Asian e-Marketing December 2010 by MediaBUZZ Pte Ltd

December 2010

Search Marketing

Springboard Researchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Top 10 Predictions in 2011, page 22

Yahoo: Science is Insight, Not Hindsight!, page 41

Out There Mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s State-of-the-art Mobile Advertising Marketplace, page 44

EDITORIAL:

O N L I N E

V E R S I O N

Dear Reader, Now that the year 2010 is coming to an end, it's time to think about the goals and New Year’s resolutions for 2011. Jam-packed with predictions on trends in 2011 this issue of Asian eMarketing will give you a head start in detecting what should be on your agenda next year. If you have a few minutes to spare during the festive season that is drawing near for many, please join your peers by taking part in CMO Council’s 2011 Marketing Outlook study. In appreciation of your time you will receive a complimentary report upon publication of the study in early January, 2011.

Daniela La Marca Editor-in-Chief Asian eMarketing

May the New Year bring you good health, happiness, peace, and contentment! I look forward to seeing you all safe and sound in the New Year!

PS: If you couldn’t catch the previous issue of Asian e-Marketing here is another chance.

Exclusive Sponsor of this Issue

DECEMBER 2010

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

SEARCH MARKETING: RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Current Online Marketing Trends at a Glance

Yahoo: Science is Insight, Not Hindsight!

Is the Integration of Promoted Tweets in Google Real-time Results the First Step Towards Acquisition?

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Asia Pacific Continues To Be a Hotbed for the Innovative Adoption and Use of Technology 8

Out There Media’s State-of-the-art Mobile Advertising Marketplace

Fournaise: Three-quarter of Ad Campaigns Tested Achieved Low Effectiveness Scores

3digitalminds Power your Online Business in Greater China

Enterprise Transformation and Cloud Services Fuel the Growth in Asia Pacific IT Services Market

BUZZWORD

New Insights into the Social Behaviour of Hong Kongers Online

Google is a jack-of-all-trades: Google bomb, Googlewashing, Googlewhack, Googlefight

Hong Kong is the Best Value on Earth for Consumer Broadband

How Web Search Engines Work

Why Asia is poised to be THE breakthrough market for Mobile Advertising

APPOINTMENTS

Cloud Computing Is a Powerful Tool That Shapes the Business of Tomorrow

IMPRINT

Springboard Research’s Top 10 Predictions in 2011

ADVERTISE WITH US! BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

How to Avoid Pitfalls and Run an Effective Search Engine Campaign

No Pain, No Gain – So Put Some Effort into Your Keywords Selection

Just take a look!

Mobile Search - Opportunities and Challenges 31 Search Engine Optimization Techniques to Avoid

Maximize your ROI through smart keyword management strategies

Using Keywords in the Text of your Pages

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Current Online Marketing Trends at a Glance Web 2.0, video on the Web, mobile Internet, and ecommerce are again hot contenders for discussions, conferences, trade fairs and road shows. So if you intend to drop these terms nonchalantly at the next meeting you will most probably attract only little attention. While communication and information are still the main reasons for the use of the Internet, the new trend among the trends is called differentiation. Old and new technologies retain principally the basic elements that allow the wise and efficient use of the new media. Within these limits the users reveal specific habits and needs, aimed at individuality and ubiquity. Therefore, it is recommended to take a closer look at the Internet and its users to analyze requests, offers, and virtual possibilities - not only from next year onward â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as in the near future specialized content and its ubiquity will determine the trends in the online environment as well. The following trends will contribute decisively next year in shaping the information and communication culture further, while setting new standards for online marketing. Trend 1: Social Media Marketing To build-up and extend the publicity of a brand, new channels of communication in particular economic segments have to be explored. The Internet has long been established as an acceptable and highly frequented medium, so that potential new target groups can be

easily exploited there. The characteristic in the use of social media marketing is the active involvement of users to design brand messages as well as its viral spread. However, this works only if users are really convinced of a brand, do not feel exploited for advertising purposes, and discover a personal value. Therefore it is important to look at each user as an individual that it represents at the moment of its online presence. Which means to take into account both, users diverse interests as well as personal networking. Members in social networks are mostly interested in news and innovations and like to be taken by surprise. They are among the early adopters and transmit information after a personal assessment to their friends and acquaintances. This gives them recognition in the narrower and wider circle of acquaintances, a direct connection to the offering company, and the feeling that their opinion is respected. They are part of the brand identity design, providing at best viral marketing effects, which can be controlled with continuous intelligent monitoring. Trend 2: Apps Apps, short for Applications, describes small utility programs for multimedia mobile phones that provide the owner with an added value individually. Leading the pack is the currently extremely popular iPhone. With an app the user is able to determine the optimal cooking time for an egg, find out instantly current flight data, mark their own location on a map, or simulate a beer glass. Around 300,000 are available and offered for download in the iTunes App Store, which are developed by Apple experts or freelance programmers.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

The number of iPhone users is growing steadily. Although currently only about 20% of the available free and paid apps are used, interest is rising progressively. Since the demands of the mobile become more individual, the more personalized are the requirements to design mobile access to various services. The applications must provide added value to everyday use and integrate itself seamlessly. In this way apps find a positive place in the life of the user and the associated brand. Trend 3: Cloud Computing If performance of software and hardware, as well as the resulting applications and data from the local computer or server is shifted to a virtual space (cloud), we talk about cloud computing. It is a concept that essentially changed the deployment and use of IT. Software is provided as a service, an external infrastructure ensures the internal supply of data, and even social networking applications can be found within the cloud space. Companies benefit from the on-demand infrastructure, as the resulting flexibility helps them align their IT equipment with the current requirements. Currently, providers of appropriate solutions deal with the integration of other user-friendly components and Cloud Computing will experience increasing popularity next year, too. Trend 4: Augmented Reality Although it still appears to some extent like science fiction, Augmented Reality is a new method to address the most innovative, mobile and young audiences. The augmented reality is mostly used in environments, where people are looking for information and want to broaden their perspective. Augmented Reality can help to identify a place in all its facets, in order to make it useful for a particular project. This could be reality-based computer games, navigation tasks, industrial processes or locating his-

torical guided tours. The fact that people want to be fascinated by new technologies they can easily integrate into their daily lives, and that provide additional value on top, will never lose its charm.

He speaks out on product and vendor recommendations, writes reviews, and advertises on his own web presence for his chosen online shop. Thus, the customer becomes an indirect and direct seller.

Trend 5: Video Marketing

Trend 7: Visual Search

For several years now, Video on the Web is regarded as a guarantor for innovative online marketing. But only recently multimedia short stories are slowly growing out of its infancy, going from their experimental phase into a more professional status. There are not only the self-made home stories that find their way onto various video portals, but in particular enterprises focus now on multimedia entertainment for their target audiences, producing short movies, webisodes, clips, movie contests, theme channels and viral video campaigns to play their brands to the gallery. The consumers on the other hand reward technological know-how, content-sensitivity, and emotional involvement by forwarding the information and impressions they gained to friends. Thus, video will continue to establish itself as a medium with a high entertainment factor next year, as its positioning possibilities are by far not exhausted, yet.

Visualization is one of the key buzzwords in the Web world as well, as images evoke emotions and graphics offer guidance. Together they provide a valuable overview that can stand out from similar online offerings. Every user knows the three-to-four-line teasers in the results of a search engine, which lead with a bold headline and a continuative colored link to new content. But many issues can be understood better when visualized. A visual product or topic search offers the searcher a direct overview of articles he is interested in and links topic related complexes to new impressions. Many websites will create value-add for their visitors by using this visual result diversity in 2011.

Trend 6: Social Commerce The term “social commerce” is currently on its beat in the shopping world with the customer being king, as he decides what, how, and how often he buys on the Web. If he doesn’t like a product or provider, he simply switches to other offers, always on the look-out for things that perfectly meet his expectations and taste. As long as the shop suppliers respond to his wishes and ideas deliberately, he seems to be loyal. Fact is that one-to-one marketing puts the customer at the center and filters out any individual preferences. A satisfied customer likes to talk about positive experiences and shares them with his social network.

Trend 8: Content Scraping The complexity of information and content on the Internet increases minute by minute. With each new article, blog post, or comment, the flood of information grows regardless of the loss of overview. Content providers are therefore advised to concentrate their content and deliver it enhanced on separate websites. Microsites are the tool to point out special offers to customers, which are connected with the main presence, but can be considered completely isolated and used independently. Customers experience a specialization of the company offers in response to their individual demands.♦ By Daniela La Marca

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Is the Integration of Promoted Tweets in Google Real-time Results the First Step Towards Acquisition? Google’s integration of promoted tweets into the realtime search section of its live results, which it rolled out in late November, coincided with revelations it allegedly made two unsuccessful attempts to buy the social communication site. The search giant supposedly made an initial offer of $2.5bn which Twitter’s founders said was ‘insulting’. It then came back offering $4bn but only again to be rebuffed. Greenlight, a leading search marketing specialist and technology firm reads this as there being open and ongoing discussions between the two technology companies, with the promoted tweets in Google being an overall greater sign of the emerging integration between both organizations. Are these the first steps towards acquisition and integration in 2011/12? Greenlight is of the view that an alignment between Twitter and Google makes sense. It could benefit both companies and their advertisers alike, giving Google a step into all things social, allowing it to remain current with its search engine results pages (SERPS), and propelling Twitter to even more users in markets it has yet to impact.

As we have seen of late, with rumors that swirled around a Google-Groupon acquisition, Google is still in the market for acquiring new business. Given Marissa Mayer’s recent comments where she reportedly said “the larger the company, the more complicated the deal is,” it would seem that for now, a Groupon deal has not necessarily fallen apart but may merely be on the backburner. With Google’s stated goal of acquiring one new company a month, Twitter would seem a nice fit if both sides could agree on a price. Google has a huge war chest to fall back on. It has a tendency to snap up leading sector companies when it can. We have seen this with Double Click and YouTube in the past. So why not Twitter? Looking at the integration of promoted tweets into the search results from a paid search perspective, they are currently only appearing in the real-time results section of Google. However, one has to wonder how long it will be until they make the step on to page one of Google. All the search engines are trying to integrate more social results into their SERPs, Bing being a prime early mover. Its partnership with Facebook allows Bing users to see friends' faces next to web pages they have liked.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

However, from an Adwords perspective, it is unlikely the introduction of paid tweets will happen for a long time if ever. For Google to push another company’s advertising offering in the same space as its own, potentially cannibalizing its main revenue driver and risking annoying users with yet more advertising appearing in its search results, would be an unlikely move. Moreover, brands advertising on Google would likely feel the introduction of paid tweets near their expensive PPC ads would dilute the attention they could be receiving, hurting their click through rates (CTRs) and overall performance metrics. Even if Google were to offer advertisers the option to use promoted tweets in the SERPS, advertisers would likely be of the mind that they can say and communicate more using an Adwords standard ad rather than a less attractive and engaging promoted tweet! The above scenario however, is based on the two being separate companies. But what if Google did buy Twitter in the not so distant future? Then, one could potentially argue promotional tweets could become fully immersed in Google’s advertising armory. Similar to the Content Network, YouTube, Twitter

paid listing would become another platform for advertisers to push their products. It would also provide them with an option through Google, to place their offerings in a way that can be re-tweeted and recommended by people, something that is not possible with Adwords. This is the real value that a Google/Twitter acquisition would offer the advertiser, even if both sides were to come to a deal where Twitter could integrate the promoted tweet platform with Adword users. Social media and social media marketing is an area where Google has a weakness. It is one of the reasons why Google is so nervous about Facebook’s growth. Although Google is the world’s best known and most used search engine, the

way people spend their time online is changing and it is becoming more social. Google needs to address this pain point. Working with Twitter is the best way to do this. Not only does it allow Google to offer its huge base of advertisers a new outlet and a step into the social world with a company it is used to working with, but it would allow Google to steal a march on Facebook and re-assert itself as a complete web company. It remains to be seen yet how successful promoted tweets have been in the US. It will also be interesting to see how they perform in the UK when they are rolled out in 2011.♦ By Paul Byrne, Senior PPC Account Manager, Greenlight

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Asia Pacific Continues To Be a Hotbed for the Innovative Adoption and Use of Technology According to Ovum, Asia Pacific continues to be a hotbed for the innovative adoption and use of technology as numerous markets flourish thanks to increasing domestic demand, rapid modernization, and financial strength. Ovum’s research and advisory services have identified multiple trends that it expects to shape the landscape and direction of IT across the region. “With increasingly sophisticated IT strategies being developed by companies of all shapes and sizes, fascinating dynamics are continuing to emerge with significant consequences for both those companies investing in IT and those companies providing solutions”, said Adam Jura, Senior Analyst. Skills shortage stress As the number and complexity of IT projects within APAC rise, a lack of skills is becoming increasingly evident. This is starting to impact the pace and scope of projects being executed by businesses as they look to improve IT capabilities and drive business value.

