The following is an excerpt from research done into which sites are currently popular social media destinations for women aged 18-34.

Source: Nielsen Netview

Social Media / Community sites

According to Nielsen Netview 56.7% of Australian online users visited to a Community/ Social Media site.

48% of the visitors to Community/ Social Network sites are females.

80% of female visitors aged 18-34 who visited a Community/ Social Media site also visited Facebook

Females 18 – 24 years old visiting Community/ Social Media sites

84% visiting Community/ Social Media sites visited Facebook

54% visiting Community/ Social Media sites visited Myspace

Skew toward female (vs male) audience visiting: Facebook (21%), Bebo (36%), Live Journal (40%), Linked In (42%), Nine MSN Groups (50%)

Skew toward male (vs female) audience visiting: Blogger (40%), WordPress (38%), Digg (760%)

Females 25 – 34  years old visiting Community/ Social Media sites

77% visiting Community/ Social Media sites visited Facebook

38% visiting Community/ Social Media sites visited Myspace

Skew toward female (vs male) audience visiting: Facebook (11%), Myspace (75%), Window Live Spaces (42%), Yahoo7!Groups (66%), Live Journal (30%)

Skew toward male (vs female) audience visiting: Bebo: 89%, Six Apart Typepad 137%, Digg (150%)

Note: Nielsen Netview data comes with explanations regarding their methods and limits of extrapolation for certain sites with minimal sample results.

See: http://www.nielsen-online.com/ for more information.

Below are a few choice quotes from articles on future of digital marketing and economic downturn from recent US & Global reports. If you want anything else please let me know:

(Global)  Zenith Optimedia: Forecast: Advertisers to Continue Shift to Online  - Online component of advertising spend to increase in 2009/10, and exceeded 2008 predictions …  ”Faced with an uncertain economic future, Western advertisers are shifting even more of their budgets online, where the returns on their investment are obvious, and easy to quantify and fine tune,” reads the report. “The quantity and quality of online video is improving all the time, and online audiences for full-length films and television programs — and the ads that surround them — are growing rapidly.” Jul 1, 2008 From:  http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630097

(Global) Executives from IAB and Pricewaterhouse Coopers remain optimistic about Internet advertising’s future. “The fundamentals of interactive advertising spend continues to be positive and I would expect to see continued growth in the future,” Silverman said. IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg weighed in: “We expect growth to continue, as consumers spend more and more time online, and marketers find more — and more innovative — ways to reach them through digital media.” Jun 18, 2008 From: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629953

(US) IDC: Internet Ad Spending Spared by Troubled Economy: IDC recently issued an Internet ad forecast that made similar points. It contended the economic downturn is actually helping the Internet marketing industry and IDC predicted the overall Internet ad revenue will double from $25.5 billion in 2007 to $51.1 billion in 2012. Internet advertising revenue in the United States reached $7.1 billion in the first quarter of 2008, a jump of nearly 24 percent compared to the same quarter in 2007, according to IDC. The research company said the figures show the economic slowdown crushing many other industries in the nation has not had an adverse impact on online advertising. In fact, IDC said it expects Internet advertising to rapidly grow throughout the rest of the year despite a general pullback in overall ad spending. Jun 10, 2008 From:  http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629859

(US) Social Networks continue to show a strong future of growth. Two recent Forrester reports published by my colleagues, Josh Bernoff and Oliver Young, both showing the future of social computing for the interactive marketer and for enterprise 2.0 purchasing. “Social networks will get the largest number of increases, over 40% of those using it, along with user-generated content, blogs, and that old standby, email marketing.” May 05th, 2008 From: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/05/05/social-network-spending-to-increase/

(US) Nielsen Sees Moderate Q1 Online Ad Growth, Led by Search: … Sponsored search link impressions in the health and telecom industries led growth in online advertising, said Nielsen. It reported search link impressions for health were up 108 percent on a quarter-to-quarter basis while telecommunications saw 80 percent growth. Rich media showed the biggest growth in the display category, according to Nielsen. Among verticals, the researchers found that hardware and electronics advertisers both saw a 65 percent increase in display impressions, while automotive and consumer goods companies also did well, increasing 45 percent and 42 percent respectively. Jun 17, 2008 From: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629945

Summary: Kaushik “Analytics Evangelist” at Google says despite Mounds of Data, Marketers Don’t Understand Consumers because they don’t know who they are.

