Microsoft Strategy & Gasta European Search Network

Microsoft is to launch a European Search Technology Center (STC) next year as it attempts to boost Live Search's presence across the continent.

The company said it aims to "disrupt the search and advertising marketplace" by using the STC to make Live Search more targeted and relevant for European users.

Kevin Johnson, president of the platforms and services division at Microsoft, said, "Success in search in Europe is paramount, and we see the investment in this new Search Technology Center as an important step in doubling down on our long-term investments."

Satya Nadella, senior vice president of the search, portal and advertising Group at Microsoft, said, "Searchers have different expectations and experiences in every geography in the world, so we believe it's critical to make deep investments in physical locations in multiple markets to ensure that we're applying the best local expertise to our research and development efforts."

The STC is scheduled to open next year, but Microsoft said it had yet to decide on a location.

Gasta Strategy on Brands

To get the greatest value out of your social networking strategy, you need to communicate consistently across every platform used. An online communities expert explains how.

Online social environments have multiplied at an exponential rate over the past few years. In fact, many of us have at least two or three identities online in various social networks (I have at least 15). At the recent iMedia Breakthrough Summit, 32 percent of the audience admitted to having . As a result of the social networking gold rush, I am often asked how to best leverage the ever-expanding social web to market to consumers in an effective manner. My goal in this article is to help marketers formulate strategies for engaging consumers in a meaningful dialogue across various social channels.

The distributed web for brand emphasis
Since the onset of the web as a viable marketing solution, brand marketers have been creating what is commonly known as the microsite. Despite the fact that that we label these online brand shrines as "micro," many treat the microsite as the centerpiece of their strategy (perhaps we should have been calling this interactive marketing vehicle a macrosite). While I believe that online brand initiatives ultimately benefit from having all roads lead to one place, we simply cannot always expect consumers to leave their current environments in order to become immersed in centralized brand experiences. After all, consensual brand presence in a consumer's social environment is a much more powerful statement than a consumer's presence in a closed branded environment.

You may be asking yourself, if we are no longer to place emphasis on the microsite as a central component to marketing initiatives, where should this emphasis go?

The answer to this question is rooted in the concept that many are referring to as the distributed web. I define distributed web strategy (as it pertains to marketing) in the following way: consistent brand presence across various social channels. Distributed web strategy is based on the notion that the sum of all syndicated content and messaging is greater than any single brand presence.

Last November, Forrester Research Senior Analyst Jeremiah Owyang penned an analysis of Open Social and how its impact should be explained to executives. In this incredibly prescient post Owyang writes, "Web marketing no longer is limited to your corporate site. Let go of the concept of 'driving traffic to your website' as a sole measurement of success. The web, its message and your battles are now fought on the open and distributed web."

Nearly seven months later brands are still ignoring the impact of the distributed web. I understand why marketers would be reluctant to put their brands into a sea of uncertainty; however, we have reached a point where brands can no longer solely compete on their home turf. It is time to let go!

Adam Broitman

Nod to Imedia Connection

McDonald’s Top Online Display Advertiser

Served 295 million ads

McDonald's served more than 295 million display ad views (34% share) in March, reaching 52 million Internet users an average of 5.7 times during the month, according to comScore Ad Metrix.

Quizno's ranked second delivering 98 million display ads in March, accounting for 11 percent of market share, followed by KFC with 84 million (9.6%), and Papa John's with 82 million (9.3%).

comScore also looked at the share of visits to the Web sites of the top 10 restaurants that used display ad campaigns to see if there is any relationship with their market share. There is little relation between the two metrics, since site traffic is influenced by televised promotions and online ordering functionality at a few companies.

PizzaHut.com, whose online advertisements promote online ordering for delivery has a disproportionately high share of site traffic (23.3%) compared to its share of online advertising voice (6.8%).

"It's clear that that the quick-serve restaurant industry has been slower than many other industries to move its advertising dollars online," said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. "But, given the Internet's broad reach and ability to selectively reach consumer segments, its potential as a brand-building advertising medium is beginning to attract more attention."

WebProNews. Mike Sachoff

Gasta InstantAds

With most of the traffic from Europasearch coming from Northern Europe, Gasta InstantAds are building into a powerhouse for UK and Irish Advertisers, and it does'nt stop there, more and more property sales are taking place on the web and Europasearch and Gasta networks are perfectly poised to take advantage of the property search market. Here are just some of the great property domains in the gasta network that are getting ready to launch.
http://www.propertysurrey.com
http://www.propertywexford.com
http://www.propertyyork.net
http://www.propertyisleofman.com
http://www.propertycambridge.com
http://www.propertybristol.com
http://www.propertybrighton.com

Gasta the amoebic replicant

Gasta the amoebic replicant

Growing faster and replicating itself across the universe how big can Gasta get?

