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Challenges and
Opportunities of Online Public Relations the Focus of New Weekly Column by
Marcia Yudkin for PressReleaseNetwork.com
New York - 30 November
2001 - PR practitioners trying to master the Web and Internet veterans trying
to learn public relations both face challenges and opportunities that require
up-to-date answers and guidance.
A new weekly column
designed to orient publicity seekers from all kinds of backgrounds launches
today at www.PressReleaseNetwork.com, written by Internet marketing and
publicity guru Marcia Yudkin.
Yudkin, the author of Six Steps to Free Publicity, Internet Marketing
for Less than $500/Year and other books on offline and online publicity and
marketing, will cover such issues as:
- - how to write search-engine-friendly press releases
- - steps that reduce mistakes by reporters who interview you
- - angles that get your message picked up off the newswires
- - how to find and use editorial calendars online
- - do's and don'ts for an online press room
- - how to get media people subscribing to your company's email newsletter
- - why and how to retarget releases for different niches
For more than a year, Yudkin moderated the ClickZ Forum for online
marketers and she currently moderates I-Content, a discussion list for online
writers, publishers and entrepreneurs.
"We are delighted to have Marcia Yudkin onboard and join our
panel of eminent contributors. She will add value content for our site visitors
and will hopefully build a fan following through this platform " says
Sharad Agarwal, founder and CEO of Press Release Network, which distributes
news to more than 20,000 media outlets around the world in the client's choice
of over 75 circuits in 60 countries. ...Press Release Network |
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Online Meetings Are
Becoming the Meeting Style of Choice, According to IDC's Study
November 28, 2001 -
Regardless of industry or company size, online meetings are becoming the
preferred meeting style, according to 573 enterprise conferencing administrators
who participated in IDC's 2001 conferencing survey. The steepest use
in conferencing is expected in the telecommunication, business consulting, and
retail sectors, where between 77% and 100% of survey respondents anticipate
greater conferencing use in the next six months.
"Businesses are using conferencing applications more than ever,
in part because conferencing is a way to cut travel costs," said Robert
Mahowald, senior research analyst in IDC's Collaborative Computing service. "But
the real story is in how business users are growing to accept online meetings as
a replacement for most meeting types. The current and future usage patterns
suggested by this survey indicate that conferencing applications have arrived as
core business collaboration assets."
According to IDC's recent survey, convenience and security were chief
factors for both small and large companies when considering a conferencing
application. These factors highlight an opportunity for vendors to concentrate
on products that can scale easily, are simple to use, and are standards-based.
Conferencing will become a staple feature as vendors build easy-to-use
applications and services. This growth will allow conferencing to span the
bridge between formal and casual use and become more solidified as a
collaborative tool.
With the market for conferencing applications growing rapidly, IDC
believes conferencing vendors must develop clear, actionable strategies for
successfully designing, positioning, and marketing their conferencing software
and services. IDC reveals five winning strategies for vendors in a recently
released bulletin, Five Strategies for Conferencing Vendors: Select Results from
IDC's 2001 Conferencing Survey (IDC #W25971). ...IDC
Editor's comment:- as an editor,
I collaborate with people in thousands of companies worldwide. I solved my time
management problem regarding meetings a long time ago... I don't actually meet
anyone physically, except rarely at a trade show. In the last 5 years I've got
along fine on about one day of physical meetings in each year. That's an extreme
case, but shows what can be done.
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Effective Banner Ad
Campaign Management: view from an ad server ASP
November 28, 2001- a new
article on MarketingViews by ADPUSH shows you the functions you
can get by adding banner ad technology to your web site. No knowledge of
CGI or Java is required.
Editor's comment:- banner technology isn't
just restricted to publishers and advertisers. It can be used by marketers to
add marketing messages to your own company web site. The new messages can be
created and added in minutes and monitored in real-time from your browser. |
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View from the Hill - The
Next Decade in Storage
November 28, 2001- a new
article on STORAGEsearch attempts to look ahead 10 years in the storage
market, and discusses the following questions.
- Who will dominate the storage market?
- The end of operating systems?
- The end of tape backup?
See also:-
more articles about
STORAGE |
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NewsToBuy offers XML
content publishing for rent
Stockholm - November 26, 2001
- Today CNet launched NewsToBuy, an easy-to-use ASP service
offering small and medium sized publishers all editorial tools and cross media
publishing functions needed to run a professional publishing business.
