A Busy Summer

Being busy is good. But being busy also means we don’t have as much time as we would like to update the blog. There is so much happening ‘out there’ that it is hard to prioritise what we talk about, without constantly talking about Google.

So, this link came out today - it beautifully sums up the summer from a web point of view, its funny too!

We also enjoyed the tennis, from the comfort of our desks and were delighted to see the BBC iplayer offering volume up to 11. Clearly the programming team have a sense of humour.  Thanks for Deek at the blog of Funk for pointing this out!

We’re working on some new blog designs which will be up over the weekend [hopefully] so do stay tuned!

Microsoft Launches Charity Search Engine

Microsoft has entered the charity space with a new US search engine called Search and Give. www.searchandgive.com. The premise is simple, sign up to the service [using your MSN/Live account details], nominate your chosen charity and start searching. Microsoft tracks the searches for the year and then delivers a cheque to the nomiated charity at the end of the year.

Microsoft makes the numbers look attractive, $324,000 donated since September 2007 which looks good, but is it really that much? On the website, Microsoft shows examples of how a user searching 100 times per month for 12 months could earn their charity $12. Not really that much in the grand scheme of things.

Here in Blighty, we have www.everyclick.com which to date has donated £452,653 to charity [Microsoft's donation looks a paltry £164,000 in comparison]. I believe Everyclick is slightly different that the donations are made on click revenue rather on searches, which may account for the greater revenue [plus it has been running longer.]

The cynics amongst us may look at this as yet another [desperate?] ploy to get users onto their search tool [they have already launched a cash back scheme] but it certainly offers another reason to use the service.

There are no published plans to bring this to British shores.

The new Cheeze site is live

We are delighted to say the new Cheeze site is live today. The site, designed and built by our friends at Hyperlaunch looks fantastic but starts to make this blog look a little shabby. Well, worry not, we turn our attention to a shiny new blog over the coming week in between seeing people at Internet World which starts in the morning.

Cheeze Site

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the new site, leave a comment and tell us what you think.

Mesh - is Microsoft finally getting its combined act together?

Microsoft MeshAfter much speculation, Microsoft has released a preview of its closely guarded research and development project, Mesh.

At its core, Mesh is a software program that places the individual at the centre of digital technology – allowing anything and everything with an electrical pulse and a screen to be linked together and controlled by that person. In other words, this means that PC’s and Macs, through to mobiles and internet TV, suddenly have the ability to be can all be interconnected  - “meshed”, if you like  - and the possibilities are endless.

With Mesh, the user is able to set up a virtual desktop in cyberspace, which is accessible through any computer, anywhere. If a file is placed into the user’s Mesh-ed online desktop system, it is automatically synced to any available piece of technology where the software has been installed.

Ultimately, this means file and content-sharing at a level that has never seen before. Videos, documents, music, photos – all will be accessible by the user to share whenever they like with friends, family and colleagues. Imagine the potential: connect to your home computer from work; with no need to email attachments or links, keep track of the activities of the people you know; allow them to see where you are in life, the ability to spend less time managing data and more time to manage life.

Currently, Mesh only works with Windows XP or Vista, however, the Mac and mobile versions are due to released soon. The long-term vision of Microsoft is to connect every available piece of daily technology; games consoles, printers, digital picture frames – each unique network being accessible to selected users, and controlled by a single individual, therefore merging the boundaries between online and offline even closer.

This work from Microsoft is long overdue. With potential dominance from the living rooom (XBOX 360) to the desktop (XP, Office) and online with MSN, Microsoft has been in a logical position to hook these elements together to become world beating. Indeed, their Microsoft Passport (for logging into multiple entities with one password) has been around long before Google even started on this path.

So time will tell if Mesh has the metal to make us fall in love with Microsoft all over again, but for now we’re off to sign up for the Beta Testing. We’ll keep you updated with what we find.

As you would expect, Mesh has been a huge topic both before and after the announcement. We recommend reading the Tech Crunch profile of Mesh as a good starting point. You can find it here.

You can also read the official line from Microsoft here.

Google Analytics offers site benchmarking

Apples and OrangesGoogle has made a few updates to Google Analytics recently, which could have real benefit. You may recall we mentioned Google was offering the chance to pool your data with other sites (anonymously) for ease of comparison? Well that comparison is now available [if you have accepted to share the data] with six key benchmarks up for review. These benchmarks are:

  • Visits
  • Page Views
  • Bounce Rate
  • Average Time on Site
  • Pages/Visit
  • % New Visits

From initial inspection, some of these comparisons will be more interesting than others. Bounce Rates, % New Visits and Average Time on Site will be more interesting for comparison than direct comparisons of traffic, which will have no real meaning without more context.

