End of Day: 9th May
May 9th, 2008 at 18:11 by Dave Tomlinson
Seems to be getting to be fairly regular now that I get to do the Friday end of day. I wonder if it’s because I get to work late and everyone else wants to escape to the weekend? Nah, just being a cynic in my old age I think.
Well the sooner we start the closer we get to home time… or something like that. More…
Grand Theft Auto IV - What’s the Usage Impact?
May 9th, 2008 at 14:56 by Dave Tomlinson
One of the biggest and most anticipated games of the year, Grand Theft Auto IV, was released last week. From Rockstar Games this is the sequel to the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and has been released on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Rumoured to have cost around $100m to develop with over 1,000 people working on it at some point it is the most expensive game ever.
- Initial figures suggest it has sold a record breaking 926,000 copies in the first week alone in the UK. That’s somewhere around 5% of all homes in the country.
- Our usage data shows that the day after release had the two busiest ever hours for gaming.
- It looks like a number of people stayed up very late into the morning on Wednesday playing it. Games and releases like this can have big impacts on usage for a short period as lots of people do the same thing at the same time. More…
End of Day: 8th May
May 8th, 2008 at 18:01 by Tamlyn
Myself and several other PlusNetters enjoyed GeekUp Sheffield last night. Now I’m heading back to London and hope to catch the end of the IxDA meetup. And then tomorrow afternoon there’s the TechCrunch UK meetup on the south bank. What fun! More…
Most OpenID criticisms are misguided
May 8th, 2008 at 15:52 by Tamlyn
It’s become quite fashionable to criticise OpenID these days and the latest tirade to come to my attention is from Kyle Neath. Although he raises some valid points, none of them are problems with OpenID. Rather they are general problems with proving identity on the internet. Like most critics of OpenID, Kyle seems to ignore the simple fact that we already have a single, centralised identity: email. Your email address is your identifier for most online services and shares many issues with OpenID. OpenID is not the be all and end all of online identity but it does offer many advantages over the currently favoured username/password system. More…
Win a subscription to Total PC Gaming!
May 8th, 2008 at 09:22 by chrisc
We’ve teamed up with Imagine publishing to offer you the chance to win one of 5 subscriptions to Total PC Gaming magazine, worth over £40. More…
End of Day: 7th May
May 7th, 2008 at 17:19 by Tamlyn
The sunny weather continues in Sheffield. Get those barbecues fired up if you haven’t already and make the best of it while it lasts. Remember last summer? Yeah, neither do I. More…
ISPs, File Sharing, P2P, UK Law and all that Jazz - A Follow Up
May 7th, 2008 at 13:49 by Dave Tomlinson
The subject of filesharing is one that will run and run. It’s one that elicits emotion and gets people talking. Many many thousands, millions maybe, of people are interested in the subject whether as a file sharer themselves, a copyright holder (or both), an ISP, a legislator or just an outside observer. This subject has people talking and they have many opinions. We posted a couple of months ago about action taken by one software house against people they believed had illegally downloaded and/or uploaded their copyright material and we’ve responded to David Cameron’s call for ISPs to block copyright material. More…
PlusNet’s response to Google trademark rule changes
May 7th, 2008 at 08:46 by phil
If you’re anything like me, you’ll use your browser’s built-in Google search more than the address bar itself to find websites. The search engine is so pervasive (it’s in my desktop browser, Nintendo Wii Internet channel and the iPhone I’d love to own) that ‘googling’ is often the easiest way.
That’s why this week’s changes to Google’s trademark rules are quite significant. Until 5th May, companies were not permitted to bid against trademarked terms. I commented on this story in the Financial Times a couple of weeks ago (requires free registration), and it’s also been covered in The Times Business Section this weekend.
Google’s trademark rule changes effectively force every company to pay for advertisements as well being listed in natural search, or face losing clicks to competitors.
Here’s how it works: If you enter ‘PlusNet’ into Google, it made sense that you should be shown results that are relevant to your search. This is very different from searching for ‘UK broadband’ for example. New rules have changed all this, and it’s all going to drive extra cash towards Google. Already other companies are starting to bid against PlusNet’s terms. It’s natural that we would want to be the top result - after all, you’re searching for PlusNet, right?
At PlusNet we chose to bid against our own name, but we weren’t obliged to. Since May 5th, to flourish in a competitive market, we’re going to have to start paying more to Google or risk being drowned-out by competitors with bigger budgets. Of course, we’re able to bid against other trademark terms, but our competitors have much deeper pockets and currently pay up to £12 per click to Google for every click on the word ‘broadband’.
How else could this affect you? If you run a small business and use search engine marketing to promote your products then you face the same challenge. The risk grows the more successful you are, because your company name will become more of a target if it generates a high volume of searches. For example, if you run a small business of 3 flower shops across your region and generate lots of leads online, you could find that big national players are able to bid against your company name when previously they may not have been able to. If you generate a significant number of searches, it’s a realistic scenario as there are lots of software tools that let search companies target the ‘long tail’ of related terms. It’s like a competitor sticking a big billboard on the side of your corner store.
What do you think?
- Are you glad that there’s now more opportunity for advertisers to target your search?
- Or would you prefer to have search limited just to the subjects / companies you asked for?
I’d love to hear your opinions.
Phil Sheard, Emarketing manager @ PlusNet
Twitter me: philsheard
End of Day: 6th May
May 6th, 2008 at 17:38 by Colin
Pete said in a recent Tweet “I hate Tuesdays that masquerade as Mondays.. Bank Holidays are as much a curse as a blessing when you’ve deadlines to meet.” and I have to say, I agree with him. Today’s been a strange day, and coupled with the fact that everyone has twice the amount of work to do to catch up!
How much usage do you need?
May 6th, 2008 at 16:00 by martyn
As you may know by now, we’ve just increased the usage allowances on three of our Broadband Your Way products. But if you don’t know how much you use, how do you know which product to choose? Our new minisite can help. More…
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