“Ovum expects technology vendors to invest heavily in efforts to drive educational capabilities that align with the technology they provide”, said Jura, Senior Analyst. “This is expected to include closer partnerships with tertiary education providers, certification programs, and direct educational facilities”. Interestingly, Ovum has started to see an increasing number of global delivery networks focused on ‘follow the skills’ rather than just ‘follow the sun’ leading to pockets of technology specification in locations such as Hyderabad and Manila. IT providers are expected to focus on increasing asset utilization in order to promote overall productivity and reduce the reliance upon labor. The rise of ‘Optimal Prime’ Ovum has already witnessed the increasing role that ‘prime’ service providers play within enterprises, effectively offering governance capabilities for subsequent technology engagements. “Efforts to improve IT sourcing and strategy risk mitigation will see this trend continue as enterprises look for advice in better aligning their business needs with IT investment in multi-source scenarios”, said Jens Butler, Principal Analyst.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

“Prime vendors are expected to focus on offering ITIL/ITSM style capabilities to enterprises that are struggling with the rapid pace of change within their IT departments”. Composite application creativity The applications market will continue to grow in APAC in 2011 however Ovum believes enterprises will increasingly look to build composite applications that leverage functionality offered by multiple suites to better support complex business processes. In part this will be driven by budgetary constraints inhibiting investment in new packages while at the same time, the quest for best -of-breed functionality derived from multiple suites will also play a large part. Recurring risk management Risk management will continue to be a major issue for enterprises in 2011 from a number of different perspectives. Geo-political issues such as the conflict in Korea, financial uncertainty in Europe, and the threat of a ‘GFC 2.0’ are all weighing on the minds of enterprises and vendors alike. More focused IT project risk continues to play a role in the region with enterprises increasingly looking to share risk with technology providers – for example basing project success on business outcomes. While the appetite for risk has increased slightly over the course of 2010, it has come with much more defined controls and measures. Finding value in vertical projects Vertical specific projects will drive significant investment in IT across the region creating demand for business-fluent technology vendors. “Projects such as smart grid in the utilities industry, e-health in the healthcare industry, constituent engagement in Government, and transportation infrastructure projects will combine to form a significant portion of IT investment across

APAC”, added Jura, based in Sydney. Cross-industry solutions such as Cisco’s S+CC will be increasingly demanded as individual industry participants look to recoup significant project costs from other aligned industries. Mega-vendors and stack delineation ‘Stack delineation’ is being driven by the drive of vendors into nontraditional markets: telcos into services, hardware and cloud; software providers into hardware and appliances; services vendors into software; hardware vendors into higher margin services provision. There will be a continued blurring of the lines between which elements of the technology stack technology providers play in. As a result, this will likely affect the choices available to enterprises and create questions about the success such strategies are actually happening. “Critically for APAC, there will be a major impact on the partnership strategies of such mega-vendors which may hinder their appeal in the region – where partnerships are such an essential element”, added Butler. Surviving sustainability strategies Ovum expects CIOs to be increasingly accountable for IT and business energy costs in 2011. Critically, the metrics and associated incentives of sustainability will become more sophisticated as organizations improve their visibility into sustainability performance and wider factors such as Government pressure continue to take hold. The continuing consumerization of IT The ‘iPhone effect’ will continue to gain traction within APAC in 2011 as consumer technology forces its way into organizations and IT departments scramble to react. Consumer technology adoption will force IT departments to move away

from the traditional centralized approach of ‘command and control’ to a more flexible architecture that supports a wider variety of nonstandard devices. Concerns around securing such technology will continue to permeate the industry with heavily publicized losses of data seemingly inevitable. The spread of social media, mobile devices and what will effectively become an ‘enterprise app store’ will continue to disrupt IT strategies. Shifting security Somewhat controversially, Ovum believes that there will be a shift of accountability for security away from IT departments to the business, technology providers, and/or employees with ambiguity inevitable. IT departments will continue to be more reactive than proactive to security particularly in areas like securing end-points. “In that sense, IT departments will increasingly need to be able to live with a degree of uncertainty in their IT security particularly as alternative delivery models such as public cloud computing are adopted with increasing fervor”, advised Adam Jura. Cloud, cloud, cloud... Cloud computing will be inescapable in 2011 as vendors refine and solidify their offerings. A focus on location of data centers providing public cloud offerings will be critical particularly for those vendors targeting Government and financial clients. Private cloud will remain the top priority for APAC enterprises in 2011 with more innovative approaches such as hosted private clouds starting to gain momentum. Ovum believes 2011 will start to show ‘break-through’ cloud engagements of significant scale as enterprises better understand the impact it can have on their businesses. “Risk and change management for cloud engagements will continue to be demanded as enterprises make the transition from onsite to cloud solutions”, concluded Butler.♦

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Fournaise: Three-quarter of Ad Campaigns Tested Achieved Low Effectiveness Scores The Fournaise Marketing Group analyzed that 75% of the ad campaigns it tracked and tested at pre-launch level across 20 countries worldwide in 2010 achieved low effectiveness scores and had to be reworked because of: 1. Poor ad appeal 2. Poor message understanding 3. Poor message relevance 4. Poor likeliness to engage by the target audience Fournaise uses its Next Generation Creative Effectiveness Tracking solution CampaignTester® and its proprietary Scorecard-based 9-KPI (Key Performance Indicators) Ad Performance Tracking methodology to measure the degree of potential effectiveness of its clients’ ad campaigns in full independence and neutrality – to help both clients and agencies identify what works and what does not, and take the relevant creative corrective action. It identified two key reasons why the ad campaigns test -scored poorly and had to be seriously reworked to boost their effectiveness: In 60% of the cases, the clients’ briefs were too loose, too weak and not sharp enough, setting the agencies for failure right from the start:

• • • • • •

The campaigns’ objectives were either too vague or unclear Unique selling or value propositions were nonexistent or terribly plain Appealing customer benefits were totally missing or simply overlooked Irrelevant, incomplete or misinterpreted customer insights were used Look, feel and style were thought to be able to overcome the lack of content Over-reliance on the agency to come up with the big idea in spite of vague or unclear directions in the brief

In 40% of the cases, the agencies’ creative delivery was off-brief or simply not good enough to generate an effective impact on the target audience:

•

Understanding of the needs and wants of the clients’ target audience was too superficial, not deep enough or too much based on gut-feelings • Unique selling or value propositions were overlooked, and customer benefits were put aside, not listened to or not properly taken into account (deliberately or not) • Planning and/or creative process was rushed • Planning and creative teams were not working hand in hand enough and were often guilty of infighting • Lack of creative open-mindedness, objectivity and self-analysis when it comes to feedback/directions from the client “The ad campaigns that test-scored well in 2010 and that went on to be successfully deployed with high effectiveness levels were all based on the winning formula of precise and relevant customer insights, solid value propositions and appealing customer benefits expressed through excellent-quality creative executions,” says Jerome Fontaine, CEO & Chief Tracker of The Fournaise Marketing Group. “This winning formula is basic and is not new, but is too often forgotten or ignored by both clients and agencies,” he added.♦

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Enterprise Transformation and Cloud Services Fuel the Growth in Asia Pacific IT Services Market According to the latest IDC Asia Pacific Semi-annual IT Services Tracker, the overall IT services market in the Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region will continue its growth momentum in 2011 after a strong recovery in 2010. IDC forecasts the market to experience a 9.4% year-on -year growth in 2011, largely driven by outsourcing and project-oriented services, as well as uptake of cloud services. “New technologies and service models are changing the IT landscape. IT-as-a-service and pay-as-you-go models have triggered the market to explore alternatives to traditional outsourcing models. This has resulted in increasing interest in hosted application management as a transition to a public cloud along with data center consolidation and virtualization projects,” says Natalie Wan, Senior Research Manager of IDC’s Asia/Pacific Services Research Group.

•

Given the uptake of mobile technology, cloud computing, social networks and Web 2.0, security and risk assessment services remain high on the agenda to assist enterprises to evaluate the security posture prior to deploying new technologies and build stronger information governance for managing corporate information in the cloud.

“Transforming IT infrastructure, modernizing applications, as well as streamlining business processes, are key drivers for enterprises’ IT investment. The pressure on reducing CAPEX remains and this will continue to fuel innovation in outsourcing services over the next 12 months, as governance and IT service management take center stage in the value proposition for outsourcing services,” concludes Linus Lai, Associate Director, IDC's Asia Pacific Services Research Group. Figure: Asia Pacific excluding Japan IT Services Market Forecast 2010-2014

Key findings from the study include:

•

Consultancy-led and business transformation projects, especially cloud related initiatives, are picking up fast to enable enterprises to capture opportunities in the recovered economic environment. Server, storage and desktop virtualization, along with transition to next-generation data center, continue to fuel the growth of network consulting and integration services. Business analytics solutions are growing fast as more enterprises are demanding predictive capabilities to capitalize on the value of information and enhance competitiveness and time-to-market. Enterprises are looking for end-to-end managed services. Extending the partner ecosystem will be critical to address the growing requirements for compliance and disaster recovery.

Source: IDC Asia Pacific Semiannual Services Tracker, 1H 2010 ♦

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

New Insights into the Social Behaviour of Hong Kongers Online Hong Kong’s online citizens like to search for bargains, keep up with the latest celebrity gossip, are addicted to Facebook, like Google and love watching YouTube. Experian Hitwise, a leading online competitive intelligence service, has released an analysis of web searches by Hong Kong Internet users in the past year, providing a number of interesting insights into Hong Kongers’ social habits relevant for marketers and commentators alike. “Local web search patterns are a reflection on the interests and, in some instances the psyche of, Hong Kong consumers. These patterns have become a great tool to help marketers understand their target audience across the verticals that are most relevant to their marketing campaigns,” said Graeme Beardsell, Managing Director for South Asia, Experian. “These insights identify key online trends among Hong Kong Internet users, providing marketers with intelligent and actionable information needed to market forward and improve audience engagement in the digital media space.” “Predictive insights across key local verticals can further help marketers implement well planned Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns that are an extremely cost effective, measurable form of online advertising. These campaigns can also provide a highly-targeted lead generation tool for marketing success,” added Beardsell. Key social insights from Experian’s inaugural half-year online analysis are as follows:

Business and Finance • Hong Kongers sought information about their stocks and shares at Yahoo! Hong Kong Finance website, which accounted for 28.8% of all visits to websites in this category. They also visited AAstocks.com and ET Net, which held 11.9% and 9.5% share of visits respectively.

• Centadata.com retained the top spot as the main source of property information, with 19.7% share of visits. However, its share of visits has declined by 8.3% from 2009, when they accounted for 28.1%.

• Centamap, Centaline and Midland Realty were the most searched terms in the last three months, accounting for 5.9%, 4.7% and 2.3% of all searches in the property category (week ending 4th September to week ending 27th November). Computers and Internet

• Hong Kong is a city full of IT gadget lovers who like to browse and read reviews about the latest gadgets and gizmos. The top five electronic sites searched by Hong Kong Internet users were Review33.com, Engadget Chinese, Sony Corporation of Hong Kong, Engadget and Canon Hong Kong. Review33.com leads the pack with 16.5% of total share of visits.

• The top five most searched terms in the last three months (week ending 4th September to week ending 27th November) in the computer and internet electronics category were Canon, Samsung, Samsung Hong Kong, Nikon and LG.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

• Hong Kongers’ revealed their preferred search engine was Google over Yahoo! with Google Hong Kong, Google and Google Taiwan taking the first, third and fifth spots in the list of the top five search engines. Combined, they accounted for 56.4% of the share of visits. Yahoo! held on to second place with 24.6% share of visits and Baidu took fourth place with just 4.1%.

• Forums didn’t make the cut for Hong Kongers, with social networking leading the way with Facebook and YouTube accounting for a combined total share of visits of 62.1% in a list of top 10 sites for social networking and forums. Although accounting for a small share of visits, local forums Discuss and UWants made it into the top five with a 3.6% and 2.5% share, respectively. Entertainment • Online video channels were the number one source of entertainment for Hong Kongers, with YouTube and Tudou.com taking the top two spots in the top five most visited Entertainment websites. Hong Kongers’ didn’t neglect their favourite past time betting on horses and football. The Hong Kong Jockey Club – Bets and HKJC Football Betting Limited ranked as the third and fourth most visited sites.

• Hong Kongers showed their love of TV and pop celebrities not only in Hong Kong, but around the world, with the top five sites visited including TVB Artiste, PiPi, KoreaStarDaily, allkpop.com and Show. TVB Artiste received the biggest share of visits at 13.62%. Lifestyle • Hong Kong’s beauty and fashion community connected at BeautyExchange.com.hk, a clear favourite with Hong Kongers to discuss what’s hot and what’s not.

It ranks as the number one website in three categories: lifestyle beauty (44.8% share of visits), lifestyle – fashion (13.7% share of visits) and shopping and classified – health and beauty (37.5% share of visits).

• Women in Hong Kong adore their fashion, and to ensure they stay in style, they also visited QQ Show (5.52 share of visits) and Elle Hong Kong (4.69% share of visits), which ranked second and third behind BeautyExchange.com.hk, for fashion industry insights. UNIQLO Mix and HypeBeast, an online magazine for fashion and culture took the final two places to make up the top five most visited websites.

• Hong Kongers also explored and discussed beauty tips and product news at TheZtyle.com and She Critiques websites, which accounted for 11.27% and 3.74% respectively.

• Search terms related to lifestyle and beauty in the last three months (week ending 4th September to week ending 27th November) included BeautyExchange, Chanel, Shu Uemera, Estee Lauder and MAC.