The comparison opportunities are also interesting allowing you to compare against sites ‘of a similar size’ or against certain sectors. The current sectors available for comparison are:

  • Entertainment
  • Business
  • Computers & Electronics
  • Finance & Insurance
  • Games
  • Homes & Garden
  • Industries
  • Internet
  • Lifestyles
  • Local
  • Shopping
  • Society
  • Sports
  • Real Estate
  • Beauty & Personal Care
  • Health
  • Automotive
  • Telecommunications
  • Travel
  • Food & Drink
  • Science
  • Recreation
  • Social Networks and Online Communities
  • Photo & Video
  • Reference
  • Arts & Humanities
  • News & Current Events
  • Animals

Within each category are multiple sub categories. The travel category includes

  • Hotels & Accommodation
  • Attractions & Activities
  • Vacation Destinations
  • Air Travel
  • Car Rental & Taxi Services
  • Cruises & Charters

The Finance & Insurance section includes:

  • Investing
  • Banking & Personal Finance
  • Accounting & Tax
  • Credit & Lending
  • Insurance

For each sector sand sub sector, there must be a minimum of 100 sites before benchmarks can be offered so the data will be relatively robust, but some sectors will be better represented than others.

We have included some screenshots of how the data is presented so you can make your own decision on their validity and use. We have used data from www.drivingabroad.co.uk a site we own that is used as a test bed for many things. We are happy to show the real data from the site so you can get a feel of how this could help you.

 

Google Analytics Benchmark 1

Google Analytics Benchmark 2

We were initially sceptical about the sharing of information and whilst we still have a small fear over sharing data, this is definitely a useful tool which will only grow in benefit over time.

Digital Marketing Group to show at IDMF/Internet World 08

IDMF LogoInternet World/IDMF (two shows, one location) will be busy for us next week. Not only do we have our own stand at the show, but we will also have a presence on the Digital Marketing Group plc. stand. DMG will be on stand W620 where we will be officially launching the Digital Brain, delivering ‘Positive Interactions’ for brands and consumers alike by ensuring communication occurs as a natural two-way interaction…” See our separate post for more about the Digital Brain.

Demonstrations and consultancy sessions on Digital Brain will be taking place on the Digital Marketing Group stand during the show, and representatives from each of the group’s seven companies will be on hand to discuss the myriad of products and services on offer to marketers. Cheeze will have representatives on the DMG stand every day as well as our own stand across the floor at Internet World.

You can pre-register for the show at www.idmf.co.uk. You can see the previous post for location and times of the show.

We hope to see you there!

Digital Marketing Group launches Digital Brain

Digital Brain LogoDigital Marketing Group launches its latest innovation; Digital Brain, at the International Direct Marketing Fair in April. Digital Brain delivers ‘Positive Interactions’ for brands and consumers alike by ensuring communication occurs as a natural, two-way interaction, precise in both timing and relevance to each individual consumer.

Digital Brain brings together online and offline data in real time, allowing brands to put in place unique contact strategies for each individual based on their historical data and real time interactions. These contact strategies can deliver content across multiple channels.

At the heart of Digital Brain is a flexible real-time decisioning engine developed from significant experience of sophisticated analytics and modelling. Digital Brain is ‘light on its feet’ to meet marketers’ needs and is self sufficient in working with key data extracts rather than integrating with core central databases and so avoids the need for large scale database deployments or enterprise wide infrastructure developments

Alongside this, Digital Brain provides the ability to create rules, test, learn and amend in real time – allowing marketers to test and learn in order to create real advantages.

Digital Marketing Group will be on stand W620 at this year’s International Direct Marketing Fair, being held at Earl’s Court 2 in London between 29 April and 1 May. Demonstrations and consultancy sessions on Digital Brain will be taking place on the stand during the show, and representatives from each of the group’s seven companies will be on hand to discuss the myriad of products and services on offer to marketers.

Ben Langdon, chief executive of Digital Marketing Group comments:
“Relevance and timing are key to generating what we have dubbed a ‘Positive Interaction’ with consumers; where both brand and consumer get what they want. The development of Digital Brain has succeeded in offering brands a means to generating the most appropriate interaction with each consumer, at a totally individual level, defined by relevance and timing.”

“This is simply good direct marketing - ensuring the message to the individual consumer is personalised, relevant and timely. What’s important is developing the means to understand, instantly, what is the most appropriate response. To the customer, they stop being ‘marketed’ to, and instead are presented with a communication that is more likely to generate a Positive Interaction between a consumer and the brand.”

“Digital Brain is not so much a product as a philosophy, and supporting brands in dramatically improving the relevance and timing of their interactions with their customers is at the very core of Digital Marketing Group.”

Digital Brain Screenshot

http://www.dmgdigitalbrain.co.uk/

See us at Internet World 2008.

Internet World Logo 08Internet World, the UK’s largest event for Digital Marketing takes place next week at Earls Court 2, in London.

Cheeze will be there as always, taking stand W189, just next to the keynote theatre. You can find us at the back left of the hall. We will be on hand to demonstrate some of our latest work including the Co-operative Water Pledge which went live this morning (more details to follow). We are still confirming who will be on stand but James Lunn will be available for three days, with Jamie Riddell available on Wednesday.

Here are the key show details,

Venue: Earls Court 2, Warwick Road, SW5 9TA.

Dates: Tues 29th April to Thursday 1st May 2008.

Times: 09:30 to 17:00 (16:00 on Wednesday)


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See you There!

Pizza.com sells for $2.6m

PizzaThere are occasional signs that the ‘credit crunch’ is not affecting all areas of the market, with the domain name pizza.com being sold for a cool $2.6m after a week long auction on sedo.com. This is not the first domain to go for crazy money, beer.com sold for $7.5m and business.com a reported $9.5m!

Wishing you all a pleasant weekend :-)