A Fuller View

Entries categorized as ‘Europe’

Minor League Deal – blinkx looks to buy miva

8 August 2008 · 1 Comment

Reported over on sister blog AdViking today – blinkx has made an offer to buy Miva. The offer is $1.20 per share which is a hefty premium on the current stock price. In what is probably related news Miva’s co-founder Seb Bishop left Miva last week.

Miva, which is a combination of Findwhat (onetime 2nd tier US PPC network) and Espotting (one time 1st tier European PPC network), appears to have been on life support for a few years now. Findwhat paid a lot more than $41 Million for Espotting back in 2004. [Side note: I personally believe Espotting was one move away from being a $500 Million dollar mini-monster in Europe. I mean a smart move. But hey that's business and probably more interesting as part of short business lessons learned piece some day.]

I would guess this deal will go ahead… As an ex-insider from Espotting I can only hope this deal is good news for all the employees!

More analysis on the deal is available here on paidcontent, Screenwrek and SEW.

Update 11 Aug: I was thinking about this deal over the weekend, which I know is a bit sad. Anyway, I was trying to figure out why Blinkx would buy Miva? I am guessing they get a number of things: advertising people, a revenue stream, traffic to push Blinkx services down, tool bar & domain business which looks like the best piece of Miva and a host of advertising relationships. This last one is something a lot of online players miss, that it takes physical time to develop advertiser relationships and to build any ad network of size, this is probably the hardest part of the ad network business espacially one that covers the long tail and as well as the fat head. This also one Google’s strongest weapons. More on this meme another day.

Categories: Europe · PPC · deals
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A New Local Search Site in Ireland – ireland.com relaunched

30 June 2008 · 4 Comments

It was very sweet today to get online and see that Ireland.com has relaunched the site as a local search ‘portal’ for all things Irish. BTW – this is such a money domain (simple, geo, universal)!

In addition, the Irish Times newspaper site has been re-designed, the subscription charges dropped and the newspaper has moved to a dedicated URL – http://www.irishtimes.com/ (the newspaper used to be at the URL Ireland.com).

The Irish Times site has also had a major face lift and is much improved. The site also looks to be driving a strong connection to the major classified channels: Homes, Jobs, Cars and with a special Dating channel as well (this is interesting to have a focus on dating).

A quick review of the Ireland.com site reveals a very clean design and an almost sexy brand – definitely bright and breezy. It is driven by a single search box that handles What/Who/Where. The results pages are very Web 2.0 and include UGC, with an option to create your own account some you can add a review.

There are ‘lifestyle’ channels (you can see these channels icons above) that can also act as navigators (an alternative path to finding content and can also acts as stand alone sub-sites) covering:

  • Sport
  • Travel
  • Going Out
  • Staying In (nice one!)
  • Style & Beauty
  • House & Home
  • with 2 others yet to launch (ie – coming soon)…

Here’s an example hotel results page:

I will be back with more on this site, but I wanted to get something out quickly this morning to help get the word out there. Would enjoy getting feedback and commnets from anyone using the site. Thanks.

UPDATE: Greg Sterling has a short post on this site here – I agree that is a “killer” domain and the new Ireland/com really is a shinning example of what and how to develop this kids of local/geo site!

Categories: Europe · classifieds · islands · local · local search · newspapers · web 2.0

Microsoft Making Waves in Europe

18 June 2008 · Leave a Comment

Microsoft made two interesting announcements so far this week in Europe. The 1st shows strong momentum in the ad serving space with a series of new publishers taking MSFT advertising technology products designed for large publishers. This shows growth across Europe and a continued commitment to the publisher side of the online ad ecosystem.

The 2nd announcement – European Search Techology Centre to deepen investments in Live Search – is much more exciting as it show more commitment to search and specifically to the European market. Setting up a search technology (R&D) hub in Europe is significant. And with such a large war chest of money and no sign of a Yahoo deal, one would anticipate lots of investment on this initiative… I can see many interesting ways for Microsoft to disrupt the search landscape in positive ways in Europe. Watch this space.

[Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft, however the above are my own thoughts and not based on any insider knowledge.]

