Asian e-Marketing December 2010

Yahoo: Science is Insight, Not Hindsight!, page 41

Out There Media’s State-of-the-art Mobile Advertising Marketplace, page 44

Springboard Research’s Top 10 Predictions in 2011, page 22

December 2010

Search Marketing

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EDITORIAL:

Exclusive Sponsor of this Issue

Dear Reader, Now that the year 2010 is coming to an end, it's time to think about the goals and New Year’s resolutions for 2011. Jam-packed with predictions on trends in 2011 this issue of Asian e-Marketing will give you a head start in detecting what should be on your agenda next year. If you have a few minutes to spare during the festive season that is draw-ing near for many, please join your peers by taking part in CMO Coun-cil’s 2011 Marketing Outlook study. In appreciation of your time you will receive a complimentary report upon publication of the study in early January, 2011. May the New Year bring you good health, happiness, peace, and content-ment! I look forward to seeing you all safe and sound in the New Year!

O N L I N E V E R S I O N

Daniela La Marca Editor-in-Chief

Asian eMarketing

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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS 4 Current Online Marketing Trends at a Glance 4 Is the Integration of Promoted Tweets in Google Real-time Results the First Step Towards Acquisition? 6 Asia Pacific Continues To Be a Hotbed for the Innovative Adoption and Use of Technology 8 Fournaise: Three-quarter of Ad Campaigns Tested Achieved Low Effectiveness Scores 10 Enterprise Transformation and Cloud Services Fuel the Growth in Asia Pacific IT Services Market 11 New Insights into the Social Behaviour of Hong Kongers Online 12 Hong Kong is the Best Value on Earth for Consumer Broadband 14 Why Asia is poised to be THE breakthrough market for Mobile Advertising 17 Cloud Computing Is a Powerful Tool That Shapes the Business of Tomorrow 20 Springboard Research’s Top 10 Predictions in 2011 22 BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES 27 How to Avoid Pitfalls and Run an Effective Search Engine Campaign 27 No Pain, No Gain – So Put Some Effort into Your Keywords Selection 29 Mobile Search - Opportunities and Challenges 31 Search Engine Optimization Techniques to Avoid 34 Maximize your ROI through smart keyword management strategies 36 Using Keywords in the Text of your Pages 38

SEARCH MARKETING:

DECEMBER 2010 INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS 41 Yahoo: Science is Insight, Not Hindsight! 41 COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS 44 Out There Media’s State-of-the-art Mobile Advertising Marketplace 44 3digitalminds Power your Online Business in Greater China 47 BUZZWORD 50 Google is a jack-of-all-trades: Google bomb, Googlewashing, Googlewhack, Googlefight 50 How Web Search Engines Work 52 APPOINTMENTS 54 IMPRINT 55

ADVERTISE WITH US! Just take a look!

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Web 2.0, video on the Web, mobile Internet, and e-commerce are again hot contenders for discussions, conferences, trade fairs and road shows. So if you in-tend to drop these terms nonchalantly at the next meet-ing you will most probably attract only little attention.

While communication and information are still the main reasons for the use of the Internet, the new trend among the trends is called differentiation. Old and new technologies retain principally the basic elements that allow the wise and efficient use of the new media. Within these limits the users reveal specific habits and needs, aimed at individuality and ubiquity.

Therefore, it is recommended to take a closer look at the Internet and its users to analyze requests, offers, and virtual possibilities - not only from next year onward – as in the near future specialized content and its ubiq-uity will determine the trends in the online environment as well.

The following trends will contribute decisively next year in shaping the information and communication culture further, while setting new standards for online market-ing.

Trend 1: Social Media Marketing

To build-up and extend the publicity of a brand, new channels of communication in particular economic seg-ments have to be explored. The Internet has long been established as an acceptable and highly frequented medium, so that potential new target groups can be

easily exploited there. The characteristic in the use of social media marketing is the active involvement of us-ers to design brand messages as well as its viral spread. However, this works only if users are really convinced of a brand, do not feel exploited for advertis-ing purposes, and discover a personal value. Therefore it is important to look at each user as an individual that it represents at the moment of its online presence. Which means to take into account both, users diverse interests as well as personal networking. Members in social networks are mostly interested in news and inno-vations and like to be taken by surprise. They are among the early adopters and transmit information after a personal assessment to their friends and acquaintan-ces. This gives them recognition in the narrower and wider circle of acquaintances, a direct connection to the offering company, and the feeling that their opinion is respected. They are part of the brand identity design, providing at best viral marketing effects, which can be controlled with continuous intelligent monitoring.

Trend 2: Apps

Apps, short for Applications, describes small utility pro-grams for multimedia mobile phones that provide the owner with an added value individually. Leading the pack is the currently extremely popular iPhone. With an app the user is able to determine the optimal cooking time for an egg, find out instantly current flight data, mark their own location on a map, or simulate a beer glass. Around 300,000 are available and offered for download in the iTunes App Store, which are devel-oped by Apple experts or freelance programmers.

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Current Online Marketing Trends at a Glance

5


The number of iPhone users is growing steadily. Although currently only about 20% of the available free and paid apps are used, inter-est is rising progressively. Since the demands of the mobile become more individual, the more personal-ized are the requirements to design mobile access to various services. The applications must provide added value to everyday use and integrate itself seamlessly. In this way apps find a positive place in the life of the user and the associ-ated brand.

Trend 3: Cloud Computing

If performance of software and hardware, as well as the resulting applications and data from the local computer or server is shifted to a virtual space (cloud), we talk about cloud computing. It is a concept that essentially changed the de-ployment and use of IT. Software is provided as a service, an external infrastructure ensures the internal supply of data, and even social net-working applications can be found within the cloud space. Companies benefit from the on-demand infra-structure, as the resulting flexibility helps them align their IT equipment with the current requirements. Cur-rently, providers of appropriate so-lutions deal with the integration of other user-friendly components and Cloud Computing will experience increasing popularity next year, too.

Trend 4: Augmented Reality

Although it still appears to some extent like science fiction, Aug-mented Reality is a new method to address the most innovative, mo-bile and young audiences. The augmented reality is mostly used in environments, where people are looking for information and want to broaden their perspective. Aug-mented Reality can help to identify a place in all its facets, in order to make it useful for a particular pro-ject. This could be reality-based computer games, navigation tasks, industrial processes or locating his-

torical guided tours. The fact that people want to be fascinated by new technologies they can easily integrate into their daily lives, and that provide additional value on top, will never lose its charm.

Trend 5: Video Marketing

For several years now, Video on the Web is regarded as a guarantor for innovative online marketing. But only recently multimedia short sto-ries are slowly growing out of its infancy, going from their experi-mental phase into a more profes-sional status. There are not only the self-made home stories that find their way onto various video portals, but in particular enterprises focus now on multimedia entertain-ment for their target audiences, producing short movies, webi-sodes, clips, movie contests, theme channels and viral video campaigns to play their brands to the gallery. The consumers on the other hand reward technological know-how, content-sensitivity, and emotional involvement by forwarding the infor-mation and impressions they gained to friends. Thus, video will continue to establish itself as a me-dium with a high entertainment fac-tor next year, as its positioning pos-sibilities are by far not exhausted, yet.

Trend 6: Social Commerce

The term “social commerce” is cur-rently on its beat in the shopping world with the customer being king, as he decides what, how, and how often he buys on the Web. If he doesn’t like a product or provider, he simply switches to other offers, always on the look-out for things that perfectly meet his expectations and taste. As long as the shop sup-pliers respond to his wishes and ideas deliberately, he seems to be loyal. Fact is that one-to-one mar-keting puts the customer at the center and filters out any individual preferences. A satisfied customer likes to talk about positive experi-ences and shares them with his social network.

He speaks out on product and ven-dor recommendations, writes re-views, and advertises on his own web presence for his chosen online shop. Thus, the customer becomes an indirect and direct seller.

Trend 7: Visual Search

Visualization is one of the key buzzwords in the Web world as well, as images evoke emotions and graphics offer guidance. To-gether they provide a valuable overview that can stand out from similar online offerings. Every user knows the three-to-four-line teasers in the results of a search engine, which lead with a bold headline and a continuative colored link to new content. But many issues can be understood better when visualized. A visual product or topic search offers the searcher a direct over-view of articles he is interested in and links topic related complexes to new impressions. Many websites will create value-add for their visi-tors by using this visual result diver-sity in 2011.

Trend 8: Content Scraping

The complexity of information and content on the Internet increases minute by minute. With each new article, blog post, or comment, the flood of information grows regard-less of the loss of overview. Con-tent providers are therefore advised to concentrate their content and deliver it enhanced on separate websites. Microsites are the tool to point out special offers to custom-ers, which are connected with the main presence, but can be consid-ered completely isolated and used independently. Customers experi-ence a specialization of the com-pany offers in response to their in-dividual demands.♦

By Daniela La Marca

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Is the Integration of Promoted Tweets in Google Real-time Results the First Step Towards Acquisition? Google’s integration of promoted tweets into the real-time search section of its live results, which it rolled out in late November, coincided with revelations it allegedly made two unsuccessful attempts to buy the social com-munication site.

The search giant supposedly made an initial offer of $2.5bn which Twitter’s founders said was ‘insulting’. It then came back offering $4bn but only again to be re-buffed.

Greenlight, a leading search marketing specialist and technology firm reads this as there being open and on-going discussions between the two technology compa-nies, with the promoted tweets in Google being an overall greater sign of the emerging integration be-tween both organizations.

Are these the first steps towards acquisition and inte-gration in 2011/12? Greenlight is of the view that an alignment between Twitter and Google makes sense. It could benefit both companies and their advertisers alike, giving Google a step into all things social, allow-ing it to remain current with its search engine results pages (SERPS), and propelling Twitter to even more users in markets it has yet to impact.

As we have seen of late, with rumors that swirled around a Google-Groupon acquisition, Google is still in the market for acquiring new business. Given Marissa Mayer’s recent comments where she reportedly said “the larger the company, the more complicated the deal is,” it would seem that for now, a Groupon deal has not necessarily fallen apart but may merely be on the back-burner.

With Google’s stated goal of acquiring one new com-pany a month, Twitter would seem a nice fit if both sides could agree on a price. Google has a huge war chest to fall back on. It has a tendency to snap up lead-ing sector companies when it can. We have seen this with Double Click and YouTube in the past. So why not Twitter?

Looking at the integration of promoted tweets into the search results from a paid search perspective, they are currently only appearing in the real-time results section of Google. However, one has to wonder how long it will be until they make the step on to page one of Google.

All the search engines are trying to integrate more so-cial results into their SERPs, Bing being a prime early mover. Its partnership with Facebook allows Bing users to see friends' faces next to web pages they have liked.


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However, from an Adwords per-spective, it is unlikely the introduc-tion of paid tweets will happen for a long time if ever. For Google to push another company’s advertis-ing offering in the same space as its own, potentially cannibalizing its main revenue driver and risking annoying users with yet more ad-vertising appearing in its search results, would be an unlikely move. Moreover, brands advertising on Google would likely feel the intro-duction of paid tweets near their expensive PPC ads would dilute the attention they could be receiv-ing, hurting their click through rates (CTRs) and overall performance metrics. Even if Google were to offer advertisers the option to use promoted tweets in the SERPS, advertisers would likely be of the mind that they can say and commu-nicate more using an Adwords standard ad rather than a less at-tractive and engaging promoted tweet!

The above scenario however, is based on the two being separate companies. But what if Google did buy Twitter in the not so distant future? Then, one could potentially argue promotional tweets could become fully immersed in Google’s advertising armory. Similar to the Content Network, YouTube, Twitter


paid listing would become another platform for advertisers to push their products. It would also provide them with an option through Google, to place their offerings in a way that can be re-tweeted and recommended by people, some-thing that is not possible with Ad-words. This is the real value that a Google/Twitter acquisition would offer the advertiser, even if both sides were to come to a deal where Twitter could integrate the pro-moted tweet platform with Adword users.

Social media and social media mar-keting is an area where Google has a weakness. It is one of the rea-sons why Google is so nervous about Facebook’s growth. Although Google is the world’s best known and most used search engine, the

way people spend their time online is changing and it is becoming more social. Google needs to ad-dress this pain point. Working with Twitter is the best way to do this. Not only does it allow Google to offer its huge base of advertisers a new outlet and a step into the so-cial world with a company it is used to working with, but it would allow Google to steal a march on Face-book and re-assert itself as a com-plete web company.

It remains to be seen yet how suc-cessful promoted tweets have been in the US. It will also be interesting to see how they perform in the UK when they are rolled out in 2011.♦

By Paul Byrne, Senior PPC Account Manager,

Greenlight

http://www.conferences.com.sg/S1375-SMM4-01J-C.pdf

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Asia Pacific Continues To Be a Hotbed for the Innovative Adoption and Use of Technology According to Ovum, Asia Pacific continues to be a hot-bed for the innovative adoption and use of technology as numerous markets flourish thanks to increasing do-mestic demand, rapid modernization, and financial strength.

Ovum’s research and advisory services have identified multiple trends that it expects to shape the landscape and direction of IT across the region.

“With increasingly sophisticated IT strategies being de-veloped by companies of all shapes and sizes, fasci-nating dynamics are continuing to emerge with signifi-cant consequences for both those companies investing in IT and those companies providing solutions”, said Adam Jura, Senior Analyst.

Skills shortage stress

As the number and complexity of IT projects within APAC rise, a lack of skills is becoming increasingly evi-dent. This is starting to impact the pace and scope of projects being executed by businesses as they look to improve IT capabilities and drive business value.

“Ovum expects technology vendors to invest heavily in efforts to drive educational capabilities that align with the technology they provide”, said Jura, Senior Analyst. “This is expected to include closer partnerships with tertiary education providers, certification programs, and direct educational facilities”. Interestingly, Ovum has started to see an increasing number of global delivery networks focused on ‘follow the skills’ rather than just ‘follow the sun’ leading to pockets of technology specifi-cation in locations such as Hyderabad and Manila. IT providers are expected to focus on increasing asset utilization in order to promote overall productivity and reduce the reliance upon labor.

