CES 2009: the 3 biggest news items
CES, the world's largest consumer technology trade show, started yesterday.
Despite the economy and speculation about the economy's impact on CES this year, CES seems to be doing alright this year and is still one of the most important technology trade shows in the world; the place where hot new consumer gadgets are launched and big announcements made.
Site review: Yelp.com
US listings and review website Yelp, already a big success in the US, launched a UK version this week, which covers the London area and a number of other major UK cities.
There are a few local listings sites in the UK already: Trusted Places, welovelocal, Tipped and Yell.com all offer similar sites with local business listings and user reviews, so how does Yelp's offering measure up?
What does rising netbook popularity mean for web designers?
Netbooks are on the rise. The bare-bones laptops, which typically cost under $500 and are designed for web surfing and email, are increasingly the focus of major PC makers looking for growth.
And for good reason.
Microsoft-Yahoo rumors surface (again)
The on-and-off again rumors of a Microsoft-Yahoo deal are back in the news.
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, citing unnamed sources, reported on Wednesday that a group of "well known Silicon Valley executives and top investment bankers" was working to arrange an acquisition of Yahoo that would value the company at $20bn.
Were reports of the entertainment industry's death greatly exaggerated?
There has been a lot of talk about the decline of the traditional entertainment industry the past several years.
As a growing and maturing Internet has become a much more powerful medium for the distribution of media, traditional entertainment enterprises, from television networks to record labels, have increasingly faced new challenges that many argued threaten their survival.
The Great Usability Debate: Internal vs external testing?
There is an ever-urgent need for companies to both acquire and retain online users, especially in today’s economic environment. Our new Usability and User Experience Trends Briefing highlights this, but which is best for achieving reliable results - internal or external testing?
Site review: thomascook.com
Travel operator Thomas Cook introduced a number of improvements before Christmas, including an improved holiday search function, and the addition of more multimedia content.
Since I had written a post last year listing ten different problems with the Thomas Cook website which were affecting the user experience, it seems only fair to give credit for some of the improvements that have been made since then.
Affiliate Census goes live in US and UK
This week we’ve gone live with our 2009 Affiliate Census surveys which are aimed at producing comprehensive overviews of both the US and UK affiliate marketplaces, from the perspective of publishers.
This research follows our inaugural Affiliate Census published in 2007 which gave some much-needed insight into affiliate businesses, the affiliate lifestyle and relationships between publishers and networks.
Are paid links dead as an SEO strategy?
Instant results are always the most appealing. When it comes to SEO, climbing up the SERPs can take a lot of time, effort and money.
A popular technique amongst some marketers for acquiring the inbound links that search engines like Google love has been to pay for them.
Report: US retailers upped paid search spend before holidays
Facing perhaps the toughest retail environment in decades, multi-channel retailers in the United States turned to paid search in the run up to the holiday shopping season in an effort to boost sales.
SearchIgnite, a search management provider, today reported that US multi-channel retailers increased their spending on paid search by 12% in Q4 2008 as compared to Q4 2007.
Analyst forecast for 2009
Affiliate Census goes live in US and UK
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Online Advertising