• The top five most popular women sites included MingPao OL, 27.cn, She.com, she.com Community and YoHo lady. Ming Pao OL was top of the list with 9.8% share of visits, closely followed by 27.cn with 7.6% share and she.com with 7.1%. Shopping and Classifieds •Auction websites made up four of the top five most visited websites in the shopping and classified category as Hong Kongers search for bargains and products that can’t be found in Hong Kong. Yahoo! Auctions Hong Kong ranked top with 17.6% share of visits followed by TaoBao.com with 15.6%, eBay with 3.4% and Amazon.com with 2.6%. Apple iPod and iTunes was the fifth most visited.

• Hong Kongers showed their love for Japanese fashion with Jshoppers.com and Uniqlo websites being two of the top five most visited websites in the apparels and accessories category.

• Hong Kong consumers went to Price.com.hk to look at appliances and electronics, accounting for 29.9% of share of visits, and for computers, they checked out the Apple Store, HP and Lenovo.

• Hong Kongers shopped for a mix of high street and luxury brands with the top five searches in the last three months (week ending 4th September to week ending 27th November) dominated by Uniqlo (ranked number one most searched term), Chanel, Gucci, H&M and LV. Beardsell adds, “With capabilities to help businesses convert data into insights and delve into the search patterns of over 1.8 million Hong Kong internet users, Experian Hitwise can play a vital role in helping marketers identify local opportunities in specific verticals to strategically conduct effective marketing campaigns. Thus ensuring sustained brand visibility and awareness among their target audience in an increasingly competitive environment.”♦ Source: Experian Asia Pacific

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Hong Kong is the Best Value on Earth for Consumer Broadband By analyzing its Broadband Tariff Benchmarks – Q3 2010 Point Topic revealed that Hong Kong is the best value on earth for consumer broadband, while Singapore joins the top ten nations worldwide for the first time.

Nine of the ten best value tariffs are either pure fiber or hybrid offerings where fiber is a significant part of the local loop. The exception is Germany where Unity Media offer a cable service that is very competitive,” said Vanier.

The data, which is collected on a quarterly basis, showcases the best deals on offer to consumers around the world.

Rankings can change very quickly. If a particular operator upgrades its network or decides to introduce a new tariff, it can result in a significant improvement in the cost on offer to the consumer.

“Consumers in different countries are faced with very different broadband tariffs, dependent on geography, market and network maturity, local competition and various levels and sources of subsidy,” said Fiona Vanier, Senior Analyst at Point Topic. In the standalone tariffs that Point Topic tracks, bandwidth can vary from 150kbps – barely qualifying as broadband - up to 1Gbps. Many come with data limits, email addresses or static IPs and that is before the ‘special offers’ are accounted for. To help comparison, Point Topic has analyzed the amount a consumer will pay for a megabit of bandwidth and calculated the total cost for the first year of a broadband subscription*.

“Prices are stabilizing in many markets around the world and overall in the last quarter there was an average increase globally. However there are plenty of countries that are still rolling out new networks and ISPs that are announcing new tariffs. Even in relatively mature markets, like Singapore or Italy, there is room for improvement as the new tariffs from StarHub and Fastweb demonstrate”, added Vanier. Faster downstream speeds do usually mean a lower price per megabit but the bandwidth has to be used for those savings to be achieved.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Figure 1: Top 10 countries for consumer broadband Q310 and prices in Q210-by US$/Mbit (PPP rates year average)

Figure 2: Largest quarterly percentage reductions in price per megabit â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Q2 to Q3 2010 (PPP rates)

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Table 1: Lowest cost/megabit by country, operator and tariff – the top 10 (PPP rates)

Table 3: Largest quarterly percentage reductions in price per megabit – Q2 to Q3 2010 (PPP rates)

Table 2: Lowest cost/megabit by country, operator and tariff – the bottom 10 (PPP rates)

* The first year of a broadband subscription includes a number of costs. In addition to the monthly rental a consumer can pay for the installation, the activation and the cost of the equipment. Adding these together and converting to a common base using purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates from the United Nations** and then calculating the amount per megabit of bandwidth produces a listing from which the lowest cost per megabit for a generally available, standalone (broadband only) tariff in each country is selected. 70 countries provided enough data to qualify for this analysis. ** PPP rates from the UN as at 2008. ♦ Source: Point Topic

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Why Asia is poised to be THE breakthrough market for Mobile Advertising Mobile Marketing Association’s new Chief Executive Officer, Greg Stuart, was recently in Singapore, and Asian e-Marketing held an interview with him, together with our well-known expert on the Asian mobile scene, Rohit Dadwal, MMA’s Managing Director for Asia Pacific. Having received some fresh results that day from a survey conducted by InMobi in partnership with comScore, which revealed a surprisingly high level of mobile advertising acceptance in Asian markets, I couldn’t resist making use of this opportunity to ask these high-profile interviewees questions about the good news for mobile advertisers - especially as we know the region’s potential still seems to be virtually untapped. Q: According to the recent study, almost 70 % of Asians were comfortable with mobile advertising and more than 50% were ready for customised/ personalised advertising. Could you give me your thoughts on why that probably is so? Rohit Dadwal: That is because the nature of the device being personal, targeted and actually providing you with information at the contextual time and the place that you want, which is what consumers want. Many Asian consumers actually have not had that Marketing 101 experience, simply because the addresses and postal codes were not always there. There is also a social/economic factor: it barely costs you anything to get information and you don’t want to be left out of in-

formation you had never had access to earlier. From a business point of view, marketers are now all of a sudden finding new users they couldn’t talk to earlier and are trying to send personalized and targeted messages to their new audience by using new media. It is now, for instance, possible to send you a message saying “Daniela, you are on Duxton Road, would you want to have a beer on your way back home?” which is location based marketing and much more appealing to consumers as its relevance really generates interest. Greg Stuart: Indeed, the mobile phone presents a new opportunity for marketers to communicate to consumers and the fact that it has location and proximity provides a whole new dimension. Today’s consumers at a very basic level understand there is a quid pro quo. They are used to being exposed to ads, if they get free content or free media in return. As long as media doesn’t start to do stuff that is offensive, intrusive, or irritating, they are in general OK with the concept. Q: That in accordance with the research which states that around 50% of mobile users in Asia seem to be willing to receive advertising in return for free apps or a lower phone bill. Do you think that this is the business model of the future? That’s the way to go for the mobile advertising industry in the region and globally?

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS Rohit Dadwal: That number actually points to the economic and demographic frame of the markets that we are in, which is huge and as much as 15% of the household income can be spent on a mobile phone and services in most of these markets. That eats into education, health care and food and maybe even housing a little bit. If that can be supplemented with free ads that can reduce the cost from say 15% to 12%, why would you not want it? Remember, these are the masses who are the next one billion customers. If they can reduce their cost by 2%, by receiving free advertisements, they will do it. Consumers want advertising on a medium like mobile, because it becomes targeted and personal. They get more relevant information, which is not a spill-over from a brand’s perspective. However, it also becomes more risky, because if you start sending something which is not truly personalized - it may turn people off. In the Internet business it was pop ups that clearly were wrong for the industry and we will step in to work to stop offensive pop ups that annoy consumers on their mobiles as we think it is bad for consumer experience, too. Greg Stuart: For emerging markets this will definitely play a more active role as we move forward, and we have not even explored voice advertising yet. Mobile is and was actually meant for voice and all these things that we are talking about are additional services. We have not even touched voice advertising, yet. If listening to jingles can reduce the cost of my phone call to almost zero, I will want that. And probably my jingle already knows who I am and knows from a demographic perspective what segment I am in. Thus, customers will feel less disturbed due to more relevance. How brands start tailoring their messages and communication strategies must become very specific. Q: Given that the Asian consumers are receptive to mobile ads, there is great potential for growth in the market here. What impact do you expect will it have on the operations and expectations of MMA?

Rohit Dadwal: More people at the table means more resources for the MMA to do more work to help develop that market place. It makes it a much more exciting, much more vibrant place. With our growing industry there is reason to believe there should be some kind of regulation in that field, be it selfregulated or enforced. Regulation requires wise guidance and that’s really what we are doing. We are helping build a framework under which the industry needs to work. We at MMA believe that it needs to be self-regulated; we believe all of our members will sign up with us and then adhere to the guidelines and practices that we are working on, the consumer best practices, the code of conduct, etc. We are also playing the role of quasiconsultant advisor to the regulators so that they understand that this is an industry which is growing and that there needs to be framework around the growth and enforcing the regulation as and when they have been framed. If you do not facilitate both ends of the industry which has at one end the regulators and the other end the consumers, there is the likelihood that one or the other may falter and that is not good for the industry. So you need to work at it from both sides. We also need to define what the consumers need to do, how they need to respect privacy for their own self. They need to be aware of what they can do to stop advertising, what they can do to entertain advertising, how they need to act based on that advertising, and so on and so forth; that it is not just the industry’s role. I think that collectively it’s both the regulator and the consumer who need to figure out how they interact with this and it will happen. We see ourselves as the facilitator to help make that happen. Greg Stuart: Rohit makes the decisions for Asia Pacific that are appropriate for these markets because his dynamics are not going to be the same as in other markets. Part of my role is to figure out the consistency that we can bring to enable him to do more, more quickly and more efficiently. I think the lifecycle of the regions we operate in are quite different. Certain

regions here are ahead of the curve and other markets lag behind. Therefore, we let the four regions do what is required to be done and then try and see similarities between all of them, so that we can actually have a global organization. What we are trying to do is to build a global medium for the increasingly global marketer. Rohit Dadwal: I think it’s very true, mobile is a bigger deal here and there has been more development. It’s always good to keep an eye on what is happening in the other regions. There are developments in voice, for example, that are happening in Latin America and Africa that I am keeping a very close eye on to see how that could come to Asia. I am sure, that my counterparts in Europe or the US are doing the same. Q: How do you expect mobile technology to evolve in the future and what impact can we expect it will have on the mobile marketing industry? Greg Stuart: Mobile is now in the position where the consumers are driving growth and where technology is always trying to catch up. There are applications and services, like Foursquare, that are being built just for mobile phones. The success of this one simple app was not technology - it was the growth in usage by hundreds of millions of Foursquare users that is now helping drive innovation. So the question is how do you add location recognition to that? How do you add pictures to that? How do you add YouTube to that? The technology is now trying to catch up with what consumers want and consumers are now driving what the technological innovations will be. Who could have predicted something like Foursquare and what that means with all these new mash ups of other technologies used in new and different ways which are becoming really exciting? We need to start differentiating innovation from what is not innovation. If you say Foursquare is innovation then that’s wrong, that’s a service, that’s an HTML5 application service, which has been there for ten years. Well, it is not a technology innovation,

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS but a new application of old stuff. Rohit Dadwal: I am not sure, for instance, if it is right to compare search the way we understand it to what search will be on mobile. Mobile search is trying to emulate what search is on the Internet, but with definite variations - directory listings, content/location based search and so on. So is mobile search going to be the same to what it is on the Internet? I don’t think so, because it has already started fragmenting into different versions of directory versus location versus the traditional search versus Q&A searches. For example, you can actually do a search based on your camera, but will that become the biggest search tool as we move forward on the mobile? I am not sure. Will it be location based? Could be. Pairing reality with augmented location with content for mobile search, will that be the next killer app? Maybe. This it is not going to be the search that we know of, because this device has capabilities to take search to a whole new level compared to the PC. Q: Considering that the mobile search market is still relatively immature, which of the services do you believe has the potential to become successful, and why?

Greg Stuart: I would look at just my own behavior and guess that at least 50% of the searches on my phone are proximity related or have an element of proximity. I am trying to find a restaurant or retail store that is near me, or I am trying to identify where I am or where I need to get to – I think it’s the vast majority of what I am trying to look for. It probably is higher than that (50%) when I think about it and that is a big change. In retail shops like WalMart you could use your mobile phone for orientation to figure out where to find a product or get information on it. It’s all being driven on search and is being tagged into “If I am getting it here for this price, what is it sold for at Tesco and what will it be sold for at that other place?” That is search capability: scan the code, go into the Internet, browse it, find the cheapest price, and then go there and save $50. Rohit Dadwal: I think there is a whole new layer of services that sort of get entered into here. We talked about Foursquare’s service but I know Procter & Gamble’s Olay did an application that works while you are standing in a retail aisle in front of their Olay products by providing a series of questions and answers that you go through to help identify which of their products

is right for you. I don’t know if I would ever take the time to sit in front of my PC and identify a series of Olay products and then relate that to a retail experience, but if I am in the retail experience and I have the question and I have the need then and there to solve that, this is a big opportunity to do so. It feels to me like a very powerful idea and one that retail is not able to support yet, because there is no one within a pharmacy or drug store that really has the range of specific knowledge, in particular for Olay products. It’s a very powerful idea and that feels like search to me - it is a variation of a Google, but it is still definitely a search. Did you see that Google announced that they have over $1 billion dollars in mobile revenues? They did not qualify whether that was application, platform, or advertising. They just said mobile, without sorting out the income streams. So, it is a pretty big deal and certainly has got everyone’s attention, which makes it a pivotal moment for mobile.♦ By Daniela La Marca

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Cloud Computing Is a Powerful Tool That Shapes the Business of Tomorrow The recent Frost & Sullivan end-user study results reveal that although there is much speculation around Cloud Computing as yet another ‘vaporware’ most of the companies surveyed, have either initiated discussions or have already started using the technology. Arun Chandrasekaran, Research Manager at Frost & Sullivan says that, “There is a growing awareness amongst consumers and enterprises to access their information technology (IT) resources extensively through a “utility” model, a development broadly called “Cloud Computing.” Cloud represents the next wave in the computing industry, as it strives to eliminate inherent inefficiencies in the existing IT architecture and deliver “IT as a service” to the end-users.” Some of the up-front benefits of cloud computing are cost-savings, on-demand usage, ubiquitous access and resource pooling along with, pay-per-use - like the utility based consumption model. The existing infrastructure in most enterprises is ridden with inefficiencies due to the low utilization rate of resources such as computing and storage. Customers have invested in excess capacity keeping peak demand in mind and are now plagued with higher spends than their usage levels.

