Industry News

Back in the forgotten past of about two weeks ago, we at Zeta made a prediction that eBook sales would soon overtake sales of the printed word, and it seems we may have been right, in the US at least. (Read Brad’s previous post)

Reports released this week (21 July 2010) state that Amazon has sold 143 eBooks for the Kindle (Amazon’s own specifically designed e-reader) to every 100 hardback books in the past three months. Amazon has gone on to claim that over the last month sales of eBooks have continued to creep, now reaching almost double that of hardbacks. more…

I returned to work today after having a couple of days off ill to learn that Apple has called a surprise conference tomorrow (15 July) to discuss the not so healthy iPhone 4! Will Apple take a leaf out of Johnson and Johnson’s book and recall the handset? The iPhone 4 may not exactly be life threatening to consumers but the bad press is certainly killing the Apple brand!

Funnily enough yesterday evening I went to pick up my second iPhone 4 from Orange.  I returned my first one for being faulty. Nothing to do with the signal issue, (although that is pretty bad!  But then again I am on Orange!) but because of its shocking battery life.

This is the first Apple product I have purchased. I own an Apple 2^nd generation iPod Nano but I did not purchase this myself.  I did rush out to buy the new iPhone release a couple of weeks ago, partly because I wanted to be cool and hip, and also because I was due an upgrade, so it seemed the natural choice. more…

eBook sales look set to outgrow printed book sales as the ebook reader market diversifies and the technology finally matures. With well over 120,000,000 ebook-capable mobile devices now in consumer’s hands there is clearly a huge market for publishing pixels.

The reach of eBook stores will continue to grow as the increasing competition pushes down prices in the eBook reader market and more people upgrade to smarter phones. Amazon has already done amazingly well to sell an estimated 3 million Kindles considering it is only available online. Super-secretive Amazon now appear to be rolling out bricks-and-mortar retail distribution with US chain Target announcing that the device would be available in its 1740 stores.

If the claims of many avid eBook fans that reading on ‘ePaper’ screens as found on dedicated devices like the Kindle and Sony Reader is vastly superior to the back-lit displays found on multi-purpose units like Apple’s iPad are true, then Amazon and Sony might be able to wrestle market share from Apple when consumers hold the devices side-by-side. more…

New .co domain names will open up an opportunity to have the domain name you have always wanted.

Have you ever tried to register a domain name for your business, brand or company website only to find that someone else has beat you to it?

Are you constantly looking for a dot com only to find they are ‘dot GONE’?

Here at Zeta we know the scenario only too well – when clients come to us with a name they want but simply cannot get.  Very often they have to pay thousands to purchase their preferred domain from a reseller or domain squatter.

Well forget .com the name on everyone’s lips will soon be .co. more…

10 days ago (12th June) my friend hosted a World Cup BBQ for England’s opening game against the USA. There was a massive selection of alcohol and all types of juicy animals to throw on the BBQ. As well as the delightful day of feasting Mark had invested in a new flat screen TV for us to witness the USA thrashing.

OK well everything went to plan apart from England actually winning, but the point I am trying to illustrate is we spent a huge amount of money and not once did anyone question our actions.

This is why I wasn’t surprised when IMRG/Capgemini (read the full report) announced yesterday (21st June 2010) that online retail sales have has increased by 22% in May 2010, becoming the highest growth rate since June 2008.

Beer, wine and spirits experienced a massive increase of 23% and electrical goods also jumped up by 13%. Online shoppers spent £4.5 billion during the month of May which works out as an equivalent of £73 per person in the UK. more…

An Orange a Day Won’t Keep Fifa Officials away

Picture this; a group of beautiful women, glowing the colour orange, surrounded by a group of footballers and boisterous men.

Don’t be mistaken I am not talking about a night out with my fake tanned friends, I am talking about the latest ambush marketing stunt at the 2010 FIFA World Cup by Dutch beer company Bavaria!

It was not instantly obvious that the 36 women wearing tight figure hugging bright orange dresses at the World Cup game between Denmark and Holland on Monday 14^th June 2010 were advertising for the Dutch Brewery.

(And let’s not forget ITV pundit Robbie Earle who is said to have provided Bavaria with the free tickets to the World Cup Match who has since been fired!) more…

An Overview of the Creative Industry

The economic growth of any country comes from the government and the private sector. I do not need to tell you about the state the British Government has been left in after thirteen years of Labour Governing. But let’s take a look about the state of UK creative industries:

I speak on behalf of those working in creative industries throughout the UK that many of us have seen a drastic cut back in Private Sector spending – huge cutbacks in client budgets since 2008 particularly in the advertising, public relations and graphic design industries. This being attributed to the massive government spending which has had a negative impact in private sector consumption and investment. When business directors and shareholders do not understand the true importance of marketing these divisions of the business are usually the first to see a slash in budget.

Lucky for those of us in the digital industry we have not suffered so much at the hands of the public sector over spend. In fact we have seen an increase in online marketing spend with more organisations and companies starting to embrace and understand the value of marketing their business and products online. In fact, 66% of companies are planning to increase their digital marketing budgets during 2010 (Marketing Budgets Report, econsultancy 2010).

Creative SME’s have competed for public sector contracts

In attempts to further conserve profits many SME’s have turned to the public sector to sustain their business. This has proved a good strategy in some cases but has generally not been the case for creative SME’s due to the rigid procurement processes which prevent smaller private sector providers from competing for public sector contracts. Sam Allen, search expert at Zeta wrote an excellent post about public sector organisations using private design agencies.

Labour ‘spin’ has resulted in a negative reputation for Marketing and PR

PR is often said to be about reputation management yet through poor and ineffective attempts to manage themselves the UK government has damaged the meaning of PR. more…

At least that is the message denoted by the latest high court ruling which places website and blog owners at risk of liability from the user generated content displayed on their sites.

The verdict was delivered after Labourhome.org owner Alex Hilton was sued by Johanna Kaschke. Kaschke was objecting to a libellous comment which appeared on the labour home site which was written by a user.  The content was accusing her of having had links with Baader-Meinhof, a German terrorist group.

Although Hilton did not write the comment or make it live, the fact that he actively moderated other areas of the website by …”exercise(ing) some editorial control on parts of the website and in particular on the homepage.” held him liable.

more…

Pupils as young as 11 are given iPhones to spy on their teachers

Headlining the Daily Mail on Monday (5th April 2010), it was revealed that pupils as young as 11 are being given iPhones to give instant ratings on their teachers.

This move is an example of the latest Government ‘pupil power’ drive, claims the Daily Mail. But the use of modern technology in such a way is also a pre indication of the Governments latest plan for a digital Britain (You might want to read Henry’s previous post about Gordon Brown’s plan for a digital future) coming into play.

Is the Government justified in allowing pupils to decide educational policy?

The new plans revealed by the Government early this year mean that as of September 2010 all schools in England and Wales would be legally obliged to seek pupils’ opinions and views on major decisions and policy making.

more…

OFCOM has forced Mobile operators to lower their fees for transferring calls from one network to another from around 4p a minute to just 0.5p a minute. A move that has been welcomed by everyone involved (even some of the mobile operators). But this story is small news compared to the tectonic shift in mobile operations which must occur soon.

Scarcity of Supply

Mobile network providers can only levy such massive charges because of the scarcity of supply. At the moment we are all forced to use a mobile network to get access to voice and data services on the move. But with the expanding WiFi coverage in the UK and possible introduction of WiFi towns (like Swindon), this scarce resource is set to become highly abundant. more…