Categories: Europe · Microsoft · ad serving · search

Schibsted a Shining Example – online revenue growth strong

16 June 2008 · 1 Comment

Schibsted – a Scandinavian media group, which is historically very strong in newspapers and classified – is a shining example of the right way to execute online. At least IMHO here on A Fuller View.

Back in May they annouced a strong Q1 overall and continued strong online growth:

• Revenues from online operations increased by 29 %
• Spanish online classifieds increased revenues with 50 %. Schibsted Classified Media
(former Trader) increased revenues with 37 %
• Strong performance from FINN, Blocket/Bytbil and Hitta
• Online activities contributed with 66 % (53 %) of EBITA excl. associates

How many media groups are getting over 50% of EBITA from online!? The full report is online here and worth trying to digest. Schibsted have been very aggressive with online innovation with the likes of Finn, VG and Sesam. The local search site Sesam is a model that I think is worthy of export to other markets (I will do a review and expand on this at a later date).

Categories: Europe · newspapers · old media

Online Ad Spend up up up in Europe – no duh

31 May 2008 · Leave a Comment

Well, this is really not a surprise for those in the online ad industry – but still nice to see the stats. The IAB reports that European online ad spend tops 11 million Euros!

In 2007 the European online advertising market was worth €11.2 billion, up four billion euros from €7.2 billion in 2006. With a like-for-like growth rate of 40%, the European online advertising market shows signs of closing the gap on the US which grew 26% to a market value of €14.5 billion in the same period.

Categories: Europe · advertising

Heading to the Venice Media Festival – a teaser

11 April 2008 · 1 Comment

I will be heading to the Venice Media Festival (which kicks off this Sunday night) and will be reporting back here and on AdViking next week with views, analysis and insight from what looks to be a very exciting industry conference.

Categories: Europe · advertising · blogging

Firefox Apparently has 28% Share in Europe

19 February 2008 · 2 Comments

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This is an interesting stat – “Firefox’s market share has hit 28.0% in Europe”. This according to a French web stats firm and was also reported on Slashdot. I believe this is another sign of a wider trend for open source software projects, especially in Europe. The trending being success and market share growth.

I am a big fan and a user of Firefox, so no surprise here really. I just wonder how may people use 2 or more flavors of browser? I know I use both IE and FF, probably 80% FF and 20% IE in terms of my overall use-age.

Note: I am late on posting about this stat because I am generally behind on my blogging, but still wanted to post on it. :-)

Categories: Europe · open source

Nokia Outlines its Vision of Internet – a long winded PR title

4 December 2007 · Leave a Comment

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I needed some content to help kick off the week as I am (a) running a bit slow; and (b) had yet to crack that first post for Dec… So, here we go. Nothing new but just something a interest especially from a European and mobile perspective.

This week it is Nokia World in Amsterdam and they issued a long winded press release about their vision.

Here’s a the full release:

Nokia World 2007: Nokia outlines its vision of Internet evolution and commitment to environmental sustainability
December 04, 2007

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – At the annual Nokia World conference today, Nokia outlined its vision for the mobile industry, predicting rapid change driven by the convergence of mobility and the internet, and the need for the industry to make an increasing contribution to environmental sustainability. In his keynote address, Nokia president and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo highlighted Nokia’s commitment to driving both trends.

Speaking to an audience of some 2,700 delegates who had gathered in Amsterdam to experience Nokia’s vision of the mobility industry’s future, Kallasvuo said: “We are at the dawn of a new era in mobile communications driven by the rapid convergence of the internet and mobility, and Nokia is setting the pace of change. But with market leadership in an industry of this scale also comes responsibility,” he said. “We are committed to taking a leading role in increasing environmental awareness and performance right across the industry, creating further products and services that help people make more sustainable choices. It is both the responsible thing to do and it makes good business sense.”

Nokia unveils “Comes With Music”

During the event the company announced Nokia Comes With Music, a revolutionary program that enables people to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks from a range of great artists – past, present and future. Once the year is complete, customers can keep all their music without having to worry about it disappearing when their subscription is over.

“We set out to create the music experience that people are telling us they are looking for – all the music they want in the form of unlimited downloads to their mobile device and PC,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Multimedia, Nokia. “Even if you listened to music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would still only scratch the surface of the music that we’re making available. Comes with Music fulfils our dream to give consumers all the music they want, wherever they want it, while rewarding the artists who create it.”

