SEO & Technology News Roundup
Welcome to the latest SEO & Technology news from Skyline Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Specialists in Exeter, Devon.
One of the stories of the week that made us smile (although at the same time slightly concerning), was the fact that technology giant Apple, now has more cash in the bank than the US Government. (Apple is slightly more solvent too no doubt).
The figures from the US treasury showed the US treasury had an operating cash balance of just over £45bn, whereas Apple recently released results showing a little under £47bn.
In other news, BT has been ordered by a High Court ruling that the telecoms giant must block access to “Newzbin 2″ a website that provides users with links to pirated movies.
This is the very first time that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) has been ordered to block a site of this nature and has been seen as a very important victory for those in Hollywood and beyond.
The crackdown of all forms of piracy has increased over the past few months – many of our readers will remember the recent blog regarding the controversial Digital Economy Act , and this latest ruling could be the beginning of the end for pirate sites. Many comments from those we spoke to regarding this matter all seem to have the same opinion – they are happy to pay for Blu-ray movies or music, but expect it to be at a more reasonable cost – especially if it is being downloaded and saving manufacturing costs.
Finally, Alibaba has announced that it will be launching its own mobile operating software to take on their main rivals of Apple and search engine giant Google.
Alibaba’s president of Cloud Computing, Wang Jian said the following:
“Mobile users want a more open and convenient mobile operating system (OS), one that allows them to truly enjoy all that the internet has to offer, right in the palm of their hand…
…the cloud OS, with its use of cloud-based applications, will provide that…”
Alibaba has said it does not intend entering the smartphone manufacturing market. The company is only interested in developing the operating system for now. However it intends to launch a tablet PC running the new operating system by the end of 2011.
Thanks for reading, we wish you a great week from the world of SEO & Internet Marketing.
£4bn spent on Internet Marketing & Amazon in the Clouds
A new study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC, has shown that recently in the UK, Internet Marketing & Online Advertising smashed the £4billion mark and grew 12.8% in 2010. This equates to growing three times faster than in 2009.
It is widely believed that many companies having their budgets squeezed or cut in 2009 felt the relief of a more positive future in 2010 and Internet Marketing was the big winner.
The IAB report also shows that Social Media Advertising – such as Facebook Pay per Clicks saw a 200% increase during this time. This will please those at Facebook, who have developed a new system that allows advertisers to target Pay per Click adverts based on keywords within their status updates. I should add that only 1% of Facebook users are having this trialled (6 million) – however the benefit of Online Marketing can be seen here, as advertisers can choose specifically which markets they target specifically and therefore use their budgets wisely.
General advertising in print media and television also grew in 2010, however the Internet saw the biggest benefits and is once again another step in the right direction in showing companies how Internet Marketing can drive a business forward.
In other news, Amazon has launched a new service called “Cloud Player”. This is based on the current Cloud Technology and Amazon have raced ahead of Apple and Google in launching their own player that allows users to store their music files in the “Cloud” and stream or download them again via a range of different devices. Users get 5GB – which is roughly 1,200 tracks, although you can also purchase further cloud space.
Amazon has unveiled this service in the US, where copyright infringement is slightly different to that in the UK, as you can generally transfer music (copy) from one device to another and claim protection under “fair usage”. In the UK however Amazon may have a thunderstorm awaiting them when they make their way over the Atlantic. Any sort of copying totally violates copyright infringement in the UK – and while the industry turns a blind eye most of the time, Amazon would need to reach agreements with record companies if this was to be a successful venture.
So what are your views on todays news? Here in the Skyline office, we are naturally pleased to see the boost to Internet Advertising & Marketing from the IAB report – this combined with David Cameron’s push on New Businesses makes 2011 look like an exciting year ahead for us all. It is also interesting to see Amazon take the lead ahead of Google and Apple with their new service. Clearly the way we play and store music is evolving, and this looks like another nail in the coffin for hardware such as CDs.
So wishing you all a good day from Skyline Marketing, Internet Marketing Company in Exeter, Devon. Rob has been playing every air-instrument under the sun in the office today, and my ears are now officially bleeding…
4G Consultation Launched – Can you even get 3G?!
Greetings from Skyline Marketing, your local SEO and Internet Marketing hub in Exeter, Devon. It has been a few days since our last blog – nothing to do with the fact I have been recovering from the shock of filling my car up at over £1.30 a litre! I am sure it will be reported that the oil price has risen further on “fears” of my health tomorrow, before George Osborne may or may not change my life by scrapping a 1p duty increase – Join me on the edge of my seat for that one…
In other news, Ofcom has announced a consultation for the latest 4G mobile phone technology. It is widely accepted that Vodafone, BT Cellnet (o2), Orange and One2One overpaid for their 3G licenses with figures of £4-5billion, which was all good for the Treasury, however left the operators with insufficient funds to actually invest in providing the bandwidth, leaving the ridiculous situation, where even now in most of Exeter City Centre, you will struggle to obtain a decent 3G signal.