Designed entirely around XML technology, NewsToBuy provides a cost effective
solution for small publishers such as local newspapers, trade magazines and
trade portals to run their web publishing business. The NewsToBuy application
service offers a complete editorial system, news archive, newsletter
distribution, cross media publishing to different formats and channels,
integration of external news feeds as well as export of news feeds.
Publishers can easily manage their own web portals and digital newspapers
without having to install any hardware, database or content management system.
Editing, categorization and prioritizing of news articles is done through an
Internet browser and the publisher can chose any layout they want. Besides
publishing to web portals it is also possible to export content for paper
publishing and for news syndication using XML formats such as NewsML and RSS.
"With NewsToBuy we can offer small publishers the same advanced
functions as large newspapers have in their publishing system, but at a fraction
of the cost," says Peter Rosengren, CEO of CNet Sweden.
Another important target market for NewsToBuy is micro publishers such
as freelance journalists and business intelligence specialists, that need to
deliver news items to be included in corporate intranets and portals.
With NewsToBuy they get a technical platform to serve their customers
with tailored news feeds which can be delivered through different channels in
any format their customer requires.NewsToBuy is available for immediate
delivery. The monthly rate is $649 and there is no start-up fee.
...CNet
Editor's
comments:- sometimes you visit a corporate web site and are impressed by the
publication quality of their news pages - well chances are they've syndicated
the content from a newswire such as Moreover
or PR Newswire. The classical way to
do this was to link via Java scripts, but let's be honest, how many marketers
want to trade in the BMW for a VW Beatle and dive into C code? XML sounds much
friendlier, and a better way to avoid those annoying Java errors you get from
time to time. At ACSL
we don't use any syndicated content, so if you see strange things on your screen
from time to time, like mice or goblins or pirates, we can't blame the software. |
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Reasons to be Worried: Your
Press Releases are Hosted on a Newswire
November 26, 2001 - a new
article on MarketingViews shows why implementing your news pages via an
external newswire ASP is only a partial solution. There's significant
downside risks in such a solution if it's not effectively supported by
complementary human PR services. |
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Channel Strategies for IT
OEMs: Recruiting VARs in Europe
November 21,
2001 - a new article on MarketingViews provides practical advice and
resources for US based IT marketers on how to identify and recruit VARs in
Europe.
Editor's comments:- in 10 years of computer directory
publishing, I've been actively involved (via our databases) in channel
recruitment programs for more than 100 US companies, and indirectly (via our
publications) thousands of VARs in the US and Europe sell IT brands as a result
of our activities. Some of the information in this article is also useful for
European distis (another category I've been involved with over the years). |
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HPshopping.com Wins Fourth
Consecutive WebAward...
PALO ALTO, Calif. -
Nov. 20, 2001 - Hewlett-Packard Company today announced that its online
retailer, hpshopping.com, has been named the "Best Computer Retailer Web
Site" by the Web Marketing Association (WMA). HPshopping.com, which
offers consumers a complete selection of HP home and home office products at
http://www.hpshopping.com, ranked highly in every judging category, including
design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, navigation and ease of
use. This year's title follows previous WebAwards from the WMA for "Standard
of Excellence" and "Outstanding Website."
The WMA was
founded in 1997 to help set a high standard for Internet marketing and corporate
Web development and is the producer of the WebAwards, an annual competition
designed to judge corporate Web sites against an Internet standard and against
peer sites within their industry.
Editor's comments:- you can judge how much value the above award
has by trying to find the Web Marketing Association web site. It's not WMA.com,
nor WMA.org... As it's been around several years it should be easy if you type
"Web Marketing Association" and search Google or AltaVista. If you
can't find a site doing that, then you know that the artists are in control, and
web traffic and other direct marketing considerations are considered irrelevant,
if they are considered at all. I did manage to find the site eventually, by
searching for other award winners.