Gasta disseminates information and like an electronic amoeba spreads the information across networks, when a search is made on Gasta the search keyword is collected and collated for popularity, the most popular keywords are then added to the list of Gasta directories; this is all carried out in quantum nanoseconds (on the fly). Web marketers and SME’s then have the opportunity to create an IntantLink ™ to that directory. This is a new innovation in web directories and dynamic linking, and part of the new exciting gasta interface. When designing a new interface a range of disciplines must be used to create the best experience for the interface user, Gasta.com's new interface is designed to give the maximum use of directories but at the same time make easier to use the search tool. Having morphed from an old school directory like Yahoo, Gasta has now harnessed the minimalist elements of Google and tied these to the directory listing by popular keywords. This is very new and very creative design for the launch of Gasta web2.0 with the additional tools of predictive search assists, playlists, and transparent search history we give the user more power to search faster, and more precisely.

Gasta.com launches 150 new web Domians

Gasta has today launched 25 of the 150 new web domains to carry its expanding search networks to 172 search engines. The list includes much sought after domain names in Ireland such as http://www.westbelfast.com , http://www.lisburncity.net and http://www.dublincitylive.com

The Domains are for various regions throughout the UK and Europe expanding the gasta search network to 172 search engines across europe. The next set of domains are scheduled to be launched later this week all concentrate on the UK and European Property market, and include http://www.propertydublin.com http://www.propertyedinburg.com and http://www.dublinproperies.com

www.andersonstown.com
www.cathedralquarter.com
www.eastbelfast.net
www.ardglass.com
www.ballsbridge.net
www.glencolin.com
www.maloneroad.com
www.southbelfast.com
www.dublin4.net
www.dublincitylive.com
www.dublincityonline.com
www.jordanstown.com
www.westdublin.com
www.lisburncity.net
www.lisburnroad.com
www.southarmagh.com
www.stranmillis.com
www.westbelfast.com
www.westbelfast.net
www.westbelfast.org
www.westbelfastonline.com
www.derrycity.net
www.doire.com
www.glengormley.net
www.haroldscross.com
www.leopardstown.net

Secure your brand Keyword on Gasta search networks

Gasta will this month launch its white label search solution on up to 150 new search domains on a UK/Ireland concentration looking to companies like The Search Works, Latitude and Bigmouthmedia. All companie on the fast development track. As gasta.com rolls out its white label solution across more and more platforms, making the networks stronger and more robust, we can see the shift as advertisers move to more niche geo targeted search networks.

Google's decision to allow brand name bidding from 5 May 2008 has seen a huge increase in inquiries by companies wishing to secure their brand names on the Gasta search network.Companies like Gucci, Adidas, Nike, etc.. look for the niche specialists search marketing companies like Gasta , this once again shows not just the number of agencies out there that provide search offerings but the indelible need to secure your brand online, and gasta is relentless at doing this on a global platform, and at a cost that companies can afford.

Gasta News:Search engines warned over data

Search engines should delete personal data held about their users within six months, a European Commission advisory body on data protection has said.

The recommendation is likely to be accepted by the European Commission and could lead to a clash with search giants like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Google and MSN anonymise user data after 18 months, while Yahoo does the same after 13 months.

The body said search companies were not clear enough on data protection.

Google said its privacy policy "strikes the right balance" between privacy, security and innovation.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said in a statement: "Google takes privacy incredibly seriously; protecting our users' privacy is at the heart of all our products.

"It is the reason we were the first company to commit to anonymising our search logs, and also why we dramatically shortened our preference cookie lifetime."

In a statement Yahoo said it was reviewing the details of the body's recommendations.

"We remain committed to striking the right balance between protecting user privacy, providing the most compelling online experience, meeting our legal obligations and preventing fraud," the firm said.

Many search engines currently collect and store information from each search query, holding information about the search query itself, the unique PC address (known as an IP number), and details about how a user makes their searches, such as the web browser that is being used.

Users who create an account with a search engine hand over more data to the firms, including search history. Some search engines also enrich personal data held on their users with information from third parties.

The report from the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party said search engine providers had "insufficiently explained" why they were storing and processing personal data to their users.

It said "search engine providers must delete or irreversibly anonymise personal data once they no longer serve the specified and legitimate purpose they were collected for".

The report said the personal data of users should not be stored or processed "beyond providing search results" if the user had not created an account or registered with the search engine.

The advisory body also said it preferred search engines did not collect and use personal data to serve personalised adverts unless the user had consented and signed up to the service.

The body was set up to provide expert opinion to the European Commission and to make recommendations in the areas of personal data and privacy. The Commission usually adopts the recommendations the body makes.

