Firstly, i liked to say that most PPC events tend to be pretty dull for anyone who knows about the industry becuase typically what happens is the agencies tow the line and refuse to get drawn into opinionated discussions whilst the search engines play a game of diplomacy. Which all leads to a rather luke warm discussion on what is now a more mature industry. Nonetheless, there were lots of things to nod at or mumble under your breath about.

Highlights were:

Microsoft’s complete frankness regarding the launch of Adcenter
They scored themselves a schoolmark of “B/B : room for improvement” on the success of their launch of their new pay-per-click marketing product, Adcenter. I would have given them an “A” for openness in their evaluation on how much the launch met advertisers expectations. Basically to sum up:

• Launch went ok – in that they got a fair amount of avertisers on board.
• Service & support USP was a winner. Telephone support for all advertisers regardless of size of customer was working well and not met any crisis. In my opinion, lowering the barrier to entry is A Great Thing for such a big player like MSN to offer. Certainly in my experience, telephone support helped me to get on board quickly. As an agency this would spell good news too as it’s a great story to tell your smaller advertisers and make them feel loved. PPC was the most fun 5 years ago when you could use Adwords to propel a tiny cottage industry into the stratosphere – so for a second i got the tingle of a rennaisance of old fashioned values. None of this “what is your budget” snobbery that is rife among google and other agencies now.
• Quality traffic is present on the MSN network. This was backed up by Latitude who had discovered great conversion for some of their advertisers. They tend to work on a CPA busines model so they probably know what they’re talking about.
• Distribution & Traffic volume has still got a long way to go but is clearly outshined by Google. Ho hum.
• Demographic targeting – their most touted USP – does work but unfortuanately not a lot of advertisers are not really using it. This makes perfect sense to me and not something to worry about; until the volume and competition reaches a critical mass, there is no real need to target demographically, as current traffic volume are no where near most medium and large advertisers spending power. At this stage most of us are quite happy with cheaper traffic than Google!
• User Interface is tricky to use. Wow – amazed and glad they admitted that! Apologies to the guys at Adcenter, but in my opinion it truly is a dog. However if they acknowledge it then i’ll suffer in silence in the hope that it will get overhauled.

The house tended to agree that Yahoo panama hardly had earthquake potential but was a step in the right direction
Neutralize felt that the close resemblance of the new Yahoo Panama interface to Google AdWords was going to make account management easier and that they would probably attract a few more current advertisers on Google as it is now so easy to import the latter into the former. The quality score was more of the same, but was ultimately a fairer system and teh fact that you can separate Content and Search ads was a definite improvement. Blue Barracuda felt that clients were aware of the impending shift to Panama and that it would improve their image of Yahoo Search, especially if the new quality score helped them to improve clickthrough rates.

Frankly there is not much to say about Yahoo Panama except that it is very very welcome. Personally i would have added that Panama should bring back a lot of small business and niche advertisers who have been burnt by overtures particularly unwieldy and inflexible bidding engine. Everyone acts like these advertisers are not worth bothering with, they’re just small fry, but clearly they have not been reading enough Chris Anderson

“A big hit is required”
No one felt that any of these developments from MSN Adcenter or Yahoo Panama was going to bite into Google’s market share. Although this was obvious – i was slightly disappointed at the overall lack of fighting talk from MSN or details of any strategy remotely resembling disruptive innovation. Mobile Search, Local Search and Pay-per-call were all word dropped which made me groan. Not just becuase all three make up the PPC grail trinity that everyone has been wishing on for years. Or the fact that it is universally acknowledged by the panel that mobile search is too low volume at this stage – but becuase clearly Google is already winning the mobile search battle with mobile sitemaps and auto-optimising websites for mobile browsers/screens. Furthermore MIVA are abandoning Pay-per-call this month not for lack of advertisers but for lack of response from consumers and local search is just not that interesting without a social element. Personally i think it’s the companies experimenting with microformats, like Upcoming and Technorati, that have anything interesting to offer this area. Obviously if anyone wants to debate this with me or just tell me i’m wrong – please do so!