The rise of ‘Optimal Prime’

Ovum has already witnessed the increasing role that ‘prime’ service providers play within enterprises, effec-tively offering governance capabilities for subsequent technology engagements. “Efforts to improve IT sourc-ing and strategy risk mitigation will see this trend con-tinue as enterprises look for advice in better aligning their business needs with IT investment in multi-source scenarios”, said Jens Butler, Principal Analyst.


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“Prime vendors are expected to focus on offering ITIL/ITSM style capabilities to enterprises that are struggling with the rapid pace of change within their IT depart-ments”.

Composite application creativity

The applications market will con-tinue to grow in APAC in 2011 how-ever Ovum believes enterprises will increasingly look to build composite applications that leverage function-ality offered by multiple suites to better support complex business processes. In part this will be driven by budgetary constraints inhibiting investment in new packages while at the same time, the quest for best-of-breed functionality derived from multiple suites will also play a large part.

Recurring risk management

Risk management will continue to be a major issue for enterprises in 2011 from a number of different perspectives. Geo-political issues such as the conflict in Korea, finan-cial uncertainty in Europe, and the threat of a ‘GFC 2.0’ are all weigh-ing on the minds of enterprises and vendors alike. More focused IT pro-ject risk continues to play a role in the region with enterprises increas-ingly looking to share risk with tech-nology providers – for example basing project success on business outcomes. While the appetite for risk has increased slightly over the course of 2010, it has come with much more defined controls and measures.

Finding value in vertical projects

Vertical specific projects will drive significant investment in IT across the region creating demand for business-fluent technology ven-dors. “Projects such as smart grid in the utilities industry, e-health in the healthcare industry, constituent engagement in Government, and transportation infrastructure pro-jects will combine to form a signifi-cant portion of IT investment across


APAC”, added Jura, based in Syd-ney. Cross-industry solutions such as Cisco’s S+CC will be increas-ingly demanded as individual indus-try participants look to recoup sig-nificant project costs from other aligned industries.

Mega-vendors and stack delinea-tion

‘Stack delineation’ is being driven by the drive of vendors into non-traditional markets: telcos into ser-vices, hardware and cloud; soft-ware providers into hardware and appliances; services vendors into software; hardware vendors into higher margin services provision. There will be a continued blurring of the lines between which elements of the technology stack technology providers play in. As a result, this will likely affect the choices avail-able to enterprises and create questions about the success such strategies are actually happening. “Critically for APAC, there will be a major impact on the partnership strategies of such mega-vendors which may hinder their appeal in the region – where partnerships are such an essential element”, added Butler.

Surviving sustainability strate-gies

Ovum expects CIOs to be increas-ingly accountable for IT and busi-ness energy costs in 2011. Criti-cally, the metrics and associated incentives of sustainability will be-come more sophisticated as organi-zations improve their visibility into sustainability performance and wider factors such as Government pressure continue to take hold.

The continuing consumerization of IT

The ‘iPhone effect’ will continue to gain traction within APAC in 2011 as consumer technology forces its way into organizations and IT de-partments scramble to react. Con-sumer technology adoption will force IT departments to move away

from the traditional centralized ap-proach of ‘command and control’ to a more flexible architecture that supports a wider variety of non-standard devices. Concerns around securing such technology will con-tinue to permeate the industry with heavily publicized losses of data seemingly inevitable. The spread of social media, mobile devices and what will effectively become an ‘enterprise app store’ will continue to disrupt IT strategies.

Shifting security

Somewhat controversially, Ovum believes that there will be a shift of accountability for security away from IT departments to the busi-ness, technology providers, and/or employees with ambiguity inevita-ble. IT departments will continue to be more reactive than proactive to security particularly in areas like securing end-points. “In that sense, IT departments will increasingly need to be able to live with a de-gree of uncertainty in their IT secu-rity particularly as alternative deliv-ery models such as public cloud computing are adopted with in-creasing fervor”, advised Adam Jura.

Cloud, cloud, cloud...

Cloud computing will be inescap-able in 2011 as vendors refine and solidify their offerings. A focus on location of data centers providing public cloud offerings will be critical particularly for those vendors tar-geting Government and financial clients. Private cloud will remain the top priority for APAC enterprises in 2011 with more innovative ap-proaches such as hosted private clouds starting to gain momentum. Ovum believes 2011 will start to show ‘break-through’ cloud en-gagements of significant scale as enterprises better understand the impact it can have on their busi-nesses. “Risk and change manage-ment for cloud engagements will continue to be demanded as enter-prises make the transition from on-site to cloud solutions”, concluded Butler.♦

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Fournaise: Three-quarter of Ad Campaigns Tested Achieved Low Effectiveness Scores

The Fournaise Marketing Group analyzed that 75% of the ad campaigns it tracked and tested at pre-launch level across 20 countries worldwide in 2010 achieved low effectiveness scores and had to be reworked be-cause of: 1. Poor ad appeal 2. Poor message understanding 3. Poor message relevance 4. Poor likeliness to engage by the target audience Fournaise uses its Next Generation Creative Effective-ness Tracking solution CampaignTester® and its pro-prietary Scorecard-based 9-KPI (Key Performance Indi-cators) Ad Performance Tracking methodology to measure the degree of potential effectiveness of its clients’ ad campaigns in full independence and neutral-ity – to help both clients and agencies identify what works and what does not, and take the relevant crea-tive corrective action. It identified two key reasons why the ad campaigns test-scored poorly and had to be seriously reworked to boost their effectiveness: In 60% of the cases, the clients’ briefs were too loose, too weak and not sharp enough, setting the agencies for failure right from the start:

• The campaigns’ objectives were either too vague or unclear

• Unique selling or value propositions were non-existent or terribly plain

• Appealing customer benefits were totally missing or simply overlooked

• Irrelevant, incomplete or misinterpreted customer insights were used

• Look, feel and style were thought to be able to overcome the lack of content

• Over-reliance on the agency to come up with the big idea in spite of vague or unclear directions in the brief

In 40% of the cases, the agencies’ creative delivery was off-brief or simply not good enough to gener-ate an effective impact on the target audience:

• Understanding of the needs and wants of the cli-ents’ target audience was too superficial, not deep enough or too much based on gut-feelings

• Unique selling or value propositions were over-looked, and customer benefits were put aside, not listened to or not properly taken into account (deliberately or not)

• Planning and/or creative process was rushed • Planning and creative teams were not working

hand in hand enough and were often guilty of in-fighting

• Lack of creative open-mindedness, objectivity and self-analysis when it comes to feedback/directions from the client

“The ad campaigns that test-scored well in 2010 and that went on to be successfully deployed with high ef-fectiveness levels were all based on the winning for-mula of precise and relevant customer insights, solid value propositions and appealing customer benefits expressed through excellent-quality creative execu-tions,” says Jerome Fontaine, CEO & Chief Tracker of The Fournaise Marketing Group. “This winning formula is basic and is not new, but is too often forgotten or ig-nored by both clients and agencies,” he added.♦


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According to the latest IDC Asia Pacific Semi-annual IT Services Tracker, the overall IT services market in the Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region will con-tinue its growth momentum in 2011 after a strong re-covery in 2010.

IDC forecasts the market to experience a 9.4% year-on-year growth in 2011, largely driven by outsourcing and project-oriented services, as well as uptake of cloud services.

“New technologies and service models are changing the IT landscape. IT-as-a-service and pay-as-you-go models have triggered the market to explore alterna-tives to traditional outsourcing models. This has re-sulted in increasing interest in hosted application man-agement as a transition to a public cloud along with data center consolidation and virtualization projects,” says Natalie Wan, Senior Research Manager of IDC’s Asia/Pacific Services Research Group.

Key findings from the study include:

• Consultancy-led and business transformation pro-jects, especially cloud related initiatives, are picking up fast to enable enterprises to capture opportuni-ties in the recovered economic environment.

• Server, storage and desktop virtualization, along with transition to next-generation data center, con-tinue to fuel the growth of network consulting and integration services.

• Business analytics solutions are growing fast as more enterprises are demanding predictive capa-bilities to capitalize on the value of information and enhance competitiveness and time-to-market.

• Enterprises are looking for end-to-end managed services. Extending the partner ecosystem will be critical to address the growing requirements for compliance and disaster recovery.

• Given the uptake of mobile technology, cloud com-puting, social networks and Web 2.0, security and risk assessment services remain high on the agenda to assist enterprises to evaluate the secu-rity posture prior to deploying new technologies and build stronger information governance for manag-ing corporate information in the cloud.

“Transforming IT infrastructure, modernizing applica-tions, as well as streamlining business processes, are key drivers for enterprises’ IT investment. The pressure on reducing CAPEX remains and this will continue to fuel innovation in outsourcing services over the next 12 months, as governance and IT service management take center stage in the value proposition for outsourc-ing services,” concludes Linus Lai, Associate Director, IDC's Asia Pacific Services Research Group.

Figure: Asia Pacific excluding Japan IT Services Market Fore-cast 2010-2014

Source: IDC Asia Pacific Semiannual Services Tracker, 1H 2010 ♦


Enterprise Transformation and Cloud Services Fuel the Growth in Asia Pacific IT Services Market

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New Insights into the Social Behaviour of Hong Kongers Online Hong Kong’s online citizens like to search for bargains, keep up with the latest celebrity gossip, are addicted to Facebook, like Google and love watching YouTube. Experian Hitwise, a leading online competitive intelli-gence service, has released an analysis of web searches by Hong Kong Internet users in the past year, providing a number of interesting insights into Hong Kongers’ social habits relevant for marketers and com-mentators alike. “Local web search patterns are a reflection on the inter-ests and, in some instances the psyche of, Hong Kong consumers. These patterns have become a great tool to help marketers understand their target audience across the verticals that are most relevant to their mar-keting campaigns,” said Graeme Beardsell, Managing Director for South Asia, Experian. “These insights iden-tify key online trends among Hong Kong Internet users, providing marketers with intelligent and actionable in-formation needed to market forward and improve audi-ence engagement in the digital media space.” “Predictive insights across key local verticals can fur-ther help marketers implement well planned Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns that are an extremely cost ef-fective, measurable form of online advertising. These campaigns can also provide a highly-targeted lead gen-eration tool for marketing success,” added Beardsell. Key social insights from Experian’s inaugural half-year online analysis are as follows:

Business and Finance • Hong Kongers sought information about their stocks

and shares at Yahoo! Hong Kong Finance website, which accounted for 28.8% of all visits to websites in this category. They also visited AAstocks.com and ET Net, which held 11.9% and 9.5% share of visits re-spectively.

• Centadata.com retained the top spot as the main source of property information, with 19.7% share of visits. However, its share of visits has declined by 8.3% from 2009, when they accounted for 28.1%.

• Centamap, Centaline and Midland Realty were the most searched terms in the last three months, ac-counting for 5.9%, 4.7% and 2.3% of all searches in the property category (week ending 4th September to week ending 27th November).

Computers and Internet • Hong Kong is a city full of IT gadget lovers who like

to browse and read reviews about the latest gadgets and gizmos. The top five electronic sites searched by Hong Kong Internet users were Review33.com, En-gadget Chinese, Sony Corporation of Hong Kong, Engadget and Canon Hong Kong. Review33.com leads the pack with 16.5% of total share of visits.

• The top five most searched terms in the last three months (week ending 4th September to week ending 27th November) in the computer and internet elec-tronics category were Canon, Samsung, Samsung Hong Kong, Nikon and LG.


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• Hong Kongers’ revealed their preferred search engine was Google over Yahoo! with Google Hong Kong, Google and Google Taiwan taking the first, third and fifth spots in the list of the top five search engines. Combined, they accounted for 56.4% of the share of visits. Yahoo! held on to second place with 24.6% share of visits and Baidu took fourth place with just 4.1%.

• Forums didn’t make the cut for Hong Kongers, with social net-working leading the way with Facebook and YouTube ac-counting for a combined total share of visits of 62.1% in a list of top 10 sites for social network-ing and forums. Although ac-counting for a small share of vis-its, local forums Discuss and UWants made it into the top five with a 3.6% and 2.5% share, respectively.

Entertainment • Online video channels were the

number one source of entertain-ment for Hong Kongers, with YouTube and Tudou.com taking the top two spots in the top five most visited Entertainment web-sites. Hong Kongers’ didn’t ne-glect their favourite past time - betting on horses and football. The Hong Kong Jockey Club – Bets and HKJC Football Betting Limited ranked as the third and fourth most visited sites.

• Hong Kongers showed their love of TV and pop celebrities not only in Hong Kong, but around the world, with the top five sites visited including TVB Artiste, PiPi, KoreaStarDaily, allk-pop.com and Show. TVB Artiste received the biggest share of visits at 13.62%.

Lifestyle • Hong Kong’s beauty and fashion

commun i ty connec ted a t BeautyExchange.com.hk, a clear favourite with Hong Kongers to discuss what’s hot and what’s not.


It ranks as the number one web-site in three categories: lifestyle - beauty (44.8% share of visits), lifestyle – fashion (13.7% share of visits) and shopping and classi-fied – health and beauty (37.5% share of visits).

• Women in Hong Kong adore their fashion, and to ensure they stay in style, they also visited QQ Show (5.52 share of visits) and Elle Hong Kong (4.69% share of visits), which ranked second and t h i r d b e h i n d B e a u t y E x -change.com.hk, for fashion indus-try insights. UNIQLO Mix and HypeBeast, an online magazine for fashion and culture took the final two places to make up the top five most visited websites.

• Hong Kongers also explored and discussed beauty tips and prod-uct news at TheZtyle.com and She Critiques websites, which accounted for 11.27% and 3.74% respectively.

• Search terms related to lifestyle and beauty in the last three months (week ending 4th Sep-tember to week ending 27th No-vember) included BeautyEx-change, Chanel, Shu Uemera, Estee Lauder and MAC.

• The top five most popular women sites included MingPao OL, 27.cn, She.com, she.com Com-munity and YoHo lady. Ming Pao OL was top of the list with 9.8% share of visits, closely followed by 27.cn with 7.6% share and she.com with 7.1%.