The report also said search engines did not need to gather additional personal data, beyond the IP address of a machine being used, in order to deliver basic search results and advertisements.

It added: "Because many search engine providers mention many different purposes for the processing, it is not clear to what extent data are reprocessed for another purpose that is incompatible with the purpose for which they were originally collected."

It said search engines should not use personally identifiable data to improve their services or for accountancy purposes.

Personal data stored for security purposes should not also be used to improve services, the body recommended.

The report issued a set of obligations to search engines firms, including:

• Search engines should get informed consent from users if they correlate personal data across different services, such as desktop search
• Search engine providers must delete or anonymise (in an irreversible and efficient way) personal data once they are no longer necessary for the purpose for which they were collected
• Personal data should not be held by search engines for longer than six months
• In case search engine providers retain personal data longer than six months, they must demonstrate comprehensively that it is strictly necessary for the service
• It is not necessary to collect additional personal data from individual users in order to be able to perform the service of delivering search results and advertisements
• If search engine providers use cookies, their lifetime should be no longer than demonstrably necessary
• Search engine providers must give users clear and intelligible information about their identity and location and about the data they intend to collect store or transmit, as well as the purpose for which they are collected

The report also warned that if search engines enriched personal data about users from third parties they could be breaking the law unless customers had given explicit consent.

It said users had the right to access, inspect and correct all the personal data about themselves held by search engines, including their profiles and search history.

By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website

Gasta News: Craigslist, Thats how to do it!

The website devouring the classified industry could hit $100 million in revenue in 2009 with a couple of minor changes, with the old-line newspaper industry helplessly watching from the sidelines.

Craig Newmark's story is inspiring. He took a little email project and turned it into a multi-million dollar headache for the newspaper industry. Even after all the success, craigslist remains humble, simple, and end-user focused. There's a lesson in there somewhere, right?

Craigslist looks like what it is, a site launched years ago as a personal project that never forgot its users, though the powers that be at Craigslist, founder and customer service rep Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster, aren't commenting on the story from industry analysts Classified Intelligence (CI), they are pulling in an appreciable amount of money on the famously minimalist site. They could do even better.

CI said in its report on Craigslist that the implementation of its $25 job listing fee in three more locations could boost the company's revenue into nine-digit territory. Through assessment of Craigslist postings in January and March, CI pegs 2008 revenue for Craigslist at $81 million.

Take the job recruiting fee of $25 Craigslist charges in a handful of major metropolitan areas. Kick it up to $75 across the board (that's the price in San Francisco), and revenue for 2009 should climb to $150 million for a company based in a Victorian-style house that looks like it saw much better days a half-century ago.

The customer service credo of Craigslist, and its modest appointments both in headquarters and in site design, stand in stark contrast to the glassy offices of the newspapers that bore the brunt of the no frills, no fee approach to classifieds that are a hallmark of the site. Craigslist looks like what it is, a site launched years ago as a personal project that never forgot its users.

Some feel like Craigslist should do more, namely the bombastic VP and general manager of eBay's classifieds competitor, Kijiji, Jacob Aqraou. He doesn't care for the dated look of Craigslist, or the English-only listings that have only branched out into other languages in recent months.

As CI noted, the sniping comes across as odd, since eBay happens to own a 25 percent stake in Craigslist. The competition is real, however, with Kijiji, Freecycle, and the Village Voice's Backpage all trying to present themselves as a better classifieds option.

Although some may dispute Craigslist real impact on newspaper classified revenue, one publishing professional cited by CI called Craigslist a catalyst that forced newspapers to reconsider their business models.

There isn't one cause for newspaper fortunes to be in decline. Craigslist is a popular target, especially since CI said in 2004 that San Francisco newspapers lost as much as $65 million in recruitment ad revenue alone due to the site.

Craigslist simply found a niche where demand existed, and they make as much money as they care to earn. One can imagine how much they would make if they tossed an AdSense ad unit into their templates. But to Newmark and company, such a prospect looks unfathomable.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business

Gasta White Label Update...

Gasta White Label Update...

Gasta is super excited by the interest in our White Label Search and Ad platform. Recently Francis Higgins (Commercial Director @ Gasta) announced that our White Label was now on trial with several high profile clients.

Features.

• Branded search for Web, Video, & Images
• Web 2.0 Social Bookmarking tools
• 100% Retained Advertisement revenue from ad partners including Google, Yahoo, MIVA, ASK & Looksmart
• GeoTargetted Ad Platform
• Multi-site configuration and integration options
• High Search Visibility
• Multilanguage support

As a test case we created Gasta.cn using only our white label search engine on February 12th 2008, as of 26th March the site is indexed on Google with 13,698 pages and receives 30,000+ searches per day. Our solution deployed on Gasta.cn is growing at vastly accelerated rate.

http://www.gasta.com

Gasta SearchMatch offers real value for money.

