-
.tel Top Level Domain Launched
 A new top level domain extension was launched yesterday. The extension .tel is slightly different from other extensions in that it is designed to be used as a facility for keeping contact details on the actual Domain Name Server.
The idea is that companies can list their phone numbers, addresses, emails etc. on a .tel domain to make it easier for people to contact them. How this will work in practice and what benefits it will actually provide are open to question.
Currently, someone looking for a company's contact details will find the company website and click on the contact page. If enough companies use it, it is hoped the .tel domain will act as a huge phone book, providing contact details in a standard format.
According to Khashr Mahdavi, chief executive of Telnic, the UK based company that is overseeing the project, "The launch of .tel represents the most significant innovation in the domain name system since the advent of .com". That the .tel launch is a departure from other recent new domain extensions such as .mobi and .eu is very true as the .tel domains won't actually point to websites in the way other extensions do. All information will be held on the core Domain Name Servers (DNS).
Telnic is encouraging developers to build applications and web-services by providing resources such as source code and APIs around the information contained on the domain. The company has already written software to allow iPhone, Blackberry and Microsoft products to utilise the system.
There is currently a two-month "sunrise" period where companies with trademarks can apply for .tel domains for their brands and businesses. On February 3rd 2008 the domains will be available for public sale on a first come-first-served basis.
ICANN, the body in charge of internet domain extensions announced earlier this year that they planned to increase the number of non-geographic extensions, releasing custom extensions such as .hotel or .shop for a fee to anyone willing to buy. Extensions for Africa and Latin America are expected soon too.
Digg This! | Save to del.icio.us | Reddit | Submit to Netscape | Google Bookmark This | Furl This | Add to Yahoo MyWeb 2 | Contact bigmouthmedia
-
Google ?pages from the? Affiliate Opportunity
Google tries to offer the most relevant search results whether from a worldwide pool of websites or from a regional pool. And one of the features of Google search is the ability to select the option to only show search results from a particular geographical location.
This means that if you visit Google UK you can select to only show pages from the UK. Google's algorithm looks at factors such as hosting, domain TLD and Google Webmaster Console options to decipher whether or not to show your website under this search.
 In April 2008, Robin Goad, Research Director at Hitwise UK did a study titled 'how popular is Google's "pages from the UK" search option?' and discovered that on average, around 13% of searches when the pages from box were ticked.
This very interesting fact offers a great opportunity for affiliate marketers. Why? Well, if there is a merchant who has a fairly well known brand, but has not configured their website to rank within pages from the UK search results, an affiliate could easily generate a few pages to try to capture that 13% of brand searches. Brand searches typically convert more highly than non-brand which could have the affiliate running all the way to the bank this Christmas.
Example
Let's say a merchant receives 5,000 referrals for brand keywords per day, take 15% of that and you get 750. That is a very attractive number of referrals you could potentially turn into conversions. Let's say only 1% of that brand traffic converts, that's 7.5 conversions at £75 per conversion. A nice little stocking filler for the credit crunch and recession times ahead.
Affiliates are often perceived as lower members of internet society when in reality, they merely exploit the inability of brands to fully adopt the full spectrum of digital marketing.
Digg This! | Save to del.icio.us | Reddit | Submit to Netscape | Google Bookmark This | Furl This | Add to Yahoo MyWeb 2 | Contact bigmouthmedia
-
Google's top searches down under precede year-end Zeitgeist
 For search lovers, the announcement of Google's year-end Zeitgeist - a regular feature on its annual calendar since 2001 - is an eagerly anticipated event. The list reveals "the sign of the times" - i.e., the most popular searches conducted on Google throughout the year - and tends to act as a barometer of our interests and pursuits over the past 12 months.
Mountain View is yet to release its global Zeitgeist for 2008 but if you're looking for an appetite whetter, this year's hottest search topics in Australia and New Zealand have been announced. The top ten Australian searches for the year aren't much to look at: "games" tops the list, while "Sydney", "YouTube", "MySpace", "Facebook" and - that's right - "Google" follow behind.
But, as with Google's global Zeitgeist, it's when the list gets broken down into categories that it becomes really interesting. The fastest rising Australian search term this year was "iPhone" - a distinct overlap with last year's global fastest rising search term. The most searched for TV shows included Big Brother, The Simpsons and Heroes, while the most searched for movie was perhaps unsurprisingly Baz Luhrmann's "Australia", with The Dark Knight pipping Indiana Jones to second place. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt also lost out to Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice in the top ten most popular Olympic-related searches.
However, unlike Yahoo!'s top searches for 2008 - in which Britney Spears and World Wrestling Entertainment beat American president-elect Barack Obama to the top positions in the US - Obama came first in the top ten most searched for celebrities down under, with Britney relegated to fifth place.
The top searches on google.co.nz this year aren't too different to those in Australia, with "games" once again topping the list. However, the fastest rising searches of 2008 in New Zealand do show some significant differences; "iPhone" doesn't even get a look in, with "Olympics" in first. Other variants include the "Large Hadron Collider" and the "Jonas Brothers".
In an overlap with one of Yahoo!'s hot trends for 2008, Aussie actor Health Ledger was the most searched for death this year, while Britney took another drop to sixth place in the most popular celebrity searches in New Zealand. Obama wasn't top of this list either - instead it was US R&B heartthrob Chris Brown.