Shopping and Classifieds •Auction websites made up four of the top five most visited websites in the shopping and classified category as Hong Kongers search for bargains and products that can’t be found in Hong Kong. Ya-hoo! Auctions Hong Kong ranked top with 17.6% share of visits fol-lowed by TaoBao.com with 15.6%, eBay with 3.4% and Ama-zon.com with 2.6%. Apple iPod and iTunes was the fifth most vis-ited.

• Hong Kongers showed their love for Japanese fashion with Jshop-pers.com and Uniqlo websites being two of the top five most vis-ited websites in the apparels and accessories category.

• Hong Kong consumers went to Price.com.hk to look at appli-ances and electronics, accounting for 29.9% of share of visits, and for computers, they checked out the Apple Store, HP and Lenovo.

• Hong Kongers shopped for a mix of high street and luxury brands with the top five searches in the last three months (week ending 4th September to week ending 27th November) dominated by Uniqlo (ranked number one most searched term), Chanel, Gucci, H&M and LV.

Beardsell adds, “With capabilities to help businesses convert data into insights and delve into the search patterns of over 1.8 million Hong Kong internet users, Experian Hit-wise can play a vital role in helping marketers identify local opportuni-ties in specific verticals to strategi-cally conduct effective marketing campaigns. Thus ensuring sus-tained brand visibility and aware-ness among their target audience in an increasingly competitive envi-ronment.”♦

Source: Experian Asia Pacific

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By analyzing its Broadband Tariff Benchmarks – Q3 2010 Point Topic revealed that Hong Kong is the best value on earth for consumer broadband, while Singa-pore joins the top ten nations worldwide for the first time.

The data, which is collected on a quarterly basis, showcases the best deals on offer to consumers around the world.

“Consumers in different countries are faced with very different broadband tariffs, dependent on geography, market and network maturity, local competition and various levels and sources of subsidy,” said Fiona Vanier, Senior Analyst at Point Topic.

In the standalone tariffs that Point Topic tracks, band-width can vary from 150kbps – barely qualifying as broadband - up to 1Gbps. Many come with data limits, email addresses or static IPs and that is before the ‘special offers’ are accounted for. To help comparison, Point Topic has analyzed the amount a consumer will pay for a megabit of bandwidth and calculated the total cost for the first year of a broadband subscription*.

Nine of the ten best value tariffs are either pure fiber or hybrid offerings where fiber is a significant part of the local loop. The exception is Germany where Unity Me-dia offer a cable service that is very competitive,” said Vanier.

Rankings can change very quickly. If a particular opera-tor upgrades its network or decides to introduce a new tariff, it can result in a significant improvement in the cost on offer to the consumer.

“Prices are stabilizing in many markets around the world and overall in the last quarter there was an aver-age increase globally. However there are plenty of countries that are still rolling out new networks and ISPs that are announcing new tariffs. Even in relatively mature markets, like Singapore or Italy, there is room for improvement as the new tariffs from StarHub and Fastweb demonstrate”, added Vanier.

Faster downstream speeds do usually mean a lower price per megabit but the bandwidth has to be used for those savings to be achieved.


Hong Kong is the Best Value on Earth for Consumer Broadband

http://point-topic.com/content/operatorSource/dslreports/Broadband%20Tariff%20Benchmark%20Report%20Q3%202010.pdf&comp_id=102745&g=3�




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Figure 2: Largest quarterly percentage reductions in price per megabit – Q2 to Q3 2010 (PPP rates)


Figure 1: Top 10 countries for consumer broadband Q310 and prices in Q210-by US$/Mbit (PPP rates year average)

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* The first year of a broadband subscription includes a num-ber of costs. In addition to the monthly rental a consumer can pay for the installation, the activation and the cost of the equipment. Adding these together and converting to a com-mon base using purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates from the United Nations** and then calculating the amount per megabit of bandwidth produces a listing from which the lowest cost per megabit for a generally available, standalone (broadband only) tariff in each country is selected. 70 countries provided enough data to qualify for this analysis. ** PPP rates from the UN as at 2008. ♦

Source: Point Topic

Table 1: Lowest cost/megabit by country, operator and tariff – the top 10 (PPP rates)

Table 2: Lowest cost/megabit by country, operator and tariff – the bottom 10 (PPP rates)

Table 3: Largest quarterly percentage reductions in price per megabit – Q2 to Q3 2010 (PPP rates)

http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=699&crid=�

http://www.mig-events.com/banktech2011/edm/edm1_sg.html

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Why Asia is poised to be THE breakthrough market for Mobile Advertising Mobile Marketing Association’s new Chief Executive Officer, Greg Stuart, was recently in Singapore, and Asian e-Marketing held an interview with him, together with our well-known expert on the Asian mobile scene, Rohit Dadwal, MMA’s Managing Director for Asia Pa-cific.

Having received some fresh results that day from a sur-vey conducted by InMobi in partnership with comScore, which revealed a surprisingly high level of mobile ad-vertising acceptance in Asian markets, I couldn’t resist making use of this opportunity to ask these high-profile interviewees questions about the good news for mobile advertisers - especially as we know the region’s poten-tial still seems to be virtually untapped.

Q: According to the recent study, almost 70 % of Asians were comfortable with mobile advertising and more than 50% were ready for customised/personalised advertising. Could you give me your thoughts on why that probably is so?

Rohit Dadwal: That is because the nature of the de-vice being personal, targeted and actually providing you with information at the contextual time and the place that you want, which is what consumers want. Many Asian consumers actually have not had that Mar-keting 101 experience, simply because the addresses and postal codes were not always there. There is also a social/economic factor: it barely costs you anything to get information and you don’t want to be left out of in-

formation you had never had access to earlier. From a business point of view, marketers are now all of a sud-den finding new users they couldn’t talk to earlier and are trying to send personalized and targeted messages to their new audience by using new media. It is now, for instance, possible to send you a message saying “Daniela, you are on Duxton Road, would you want to have a beer on your way back home?” which is location based marketing and much more appealing to consum-ers as its relevance really generates interest.

Greg Stuart: Indeed, the mobile phone presents a new opportunity for marketers to communicate to consum-ers and the fact that it has location and proximity pro-vides a whole new dimension. Today’s consumers at a very basic level understand there is a quid pro quo. They are used to being exposed to ads, if they get free content or free media in return. As long as media does-n’t start to do stuff that is offensive, intrusive, or irritat-ing, they are in general OK with the concept.

Q: That in accordance with the research which states that around 50% of mobile users in Asia seem to be willing to receive advertising in return for free apps or a lower phone bill. Do you think that this is the business model of the future? That’s the way to go for the mobile advertising industry in the region and globally?


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Rohit Dadwal: That number actu-ally points to the economic and demographic frame of the markets that we are in, which is huge and as much as 15% of the household income can be spent on a mobile phone and services in most of these markets. That eats into edu-cation, health care and food and maybe even housing a little bit. If that can be supplemented with free ads that can reduce the cost from say 15% to 12%, why would you not want it? Remember, these are the masses who are the next one billion customers. If they can re-duce their cost by 2%, by receiving free advertisements, they will do it. Consumers want advertising on a medium like mobile, because it be-comes targeted and personal. They get more relevant information, which is not a spill-over from a brand’s perspective. However, it also becomes more risky, because if you start sending something which is not truly personalized - it may turn people off. In the Internet business it was pop ups that clearly were wrong for the industry and we will step in to work to stop offensive pop ups that annoy consumers on their mobiles as we think it is bad for consumer experience, too.

Greg Stuart: For emerging markets this will definitely play a more active role as we move forward, and we have not even explored voice ad-vertising yet. Mobile is and was actually meant for voice and all these things that we are talking about are additional services. We have not even touched voice adver-tising, yet. If listening to jingles can reduce the cost of my phone call to almost zero, I will want that. And probably my jingle already knows who I am and knows from a demo-graphic perspective what segment I am in. Thus, customers will feel less disturbed due to more rele-vance. How brands start tailoring their messages and communication strategies must become very spe-cific.

Q: Given that the Asian consum-ers are receptive to mobile ads, there is great potential for growth in the market here. What impact do you expect will it have on the operations and expecta-tions of MMA?


Rohit Dadwal: More people at the table means more resources for the MMA to do more work to help de-velop that market place. It makes it a much more exciting, much more vibrant place. With our growing in-dustry there is reason to believe there should be some kind of regu-lation in that field, be it self-regulated or enforced. Regulation requires wise guidance and that’s really what we are doing. We are helping build a framework under which the industry needs to work. We at MMA believe that it needs to be self-regulated; we believe all of our members will sign up with us and then adhere to the guidelines and practices that we are working on, the consumer best practices, the code of conduct, etc. We are also playing the role of quasi-consultant advisor to the regulators so that they understand that this is an industry which is growing and that there needs to be framework around the growth and enforcing the regulation as and when they have been framed. If you do not facilitate both ends of the industry which has at one end the regulators and the other end the consumers, there is the likelihood that one or the other may falter and that is not good for the industry. So you need to work at it from both sides. We also need to define what the con-sumers need to do, how they need to respect privacy for their own self. They need to be aware of what they can do to stop advertising, what they can do to entertain ad-vertising, how they need to act based on that advertising, and so on and so forth; that it is not just the industry’s role. I think that collec-tively it’s both the regulator and the consumer who need to figure out how they interact with this and it will happen. We see ourselves as the facilitator to help make that happen.

Greg Stuart: Rohit makes the deci-sions for Asia Pacific that are ap-propriate for these markets be-cause his dynamics are not going to be the same as in other markets. Part of my role is to figure out the consistency that we can bring to enable him to do more, more quickly and more efficiently. I think the lifecycle of the regions we oper-ate in are quite different. Certain

regions here are ahead of the curve and other markets lag behind. Therefore, we let the four regions do what is required to be done and then try and see similarities be-tween all of them, so that we can actually have a global organization. What we are trying to do is to build a global medium for the increas-ingly global marketer.

Rohit Dadwal: I think it’s very true, mobile is a bigger deal here and there has been more development. It’s always good to keep an eye on what is happening in the other re-gions. There are developments in voice, for example, that are hap-pening in Latin America and Africa that I am keeping a very close eye on to see how that could come to Asia. I am sure, that my counter-parts in Europe or the US are doing the same.

Q: How do you expect mobile technology to evolve in the fu-ture and what impact can we ex-pect it will have on the mobile marketing industry?

Greg Stuart: Mobile is now in the position where the consumers are driving growth and where technol-ogy is always trying to catch up. There are applications and ser-vices, like Foursquare, that are be-ing built just for mobile phones. The success of this one simple app was not technology - it was the growth in usage by hundreds of millions of Foursquare users that is now help-ing drive innovation. So the ques-tion is how do you add location rec-ognition to that? How do you add pictures to that? How do you add YouTube to that? The technology is now trying to catch up with what consumers want and consumers are now driving what the techno-logical innovations will be. Who could have predicted something like Foursquare and what that means with all these new mash ups of other technologies used in new and different ways which are be-coming really exciting? We need to start differentiating innovation from what is not innovation. If you say Foursquare is innovation then that’s wrong, that’s a service, that’s an HTML5 application service, which has been there for ten years. Well, it is not a technology innovation,

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but a new application of old stuff.

Rohit Dadwal: I am not sure, for instance, if it is right to compare search the way we understand it to what search will be on mobile. Mo-bile search is trying to emulate what search is on the Internet, but with definite variations - directory listings, content/location based search and so on. So is mobile search going to be the same to what it is on the Internet? I don’t think so, because it has already started fragmenting into different versions of directory versus loca-tion versus the traditional search versus Q&A searches. For exam-ple, you can actually do a search based on your camera, but will that become the biggest search tool as we move forward on the mobile? I am not sure. Will it be location based? Could be. Pairing reality with augmented location with con-tent for mobile search, will that be the next killer app? Maybe. This it is not going to be the search that we know of, because this device has capabilities to take search to a whole new level compared to the PC.

Q: Considering that the mobile search market is still relatively immature, which of the services do you believe has the potential to become successful, and why?


Greg Stuart: I would look at just my own behavior and guess that at least 50% of the searches on my phone are proximity related or have an element of proximity. I am trying to find a restaurant or retail store that is near me, or I am trying to identify where I am or where I need to get to – I think it’s the vast major-ity of what I am trying to look for. It probably is higher than that (50%) when I think about it and that is a big change. In retail shops like Wal-Mart you could use your mobile phone for orientation to figure out where to find a product or get infor-mation on it. It’s all being driven on search and is being tagged into “If I am getting it here for this price, what is it sold for at Tesco and what will it be sold for at that other place?” That is search capability: scan the code, go into the Internet, browse it, find the cheapest price, and then go there and save $50.

Rohit Dadwal: I think there is a whole new layer of services that sort of get entered into here. We talked about Foursquare’s service but I know Procter & Gamble’s Olay did an application that works while you are standing in a retail aisle in front of their Olay products by pro-viding a series of questions and answers that you go through to help identify which of their products

is right for you. I don’t know if I would ever take the time to sit in front of my PC and identify a series of Olay products and then relate that to a retail experience, but if I am in the retail experience and I have the question and I have the need then and there to solve that, this is a big opportunity to do so. It feels to me like a very powerful idea and one that retail is not able to support yet, because there is no one within a pharmacy or drug store that really has the range of specific knowledge, in particular for Olay products. It’s a very powerful idea and that feels like search to me - it is a variation of a Google, but it is still definitely a search. Did you see that Google announced that they have over $1 billion dol-lars in mobile revenues? They did not qualify whether that was appli-cation, platform, or advertising. They just said mobile, without sort-ing out the income streams. So, it is a pretty big deal and certainly has got everyone’s attention, which makes it a pivotal moment for mo-bile.♦

By Daniela La Marca

http://www.conferences.com.sg/S1375-SMM4-01J-C.pdf

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Cloud Computing Is a Powerful Tool That Shapes the Business of Tomorrow The recent Frost & Sullivan end-user study results re-veal that although there is much speculation around Cloud Computing as yet another ‘vaporware’ most of the companies surveyed, have either initiated discus-sions or have already started using the technology.