GASTA News: Web advertising outstrips TV

Here is a fascinating article from Rich Ord the CEO of iEntry, Inc.

Despite the fact that social media advertising has yet to hit its stride and is taking some lumps for low click rates when compared to high page views, it will succeed. Social media is a different type of advertising platform from information-oriented websites and the two should not be compared.

The reality is that social media delivers the holy grail for advertisers on the Internet: a mass-concentrated U.S. audience reach similar to television.
The top 25 social media networks delivered over 155 million unique visitors in Feb. 2008 with 70 percent coming from MySpace, Facebook and Classmates.com. Add in Youtube and Flickr and you get another 60 million totalling an estimated 215 million humans viewing social media monthly.

Compare that to television where an average 24-hour period delivers around 50 million unique viewers. The highest viewer ship day of the year, Super Bowl Sunday, has an estimated 110 million unique U.S. residents viewing television. Even over an entire month there is arguably less than 200 million total unique television viewers.

The Internet has become a powerful platform for advertisers to reach mass audiences via user generated video too. According to comScore Video Metrix, U.S. Internet users viewed over 10 billion videos online in the month of December alone. Imagine a 15 to 30 second commercial with each video view and the Internet seems ready today to compete with broadcast TV in delivering commercial views.

Advertising on social media is not about clicks or click rate any more than TV commercials are; it's about quickly reaching a huge U.S audience. Sooner rather than later, advertisers will see social media as a great way to reach mass audiences. After all, in terms of audience size there are several Super Bowls every day on Facebook, MySpace and Youtube!

It simply doesn't matter what the click rate is for Facebook, MySpace and Youtube because they reach huge audiences that major advertisers like Ford, Pepsi and McDonald's can't help but see the value in. Predictably, Adwords buyers will see the value too.

Click rates are a reflection of page views and social media sites similar to TV have a large overlapping audience that hang around them all day, every day. Television would have a low click rate too if an ad campaign were measured over the course of a months worth of programs on the same network, assuming you could click the screen.

People also tune in and out of TV just like they do with social media. According to Compete's figures for every unique visitor to Youtube there are 54 page views. With Facebook, a unique visitor creates an amazing 564 page views in a month and on MySpace each person generates a staggering 1,110 page views.

The social media audience is loyal, large and habit-oriented just like broadcast TV. They also hit the prime youth-tilting demographic who are big spenders online and are considered a high value audience by ad agencies and advertisers. Ultimately, what advertiser’s value is the audience, not just the clicks?

http://archive.webpronews.com/2008a/0318.html

Gasta.com to offer white label Hosted Search Engine Solution

Gasta.com is gearing up to offer geographical regions, companies, cities, and industrial sectors the opportunity to launch their own geo-targeted and white label branded hosted search solution. You can launch the branded search engine in a matter of hours and select from a variety of advertising and content partner solutions such as Google adsense, pay per click, you tube,blinx, Mirago, Ikojo, Yahoo mobile, Msn Live, and virtually any other content partner you sign up for. The fine details are not fully finalized as yet but this is a thrilling development.

CTO of Gasta search networks, Stuart Manning said " This is were the SME sector can build their own search brand, we will provide them with the platform and they can take in content from whatever source to build and develop revenue streams, there is no search boxes involved, everything is white label to meet the needs of the sites owners, and they controll the content, this is another innovation in the fast paced web 2.0 search development sector from Gasta.com"

Gasta will also build in the contextual advertising platforms of SearchMatch and InstantAds so site owners and operators can sell their own advertising inventory to their own clients and customers., track statistics and offer reports. More To follow.

Google Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity

Google index of gasta search network shows how effectively Gasta has maximised its global reach. Surprisingly on Google rankings Gasta Ireland lags behind some of the newer domains, while Gasta China, and Gasta India outperform even the UK Engine.