So seemingly no big hitters were really on the horizon, although we did get one interesting insight into MSN’s skunkworks. They plan to roll out their search engine onto Xbox Live – which clearly presents a huge demographic targeting opportunity for advertisers.

Yet it’s hardly what i’d call disruptive innovation. What i really wanted to hear was that MSN would come to the rallying cry of publishers all over the country, replace their useless on site search facilities, and deliver a revenue strategy to supply PPC ads from highly targeted and desired demographics like the b2b sector. But maybe the market is more complicated than i think – Google has got most of the publishers tied up becuase they are willing to spend money on them. For the richest company in the world – microsoft have missed a great land grab and a chance to bite into the market share of search queries.

Sod talking about the big 3 anymore – Yahoo and MSN are fighting a losing battle by refusing to innovate or respond to the crisis traditional publishers are facing. The only search orientated companies that seem to value the publisher in the UK, the niche content producers, in my opinion are MIVA and AdPrecision, the latter whom spoke up at the event. Those smaller players are the ones recognising the demand from advertisers for genuinely better demographic targeting through branded partnerships and see the desperate struggle that traditional publishers face to avoid being completely dominated by the disruptive power of Google.

So that’s my roundup of the PPC earthquake – any food for thought? I don’t claim to be a journalist or anything, just an online ranter. An alternative view and interesting discussion is taking place here.

Positive changes double the number of areas that Yorkshire has worsened, with particular improvement found in areas such as jobs, with employment in Yorkshire rising twice as fast as the national average between the late 90s and 2005 (when the rate stood at nearly 75%.) Other improvements include better air and water quality, higher waste recycling rates, and more people passing A’ levels. Life expectancy rose to 75.8 years for men and 80.4 for women – around a year longer than five years ago.

There is improvement to made however. Particularly in the area of transport, where people are travelling is increasing year on year, and the trends seen nationally, such as climate change and obesity levels. More than 1 person in 5 in the region is now obese.

Speaking about the launch of the findings, Les Newby, Director of Yorkshire Futures said,

Yorkshire and Humber is becoming a better place to live. That’s a fact. The task now is to ensure that in solving today’s problems, we don’t create new problems tomorrow – like rising congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. The report and its launch are a chance to celebrate progress, and to think about what type of region we want to be in the future and how we get there.

He highlighted the increase in relevance that advertising online now enjoying, with users getting more of what they genuinely want, more often. There was also an interesting discussion about whether people would now have access to software based on payment by advertising, rather than traditional one off payments. CNet didn’t shy away from the tricky questions, from Ad revenue being down at Microsoft, to Google’s continued investment. In particular the subject of YouTube was broached. Confirmation came that Microsoft could appreciate Google’s strategy, and in particular, the fact that they didn’t buy the technology behind YouTube, but rather the audience that the site enjoys. The opportunity was also taken to promote Soapbox – Microsoft’s answer to YouTube.

Probably the most interesting point that the MS spokesperson made, was the following:

Are there areas that people are pushing that overestimate what advertising can do?
Berkowitz: I think search will hit a ceiling at some point.

And what a note to end on! Read the full article here.

NewsCorp last year bought Face Book rival MySpace for $580 million, which at the time was seen as a massive amount for this internet company. Clearly Yahoo aren’t worried by that, buying into the perceived potential for advertisers on Social Networking sites.

Caffeine Marketing highlights the timing of this rumour, following swiftly after Yahoo’s news that they were going to post significantly less profit than expected, due to a fall in advertising revenue. Is this a well-placed rumour to buoy investors?

We understand that the portal has only been used by a certain alien race who have entered our atmoshphere and swifty made their way to the famous coffee houses of Amsterdam. This highly intellegent race seemed to be very amused by what they had found.

We will keep you posted…

In fact, the commercial job site market has grown 75% in the past two years. In particular, marketing, media, PR and engineering vacancies have found their audience on the internet, with more vacancies of these kinds being posted every month.

To reflect this trend, 40% of businesses nationwide intend to increase the amount of resources they dedicate to online recruiting over the next 6 months. The survey was conducted by Monster.com.

“This agreement underscores how much we value eBay as a partner,” said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. “Our technologies will allow us to connect users to relevant advertising across eBay’s international properties. By working together to promote click-to-call functionality through Google Talk and Skype, we are offering advertisers another innovative way to connect with customers.”