Frost & Sullivan survey conducted across Asia Pacific (with senior IT decision makers) indicates that close to 1 in 4 enterprises use some form of cloud computing. More than 50 percent of the survey respondents believe that Cloud Computing technology in any delivery form can help businesses reduce their infrastructure cost and lowers capital expenditure investment compared with traditional IT management. 23 percent of the respondents indicated using some form of Cloud Computing while 61 percent of the respondents are likely to increase their cloud computing spending in 2011. The IT department is the key decision maker when it comes to cloud initiatives, followed by the CXO’s. Some of the key factors determining the selection of cloud provider are security & privacy standards, quality of SLAs (Service level agreements) and pricing. IBM, Google and Microsoft had the highest mindshare in the Public Cloud Computing space while IBM, HP and EMC/VMware were the top mindshare garners in the private cloud space. The adoption rate of Cloud has improved from previous years, though there still are many businesses that are concerned about this technological investment or perceive it as yet another technology fad.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

A. Chandrasekaran

“Challenges for adopting Cloud Computing are regulatory complance, invisibility over data storage & access, SLAs, reliability of clouds and ownership of legal liability. However, there is no such thing as ‘zero’ risk. Businesses need to realize that with proper planning, risks can be mitigated,” comments Chandrasekaran.

Frost & Sullivan analysis from the survey concludes that in order to fully understand Cloud Computing, vendors and service providers need to understand that the solution is first built for the customer’s business needs and it is always about the business rather than the technology.

In order to drive adoption of Cloud by business owners, vendors also need to be more liberal with their trial periods to fully accommodate clients request to explore various opportunities that Cloud has to offer. Cloud Computing offers significant promise for enterprises saddled with inefficient IT infrastructure. It offers the critical promise of aligning IT with business needs and creating a truly agile business environment. “Cloud Computing is a powerful tool that can shape the businesses of tomorrow and it is no longer just hype. It’s real!” says Chandrasekaran.♦ Source: Frost & Sullivan

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Springboard Research’s Top 10 Predictions in 2011 Springboard Research presented its analysis of key trends in the Asia Pacific IT market in 2010, along with a preview of the top trends the company believes will shape the regional market in 2011. The analysis is based on Springboard Research’s continuous tracking of the major trends and developments in the Asia Pacific IT markets, which includes substantial ongoing primary research conducted throughout the year with CIOs and other IT and business decision makers, briefings with leading IT vendors, and analysis of publicly available information on IT companies, countries, products, technologies and services in the region. Their top 10 trends that will shape enterprise IT in the Asia Pacific region in 2011 are: #1 Cloud Computing – From Silver Bullet to Just another Sourcing Option Throughout 2011, the hype surrounding cloud computing will give way to a more realistic understanding of its relevance and applicability among CIOs and other senior IT decision‐makers. According to Springboard ,cloud computing is just one of many valid sourcing options IT organizations must consider alongside traditional approaches, including both on‐premise deployments as

well as hosted solutions. Far from expecting cloud computing to replace all other approaches to application deployment/service delivery, IT decision makers must determine the optimal sourcing option for various services based on various criteria including usage scenario, scalability requirements, IT skills availability, and types of workloads being enabled. The debate over public versus private versus hybrid approaches has led to further cloud related market confusion over the past 12 months. Ironically, however, through 2011 this debate will actually serve to help organizations better understand and therefore position cloud‐based approaches relative to existing IT initiatives. As IT (and many business) decision makers educate themselves on the distinction between internal versus external service deployments, and between dedicated and shared access, they will better understand how the various cloud approaches compare with other, existing approaches within their organizations. In terms of overall spending, the public cloud market in Asia Pacific remains dominated by software as a service (SaaS) solutions. SaaS demand will remain strong, particularly in scenarios where connectivity is required (email, web conferencing) or limited existing on‐ premise investments prevail (CRM). However, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings from both cloud providers (e.g., AWS, Rackspace) as well as more traditional

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

telco providers (e.g., Singtel, Telstra) are expected to grow rapidly. For CIOs and IT decision makers, cloud related security concerns will center around interoperability and integration of systems, data and processes likely to be accessed across multiple internal and external deployment scenarios. #2 Demand for Mobile Reporting Services Transforms “Business Intelligence” Previously bundled as “Business Intelligence” (BI), reporting and analytics will begin to bifurcate in 2011, largely as a result of an increased demand from end‐users for mobile reporting services. With a strong initial focus on role‐based report delivery, lightweight navigation, simple drilldown and basic user‐driven interactivity, mobility will begin to move BI out of IT and into the hands (literally) of business decision makers. Organizations will discover that users require more contextually relevant reporting and analytics, including more social, collaborative and geo‐ location driven reporting, providing vendors an opportunity to separate out BI functionality into various ‘layers’, including specific products optimized for particular mobile platforms. This will have a significant architectural impact for the majority of enterprise IT organizations that span application delivery, application lifecycle management, security, data integration, data warehousing, and telco services amongst others.

better application performance at a lower cost. As this trend continues to gain strength, the lines between SaaS and managed services will increasingly blur.

be delivered to a wide range of devices.

Springboard expects to see further consolidation and commoditization of IT managed services with services like monitoring, tracking, patching, and performance reporting increasingly delivered via cloud throughout 2011.

Application server technology has previously enabled static HTML documents to be rendered as rich, dynamic web based content. However, additional proprietary plug‐in technologies such as Adobe Flash/ Air and Microsoft Silverlight were also required to augment basic HTML content to provide highly interactive and visually appealing, rich user interfaces. HTML 5 will enable richer user interfaces and greater interactivity across a much wider range of client devices – including mobiles. This will eventually lessen the gap between more proprietary mobile platforms (such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad) and more open platforms such as Google’s Android OS‐based devices.

#4 HTML 5 Boosts an Application ‐Centric Web across a Wide Range of Devices

#5 IT Distribution Channel Partners Accelerate the Evolution of their Business Models

HTML 5, the next major revision of the HTML standard is expected to be formally ratified by late 2011and will gain greater attention throughout the year with its ability to support video playback, drag and drop user control, inline document editing, client‐side data storage and more interactive web form capabilities. HTML 5 will enable a further significant leap from being document centric to becoming more application centric and will enable a new wave of mobile applications to

Distribution channel partners are in a particularly vulnerable position as the IT market moves quickly toward cloud computing. The days of surviving on business models dependent on distributing generalized IT products with razor‐thin margins and living day‐ to‐day on cash turns supported by vendor‐provided credit are quickly coming to a close. To make matters worse, the traditional large‐scale SI deals that supported channel partners for years are increasingly disappearing or

Managed services providers (MSPs) will be forced to innovate with new business and delivery models based on reliable, standardized and scalable platforms and develop specific SLAs for the management of these extended environments, influenced by cloud computing.

#3 Managed Services Providers Innovate to Drive Added Value One of the most important milestones in 2011 will be the expansion of managed services beyond basic infrastructure management to include more application‐related services. As more organizations seek to reap the benefits of a better integrated approach to managed services, there will be a clear move towards application outsourcing that combines infrastructure and application management to yield

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

are being won and delivered by vendors directly. In 2011, regional system integrators (SIs), value‐ added resellers (VARs) and distributors will be forced to develop better specialty services by offering vertical industry and business solutions in order to deliver the customer the level of value required to survive in a cloud‐enabled market. Already being pushed by their vendor suppliers to invest in skills around high growth solutions, channel partners will need to elevate their customer intimacy and ability to deliver clear business value. #6 Telcos Embrace the Cloud but Are Forced to Prove Their Customer Orientation In 2011, Telecommunications companies (telcos) of all sizes, and in many Asian countries, will formally embrace cloud computing as an offering targeted at enterprise IT. However, Springboard Research believes that not all telcos will be as equally committed – or capable – of delivering the full range of cloud services demanded by customers. Infrastructure hosting will be targeted at larger enterprise clients with SaaS offerings targeted at small‐ to‐medium sized business (SMB) customers during 2011. However, cloud “pure‐play” vendors will also continue to grow and be attractive, often by partnering with telcos to provide more complete and packaged solutions (e.g., offsite backup and more flexible capacity and performance options). The goal for any cloud service provider during 2011 however, will be to prove assumptions about exploiting efficiencies, cost advantages and the ability to productize for a mass market on a cost effective basis. These are generally key differentiators for telcos offering cloud ‐based services versus more traditional IT players, including enterprise applications vendors, infrastructure vendors and more traditional hosted service providers. Nonetheless, telcos are significantly constrained by their own

marketing vision, their ability to communicate that vision and the ability to execute on it as a matter of daily business operations. 2011 will be the time these assumptions are tested in reality. Given the key characteristics of the cloud (network‐based access, usage‐based pricing, leveraging of shared resources, automated provisioning), telcos would appear to be extremely well‐positioned to benefit from the massive market opportunities that cloud computing will likely provide. However, significant challenges and barriers still exist that will be difficult to overcome, even for the larger telcos. 2011 will test telco’s own infrastructure and support services with responsiveness to customer requests/issues, the ability to adequately address ‘unique’ scenarios or requirements that fall outside their standard offerings and an overall ability to recognize and respond to the changing demands of small and medium sized businesses in a timely manner. Springboard Research believes that 2011 will see telcos increasingly providing cloud based services – whether based on infrastructure or applications – but by 2012‐2013 only a limited range of services will ultimately be offered. This will bring some market instability with enterprise customers unclear and unconvinced on which services will be maintained over the long term. Organizations should therefore carefully assess their risk when short‐listing telco providers – whether small or large – for sourcing cloud‐based solutions and/or services. #7 Real‐time CODE Emerges: Content Management Meets Collaboration Real‐time collaborative document editing (CODE) will begin to gain broader attention in the enterprise market during 2011.

The most widely known example of real‐time CODE today is Google Docs. This service allows multiple users to collaboratively edit a live document in real time. But it is unlikely to go “mainstream” in 2011. Just as instant messaging reduced email‐based collaboration “cycle” times over recent years, document centric processes that require multiple participants to edit and/or approve documents will also benefit significantly. Typical applications in the enterprise will include incident reporting, proposals, tenders, approvals, submissions, project planning and case management (amongst others). Driven by the substantial potential efficiencies and advantages of CODE, Springboard Research expects to see the enterprises formally evaluate the impact to their businesses. Immediate benefits include enhanced/multi ‐dimensional version control, reduced document data volumes, improved document template management, superior content integration and of course, reduced collaborative cycle times. Though it is unlikely that Google will emerge as a serious enterprise software vendor within the next 12‐18 months, Springboard Research does expect to see a much greater interest in (and gradual take up of) CODE solutions over the coming decade with 2011 serving as a transition point. #8 Information Security Becomes a Key Enterprise Priority and Sparks Client Virtualization Wikileaks has demonstrated the damage that can be caused when information assets are not properly protected. The risks to organizations when unprotected information is released can include reputation damage, competitive losses and even criminal charges, which is coming into greater focus with every new leaked document. In 2011, governments and large enterprises will invest far more in technologies, services and business processes to protect their

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

most sensitive information assets. Improved information security will bump up against – and be challenged by – a number of the strongest trends driving the IT industry in 2011 such as providing analytics for mobile workers, pervasive network access and new social media. Springboard believes that when organizations evaluate how best to improve information security, many will embark on strategies to fundamentally modernize their entire infrastructure management strategies and probably opt for client virtualization. #9 Converged Infrastructure Stacks Challenge General‐ Purpose IT For the past 30 years, success and growth in the IT industry has been driven by general purpose hardware and software components integrated together by vendors, business partners and end‐users for particular needs. This model of computing has served the industry exceptionally well and has brought IT to millions of new businesses and consumers over the past several decades. Like preceding industry changes, this industry framework will remain and continue to drive a majority of the market for years to come. However, integrated stacks of hardware, software and services in devices and appliances will continue to gain prominence and will challenge the traditional industry model in 2011 – even in the face of the emergence of cloud computing. In almost every segment of the IT industry, specialized converged infrastructure solutions are mushrooming. The best example is perhaps Apple and its integration of hardware, software, service and content bundled into products like the iPhone. In 2011, vendors will heavily promote “vertically

integrated” stacks as a means of differentiation in an attempt to address the requirement for simplification of the technology environment. #10 Consumerization of IT Drives Major Changes in Usage Patterns and Expectations Rapid growth in the usage of mobile devices, (e.g., smart phones, iPads, etc.) combined with an explosion in social computing (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has already impacted the way end‐users view IT. Over the next 12 months, this ongoing consumerization of IT will have increasingly dramatic impacts on the ways in which end‐ users access enterprise applications and data. While employees continue to access sensitive applications and data from secured, corporate networks, they are increasingly using web‐based offerings and mobility devices for both work and personal reasons. This represents growing complexity for IT teams that are already wrestling with the need to embrace new technologies – but struggling to maintain management and control over older ones. CIOs will face ever increasing pressure to allow more consumer/personal devices into corporate networks, manage the influx of social computing habits of their employees and handle the increasing mobile security issues they present. Springboard believes that IT teams will be forced to embrace the more consumer‐friendly computing habits and environments. With a variety of form‐ factors existing in the marketplace, there is a critical need for applications to be offered in a platform‐and ‐device‐agnostic manner (e.g., standard user images) which provides users with a seamless experience across various form factors.

