« February 2008 | Main | April 2008 »
Link: Google Oozing Ads - Forbes.com.
Declining numbers from pay-per-click advertising and an upper level exodus to social networking rival Facebook has Google a bit depressed this year, 36.5% to be exact. The Internet prodigy has analysts questioning whether the decline is from macroeconomic effects or if Google is making its own problems.
Link: The Role of the Brand in Social Media Marketing - Search Engine Watch.
People online are seeking new ways to connect and be social. To meet that growing need, a new wave of social media sites have germinated explicitly to provide tools and platforms that facilitate sharing in all its facets and forms. The recent popularity of online social networks gives testimony to our most primitive desire to belong, as we congregate around the things we are most passionate about.
In 2008, 100.4 million females
and 93.5 million males will go online at least once a month, according
to eMarketer's latest estimates. In 2012 females will outnumber males
online by more than 8 million.
Visit eMarketer for the full story.
So you check TripAdvisor religiously every day and are on top of all comments posted by past guests, but how do you receive "buy in" from your "Operations Team" that Social Media does effect your revenue?
Have a look at the article we just published. We discuss using operational attributes to track your online chatter enabling better performance metrics related to "loose chatter" about your hotel.
The March 2008 Hotel HorizonsSM forecast of PKF Hospitality Research (PKF-HR) projects U.S. hotel RevPAR to increase just 3.0 percent in 2008. This pace of RevPAR growth is below the long-term average, as well as lower than the 4.5 percent estimate forecast by PKF-HR back in the fourth quarter of 2007. The downward adjustment to the RevPAR forecast was based on revised projections by Moody’s Economy.com, PKF-HR’s primary economic forecasting agency, who are calling for a U.S. recession this year.
NY Times Reports
Retailers and publishers have fought hard to work their way up in the ranking of Google’s search results and refine the search features of their own Web sites to help users once they arrive. Now, Google is taking a greater role in helping users search within particular sites. And some of the same retailers and publishers are not happy about it.
Yahoo Maps announced Wednesday that an update was rolled out, which includes several data and style improvements. Gus Maldonado, senior product manager, wrote on the Yahoo Local Maps Blog that users can expect to see lower zoom levels, new neighborhood data for 300 North American cities, and expanded worldwide coverage.
Google tops those results with a link to the home page of the Web site in question, adds another search box, and offers users the chance to let Google search for certain things within that site.
I don't know, you tell me. If you're not a firm believer that Social Media can HURT YOUR REVENUES, just have a look at MSNBC
Link: msnbc bad hotels.
Link: U.S. Core Search Rankings, February 2008 - ClickZ.
Google leads the top five search engines in the U.S. for share of searches, according to data released by comScore.
In Febuary, nearly 10 billion "core" searches were conducted in the U.S., which accounts for a 6 percent decline from January search activity. Core searches are defined as those searches performed on the five major engines: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask, plus across partner sites and channels.
