USA advertising expenditure continues to move from newspapers to online

The New York Times Co.'s advertising sales revenue from continuing operations fell 10% to $235.9 million from a year earlier. Advertising sales decreased by 16% and circulation revenue reduced by 0.5%.

Revenue at the publisher's News Media Group dropped 18% as classified revenue slumped 30%, on weakness in real estate, employment and motor vehicle ads.

Ad revenue at the New York Times Media Group fell 15%.

At the New England Media Group, ad revenue for the Boston Globe fell 25%. In the company's regional-media group, ad revenue was reduced by 18%.

The results come after Gannett Co. last week reported a 17% slump in July ad revenue and McClatchy Co. posted a 19% decline.

The USA newspaper business is going backwards and substantial job losses are occurring.

Because of the immediate nature of selected online information provided by services like Google Alert, the relevance of newspapers as the breaking source of news, even quickly via their websites, is being challenged.

While there will always be a place for considered comment in print, the news aspect which has been paramount, is being lost to online sources.

Our USA Local Search Business Directory, which is a free service for the 10 million businesses listed, is a direct competitor to newspaper ads, and we continue to succeed.

USA online advertising spending to produce qualified prospects for businesses is increasing

The Internet Advertising Bureau reports that spending for online prospect generation grew to more than $1.3 billion in 2006, which is a 73% increase in one year, making it the fastest-growing segment of online advertising spending.

Paramore Redd Online Marketing, says almost any company selling a consumer product can benefit, by building a database of prospects whom they then can approach via e-mail.

They say that online prospect generation works best if your product or service costs $1,000 or more and this has worked well in travel, medical services and publishing.

A prompt response is essential to making this work.

The internet has made possible the widespread use of New Sell, which is where a prospect approaches a business rather than the other way around.

This changes the psychology of the sale; particularly in these times of market hardened prospects who are conditioned to reject unsolicited approaches.

So the prospects delivered to the 10 million businesses listed in our USA Business Directory are greatly appreciated, and in keeping with the web 2.0 model, there is no cost for the businesses.

USA paper phone book enquiries are moving online

The Kelsey Group predicted in March 2008 that USA print business directory revenue, would decrease from $14.2 billion in 2007 to $12.3 billion in 2012.
At the same time, Internet business directory revenue would increase from $899 million to $2.6 billion, a compound annual growth rate of 23.7%.

The Kelsey Group study says that while online is growing quickly; the current share of local search is about 50/50 with the print alternative. 14% of users looking for local business information used a print phone book, while 14% first used an Internet site.

Mobile online search for local businesses is seen as a driving force in moving more users from print to online, since the enquiry can be answered immediately and with Apple’s iphone, it’s only one click to make the phone call to the business.

Our USA Business Directory has been configured to run on Apple’s iphone, which means that the 10 million businesses listed, who are sent the prospects without cost, will benefit further from this usage trend.

Google is rated number one in the USA for customer satisfaction

The University of Michigan's annual American Customer Satisfaction Index for the e-business sector puts Google at number one for customer satisfaction in the big search and portals category.

Google's score of 87 out of 100 is one of the highest scores ever recorded by the ACSI.

For the e-business sector, customer satisfaction improved 5.5 percent from 2007 to 79.3 this year on the ACSI's 100-point scale. That's a 25.9 percent increase since e-businesses were added to the survey in 2000.

In 2008, Google replaced Yahoo, which had been number one in 2007.

This is another indication of how the addition of features and superior search results enhance Google’s value as a trusted brand.

This is great news for the 10 million businesses listed in our USA Search Directory, because the listings are extensively indexed in Google, and provide them with prospects at no cost to the businesses.

USA Online advertising is expected to grow by 17.4% in 2008

eMarketer now expects USA online advertising to grow by 17.4% to $24.9 billion in 2008, a reduction of 4%, from their projection of five months ago, due to the recession.

The video advertising spending estimate was also reduced by 64% from their February prediction.

Now it says that $505 million will be spent on online video in 2008.

So online advertising will still grow by 17.4% in 2008, compared to 2007, when online ad spending grew by 25%.

Online video ads are expected to grow by 55.9% compared with 2007. While online video ads are still a small part of the total online ad market, analysts say that there will be continuing strong growth in this area.

Our USA Local Search Business Directory is also enjoying popularity, with over 10 million businesses listed being provided with qualified prospects, at no cost to the businesses.

Online sales for USA college textbooks are increasing

A major competitor for college student textbook dollars is online sales.

The National Association of College Stores reports that 23% of all textbooks were bought online, an increase from 16 percent in 2003.

Twenty-four percent of students said they had bought textbooks or other course materials online.

The National Association of College Stores says that the trend has been to purchase more course materials online and that most college book stores now offer online sales.

The National Association of College Stores reports that students spend about $6 billion a year nationally on college and university textbooks.

Online sales in all fields continue to increase and our USA Business Directory, which has over 10 million business listed, is a way of securing online sales without cost, since the prospects are provided to the businesses listed with no cost involved.

