Verecom Web Design Blog

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google hit the campaign trail on the behavior of the Democratic president candidate Obama last week.

In the recent interview of Schmidt, he told Wall Street Journal this is my personal decision. He emphasized that Google, whose headquarter is located in Mountain View, California will be remain aloof in the election campaign.

Wall Street Journal reported that Schmidt planed to publicly support Obama with the other technology company administrators but this report didn’t mention the names of the other technology company administrators.

Schmidt is the one of the chief executives in Silicon Valley who used to be the technology advisors of Obama’s campaign. Newmark, the founder of online classified advertisement website, Craigslist is also one of Obama’s advisors.

Compared with the Republican president candidate, McCain, High-technology industry has show greater favorite on Obama. Up to the end of August, Google staffs have donated $487,355 Dollars to Obama’s campaign while there are only $20,600 Dollars for McCain’s campaign.

Although between Google, Parliament and Ministry of Justice, there are still many unsettle disputes, includes the advertisement cooperative agreement with Yahoo, Schmidt still keep his determination to support Obama.

Edited By Vicky Yin

With 10 million dollars, Microsoft hired Famous Comedy star, Jerry Seinfeld, teamed with Bill Gates to Promoted two global ads on September. Later on, against previous ads from Apple, Microsoft released its I am PC series as a strike-back.

Marketing Company Crispin Porter + Bogusky, run this advertising Campaign. In first series ads, Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates play as two people shopping for shoes and home stay with a family but never mentioned a word to Window or Vista. Later on the second series of ads, “I am PC” as the reply for Apple’s “I am Mac” campaign, focus on the PC users and try to change their negative impression toward PC and deliver the message “I use PC, and I am fun”.

Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld  Series 1

Series 2 — Click here

I am PC Series 1

I am PC Series 2 and 3

Can these Advertising Campaign change the Microsoft’s image?

From the view point of experts, these Campaign are not successful viral marketing, because their topics are not related to the Window products, and however, they focus too much on this Comedy Star. And most people have difficulty to understand this commercial. For the “I am PC” series, Microsoft tried to promote its already number 1 window Operation System, which made people feel funny and say: “Microsoft is afraid of Apple too much” The experts from IT industry said, Microsoft should produce adverting Campaign which focus more on their products, or try to focus current bugs of apple’s MobileMe and Iphone’, which are the apple’s weak points. This way may have better result. And Window developers should improve the Vista and design a better user-friendly Interface. A Good Advertising Campaign is not a cure for Vista.>

Apple takes a Jab at Microsoft Ads

Apple has come out with a clever retorts in response to Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld series.

This is one pokes fun at Microsoft for spending too much money at advertising instead of fixing window’s problems;

In the second one talk about that Microsoft not mentioning any of their product names in the adverts at all;

Edited By Henry Lu

Yahoo released their new display advertising platform, their ambitions towards online advertising campaign was revealed once again. Fortune Magazine pointed out that this effort may be the final plunge of Yahoo CEO, Jerry Yang.

This new display advertising platform is called “APT”, it allowed the publishers and advertisers to put the traditional online advertisements, like banners or pop-up windows on hundreds of news websites, all the websites under Yahoo, and other big websites like eBay, WebMD in US.

New York Times said that, to the advertisers, APT is easier to use. In the past, normally advertisers had to purchase the advertisements from the individual websites and if they want to play their advertisement online, it is also very difficult to control where the advertisement will appear.

However Yahoo promised that, under APT system, the advertisers don’t need to negotiate with the website one by one in order to put their online advertisements. This system may not only help the news sites gain the benefits from online advertisements but also display the advertisement to the visitors according to their own searching habit and interests.

Jerry Yang emphasized that APT will change the whole environment of online advertisement industry. He has great confidence that APT will stand in the leading position in this revelation and Yahoo indicated that through this advertising platform Yahoo and newspaper can sell the advertisements in higher price and they can display the advertisements to certain customers groups. Yahoo wishes to sale search engine advertisement on APT in the final stage as well.