Arun Chandrasekaran, Research Manager at Frost & Sullivan says that, “There is a growing awareness amongst consumers and enterprises to access their information technology (IT) resources extensively through a “utility” model, a development broadly called “Cloud Computing.” Cloud represents the next wave in the computing industry, as it strives to eliminate inher-ent inefficiencies in the existing IT architecture and de-liver “IT as a service” to the end-users.”

Some of the up-front benefits of cloud computing are cost-savings, on-demand usage, ubiquitous access and resource pooling along with, pay-per-use - like the util-ity based consumption model. The existing infrastruc-ture in most enterprises is ridden with inefficiencies due to the low utilization rate of resources such as comput-ing and storage. Customers have invested in excess capacity keeping peak demand in mind and are now plagued with higher spends than their usage levels.

Frost & Sullivan survey conducted across Asia Pacific (with senior IT decision makers) indicates that close to 1 in 4 enterprises use some form of cloud computing. More than 50 percent of the survey respondents be-lieve that Cloud Computing technology in any delivery form can help businesses reduce their infrastructure cost and lowers capital expenditure investment com-pared with traditional IT management.

23 percent of the respondents indicated using some form of Cloud Computing while 61 percent of the re-spondents are likely to increase their cloud computing spending in 2011. The IT department is the key deci-sion maker when it comes to cloud initiatives, followed by the CXO’s. Some of the key factors determining the selection of cloud provider are security & privacy stan-dards, quality of SLAs (Service level agreements) and pricing. IBM, Google and Microsoft had the highest mindshare in the Public Cloud Computing space while IBM, HP and EMC/VMware were the top mindshare garners in the private cloud space.

The adoption rate of Cloud has improved from previous years, though there still are many businesses that are concerned about this technological investment or per-ceive it as yet another technology fad.


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“Challenges for adopting Cloud Com-puting are regulatory complance, in-visibility over data storage & access, SLAs, reliability of clouds and owner-ship of legal liability. However, there is no such thing as ‘zero’ risk. Busi-nesses need to realize that with proper planning, risks can be miti-gated,” comments Chandrasekaran.

Frost & Sullivan analysis from the survey concludes that in order to fully understand Cloud Computing, ven-dors and service providers need to understand that the solution is first built for the customer’s business needs and it is always about the business rather than the technology.

In order to drive adoption of Cloud by business owners, vendors also need to be more liberal with their trial peri-ods to fully accommodate clients request to explore various opportunities that Cloud has to offer.

Cloud Computing offers significant promise for enter-prises saddled with inefficient IT infrastructure.

It offers the critical promise of aligning IT with business needs and creating a truly agile business environment.

“Cloud Computing is a powerful tool that can shape the businesses of tomorrow and it is no longer just hype. It’s real!” says Chandrasekaran.♦

Source: Frost & Sullivan

A. Chandrasekaran

http://www.internetshow.com.sg/

http://www.cerebralbusiness.com/legal/

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Springboard Research’s Top 10 Predictions in 2011 Springboard Research presented its analysis of key trends in the Asia Pacific IT market in 2010, along with a preview of the top trends the company believes will shape the regional market in 2011.

The analysis is based on Springboard Research’s con-tinuous tracking of the major trends and developments in the Asia Pacific IT markets, which includes substan-tial ongoing primary research conducted throughout the year with CIOs and other IT and business decision makers, briefings with leading IT vendors, and analysis of publicly available information on IT companies, coun-tries, products, technologies and services in the region.

Their top 10 trends that will shape enterprise IT in the Asia Pacific region in 2011 are:

#1 Cloud Computing – From Silver Bullet to Just another Sourcing Option

Throughout 2011, the hype surrounding cloud comput-ing will give way to a more realistic understanding of its relevance and applicability among CIOs and other sen-ior IT decision‐makers. According to Springboard ,cloud computing is just one of many valid sourcing options IT organizations must consider alongside traditional ap-proaches, including both on‐premise deployments as

well as hosted solutions. Far from expecting cloud com-puting to replace all other approaches to application deployment/service delivery, IT decision makers must determine the optimal sourcing option for various ser-vices based on various criteria including usage sce-nario, scalability requirements, IT skills availability, and types of workloads being enabled. The debate over public versus private versus hybrid approaches has led to further cloud related market confusion over the past 12 months. Ironically, however, through 2011 this de-bate will actually serve to help organizations better un-derstand and therefore position cloud‐based ap-proaches relative to existing IT initiatives. As IT (and many business) decision makers educate themselves on the distinction between internal versus external ser-vice deployments, and between dedicated and shared access, they will better understand how the various cloud approaches compare with other, existing ap-proaches within their organizations.

In terms of overall spending, the public cloud market in Asia Pacific remains dominated by software as a ser-vice (SaaS) solutions. SaaS demand will remain strong, particularly in scenarios where connectivity is required (email, web conferencing) or limited existing on‐ prem-ise investments prevail (CRM). However, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings from both cloud providers (e.g., AWS, Rackspace) as well as more traditional


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telco providers (e.g., Singtel, Tel-stra) are expected to grow rap-idly. For CIOs and IT decision makers, cloud related security con-cerns will center around interopera-bility and integration of systems, data and processes likely to be ac-cessed across multiple internal and external deployment scenarios.

#2 Demand for Mobile Reporting Services Transforms “Business Intelligence”

Previously bundled as “Business Intelligence” (BI), reporting and analytics will begin to bifurcate in 2011, largely as a result of an in-creased demand from end‐users for mobile reporting services. With a strong initial focus on role‐based report delivery, lightweight naviga-tion, simple drilldown and basic user‐driven interactivity, mobility will begin to move BI out of IT and into the hands (literally) of business decision makers. Organizations will discover that users require more contextually relevant report-ing and analytics, including more social, collaborative and geo‐location driven reporting, providing vendors an opportunity to separate out BI functionality into various ‘layers’, including specific products optimized for particular mobile plat-forms. This will have a significant architectural impact for the majority of enterprise IT organizations that span application delivery, applica-tion lifecycle management, security, data integration, data warehousing, and telco services amongst others.

#3 Managed Services Providers Innovate to Drive Added Value

One of the most important mile-stones in 2011 will be the expan-sion of managed services beyond basic infrastructure management to include more application‐related services. As more organizations seek to reap the benefits of a better integrated approach to managed services, there will be a clear move towards application outsourcing that combines infrastructure and application management to yield


better application performance at a lower cost. As this trend continues to gain strength, the lines between SaaS and managed services will increasingly blur.

Managed services providers (MSPs) will be forced to innovate with new business and delivery models based on reliable, stan-dardized and scalable platforms and develop specific SLAs for the management of these extended environments, influenced by cloud computing.

Springboard expects to see further consolidation and commoditization of IT managed services with ser-vices like monitoring, tracking, patching, and performance report-ing increasingly delivered via cloud throughout 2011.

#4 HTML 5 Boosts an Application‐Centric Web across a Wide Range of Devices

HTML 5, the next major revision of the HTML standard is expected to be formally ratified by late 2011and will gain greater attention through-out the year with its ability to sup-port video playback, drag and drop user control, inline document edit-ing, client‐side data storage and more interactive web form capabili-ties. HTML 5 will enable a further significant leap from being docu-ment centric to becoming more ap-plication centric and will enable a new wave of mobile applications to

be delivered to a wide range of de-vices.

Application server technology has previously enabled static HTML documents to be rendered as rich, dynamic web based content. How-ever, additional proprietary plug‐in technologies such as Adobe Flash/Air and Microsoft Silverlight were also required to augment basic HTML content to provide highly interactive and visually appealing, rich user interfaces. HTML 5 will enable richer user interfaces and greater interactivity across a much wider range of client devices – in-cluding mobiles. This will eventually lessen the gap between more pro-prietary mobile platforms (such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad) and more open platforms such as Google’s Android OS‐based devices. #5 IT Distribution Channel Part-ners Accelerate the Evolution of their Business Models

Distribution channel partners are in a particularly vulnerable position as the IT market moves quickly toward cloud computing. The days of sur-viving on business models depend-ent on distributing generalized IT products with razor‐thin margins and living day‐ to‐day on cash turns supported by vendor‐provided credit are quickly coming to a close. To make matters worse, the tradi-tional large‐scale SI deals that sup-ported channel partners for years are increasingly disappearing or

http://www.ocbc.cyclesingapore.com.sg/

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are being won and delivered by vendors directly. In 2011, regional system integrators (SIs), value‐added resellers (VARs) and dis-tributors will be forced to develop better specialty services by offering vertical industry and business solu-tions in order to deliver the cus-tomer the level of value required to survive in a cloud‐enabled market. Already being pushed by their ven-dor suppliers to invest in skills around high growth solutions, chan-nel partners will need to elevate their customer intimacy and ability to deliver clear business value.

#6 Telcos Embrace the Cloud but Are Forced to Prove Their Cus-tomer Orientation

In 2011, Telecommunications com-panies (telcos) of all sizes, and in many Asian countries, will formally embrace cloud computing as an offering targeted at enterprise IT. However, Springboard Research believes that not all telcos will be as equally committed – or capable – of delivering the full range of cloud services demanded by customers. Infrastructure hosting will be tar-geted at larger enterprise clients with SaaS offerings targeted at small‐ to‐medium sized business (SMB) customers during 2011. However, cloud “pure‐play” vendors will also continue to grow and be attractive, often by partnering with telcos to provide more complete and packaged solutions (e.g., off-site backup and more flexible ca-pacity and performance options). The goal for any cloud service pro-vider during 2011 however, will be to prove assumptions about exploit-ing efficiencies, cost advantages and the ability to productize for a mass market on a cost effective basis. These are generally key dif-ferentiators for telcos offering cloud‐based services versus more tradi-tional IT players, including enter-prise applications vendors, infra-structure vendors and more tradi-tional hosted service providers. Nonetheless, telcos are signifi-cantly constrained by their own

marketing vision, their ability to communicate that vision and the ability to execute on it as a matter of daily business operations. 2011 will be the time these assumptions are tested in reality.

Given the key characteristics of the cloud (network‐based access, us-age‐based pricing, leveraging of shared resources, automated provi-sioning), telcos would appear to be extremely well‐positioned to benefit from the massive market opportuni-ties that cloud computing will likely provide. However, significant chal-lenges and barriers still exist that will be difficult to overcome, even for the larger telcos. 2011 will test telco’s own infrastructure and sup-port services with responsiveness to customer requests/issues, the ability to adequately address ‘unique’ scenarios or requirements that fall outside their standard offer-ings and an overall ability to recog-nize and respond to the changing demands of small and medium sized businesses in a timely man-ner.

Springboard Research believes that 2011 will see telcos increas-ingly providing cloud based ser-vices – whether based on infra-structure or applications – but by 2012‐2013 only a limited range of services will ultimately be offered. This will bring some market instabil-ity with enterprise customers un-clear and unconvinced on which services will be maintained over the long term. Organizations should therefore carefully assess their risk when short‐listing telco providers – whether small or large – for sourc-ing cloud‐based solutions and/or services.

#7 Real‐time CODE Emerges: Content Management Meets Col-laboration

Real‐time collaborative document editing (CODE) will begin to gain broader attention in the enterprise market during 2011.

The most widely known example of real‐time CODE today is Google Docs. This service allows multiple users to collaboratively edit a live document in real time. But it is unlikely to go “mainstream” in 2011. Just as instant messaging reduced email‐based collaboration “cycle” times over recent years, document centric processes that require multi-ple participants to edit and/or ap-prove documents will also benefit significantly. Typical applications in the enterprise will include incident reporting, proposals, tenders, ap-provals, submissions, project plan-ning and case management (amongst others). Driven by the substantial potential efficiencies and advantages of CODE, Spring-board Research expects to see the enterprises formally evaluate the impact to their businesses. Immedi-ate benefits include enhanced/multi‐dimensional version control, re-duced document data volumes, improved document template man-agement, superior content integra-tion and of course, reduced col-laborative cycle times. Though it is unlikely that Google will emerge as a serious enterprise software ven-dor within the next 12‐18 months, Springboard Research does expect to see a much greater interest in (and gradual take up of) CODE so-lutions over the coming decade with 2011 serving as a transition point.

#8 Information Security Becomes a Key Enterprise Priority and Sparks Client Virtualization

Wikileaks has demonstrated the damage that can be caused when information assets are not properly protected. The risks to organiza-tions when unprotected information is released can include reputation damage, competitive losses and even criminal charges, which is coming into greater focus with every new leaked document. In 2011, governments and large en-terprises will invest far more in technologies, services and busi-ness processes to protect their


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most sensitive information assets. Improved information security will bump up against – and be chal-lenged by – a number of the strong-est trends driving the IT industry in 2011 such as providing analytics for mobile workers, pervasive net-work access and new social media. Springboard believes that when organizations evaluate how best to improve information security, many will embark on strategies to funda-mentally modernize their entire in-frastructure management strategies and probably opt for client virtual-ization.

#9 Converged Infrastructure Stacks Challenge General‐Purpose IT

For the past 30 years, success and growth in the IT industry has been driven by general purpose hard-ware and software components integrated together by vendors, business partners and end‐users for particular needs. This model of computing has served the industry exceptionally well and has brought IT to millions of new businesses and consumers over the past sev-eral decades. Like preceding indus-try changes, this industry frame-work will remain and continue to drive a majority of the market for years to come. However, integrated stacks of hardware, software and services in devices and appliances will continue to gain prominence and will challenge the traditional industry model in 2011 – even in the face of the emergence of cloud computing. In almost every seg-ment of the IT industry, specialized converged infrastructure solutions are mushrooming. The best exam-ple is perhaps Apple and its inte-gration of hardware, software, ser-vice and content bundled into prod-ucts like the iPhone. In 2011, ven-dors will heavily promote “vertically


integrated” stacks as a means of differentiation in an attempt to ad-dress the requirement for simplifi-cation of the technology environ-ment.

