Is the Web Going to the Guys?
Nielsen/NetRatings (the global standard in Internet audience measurement and analysis) just released some very interesting demographics regarding the habits of men and women online. Apparently "all but two of the top 25 global Web properties attracted majority male audiences in August". This information is great for marketers looking to target men, said Richard Goosey, International Chief of Measurement Science for NetRatings. In this NetRatings press release (PDF format) he goes on to note that marketers specifically targeting females online will have to 'dig deeper to find their audience and to create properties that are attractive." Among the top male properties, Lycos showed at 60% and CNET Networks at 70% male viewerships.

Yahoo! is noted the Internet's Best Brand and Microsoft is the "Leading Net Company" according to Nielsen/NetRatings this November. Microsoft has 92.62 million users earning the crown as the leading parent company and Yahoo! was the leading brand at 79.75 million users. - more info
To see the full round of results (Top10 properties) this link will show you the complete chart.

The Butler is In, And He Will Only Cost You £299 Per Year!

The busy executive now has his/her answer to their busy lifestyle. Mr. Jeeves will now be offering a service to handle 24hr services such as travel and restaurant booking, personal shopping, and transportation. Ask Jeeves is yet another example of an online property trying to boost revenues by offering offline services. Is it doomed to fail? Would you use this service?

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BlackListed?: Are you guilty of using search engine placement techniques that are so out of date that they are considered instant penalties? Well the search engines have definitely changed a great deal over the past 3 years and there are tons of techniques that will get your site into hot water. The most common technique that we see when we optimize previously promoted web sites is "invisible text". This has been a banned technique for a long time, so we are constantly surprised when we find sites that still use it. For those of you who don't know, invisible text is described as any text colored to match the background of your web page. This was a common technique back in the days when the search engines were relatively gullible. Nowadays if you get caught you will be heavily penalized if not dropped from the search engine databases. They consider it the most basic level of malicious manipulation.

Yahoo Sensitive: As one of the largest Internet properties, Yahoo has drawn it's share of controversy over the years. This week, Yahoo got in trouble in the UK for advertisements used on that other virtual-medium, television. The London based, Independent Television Commission, (the UK version of the Ad Council), ruled that an advertisement designed to promote Yahoo's UK personal finance services was offensive to homosexuals and ordered Yahoo to pull the ad.

The 30-second spot opens features a hapless bridegroom tied to a tree by his friends as a stag-party prank. The bridegroom is obviously nervous, uncomfortable, and at the mercy of whomever is about to walk by. As the ad closes, a character meant to portray a stereotypical "effected" gay man walks on screen with a dubious smile on his face. A voice-over then announces, "You can't trust the kindness of strangers."

Aside from the crudeness of this ad, the subtext of the message is somewhat strange. It wasn't the "kindness of strangers" that placed the bridegroom in that situation; it was the malevolence of his own friends. Formerly the world's most visited Internet property and arguable the best known Internet brand name, Yahoo has done some incomprehensible things over the past few months but potentially alienating 1/10th of the consumer market (with generally higher than average disposable incomes), is pretty careless, even for a bunch of Yahoo's.