However, IT organizations must avoid the temptation to support mobile access by developing even more complex, multi‐layered applications. Instead, IT organizations should use this opportunity to embrace the basic internet standards they have likely been trying to standardize on for the past decade (i.e. standard based HTML over HTPP on SSL). Throughout 2011, it is this ability to avoid over‐complicating the mobile application environment that will separate leaders from followers. Conclusion As the world continues to recover from the global financial crisis in 2011, the IT industry will undergo fundamental shifts in technology adoption and usage. A critical driver behind these changes will be cloud computing, which will move further along its transition from hype to specific implementations and organizations looking to take definitive steps along clearer and better understood multi‐year adoption roadmaps. Other driving forces pushing industry change will be mobility, analytics, IT democratization, IT abstraction and convergence. The degree of change and evolution shaping the market in 2011 will place a greater premium on agility and rethinking old assumptions and computing models. Winners and losers will be separated by an ability to quickly identify the shifts underway, to see (and accept) things in different ways and mobilize their organizations or teams to respond as quickly and effectively as possible.♦ Extract from Springboard Research’s report by Daniela La Marca

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How to Avoid Pitfalls and Run an Effective Search Engine Campaign

Understanding the basic structure of how search engines register websites is crucial to succeed in search engine optimization (SEO). It is one of the most effective web site promotion techniques, referring to improvements and changes made to web pages so that they conform to the search criteria utilized by search engines to rank and position listings, taking into consideration criteria such as keyword frequency, prominence, weight and proximity, as well as keyword placement within the HTML. They like "content rich" or thematic text (sufficient enough to support the primary keyword phrase) about your products/services and use this to find the best result. In general it is actually not necessary to submit a website as the search engines will find it earlier or later, but achieving a higher ranking means a lot of work. Often the optimization is an exercise performed by the search engine that determines how relevant the page is to a searcher's request. Alternately, a firm specializing in search engine marketing does it. The pay per placement engine market is a billion dollar industry and is a platform that requires so little set-up and capital investment that a multitude of firms have embraced it as a front-line marketing channel. But as more and more companies sign up, the click costs have to meet the demand and increase. And like all other marketing tools, this one as well isn’t without pitfalls and obstacles, so you might want to pay attention to the following advice:

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• Understand your objectives - the first is to isolate your website objectives and tailor your traffic to achieve them.

• Track your clicks - whether you own or adopt an advanced web analytics tool or simply add an affiliate code to the URLs submitted to the engine you must make sure you track click activity against your objectives. This is such an important factor that even

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engines themselves are starting to offer this service recognizing that accounting for click to conversion is a sure way to measure success. Choose the right search engine(s) - don't be mistaken in thinking that all engines are equal; some are all-rounders, some B2B focused, and some B2C focused. Make sure you are aware of which one is most effective for you. Choose the right words - make sure you take into account the selection of words and phrases you use. Writing 'killer' creative – Firstly, drive more qualified traffic and secondly, reduce the amount of irrelevant clicks. Make the visitors qualify themselves before they even click the link by adding a call to action - such as buy, visit, compare, search - into your title and/or description which will prompt interest. Qualifying them further with relevant descriptions that include enough information to wet their appetite yet, at the same time provide enough information to dissuade a user who is uncertain whether he should visit your Website or not. Find out what buzz words your search engine recommends for your industry. Manage your bids and placements - the biggest difference between paid search and any other type of search engine optimization is that you have to bid for your position. Get to know the search engine distribution partners and where their listings are going. Actually, the number of options available for managing bids is extensive - from doing it manually to buying a service to perform it for you. It is definitely the missing link to many paid search campaigns and can mean the difference between success and failure. Try to match conversion with costs and placement. For example: can you get a better ROI from averaging being in position 3 rather than position 1? Be aware of seasonality - at peak times in your industry a lot of business can be achieved online, at the same time you can bet that a large number of

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your competitors will also be aware of this so make sure you watch your bids very carefully. Don't be afraid to change creatively, you can make adjustments within a week to turn around seasonal trends and demand.

• Choose the most appropriate landing page - Just ask yourself the question when selecting the page “would you be happy if you'd searched for a product or service and then had to search for it a second time on the destination site?”

Now that I explained the process a little more in depth, use the provided information to plan your campaign or fine tune your current campaigns to get the most from the marketing dollars. The pay-per-click search engine marketing is definitely a very competitive, efficient, and effective means of Internet marketing. Understanding it gives the ability to turn search into an extremely profitable channel.♦ By Daniela La Marca

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

No Pain, No Gain – So Put Some Effort into Your Keywords Selection

Keywords are extremely crucial as they lead search engine users to your site, therefore selecting the right keywords is the first step to better search engine positioning and the most important stage in garnering a prime spot in search engines’ Top 10. Like our daily tooth brushing, “googling” goes without saying by now and the term has been included in the dictionary quite some time ago. For companies it is essential to be found on Google to state that they exist, or let’s say at least are online. Fact is whoever does not exist online, has a significant competitive disadvantage. The current global market leader among search engines are Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Baidu, which share almost the whole cake, as the rest is insignificant. As pivots in the web, they direct more than 90 percent of visitors to websites. And let me tell you that keying in your company name doesn’t mean that users that are searching for products, services or solutions will find you, as the top spot on Google & Co. is the dream of many. If it is a hard-fought keyword, the opportunities fall rapidly. Still, the basis for success here are hard work and a lot of effort, which means search engine optimization. It is an ongoing process that consists of so-called onand off page factors. On-page factors describe all you can do on your own Web site to improve your ranking. Off-page factors are all measures outside the site. The latter have usually more success, but still the basis of both optimization methods is the knowledge of the best keywords. In the beginning there was (the) keyword The right keywords are the key to the website and fundamental for all other measures. Each webpage can be

optimized for up to two keywords. But to know the right keywords, you need to know your audience and how your customers tick. Helpful is the knowledge of the following characteristics: age, sex, education level, Internet affinity, when collecting all relevant search terms and synonyms. Whether brainstorming or using customer surveys, take into account the following considerations: singular or plural? In which order ("consultancy Singapore" or "Singapore consultancy")? British or American English etc.? You can receive support from free keyword databases that are available on the web, such as the Google Keyword-Tool, which will spit out the most common search terms and synonyms. You can get additional keywords from your web statistics, if you have one, as it shows all terms your visitors used to reach your site. Last but not least, you must clean up the keyword list. Balance the terms critically against each other and check their relevance, as all that then remains forms the input for the following on-page optimization. On-page factors Google is looking at the most important areas of the website and assesses them accordingly, so you should know them. Title Tag: The so-called title tag has a huge influence on Google, which is an indication in the invisible head section of the source code of a web page. The title is equally important for Google and for your visitors because an excerpt of what is listed there appears in underlined bold print in the hit list of Google. Ideally, there are important keywords and informative text there that invite you to visit the site. You must succeed in the balancing act between the placement of keywords and attractive text.

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

Homepage: It is the showcase of your Website and the search engine is weighting its content particularly strong as it is after all the top level of your site. Be prepared to disclose your name and sources and present yourself in brief: Who are you? What do you offer? What makes you unique? But don’t make the mistake to overload your home page with texts, which would be counter-productive. Technology: In order for Google to be able to index your site properly, it must be programmed technically correct. Use clean HTML code, which means without syntax errors. Because then it may happen that a bold print isn’t recognized and a headline isn’t understood as such by Google. Framesets are another problem area. If this technique wasstate-of-the-art in the prehistoric times of the Internet, it is nowadays outdated. You give 30 percent of the potential away when you work with framesets. The better alternatives are called CSS and DIV boxes. Both are modern techniques that your programmer should work with.

Keyword Density: It describes the relative frequency of keywords in a text. Experts recommend a keyword density between three and seven percent, as Google then attaches importance to the keyword. But beware: If the keyword density is significantly higher, the search engine assumes that it is search engine spam and reduces the rating. And always keep in mind that web pages are created for people, not for search engines. Headings: Google rates headings higher than normal text, thus every website needs a headline. Menu terms: Similar to the title, menu terms have more weight in Google than the plain Website content, so ideally you put your most important keywords there. Off-page factors 60 percent of the search engine optimization success goes on the account of external links also called link popularity or off page factors. This refers to the number and quality of links pointing to your website. The decisive factors are the page rank and the thematic proximity of the link to your website.

Google's Pagerank is a numerical value between zero and ten that reflects the link popularity of a website and can be seen with the Google Toolbar. The higher it is, the better. In addition you should make entries in trade directories such as the yellow pages or on appropriate topic or subject portals. A small trick may help to find such portals. Enter your competitors’ sites as follows in Google link: www.competitorsdomain.com to get an overview of the external links of the competition. Perhaps you can get linked with one or other website you found. Seeing all this, you will appreciate why keywords are so vital to search engine optimization. Therefore, to optimize your business and users’ searches, ensure that you thoroughly research your keywords and get your gold at the end of the rainbow – in this case, a high search engine ranking.♦ By Daniela La Marca

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

Mobile Search – Opportunities and Challenges In order for mobile search to reach its full potential, it has to be fast and convenient to use, regardless of the kind of device the user has. The ideal mobile search should provide users with immediate, relevant answers, with no distractions. For example, mobile search should not force users to scroll though menu after menu or type in lengthy queries. Instead, the ideal solution should be to find the content or information they seek with the fewest taps and page views possible. The more efficient that a mobile search service is in terms of bandwidth, screen space and the user’s time, the better the user experience. In the process, this efficiency builds a relationship between the user and a particular mobile search service that then may be leveraged for marketing opportunities, such as sponsored links. Companies involved with mobile search should pay close attention to fundamental issues such as consumer perceptions of mobile search, their expectations and how they currently use – or don’t use - mobile phones to find information, content and services. These insights are key for creating mobile search offerings that best match those needs and wants. Following are some examples of key issues to consider: Discoverability – Education is critical for building awareness and use of mobile search. Today, there are two main ways that consumers access their phone’s mobile search application: as part of a Mobile Web experience or as a separate application that resides on the mobile phone. With Mobile Web, users can either find the application through the operator portal (ondeck) or separately through a user-entered Web address (off-deck). Input Methods – There are three primary ways that mobile search queries can be entered:

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As text, using a keypad that’s supported with predictive-input software to minimize keystrokes. Text currently is the most common method for entering information or queries.

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Via speech, using voice-recognition software that converts speech into text that the search engine can use.

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As an image - Using an image is another way to launch a search for information. For example, users can take a picture of a bar code with a camera phone.

Output Methods – Search results should be presented in a way that respects limitations such as the phone’s display size and the network’s speeds. The results also should include options that make it easy for users to perform an action, such as purchasing the song that they were searching for, sharing directions to a restaurant via SMS with friends that they’ll meet for dinner or clicking a link to call for more information. Put simply, the search results should be concise and actionable. The Opportunity for Mobile Operators Mobile search gives operators an opportunity to increase revenue. At a minimum, additional revenue comes from the data plans that customers must sign up for in order to use mobile search. It’s important to note that this helps increase average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metric that analysts and investors focus on when assessing a mobile operator’s competitive position. Mobile operators may receive an additional revenue share paid for by search providers and their business partners. For example, if a user clicks on a sponsored link or buys a ringtone, the mobile operator may receive a revenue share. This isn’t always the case, but it’s an opportunity that does exist. Mobile operators also can use search as a marketdifferentiator. For example, if the operator selects mobile search services that are easier to use than those provided by rival operators, that helps create a favourable market perception among existing and potential customers. Operators also can work with search providers and other parties to create storefronts for downloadable content. Because they control the network and, in most cases, the applications and services that are on their customers’ handsets, mobile operators play a key role in enabling mobile search.

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

For example, they can configure their billing systems to support premium SMS content delivery and real-time location data that can be used to provide turn-by-turn directions to accompany search results for nearby restaurants. Mobile operators also play a key role in protecting the identities and privacy of their customers. Mobile operators currently have two main options for how they provide mobile search services to their customers: 1. Operator Branded Search Service – This approach puts the operator’s brand up front on the search engine and provides access to content such as ringtones, songs, games, wallpaper and videos available directly from the operator. An on-portal approach also gives content providers an effective way to highlight their content through advertising. For example, some content providers currently buy keywords and contribute to the search results with sponsored links.

search. The easier that the search service is to use and the better it is at combining on deck and off deck results, the more likely that it will become the customers’ first choice when conducting searches. Operators also face a few challenges. The context of the search, the location of the user and any operator-provided behavioral or demographic data gives companies advertising through operator search services the best opportunity to deliver the highest relevancy, the highest click-through rates and the first impression. The key is relevance because no operator wants to risk annoying a $50 or $100 per monthly customer with a bombardment of ads every time they perform a search. Instead, operators and their business partners must ensure that ads are relevant to the information, services or content that the user is searching for. The Opportunity for Marketers

2. Off Portal – There are many mobile search providers that allow users to search for content across the Mobile Web rather than the operator’s content. Many mobile users navigate off portal – also known as off deck – by using a browser bookmark or by entering a URL. (Users with smartphones that have physical or virtual QWERTY keyboards are more likely to go off portal than users with feature phones that have only a numeric keypad for text input.)

