Top 50 US web properties, February 2011

RESTON, US: comScore, Inc has released its monthly analysis of US web activity at the top online properties for February 2011 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. 29 Mar 2011 08:00

Branded pharmaceutical websites drive conversions among prospects and patients

RESTON, US: comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, has released results from its fifth annual Online Marketing Effectiveness Benchmarks for the Pharmaceutical Industry. The study supports previous findings that exposure to online display advertising and branded websites provides a positive lift in awareness and favourability toward pharmaceutical brands. Visitation to branded websites also continues to provide the most significant lifts in prospect conversion and patient refills. 22 Mar 2011 08:55

Retail websites reach 75% of European internet audience each month

LONDON, UK: comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, has released results from a study of online shopping in Europe. In January 2011, 270.6 million unique visitors in Europe visited sites in the retail category, representing a market penetration of 74.5% of Internet users, up 8.5 percentage points versus last year. 22 Mar 2011 08:24

SMS becomes a business, healthcare tool

[Jennigay Coetzer] SMS is used more in customer relationship management (CRM) in developing countries like SA than in other markets because more individuals have cellphones than internet access. 17 Mar 2011 13:40

Social Brands 100 launches today

LONDON, UK: Launched today, 11 March 2011, the Social Brands 100 has found that 99% of the brands in its ranking are active on Twitter, making it the most popular online outpost for social brands. However, geo-location outposts are not yet integrated into the social mix. Only 22% of the ranked brands use geo-location services such as Foursquare and Gowalla and of these, 45% are inactive. 11 Mar 2011 11:39

eCommerce sites urged to clean up content before Google's 'Panda' goes global

LONDON, UK: Hot at its heels of an algorithm update to combat duplicate content last month, Google has followed up with "Panda", another algorithm change that hits purveyors of "low-quality content." 11 Mar 2011 11:32

Opera launches Opera Mobile Store

OSLO, NORWAY: Opera Software, a leading provider of mobile browsers around the world, has announced that the Opera Mobile Store is now open and available at mobilestore.opera.com. 11 Mar 2011 06:30

Emerging auto insurance and aggregator sites attracting meaningful market share

RESTON, US: comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, has announced the availability of an expanded competitive set of insurers and aggregator sites for its online auto insurance benchmarker. In Q4 2010, these additional sites accounted for 724 000 submitted quotes, making up 8% of quotes submitted online. 8 Mar 2011 09:58

mig33's mega sales

BURLINGAME, US: mig33, one of the world's largest mobile-first communities, has announced that its members purchased more than 40 million virtual gifts in 2010, with sales more than doubling in several countries during the year's final six months. 2 Mar 2011 08:48

Fees could alienate online bill pay users

CHICAGO, US: Online banking continues to grow in popularity, and according to Mintel, 79% of consumers visit their banks' online website on a daily or weekly basis. However, it seems that loyalty to online banking would vanish if the service wasn't complimentary, as just less than 80% of consumers would stop using their banks online bill pay services if their financial institutions charged a monthly fee. 24 Feb 2011 08:22

Financial services CEOs look to emerging markets to feed growth aspirations

LONDON, UK: Financial services companies need to look far beyond their domestic markets if they are to achieve their ambitious growth aspirations. This is according to the 14th annual PwC Global CEO Survey, which shows CEOs of financial services companies believe emerging markets are more important than developed markets to their organisation's future. 16 Feb 2011 11:21

Marketers look to newer platforms

NEW YORK, US: To reach multicultural consumers, more than half (56%) of marketers are increasing their investments in newer media platforms, according to an ANA (Association of National Advertisers) member survey. Another 35% are holding their spending at the same level, while only 9% are reducing their investments in newer media. 8 Feb 2011 11:30

Global SMS traffic to reach 8.7 trillion in 2015

LONDON, UK: According to the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media, SMS will remain a significant source of revenues and traffic for mobile operators on a global basis until at least 2015. The company reckons SMS traffic growth will be driven by enterprise, emerging markets and social networks. 27 Jan 2011 08:28

[2011 trends] It's a Wild. Wired. Wellthy. World!

[Gisele Wertheim Aymes] The recent global recession has changed our world forever. In a new digital age, characterised by oversupply and too many product types in almost every market, the challenge for companies will be to locate and capture pools of high-profit demand and be able to move with speed and flexibility to take advantage of them. Here are 11 trends for 2011. 18 Jan 2011 14:17