Posts tagged AOL
MARKETING NEWS BITES: Apple’s 4G iPhone to launch June 7, RIM unveils BlackBerry 6 and Microsoft’s next generation Messenger
Apr 29th
A round up of news from around the web:
Apple is expected to formally debut its next-generation iPhone at a developers conference on June 7, the start of its five-day Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The annual event has become a stage for Apple to unveil software updates, particularly for iPhones that star in the company’s line-up of popular mobile gadgets. AFP
Research in Motion has unveiled the new features in BlackBerry 6, saying the update to the BlackBerry operating system will arrive in the next quarter. The new OS — described by RIM co-chief Mike Lazaridis as its “the biggest step forward” — was shown to an audience of BlackBerry partners, developers and users at the company’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium in Orlando, Florida. ZDNet
AOL is to sell its ICQ instant messaging service to Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian internet company, for $187.5m, or less than half the $400m it paid for ICQ in 1998. The disposal came as AOL yesterday reported a 58 per cent decline in first quarter net profit and a 23 per cent drop in revenue year-on-year. Financial Times
Microsoft has announced the next generation of Windows Live Messenger, promising better sharing and interactivity. The onus of the Messenger redux is very much about creating richer and more meaningful conversations through the service, adding things like social-network integration and better video and photo sharing. Tech Radar
New figures reveal that that 66.7% of US Internet users—147.5 million people—are watching video online each month. By 2014, that figure is forecast to rise to 77% of Internet users, or 193.1 million people. eMarketer
Bing appears to be winning the search engine battle, why?
Dec 1st
Is Google’s 13 years of dominance about to come to an end as we switch to the cool new Bing?
It may have only been launched in June this year, but already Microsoft’s “decision engine” Bing has already increased its usage by 7%. Google however, has seen the number of searches conducted slip by 1% – could this signal the beginning of the end of Google monopoly?
According to new research from Hitwise, Google accounted for 70.6% of all US searches in October.
Yahoo! Search, Bing and Ask.com received 16.14%, 9.57% and 2.62%, respectively.
The launch of Google’s first global advertising push, which will include the UK, France, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Singapore, came as a surprise considering the search engine king built its entire empire without a single advert, relying only on word-of-mouth.
Google is feeling the heat from rising competitors for the first time with Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing sparing nothing in their assault on its market share.
Microsoft is next year launching its first true web version of Office that will complement its traditional Office apps. Google, with its global campaign, is attempting to steal a march on the competition before it even launches, which is smart. But will businesses ever see Google as a serious competitor and software solutions provider looking beyond its search engine capabilities?
Microsoft isn’t doing this all alone, remember. It partnered up with ailing search engine Yahoo just a few months back and although the deal is currently awaiting approval over competition concerns from the US Justice Department, it already has the backing of advertising heavyweights including WPP, Publicis Groupe and Omnicom.
Google has also been slow to make as big as an impact as it was hoping for with its browser Google Chrome. It holds just a 2.59 per cent share, well behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which has 67.7 per cent of the market share.
While this may be the first global campaign from Google, it certainly can’t be the last.
Google has not only lost its stranglehold in western nations, but also in emerging markets such as China. In fact, China’s Baidu now holds the title of ‘the world’s largest search engine’ (given China’s 1.3 billion strong population) despite Google’s presence there. Google’s struggle to crack China is just one of the giant’s many anxieties over the past few years.
Google has always maintained that it isn’t worried about competition, but perhaps this is starting to change. Tell us what you think below.
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