Tests will begin appearing early next year, with the initial ‘tweaking’ projected to last several months. [Via VOIP IP Telephony]

The latest technology will use the PC microphone many computers now have as standard to listen in to whatever is the background whilst you’re online. This will then be identified, reduced to a digital ‘fingerprint’, and then matched to a database of sources. The result will be an advert for the latest CD from the artist you’re listening to, or a chatroom full of people who watch the same soap as you, all delivered directly to your computer.

The first response to technology like this for most people is probably something along the lines of “Wow, isn’t it amazing what they can do” followed up quickly by “That has huge potential for misuse” – issues that Google will have to address if they are to make this a mainstream product. The Register has already identified the potential for the use of this information in the security industry, which is a concern that will no doubt be echoed by many.

[Via The Register]

Surgical Innovations has this week announced that contrary to many of their competitors, they intend to keep their manufacturing in Leeds. Their chairman, Doug Liversidge, believes that they can make their products as, if not more, cheaply than abroad. They specialise in keyhole surgery, and as a company, are selling their products to hospitals around the world.

This week has also seen the opening of Handelsbanken in Sheffield, which is the first foreign bank to open in the city. They will offer corporate and private banking services, indicating that the market is there in the city waiting to be tapped. The company revealed that they believed that South Yorkshire had long been neglected, but that urban renewal in Sheffield, the new airport at Doncaster and regeneration in Chesterfield and along the Dearne Valley has resulted in a higher profile for the area.

The idea of the service is the create a forum where anyone can ask a question, and anyone can answer a question – Web 2.0 at it’s most interactive. Since it has been in Beta testing since April, it’s built an enormous back catalogue of answers to questions regarding software to philosophy. They also convinced leading lights to pose questions, such as Bono and Stephen Hawkins.

Unlike Google, Yahoo has invested a lot of money in old media to spread the word, including PR stunts, and full page inserts into national newspapers. Judging by the response (about 1 question submitted every 4 seconds on average) they’ve found the popularity they were looking for. For now…

With their eye’s set on the small business market, Google has created a number of free online applications including; Google Calendar, private labelled email, IM and a tool to design and build your own company website. Its all hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software to install or maintain.

I realise that it’s not the first time that alternative free programs have been available (the Open Source community has been developing free applications for years), but unlike Google they haven’t had the exposure to get a real foothold in the market and bite a sizeable chunk of the Microsoft pie.

Already a Google Calendar user, I can see huge benefits in being able to access all of my applications online, but whether people will turn to online versions of applications they are already familiar with – only time will tell.

The figures also show that Google UK is the most visited site in the UK, receiving twice the share of visits as MSN Hotmail, which is the number 2 site.

Like me, these figures probably don’t come as a huge surprise. But with MSN’s recent investment in new UK Head Quarters and the imminent roll out of their new adCentre, it will be interesting to see what happens from here as the battle for search engine supremacy continues…

It’s been criticised by many in the industry as being incorrect, and has provoked debate as to whether the industry should be glad for the attention in the main part of a national newspaper, or whether the inaccuracies override any progress that could have been made. For instance, one point of dispute regarded this paragraph:

“There are two types of search engines — directories and web crawlers. Directories, such as Yahoo, have staff paid to consider every new website submitted before slotting them into categories or subsections.
Web crawlers such as Google or Ask.com work by sending out software programs — called bots — that trawl the web for information relevant to a user’s key word search. “

The blogger at SE Roundtable questioned the fact that it implied that Yahoo has no crawler. Whilst others used broader terms – “woefully incorrect”, “full of inaccuracies” etc.

Under the scheme, young people will be trained within businesses to increase their enterprise skills, as well as their creative skills. This will exclude University graduates, since the LSC is not responsible for graduates.

This is timely news for Yorkshire Forward, who have just celebrated a year of exceeding targets and expectations. In fact, their recent Annual Report revealed that Yorkshire and Humber’s GVA is over £75bn. Its domestic market is now the size of Denmark, Norway or Scotland, ranking it alongside those in the top third of the world’s economic countries.