Of the many emergent marketing channels – including social, video and word -of-mouth – mobile offers the most to marketers in terms of flexibility and reach. For example, mobile search lets marketers reach consumers when they’re away from their PC, TV or magazines. That translates into additional revenue opportunities because, for example, sales opportunities aren’t lost because a consumer exposed to an ad has forgotten about it by the time she’s at a PC and thus in a position to take action. Instead, mobile search makes it possible for consumers to take action on the spot, such as by searching for the ringtone for a song they just heard.

Operators sometimes combine both on deck and off deck results within their operator-branded search services. For example, they can serve up an ad or marketing message as the user reviews the initial results and decides what to do. This ad can lead the user back on portal, to the open Internet, to a map or directly to a voice call with a merchant, depending on what makes the most sense for that type of

Savvy marketers have already identified many of these opportunities. According to Forrester Research, 83% of marketers believe that the mobile channel will become an increasingly effective platform over the next three years. Yet few are moving to incorporate it into their current media mix. That lack of action creates opportunities for marketers willing to develop and execute a mobile strategy now in

order to make their brands and messages stand out from the clutter. Just as some marketers recognized and capitalized on the potential that digital media offered in the 1990s, there’s an early-adopter advantage for marketers that embrace mobile search sooner rather than later. For example, the more mainstream that mobile search becomes, the more that brands will seek marketers with hands-on experience with that channel. Following are some current mobile search options for marketers: Paid Search Strategies Mobile Paid Search – Some search portals offer mobile paid search text advertising, as do select wireless operators and independent mobile advertising networks. This traditional pay-per-click (PPC) model often proves to be the easiest transition for marketers experimenting with mobile because of the similarities to the process and metrics of Internet paid search campaigns. The travel, hospitality and entertainment industries have been among the first to add mobile paid search to their marketing mix, but it has significant potential across nearly all verticals. As more mobile networks and devices support location technologies, it gives marketers the ability to target consumers based on their location, when they are ready to act, creating a powerful advantage for mobile search advertising. Natural Search Strategies Mobile Web Development – Perhaps the most obvious yet overlooked opportunity for marketers is creating natural search visibility with mobile-friendly content. Although search engines do their best to present mobile users with content that is adapted to match their devices’ capabilities – such as in terms of screen size and resolution – the majority of Websites still render poorly, if at all, within a mobile browser. Offering mobile versions of contextually relevant con-

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

understand the value of accessing content on their mobile phone versus devices such as the PC. The mobile industry can help address this need with support from mobile operators and other industry leaders in the form of an education campaign to let users know the availability and power of mobile search, which will spur usage. Additional awareness can come from online and print promotions to drive traffic to mobile content.

tent from Internet sites designed for viewing on PCs – such as store locators, product catalogues and mission statements – enables a brand to maintain comparable natural search visibility on a mobile device while ensuring a good user experience. Challenges for Mobile Search

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Market Development – In order for mobile search to live up to its potential – that is, becoming at least as mainstream, effective and profitable as Internet search – the mobile advertising market must continue to mature. To foster this maturation, the MMA will continue educating advertisers, marketers and brands about the value of this highly focused, highly targetable channel. Maturity also includes developing a level of research, reporting and analysis capabilities on par with what’s available today with Internet search. The MMA is currently working with industry leaders to increase the level of available data to share with its members. User Adoption – Consumers need to be educated to better

input capabilities, sound capabilities, memory levels and operating systems. The ideal mobile search solution should provide a consistently good user experience across all networks and devices – a major but not insurmountable challenge. For example, there’s a growing selection of network-based products that identify a handset model and then tweak the content to match its capabilities, all in real time.

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Availability of Mobile Content – Mobile Web adoption remains a chicken-and-egg problem. As users try the Mobile Web, they expect the same depth and breadth of content available on PCs. However, many businesses were initially slow to develop mobile sites, which are key for meeting that expectation. However, mobile site development increased considerably and is expected to continue to grow.

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The MMA believes that mobile search is a significant opportunity for many players in the mobile industry. By cataloging and researching ways that consumers use search today, and discovering what they want from mobile search applications in the future, the MMA will continue to help to educate the mobile industry, the marketing community and consumers. In addition, the MMA will endeavor to help the industry overcome many of the hurdles and challenges that have hindered the mass adoption of previous wireless applications.♦

Different Capabilities Across Handset Types – As with all mobile applications, mobile search must contend with a variety of handset displays,

By Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific Limited

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

Search Engine Optimization Techniques to Avoid Understanding the basic structure of how search engines register Websites is crucial to succeed in search engine optimization (SEO). It is one of the most effective web site promotion techniques, referring to improvements and changes made to web pages so that they conform to the search criteria utilized by search engines to rank and position listings. 'Spiders' are used by search engines to locate, index, rank, and list their findings, which take into consideration criteria such as keyword frequency, prominence, weight and proximity, plus keyword placement within the HTML They like "content rich" or thematic text (sufficient enough to support the primary keyword phrase) about your products/services and use this to determine how relevant the page is to a searcher's request. In general it is actually not necessary to submit a Website as the search engines will find it earlier or later, but achieving a higher ranking means a lot of work. Search engine operators spend a lot of time trying to create a useful tool for finding related content on the web, and we have the highest respect for these efforts. So, never try to trick the search engines into listing your site better, as they will most likely view it as spam and penalize you. Furthermore: Never list keywords anywhere except in your keywords meta tag. By "list" we mean something like - keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3, keyword 4, etc. There are very few legitimate reasons that a list of keywords would actually appear on a web page or within the page's

HTML code and the search engines know this. While you may have a legitimate reason for doing this we would recommend avoiding it so that you do not risk being penalized by the search engines. When you integrate keywords into your title and alt tags, integrate them into a readable sentence that will not raise the red flag of a simple list. Never use the same color text on your page as the page's background color. This has often been used to keyword stuff a web page. Search engines can detect this and view it as spam. Never use multiple instances of the same tag. For example, using more than one title tag. Search engines can detect this as well and view it as spam. Never submit identical pages. For example, do not duplicate a page of your site, give the copies different file names, and submit each one. Never submit the same page to any engine more than once within 24hrs. Never use any keywords in your keywords meta tag that do not directly relate to the content of your page. Never use a search engine optimization or submit service that promises you a top ranking by optimizing your page and submitting and resubmitting your site to thousands of search engines. We have yet to find a service like this that really works, and many will use some or many of the techniques listed above, which can actually hurt, rather than help your site to rank well. â&#x2122;Ś By Daniela la Marca

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

Maximize your ROI through smart keyword management strategies As part of Yahoo!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s specialized and knowledgeable search engine marketing team, I am committed to support our advertisers in their search marketing campaign goals and performances. Search engine marketing is all about keywords, hence getting your keyword management strategies straightened out can impact your account with immediate return on investment improvements. We have witnessed as much as 400% improvement in cost per acquisition (CPA), which does not even include benefits to your account in the long run. Here are four of the common keyword selection misconceptions that I have come across being an evangelist for search engine marketing. I have also included my attempt to debunk them with the correct approaches. 1. Should I limit the number of keywords in my search marketing account? There should never be a limit to the number of keywords for a search engine marketing account. When proper optimizations are being carried out, the number of keywords will increase or decrease accordingly. It can further help to reach your desired search engine marketing campaign performance objective.

Even for advertisers with a low advertising budget, different keyword types such as brand keywords or specific keywords will yield varied performance results. To get the best out of your search engine marketing account, you will have to find your own winning keyword mix by launching, implementing tests and adjusting your keywords accordingly. 2. Do I still need to bid on brand keywords when my website already appears in the organic result? The best benefit of search engine marketing is that ads can be shown to the right person at the right time. By bidding on your brand keywords, you can take advantage of the opportunity to communicate in real time to users who are doing research on your brand. You are now able, for instance, to immediately blast out the latest promotional message to users who are interested to find out about your brand's information, which is like having your potential customers coming to your counter for your latest product flyer. Thus, flyer distribution guys deployed at train stations may now be a thing of the past. 3. Do I still need to bid on general keywords since it is giving me lower click through rate and conversions?

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

Firstly, this is the best kind of branding campaign you can ever run. You are engaging consumers who need your product but have not yet decided on a brand to go for. If you are not present at this stage of research, your brand will be left out of the eventual buying decision process. Secondly, by bidding on general keywords, you are exposing your brand to many more potential customers than the group that already knows your brand. It’s simply the best opportunity for you to grab market share from your competitors. And last but not least, in a perfect scenario, the number of users searching for your brand term should increase over time, if you bid on general keywords consistently over a long period of time. Consider this as mid to long term investment into increasing your brand awareness.

4. Will I be able to reach the stage where my search marketing account is 100% optimized so that I won't have to work so hard anymore?

formance of any group of keywords. Keep in mind that we have to keep moving forward and do implementation tests – this is what search engine marketing is all about.♦

Search engine marketing optimization should be an ongoing process. Just keyword grouping alone can be further broken down to achieve relevance, better conversions, and budget control. The list can go on with different types of AB testing, which is the reason why search engine marketing is so dynamic and cool. To conclude, the above mentioned suggestions are just the tip of the ice berg and there are definitely more advanced approaches, too. However, to get the best out of your search engine marketing account, do not be clouded by any preconceived idea of which keywords will perform and which will not. Always test it out to find out. Do not under estimate the eventual per-

By Ian Tan Account Manager, Direct Sales Yahoo! Search Marketing, Southeast Asia

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

Using Keywords in the Text of your Pages There are many issues to consider when placing keywords in the text of your pages. Most search engines index the full text of each page, so it is crucial to place keywords throughout your text. However, each search engine uses different ranking algorithms. Difficult though it may be, you need to bear all of them in mind. General rules Ensure your main page is full of keywords. It has a higher chance of being indexed than your other pages, and it will be the only page indexed by some engines. Some engines rank a page high if it has at least 100 words, so make that your minimum. Directories include pages based on the quality of their content, so make sure your pages are not simply lists of keywords. Key concepts Keep the following four concepts in mind when creating your pages' content: Keyword Prominence The best place to place keywords in the text is at the top of each page and preferably on the main page. The closer your keywords are to the start of the page or the start of a sentence, the better.

This concept is known as "keyword prominence." You will frequently see it used to describe search engines' algorithms. Some engines also say the bottom of the page should contain keywords as well. Keyword Proximity Some engines, such as Google, use the concept of "keyword proximity" as part of their ranking formulas. As suggested by the name, "keyword proximity" means the how close keywords are to each other. Put your keywords as close together as possible and make sure your sentences are clear. Keyword Density This concept, also known as keyword weight, measures the relationship of keywords to other text. Remember, the higher the percentage of keywords in relationship to other text, the better. The recommended density is 3-7%. This means that your keyword should repeat 3-7 times for every 100 words. Sound easy? Imagine having 10 keywords and trying to repeat each one 3-7 times per 100 words of text - it's practically impossible. Instead, pick two or three of your most important keywords and try to use them 3-7 times for every 100 words.

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES Keyword Frequency Keyword frequency is a measure of the number of times keywords occur within a page's text. It's tied to the concept of keyword density. Search engines want to see more than one repetition of a keyword in your text to make sure it's not an isolated case. The recommended repetition is again 3-7 times. Avoid spam Do not ever be tempted to use tiny or invisible text to put keywords at the beginning of your pages. Search engines define this behavior as spam and can reject your site for it.

The Meta Tag and Keywords What is the meta-description tag and why should I use it? The meta-description tag describes your site's content, giving search engines' spiders an accurate summary filled with multiple keywords. Meta tags are hidden in a document's source and are invisible to the reader. Some search engines however, are able to incorporate the content of meta-tags into their algorithms. No engines penalize sites that use meta-tags properly, so it is highly recommended that you always include them. In fact, its inclusion is important simply because it's the only tag supported by some engines.

