Week of March 17, 2008

Need to boost traffic? Create an IPhone Portal

Friday, March 21, 2008

At least that's what the BBC found. By creating an iPhone portal to their BBC online player, they boosted their traffic 10%. This despite the fact that the portal is not open to users outside of the UK, and the iPhone hasn't been out long in England.

iPhone Content Use "Off The Charts"

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Perhaps it is no surprise, but iPhone users are robust consumers of online content, more so than any other handset and by a large margin. M:Metrics did the study, and senior analyst Mark Donovan noted iPhone was "delivering off-the-charts usage from everything to text messaging to mobile video." How off-the-charts? Well, 85 percent of iPhone users accessed news and information in the month of January, as compared to 58.2 percent of other smart phone users and 13.1 percent of the market average.

Facebook Now More Private And More Interactive

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Facebook announced yesterday the long-awaited release of some robust privacy controls. Users can now add privacy controls over various levels: everyone on Facebook, friends of friends, all friends, some friends, only me, and networks.

The company also released a chat client, with functionality similar to how Yahoo integrated its Yahoo Chat with its email client: If you log onto Facebook, you will be able to chat with your friends, assuming they haven't set themselves as "away" or "idle." The Facebook chat is designed for use exclusively within Facebook, and an API or external link with other chat platforms is not currently available or planned.

Yahoo's Three Year Plan

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

We here at Pollack Media Group have been big fans of the Yahoo brand and its incredible suite of services for a long time. But why does everyone else seem so down on them? Well, some of it is geek jealousy. It's cool to say you love Gmail, even as Yahoo Mail has millions and millions of more users. The same could be said for other web services where Yahoo leads the category. That said, the biggest reason has to be revenue... Yahoo simply doesn't generate the cash in advertising that Google does via its search portal.

So what is Yahoo's three year plan? It's exactly what you would expect: Bolstering its ad revenue. Yahoo laid out to its board of directors an ambitious plan to build banner and search revenue by 73%. Of course, this is easier said than done, but it indicates that Yahoo certainly knows where its weaknesses are--and it isn't with their brand.

AOL's Deal to Buy Bebo

Monday, March 17, 2008

Last week AOL announced an $850 million deal to buy Bebo, the world's 4th or 5th largest social networking site. Bebo has a lot of traction in the UK and Ireland, where it is the #1 social network. The acquisition is an attempt by AOL to monetize its AIM service. Instant messaging has been one of the most popular elements of AOL, but the company hasn't been able to make money with it. After rejecting a deal to integrate AIM with MySpace and failing to establish its own social network, AOL plans to integrate AIM into Bebo and provide a heretofore elusive advertising platform for instant messaging.