Currently, the prospect of Yahoo online advertisement market isn’t really bright, however APT seems bring a gleam of hope to Yahoo.Since the acquisition negotiation with Microsoft was broken in the beginning of the year, Yahoo has received great pressure. From the middle of July till now, the stock price has decreased 16% and now it reached to around 19$.

Recently, Jerry Yang has received some objections from company top officials and Fortune magazine said that they don’t think APT would help much in this situation.

However, e-Marketer senior analyst believed that any new method which works in displaying advertising worth to try. “The reason why paid search advertising can have such great profits is because it is easy to purchase relatively. But display adverting is not.” At the same time, he also pointed out that Yahoo seems didn’t choose a good time to release this adverting platform. Since the current economy growth is declining the advertising budget of clients is also reducing.

Edited By Vicky Yin

USA 2nd largest social network website Facebook(www.facebook.com) may take over MySapce(www.myspace.com) position and become largest one within few months, according to survey from the Pingdom (www.pingdom.com ). The Pingdom made this conclusion according to Facebook fast growing on the user number and traffic for past year.

Also another famous online marketing research company comScore said the global traffic amount of Facebook is already larger than Myspace. And this demonstrates the success of facebook multi-language platform to greatly increase its global traffic. The competition for the social netwok website is always high from past 2 years, since the introduce of Web2.0 technology. And last year the Facebook traffic amount was way behind MySpace.

Although there is great potential for Facebook, but from the Pingdom research, the number of MySpace user and traffic amount did not drop this year. And this means there is still a long battle between these two largest social network websites.

Edited By Henry Lu

The battle between Google and Microsoft for the web browser market reaches another high point as the search engine giant Google announce the new web browser, the Chrome, which declares war on Microsoft’s IE. Web Browser is the interface for internet users, and for the Google and Microsoft, it has an important strategy position for the battle of web-based application market in the future.

Web browser market is the first battlefield for Google and Microsoft, and the two giants both see each other as the biggest competitor. A week ago before Google announce its Chrome; Microsoft released its beta vision of Internet Explorer 8. The IE8 has the security feature that enable internet users to block their Google search record and behavior and hence Google cannot provide needed ads for users. 97% Google’s income comes from online ads, and if Google don’t fight back, the circumstance will be extremely disadvantageous after Microsoft fully launches the IE8.

The 50% Microsoft’s income comes from its application software package likes “Windows OS” and Office. For Google, the web itself is a free software platform, and from last 2 years, Google launched many free online services like calendar, google email, and notebook. Internet users can access these applications by logging in his Google account from any computer. The advantage of Chrome Web Browser is it enables internet users to use these free applications on the internet without running the installation. And User can access all these software from any PC with internet access and Chrome Web Browser. The Chrome’s “Web Based Operation System” will have the great impact on Microsoft’s traditional software package and Its Window applications which are the main income source for Microsoft.

Web Browser is the Door to the Internet

The Ultimate Goal for Google is to develop its own Operation System. The top point of sale for Chrome is its integration of web applications from Google itself and other company. Forrester’s analyst, Sheri McLeish said “Google won’t make big money from Chrome, but Chrome will be the great mediator to transfer internet users to its Search Engine and online software applications. And the Google’s strategy is to take over the desktop applications from Microsoft”. In future, Google’s sales will not only focus on its Search Engine and Online ads, “online application” will be Google’s new web market battlefield.

“What we really need is not just a Web Browser, but a new platform for the web and online applications”, Google said on its official Blog. In the Future, Google wishes all the internet users can go the World Wide Web controlled by Google to access all the information and applications they need when users turn on their PC. The one last step Google lack of is the Web Browser, and it plays the key role for this achievement.

Facing threatening form Google, Microsoft’s Chief Manager for IE, Dean Hachamovitch has the great confidence for the IE8. “I think most users still favor IE, and we need to think how to create better and better user interface for the integration of web browser + application, and make our customers always stick with our products. The Chrome can’t take over all window applications because its function limitation at beginning, and Chrome’s market share now can only be improved by Google’ brand name, not its functions.And it can’t be the killer for the IE and Window in the future”. The war between Google and Microsoft will continue and it is impossible for one of them to take over the other in a short period time.

Edited By Henry Lu