Find out all the details, and more, in this month’s digital marketing round-up!
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Global spending on Digital Marketing nears $100 billion
Spending on digital marketing grew by 44 percent last year in the United States and Britain to $52 billion, a study has found, estimating that global outlays on such tactics are approaching $100 billion.
Google is adding a bunch of new features to its namesake search engine, executives said at an event in San Francisco last week. The market-leading internet search engine is adding features like collections, activity cards and featured videos.
Google is bringing ‘WWW’ back to chrome URLs following user complaints
Google will again display ‘www’ and ‘m.’ in front of URLs in Chrome’s address bar after the decision to remove them was met with widespread user complaints.
For those unaware, when Chrome 69 was released last week it surprised everyone when ‘www’ and
‘m.’ were no longer displayed in the address bar.
Google admits it’s using very limited personalization in search results
Google has told CNBC that “there is very little search personalization” going on in the Google search results ranking right now and that the personalization that is currently used is limited to “user’s location or immediate context from a prior search.”
Google looking for ways to handle sites blocking searchers over GDPR
It is estimated that one-third of US news sites block EU users because they do not want to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This has become an issue for European users of Google search.
Google admits it is a bad user experience for a European user to see content in web search, click on it and get a blocked page because of GDPR.
Google, Facebook dealt blow by EU lawmakers on copyright
Tech platforms and internet activists protested the outcome of a European Parliament vote Wednesday to back copyright rules that would help video, music and other rights holders seek compensation for use of their content online.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc. and other tech firms may soon be forced to negotiate licenses for content that appears on their sites, creating legal headaches for the companies, after lawmakers broadly supported a legislative proposal for new copyright rules, unveiled in 2016 by the European Commission.
New iPhone XS 2018 release date, problems, price & specs
Apple has, after many rumours and some last-minute leaks, unveiled its iPhones for 2018. There are three upgrade choices this year: the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, which went on sale at Apple Stores around the globe on the morning of Friday 21 September. However, there are already reports suggesting that there may be issues with LTE and WiFi connectivity.
Amazon is testing a shopping site called Scout
Amazon is testing out a shopping site for consumers who don’t know specifically what they want but are willing to take some automated recommendations to help them find it.
The new service, Scout, asks shoppers to like or dislike a product (thumbs up or thumbs down) and responds by showing other products based on their choices. For example, if you’re looking for a coffee table and you give a thumbs up to a rectangular table with a reddish wooden top and a thumbs down to a circular table, you may be shown a weathered gray table with a shape similar to the one you liked.
Amazon on track to be No. 3 in U.S. Digital Ad Revenue but still way behind Google, Facebook
Amazon will more than double its U.S. digital-advertising revenue in 2018 — but it’s still going to be a distant third place behind the sector’s “duopoly” of Google and Facebook.
That’s according to new estimates from eMarketer. The research firm, in a report released Sept. 19, forecast Amazon U.S. ad revenue to more than double this year, to $4.61 billion. That will give Amazon 4.1% share of the market, putting it ahead of Verizon’s Oath and Microsoft on eMarketer’s rankings.
Instagram’s co-founders just quit
Instagram’s co-founders are headed for the exit, perhaps signaling more trouble for Facebook, which owns the photo-sharing app.
Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s chief executive, and Mike Krieger, its chief technology officer, have resigned and plan to leave in the coming weeks. The New York Times was first to report the move on Monday, which the company later confirmed. In a statement, Systrom said he and Krieger are “grateful” for their time at Instagram but are “ready for our next chapter.”
Snapchat is letting users register to vote from its app
Ahead of the US midterm elections, Snapchat is using its app to encourage users to register to vote. The functionality will be available to everyone over the age of 18 in the US, who’ll receive a voter registration link from the app. Clicking it will launch a Snapchat-branded TurboVote mobile site where users can register.
Snapchat will let media partners aggregate, monetize user posts
Snapchat is teaming with two dozen media partners to let them package together publicly shared user posts into curated segments — and make money from them.
Those partners will be able to stitch together publicly submitted content from Snapchat users into Stories about events, places or themes, with editorial wrapped around them. Snap plans to run ads in the partner-curated Our Stories and split that revenue for the Stories they produce. The first Curated Our Stories will begin showing up in the next few weeks.