Google Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity

14,300 Gasta China

4,590 Gasta International

2,990 Gasta Japan

1,330 Gasta Europe

1,420 Gotagshare

1,420 Gotagspot

1,220 Gasta India

736 Gasta UK

397 Europasearch

395 Gasta Austria

363 Gasta TV

275 Gasta France

272 Baroneracing

263 Surfni

241 Gasta Germany

171 Gasta USA

232 Gasta Money

156 Gasta Spain

112 Gasta Ireland

101 Gasta Travel

19 Gasta South Africa

Yahoo Index of Gasta Search Network By popularity

(4,330) | Inlinks (426) Gasta International

1,764) | Inlinks (258) Gasta UK

1,458) | Inlinks (116) Gasta Ireland

(868) | Inlinks (51) Gasta USA

(806) | Inlinks Baroneracing

(530) | Inlinks (55) Gasta Europe

(410) | Inlinks (51) Gasta Austria

(359) | Inlinks (50) Gasta India

(312) | Inlinks (51) Gasta China

(261) | Inlinks (49) Gasta France

(247) | Inlinks (51) Europasearch

(243) | Inlinks (52) Surfni

(240) | Inlinks (51) Gasta Japan

(225) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Spain

(208) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Travel

(207) | Inlinks (51) Gasta TV

(110) | Inlinks (48) Gasta Germany

(101) | Inlinks (49) Gasta Money

(5) | Inlinks (45) Gasta South Africa

3) | Inlinks (41) Gotagshare

(5) | Inlinks (45) Gotagspot

(2) | Inlinks (9) Gasta Italy

Gasta SEM Basics

Some consider SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) synonymous, interchangeable terms. This is not the case. In fact, SEO is a subset of SEM. Although most SEM's perform traditional SEO services (organic site optimization), SEM is generally part of a broader gamut of internet marketing.

The marketing side of SEM involves advertising and target marketing in order to draw traffic to websites. This includes, but does not only pertain to:

Pay-for-inclusion - the SEM firm manually submits your site to applicable search engines and directories. Submission fees are required for submissions to search engines and directories. Many SEM companies guarantee your site will be indexed by the search engines within a short period of time.

Trusted Feeds - when there is no page to crawl, or a site is working off of dynamic pages drawn from a database, they are impossible for spiders to see and index. Trusted feeds send out this dynamic content via XML format so that it can be indexed by the search engines.

ROI tracking - the SEM firm tracks statistics gathered from marketing channels to show ROI trends.

Email Marketing - the SEM company sends out email adverts typically targeting customers related to the SEM's client.

Traditional Ads - Ads are displayed on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Ads are based on keywords entered in the search and fees are triggered by impressions (you pay for the ad even if it's not clicked through).

PPC- generally these are text based ads, where the copy is written by the advertiser. The advertiser places a bid amount, choosing the fee they are willing to pay when the ad is clicked through.Typically, the higher the bid, the better ranked the ad will be in the SERP.

SEM has its advantages in that your site can obtain instant traffic increases if the campaign strategy is successful. But relying solely on the marketing side SEM has its disadvantages. It can be expensive as costs will accumulate from ads and PPC. Furthermore, these marketing tactics do not necessarily guarantee stickiness of your site. Search engine marketing may drive initial traffic to your web pages, but this traffic increase will be short term if your pages are poorly laid out and contain weak or irrelevant content. Websites need to be well written, from both a programming and aesthetic perspective.

The intricacies of search engine marketing combined with search engine optimization can also be an overwhelming task for any firm. While a large SEM company may be able to handle the workload of both the marketing and SEO side of the business, specialization will most likely provide better results.

SEO is a more technical process than SEM and involves a deeper understanding of search engine algorithms. An SEO firm also sets out to optimize your site for peak performance organically, so that it is seen and listed in the search engines on an ongoing basis. The organic search engine optimization process of SEO is one of the main factors that separates SEO from SEM. Organic search engine optimization provides free search engine positioning, instead of pay for results.

An SEO company tends to have more understanding of website design, programming, and how search engines work. SEO company staff is typically made up of programmers and website designers.

If you were to separate the marketing side of SEM from SEO and compare the two, SEO maintains a better overall ROI than SEM. Sixty percent of top search engine listings are devoted to organic listings. In most cases, a good SEO service is all your site needs to drive traffic to it.

Search Engine Optimization is by no means a simple practice. It is made up of a number of complicated in-depth processes and requires an ample amount of time to comprehend its core facets. Moreover, because SEO is an ever changing industry, keeping up with the latest SEO trends can be difficult. For these reasons we have compiled a list of some of the most important SEO practices to be aware of. This is by no means complete, but should serve as a general guideline.

Change is necessary
One of the misconceptions about SEO is that it will automatically improve a site's ranking within the search engines without necessitating changes to that site. Unfortunately this is not the case. An SEO firm that claims it can mysteriously make a site perform better in the search engines without modifications is not practicing ethical standards.

In order to index websites, search engines send out spiders, or bots, to visit a site's pages. The spider learns what the site is about by 'reading' the site's content, so it can place the site into the appropriate context. Spiders analyze the main body content, as well as content located within the Meta tags. One of the perks to this process is that the more relevant the site's content, the better the rating it receives. Therefore, sites laden with pertinent, text rich content are favored above sites that do not incorporate such strategies.

At the basic level, a true SEO service needs to analyze then apply changes to a site's content, optimizing Meta data and the main body with relevant keywords and phrases popular within that site's vertical. For this reason, site's built predominantly with Flash are simply not as effective in the search engines, because the spiders have nothing to read. If you have a Flash entry page, make sure there is an HTML version available as well.