The program will launch with Universal Music Group International, and Nokia is in discussion with the remaining major international labels.

Universal Music Group International Chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge was at Nokia World to launch the program with Nokia. “It’s fantastic to work with Nokia on Comes With Music,” said Grainge. “We feel it’s an innovative way for people to discover and enjoy new artists, while at the same time having access to the amazing depth of the Universal catalog. Comes With Music allows our artists to reach new audiences in a very easy and affordable way.”

Images for press use available at http://www.nokia.com/A4632379.

Ovi – your personal dashboard to life

Nokia also gave further details of the upcoming Ovi Internet services environment. Ovi, meaning ‘door’ in Finnish, enables consumers to easily access their existing social network and content, acting as a dashboard to a person’s life.

“Ovi combines the mobile, PC and web environments into an easy to use experience with common user interface elements that provide consistency and simplicity,” said Vanjoki. “We started the Ovi services rollout with the individual services in navigation, music and games, and the next step is to provide an integrated experience. The complete Ovi environment and new services will be rolled out continuously throughout 2008.”

Categories: Europe · Nokia · mobile

A View from Europe, Local Search Summit teaser

30 November 2007 · Leave a Comment

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I’ve been following some of the reports and post from the Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media: 07 conference being held out in LA this week. The Local Onliner, Screenwerk and Praized should give you a good flavor of the event.

The Kelsey Group Conferences are high quality and always worthwhile. They are great for business, learning and networking. However, I was reading this post on Screenwerk and it struck a cord with me. I’ve been to a few ILM and other TKG conferences over the past few years but agree that perhaps more on how than why would be good. As someone who has grown up online (vs. coming from a more traditional or offline publishing background) I would even push that statement a little further and say there needs to be more detail into what is working, what is not working and what are the challenges in the local space.

So, I had a thought that maybe it’s the size of the event? I mean no disrespect – TKG events are premier conferences, please attend if you can. However, a bit like social networking (ie, once to big or to general, people look for smaller more elite networks etc) maybe some smaller or even off the radar events are where more in depth and serious discussions are happening and the firmament is starting to brew up some new ideas and innovations? I am sure many of the offline discussions and smaller side meetings at ILM are truly interesting.

I am helping to organize a small but high caliber Local Search Summit here in Europe next week. This will be the 2nd event this year (the 1st one was in Munich in April, perfect place great weather and of course beer gardens) and so far they have been largely self organizing. I can’t list the participants at the moment, but can tell you we are meeting in another city famous for beer and that we have 7 top tier publishing groups joining.

The groups attending are generally multi-national and diversified in terms of owning yellow pages, newspapers, classifieds, TV, radio, online and mobile properties. The geographic coverage is more than 20 countries in EMEA and Asia-Pac. The unifying theme is all these companies are committed to online/digital and are using local search to help drive and unify their online strategy. Here is a draft list of topics to be discussed (below) and as you can see there is a significant focus on advertising.

Local Search Summit – draft agenda:

  • Local Advertising: what’s working and what’s a challenge
  • Advertising: the network oppportunity, ad exchanges vs. ad marketplaces
  • The future with mobile and pay-per-call
  • SEM Platforms for Local Media
  • Mapping
  • Semantic Search and Contextual Search
  • Local audience. Global language. How Search is extracting context out of confusion.
  • The role of directory companies in local search
  • The impact of UGC and social networking on Local Search

I will report back from the Summit with some observations and hopefully some new insights in mid-December…

Categories: Europe · advertising · local · local search · respect · social networking

European Startups and New Additions to my Blogroll

14 November 2007 · Leave a Comment

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I was alterted to this new site dedicated to covering the European startup scene by TechCrunch UK – Hello Europe. I am adding this to my Blogroll. I have also recently added the following to the Blogroll:

  • Praized – the blog of a Canadian local seacrh start-up, lots of interesting posts on local search, web 2.0 and advertising
  • Ed Ross – a more technical blog on search and programming
  • Oliver Thylmann – a blog in English but from Germany, also lots on web 2.0 and advertising
  • Scripting – more techie, but written by a legend

I know a post about additions to the Blogroll, well I gotta keep feeding the blog and this seemed like a quick win.

Categories: Blogroll · Europe · startups