Tapedtogether is an experiment in crowdsourcing and online content curation resulting in a Summer Playlist for 2010 featuring an eclectic mix of artists from Frank Sinatra to DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, all put together on a website inspired by the iconic artwork of Saul Bass.

Similar to NBCs Olympic coverage, CNN brings you the World Cup Twitter tracker an easy way to stay up to date with the buzz about the games.

David Perez sold his soul for 1 week to Twitter. He wanted to go to the Advertising Festival in Cannes and Leo Burnett agreed to send him, the only condition was he had to partake in a social media experiment where he did everything his Twitter followers commanded him to. What would you get him to do? He’s already tattooed the ‘fail whale’ on his arm!

It’s summer and the weather is nice! Now is not the time to be eating in front of your work computer, get involved and take back your lunch while the sun is still shining!

Since the dawn of digital marketing, a brand’s website has been the single biggest online focus for brands. However, with the evolution of social media growing at unheard of rates the era of the destination web seems to be drawing to a close – as the graphs below demonstrate, branded websites and microsites are losing traffic to social media destinations.

Today, to have an effective online presence requires a near omnipresence – an active presence across the social web. This means the creation of active profiles on popular social media sites with high reach (fish where the fish are), as well as the creation of (or “unlocking” of) content so that it’s easily distributable across networks. Freeing content to sit on or flow through “off-site” sources and platforms will enable web users to access unique content where they want to experience it and ensure they have the means to carry the message further – i.e. share the content with new audiences.

For brands, measuring success online will be less about measuring unique website visitors and more about measuring the flow and reach of content. Facebook has also recently added the functionality to allow brands to incorporate fan features directly on to their branded websites. Subsequently website content updates can be sent directly onto fans’ Facebook pages.

Through this kind of development we are likely to see the greater harmonisation between branded websites (hubs) and supporting social channels (spokes). One thing is for sure, we will stop creating content simply for websites and create content that will live across the decentralised web.

Branded Websites:

Social Platforms:

Recently, several high profile recording artists have opted to release their albums online, instead of through traditional retail channels. Two particularly notable examples, Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ and Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Ghosts I-IV’, allowed for almost free access as well as offering a multitude of options of format download.

Finally it would seem, film is following the same course. Michael Moore has announced that his next film, Slacker Uprising, will be released as a free online download through Brave New Films. The film press release confirmed that this is the first major film to be released this way. The release is scheduled for 23rd September and will be available at SlackerUprising.com for the download.

Online retail has so far reported significant growth in 2008; with online spend up 38% on the first half of 2007 and now accounting for 17% of every pound spent in the UK. Brands that fail to embrace and engage the online consumer are set to be among those most severely affected by an economic downturn, according to research conducted in the UK by E-consultancy, Logan Tod and immediate future.

Some 64% of UK respondents surveyed said they would reduce their spending (overall) in view of the deteriorating economic climate. However, 56% said that their online spending would not be affected – or would actually increase. Consumers are turning online to find the best available prices and advice.

The study found that when comparing the different age groups, it is the “silver surfers” (age 55+), many of whom have paid off mortgages or enjoy higher disposable income, which are the least concerned about the economic situation: 43% said the economy would not affect their spending.

69% of all consumers search by product name when looking to purchase online, with brand names the next most searched for (43%):
To download the report please visit: Online Shopping and Credit Crunch Survey Report

Last Friday, Meglena Kuneva, EU consumer protection commissioner, announced a European Commission strategy to break down national borders in online retailing. The strategy aims to create a single set of rights and obligations to cover returns and guarantees, so it is safer and easier for consumers to buy and sell products across borders.

In conjunction with the EC strategy, eBay has announced it’s to head a coalition of online traders that will further lobby the European Parliament for the reform of all laws that restrict cross-border trading online. It is understood that eBay has the full support of Kuneva.

Specifically, eBay wants the EU to revise the regulatory framework for distribution agreements, trademark rules and service & consumer provision. They are arguing that the current legislation prevents retailers from accessing non-domestic markets while consequentially also preventing consumers from benefitting from lower prices outside their own locale.

eBay has stated that “[eBay] has found four regulatory “bottlenecks” which allow manufacturers to maintain a policy of market segmentation – essentially different pricing models for different regions”. This is a situation we’ve seen for many years in Ireland. Either between our domestic market and the US, or closer to home between the North and South. The modern shopper knows that there are savings to be made abroad even when benefits aren’t exaggerated with the fluctuations of exchange rates. Hopefully this new EU initiative will ultimately help bring down all prices!

