Internet marketing Yahoo boosts Freedom of Information awareness |
03.03.06 |
The Cabinet Office is using paid-for search engine placements to promote public awareness of the Freedom of Information Act.
Directgov, the government’s central internet portal, has since the summer of last year been using Yahoo’s Overture sponsored links service to direct web users to its FOIA page.
The government has revealed that it pays 10p per click to Overture for the sponsored link, which comes up under searches for the term “Freedom of Information Act.”
This information itself came to light following a Freedom of Information request made by Steve Wood, a lecturer at Liverpool John Moores Univesity, who runs the award winning Freedom of the Information Act Blog.
In total, between July last year and February this year, 1917 click-throughs were registered to the page through Overture sponsorship using the term “freedom of information act” and 1948 using “freedom of information.”
In total the government has spent £386.50 on sponsored links since last July.
And the number of views of Directgov’s FOIA page has increased considerably since the Overture service began, rising from 400 in July 2005 to a peak of over 6,700 in October last year. In January this year, 3,895 views were made.
Directgov’s use of Overture is not the first time the public sector has used sponsored links to generate more traffic.
Last April eGov monitor revealed that Bristol City Council had become the first local authority to use pay-per-click advertising to generate more web traffic when it launched a sponsored links through Google and Yahoo to attract visitors to its e-democracy initiative, AskBristol.com.
Google aims to build $100 billion company |
03.03.06 |
Web search leader Google Inc. aims to become a $100 billion company and plans to put computer systems and other investments in place to help reach that scale during 2006, executives said on Thursday.”I’ll leave it to you to judge whether that is $100 billion in market capitalization or revenue,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt coyly said as he outlined his 2006 priorities to Wall Street analysts at the annual Google Analyst Day meeting.
As of Wednesday, Google’s market capitalization was already more than $100 billion, at $111.5 billion. For all of 2005, Google had revenue of $6.14 billion, up 92.5 per cent from 2004’s $3.19 billion.
Three quarters of the way through a four-hour presentation, Google executives were relentlessly positive in detailing the company’s plans. They provided no further clues to comments by Chief Financial Officer George Reyes at an investor meeting earlier this week that Google growth is bound to slow, which sparked a sharp sell-off in its stock. (more…)
Microsoft, EU Feud Heating Up |
03.03.06 |
The long-running antitrust saga involving Microsoft and the European Union took another nasty turn as both sides engaged in fingerpointing and tossing around accusations of misconduct.
The EU threatened to fine Microsoft some $2.4 million per day if it did not provide the information needed by third-party developers to interoperate with Windows products. Microsoft has called out the EU for withholding documents related to the antitrust case, and accused the EU Competition Commission of colluding with Microsoft’s competitors.
Just another day in the life of the world’s biggest tech company, as AP reported on the latest developments in the EU’s antitrust case against Microsoft. (more…)
