901am

New Media News Every Morning

Nielsen Online releases Top 10 U.S. Social-Network and Blog Site Rankings for November

By

According to the latest custom report of Nielsen Online, MySpace and Blogger.com are still the leading social networking site and blogging platform, respectively.

nielsen online rankings november

However, Facebook remains one of the fastest growing social networking sites with 89% growth compared to the same month last year. The number of visitors also increased from 19.5 million in October to 22 million this month. In fact, Facebook has outpaced MySpace this month in terms of Alexa ranking.

Unfortunately, the sites Classmates Online, AOL Hometown, Reunion.com, AOL Community continue to decline at different paces.

This scenario is similar with blogging platforms. Blogger.com is the undisputed leader with 49% growth but visitors was down from 34.1 million last month to 33.6 million this month.

nielsen online blogging rankings

The challenger, WordPRess, is the talk of the town with its impressive 310% growth, the fastest in the industry. More importantly, it has retained the number 2 spot for the 2nd month now.

The declining Six Apart managed to grow by 22% to stay on the 3rd spot. Will its decision to open source help improve its performance?

via MarketingVOX

Originally posted on December 17, 2007 @ 7:44 am

BuzzLogic reveals the hottest blog topics for 2007

By

new media newsIf the leading search engines have their annual search trends, BuzzLogic has added a twist with its own hottest topics in the blogosphere this year. Understanding how conversations around online communities offer a big advantage for many Internet marketers and quite interesting for the general public.

Paris Hilton’s simple life in prison and other shallow activities topped the “celebrities” category of the blogosphere. Her equally crazy buddies Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan were runner-ups in this scandal-laden category.

When it comes to entertainment, the movie High School Musical was hailed the hottest topic in town. On the other hand, Guita Hero was the most frequently discussed game in the gamers’ communities.

In sports, the controversial bad boy Barry Bonds and the Yankees overshadowed the World Series title of the Red Sox.

Obviously, Google, iPhone, and the virtual communities Second Life and There.com made bloggers around the globe very busy talking.

In the political blogosphere, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney maintained their spot for they were number one and number two most talked about guys.

[Read More]

Originally posted on December 14, 2007 @ 7:03 am

Forrester hails Avenue A | Razorfish the leader in interactive marketing

By

razorfish.gifWith the budget for online marketing expected to increase next year among many businesses, finding the right interactive marketing partner is very important. You may want to consider Avenue A | Razorfish.

Because of its extensive experience with interactive marketing campaigns utilizing many different channels, interactive service firm Avenue A | Razorfish emerged as leader in the recent “The Forrester Wave™: Interactive Marketing Agencies, Q4 2007 (December 2007)” Forrester Research report.

Forrester evaluated 6 interactive marketing agencies in the U.S. against its rigid 52 criteria such as approach to solving hypothetical scenarios and in-depth interviews with client references.

What makes Avenue A | Razorfish outstanding is their dedication to studying changing online behaviors. More notably, the agency is recommended for large companies that need digital marketing strategies across online channels and are grounded in audience research. According to Brian Haven, Analyst at Forrester:

The agency’s strengths lie in its quantitative and qualitative audience research capabilities, measurement and analytics of standard campaign metrics, and broad experience with social media campaigns.

In its previous report, Forrester highlighted the importance to online businesses of digital marketing category and multi channel experiences such as blogs, traditional online advertising, micro-sites, mobile devices, social networks, as well as mainstay tactics like media buying and planning, and Web design.

Other prominent clients of this agency include Ford, Garnier Fructis, JC Penney, Red Bull, Singapore Airlines, and The New York Times.

Originally posted on December 12, 2007 @ 3:34 am

One fourth of Internet usage at work is spent on personal tasks

By

burstmedia.pngBurst Media revealed that today’s consumers spend significant time online, with 35.5% of all web users 18 years and older spending three or more hours per day on the Internet, and four out of every ten 18-34 year olds exceeding three hours daily. Interestingly, among web surfers 18 years and older an average of 15 minutes of every online hour is done from the workplace.

The online survey was conducted by Burst Media in November 2007 of 11,510 web users 18 years or older about their Internet browsing habits at work.

One-fifth of respondents state that the workplace is the main locale for where they access the Internet. Men are more likely than women (32.8% vs. 28.4%) to use work as the primary location. The survey also found that higher income households are more likely to say that work is the primary location from where they access the Internet.

Respondents indicate that surfing while on the job is often not work related, with 26.2% of online time at work spent on personal activities. Men spend more online time at work on personal tasks than women (28.0% vs. 24.2%); and the youngest age segment, 18-24 years old, spend 34.4% of online time at work surfing for personal reasons. When asked why they surf the web at work for personal use, respondents most frequently cited the need to stay informed during the day (33.8%). Other reasons were boredom (20.5%), staying in contact with family and friends (18.5%) and convenience (i.e. faster Web connection than home, more accessible computer, convenient time to conduct online services).

Originally posted on December 10, 2007 @ 7:33 am

ClickTale secures VC funding from YL Ventures

By

clicktale.pngClickTale, whose service enables websites to record and watch movies of their users’ browsing sessions, has secured funding from YL Ventures. Clicktale will use the proceeds of the funding round to expand the sales and the feature set of their hosted service.

“We will continue to innovate and bring more value to our customers in the upcoming year”, said Arik Yavilevich, co-founder and CTO of ClickTale. “The support from YL Ventures will enable us to increase our R&D efforts and implement our vision faster, as well as educate the marketplace about the significant value that ClickTale’s service provides.”

An example of services provided by ClickTale is their recently released web usability study. Using over 80,000 recorded web page browsing sessions, ClickTale’s statistical analysis demonstrated that:

• While most web pages have a vertical scroll-bar, visitors scrolled all the way to the bottom in only 20% of the recorded visits.

• Users scroll based on relative position inside the page, not based on absolute position in terms of pixels. In other words, the same number of page viewers will tend to scroll halfway or three-quarters through a page, regardless of whether the page size is 5,000 pixels or 10,000 pixels.

• The top and bottom of a web page are the most valuable areas in terms of visitor attention. Users spend an average of 24 seconds near the top and 14 seconds near the bottom as opposed to 8 seconds at the middle.

The study, including supporting graphs and statistics, can be found in its entirety on ClickTale’s blog.

Originally posted on December 10, 2007 @ 1:00 pm