Here's a cautionary tale... In the
1990's many "award" sites were set up as scams to attract high
traffic. They sent emails to the webmasters of high volume sites saying they had
won awards, and the high volume site would run their logo and a link back from
their home page. It's great for your ego getting an award like this. Then
marketers stepped in and asked "why are we wasting valuable home page real
estate on this nonsense?" I'm not saying that this award is in that
category at all, it seems genuine, and HP have created a press release from it,
so good luck to them, but many marketing organizations actually have the worst
web sites, as you can see if you click on ...Web Marketing Association |
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35% of All Americans are
Satisfied With their Online Shopping Experience, According to Goldman Sachs,
Harris Interactive and Nielsen//Netratings
NEW
YORK AND ROCHESTER, NY – November 19, 2001 – Thirty-five percent of
all Americans report being very satisfied with their online holiday shopping
experience, according to the eSpending Report released today by Goldman
Sachs, a leading global investment banking and securities firm, Harris
Interactive, a worldwide market research and consulting firm, and NetRatings,
Inc., the fastest growing Internet audience measurement and analysis firm.
Additionally, 17 percent stated that their holiday shopping satisfaction is
higher this season than last year.
"Quality customer service has
not been impacted by the dot-com shake out or economic conditions this year and
remains a key factor for online shoppers," said Sean Kaldor, vice
president, analytical services, NetRatings. According to the Nielsen//NetRatings
Holiday eCommerce Index, traffic to ecommerce Web sites jumped 14 percent during
the second week of November, signaling the beginning of the online holiday
shopping season. Lower prices and the ability to easily compare products and
item cost on the Internet led 39 percent of Americans to shop online this past
week. Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed said pricing was their main
purchasing factor, while 59 percent cited product selection. Additionally, 26
percent of shoppers indicated that shipping costs are impacting their purchasing
decisions this season. ...Nielsen//Netratings |
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Offline Deals Result In
Lower Online Sales In October, According To The Forrester Research Online Retail
Index
Cambridge,
Mass. - November 19, 2001 - Forrester Research, Inc. in conjunction
with Greenfield Online, today announced the results of the latest
Forrester Online Retail Index. According to the 22nd survey in this monthly
series, total US spending on online sales decreased from $4.0 billion in
September to $3.6 billion in October. The number of households shopping online
decreased to 13.7 million in October, from 15.2 million in September. Consumers
spent an average of $265 per person in October, compared with $262 in September.
"Great deals -- like zero-percent financing -- in the
brick-and-mortar world lured consumers back to the malls after a slow September,
but they decreased their use of the Web to make purchases," said
Christopher M. Kelley, analyst at Forrester. "And, while they were out
buying a car that they won't have to pay for until next year, it was also
convenient to pick up a sweater and CD that they might otherwise have bought
online."
...Forrester Research |
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Can Intel Measure Up in the
Server Market? New In-Stat/MDR Report Provides Insight
SCOTTSDALE,
Ariz. - November 19, 2001 - Intel Corp. has made significant inroads
into the server market with its new Xeon (the server version of Pentium 4) line
of processors and is on its way to shaking up the market over the next several
years according to Cahners In-Stat/MDR. The high-tech market
research firm reports, that the chip manufacturer will have its work cut out as
the 64-bit server market still has several leaders including IBM and Sun.
Senior Analyst, Kevin Krewell states, "Muscling into IBM and Sun
territory will take considerable ingenuity, but Intel may be up to the task.
Intel plans to upgrade areas with succeeding products to pull ahead of its
rivals' benchmarks, but that evolution will take several years."
To
succeed in the server market segment, Intel must match or exceed its competitors
in reliability, serviceability and performance. In-Stat has also found that:
- Intel will not obsolete the 32-bit Xeon within the timeframe of this
report. The large die, high power, and mediocre integer performance of the
initial Itanium will preclude it from winning many designs, but the next
generation (McKinley) will offer architectural improvements. In 2H02, a process
shrink to 0.13-micron will create a manufacturable Itanium.
- Intel will not migrate all server designs to the Xeon or Itanium
processors. It will continue to use the Pentium III-S and Banias through 2003
for dense or blade servers. Intel's focus on the server market is partially to
offset decreasing ASPs (Average Selling Prices) for PC processors.
- Despite Intel's slashing prices of desktop processors by up to 51%, Intel's
workstation and server ASP should be stable during 2001 and begin sinking in
2H02.
The report, Intel Server and Workstation Processors (#IN0105IN),
focuses on Intel's workstation and server processor business and includes
volume, product, and clock speed estimates to 4Q03; pricing projections to 4Q02.