Google now offers Coupons for USA businesses on Google MAPS

To assist businesses to attract additional customers, firms can now have coupon information, including images, in their Google Local Search MAPS listing.

The customer can print out the coupon to receive the offer being made. This means that small firms can compete without having to have a web site. There will be no charge by Google for the service.

Google will distribute ValPak coupons; Valpak is a large USA provider of direct mail advertising. Valpak will receive free exposure to Google's audience, and Google will receive content to offer to Google Maps users.

Businesses will be able to buy Google sponsored links to drive traffic to their coupons, even if they don’t have a website.

This will have substantial benefits in increasing Local Search traffic and sales.

Our USA Business Directory for Local Search also contributes, since the 10 million businesses listed, the vast majority of which are small businesses, have prospects sent to them 100% free of charge.

Google continues to dominate the USA search Market

Hitwise reports Google had 70.77% of all online searches in the USA for the four weeks to July 26 2008.

That is the tenth month in a row that Google has increased its search market share. It had 64.35% last July and 63.06% in January 2007.

Microsoft's MSN search had only 5.36% of all U.S. Internet searches in July, down from 8.79% in July 2007, and from 10.35% January, 2007.

This reduction is the motivation for Microsoft’s recent takeover attempt of Yahoo.

Yahoo had an 18.65% share of USA Internet searches in July, down from 22.13% a year ago, from 21.40% in January, 2007.

The continuing strong growth of Google’s search results is good news for the 10 million businesses in our USA Business Directory since it is extensively indexed on Google and the listings are 100% free of charge.

Google and Yahoo now allow USA users to opt out of online advertisement targeting

Both Google and Yahoo have decided to allow web users to be able to opt out of advert targeting on both their websites and on the web.

A one click procedure for each company will make that possible.

Analysts have suggested that Congressional hearings into the behavioural targeting of advertising, with the privacy concerns involved, are behind the decisions.

It’s thought that this will make little difference to online ad revenue because most people won’t bother to do this.

The concern for Google and Yahoo is that authorities may go further and only allow online ad targeting by cookies for users who opt in.

This is of interest for the 10 million businesses that are listed in our USA Local Search Business Directory, which is partially funded by Google AdSense, since this allows their businesses to be listed at no cost to them.

The depressed USA economic conditions reduce the growth rate of e-commerce

ComScore reports E-commerce sales for the first half 2008 were $106 billion, a growth rate of 12%, down from growth of 17% for 2007 and from 20% for 2006.

43% of those surveyed spent less on music, movies and video, 61% spent less on entertainment, 57% spent less on vacations and 53% reduced their spending on automotive expenses. 38% spent less on home improvement and 32% outlaid less on health and beauty.

Online sales of music, movies and video were reduced by 20% in the second quarter of 2008, compared to a year earlier.

Consumer spending online is now 50% with solely online businesses and 50% with retailers with an online presence.

So online businesses are generally experiencing growth rate reduction, due to the generally depressed economic conditions, and small businesses are particularly affected.

Our USA Search Directory is assisting the 10 million businesses listed, most of which are small businesses, by being 100% free for their listing.

AOL’s dial-up internet and advertising divisions are to be restructured into separate divisions

Time Warner reported that AOL revenue fell 16 percent to $1.1 billion in the second quarter due to a 29 percent decline in subscription revenue.

AOL operating income fell 36 percent to $230 million.

Online advertising revenue was up 2 percent in the second quarter. This was helped by paid search and third party ads.

Analysts suggested that it was likely that the separation into two divisions, to occur by early 2009, would lead to their sale.

So the portals are diminishing in favour while search traffic continues to increase.

This is good news for the 10 million businesses listed in our USA Business Directory, particularly since we follow the web 2.0 model and provide the business listing at no cost.

The increasing cost of USA employee healthcare

The Wall Street Journal reports that during 2008, USA employers expect to see a 10% increase in healthcare costs, which is causing some small businesses to reduce their employee health benefits or to eliminate them.

An option for small businesses is to provide employee wellness programs, with financial assistance for employees who are involved. This involves getting a health check, risk assessment and then developing a healthier lifestyle.

Prudential Insurance reports an expense of $312 per person enrolled in a wellness program compared to an expense of $574 per employee who was not enrolled. Coors Brewing Company reported participant absenteeism dropping by 18%.

So employee health is an important issue, in reducing costs, particularly for small business. We also assist in providing our USA Local Search Directory for over 10 million businesses, most of which are small businesses, at no cost to those businesses.

Local Search is in the USA increasingly being done on mobile devices

CYIA reports that more than 70% of people in the USA now have a mobile phone.

M Metrics reports that 14% of mobile phone users received SMS adverts last year.

eMarketer reports that advertisers in the USA spent 3% of total ad spending on mobile devices, an amount of $4.8 billion last year. That amount is expected to grow to 12% in 2011.

More than 10% of mobile searches are for local businesses and restaurants are the most searched.

As Google moves more seriously into the mobile search space our USA Directory for Local Search , which has substantial indexing in Google, is proving very successful, with over 10 million businesses listed, and the searches are 100% free for those businesses.