Daily Bits

Media

Users Prefer Brand Mentions than Online Ads

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If you are involved in online marketing,  you might be wondering why some of you online ads are not effectively pulling users to your product site.Online advertising may not be an effective tool anymore. Well at least according to this study by ARAnet  which says that brand mentions are making users to take action rather than reading online ads, email offers, sponsored search engine links, and banner/pop up ads.

Specific results of the ARAnet study reveals that 51% of respondents are somewhat/most likely to read or take action when they read about product mentions on regular articles (blog posts?) which users read from sites they follow regularly. Users also prefer product advertisements which are written like an ordinary online article.

Although the study did not mention the specific type of articles, this could be in the form of blog posts, right? I mean, how many of us click on links provided by our favorite bloggers who write about something new online? And we all know that some famous and widely read blogs do some paid product reviews.  

Going deeper into demographics, the study showed that younger users  are the most likely to respond to this form of product advertisements than the matured users.  Specifically,  these users are in the 18-34 age range.

Interestingly, pop-up ads continue to be least favored form of online advertisers among the respondents of the study. And good news for email marketers and paid search ads workers, these forms of online ads still managed to elicit favorable actions among users. 

So, how are you doing your online product marketing? Still stuck with email marketing? paid search engine ads? or pop-up ads?  Are these forms of online advertising still effective for your products?

New York Times Feels the Effect of the Economic Crisis

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Among the top online news dailies I really like New York Times for one simple reason – it’s free. While others offer the online editions of their newspapers on a subscription basis which is tied up to print subscriptions, the New York Times managed to provide free source of relevant news. But this might start to change, as Bloomberg reports that NYT is seriously revisiting the charging fees of some its content. [Read more…] about New York Times Feels the Effect of the Economic Crisis

10 Major Newspapers that Might Fold Up or Go Online Soon

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Imagine this, Amazon Kindle Store pushing new issues of your daily newspapers right into your Kindle 2 reader. In the commuter train most of the passengers no longer holding the latest issue of their broadsheets but are reading the latest news either on their iPhone, Kindle 2 or even some on their netbooks. Such could be the near future of newspapers and newspaper reading. With the growing popularity of electronic and online copies of newspapers, it seems inevitable that printed newspapers are bound for extinction. Apparently the 24/7 Wall St. also believes so. It even predicted 10 major newspapers which are either bound to stop publishing on print or to go electronic. [Read more…] about 10 Major Newspapers that Might Fold Up or Go Online Soon

Amazon Releases a Kindle iPhone App, But Why?

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It was only a few days ago when the whole tech land was disturbed by the release of Amazon’s second generation e-book reader – the Kindle 2. Some of us may still be getting over the buzz created by the Kindle 2 and here comes Amazon again announcing the new Kindle for iPhone application.

The Kindle for the iPhone application tries to mimic what the Kindle does. By installing the application on your iPhone, you can practically purchase kindle electronic files (books, magazines, and newspapers) from the Amazon Kindle Store and have it directly sent to your iPhone. But that is not without any limitation. The process works only if you are within the coverage area of the Kindle’s Whispernet.

Now, that may be appalling for some especially since the iPhone unlike the Kindle is available worldwide. But of course, there is always a walk around. Like if you own a Kindle but you’re outside the Whispernet coverage area, you can always purchase Kindle materials from Amazon and have it downloaded to your PC. This issue is true only for those outside the Whispernet area. But for those within the coverage area, the beauty of the Kindle for the iPhone application is the fact that if you subscribe to a blogs or newspapers, updates and new contents can be automatically push to your iPhone. I don’t know about you, but for me that is absolutely awesome, right?

But the reason for the question in this post’s title has nothing to do with the coverage area but rather on a larger perspective. Is there really a need for a Kindle application for the iPhone? Have Amazon thought about this? What would be the implication of the Kindle iPhone application to the sales of the Amazon Kindle? What is Amazon really promoting, it’s catalog of paid electronic publications or the Kindle.

Certainly, those who are contemplating about getting a Kindle to use it for reading e-books might be having second thoughts now. I mean, what’s the use of getting a Kindle if you can read Kindle books, magazines and other materials on your iPhone?

Kindle is Here to Stay, Newspapers Should Get On It

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We’ve all been reading about Amazon’s Kindle 2 e-book reader and how it will affect the publishing industry, more specifically the dying print newspaper market. Many say that in time the Kindle reader would spell the demise of the print media as we know it today. Let’s take a quick look at what the Amazon Kindle can really do.

The Kindle, be it the first or second generation model, allows you to read e-books, e-magazines, and e-newspapers from a diminutive screen anywhere, anytime. You might think that it’s just an iPod loaded with an e-book reader app, but with a larger screen. But what makes the Kindle outstanding is the fact that if you are located in an area covered by the Amazon network, digital content can be pushed automatically to your Kindle reader. And not just ordinary digital contents, but those which you have selected and opted to buy or subscribe to at the Amazon Kindle store. This could range from magazines such as Time and Newsweek, newspapers such as NYT and WSJ, and of course e-books from the Amazon bookstore.

Purchasing digital content from the Kindle Store is fast for as long as you are connected. When you purchase a book, you can opt to have it send wirelessly, and it does so faster than you can immediate. You wouldn’t even notice that the book you purchased will already be in your Kindle. Compare to that to actually going to a bookstore to pick up and interesting book, or ordering it online which will take several weeks to arrive, especially if you are living outside the U.S. The same holds true for newspapers and magazine titles. The Amazon Kindle ensures quick delivery of information.

Now, the question is, will Kindle spell trouble for the dying newspaper industry? Not really. It might reduce the number of print subscribers but not everyone would be willing to spend extra to get the Kindle. While those who are more than willing to spend extra for such a device may not actually be print newspaper readers, or worst don’t read newspapers at all. But with a gadget as cool as the Kindle, it might actually encourage them to start their daily newspaper reading habit.

Rather than killing the gradually dying print newspaper industry, the Kindle reader might actually save it. Of course that is also true with the Kindle’s effect on Amazon’s potential gains as well. Investment bank Collins Stewart predicted revenue of $305 million this year for Amazon, with gross profit amounting to $70 million this year. Not bad, considering the fact that Amazon was just trying to market its main product – printed books and other information material when it created the Amazon Kindle.