#10 Consumerization of IT Drives Major Changes in Usage Pat-terns and Expectations

Rapid growth in the usage of mo-bile devices, (e.g., smart phones, iPads, etc.) combined with an ex-plosion in social computing (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has al-ready impacted the way end‐users view IT. Over the next 12 months, this ongoing consumerization of IT will have increasingly dramatic im-pacts on the ways in which end‐users access enterprise applica-tions and data. While employees continue to access sensitive appli-cations and data from secured, cor-porate networks, they are increas-ingly using web‐based offerings and mobility devices for both work and personal reasons. This repre-sents growing complexity for IT teams that are already wrestling with the need to embrace new tech-nologies – but struggling to main-tain management and control over older ones. CIOs will face ever in-creasing pressure to allow more consumer/personal devices into corporate networks, manage the influx of social computing habits of their employees and handle the increasing mobile security issues they present. Springboard believes that IT teams will be forced to em-brace the more consumer‐friendly computing habits and environ-ments. With a variety of form‐factors existing in the marketplace, there is a critical need for applica-tions to be offered in a platform‐and‐device‐agnostic manner (e.g., standard user images) which pro-vides users with a seamless experi-ence across various form factors.

However, IT organizations must avoid the temptation to support mo-bile access by developing even more complex, multi‐layered appli-cations. Instead, IT organizations should use this opportunity to em-brace the basic internet standards they have likely been trying to stan-dardize on for the past decade (i.e. standard based HTML over HTPP on SSL).

Throughout 2011, it is this ability to avoid over‐complicating the mobile application environment that will separate leaders from followers.

Conclusion

As the world continues to recover from the global financial crisis in 2011, the IT industry will undergo fundamental shifts in technology adoption and usage. A critical driver behind these changes will be cloud computing, which will move further along its transition from hype to specific implementations and organizations looking to take definitive steps along clearer and better understood multi‐year adop-tion roadmaps. Other driving forces pushing industry change will be mobility, analytics, IT democratiza-tion, IT abstraction and conver-gence. The degree of change and evolution shaping the market in 2011 will place a greater premium on agility and rethinking old as-sumptions and computing models. Winners and losers will be sepa-rated by an ability to quickly identify the shifts underway, to see (and accept) things in different ways and mobilize their organizations or teams to respond as quickly and effectively as possible.♦

Extract from Springboard Research’s report

by Daniela La Marca



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Understanding the basic structure of how search en-gines register websites is crucial to succeed in search engine optimization (SEO). It is one of the most effective web site promotion tech-niques, referring to improvements and changes made to web pages so that they conform to the search criteria utilized by search engines to rank and position listings, taking into consideration criteria such as keyword fre-quency, prominence, weight and proximity, as well as keyword placement within the HTML. They like "content rich" or thematic text (sufficient enough to support the primary keyword phrase) about your products/services and use this to find the best re-sult. In general it is actually not necessary to submit a web-site as the search engines will find it earlier or later, but achieving a higher ranking means a lot of work. Often the optimization is an exercise performed by the search engine that determines how relevant the page is to a searcher's request. Alternately, a firm specializing in search engine marketing does it. The pay per placement engine market is a billion dollar industry and is a platform that requires so little set-up and capital investment that a multitude of firms have embraced it as a front-line marketing channel. But as more and more companies sign up, the click costs have to meet the demand and increase. And like all other marketing tools, this one as well isn’t without pitfalls and obstacles, so you might want to pay attention to the following advice:

• Understand your objectives - the first is to isolate your website objectives and tailor your traffic to achieve them.

• Track your clicks - whether you own or adopt an advanced web analytics tool or simply add an affili-ate code to the URLs submitted to the engine you must make sure you track click activity against your objectives. This is such an important factor that even

engines themselves are starting to offer this service recognizing that accounting for click to conversion is a sure way to measure success.

• Choose the right search engine(s) - don't be mis-taken in thinking that all engines are equal; some are all-rounders, some B2B focused, and some B2C fo-cused. Make sure you are aware of which one is most effective for you.

• Choose the right words - make sure you take into account the selection of words and phrases you use.

• Writing 'killer' creative – Firstly, drive more quali-fied traffic and secondly, reduce the amount of irrele-vant clicks. Make the visitors qualify themselves be-fore they even click the link by adding a call to action - such as buy, visit, compare, search - into your title and/or description which will prompt interest. Qualify-ing them further with relevant descriptions that in-clude enough information to wet their appetite yet, at the same time provide enough information to dis-suade a user who is uncertain whether he should visit your Website or not. Find out what buzz words your search engine recommends for your industry.

• Manage your bids and placements - the biggest difference between paid search and any other type of search engine optimization is that you have to bid for your position.

• Get to know the search engine distribution part-ners and where their listings are going. Actually, the number of options available for managing bids is ex-tensive - from doing it manually to buying a service to perform it for you. It is definitely the missing link to many paid search campaigns and can mean the dif-ference between success and failure. Try to match conversion with costs and placement. For example: can you get a better ROI from averaging being in position 3 rather than position 1?

• Be aware of seasonality - at peak times in your in-dustry a lot of business can be achieved online, at the same time you can bet that a large number of

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

How to Avoid Pitfalls and Run an Effective Search Engine Campaign

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your competitors will also be aware of this so make sure you watch your bids very carefully. Don't be afraid to change crea-tively, you can make adjustments within a week to turn around sea-sonal trends and demand.

• Choose the most appropriate landing page - Just ask yourself the question when selecting the page “would you be happy if you'd searched for a product or service and then had to search for it a second time on the desti-nation site?”

Now that I explained the process a little more in depth, use the pro-vided information to plan your cam-paign or fine tune your current cam-paigns to get the most from the marketing dollars. The pay-per-click search engine marketing is defi-nitely a very competitive, efficient, and effective means of Internet marketing. Understanding it gives the ability to turn search into an extremely profitable channel.♦

By Daniela La Marca


http://www.upperside.fr/mplsworld2011/mpls2011intro.htm

http://www.upperside.fr/v6world2011/v6world2011intro.htm

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Keywords are extremely crucial as they lead search engine users to your site, therefore selecting the right keywords is the first step to better search engine posi-tioning and the most important stage in garnering a prime spot in search engines’ Top 10. Like our daily tooth brushing, “googling” goes without saying by now and the term has been included in the dictionary quite some time ago. For companies it is es-sential to be found on Google to state that they exist, or let’s say at least are online. Fact is whoever does not exist online, has a significant competitive disadvantage. The current global market leader among search en-gines are Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Baidu, which share almost the whole cake, as the rest is insignifi-cant. As pivots in the web, they direct more than 90 percent of visitors to websites. And let me tell you that keying in your company name doesn’t mean that users that are searching for products, services or solutions will find you, as the top spot on Google & Co. is the dream of many. If it is a hard-fought keyword, the op-portunities fall rapidly. Still, the basis for success here are hard work and a lot of effort, which means search engine optimization. It is an ongoing process that consists of so-called on-and off page factors. On-page factors describe all you can do on your own Web site to improve your ranking. Off-page factors are all measures outside the site. The latter have usually more success, but still the basis of both optimization methods is the knowledge of the best keywords. In the beginning there was (the) keyword The right keywords are the key to the website and fun-damental for all other measures. Each webpage can be

optimized for up to two keywords. But to know the right keywords, you need to know your audience and how your customers tick. Helpful is the knowledge of the following characteristics: age, sex, education level, Internet affinity, when collecting all relevant search terms and synonyms. Whether brainstorming or using customer surveys, take into account the following con-siderations: singular or plural? In which order ("consultancy Singapore" or "Singapore consultancy")? British or American English etc.? You can receive sup-port from free keyword databases that are available on the web, such as the Google Keyword-Tool, which will spit out the most common search terms and synonyms. You can get additional keywords from your web statis-tics, if you have one, as it shows all terms your visitors used to reach your site. Last but not least, you must clean up the keyword list. Balance the terms critically against each other and check their relevance, as all that then remains forms the input for the following on-page optimization. On-page factors Google is looking at the most important areas of the website and assesses them accordingly, so you should know them. Title Tag: The so-called title tag has a huge influence on Google, which is an indication in the invisible head section of the source code of a web page. The title is equally important for Google and for your visitors be-cause an excerpt of what is listed there appears in un-derlined bold print in the hit list of Google. Ideally, there are important keywords and informative text there that invite you to visit the site. You must succeed in the bal-ancing act between the placement of keywords and attractive text.

No Pain, No Gain – So Put Some Effort into Your Keywords Selection


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Homepage: It is the showcase of your Website and the search en-gine is weighting its content particu-larly strong as it is after all the top level of your site. Be prepared to disclose your name and sources and present yourself in brief: Who are you? What do you offer? What makes you unique?

But don’t make the mistake to over-load your home page with texts, which would be counter-productive. Technology: In order for Google to be able to index your site properly, it must be programmed technically correct. Use clean HTML code, which means without syntax errors. Because then it may happen that a bold print isn’t recognized and a headline isn’t understood as such by Google. Framesets are another problem area. If this technique wasstate-of-the-art in the prehis-toric times of the Internet, it is nowadays outdated. You give 30 percent of the potential away when you work with framesets. The better alternatives are called CSS and DIV boxes. Both are modern tech-niques that your programmer should work with.

Google's Pagerank is a numerical value between zero and ten that reflects the link popularity of a web-site and can be seen with the Google Toolbar. The higher it is, the better. In addition you should make entries in trade directories such as the yel-low pages or on appropriate topic or subject portals. A small trick may help to find such portals. Enter your competitors’ sites as follows in Google link: www.competitorsdomain.com to get an overview of the external links of the competition. Perhaps you can get linked with one or other website you found. Seeing all this, you will appreciate why keywords are so vital to search engine optimization. Therefore, to optimize your business and users’ searches, ensure that you thor-oughly research your keywords and get your gold at the end of the rain-bow – in this case, a high search engine ranking.♦

By Daniela La Marca

Keyword Density: It describes the relative frequency of keywords in a text. Experts recommend a key-word density between three and seven percent, as Google then at-taches importance to the keyword. But beware: If the keyword density is significantly higher, the search engine assumes that it is search engine spam and reduces the rat-ing. And always keep in mind that web pages are created for people, n o t f o r s e a r c h e n g i n e s . Headings: Google rates headings higher than normal text, thus every website needs a headline. Menu terms: Similar to the title, menu terms have more weight in Google than the plain Website con-tent, so ideally you put your most important keywords there. Off-page factors 60 percent of the search engine optimization success goes on the account of external links also called link popularity or off page factors. This refers to the number and qual-ity of links pointing to your website. The decisive factors are the page rank and the thematic proximity of the link to your website.


http://www.toplink-asia.com/event.php?name=Digitalize_your_Marketing_Strategy!&id=26

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Mobile Search – Opportunities and Challenges In order for mobile search to reach its full potential, it has to be fast and convenient to use, regardless of the kind of device the user has. The ideal mobile search should provide users with immediate, relevant answers, with no distractions.

For example, mobile search should not force users to scroll though menu after menu or type in lengthy que-ries. Instead, the ideal solution should be to find the content or information they seek with the fewest taps and page views possible.

The more efficient that a mobile search service is in terms of bandwidth, screen space and the user’s time, the better the user experience. In the process, this effi-ciency builds a relationship between the user and a particular mobile search service that then may be lever-aged for marketing opportunities, such as sponsored links.

Companies involved with mobile search should pay close attention to fundamental issues such as con-sumer perceptions of mobile search, their expectations and how they currently use – or don’t use - mobile phones to find information, content and services. These insights are key for creating mobile search offerings that best match those needs and wants. Following are some examples of key issues to consider:

Discoverability – Education is critical for building awareness and use of mobile search. Today, there are two main ways that consumers access their phone’s mobile search application: as part of a Mobile Web ex-perience or as a separate application that resides on the mobile phone. With Mobile Web, users can either find the application through the operator portal (on-deck) or separately through a user-entered Web ad-dress (off-deck).

Input Methods – There are three primary ways that mobile search queries can be entered:

• As text, using a keypad that’s supported with pre-dictive-input software to minimize keystrokes. Text currently is the most common method for entering information or queries.

• Via speech, using voice-recognition software that converts speech into text that the search engine can use.

• As an image - Using an image is another way to launch a search for information. For example, users can take a picture of a bar code with a camera phone.

Output Methods – Search results should be presented in a way that respects limitations such as the phone’s display size and the network’s speeds. The results also should include options that make it easy for users to perform an action, such as purchasing the song that they were searching for, sharing directions to a restau-rant via SMS with friends that they’ll meet for dinner or clicking a link to call for more information. Put simply, the search results should be concise and actionable.

The Opportunity for Mobile Operators Mobile search gives operators an opportunity to in-crease revenue. At a minimum, additional revenue comes from the data plans that customers must sign up for in order to use mobile search. It’s important to note that this helps increase average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metric that analysts and investors focus on when assessing a mobile operator’s competitive position.

Mobile operators may receive an additional revenue share paid for by search providers and their business partners. For example, if a user clicks on a sponsored link or buys a ringtone, the mobile operator may receive a revenue share. This isn’t always the case, but it’s an opportunity that does exist.

Mobile operators also can use search as a market-differentiator. For example, if the operator selects mo-bile search services that are easier to use than those provided by rival operators, that helps create a favour-able market perception among existing and potential customers. Operators also can work with search pro-viders and other parties to create storefronts for downloadable content. Because they control the net-work and, in most cases, the applications and services that are on their customers’ handsets, mobile operators play a key role in enabling mobile search.


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For example, they can configure their billing systems to support pre-mium SMS content delivery and real-time location data that can be used to provide turn-by-turn direc-tions to accompany search results for nearby restaurants. Mobile op-erators also play a key role in pro-tecting the identities and privacy of their customers.

Mobile operators currently have two main options for how they provide mobile search services to their cus-tomers:

1. Operator Branded Search Ser-vice – This approach puts the operator’s brand up front on the search engine and provides ac-cess to content such as ring-tones, songs, games, wallpaper and videos available directly from the operator. An on-portal approach also gives content pro-viders an effective way to high-light their content through adver-tising. For example, some con-tent providers currently buy key-words and contribute to the search results with sponsored links.

2. Off Portal – There are many mobile search providers that al-low users to search for content across the Mobile Web rather than the operator’s content. Many mobile users navigate off portal – also known as off deck – by using a browser bookmark or by entering a URL. (Users with smartphones that have physical or virtual QWERTY keyboards are more likely to go off portal than users with feature phones that have only a numeric keypad for text input.)

