Australian online news and views

Check out this service driven website when you get the chance.

Quotify is a part branded site that is part of Life events media.

Interesting idea for a business not dissimilars to service central or even local search.

So far they are covering a couple of industries.

Pest control
Cleaning
Carpet cleaning
Kitchens
Removalists
and securtiy

I wonder what areas they will be moving into next.

The whole life events idea is smart, I swear the old one to one marketing is slowly coming intop play… Next we will be eye scanning like in the
“Minority report”.

later Ken

Alittle about this comp[any

Here at Quotify.com.au we’ve made it our business to understand what really is helpful for home and business owners when it comes to understanding all things cleaning related. With our proprietary matching technology we match you with a range of cleaning experts that have met our exacting standards.

To find the best cleaning professional in your area, a customer first submits a brief description of his or her needs by answering a series of short questions. This simple interview not only helps us understand your expectations, but it help you look carefully at all the parts of your problem - from how to find a professional to the best way to work with one once you have made a choice.

Quotify.com.au service professionals are thoroughly screened before being included in our network so you can be confident in your selection. Our mission is to create a better connection between the right consumer and the right service professional.

Google get some press in Australia.

Funnily enough I haven’t seen many article on Google Australia.

Shouldn’t be so hard for them being so dominant in the market with what about 80% of all searches in OZ.

And considering they are in the same building as Fairfax it would be hard to not bump into each other literally.

Not to mention the fact that the new boss comes from there as well.

Here is the full article in the SMH.com.au

now for some Google ads

I love it from “advertising cars to selling cars” different mind set for the team in the end…

results are great up 100%

This is an article from baandt

Carsales earnings up 100%

Carsales.com.au has reported income after tax of $11.8m, an increase of 100% on the previous year.

Revenue at the company was up to 62% to $46.2m, with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation hitting $17.1m, up 99%.

“This year has seen significant growth in all core areas of the business and our lead as Australia’s number one automotive website has increased substantially,” said Greg Roebuck, managing director at Carsales.com.au.

“Our recent acquisition of Discount Vehicles Australia further extends our market position in particular in the new car area. The strong management team and continued focus from the entire staff has allowed us to grow the business whilst ensuring that our key requirement of helping our customers to ‘stop advertising and to start selling’ is achieved.”

Carsales.com.au is made up of more than 400 shareholders, including a 50% shareholding by PBL Media.

28 August 2007

Online retail almost doubles to hit record high
by Nikki Sandison Brand Republic 20-Aug-07, 11:50

LONDON - Online shopping sales have exceeded £4bn a month for the first time, up 80% on last year, with sales for last month up £1.86bn on July 2006.

The highest sales growth was in electrical goods, with sales 102% higher than the previous year, according to the IMRG Index, which records UK online retail sales.
July’s 80% year-on-year growth is in stark contrast with the average of the preceding 12 months, of just 36%.

Ulric Jerome, Pixmania’s managing director for France & Northern Europe, said: “June and July are key months for sales of electrical products on the internet, as people buy electrical goods for their summer holidays: digital cameras, MP3s, laptops.
“Since the beginning of the year we have seen that confidence in internet shopping has reached a very high level in the mindset of consumers.”
Online clothing sales were 56% higher than a year earlier, reaching a record high, with growth of 1,587% from February 2001 to July 2007.
Factors contributing to July’s strong growth included the wet weather encouraging people to shop online, many new-season catalogues being published, and new or updated websites with greatly expanded product ranges.
James Roper, IMRG’s chief executive, said: “July’s extraordinarily strong market growth spotlights the high level of consumer demand, and yet we are really only just beginning to see basic facilities arriving, and still have nowhere near enough capacity to meet shoppers’ appetite for e-retail.”

and another text version

I have never actually tested any online stors such as this one…but it seems to me that we are still a while away from users watching and paying for TV /
video content online.

Especially in Australia but i may be wrong…………I am sure some adult orientated content has been paid for over the years hmmmmm

Does that mena that certian material in niche areas would work?

I wonder what happens if i stick an adsense ad in here

I haven’t been to this site for a while…..it is now worth checking out again.

If you live in Australia and work in the online industry you could be worse off by not visiting

The digitalministry.com.au

The site has grown somewhat an even has a jobs section now.

I use to use this siye when i was in the UK….jeepers it has grown….

Article from Brand republic starts here=

Gumtree.com, the free local classifieds site, is launching in the US to target the 2m British, Polish and Antipodean ex-pats.

Gumtree US will initially be rolled out in Boston, New York City and Chicago, with plans to expand elsewhere in the country, should the site prove popular. The launch is being supported by local media and search engine optimisation, with a strong emphasis on word of mouth marketing.

