Can you Digg this??????????

Digg.com is a News website it is controlled by users. Similar to the all new “Yahoo Buzz“, “Propeller” and Mixx. There is no central governing body that decides which news to report and which news makes it to the front page. The community of users submit the stories and “vote” on them by clicking the “digg this” icons besides each story listed on its pages. Digg was originally featured mostly technology related articles but has since grown to include a whole range of categories that cover almost any topic.

I am currently a member of Digg and use it to drive traffic to my companies product pages by “digging” Press Releases and product news. There has been talk of something called the “Digg effect” This is where stories have been successful in getting over to the Digg community and they begins digging it which has resulted in the story getting on the front page of Digg and once that happens you can get over 10,000 unique visitors to your site in one day!


There are a few number of ways which will improve your ways to get on to the front page of Digg:
  • Socializing is key: The more friends you have on Digg the better because when you submit a story, you can then invite all your friends to Digg it.

  • Comment on other Stories: An easier way to get traffic is by posting comments on popular stories with high diggs. Write a comment that is relevant to the story and then leave a link (signature) at the end of your comment.

  • Digg your blog: If you have a fairly large number of readers to your blog, you can submit your blog posts to Digg and then insert a “digg this” button in near your blog. Readers of your blog can vote your story up the Digg ranks.

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Google and Yahoo together at last!

Early Today I posted a blog stating that Google and Yahoo were about to sign a deal. Well I have great pleasure to tell you that this deal have been confirmed by a number of news sites. As a Yahoo shareholder this is great news.

According to a statement by Yahoo they expect to earn additional cash flow of $250 million to $450 million within a year of implementing Google's ads on its pages. Yahoo state that this deal will deliver financial value to stockholders and will help them to invest in broader strategy to transform display advertising and advance our starting point objectives with users.

Under the agreement, Yahoo will carry ads purchased by Google advertisers on terms and results pages of its choosing. It may also carry Google ads on non-search pages. The agreement lasts for up to four years, and consists of an initial four-year term followed by options for two three-year renewals.

Some have speculated a Google-Yahoo tie-up on search advertising could create a virtual monopoly for Google. But to me I think Google already have a monopoly, Google already controls nearly 70% of the online search advertising market.

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Yahoo and Google almost tie the knot!


In my last blog I spoke about how Google was dominating the internet search industry, and how Yahoo was struggling to keep up! Well rumors have it that Google and Yahoo are now in the final stages of signing a deal that will combine both their search advertising programs. The partnership will enable Yahoo to show adverts that are supplied by Google alongside its own search results and on some of its other websites.

With Microsoft keep trying to get its hands on Yahoo, with offer after offer, which led to share holders putting pressure on Yahoo executives and Yahoo turning down Microsoft time after time. If Yahoo’s deal with Google does go through, is it purely to get revenge at Microsoft? Well Microsoft, have both claimed that Yahoo! was pursuing a partnership with Google as a "poison pill" to block Microsoft's advances, with many in the internet industry also sharing this opinion. As a Yahoo share holder, I would much rather see Yahoo have a partnership with Google then Microsoft, just look at Google stock compared to Microsoft!

Microsoft’s latest offer was to pay more than $7bn (£3.6bn) for a 16% stake in Yahoo as well as taking over its search business. Yahoo turned this offer down due to wanting to retain its search business, which they considers important to its strategic direction.

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Google UK Search Domination

According to new statistics released today (11th June) by marketing group Hitwise over 87% of all UK searches during May went through Google.

Google sites accounted for 87.30% of all searches throughout the month of May. Yahoo was of course second, but was considerably behind Google with only 4.09% of searches. MSN was the third most popular search website during May according to Hitwise, as it accounted for around 3.70% of UK searches. It was followed by Ask which accounted for just over 3% of searches.
It shocked me that the amount of searches made through Microsoft and Ask were so close to those made through Yahoo. What also surprised me was the difference between the UK and US.
In the US, Google accounted for 68.29% of searches made in May. Yahoo was second again receiving 19.95%, while MSN Search received 5.89% while Ask came fourth again with 4.23%.

These stats clearly show the UK search market is dominated by Google. Although in the US the story looks similar to the UK, the battle doesn't look over yet. We will have to wait and see what happens to Yahoo should Bill Gates gets his greedy little hands on them.
But those with Yahoo shares shouldn't worry too much yet as according to Alexa.com, Yahoo is still the most visited website on a globally scale as a Yahoo's domination of the Asian market.

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YouTube Insights

This week I discovered a wonderful thing….YouTube Insights! I have a channel on YouTube and have uploaded 10 -15 videos for my company, trying to reach our target customers. These are everything from How to guides, getting started videos, demos, presentations, etc.

Although I can tell how many people view the video, I always wondered who exactly was watching them, and were they attracting audience we wanted. Now thanks to YouTube Insights I can find out just that!

YouTube Insights is a free video metrics and analytics service. In March YouTube introduced YouTube Insights, which it aims to extend further in the future. It gives you the demographic breakdown of the viewers of your videos a chance to see who, where, how, when your video was viewed.

The details are collected from YouTube users whenever they watch a video, there sex, age, location and the list goes on. Video-by-video basis the demographics of viewers are broken down.

A bar chart represents the percentage of your audience in different age groups, and a pie chart showing the breakdown of gender. You can then filter that data by country or for a specific time frame.

To access this features, go to the “My Videos” section and simply click on the “Insight” link for any video where you’d like to see the stats.

Insights also shows referrals so you can see what links and methods are effective in driving traffic to your videos or channel on YouTube. As it links to Google they also provide which keywords users found your videos by when searching on Google as well as while searching on YouTube.

Although this data is extremely interesting, its key to remember and not get carried away, try to keep in mind that the data only shows information for viewers who are registered with YouTube. It would be interesting to see the number percentage of registered users compared to those who are not.

After looking at the data provided it from the videos I have created for my business, the data shown in YouTube Insights matches that of what our target customer is. Therefore the data is useful to me as it confirms that our videos are reaching our targeted consumer based

I am surprised that YouTube doesn’t charge for this service. In the future i think they will introduce an “upgraded version” of insights that YouTube users will have to upgrade to a higher level membership. Maybe they already offer a more detailed version to businesses that currently pay for adverts through YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/


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