Yet another reason the metadescription tag is important is that some engines use it as a site's summary on their results pages. Under these circumstances, the reader may actually see this hidden tag, so ensure its contents are enticing to the reader. The length of the metadescription tag Search engines vary in their preferred size for meta-tags. Try to use the smaller number, 150 characters, for your site. Never make your meta-tag more than 250 characters long because some results pages will cut it off.â&#x2122;Ś By Daniela La Marca

Yahoo!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique combination of

Science 40

Art

Scale:

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Yahoo: Science is Insight, Not Hindsight! Yahoo! keeps more than half a billion consumers worldwide connected and delivers powerful audience solutions to advertisers through its unique combination of Science + Art + Scale: the science to understand and target an audience, the art to create engagement with premium content, and the scale to reach the right audience in meaningful numbers. With a steadily growing Internet audience, APAC accounts with its currently around 480 million for almost half of the online population of 1.1 billion globally. Thus, to no surprise, Yahoo! was heading into all Southeast Asian countries with its search marketing portfolio. Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) started first in Singapore and has now service selling activities in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. “Building further sales channels are our next goal and is also the main focus in the next year”, says Margaret Chang, General Manager of YSM. Her division of Yahoo! has local service teams which are aware of the fact that all Asian countries are culturally and in terms of language very different. So, being localized is very important in order to convince clients. Margaret believes that having access to a dedicated account team, that is guiding marketers through the design and implementation of a search campaign, is important for success. Search marketing is performance based and requires an astute marketer to know what needs to be done to refine a campaign based on

a level of data analysis. An online self-service model may be effective for extremely savvy marketers with internet usage literacy, however, may not suit marketers who are new to search or digital marketing. “Small and medium businesses would stand to gain the most from working with Yahoo! as we are committed to helping these marketers cross into search marketing in a cost effective manner”, Margaret claims. Her expertise in product development and user experience, therefore improving a client’s online performance is always on top of her mind as well as efficiency and ROI. “Search marketing is a very long business cycle”, she says, “our account managers’ sales need to grow with the client rather than just grab a bunch of money and then spend it and give them a report.” That there are different types of clients with different kinds of expectations and budgets is clear, but Margaret wants every client to just try out her offers with a minimal budget and learn how search marketing works before increasing the budget. “Just be focused on your own business targets and identify your core product/service keywords that you think people are looking for. Then provide in a next step a very honest description rather than a fancy selling pitch by imagining what users are thinking when they see the page results. It is an advantage if you have a time limited promotion or if you are specialized in a certain field within your industry when writing your short description”, she advices.

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Search is efficient by nature One of the key benefits of search marketing is that a user has an intention to search for information or knowledge about a brand or product. While they are in a discovery or research mode, they are actively seeking for information. Thus, being in the right position helps influencing a users’ decision-making process, Margaret explains. In this way, search marketing is quite different from brand or product marketing, as these marketing approaches rely on tools to find or convert customers. What marketers, however, still tend to forget is the fact that search marketing needs to be tailored to different mass audiences and at the same time different users' needs. Marketers often make the mistake of leaving massive market opportunities to their business competitors by focusing on one particular group of searchers only. “For example, someone may be thinking about having a holiday in Australia and they may use ‘Australia’ as the first keyword search they perform. Not making an investment in buying ‘Australia’ as a keyword, if you are an Australian travel operator or state tourism authority, you may leave out of searches which may draw interest to your destination”, Margaret exemplifies. Marketers should simply avoid defining their target audience as a common group of people who take a similar approach towards information discovery.

Margaret advises marketers, in addition, to build their budget and run a search marketing campaign to serve three different phases at the same time to fully capture opportunities in the search marketplace:

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First phase: Research (20%)

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Third phase: Price comparison (40%)

Second phase: Brand, product comparison (40%)

This approach ensures that marketers are driving traffic and converting clicks to increasing an audience’s time spent online at each phase. By allocating a search marketing budget in this way, marketers are building a program to reflect the importance of capturing all users' mindshare and attention in the search marketplace. The effectiveness of search can be attributed to how every dollar paid on a search is turned into a visit to marketer's website rather than an ad impression, which makes search an invaluable marketing tool, especially when marketing budgets need to be more accountable. Key trends and drivers in the search marketing arena in Asia “By delivering on results efficiently and regardless of the state of the economy, we are witnessing the growth of search marketing globally”, Margaret says. “During an economic downturn, marketers are even more attuned to search marketing since the cost of marketing is pegged to the click through rate from a user.

There is less wastage as budgets are tuned to support targeted searches over campaigns that are simply tooled towards building brand awareness for a mass market”, she states. The internet penetration rates in a country provide in general an indication on the effectiveness of search marketing. Having a larger internet population online means a wider pool of users will be searching for product or information online. Therefore, Yahoo! sees performance based businesses such as travel, finance, online shopping or professional services companies moving their budgets towards search marketing as it directly drives customers to their businesses online and tends to be most cost effective compared to traditional marketing campaigns. Yahoo! and Microsoft's agreement of 2009 will start transitioning international markets in 2011. Microsoft will power Yahoo! search, while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers. This represents an exciting opportunity for both companies and will boost their activities in Southeast Asia. So it is just a matter of time to see how far their combined power will bring them. Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM) made some nice progress in recent years, like the launch of their advanced match feature, the equivalent of Google's broad match option, around a year ago, but expect more to come in 2011.♦ By Daniela La Marca

Search marketing is performance based and requires an astute marketer to know what needs to be done to refine a campaign based on a level of data analysis. ~ Margaret Chang, YSM 43

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Out There Mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s State-of-the-art Mobile Advertising Marketplace Out There Media can access around 380 million mobile subscribers from all across Europe and Asia for advertising purposes. The company is combining the experience of their international leadership with local presence and expertise that facilitates and shortens procedures. Thus, operator clients can expect immediate generation of new revenue streams through advertising, which is very important to them as they are being squeezed in a very competitive environment, where any service is being offered at cheaper and cheaper rates; advertising clients can expect access to a targeted, permissionbased media, where the audience has given consent to receive advertising, therefore enjoying way above average response rates, where for instance their most recently launched campaigns in Asia have enjoyed up to 45% response rates; and consumers can expect to receive valuable offers and promotions from their favorite brands that enrich their lifestyle.

Their dedicated team strives to provide an extensive network of local advertising and media agencies with access to over 50 top brands. Out There Mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Vice President of Business Development and General Manager in Asia Pacific, Mr. Fabrizio Caruso, who joined the team a year ago, gave us insights into his companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goals and achievements by answering some questions: Q: How did your company achieve such an incredible result of getting 280 mio opt-in subscribers? A: We believe our success is related to a very compelling proposition, offering a win-win model to advertisers, operators and most importantly consumers, supported by a world-class team of experts that is fully committed to mobile advertising. For around 70% of the operator clients we are the exclusive mobile advertising partners, for the remaining ones our proposition co-exist with others provided by different vendors.

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Q: What are the key stand-out features of Mobucks? What do you feel gives you the edge over your competition? Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the unique value proposition(s) of Out There Media?

Fabrizio Caruso

Q: Mobucks is a cross-operator, cross-advertiser marketplace that matches demand and supply for advertising over mobile telephones. Can you explain more in detail how Out There Media enables operators to monetize their inventory, and how it enables advertisers to engage with their audiences in a targeted and effective manner? A: Mobucks Mobile Advertising Marketplace is a platform that matches supply (i.e. the inventory) and demand (i.e. the advertisers). It is a fully extendable solution that can be adapted to and customized for the specific requirements of mobile operators and inventory owners. It provides an advanced set of campaign management tools and a cutting-edge targeting engine that matches campaigns to channels according to their capabilities, filters, campaign constraints and custom input data. Mobucks is open to all market participants to sell and book mobile advertising campaigns on the one hand and mobile operators and publishers on the other. Through Mobucks, Out There Media can aggregate cross-operator inventory across different channels and offer it on a golden plate to the advertising community through a single interface.

A: Mobucks is a world-class mobile advertising marketplace, which is scalable, flexible and stable. Based on Mobile Marketing Associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s standards, it utilizes the simplicity of rich web-based user interfaces for intuitive command and control as well as a state -of-the-art ad server design for a large variety of ad types, supporting WAP, SMS, MMS, WAP Push, Video, Search and many more. It enables advertisers to carry out effective and targeted mobile advertising by providing an advanced set of campaign management tools and a cutting-edge targeting engine that matches campaigns to channels according to their capabilities, filters, campaign constraints and custom input data. Mobucks represents those workflows that enable operators and advertisers reap the benefits of the most promising emerging value proposition: Ad-supported tariffs. Subscribers register via a webbased interface and agree to receive targeted SMS, MMS, WAPpush and e-mail campaigns. By offering truly interesting and relevant advertisement, advertisers create an engaging and targeted brand experience and get into direct interaction with their customers. Mobile operators achieve growth, generate new revenue streams and learn more about their subscribers via the Mobucks Profile Generation Tool. After entering the relevant targeting criteria, Mobucks creates dynamic data clusters corresponding to the target group. Q: What are the big opportunities and what are the big challenges you see or expect for your business venture here in the region?

A: In October 2010 major brands including HSBC, McDonaldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Unilever have committed close to US$4 million in advertising spend on the mobile channel in the Philippines for the permission-based mobile advertising program by Out There Media and Globe. Out There Media achieved in Asia a record breaking amount of 2.5 mio. consumer-opt-ins within a few weeks of the recent roll-out of its next generation permission-based program with Maxis and Globe Telecom. According to Frost & Sullivan, total mobile advertising revenues in Asia Pacific region are forecast to rise about 17 percent a year for the upcoming five years. These statistics promise a bright new future for mobile advertising and as more advertisers in the region start to embrace this form of advertising, we expect more opportunities to expand in Asia Pacific. In the next few years, mobile advertising will be one of the strongest forms of consumer outreach in the region. Q: What do you feel are the most common mistakes made when planning and running a mobile advertising campaign? What advice do you have here? A: So far the mobile media has been under-utilized. Most mobile advertising initiatives have been focusing on banner impressions, which although useful are just a replica of the internet world on mobile. We believe that opt-in messaging is a more effective way to leverage the unique characteristic of mobile, being with you anytime, anywhere and at the same time allowing a one-to-one private dialogue with the audience. So far, brands and agencies have had a very fragmented access to the media, with no clear directions on where to go when planning a mobile campaign. We at Out There Media are positioning ourselves as the one-stop-shop for advertisers to

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

easily plan and execute mobile campaigns that reach audience across operators and different channels. Q: What does Out There Media see as the key trends and drivers in the mobile advertising arena in the Asia Pacific? A: Asia-Pacific is already leading the way for mobile advertising. Reports show that out of $3.5 billion of global mobile advertising revenue, $1.5 billion this year has come from Asia. With many developing countries skipping the online phase and accessing internet directly over mobile, we expect the mobile advertising revenue in APAC to growth to an even higher share of the global amount. The growth of smartphone users enables advertisers to gradually move towards the mobile landscape.

As the mobile technology becomes more advanced, mobile advertising will become an even more effective and important channel to engage consumers through rich video content via web and MMS. The increased production of mobile applications will enable advertisers to focus their marketing campaigns in this method. Application downloads in Asia will keep on increasing, and this will open up more windows for mobile “appvertising”. The escalation of video viewing on mobile phones enables advertisers to tap in the video wave that is trending now. It is a good opportunity for brands and advertisers to effectively reach out to a huge pool of consumers. Geo-fencing is also becoming more popular in the region. As consumers start to use applications such as “Foursquare”, advertisers can

actually locate and send instant messages on real-time store’s offers to subscribers. Although smartphone use is growing, text messaging will still be one of the powerful methods of mobile advertising. Brands and advertisers can send promotional SMS messages, mobile coupons, latest promotions and offers as well as real time update of activities from brands. Messaging is not only the channel that gives brand more reach but is that most widely understood by the consumers. Out There Media’s success in terms of opt-ins and revenue commitment this year has proven that they are on the right track and the way for Fabrizio Caruso’s goal to expand into new geographies in Asia-Pacific seems to be perfectly paved for further growth.♦ By Daniela La Marca

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

3digitalminds Power your Online Business in Greater China Chinese online users have different habits and experiences when it comes to how to use the Internet and there is no doubt that online marketing in China is different compared to Western countries. Therefore it is recommended to involve an online marketing agency as a partner that is used to the desires of Chinese online users and has profound experience with online projects in China to run a successful online business there. 3digitalminds is such a full service Internet marketing agency with a focus on web process design, performance marketing, online brand building and online marketing consulting, Asian e-Marketing would like to introduce them to you. The company has extensive experience in managing keyword advertising campaigns and could be useful if you plan to start your search engine positioning in Greater China, offering their services in English, German and Chinese . Their argument why you should deal with search engines is simply because the majority of purchasing decisions are influenced by the Internet, even if the purchase itself takes place in a local store. Search engine marketing (SEM), also known as keyword advertising, Pay-per-click (PPC), or paid search, is a quick way to place your product or company strategically in the wide network of online information. At the first glimpse, keyword advertising seems to be easy - open an account, insert keywords, and enter click prices. But in fact, the management of keyword advertising campaigns is based on a long-term approach and requires a lot of knowledge and especially experience.

So donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t set-up a campaign, enter some keywords and click-prices and then never touch it again. 3digitalminds emphasizes to keep two phases in mind for doing proper keyword advertising: Phase 1: Set-up keyword advertising campaigns In the set-up phase a thorough keyword research is done, the bidding strategy is over thought, initial text ads are created and the campaign gets started. After the set-up phase the keyword advertising campaign goes smoothly over to constant optimization. Phase 2: Constant optimization of the keyword advertising campaigns Constant optimization is the key to a successful search engine marketing campaign as it is where the wheat gets sorted from the chaff. 3digitalminds can help you in managing your campaigns on a day-per-day basis, continuously optimizing it by changing little parameters, and doing some trial-and-error, in case you are not familiar with Chinese online users. Let me introduce you at this point to the three digital minds that are running the company:

1. Stefan Schneider is founder and Managing Director of the Taiwan based company. His specialty at 3digitalminds are digital strategy consulting and online performance marketing as he has worked in the field of online marketing and web development for more than 10 years already. He has held posi-

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

tions such as Digital Director Taipei/Taiwan of Saatchi & Saatchi, has been the founder and recognized operator of a German online finance portal and a Chinese Internet platform for binary trading, ebusiness coordinator at the German car component supplier ZF Sachs AG, as well as e -commerce Manager at German TeamBank AG where he supervised the business unit Online Marketing and the bestselling product easyCredit before he undertook the position of Marketing Director at a Shanghai based web agency.