JPMorgan’s Internet analyst Imran Khan and his team have just released a massive 312 page report, titled “Nothing But Net”, that paints a bullish picture for the major Internet stocks (Google, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, Expedia, Salesforce.com, Ominiture, ValueClick, Monster.com, Orbitz, Priceline, CNET, etc.). Some of the key points include:

- In general, as broadband penetration continues to rise, so do e-commerce revenues

- But advertising revenues actually outpace the adoption of broadband

- Free cash flow at large Internet companies will keep going up, fueling mergers and acquisitions. JPMorgan estimates that free cash flow among just five of the top Internet companies (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, and Expedia) will rise from $8.8 billion last year to $12.5 billion in 2008 (a lot of money for Web 2.0 acquisitions). Top acquirers Yahoo and Google, for instance, each spend about a third of their free cash flow on acquisitions.

- Search advertising will continue to dominate, rising from $22 billion globally last year to $50 billion in 2010. JPMorgan expects global search revenues to rise 38 percent in 2008 to $30.5 billion.

- As global GDP continues to grow faster than U.S. GDP (3.9 percent versus 2.2 percent in 2007), Internet companies with global reach will benefit. Amazon, eBay, and Google all get about half their revenues from international markets. Yahoo gets only a quarter of its revenues from abroad.

And while we’re on the subject of forecasts, a report from the WPP group in the UK is predicting that online spend in Sweden will outstrip TV spend in 2008. They also predict that in the UK online spend will be more than TV spend during 2009. The detail is however more interesting, with online spend being fuelled by strong growth in three sectors; search, display and classified advertising rather than a decline across ovether media.

With Christmas currently revving up our TVs and online viewing, there’s an interesting forecast on online shopping from Deloitte in the UK.

They are predicting a substantial increase in online shopping this year, with 14% of people planning to buy the bulk of their festive goods online compared to just 7% last year.

How will this play out in Ireland? According to Buy4Now.ie Marketing Manager Julie de Balliencourt, they’re projecting an 18% increase in transaction volume during November and December.

The table below shows the top 11 online shopping sites in Ireland, including the big grocery player Tesco and the retail portal Buy4Now.ie (who represent Easons and Arnotts to name just two). The highest traffic is being recorded through the lower value ticket items such as tickets, CDs, books. The two mail order catalogue operators Argos and Littlewoods also figure in the top 10.

It’s interesting to note that the online retail category of sites reaches 65% of the online market, with a daily reach of 18%.

Online auction website eBay.ie and An Post have launched a new initiative where eBay users in Ireland can get discounts on posting packages.

eBay users, with a positive track record of past transactions, can register on eBay.ie to receive an e-Parcel card they can use at post offices to get favourable prices on parcels weighing up to 5kg, sent using An Post.

eBay and An Post say users can make a saving of up to 45% on national parcels and 75% on international postage.

Earlier this year eBay.ie said it has over 500,000 confirmed registered users in Ireland.

American Airlines has decided to pursue litigation against Google for allowing rivals to buy pay-per-click ads triggered by its own trademarks. Although there has been a number of high profile cases in the past involving the likes of Playboy and BMW, the industry will be interested in the outcome of this particular case. There is no doubt that a number of leading companies and brands are having problems when it comes to underhand affiliate activity and pay-per-click arbitrage. The question for the legal system is should Google should be responsible or not?

Google has already triumphed in two recent lawsuits on the issue. The Internet giant released a statement saying that “we are confident that our trademark policy strikes a proper balance between trademark owners’ interests and consumer choice and that our position has been validated by decisions in previous trademark cases”.

On Friday, American Airlines issued an official statement saying it supports Google’s overall business model and “values the importance of the Internet and the convenience that companies such as Google create for consumers around the globe”. “In working through this business dispute,” the statement continued, “American is hopeful that it will continue professional, friendly and fruitful relationships with Google, while finding an appropriate resolution to the trademark issues … American wants to make it clear that its dispute does not seek to prevent the display of search results that reflect consumers’ interests or choices.”

In a funny, rather ironic twist, Google UK is threatening to sue a Dutch cybersquatter who has used the name Google cunningly in several domains. Check out the story here.

There are big changes afoot in the world of analytics, coinciding with the changing Internet. We’ve heard major product announcements from all the leading players over the last few weeks. 

Not to be outdone, WebTrends has launched a new add-on that lets marketers set specific values for each of their web pages and then calculate an on-the-fly engagement metrics for each visitor.

“Conceptually, it’s brilliant,” said Jim Sterne, founding president of the Web Analytics Association. “Not only is this on the money, this is the money.”

Time on site tells you how long someone was on your site,” Sterne added, “but they might have been on the phone, or they might have been angry or distracted. The deeper they go into your site, the more engaged they are. Now you can see where they come in and where they go and assign a weight to each page.”

The folks at WebTrends have also introduced WebTrends Visitor Intelligence – allowing marketers to create on-the-fly behavior-based segments across multiple channels and visits.

For example, marketers could examine visitors who recently added a product to a shopping cart but did not complete the purchase. Results could then be filtered against those visitors’ lifetime value, offline transactions and geographic locations to determine the best way to communicate and engage them in future.

Both new products are included in WebTrends Marketing Lab 2.