Operators sometimes combine both on deck and off deck results within their operator-branded search ser-vices. For example, they can serve up an ad or marketing message as the user reviews the initial results and decides what to do. This ad can lead the user back on portal, to the open Internet, to a map or di-rectly to a voice call with a mer-chant, depending on what makes the most sense for that type of

search. The easier that the search service is to use and the better it is at combining on deck and off deck results, the more likely that it will become the customers’ first choice when conducting searches.

Operators also face a few chal-lenges. The context of the search, the location of the user and any operator-provided behavioral or demographic data gives companies advertising through operator search services the best opportunity to deliver the highest relevancy, the highest click-through rates and the first impression. The key is rele-vance because no operator wants to risk annoying a $50 or $100 per monthly customer with a bombard-ment of ads every time they per-form a search. Instead, operators and their business partners must ensure that ads are relevant to the information, services or content that the user is searching for.

The Opportunity for Marketers Of the many emergent marketing channels – including social, video and word -of-mouth – mobile offers the most to marketers in terms of flexibility and reach. For example, mobile search lets marketers reach consumers when they’re away from their PC, TV or magazines. That translates into additional revenue opportunities because, for example, sales opportunities aren’t lost be-cause a consumer exposed to an ad has forgotten about it by the time she’s at a PC and thus in a position to take action. Instead, mo-bile search makes it possible for consumers to take action on the spot, such as by searching for the ringtone for a song they just heard.

Savvy marketers have already identified many of these opportuni-ties. According to Forrester Re-search, 83% of marketers believe that the mobile channel will become an increasingly effective platform over the next three years. Yet few are moving to incorporate it into their current media mix. That lack of action creates opportunities for marketers willing to develop and execute a mobile strategy now in

order to make their brands and messages stand out from the clut-ter. Just as some marketers recog-nized and capitalized on the poten-tial that digital media offered in the 1990s, there’s an early-adopter advantage for marketers that em-brace mobile search sooner rather than later. For example, the more mainstream that mobile search be-comes, the more that brands will seek marketers with hands-on ex-perience with that channel.

Following are some current mo-bile search options for market-ers:

Paid Search Strategies

Mobile Paid Search – Some search portals offer mobile paid search text advertising, as do select wireless operators and independent mobile advertising networks. This tradi-tional pay-per-click (PPC) model often proves to be the easiest tran-sition for marketers experimenting with mobile because of the similari-ties to the process and metrics of Internet paid search campaigns.

The travel, hospitality and enter-tainment industries have been among the first to add mobile paid search to their marketing mix, but it has significant potential across nearly all verticals. As more mobile networks and devices support loca-tion technologies, it gives market-ers the ability to target consumers based on their location, when they are ready to act, creating a power-ful advantage for mobile search advertising.

Natural Search Strategies

Mobile Web Development – Perhaps the most obvious yet over-looked opportunity for marketers is creating natural search visibility with mobile-friendly content. Al-though search engines do their best to present mobile users with content that is adapted to match their devices’ capabilities – such as in terms of screen size and resolu-tion – the majority of Websites still render poorly, if at all, within a mo-bile browser. Offering mobile ver-sions of contextually relevant con-


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tent from Internet sites designed for viewing on PCs – such as store locators, product catalogues and mission statements – enables a brand to maintain comparable natu-ral search visibility on a mobile de-vice while ensuring a good user experience.

Challenges for Mobile Search

• Market Development – In order for mobile search to live up to its potential – that is, becoming at least as mainstream, effec-tive and profitable as Internet search – the mobile advertising market must continue to ma-ture. To foster this maturation, the MMA will continue educat-ing advertisers, marketers and brands about the value of this highly focused, highly targe-table channel.

• Maturity also includes develop-ing a level of research, report-ing and analysis capabilities on par with what’s available today with Internet search. The MMA is currently working with indus-try leaders to increase the level of available data to share with its members.

• User Adoption – Consumers need to be educated to better

understand the value of ac-cessing content on their mobile phone versus devices such as the PC. The mobile industry can help address this need with support from mobile operators and other industry leaders in the form of an education cam-paign to let users know the availability and power of mobile search, which will spur usage. Additional awareness can come from online and print pro-motions to drive traffic to mo-bile content.

• Availability of Mobile Content – Mobile Web adoption remains a chicken-and-egg problem. As users try the Mobile Web, they expect the same depth and breadth of content available on PCs. However, many busi-nesses were initially slow to develop mobile sites, which are key for meeting that expecta-tion. However, mobile site de-velopment increased consid-erably and is expected to con-tinue to grow.

• Different Capabilities Across Handset Types – As with all mobile applications, mobile search must contend with a variety of handset displays,

input capabilities, sound capa-bilities, memory levels and op-erating systems. The ideal mo-bile search solution should pro-vide a consistently good user experience across all networks and devices – a major but not insurmountable challenge. For example, there’s a growing se-lection of network-based prod-ucts that identify a handset model and then tweak the con-tent to match its capabilities, all in real time.

The MMA believes that mobile search is a significant opportunity for many players in the mobile in-dustry. By cataloging and research-ing ways that consumers use search today, and discovering what they want from mobile search appli-cations in the future, the MMA will continue to help to educate the mo-bile industry, the marketing commu-nity and consumers. In addition, the MMA will endeavor to help the in-dustry overcome many of the hur-dles and challenges that have hin-dered the mass adoption of previ-ous wireless applications.♦

By Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director,

Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific Limited


http://tun.sg/component/option,com_jdownloads/Itemid,40/task,view.download/cid,410/

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Search Engine Optimization Techniques to Avoid Understanding the basic structure of how search en-gines register Websites is crucial to succeed in search engine optimization (SEO).

It is one of the most effective web site promotion tech-niques, referring to improvements and changes made to web pages so that they conform to the search criteria utilized by search engines to rank and position listings. 'Spiders' are used by search engines to locate, index, rank, and list their findings, which take into considera-tion criteria such as keyword frequency, prominence, weight and proximity, plus keyword placement within the HTML They like "content rich" or thematic text (sufficient enough to support the primary keyword phrase) about your products/services and use this to determine how relevant the page is to a searcher's re-quest.

In general it is actually not necessary to submit a Web-site as the search engines will find it earlier or later, but achieving a higher ranking means a lot of work. Search engine operators spend a lot of time trying to create a useful tool for finding related content on the web, and we have the highest respect for these efforts. So, never try to trick the search engines into listing your site better, as they will most likely view it as spam and penalize you.

Furthermore:

Never list keywords anywhere except in your keywords meta tag. By "list" we mean something like - keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3, keyword 4, etc. There are very few legitimate reasons that a list of keywords would actually appear on a web page or within the page's

HTML code and the search engines know this. While you may have a legitimate reason for doing this we would recommend avoiding it so that you do not risk being penalized by the search engines. When you inte-grate keywords into your title and alt tags, integrate them into a readable sentence that will not raise the red flag of a simple list.

Never use the same color text on your page as the page's background color. This has often been used to keyword stuff a web page. Search engines can detect this and view it as spam.

Never use multiple instances of the same tag. For ex-ample, using more than one title tag. Search engines can detect this as well and view it as spam.

Never submit identical pages. For example, do not du-plicate a page of your site, give the copies different file names, and submit each one.

Never submit the same page to any engine more than once within 24hrs.

Never use any keywords in your keywords meta tag that do not directly relate to the content of your page.

Never use a search engine optimization or submit ser-vice that promises you a top ranking by optimizing your page and submitting and resubmitting your site to thou-sands of search engines. We have yet to find a service like this that really works, and many will use some or many of the techniques listed above, which can actually hurt, rather than help your site to rank well. ♦

By Daniela la Marca


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http://www.ocbc.cyclesingapore.com.sg/

http://www.cmocouncil.org/


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As part of Yahoo!’s specialized and knowledgeable search engine marketing team, I am committed to sup-port our advertisers in their search marketing campaign goals and performances.

Search engine marketing is all about keywords, hence getting your keyword management strategies straight-ened out can impact your account with immediate re-turn on investment improvements. We have witnessed as much as 400% improvement in cost per acquisition (CPA), which does not even include benefits to your account in the long run.

Here are four of the common keyword selection mis-conceptions that I have come across being an evangel-ist for search engine marketing. I have also included my attempt to debunk them with the correct ap-proaches.

1. Should I limit the number of keywords in my search marketing account?

There should never be a limit to the number of key-words for a search engine marketing account. When proper optimizations are being carried out, the number of keywords will increase or decrease accordingly. It can further help to reach your desired search engine marketing campaign performance objective.

Even for advertisers with a low advertising budget, dif-ferent keyword types such as brand keywords or spe-cific keywords will yield varied performance results. To get the best out of your search engine marketing ac-count, you will have to find your own winning keyword mix by launching, implementing tests and adjusting your keywords accordingly.

2. Do I still need to bid on brand keywords when my website already appears in the organic result?

The best benefit of search engine marketing is that ads can be shown to the right person at the right time. By bidding on your brand keywords, you can take advan-tage of the opportunity to communicate in real time to users who are doing research on your brand.

You are now able, for instance, to immediately blast out the latest promotional message to users who are inter-ested to find out about your brand's information, which is like having your potential customers coming to your counter for your latest product flyer. Thus, flyer distribu-tion guys deployed at train stations may now be a thing of the past.

3. Do I still need to bid on general keywords since it is giving me lower click through rate and conver-sions?


Maximize your ROI through smart keyword management strategies

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Firstly, this is the best kind of branding campaign you can ever run. You are engaging consumers who need your product but have not yet decided on a brand to go for. If you are not present at this stage of research, your brand will be left out of the eventual buying decision process.

Secondly, by bidding on general keywords, you are exposing your brand to many more potential cus-tomers than the group that already knows your brand. It’s simply the best opportunity for you to grab market share from your competi-tors.

And last but not least, in a perfect scenario, the number of users searching for your brand term should increase over time, if you bid on general keywords consis-tently over a long period of time. Consider this as mid to long term investment into increasing your brand awareness.

4. Will I be able to reach the stage where my search market-ing account is 100% optimized so that I won't have to work so hard anymore? Search engine marketing optimiza-tion should be an ongoing process. Just keyword grouping alone can be further broken down to achieve relevance, better conversions, and budget control. The list can go on with different types of AB testing, which is the reason why search engine marketing is so dynamic and cool.

To conclude, the above mentioned suggestions are just the tip of the ice berg and there are definitely more advanced approaches, too. However, to get the best out of your search engine marketing account, do not be clouded by any pre-conceived idea of which keywords will perform and which will not. Al-ways test it out to find out. Do not under estimate the eventual per-

formance of any group of key-words. Keep in mind that we have to keep moving forward and do im-plementation tests – this is what search engine marketing is all about.♦

By Ian Tan Account Manager, Direct Sales Yahoo!

Search Marketing, Southeast Asia


http://www.ad-tech.com/singapore

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Using Keywords in the Text of your Pages This concept is known as "keyword prominence." You will frequently see it used to describe search engines' algorithms. Some engines also say the bottom of the page should contain keywords as well. Keyword Proximity Some engines, such as Google, use the concept of "keyword proximity" as part of their ranking formulas. As suggested by the name, "keyword proximity" means the how close keywords are to each other. Put your keywords as close together as possible and make sure your sentences are clear. Keyword Density This concept, also known as keyword weight, meas-ures the relationship of keywords to other text. Remem-ber, the higher the percentage of keywords in relation-ship to other text, the better.

The recommended density is 3-7%. This means that your keyword should repeat 3-7 times for every 100 words.

Sound easy? Imagine having 10 keywords and trying to repeat each one 3-7 times per 100 words of text - it's practically impossible. Instead, pick two or three of your most important keywords and try to use them 3-7 times for every 100 words.

There are many issues to consider when placing key-words in the text of your pages.

Most search engines index the full text of each page, so it is crucial to place keywords throughout your text. However, each search engine uses different ranking algorithms. Difficult though it may be, you need to bear all of them in mind. General rules Ensure your main page is full of keywords. It has a higher chance of being indexed than your other pages, and it will be the only page indexed by some engines.

Some engines rank a page high if it has at least 100 words, so make that your minimum. Directories include pages based on the quality of their content, so make sure your pages are not simply lists of keywords. Key concepts Keep the following four concepts in mind when creating your pages' content: Keyword Prominence The best place to place keywords in the text is at the top of each page and preferably on the main page. The closer your keywords are to the start of the page or the start of a sentence, the better.



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Keyword Frequency Keyword frequency is a measure of the number of times keywords oc-cur within a page's text. It's tied to the concept of keyword density. Search engines want to see more than one repetition of a keyword in your text to make sure it's not an isolated case. The recommended repetition is again 3-7 times.

Avoid spam

Do not ever be tempted to use tiny or invisible text to put keywords at the beginning of your pages. Search engines define this behav-ior as spam and can reject your site for it.

Yet another reason the meta-description tag is important is that some engines use it as a site's summary on their results pages. Under these circumstances, the reader may actually see this hidden tag, so ensure its contents are en-ticing to the reader.

The length of the meta-description tag

Search engines vary in their pre-ferred size for meta-tags. Try to use the smaller number, 150 charac-ters, for your site. Never make your meta-tag more than 250 characters long because some results pages will cut it off.♦

By Daniela La Marca

The Meta Tag and Keywords

What is the meta-description tag and why should I use it?

The meta-description tag describes your site's content, giving search engines' spiders an accurate sum-mary filled with multiple keywords. Meta tags are hidden in a docu-ment's source and are invisible to the reader. Some search engines however, are able to incorporate the content of meta-tags into their algorithms. No engines penalize sites that use meta-tags properly, so it is highly recommended that you always include them. In fact, its inclusion is important simply be-cause it's the only tag supported by some engines.


http://www.greendcasia.com/


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Yahoo!’s unique combination of

Science + Art + Scale:

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TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Yahoo! keeps more than half a billion consumers world-wide connected and delivers powerful audience solu-tions to advertisers through its unique combination of Science + Art + Scale: the science to understand and target an audience, the art to create engagement with premium content, and the scale to reach the right audi-ence in meaningful numbers.