2. Oliver Hickfang was engaged in several executive positions in global corporations, medium sizes enterprises and business associations. His specialty at 3digitalminds is consulting and strategic communications. He has been responsible for marketing and strategy development as Senior Manager at Allianz China Life in Sichuan/ China and represented the company as a board member at the European Chamber of Commerce in China. He was liaison manager for the German Chamber of Commerce in China, established a publishing house for travel literature and taught as associate professor at Sichuan University. In Germany he worked as head of department marketing and distribution at the German Association for IT Companies BITKOM, developing strategies and campaigns with marketing and sales executives from several companies and has been for many years head of marketing and communications for the global management consultancy BearingPoint.

3. Zhou Ying is founder and associate of CGYC (Chinese German Ying Chuang) Public Relations Ltd. & Chinapublic, based in Chengdu, the business hub of West China/ Sichuan.

Ying`s specialty at 3digitalminds is Media-, PR- and event communication as well as advisory services for the China business. Ying originates from a longestablished Chinese journalist family and worked for many years as a German foreign correspondent for several Chinese Media in print, radio and TV. With her agency, and as a coordinator of a broad Chinese network of freelancers, she supports media companies in China in their cooperation with Germany. 3digitalminds has developed a deep understanding of how the Internet works in China and what Chinese website visitors expect, due to the many years of experience running projects in China, both for Western and Chinese customers. They developed to a fullservice Internet marketing agency in the course of time, today offering the whole online value chain. The company provides consultancy on how Internet marketing in China fits best into your marketing strategy and how it contributes to your marketing goals. Cross-channel marketing, performance marketing (SEO and SEM), blog marketing, web 2.0 marketing models and online brand building are procedures they are familiar with and they are able to analyze their clients Chinese internet marketing activities, which is a core factor for

successful online marketing in China. According to 3digitalminds, the big growth rates can not only be expected from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou anymore, but also from Tier 2 and 3 cities like Dongguan, Wuhan, Tianjin, Shenyang, Chengdu, Chongqing, Qingdao, Nanjing, etc. Their online marketing offers comprise search engine optimization (SEO), keyword advertising (SEM), affiliate marketing, banner and rich media campaigns, electronic direct mailings, web 2.0 marketing, blog marketing, mobile marketing. In addition, constant optimization of online campaigns in particular are an essential part of their service, as the company puts high value on optimizing return-on-investment (ROI) of the online marketing budgets and has good experience in performance marketing and online awareness building. According to them, successful online businesses simply rely on regular monitoring and optimization of their web presence and online marketing activities. Other services they offer are website heatmaps/eyetracking, focus groups, A/B tests, dropout rate / funnel analysis, clickpath and navigation analysis, which supports you in finding out what users in China think about your products and services and how they perceive your company.â&#x2122;Ś By Daniela La Marca

Chinese online users have different habits and experiences when it comes to how to use the Internet and there is no doubt that online marketing in China is different compared to Western countries. ~3digitalminds 49

BUZZWORD

Google is a jack-of-all-trades: Google bomb, Googlewashing, Googlewhack, Googlefight The terms Google bomb and Googlewashing refer to practices intended to influence the ranking of particular pages in results returned by the Google search engine, in order to increase the likelihood of people finding and clicking on selections in which the individual or other entity engaging in this practice is interested. It is either done for business, political, or comedic purposes (or a combination of the latter two). Google's search-rank algorithm ranks pages higher for a particular search phrase if enough other pages are linked to it using similar anchor text (linking text such as "miserable failure"). However, by January 2007 Google had made changes to search results to counter popular google bombs, such as "miserable failure", which now lists pages about the google bomb itself. Other google bombs, however, continue to remain operative, as exampled by the search engine results pages (SERP) for the search phrase "french military victories".Google bomb is used both as a verb and a noun. The phrase "Google bombing" was introduced to the New Oxford American Dictionary in May 2005 and is closely related to spamdexing, the practice of deliberately modifying HTML pages to increase the chance of their website being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a misleading or dishonest manner. The Google Bomb has been used for tactical media as a way of performing a 'hit-and-run' media attack on popular topics. Such attacks include Anthony Cox's attack in 2003. He created a parody of the "404 – page not found" browser error message in response to the war in Iraq. The page looked like the error page but was titled "These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed." This website could be found as one of the top hits on Google after the start of the war in Iraq. On 2 February 2007, many have noticed changes in the Google algorithm that largely affects, among other things, Google bombs: only roughly 10% of the Google bombs worked as of 15 February 2007. This is largely due to Google refactoring its valuation of PageRank. The term Googlewashing was coined in 2003 to describe the use of media manipulation to change the perception of a term, or push out competition from SERPs.

A Googlewhack is a type of a contest for finding a Google search query consisting of exactly two words without quotation marks that return exactly one hit. A Googlewhack must consist of two actual words found in a dictionary. How it works:

•

Visit Google.

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Submit a query of two words, but don't use quote marks. (Quotes tell Google to find the enclosed words immediately adjacent - and that's just too easy!)

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Use no punctuation in your words, and no numbers (just 26 letters from A through Z).

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Find two words that return one result, then see whether Whack agrees (Whack may not see the same results you see). Whack only accepts words between 4 and 30 characters in length. (Any shorter or longer, again, that's just too easy!)

To add to The Whack Stack, please respect these simple guidelines (Whack decides; no exceptions). So, a Googlewhack is considered legitimate if both of the searched-for words appear as live links in Answers.com in the blue bar above the Google results. Published googlewhacks are short-lived, since when published to a web site, the new number of hits will become at least two, one to the original hit found, and one to the publishing site.

Buzzword

Here are again the rules:

1. Your two Googlefactors must exist in Google's view of legitimate words in this dictionary. Not your view; Google's view! Google does the work, and Google has the final word on what may be legitimate! In the blue bar atop your Google results, accepted terms are linked, and appear 'underlined.' No line, no link, or no legitimate word = Googlejack! (As in, You've got jack).

2. Google also is the arbiter of a whack's uniqueness. Look to the right end of the blue bar atop your Google results. If you see "Results 1 - 1 of (any number),' you found exactly one hit = Googlewhack!

3. Google shows you an excerpt of the page you whacked. Look at that text. If it's merely a list of words (such as a bibliography, concordance, encyclopedia, glossary, thesaurus, dictionary, domain names, or plain old machine-generated random garbage), No Whack For You! Did you know? The probabilities of internet search result values for multi-word queries have been studied in 2008 with the help of Googlewhacks. Based on data from 351 Googlewhacks from the whackstack, the Heaps’ Law β coefficient for the indexed World Wide Web (about 8 billion pages) was measured to be β = 0.52. This result is in line with previous studies which used under 20,000 pages. The googlewhacks were a key in calibrating the model so that it could be extended automatically to analyze the relatedness of word pairs.

Googlefight is a website that allows users to compare the number of search results returned by Google for two given queries. The results are displayed graphically in a mixed flash and javascript animation. Two animated stick figures fight on screen after the queries are entered, and then an animated bar graph appears showing the results. The stick figure animation has no impact on the actual results. The results may be comforting, funny or self-referential. Googlefight has been highlighted as an example of a site making money from contextual advertising, as well as one that derives its longevity from community participation (in this case, the always changing search terms).♦ Source: Wikipedia

Buzzword

How Web Search Engines Work Just in case some basics on how search engines operate: 1. Web crawling 2. Indexing 3. Searching Web search engines work by storing information about many web pages, which they retrieve from the html itself. These pages are retrieved by a Web crawler (also known as a spider) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an automated Web browser which follows every link on the site. Exclusions can be made by the use of robots.txt. The contents of each page are then analyzed to determine how it should be indexed (for example, words are extracted from the titles, headings, or special fields called meta tags). Data about web pages are stored in an index database for use in later queries. A query can be a single word. The purpose of an index is to allow information to be found as quickly as possible. Some search engines, such as Google, store all or part of the source page (referred to as a cache) as well as information about the web pages, whereas others store every word of every page they find. This cached page always holds the actual search text since it is the one that was actually indexed, so it can be very useful when the content of the current page has been updated and the search terms are no longer in it. This problem might be considered to be a mild form of link-rot, and Google's handling of it increases usability by satisfying user expectations that the search terms will be on the returned webpage. This satisfies the principle of least astonish-

ment since the user normally expects the search terms to be on the returned pages. Increased search relevance makes these cached pages very useful, even beyond the fact that they may contain data that may no longer be available elsewhere. When a user enters a query into a search engine (typically by using key words), the engine examines its index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages according to its criteria, usually with a short summary containing the document's title and sometimes parts of the text. The index is built from the information stored with the data and the method by which the information is indexed. Unfortunately, there are currently no known public search engines that allow documents to be searched by date. Most search engines support the use of the boolean operators and, or and not to further specify the search query. Boolean operators are for literal searches that allow the user to refine and extend the terms of the search. The engine looks for the words or phrases exactly as entered. Some search engines provide an advanced feature called proximity search which allows users to define the distance between keywords. There is also concept-based searching where the research involves using statistical analysis on pages containing the words or phrases you search for. As well, natural language queries allow the user to type a question in the same form one would ask it to a human. A site like this would be ask.com.

The usefulness of a search engine depends on the relevance of the result set it gives back. While there may be millions of web pages that include a particular word or phrase, some pages may be more relevant, popular, or authoritative than others. Most search engines employ methods to rank the results to provide the "best" results first. How a search engine decides which pages are the best matches, and what order the results should be shown in, varies widely from one engine to another. The methods also change over time as Internet usage changes and new techniques evolve. There are two main types of search engine that have evolved: one is a system of predefined and hierarchically ordered keywords that humans have programmed extensively. The other is a system that generates an "inverted index" by analyzing texts it locates. This second form relies much more heavily on the computer itself to do the bulk of the work. Most Web search engines are commercial ventures supported by advertising revenue and, as a result, some employ the practice of allowing advertisers to pay money to have their listings ranked higher in search results. Those search engines which do not accept money for their search engine results make money by running search related ads alongside the regular search engine results. The search engines make money every time someone clicks on one of these ads.â&#x2122;Ś

APPOINTMENTS

Movius Interactive Corporation appointed Dominic A. Gomez as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Mr. Gomez brings a diverse global telecommunications experience to help drive Movius’ worldwide growth. Prior to joining Movius, Mr. Gomez served as President of Purple Communications, a leading provider of text and video relay and on-site interpreting services. Mr. Gomez previously served as Chief Operating Officer of Hanaro Telecom Inc., a leading integrated telecommunications provider in Korea. Mr. Gomez is a graduate of the University of Southern California (BSc.) as well as Harvard Business School’s Executive Program for Management Development (PMD). He began his career at AT&T and has also held leadership positions at Qwest and TPG/Newbridge companies.♦ Dominic A. Gomez

PHD Worldwide has announced the promotion of Mark Holden to the role of global strategy director, responsible for driving the growing network’s strategic planning capabilities across all regions. Holden, who is currently managing partner at PHD’s Australia operation, will start the role in January, reporting to worldwide CEO Mike Cooper. Recently appointed managing director Toby Hack will replace Holden, taking on responsibility for new business development and agency growth. Holden’s global remit will see him remain involved with PHD Australia across key clients. Holden joined PHD Group in 2001 to run the strategic agency Rocket. He overhauled the company and within 18 months, won four effectiveness awards and many new clients. After two years, Holden was elevated into the main company to take up the position of executive planning director. He was part of the team that reinvented PHD, creating the brand positioning and a series of innovative tools that have been rolled out across PHD. Holden started his career with Saatchi and Saatchi as a planner before joining OMD .♦

Mark Holden

Acronym Asia Expands Global Presence Through New Strategic Partnership with Japanese Search Agency iREP Acronym Asia announced a new strategic partnership with iREP, one of Japan’s leading search marketing agencies, in a move that further expands Acronym’s reach across the region. Long noted for its global experience and expertise, Acronym will provide comprehensive search marketing services – including Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search (PPC) – across Asia for iREP’s Japan based Clients. The partnership comes in response to a growing globalization trend among Japanese corporations, many of which are actively seeking new markets. Headquartered in Singapore – with regional hubs in China and Thailand – Acronym is specialized in both targeted, local campaigns and complex, multinational efforts. Acronym is also the only firm outside of China to successfully complete the Baidu Search Marketing Specialist Certification program – a quality that uniquely positions the agency to work with Clients looking to expand into key Asian markets.♦

IMPRINT

MediaBUZZ Pte Ltd, launched in early 2004, is an independent online publisher in the Asia Pacific region, focusing on the business of digital media and marketing. Asian e-Marketing is a true pioneer in Asia Pacificâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s digital marketing scene, empowering e-marketers in the vibrant and fast-paced electronic marketing environment. Key sections include e-marketing tips, best practices and trends/statistics, legislation affecting e-marketing, training the spotlight on companies and their e-marketing campaigns and e-marketing leadership profiles. Click here for the latest online edition Editor-in-Chief: Daniela La Marca

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