Contact your SEO service before you update
It's very important to communicate with your SEO service before implementing changes to your website, unless you are 100 percent certain you know what you're doing. Even the slightest alterations can affect your site's rankings in the search engines; when spiders revisit your web property and discover things have changed, it can be for the better or for the worse.

There are numerous instances where clients accidentally overwrite previously optimized work without realizing it. This is a simple mistake, but it can be a costly one. For instance, you may accidentally replace optimized elements in the Meta tags or body content by using older or newer templates that are not optimized properly.

Site redesign is an even more crucial matter. Redesigning your website can be a scary undertaking since it will no doubt affect your site's position within the search engines. Even if you're comfortable making small changes to your website, contact with your SEO practitioner before you implement the new site is imperative because you are typically overhauling the whole thing. Your SEO will be able to offer vital information and the technical assistance required to make this complex process a success.

Gasta.TV up for aquisition?

Gasta.TV up for aquisition? You might think so after reading this from Greg Sandoval

The plight of the music industry has played out like a 1970s disaster film, the kind where the principal characters declare that nothing on earth could threaten their state-of-the-art luxury liner or superstructure.

Crash! Cut to people gasping for air or scrambling for a seat on the lifeboat. That's where the record labels are now; scrounging for technologies and business models that can keep them afloat.

To their credit, the four largest music labels have experimented with a range of ideas. They have finally opened up to the idea of selling MP3s--compressed audio files of songs that can be downloaded from an online source and then stored and played back on a digital music player. They also are dabbling in ad-supported music and have talked about launching a jointly owned subscription service.

Meanwhile, piracy continues to flourish. CD sales continue to tumble. Some top artists, including Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, began distributing their own music last year, Paul McCartney quit EMI, and Madonna jumped to a concert promotion firm, Live Nation, and an alternative business model.

Half of all music sold in the U.S. is expected to be digital in 2011 and sales of downloaded music will surpass CD sales in 2012, according to a recent Forrester Research report titled "The End of the Music Industry as We Know It." Digital music sales will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 23 percent over the next five years, reaching $4.8 billion in revenue by 2012, Forrester says. However, digital music sales will fail to make up for an ongoing decline in CD sales, which, by 2012, will be reduced to $3.8 billion, according to the report.

So the music industry has its work cut out for it. This is how we see the next year shaping up in the digital music scene.

Gasta News: EU to make net safer for Children

The European Commission is spending 55m euros (£42m) on making the net a safer place for children.

The money will be spent over four years on educational efforts and ways to protect children from inappropriate content and cyber bullying.

It will also research the ways that children use the net on computers and other devices such as mobile phones.

The broad-based project will build on the Safer Internet Programme the EU began in 2000.

Action plan

"As more and more European children and adolescents use online technologies at home or at school, they, their parents and their teachers need to be informed about the opportunities and risks they face," said Jose Barroso, EC president in a statement.

Gasta SearchMatch hits the Spot for SBO's

Gasta Views: SearchMatch hits the Spot for SBO's

Enabling small business owners to launch campaigns on large publishers' sites could be the next million dollar idea.

From automotive and restaurants to carpet cleaning and hotels, a large percentage of us are involved in a business where the local owner/operator is vital to our success. But stepping out from the argument of corporate-knows-all vs. all-business-is-done-locally for a moment, we can all agree that there would be a tremendous benefit to getting these local operators online in a local, customizable fashion that drives real ROI. Sadly, the largest and most advanced portals and networks have neglected this market -- and millions of dollars have been lost as a result.

Currently as small business owners (SBOs) get out their wallets and try to "finally launch an ad campaign online," they find that getting someone to take their money can actually be a challenge. For an SBO who turns to a major portal with his entire quarter's ad budget, $5,000, the money is turned away because of minimums. The result is no different when soliciting the help of most major ad networks. My goodness! We have someone here willing to spend $5,000 and no one will take it. Are times that good?

Microsoft buying Yahoo shows that times aren't that great for everyone. It could be said, "Jay, it takes us the same amount of effort to write an order for $2,500 as it does $25,000, and we just can't be profitable running hundreds of small campaigns." But think about it: Google has built its business on $2,500 campaigns, and they're eating competitors' lunches so badly that Yahoo has to be bought to compete, and you "can't afford" to take that business? Large publishers need to look now for profitable ways to take SBO campaigns. Here are a few steps that could push large publishers in the right direction.

Partner with a flash ad generator
Search any form of "flash ad creation" and you'll find dozens of folks who have created software that takes flash templates and allows laymen to instantly create customized variations. Some portals already offer this, but they should leave pride and effort-spent-to-date behind if better solutions exist. Most SBOs are used to stepping out of their comfort zone and doing things themselves. Building an ad from a template builder will be easy for them, and can be done in a controlled environment for you.

