Latest Articles

Alexander McCall-Smith Engages Web 2.0

The Daily Telegraph is in the middle of a 20-week serialisation of an online book created by author Alexander McCall-Smith, his first such project. New Media Knowledge caught up with the organisers to discuss ‘Corduroy Mansions’.

more

Business Brief: Video Advertising Looks to Future

Google has announced it will incentivise advertisers on its video properties as well as launching research programmes into how Web users consume Internet video material. New Media Knowledge spoke to a number of industry players to gauge their views on where the video advertising market is going.

more

‘Virtual Home’ for Ex-Pats in London Established

A social network aimed at providing information for ex-pats living in London has been established. New Media Knowledge met the site’s co-founder to find out more.

more

• Rough Guide to: Social Media and the Law
• Record Visits for UK Blog Sites
• Clearing Congestion
• Rough Guide to: Pay-Per-Click Advertising
• Opinion: What Happens to Newspapers?
• LinkedIn Adds Business Applications
• What Happens to Newspapers?

Related Articles

• Business Brief: Video Advertising Looks to Future

  Google has announced it will incentivise advertisers on its video properties as well as launching research programmes into how Web users consume Internet video material. New Media Knowledge spoke to a number of industry players to gauge their views on where the video advertising market is going. more

• Rough Guide to: Pay-Per-Click Advertising

  Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on the Web has been one of the major growth sectors in marketing. Last year, Internet search engine Google overtook ITV for monies received from advertising and nearly $2 billion was spent on PPC globally. New Media Knowledge spoke to a PPC consultant to gauge what companies looking at the technology should consider. more

• Winning Over The “Ad-weary”

  With research in the US appearing to show that consumers respond increasingly to product placement and word-of-mouth before making purchases, New Media Knowledge's Chris Lee met with an online ad network to discuss how advertisers can use the web to better effect. more

• Online Advertising Bucks Flagging Market

  The industry received a welcome boost this week with the news that Internet advertising revenues rose significantly in the first half of 2008, despite tough economic conditions. NMK quizzed the industry on what we can expect for the next year. more

• ITV’s Overlay Advertising Trial Panned

  Troubled ITV is experimenting with ‘automatically placed overlay advertising’ to help revive flagging revenues. NMK’s Chris Lee canvassed opinion from around the new media industry about the move. more

Google Finally Doubleclicks

Google has strengthened its position in the online advertising space by finally acquiring DoubleClick for $3.1 billion. Tim Hoang reports.

The merger of the world’s most popular search engine and the industry leader in matching ads to people’s Internet activities has put renewed pressure on Microsoft to win its hostile bid for Yahoo!

"We are thrilled that our acquisition of DoubleClick has closed," said Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform, which will enable us to rapidly bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users."

The deal, initially announced in April 2007, was finalised after the European regulators signed off on the deal. The European Commission concluded that the transaction "would be unlikely to have harmful effects on consumers either in ad serving or in intermediation in online advertising markets … Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment."

US regulators approved the deal last year after Google ended a bidding war with Microsoft by agreeing to pay $3.1 billion to acquire DoubleClick. The US federal Trade Commission said at the time that they could not prevent the acquisition as Google and DoubleClick "are not direct competitors in any relevant antitrust market." The panel members voted 4-1 to allow the deal to go ahead.

Speaking in April 2007, Microsoft opposed the merger stating that it would "raise serious competition and privacy concerns in that it gives the Google DoubleClick combination unprecedented control in the delivery of online advertising, and access to a huge amount of consumer information by tracking what customers do online."

Those concerned about the deal also raise questions about the privacy of Internet users. In a practice common in the industry, DoubleClick installs cookies on internet users’ computer in order to track the pages they view. Google could effectively merge this data with its own ability to store search terms and identify users through IP addresses. The company would then have more information on internet users than ever before.

Oliver Bishop, CEO of media company Steak, however, believes that the merger could help small businesses advertise more effectively on the web.

"I’m excited about this deal. It has the potential to do for display advertising what Google has already done for search. Namely, bring it to the masses. I expect display advertising will now become more accessible to small and medium sized businesses. As with search, the size of your marketing budget will not be a barrier to display advertising online," he said.

According to Bishop the merger could also progress the advertising industry.

"This deal could break another important barrier - that between branding and direct response. The cutting-edge tracking and reporting this deal brings, will empower advertisers to understand how their different advertising buys interact with one another and their combined affect on sales. It’s no longer about direct response or branding. It’s about how every piece of your marketing and communication work together and impact one another to drive purchasing decisions. Add to that the potential for enhanced targeting and personalisation of ads, and I believe the Google/DoubleClick deal could have a huge influence on growing the whole online advertising market," he said.