price is $160,000! And there are three days left to go!
If you are not familiar with the story, the site was set up by 21-year-old Alex Tew of Swindon in Wiltshire “to fund his degree studies”.
The idea was simple: he divided up his “home page” into 1,000,000 pixels (in 100 pixel blocks) and then sold these pixels for $1 each (minimum $100). He guarantees to keep the site running for five years and probably for much longer than that, and so he points out that this equates to very good value for money.
Actually, it is a really good contract for both parties: Alex gets his $1m which makes for a good start in life; the advertisers get a huge amount of exposure as the idea has grabbed so much attention. Most of the advertisers are small outfits (and some have posted testimonials which seem genuinely pleased with the response). There are even larger firms, like The Times .
To get some idea how much value these advertisers are getting, take a look at this Alexa chart which compares his traffic to that of New Scientist, one of RBI’s largest sites…
It is actually as of this moment about the 400th largest site on the internet – extraordinary considering it is really just the one page.
It does by now have its imitators, such as the Million Yen Home Page – yes, really. As yet, this site has not sold a single pixel. And there is a fair chance that none of these imitators will actually be worth the investment.
The magic of this idea was that it was a first, and genuinely captured the imagination and attention of the internet world, thus ensuring huge visibility for no outlay for Alex. I doubt if successors will be so lucky.
Still, nice to know innovation isn’t dead.
Trust in online sources
Jeff Jarvis in BuzzMachine cites a survey in the last edition of Advertising Age which carried a survey asking which sites provided the most reliable source of information on the web.
In the US Yahoo came top (11.3%) then MSN (10.4%), Google (9.9%), CNN (8%), AOL (5.2%) and Consumer Reports (3.1%). Google scored first among youngsters, with 22% of the 18-24 crowd’s vote.
In Europe Google scores top in France, Germany, Holland and Spain and was second in Britain behind the BBC. Thank God for the BBC!
Electronic publisher that also prints a magazine
MIT’s august Technology Review is cutting its frequency and beefing up its online offering reports PaidContent.org. The publisher says: “”Technology Review has been a print magazine with a website; from now on, we will be an electronic publisher that also prints a magazine.”
Using web stats to tune content
There’s a great column from The Seattle Times which examines the most popular stories from 2005 according to web stats analysis and concludes that the “soft” stories, so often discounted by journalists, are actually the ones that are the most read. It also mentions a Chilean newspaper Las Últimas Noticias which has gone the whole hog and writes stories entirely based on web traffic: if people read a story they write more like it; if they don’t the story type is axed. Going too far, you may say, but Las Últimas Noticias is now the most read newspaper in Chile!
Google news as you’ve never seen it
Interesting mash-up showing current Google news as a tag cloud – brought to you by NEWZingo.
A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy
Internet commentator Clay Shirky wrote a very interesting piece on the dynamics of internet communities which I found contained some real insights for those of us interested in building up these interest groups. Particularly interesting is the notion that pure democracy is the enemy of the successful online community. Worth the read, even though it is a bit long.
Google and AOL
There’s an old saying that if you owe the bank £100, you have a problem; but if you owe the bank £1m, then the bank has a problem.
This is the reason most commonly credited as being behind the AOL/Google deal. The $300m earned from AdSense on the AOL portal was just too large a percentage to comfortably put at risk.
But there’s another saying the money makes money. And it seems from the SEC filings that the deal creates the conditions for a floatation of the AOL business in the foreseeable future and if that were to happen – and if Google’s other properties like Video Search really work some magic with the underused AOL content – Google’s stake could end up as a real investment.
How’s that for having your cake and eating it?
Yahoo Options in Demand
Looks like it’s not just me reading the tealeaves about web advertising in 2006… if eWeek’s reading of the reasons behind Yahoo’s share price movements are correct