Open up your API, or build one
Buying, placing and loading campaigns can all be automated, and this is the key to profitability on the publisher end. Sure there will need to be some manual oversight for delivery purposes, but one person should easily be able to handle hundreds of campaigns. From there, educate the SBO on campaign optimization and put it on them; but, provide an 800 number in large print at all times. This is one mistake Google has made, and I believe it is a key source of the frustration users feel toward the company.

Be fully transparent with targeting and placement disclosure
The No. 1 targeting desire for most SBOs is geographic; usually involving one or multiple specific ZIP codes. Anyone who has done the research knows this is simply not possible by IP and must be done with registration data or user input. SBOs are surprisingly understanding when it comes to limitations like these -- if those limitations are clearly explained to them up front. It's when expectations aren't properly set to begin with that frustrations brew and animosity sets in.

Because the user would be responsible for placement and creative optimization, an aggregate data library of best practices for vertical and placement would go a long way toward ensuring repeat business by giving SBOs useful data and information to improve their own results.

Work with resellers
The eBay model works. Embrace those that will be power users and help them make you more money. We work with dozens of companies in multiple verticals whose franchisees are 100 percent ready to make the leap into online as long as someone is able to liaison between them and the publisher. In fact, we could have easily brought over 1,000 campaigns of between $2,500 and $5,000 to a publisher by now -- and that is just our company! When $2,500 turns into $2,500,000, might publishers think and act differently?

The reality is there are hundreds of agencies, consultants, and leading speakers who are well-known and trusted within their verticals. Providing a higher, private level of support to these influencers and connectors creates value at the reseller level, minimizes time spent re-explaining the same thing to 100 different SBOs and motivates everyone in the same direction. Of course, accepting SBO credit cards for campaign pre-payment and paying the resellers immediately would seal the deal toward partnership and profitability.

Let this be an open call to agencies and corporate marketers with a horse in the local retail race. This is an initiative you can't afford to ignore. The first major portal or ad network to create a cleanly-branded content solution with the acceptance of third-party ad serving from its resellers will have trouble finding bags big enough to cart away the money. Our network of franchisees and dealers in multiple verticals alone would make this effort worthwhile, and I would imagine there are another 50-100 companies just like us. At a time when two goliaths are having to join forces to stay competitive, is there anyone who can afford to ignore one thousand payments of $2,500?

Jay Friedman president of Goodway 2.0

Gasta News, Adconion Media group receives investment of $80m

Gasta News Venture Capital: Good News for European Online Ad advertsiser Adconion

Adconion obtains record venture round in Europe

26 February 2008: Adconion Media Group, Munich, one of the world’sgrowing online advertising networks, has announced a £40.9 million (US$80 million) Series C round of venture funding. The financing is the largest online media venture investment in European history.

The investment was led by Index Ventures, who were joined by existing investor Wellington Partners, and represents the first investment made from Index’s recently announced growth fund. The capital will be used to continue expansion into Europe, US and Asia, strengthening the company’s position as an independent player. In addition, capital will be invested in Adconion’s behavioral targeting technology and also to fund selected acquisitions. Index partners’ Dominique Vidal, former CEO of Yahoo! Europe, and Giuseppe Zocco, the firm’s co-founder, will join Adconion’s board of directors.

“Adconion has the relationships, the expertise and the best in class technology becoming of a future market-leader in technology’s hottest growth sector,” says Dom Vidal of Index Ventures. “Our experience as investors in the advertising space enables us to support Adconion in continuing its rapid expansion throughout Europe and North America and to further build its global presence. As online media becomes more fragmented and as agencies look for more independent partners for solutions, we believe ad networks like Adconion are perfectly positioned to capture more advertising spend.”

“At the risk of sounding clichéd, the modern business landscape is irrefutably global in scale and that is due primarily to the opportunities created by the Internet,” says Adconion founder and CEO Tyler Moebius. “Agencies choose to partner with Adconion because their clients are likely in a position where doing business internationally is either ‘business as usual’ or a strategic opportunity for growth. This substantial investment from Index and Wellington will position Adconion alongside the portals on marketer’s short-lists for global distribution partners.”

“Tyler and his team have done an outstanding job building a truly global online advertising network,” says Frank Boehnke of Wellington Partners. 'We are very excited to continue to work with Tyler and Adconion on one of the most exciting growth stories in the global marketplace.”

Gasta News On Venture Funds Europe

Gasta News On Venture Funds Europe

http://www.tornado-insider.com

Similar to previous years, European venture capital activity has started off with a bang this year. Already over 170 technology investments have been recorded, raising approximately €920 million. And there is more to come, judging by a series of successful fundraisings by Europe’s investors. This past week alone, 4 successful closings of new funds were announced.