This report covers the transition of the Itanium (IA-64) processor family
through three generations. Chip set and platform technologies are included.
Intel's x86 competition includes AMD in the mid-range and Transmeta in the
low-end. Data is based on In-Stat/MDR's proprietary model, dating back as far as
1995. To purchase this report, or for more information, please contact Erin
McKeighan at 480-609-4551; emckeighan@instat.com. The report price is $1,995
USD. ...Cahners In-Stat/MDR |
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ACSL Launches
MarketingViews, a Resource Site for Switched On IT Marketers
Baughurst, UK, November
19, 2001 - ACSL, publisher of STORAGEsearch.com and the SPARC Product
Directory today announced the launch of a new web publication, called MarketingViews
aimed at marketers in IT companies in the US and UK. MarketingViews will
contain directories of useful marketing resources and articles aimed to help
marketers become more effective at all aspects of electronic marketing.
Editor's
comments:- today is our official site launch. If you've seen the site before,
that was the "under construction" version. From today, the content
will expand and get better. |
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Gigabit
Ethernet Port Shipments Grew 6% in 3Q01, According to Dell'Oro Group
Redwood City,
Calif. - November 16, 2001- According to Dell'Oro Group, Gigabit
Ethernet port shipments grew 6% Q/Q to 1.2 M ports for 3Q01. Customers
continue to migrate to this technology for backbone and server connectivity
because of its price-performance advantage over lower-speed technologies. |
While port shipments grew
sequentially, revenues for this segment declined 5%, mostly due to a shift away
from more expensive chassis-based products to less expensive fixed configuration
products. This shift to fixed configuration products was also took place in the
overall Ethernet Switch market. With tightened IT budgets it is likely that
customers turned to less expensive solutions, especially for wiring closet
deployments, during 3Q01.
The Dell'Oro Group's Ethernet Switch Report provides in-depth data and
analysis on the following technologies: Ethernet Switches (Layer 2 EN, Layer 3
EN, Layer 4/7 EN Switch & Appliances [10, 100, and 1000 Mbps]). The report
focuses on detailed quarterly analysis of market size, market share, port/unit
shipments and average selling prices as it pertains to markets and vendors. To
purchase this report, please contact Cheryl Funke at 650-622-9400 ext. 222. ...Dell'Oro Group |
| 3Q01
Market Leaders (Revenue) Gigabit Ethernet |
| Vendor |
Quarterly
Mkt. Share |
| Cisco
|
47.7% |
| Extreme |
8.6% |
| Enterasys |
8.5% |
| Nortel |
7.4% |
| Foundry |
5.9% |
| Alcatel
|
3.6% | | |
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Search Engine Pay-Per-Click
Programs: Fortune Or Fraud?
November 16, 2001 - a new
article on Webseed.com discusses the merits of pay-per-click advertising
on search-engines. Goto (now called Overture) was the first to legitemise
these, and their outputs are syndicated by most leading search sites including
AltaVista and Yahoo. ...Webseed.com
Editor's
comments:- the above is a new site to me, and I hope you find it useful. As a
publisher I think there's a delicate balance to be drawn between providing
comprehensive information (without which your site is useless to readers) and
boosting the visibility of advertisers (in a way which works but doesn't upset
readers). That's difficult for general search-engines because they don't have a
lasting relationship with the markets they address, and they cover a range of
subjects which are too broad for them to understand economically. |
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SponsorAudit™, the
First Sponsorship Audit System for Sponsors and Communication Agencies
New York & London -
November 15, 2001 - SponsorClick announced today the launch of
SponsorAudit, an innovative sponsorship audit service. With SponsorAudit,
Sponsors and Communication Agencies can assess the value and quality of a
sponsorship by a brand or a product.
In the past, very few methodologies and benchmark capacities were
available to Marketing Managers and Account Managers. SponsorClick's new audit
service evaluates how the brand or product benefits from sponsorship, measures
its impact, benchmarks it against competitors' choices and suggests
improvements.
Xavier Quattrocchi, CEO of SponsorClick, commented, "We have
tested this service with a panel of sponsors and communication agencies. On the
whole, they were very pleased with the results of the study. Clients
particularly favoured our recommendation on how to integrate sponsorship with
other marketing/communication channels, such as direct marketing, PR, sampling,
e-marketing, to name a few."
