Online Casinos Take Over as Fifth Largest Advertising Group
With the addition of the gambling Web site category, Jupiter MediaMetrix has begun quantifying online gambling users and the sites they visit, as well as online gambling advertisers and the sites upon which they spend their advertising dollars. The market research company reports that Internet advertising by online casinos increased from 911 million impressions in December 2000 to 2.5 billion impressions in December 2001. The jump brought online gambling advertising up from the 11th spot on the industry advertising spending list to the fifth spot. Another evolution noted by the advertising numbers is the fact that, in December 2000, online casinos budgeted most of their advertising dollars to gambling niche sites, but portals won out in December 2001, with 39 percent of casino ads being hosted on non-incentive or gaming sites and a mere 16 percent of online casino ads going to the gaming niche sites.
It should be noted, however, that the firm doesn't make a distinction across the board between real-money gambling sites and play-for-free sites. The group compiles data on 64 "gambling" sites and states that the top three from that list are Bingocanada.com, Webstakes.com and Vegas.com, all of which are play-for-free sites.
Importance of Banners Waning in UK
Reporting on a survey conducted by OK-mail, NetImperative stated that U.K. companies are placing less importance on banner ads as advertising vehicles.
The survey polled U.K. companies and found that 58 percent of them would not use banners this year.
More than half of the respondents also reported they would use reciprocal links with third party sites as a promotional tool, but those links are also decreasing in importance. OK-mail attributes this migration of attitudes toward banners as an indication that the Internet is maturing as a marketing medium, specifically for e-mail marketing.
Number of Asian Women Online Explodes
Women in Asia are utilizing online communication tools in ever-increasing numbers, NetValue reports.
The most notable increase is found in the number of women in Hong Kong using webmail. NetValue reports a 104.7 percent increase in the use of Web-based e-mail by women between October and December of 2001. Similar increases were observed in Korea, Singapore and Taiwan
Women's use of chat and e-cards also saw a significant increase. E-card use by women in Hong Kong increased by 79.1 percent, 64.9 percent in Korea, 56.4 percent in Taiwan and 36.9 percent in Singapore. Chat usage by women in Singapore increased 440 percent by December 2001, from 3 percent to 16.2 percent.
US$1 Trillion Expected for Online Spending in 2002
Research firm IDC released its predictions for total e-commerce for 2002 and the numbers look rosy.
As reported by Ecommerce Times, the group is projecting online spending to exceed US$1 trillion. The firm asserts that US$600 billion was spent online in 2001, an increase of 68 percent over 2000.
Breaking down the figures further, IDC predicts 83 percent of the total online spend to come from B2B sales and that will increase to 88 percent of the total by 2006. Even though consumer buyers outnumber B2B buyers, the business sales are more common and generally involve larger volumes.
The US accounts for about 40 percent of the total online spending, but IDC is predicting that number to fall to about 38 percent by 2006. The slack will be taken up by an 89 percent growth in online spending in Asia and a 68 percent increase in Europe between now and 2006.
Security a Major Concern for Australian Companies
Reuters reported on a poll conducted by Dun & Bradstreet of Australian companies and found that most are wary of conducting transactions online because of security and reliability concerns.
A year ago, 29 percent of Australian companies conducted none of their business on the Web, but the poll showed that number increased to nearly half of Australian companies abandoning their online business. Twenty-six percent of Australian executives find the Internet to be not at all secure, an increase from 19 percent a year ago.
Thirty-four percent of Australian companies polled said they do not have a business Web site, nor do they think it an important aspect of their overall business health. In contrast, roughly half of the remainder said their corporate web site was integral to their business, up from 43 percent a year ago.
Austrians Perfectly Comfortable on the Web
The Austrian Internet Monitor (AIM) released new figures regarding the country's Internet usage for 2001.
AIM's report found that 47 percent of Austrians used the Internet last year and 53 percent of the country's over 14 population has an Internet connection. Forty percent of Austrian Internet users connect through home and 23 percent connect through their work computers.
A popular activity for Austrian Web users is online banking, with 13 percent of total Internet users utilizing online banking services and 45 percent of the non-online bankers indicating they were interested in taking up the activity. E-commerce isn't big for Austrian Internet users, apparently, as indicated by a total of EU180 million in online retail sales--which accounts for less than 1 percent of the total retail sales turnover for the entire country.