German early-stage venture capitalist Target Partners announced the first closing of its new fund, Target Partners Fund II, at €61.5 million. The firm received commitments from private individuals, family offices and institutional investors, including Morgan Stanley, LGT Capital Partners, Bayerische Beamten Lebensversicherung, RWB RenditeWertBeteiligungen and CS Strategic Partners. The new fund has a target size of €120 million. It will mainly invest in start-up and early-stage companies from the German speaking countries, with sectors including IT, communications, Internet, media and clean-tech.

UK venture capital firm TLcom Capital also held a first closing of its second fund, TLcom II. Funding commitments were in excess of €50 million. The target size of the fund is €150 million. The new fund will focus primarily on revenue-stage technology companies across Europe. Returning investors, European Investment Fund and Access Capital Partners, have been joined by Italy-based Finlombarda Gestioni SGR - the investment arm of the development agency of Lombardy - and a group of limited partners associated with IDeA Alternative Investments. IDeA AI is an investment initiative recently launched by private equity group Investitori Associati, Wise and DeAgostini. TLcom II expects to invest in 12 to 15 companies over the next few years. A second closing is planned later in the year as the fund is now also talking to other institutional investors.

Meanwhile, Finnish venture capitalist Inventure completed the first closing of Inventure Fund Ky. The fund focuses on early-stage high-tech investments in the Nordic countries, primarily Finland. Investors investing in Inventure are European Investment Fund and Finnish Industry Investment, in addition to several undisclosed institutions and private investors. The current closing is completed at €35 million and has a final target of €50 million. Inventure aims to invest in 15 high-growth companies with significant value creation and return potential. The firm targets innovation clusters such as software, electronics, semiconductors as well as industrial production and material technologies.

Concluding, 360° Capital Partners announced its final closing with more than €100 million under management. The European Investment Fund, AGF of Allianz Group, Banca Sella Group and Natixis are the main new investors in the venture capital fund. It will invest in European companies, mainly in France and Italy. The new shareholders are joining CDC Enterprises, Credit Suisse – Alpha Associates, Partners Group, Gruppo Banca Intesa San Paolo, Wilshire Associates, Paul Capital and Coller Capital, who had already committed in the first closing which took place last year. 360° Capital Partners invests between €2 and €5 million in first or second rounds of financing of high-growth innovative companies operating in segments including ICT, Web 2.0, diagnostics/medical devices, and clean tech. 5% of the fund is dedicated to seed-stage companies.

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Google Automatic Matching no Match For Gasta SearchMatch

Google Automatic Matching no Match For Gasta SearchMatch,

Gasta SearchMatch is offering real value to advertisers in this poor economic climate.

Michael Estrin of Imedia Connection writes:

On the heels of reports that Google has seen a drop in its paid click business, news has broken that the search giant has quietly unveiled a new program designed to use up unspent search marketing dollars.

According to a New York Post story, Google is testing a new feature called Automatic Matching.

News of the test program first broke on SEO Fast Start when the blog posted an email from Google to one of its AdWords customers.

"Automatic Matching automatically extends your campaign's reach by using surplus budget to serve your ads on relevant search queries that are not already triggered by your keyword lists," the email read. "By analyzing the structure and content of your website and AdWords campaigns, we deliver more impressions and clicks while maintaining your current CTRs and CPCs."

While Silicon Valley Insider points out that some SEO experts like SEO Fast Start are being overly harsh with respect to Google's test program, the timing of the news appears to be the big problem, with some marketers accusing the search giant of grasping for every last cent of their ad budgets at a time when overall business may be slumping.

"Whether Google's intention is to expand the advertisers' untapped opportunities or not, timing is everything and at this time on the surface it appears that Google's only motive is to monetize additional clicks," said Mark Simon, VP of industry relations for Didit, a search-marketing firm. "My suggestion to Google is to communicate the expanded opportunities to search advertisers and let them decide whether they are willing to invest in them at the risk of potentially reducing their ROI metric."

According to Chris Winfield, president of search marketing firm 10e20, ROI, not total budget, is the only real issue.

"I would have no problems spending more money if I'm getting more return on my investment," Winfield told the New York Post. "If I'm just spending more money and it's not high-quality traffic, then that's a problem."

In its email to AdWords customers, Google cited an example for the search term "adidas." According to Google, the new program would match customers with keywords on its traditional list, which includes terms like "shoes" and "athletic," but it also would match with terms like "slippers."

Whether searches for "slippers" will mean anything to those marketing adidas remains to be seen.

A quick Google search for "slippers" yielded no natural results for adidas on the first page. However, the search did return one ad for adidas sandals on sale at Shoes.com.