With a steadily growing Internet audience, APAC ac-counts with its currently around 480 million for almost half of the online population of 1.1 billion globally. Thus, to no surprise, Yahoo! was heading into all Southeast Asian countries with its search marketing portfolio. Ya-hoo! Search Marketing (YSM) started first in Singapore and has now service selling activities in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. “Building further sales channels are our next goal and is also the main focus in the next year”, says Margaret Chang, General Manager of YSM. Her division of Yahoo! has local ser-vice teams which are aware of the fact that all Asian countries are culturally and in terms of language very different. So, being localized is very important in order to convince clients.

Margaret believes that having access to a dedicated account team, that is guiding marketers through the design and implementation of a search campaign, is important for success. Search marketing is perform-ance based and requires an astute marketer to know what needs to be done to refine a campaign based on

a level of data analysis. An online self-service model may be effective for extremely savvy marketers with internet usage literacy, however, may not suit market-ers who are new to search or digital marketing. “Small and medium businesses would stand to gain the most from working with Yahoo! as we are committed to help-ing these marketers cross into search marketing in a cost effective manner”, Margaret claims.

Her expertise in product development and user experi-ence, therefore improving a client’s online performance is always on top of her mind as well as efficiency and ROI. “Search marketing is a very long business cycle”, she says, “our account managers’ sales need to grow with the client rather than just grab a bunch of money and then spend it and give them a report.” That there are different types of clients with different kinds of ex-pectations and budgets is clear, but Margaret wants every client to just try out her offers with a minimal budget and learn how search marketing works before increasing the budget. “Just be focused on your own business targets and identify your core product/service keywords that you think people are looking for. Then provide in a next step a very honest description rather than a fancy selling pitch by imagin-ing what users are thinking when they see the page results. It is an advantage if you have a time limited promotion or if you are specialized in a certain field within your industry when writing your short descrip-tion”, she advices.

Yahoo: Science is Insight, Not Hindsight!

42

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Search is efficient by nature

One of the key benefits of search marketing is that a user has an in-tention to search for information or knowledge about a brand or prod-uct. While they are in a discovery or research mode, they are actively seeking for information. Thus, be-ing in the right position helps influ-encing a users’ decision-making process, Margaret explains. In this way, search marketing is quite dif-ferent from brand or product mar-keting, as these marketing ap-proaches rely on tools to find or convert customers.

What marketers, however, still tend to forget is the fact that search mar-keting needs to be tailored to differ-ent mass audiences and at the same time different users' needs. Marketers often make the mistake of leaving massive market opportu-nities to their business competitors by focusing on one particular group of searchers only. “For example, someone may be thinking about having a holiday in Australia and they may use ‘Australia’ as the first keyword search they perform. Not making an investment in buying ‘Australia’ as a keyword, if you are an Australian travel operator or state tourism authority, you may leave out of searches which may draw interest to your destination”, Margaret exemplifies. Market-ers should simply avoid defining their target audience as a common group of people who take a similar approach towards information dis-covery.

Margaret advises marketers, in ad-dition, to build their budget and run a search marketing campaign to serve three different phases at the same time to fully capture opportu-nities in the search marketplace:

• First phase: Research (20%) • Second phase: Brand, product

comparison (40%) • Third phase: Price comparison

(40%)

T h i s a p p r o a c h e n s u r e s that marketers are driving traffic and converting clicks to increasing an audience’s time spent online at each phase. By allocating a search marketing budget in this way, mar-keters are building a program to reflect the importance of capturing all users' mindshare and attention in the search marketplace.

The effectiveness of search can be attributed to how every dollar paid on a search is turned into a visit to marketer's website rather than an ad impression, which makes search an invaluable marketing tool, espe-cially when marketing budgets need to be more accountable.

Key trends and drivers in the search marketing arena in Asia

“By delivering on results efficiently and regardless of the state of the economy, we are witnessing the growth of search marketing glob-ally”, Margaret says. “During an economic downturn, marketers are even more attuned to search mar-keting since the cost of marketing is pegged to the click through rate from a user.

There is less wastage as budgets are tuned to support targeted searches over campaigns that are simply tooled towards building brand awareness for a mass mar-ket”, she states.

The internet penetration rates in a country provide in general an indi-cation on the effectiveness of search marketing. Having a larger internet population online means a wider pool of users will be search-ing for product or information online. Therefore, Yahoo! sees per-formance based businesses such as travel, finance, online shopping or professional services companies moving their budgets towards search marketing as it directly drives customers to their busi-nesses online and tends to be most cost effective compared to tradi-tional marketing campaigns.

Yahoo! and Microsoft's agreement of 2009 will start transitioning inter-national markets in 2011. Microsoft will power Yahoo! search, while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers. This represents an exciting opportunity for both companies and will boost their ac-tivities in Southeast Asia. So it is just a matter of time to see how far their combined power will bring them. Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM) made some nice progress in recent years, like the launch of their advanced match feature, the equivalent of Google's broad match option, around a year ago, but ex-pect more to come in 2011.♦

By Daniela La Marca


43

Search marketing is performance based and requires an astute marketer to know what needs to be done to refine a campaign based on a level of data analysis. ~ Margaret Chang, YSM

44

Their dedicated team strives to provide an extensive network of local advertising and media agencies with access to over 50 top brands. Out There Media’s Vice President of Business Development and General Man-ager in Asia Pacific, Mr. Fabrizio Caruso, who joined the team a year ago, gave us insights into his com-pany’s goals and achievements by answering some questions:

Q: How did your company achieve such an incredi-ble result of getting 280 mio opt-in subscribers?

A: We believe our success is related to a very compel-ling proposition, offering a win-win model to advertisers, operators and most importantly consumers, supported by a world-class team of experts that is fully committed to mobile advertising.

For around 70% of the operator clients we are the ex-clusive mobile advertising partners, for the remaining ones our proposition co-exist with others provided by different vendors.

Out There Media can access around 380 million mobile subscribers from all across Europe and Asia for adver-tising purposes.

The company is combining the experience of their inter-national leadership with local presence and expertise that facilitates and shortens procedures.

Thus, operator clients can expect immediate generation of new revenue streams through advertising, which is very important to them as they are being squeezed in a very competitive environment, where any service is being offered at cheaper and cheaper rates; advertising clients can expect access to a targeted, permission-based media, where the audience has given consent to receive advertising, therefore enjoying way above aver-age response rates, where for instance their most re-cently launched campaigns in Asia have enjoyed up to 45% response rates; and consumers can expect to re-ceive valuable offers and promotions from their favorite brands that enrich their lifestyle.

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Out There Media’s State-of-the-art Mobile Advertising Marketplace

45

Q: Mobucks is a cross-operator, cross-advertiser marketplace that matches demand and supply for advertising over mobile tele-phones. Can you explain more in detail how Out There Media en-ables operators to monetize their inventory, and how it enables advertisers to engage with their audiences in a targeted and ef-fective manner?

A: Mobucks Mobile Advertising Marketplace is a platform that matches supply (i.e. the inventory) and demand (i.e. the advertisers). It is a fully extendable solution that can be adapted to and customized for the specific requirements of mo-bile operators and inventory own-ers. It provides an advanced set of campaign management tools and a cutting-edge targeting engine that matches campaigns to channels according to their capabilities, fil-ters, campaign constraints and cus-tom input data. Mobucks is open to all market participants to sell and book mobile advertising campaigns on the one hand and mobile opera-tors and publishers on the other.

Through Mobucks, Out There Me-dia can aggregate cross-operator inventory across different channels and offer it on a golden plate to the advertising community through a single interface.

Q: What are the key stand-out features of Mobucks? What do you feel gives you the edge over your competition? What’s the unique value proposition(s) of Out There Media?

A: Mobucks is a world-class mobile advertising marketplace, which is scalable, f lexible and sta-ble. Based on Mobile Marketing Association’s standards, it utilizes the simplicity of rich web-based user interfaces for intuitive com-mand and control as well as a state-of-the-art ad server design for a large variety of ad types, supporting WAP, SMS, MMS, WAP Push, Video, Search and many more. It enables advertisers to carry out effective and targeted mobile ad-vertising by providing an advanced set of campaign management tools and a cutting-edge targeting engine that matches campaigns to chan-nels according to their capabilities, filters, campaign constraints and custom input data.

Mobucks represents those work-flows that enable operators and advertisers reap the benefits of the most promising emerging value proposition: Ad-supported tariffs. Subscribers register via a web-based interface and agree to re-ceive targeted SMS, MMS, WAP-push and e-mail campaigns. By offering truly interesting and rele-vant advertisement, advertisers create an engaging and targeted brand experience and get into di-rect interaction with their custom-ers. Mobile operators achieve growth, generate new revenue streams and learn more about their subscribers via the Mobucks Profile Generation Tool. After entering the relevant targeting criteria, Mobucks creates dynamic data clusters cor-responding to the target group. Q: What are the big opportunities and what are the big challenges you see or expect for your busi-ness venture here in the region?

A: In October 2010 major brands including HSBC, McDonald’s and Unilever have committed close to US$4 million in advertising spend on the mobile channel in the Philip-pines for the permission-based mo-bile advertising program by Out There Media and Globe. Out There Media achieved in Asia a record breaking amount of 2.5 mio. con-sumer-opt-ins within a few weeks of the recent roll-out of its next gen-eration permission-based program with Maxis and Globe Telecom.

According to Frost & Sullivan, total mobile advertising revenues in Asia Pacific region are forecast to rise about 17 percent a year for the up-coming five years. These statistics promise a bright new future for mo-bile advertising and as more adver-tisers in the region start to embrace this form of advertising, we expect more opportunities to expand in Asia Pacific. In the next few years, mobile advertising will be one of the strongest forms of consumer out-reach in the region.

Q: What do you feel are the most common mistakes made when planning and running a mobile advertising campaign? What ad-vice do you have here?

A: So far the mobile media has been under-utilized. Most mobile advertising initiatives have been focusing on banner impressions, which although useful are just a replica of the internet world on mo-bile. We believe that opt-in mes-saging is a more effective way to leverage the unique characteristic of mobile, being with you anytime, anywhere and at the same time allowing a one-to-one private dia-logue with the audience.

So far, brands and agencies have had a very fragmented access to the media, with no clear directions on where to go when planning a mobile campaign. We at Out There Media are positioning ourselves as the one-stop-shop for advertisers to


Fabrizio Caruso

46


easily plan and execute mobile campaigns that reach audience across operators and different channels.

Q: What does Out There Media see as the key trends and drivers in the mobile advertising arena in the Asia Pacific?

A: Asia-Pacific is already leading the way for mobile advertising. Re-ports show that out of $3.5 billion of global mobile advertising revenue, $1.5 billion this year has come from Asia.

With many developing countries skipping the online phase and ac-cessing internet directly over mo-bile, we expect the mobile advertis-ing revenue in APAC to growth to an even higher share of the global amount.

The growth of smartphone users enables advertisers to gradually move towards the mobile land-scape.

As the mobile technology becomes more advanced, mobile advertising will become an even more effective and important channel to engage consumers through rich video con-tent via web and MMS.

The increased production of mobile applications will enable advertisers to focus their marketing campaigns in this method. Application downloads in Asia will keep on in-creasing, and this will open up more windows for mobile “app-vertising”.

The escalation of video viewing on mobile phones enables advertisers to tap in the video wave that is trending now. It is a good opportu-nity for brands and advertisers to effectively reach out to a huge pool of consumers.

Geo-fencing is also becoming more popular in the region. As consum-ers start to use applications such as “Foursquare”, advertisers can

actually locate and send instant messages on real-time store’s of-fers to subscribers.

Although smartphone use is grow-ing, text messaging will still be one of the powerful methods of mobile advertising. Brands and advertisers can send promotional SMS mes-sages, mobile coupons, latest pro-motions and offers as well as real time update of activities from brands. Messaging is not only the channel that gives brand more reach but is that most widely under-stood by the consumers.

Out There Media’s success in terms of opt-ins and revenue com-mitment this year has proven that they are on the right track and the way for Fabrizio Caruso’s goal to expand into new geographies in Asia-Pacific seems to be perfectly paved for further growth.♦

By Daniela La Marca

http://www.ad-tech.com/singapore

47

So don’t set-up a campaign, enter some keywords and click-prices and then never touch it again. 3digitalminds emphasizes to keep two phases in mind for doing proper keyword advertising:

Phase 1: Set-up keyword advertising campaigns

In the set-up phase a thorough keyword research is done, the bidding strategy is over thought, initial text ads are created and the campaign gets started. After the set-up phase the keyword advertising campaign goes smoothly over to constant optimization.

Phase 2: Constant optimization of the keyword ad-vertising campaigns

Constant optimization is the key to a successful search engine marketing campaign as it is where the wheat gets sorted from the chaff. 3digitalminds can help you in managing your campaigns on a day-per-day basis, continuously optimizing it by changing little parameters, and doing some trial-and-error, in case you are not fa-miliar with Chinese online users. Let me introduce you at this point to the three digi-tal minds that are running the company:

1. Stefan Schneider is founder and Managing Direc-tor of the Taiwan based company. His specialty at 3digitalminds are digital strategy consulting and online performance marketing as he has worked in the field of online marketing and web development for more than 10 years already. He has held posi-

Chinese online users have different habits and experi-ences when it comes to how to use the Internet and there is no doubt that online marketing in China is dif-ferent compared to Western countries. Therefore it is recommended to involve an online mar-keting agency as a partner that is used to the desires of Chinese online users and has profound experience with online projects in China to run a successful online busi-ness there. 3digitalminds is such a full service Internet marketing agency with a focus on web process design, performance marketing, online brand building and online marketing consulting, Asian e-Marketing would like to introduce them to you.

The company has extensive experience in managing keyword advertising campaigns and could be useful if you plan to start your search engine positioning in Greater China, offering their services in English, Ger-man and Chinese . Their argument why you should deal with search engines is simply because the majority of purchasing decisions are influenced by the Internet, even if the purchase itself takes place in a local store. Search engine marketing (SEM), also known as key-word advertising, Pay-per-click (PPC), or paid search, is a quick way to place your product or company strate-gically in the wide network of online information.