In order to gain the best results from assessing a sponsorship, a
third party evaluation from an independent auditor, is a must. The auditor
brings to the table a deep knowledge of and expertise in the subject at hand.
The cost is $7,800 per Audit (including 30% discount until Dec. 31, 2001).
...SponsorClick
Editor's
comments:- I was having a discussion with some IT marketing gurus this week, and
we agreed that most marketing people in IT companies have a piss poor idea of
what their competitors are doing. The above kind of service can be used to
research your competitors activities as well as your own. |
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PR Strategies: Remember,
the web has no memory!
November 15, 2001 - a
new article on MarketingViews discusses the problems and missed
opportunities caused by the transient nature of everything on the web. It
also discusses strategies for archiving critical page views, so they can be
leveraged next week, next month or even 5 years in the future.
Editor's
comments:- if your boss reads MarketingViews, then you no longer have an excuse
when disaster strikes later, because you should have read this article:-) |
|
| today's news etc from
MarketingViews | |
|
Other news on this page
Challenges
and Opportunities of Online Public Relations the Focus of New Weekly Column by
Marcia Yudkin for PressReleaseNetwork.com
Online Meetings Are Becoming
the Meeting Style of Choice, According to IDC's Study
Effective Banner
Ad Campaign Management: view from an ad server ASP
View from the Hill
- The Next Decade in Storage
NewsToBuy offers XML content publishing
for rent
Reasons to be Worried: Your Press Releases are Hosted on a
Newswire
Channel Strategies for IT OEMs: Recruiting VARs in Europe
HPshopping.com
Wins Fourth Consecutive WebAward
35% of All Americans are Satisfied
With their Online Shopping Experience, According to Goldman Sachs, Harris
Interactive and Nielsen//Netratings
Offline Deals Result In Lower Online Sales In October, According To
The Forrester Research Online Retail Index
Can Intel Measure Up in the
Server Market? New In-Stat/MDR Report Provides Insight
ACSL Launches
MarketingViews, a Resource Site for Switched On IT Marketers
Gigabit
Ethernet Port Shipments Grew 6% in 3Q01, According to Dell'Oro Group
Search
Engine Pay-Per-Click Programs: Fortune Or Fraud?
SponsorAudit™,
the First Sponsorship Audit System for Sponsors and Communication Agencies
PR
Strategies: Remember, the web has no memory!
earlier news (archive) |
|
 |
Serial ATA on
STORAGEsearch.com |
| Megabyte's
Auntie, Wanda Spellerbyte, liked to use a mixture of traditional and new
technology when gadding about her relations. | |
|
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Nibble Re:
Solid State Disks
Readers of
STORAGEsearch have increased their
interest in Solid State Disks (SSDs) this year by a staggering
500%.
- In January/February 2001, 1.3% of readers visited the SSD
pages.
- In October 2001, over 6% of readers visited the SSD pages.
As we've got a larger readership than any other enterprise storage
portal, and because SSDs are a well established feature on this site (since
1998), it's reasonable to assume that the growth in reader interest is
significant and probably indicates a real market trend.
SSDs are not
new (the first SSDs appeared in military systems in the 1980's), but I'm
speculating that there are two likely reasons for the recent surge in interest.
- the increasing use of SANs. SAN's give higher throughput
and better network utilisation of storage assets, but... response times are
slower than using directly attached storage. SSDs enable users to cache time
critical parts of their network storage to overcome this problem.
- the Sun installed base of servers has been
starved of faster
processor clock speeds in 2001, with most new SPARC systems typically
offering 900MHz instead of the 2GHz which the market actually needs.
Traditionally many Sun users would have upgraded their servers by now. Market
data shows that has not happened. The Sun server market declined much more
steeply than the Intel Pentium server market. The only realistic options for Sun
users who needed application speed ups have been to buy more of the (slower)
processors, or tune their system performance using products like SSDs.
The first analysis above (SAN), suggests that SSDs will eventually
become mainstream network storage tools. The second (lack of fast enough SPARC
upgrades) would result in a temporary increase in SSDs as a system speed up.
We'll report on this again later to see how the trend is going.
See
also:- Solid state disks |
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