A virtual service dominating the world?

Jonathan Bowers, April 25th 2007, 5:12PM

With Millward Brown naming Google as the world's biggest brand for the first time this year, people are once again suggesting that the Internet super brand is becoming too powerful.

Back in 2002 many businesses who had enjoyed strong Google rankings simply dropped off the radar and questions were asked about the power of the search engine. When they bought Blogger in 2003, the murmurings began again and Bill Thompson of the BBC wondered whether we should have Ofsearch to regulate the industry.

Last year Google bought YouTube and the vocal opposition was back in force. With Google's recent acquisition of DoubleClick the online marketing community is now up in arms.

This can be viewed as a mindset problem. Google has done its part in placing itself at the top of the search engine table - but we as users have done the lion's share. The marketing industry has always promoted Google above all other engines and will no doubt continue to do so. A client of mine remembered how he was affected by Google's sudden shut down of some companies in 2002 saying, "we switched our attention to Yahoo and just prayed that Google would be back before too long."

I believe the industry is underestimating its ability to affect the fortunes of Google and concentrating too much on the notion of Google's ability to affect their fortunes. What would happen if every UK business decided to turn it's efforts to Yahoo tomorrow?

Tags: google, search
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Online elections in the US and France

Jonathan Bowers, April 24th 2007, 11:22AM

It seems to me that politicians are really harnessing the internet now and truly undertanding the power that it can afford them. Well, they are in the US and France anyway. It's not just that the presidential candidates themselves are doing it but by extention the online community is also creating a buzz about each politician.

So while the Huffington Post is announcing that it will host the first online debate for the US Presidential election race and the French are racing online to scrutinise each of their candidates websites, I had a look at our probable leader-to-be and his presence online.

If it weren't for Theyworkforyou.com and the No:10 website, Gordon Brown would have a very limited online presence indeed. He doesn't have his own site or blog and the labour party seem to be making much less effort as a whole to garner support on the web than their Conservative rivals. Most importantly, Brown is making no effort to be available to people online.

I wouldn't be surprised if Brown's own website appears at a time when his advisors convince him it is necessary. The only problem is that by then, it will be too late to win the real support of people who want to trust and respect the candidate that they vote for.

Tags: politics, websites
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Developing the Internet at its core

Jonathan Bowers, April 23rd 2007, 11:50AM

One of the exciting things about working with a technology company is that you can never be 100% sure that what you are doing in terms of development will allow you to deal with all the changes occurring across the industry.

It could become easy to be very reactive - to adjust as the changes happen - which would of course be a dangerous place for any company at the cutting edge of an industry to find itself - by its nature they would no longer be cutting edge.

I'm really pleased to announce the launch of Project32, a wide reaching UKFast initiative that aims to seek out and form alliances with those in the UK who are developing new systems for server monitoring and protection. The project also researches ways to get as much out of the power available to the industry rather than looking at suggestions such as building new power stations and covers topics like Internet security and connectivity.

Lawrence Jones has been very eager to find ways to offer customers more energy efficient options without losing any performance and the R&D capital has already developed eco servers that are making this a reality.

I hope that over the coming months there will be a lot more that I can report here that places the UK at the forefront of Internet development.

Tags: development, internet
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Direct response marketing is big for b2b

Jonathan Bowers, April 20th 2007, 4:49PM

The Direct Marketing Association in the US has done its first major survey focussed on the b2b sector, discovering that the biggest single area of spend is direct response communications.

The most interesting finding for me is that the US statistics separate off online marketing and online PR (termed new media). Within direct response communications, online marketing is now the second largest focus taking 18.8 per cent of the budgets. While Online PR has a much smaller budget and appears as the smallest area mentioned (at 1.5 per cent) it is great news that companies are taking blogs and RSS and other such tools seriously enough to acknowledge its worth.

I doubt that we would find such a statistic in the UK just yet but am sure from talking to businesses and PR professionals that we are quickly moving in that direction.

Tags: marketing, pr
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Monopoly's and online learning

Jonathan Bowers, April 19th 2007, 4:52PM

The BBC is well established as the UK's strongest web presence and so last month's announcement that BBC Jam, the online learning service for 5-16 year-olds, was to be suspended will have been a great relief to any company looking to compete in that market.

As a B2B hosting provider, UKFast has a number of clients working in e-learning and so the conversation has come up a number of times.

A public service broadcaster like the BBC, with £150m in budget for such a project would almost certainly preclude smaller businesses from being able to enter the sphere. There is a definite likelihood here of stifling the entrepreneurial spirit of an industry that is, in any case, not noted for it's courage in striking out independently.

There is also a second consideration, which is easier to appreciate once you spend time talking to tutors and teaching professionals. When you have spent years of your life delivering tutelage you don't just understand the curricula, you understand how best to deliver it. Surely it is better for the consumer, in this case school children, to have a wealth of choice of online courses that may 'click' with their way of learning rather than just one huge resource provided by the BBC.

It will be interesting to see whether BBC Jam will return following review. I'd also like to know other people's opinions on this. It might be that many parents would prefer the BBC as it brings with it an established stamp of approval?

Tags: e-learning
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