Ofcom has made it clear they wish any tenders to be investing in making the coverage available to at least 95% of the UK – this cost of course will mean the going rate for the licenses will be a lot smaller in comparison with the 3G ones. This cost comparison has already been seen in those countries way ahead of us already offering 4G services, such as the US and Japan.
Finally, in other news, Google has found itself in hot water in France and has been fined £87,000 by their privacy Watchdog for the personal data it collected when setting up Street View. In May 2010, Google admitted it had accidently collected over 600GB of unauthorised data from WiFi hotspots (as you do) – more here.
A Billion Happy Returns for Twitter on it’s 5th Birthday!
Good Evening fans from Skyline Marketing in Exeter, Devon. We’ve had another busy day in the office. Cheltenham has been on in the background, Rob’s tips are truly shocking – (just incase he ever offers you a racing tip!) It’s definitely got us in the mood for a few meets this year, hopefully at Exeter or Newton Abbot Racecourses, or maybe even a bit further up the M5 past Taunton and Bristol to Ascot!
This week Twitter has a Billion reasons to be celebrating it’s 5th birthday. To mark the landmark, Twitter has released some very interesting statistics to show us the effect it has had on the World.
On average, a billion tweets are sent every single week now. 140 Million tweets are sent a day – the figure a massive 100 Million up from the same time last year!
Nearly 500,000 new accounts are created every single day, with Twitter now boasting over 200 million accounts worldwide. That is an 182% increase over the last year.
The most random statistic comes from the 25th June 2009, the date of the death of Michael Jackson. 456 tweets were sent every second! Having said that, this record was broken in Japan four seconds into 2011, when 6,939 tweets were posted in one second!
Twitter now employs 400 staff, whereas back in 2008 it only employed eight.
Is anyone seriously still underestimating the power of Social Media and Twitter?
A business that has no use for Twitter and a well designed Social Media Internet Marketing campaign, is a business clearly with nothing to say to its customers – if this is not the case, pick up the phone and make the call that will change your future – Skyline Marketing 01392 243210.
Virgin Media Reaches 1 Million with 100Mb Broadband – Who cares?
Greetings from Skyline Marketing in Exeter, Devon. Virgin Media have announced that 1 Million of their High Speed Internet Service Users are receiving speeds of up to 100mb!
Virgin’s goal is to have the product fully rolled out by the end of June 2012, and this is a huge achievement along that road to meeting the 2012 target. Virgins service is the fastest available Internet Service Provider, offering speeds through “cable”, whereas BT’s “infinity” product is woefully lagging behind with 40Mb. This is still 10Mb slower than Virgins next package.
Executive Director of Virgin Media Broadband said: “When we finish the roll-out of 100Mb across our network, half the country will have access to ultrafast broadband. That’ll be six years ahead of EU targets.
How much will this awesome new service be hitting your pockets at these difficult times? The 100Mb service retails at £35 per month, providing you sign a 12 month contract for a Virgin phone-line also at £12.99 a month (BT users can pay £10 a month line rental with their saver product). There is also a £30 activation fee. BT users can get the service for a flat-rate £45 per month.
There is a cheaper option of £12.50 a month plus line rental and activation for the 50Mb service.
Personally speaking, being based “out in the sticks” and South of Bristol, this means we struggle to even dream of such speeds unless we are inner-city (not my location of choice), so we have to suffice with 6-8Mb speed from BT. Before you all get the violins out and sending us flowers by post – please don’t bother – Rob is allergic, but mainly because we have ample speed. Every broadband user that can achieve anything from 4Mb upwards has sufficient speed. In this day and age, there are so many communities, villages and towns that still cannot get a decent ADSL broadband speed – even certain cities where people just live in the “wrong place” and struggle for basic speeds – this is surely wrong?
Can you honestly tell the difference between 20Mb, 50Mb or 100Mb? Just because that film you are downloading (probably illegally) will take you 5 minutes instead of 10 – is this really a justification to invest money on such new services, when the existing ones for many are so poor? Shouldn’t Virgin, BT and others be better off spending money on improving basic services and reducing prices in a time when people are struggling (BT hiking their land-line prices again shortly by the way). The previous Labour Government expected us to pay a “broadband” tax on our landline to achieve this of 50p a month – why are the providers not paying this money, that they clearly have in the first place to give us a fair deal across the whole UK? The irony is, I pay more a month for a sufficient 8Mb service, then those living 10 miles down the road in Central Exeter do for twice or 5 times the speed. Is this the fairness we keep hearing about?
Microsoft Kinect – Worldbreaker
Greetings from Skyline Marketing HQ, Exeter, Devon. Bit of a slow news day in the World of Search Engine Optimisation & Internet Marketing, however this story with regards to our game console of choice caught the eye. (Sony PS3 readers need not read further 
).
More than 10 million of Microsofts Kinect Sensor Systems have been sold since the launch on 4th November last year. The Guinness World Records have announced that this is the fastest ever sales record for consumer electronics! Read more here