Martin Tschopp, general manager of Gumtree International said: “Offering free classifieds to local communities is what we are all about and this is what our existing users and the ex-pat communities across Chicago, NYC and Boston have asked us for.”As with other countries, our success in the US will depend on attracting great community-generated content.”
Gumtree hopes that the site will provide strong competition to the US classified sites Craigslist, which has shaken up the world of classified advertising since its launch; and Kijiji, which is an offshoot of eBay.
Gumtree now covers 70 international cities, and the US launch follows a July roll out in Hong Kong and Singapore.
The site was created in London in March 2000, and currently boasts 3m visitors a month in the UK, with 1m live ads at any one time.

Article from Brand republic ends here=

Amazing what you can do if you try! 1 Million live ads at anyone time and over #million visitors every month in the UK alone….. I can only dream

Its all hotting up in the UK…..

Article from Brand Republic begins here =

LONDON - Guardian Unlimited has relaunched the website for the Guardian Weekly, the international news weekly as the Guardian Weekly Global Network, featuring first-person user generated news and social networking.

The Guardianweekly.co.uk site aims to build an international community of users who can register a profile, submit articles and communicate with other like-minded people around the world. The site is now split into two distinct sections — blue and orange. The blue section contains the first-person user generated content or eyewitness reports commissioned from various sources including Guardian and Observer foreign correspondents, and the content is structured around ten editorial subject areas, including politics, health, human rights and development.

Articles in the blue section include reports written by the team leader of the current Nasa space mission to Mars, an American soldier in Iraq, an Afghan father and son who have lived through decades of conflict and Hiroshima survivors.
The orange section is the social networking zone, giving users the opportunity to interact with each other and the site. Users can submit their own articles, video and images, comment on articles, rate and respond to other users comments and store their favourite articles.
Mark King, editor of the online Guardian Weekly Global Network, said: “We are making the focus of our reporting about how individuals are affected by global events.
“We also want to connect our readers, giving them the opportunity to truly effect change and providing a platform for voices that are often overlooked.”
The site now takes a similar format found on the recently relaunched Guardian Unlimited home page and its travel and science websites, with a wider grid and emphasis on photography, video, blogs and podcasts.

Article from Brand republic ends here =

I was wondering what they would measure success. Now that they are moving away from broadcast news and more into a broadcast / interactive site?
I also wonder how they are going to moderate all of there users entries, assuming they get thousands of post on any particular topic it will be hard to maintain.

Its interesting to see where the “News” sites go in the future.

Original article here

Up and up and up…seems the entertainment industry is feeling good about itself especially “with subscription TV and the internet enjoying double-digit growth.”
Sounds good to me…… PricewaterhouseCoopers’ are reporting a revolution is underway and that traditional media forms have been breached.

They are predicting that the CAGR is going to grow by 5%

“Mediums that can aggregate mass audiences will still remain a powerful force in this time of audience fragmentation and while there is much speculation about the rise of new media platforms, between now and 2011, television, radio and newspapers are forecast to retain the largest share of revenue with nearly 67 percent of the total,” said McNab.

Funnily enough there has also been a resurgence in the number of traditional or outdoor ad spend.

Either way it seems things are looking good for the online and marketing budgets across the land!

I am so going to get in trouble one day for posting these complete articles. I just like to keep a copy for myself.

Article from Brand republic begins here =

by Jacquie Bowser Brand Republic 26-Jul-07, 13:20

LONDON - Times Online added around 1m unique users during June, making it the second most popular newspaper website in the country behind Guardian Unlimited, according to the latest ABC Electronic figures.

The Times website passed sister News International site The Sun Online during the month ending June 30, registering 9.6m unique users, compared with 8.7m the previous month. This is a positive result for Times Online, suggesting its £10m relaunch in March this year is continuing to attract new visitors.

The Sun’s website reported 9m unique users for the month, including traffic to thesun.co.uk, newsoftheworld.co.uk and page3.com, which was the same as the figure it posted in May.
Despite the relaunch of its front page in May, visits to guardian.co.uk dropped by around 1.5m unique users during June to 14.5m users, compared with the 16.1m unique users it recorded the month before. The Guardian plans to roll out its new look to the rest of the site gradually.
The Telegraph also failed to report any significant increases in traffic for June. It reported 7.1m unique users, own from 7.3m the month before.

The ABCe figures provide a common benchmark for web traffic, based on reporting standards; companies engaged by publishers to measure their figures, such as Hitwise and Web Side Story, must adhere to this.

Article from Brand republic ends here =

It will be interesting to see next month whether the traffic figures change and come back for the guardian