So can Australia and New Zealand's most popular searches give us an indication of what's to come from the Google Zeitgeist for 2008? Obama is certain to be a prevalent figure, as is former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. And if Google's Zeitgeist for 2007 was anything to go by, we can certainly expect the search engine to find a new and innovative way of presenting its year-end report to its legions of followers. Watch this space for more news on the Google Zeitgeist for 2008 - or, if you're feeling impatient, satisfy your daily appetite for statistics with Google Trends.
Digg This! | Save to del.icio.us | Reddit | Submit to Netscape | Google Bookmark This | Furl This | Add to Yahoo MyWeb 2 | Contact bigmouthmedia
-
Yahoo! searchers choose Britney over Obama
 He may have just made history as the first black president in America but unfortunately for Barack Obama, he's just not as exciting as Britney Spears. Like his opponent he had a few music videos on Youtube, but it takes an extra special charisma to win the Yahoo! title of 'Most Searched 2008'. Sadly for Obama, he's just too careful when he gets out of taxis and his hair doesn't change dramatically enough to really win the hearts and minds of Yahoo! searchers. Of course he was up against a tough opponent. Britney Spears has spent seven years in the top ten, and now four at number one.
While Britney was at the top for both countries, searches for the US and the UK differed slightly. The US searches focused mainly on celebrities, while in the UK we were more focussed on reality TV, with Big Brother and X Factor both making the top three.
US Top Searches
- 1. Britney Spears
- 2. WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment)
- 3. Barack Obama
- 4. Miley Cyrus
- 5. RuneScape
- 6. Jessica Alba
- 7. Naruto
- 8. Lindsay Lohan
- 9. Angelina Jolie
- 10. American Idol
UK top searches
- 1. Britney Spears
- 2. Big Brother
- 3. X Factor
- 4. Oasis
- 5. High School Musical 3
- 6. US Election
- 7. Amy Winehouse
- 8. Heath Ledger
- 9. Kate Moss
- 10. Eastenders
Obama wasn't the only politician to lose out to a celebrity. Yahoo!'s list of influential women featured political campaigner Sarah Palin who unfortunately took second place to Angelina Jolie. Although Palin may be upset about losing out to Jolie, she'll no doubt be secretly pleased to see she beat John McCain in overall political searches.
Political searches may have been of huge importance for Yahoo! users, but for Ask users many searchers may not have actually made it to the voting booths. 'How do I get pregnant?' was the most searched question for 2008, with 'how do I register to vote?' trailing in at number eight.
Yahoo! concluded its 2008 list with a list of sweet farewells that have made search history for 2008 - a top ten that's noticeably missing US computer science expert Randy Pausch, who died in July this year and was chosen by Time as one of the world's top one hundred influential people.
- 1. Health Ledger
- 2. Bernie Mac
- 3. Paul Newman
- 4. Randy Pausch
- 5. George Carlin
- 6. Estelle Getty
- 7. Tim Russert
- 8. Brad Renfro
- 9. Isaac Hayes
- 10. Boyd Coddington
Every year the search engines reveal what we really care about. While the US elections may have a dramatic effect on how the British economy fairs out, it seems that we're all a little more concerned about when High School Musical 3 will be showing. Even amongst the election fever-pitch of the United States this year, wrestling was seen to be that little bit more worthy of a search query. Let's see what 2009 will bring, and if there's anything strong enough to knock Britney from the number one spot.
Digg This! | Save to del.icio.us | Reddit | Submit to Netscape | Google Bookmark This | Furl This | Add to Yahoo MyWeb 2 | Contact bigmouthmedia
-
Windows market share drops below 90% for the first time in 2 years
 New statistics show that the percentage of Windows users dropped below 90 per cent for the first time in 2 years last month.
The figures relate to the operating system used to access sites monitored by Net Applications in November.
The market share for Windows was 90.46 per cent in October, but has dropped to 89.62 per cent in November. This is the first time in 2 years that Microsoft's domination of the market has slipped to below 90 per cent.
The nearest rival is Macintosh, with an 8.87 per cent share in November which is an increase on October when it was just 8.21 per cent. The rest have a less than 1 per cent share each, including Linux at 0.83 per cent (up from 0.71 per cent), iPhone at 0.37 per cent (up from 0.33 per cent) and Playstation at 0.04 per cent (up from 0.03 per cent).
According to The Register, Net Applications explained that since most internet surfing on Windows takes place during working hours, Thanksgiving could be to blame for this drop in Windows use, with users more likely to access the internet on their aesthetically friendly Macbooks or Playstations.
Similarly, further statistics on browser use from Net Applications reveal that Firefox has seen market share increase to over 20 per cent for the first time in November. Microsoft Internet Explorer comes in top at 69.77 per cent, followed by Firefox with 20.78 per cent, and Safari with 7.13 per cent. Chrome, the browser offering from search engine giant Google, has a share of 0.83 per cent.
Digg This! | Save to del.icio.us | Reddit | Submit to Netscape | Google Bookmark This | Furl This | Add to Yahoo MyWeb 2 | Contact bigmouthmedia
|