At the first glimpse, keyword advertising seems to be easy - open an account, insert keywords, and enter click prices. But in fact, the management of keyword advertising campaigns is based on a long-term ap-proach and requires a lot of knowledge and especially experience.


3digitalminds Power your Online Business in Greater China

48

tions such as Digital Director Taipei/Taiwan of Saatchi & Saatchi, has been the founder and recognized operator of a German online finance portal and a Chinese Internet plat-form for binary trading, e-business coordinator at the German car component sup-plier ZF Sachs AG, as well as e-commerce Manager at Ger-man TeamBank AG where he supervised the business unit Online Marketing and the best-selling product easyCredit be-fore he undertook the position of Marketing Director at a Shanghai based web agency.

2. Oliver Hickfang was engaged in several executive positions in global corporations, medium sizes enterprises and business associations. His specialty at 3digitalminds is consulting and strategic communications. He has been responsible for mar-keting and strategy develop-ment as Senior Manager at Allianz China Life in Sichuan/China and represented the company as a board member at the European Chamber of Commerce in China. He was liaison manager for the Ger-man Chamber of Commerce in China, established a publishing house for travel literature and taught as associate professor at Sichuan University. In Ger-many he worked as head of department marketing and dis-tribution at the German Asso-ciation for IT Companies BIT-KOM, developing strategies and campaigns with marketing and sales executives from sev-eral companies and has been for many years head of market-ing and communications for the global management consul-tancy BearingPoint.

3. Zhou Ying is founder and as-sociate of CGYC (Chinese German Ying Chuang) Public Relations Ltd. & Chinapublic, based in Chengdu, the busi-ness hub of West China/Sichuan.

Ying`s specialty at 3digitalminds is Media-, PR- and event com-munication as well as advisory services for the China business. Ying originates from a long-established Chinese journalist family and worked for many years as a German foreign corre-spondent for several Chinese Media in print, radio and TV. With her agency, and as a coor-dinator of a broad Chinese net-work of freelancers, she supports media companies in China in their cooperation with Germany.

3digitalminds has developed a deep understanding of how the Internet works in China and what Chinese website visitors expect, due to the many years of experi-ence running projects in China, both for Western and Chinese cus-tomers. They developed to a full-service Internet marketing agency in the course of time, today offering the whole online value chain.

The company provides consultancy on how Internet marketing in China fits best into your marketing strat-egy and how it contributes to your marketing goals. Cross-channel marketing, performance marketing (SEO and SEM), blog marketing, web 2.0 marketing models and online brand building are proce-dures they are familiar with and they are able to analyze their cli-ents Chinese internet marketing activities, which is a core factor for

successful online marketing in China. According to 3digitalminds, the big growth rates can not only be expected from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou anymore, but also from Tier 2 and 3 cities like Dong-guan, Wuhan, Tianjin, Shenyang, Chengdu, Chongqing, Qingdao, Nanjing, etc.

Their online marketing offers com-prise search engine optimization (SEO), keyword advertising (SEM), affiliate marketing, banner and rich media campaigns, electronic direct mailings, web 2.0 marketing, blog marketing, mobile marketing. In addition, constant optimization of online campaigns in particular are an essential part of their service, as the company puts high value on optimizing return-on-investment (ROI) of the online marketing budg-ets and has good experience in performance marketing and online awareness building. According to them, successful online businesses simply rely on regular monitoring and optimization of their web pres-ence and online marketing activi-ties. Other services they offer are website heatmaps/eyetracking, fo-cus groups, A/B tests, dropout rate / funnel analysis, clickpath and navigation analysis, which supports you in finding out what users in China think about your products and services and how they per-ceive your company.♦

By Daniela La Marca


49

Chinese online users have different habits and experiences when it comes to how to use the Internet and there is no doubt that online marketing in China is different compared to Western countries.

~3digitalminds

50

BUZZWORD

Google is a jack-of-all-trades: Google bomb, Googlewashing, Googlewhack, Googlefight The terms Google bomb and Googlewashing refer to practices intended to influence the ranking of particular pages in results returned by the Google search engine, in order to increase the likelihood of people finding and clicking on selections in which the individual or other entity engaging in this practice is interested. It is either done for business, political, or comedic purposes (or a combination of the latter two). Google's search-rank algorithm ranks pages higher for a particular search phrase if enough other pages are linked to it using similar anchor text (linking text such as "miserable fail-ure"). However, by January 2007 Google had made changes to search results to counter popular google bombs, such as "miserable failure", which now lists pages about the google bomb itself. Other google bombs, however, continue to remain operative, as exampled by the search engine results pages (SERP) for the search phrase "french military victories".Google bomb is used both as a verb and a noun. The phrase "Google bombing" was introduced to the New Oxford American Dictionary in May 2005 and is closely related to spamdexing, the practice of deliberately modifying HTML pages to increase the chance of their website being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a misleading or dishonest manner.

The Google Bomb has been used for tactical media as a way of performing a 'hit-and-run' media attack on popular topics. Such attacks include Anthony Cox's attack in 2003. He created a parody of the "404 – page not found" browser error message in response to the war in Iraq. The page looked like the error page but was titled "These Weapons of Mass Destruction can-not be displayed." This website could be found as one of the top hits on Google after the start of the war in Iraq. On 2 February 2007, many have noticed changes in the Google algorithm that largely affects, among other things, Google bombs: only roughly 10% of the Google bombs worked as of 15 February 2007. This is largely due to Google refactoring its valuation of Pag-eRank.

The term Googlewashing was coined in 2003 to de-scribe the use of media manipulation to change the perception of a term, or push out competition from SERPs.

A Googlewhack is a type of a contest for finding a Google search query consisting of exactly two words without quotation marks that return exactly one hit. A Googlewhack must consist of two actual words found in a dictionary.

How it works:

• Visit Google.

• Submit a query of two words, but don't use quote marks. (Quotes tell Google to find the enclosed words immediately adjacent - and that's just too easy!)

• Use no punctuation in your words, and no num-bers (just 26 letters from A through Z).

• Find two words that return one result, then see whether Whack agrees (Whack may not see the same results you see). Whack only accepts words between 4 and 30 characters in length. (Any shorter or longer, again, that's just too easy!)

To add to The Whack Stack, please respect these sim-ple guidelines (Whack decides; no exceptions).

So, a Googlewhack is considered legitimate if both of the searched-for words appear as live links in An-swers.com in the blue bar above the Google results. Published googlewhacks are short-lived, since when published to a web site, the new number of hits will become at least two, one to the original hit found, and one to the publishing site.

http://www.googlewhack.com/tally.pl�

51

Here are again the rules:

1. Your two Googlefactors must exist in Google's view of legiti-mate words in this dictionary. Not your view; Google's view! Google does the work, and Google has the final word on what may be legitimate! In the blue bar atop your Google re-sults, accepted terms are linked, and appear 'underlined.' No line, no link, or no legitimate word = Googlejack! (As in, You've got jack).

2. Google also is the arbiter of a whack's uniqueness. Look to the right end of the blue bar atop your Google results. If you see "Results 1 - 1 of (any num-ber),' you found exactly one hit = Googlewhack!

3. Google shows you an excerpt of the page you whacked. Look at that text. If it's merely a list of words (such as a bibliography, concordance, encyclopedia, glossary, thesaurus, dictionary, domain names, or plain old machine-generated random garbage), No Whack For You!

Did you know? The probabilities of internet search result values for multi-word queries have been stud-ied in 2008 with the help of Google-whacks. Based on data from 351 Googlewhacks from the whack-stack, the Heaps’ Law β coefficient for the indexed World Wide Web (about 8 billion pages) was meas-ured to be β = 0.52. This result is in line with previous studies which used under 20,000 pages. The googlewhacks were a key in cali-brating the model so that it could be extended automatically to analyze the relatedness of word pairs.

Googlefight is a website that al-lows users to compare the number of search results returned by Google for two given queries. The results are displayed graphically in a mixed flash and javascript anima-tion. Two animated stick figures fight on screen after the queries are entered, and then an animated bar graph appears showing the results. The stick figure animation has no impact on the actual results. The results may be comforting, funny or self-referential. Googlefight has been highlighted as an example of a site making money from contextual advertising, as well as one that derives its lon-gevity from community participation (in this case, the always changing search terms).♦

Source: Wikipedia

Buzzword


52

How Web Search Engines Work

Just in case some basics on how search engines operate: 1. Web crawling 2. Indexing 3. Searching

Web search engines work by stor-ing information about many web pages, which they retrieve from the html itself. These pages are re-trieved by a Web crawler (also known as a spider) — an auto-mated Web browser which follows every link on the site. Exclusions can be made by the use of ro-bots.txt. The contents of each page are then analyzed to determine how it should be indexed (for exam-ple, words are extracted from the titles, headings, or special fields called meta tags). Data about web pages are stored in an index data-base for use in later queries. A query can be a single word. The purpose of an index is to allow in-formation to be found as quickly as possible. Some search engines, such as Google, store all or part of the source page (referred to as a cache) as well as information about the web pages, whereas others store every word of every page they find. This cached page always holds the actual search text since it is the one that was actually in-dexed, so it can be very useful when the content of the current page has been updated and the search terms are no longer in it. This problem might be considered to be a mild form of link-rot, and Google's handling of it increases usability by satisfying user expecta-tions that the search terms will be on the returned webpage. This sat-isfies the principle of least astonish-

ment since the user normally ex-pects the search terms to be on the returned pages. Increased search relevance makes these cached pages very useful, even beyond the fact that they may contain data that may no longer be available else-where.

When a user enters a query into a search engine (typically by using key words), the engine examines its index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages accord-ing to its criteria, usually with a short summary containing the document's title and sometimes parts of the text. The index is built from the information stored with the data and the method by which the information is indexed. Unfortu-nately, there are currently no known public search engines that allow documents to be searched by date. Most search engines support the use of the boolean operators and, or and not to further specify the search query. Boolean opera-tors are for literal searches that allow the user to refine and extend the terms of the search. The engine looks for the words or phrases ex-actly as entered. Some search en-gines provide an advanced feature called proximity search which al-lows users to define the distance between keywords. There is also concept-based searching where the research involves using statistical analysis on pages containing the words or phrases you search for. As well, natural language queries allow the user to type a question in the same form one would ask it to a human. A site like this would be ask.com.

The usefulness of a search engine depends on the relevance of the result set it gives back. While there may be millions of web pages that include a particular word or phrase, some pages may be more relevant, popular, or authoritative than oth-ers. Most search engines employ methods to rank the results to pro-vide the "best" results first. How a search engine decides which pages are the best matches, and what order the results should be shown in, varies widely from one engine to another. The methods also change over time as Internet usage changes and new techniques evolve. There are two main types of search engine that have evolved: one is a system of predefined and hierarchically ordered keywords that humans have programmed extensively. The other is a system that generates an "inverted index" by analyzing texts it locates. This second form relies much more heavily on the computer itself to do the bulk of the work. Most Web search engines are com-mercial ventures supported by ad-vertising revenue and, as a result, some employ the practice of allow-ing advertisers to pay money to have their listings ranked higher in search results. Those search en-gines which do not accept money for their search engine results make money by running search related ads alongside the regular search engine results. The search engines make money every time someone clicks on one of these ads.♦

Buzzword

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.

APPOINTMENTS

54

Movius Interactive Corporation appointed Dominic A. Gomez as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Mr. Gomez brings a diverse global telecommunications experience to help drive Movius’ worldwide growth. Prior to joining Movius, Mr. Gomez served as President of Purple Communications, a leading provider of text and video relay and on-site interpreting services. Mr. Gomez previously served as Chief Operating Officer of Hanaro Telecom Inc., a leading integrated telecommunications provider in Korea.

Mr. Gomez is a graduate of the University of Southern California (BSc.) as well as Harvard Business School’s Executive Program for Management Development (PMD). He began his career at AT&T and has also held leadership positions at Qwest and TPG/Newbridge companies.♦

APPOINTMENTS

Dominic A. Gomez

Mark Holden

PHD Worldwide has announced the promotion of Mark Holden to the role of global strategy director, responsible for driving the growing network’s strategic planning capabilities across all regions. Holden, who is currently managing partner at PHD’s Australia operation, will start the role in January, reporting to worldwide CEO Mike Cooper. Recently appointed managing director Toby Hack will replace Holden, tak-ing on responsibility for new business development and agency growth. Holden’s global remit will see him remain involved with PHD Australia across key clients.

Holden joined PHD Group in 2001 to run the strategic agency Rocket. He over-hauled the company and within 18 months, won four effectiveness awards and many new clients. After two years, Holden was elevated into the main company to take up the position of executive planning director. He was part of the team that reinvented PHD, creating the brand positioning and a series of innovative tools that have been rolled out across PHD. Holden started his career with Saatchi and Saatchi as a planner before joining OMD .♦

Acronym Asia Expands Global Presence Through New Strategic Partnership with Japanese Search Agency iREP

Acronym Asia announced a new strategic partnership with iREP, one of Japan’s leading search marketing agencies, in a move that further expands Acronym’s reach across the region. Long noted for its global experi-ence and expertise, Acronym will provide comprehensive search marketing services – including Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search (PPC) – across Asia for iREP’s Japan based Clients. The partnership comes in response to a growing globalization trend among Japanese corporations, many of which are actively seeking new markets.

Headquartered in Singapore – with regional hubs in China and Thailand – Acronym is specialized in both tar-geted, local campaigns and complex, multinational efforts. Acronym is also the only firm outside of China to successfully complete the Baidu Search Marketing Specialist Certification program – a quality that uniquely positions the agency to work with Clients looking to expand into key Asian markets.♦

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MediaBUZZ Pte Ltd, launched in early 2004, is an independent online publisher in the Asia Pacific region, focusing on the business of digital media and marketing.

Asian e-Marketing is a true pioneer in Asia Pacific’s digital marketing scene, empower-ing e-marketers in the vibrant and fast-paced electronic marketing environment.

Key sections include e-marketing tips, best practices and trends/statistics, legislation affecting e-marketing, training the spotlight on companies and their e-marketing cam-paigns and e-marketing leadership profiles.

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Asian e-Marketing December 2010