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By Mya Frazier

Published: May 21, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AdAge.com) — Avinash Kaushik thinks one of the reasons why so many websites “suck” today is because of the hippo — as in the “highest paid person’s opinion.”

And, yes, you’re likely a hippo — a successful advertising executive, CMO or brand manager, pulling in a six-figure income, often found pontificating about what does and doesn’t work online. You use tried-and-true metrics such as unique visitors and click-through rates to decide on the best design for your landing page or what content is best suited on your product site.

‘Least closest’

Yet, despite your mounds of data, Mr. Kaushik thinks you are the “least closest to the customer.”

It was a blunt indictment, considering Mr. Kaushik offered it during a talk before roughly 200, well, hippos — marketing executives from Procter & Gamble, Victoria’s Secret, Coca-Cola and Timberland — at an invite-only client conference held by Resource Interactive, a Columbus-based digital agency.

Mr. Kaushik is the “analytics evangelist” at Google, a new post created after his one-year consulting gig with the search giant expired. (Mr. Kaushik was previously director of research and analytics at Intuit, the personal-finance software company, and he is also the author of “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” and web analytics blog Occam’s Razor.)

Mr. Kaushik employed the word “sucks” frequently when he talked about the traditional metrics used for measuring online marketing. And as far as online marketing goes, it sucks too. He likened it to a “faith-based initiative.”

Getting the ‘why’

The point of Mr. Kaushik’s candor is that he wants marketers to start thinking more about the “why.” To get at that, he espoused the use of more online surveys of site visitors to find “segments of discontent.”

He advised marketers to create conversations with consumers using a simple, short and free online survey created by Iperceptions.com, an online research firm. The survey asks: Who is coming to your website? Why are they there? How are you doing? What do you need to fix?

The surveys “get customers involved in fixing things,” he said.

What analytics means

After his talk, Mr. Kaushik described the day-to-day duties of his job at Google as “giving a lot of talks” to teach people how to make better websites and spreading the word about Google’s seven “analytic tools,” mainly Google Analytics and Ad Optimizer. He noted that anyone from a mom-and-pop business to a Fortune 500 brand can use these tools.

“Google is giving the same tools that, only prior to Google, you had to get at a big advertising agency or digital firm for free.”

When asked to explain in more depth what Google Analytics — and his role as an analytics evangelist — means for digital and traditional advertising agencies, Mr. Kaushik said: “We want to be the company that really lives the spirit of accountable advertising.”

May 27, 2008 – 1:47PM
From the SMH

Forget conference calls or video crosses – beaming your hologram interstate for a live chat is closer to becoming a reality.

In what Telstra says is a national first, the telco today beamed a mobile three dimensional image of its chief technology officer, Hugh Bradlow, from Melbourne to Adelaide to give a live business presentation.

“In Melbourne, we have a high definition video camera which is filming me as I stand here,” Dr Bradlow told journalists.

“That signal is being taped across the network and the far end is using a very smart optical projection system to create a holograph, or my virtual presence, in Adelaide.”

Dr Bradlow could see who he was talking to in Adelaide via a big, flat panel screen, allowing the real time interaction.

“It has the look and feel of being in the same room together,” he said…

Whole article here

A digital marketing storm erupted last week after industry heavy weight Lyndon Antcliff went public with a controversial linkbait project that pushed all the boundaries. Lyndon published a story for a client that told the tale of a group of 13 years that stole their dad’s credit card and racked up a $30,000 debt on expenses including Xbox and hookers. The story was immesely popular in social media outlets such as Digg and attracted hundreds of thousands of hits and thousands of inbound links. The story was also picked up within commercial newspapers and Fox News. The only problem… the story was a complete fabrication.

This raised the issue of ethics in the digital marketing industry. Many argued that it was unethical to publish a fake article with commercial intentions (building traffic and inbound links). To see how the debate unfolded visit the link below.

http://sphinn.com/story/46400