• stats

    October e-commerce up a humiliating 1 percent

    The accompanying chart from TechFlash says it all: Online sales just aren't growing anymore. October's 1 percent growth over October 2007 is the worst performance measured by ComScore since they began tracking stats in 2001. TechFlash quotes Gian Fulgoni, chairman of the research firm: "We can only hope that the recent sharp drop in oil prices will cause a continued easing of inflation and a strengthening in consumer spending as [we] enter the critical holiday shopping season." We can only hope? Dude, we can get down on our knees and pray.

    3:20 PM on Tue Nov 18 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    423 views, 2 comments

    Latest by BlandonDawidude: Pray that consumers who are tapped out continue to spend? That sounds like praying for retarded customers. I guess so more »

  • dumbphones

    iPhone's image being tarnished by poor people

    The Jesusphone is no longer just for privileged white folks. "The strongest growth in users is coming from those earning less than the median household income, particularly since the launch of the iPhone 3G." So says a report from ComScore, which concludes that "lower-income mobile subscribers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to access the Internet, email and their music collections." Awesome. Now I can buy an iPhone 3G without feeling I'm being extravagant. But I can't shake the feeling this study was secretly paid for by RIM. (Photo by r.f.m II)

    1:20 PM on Thu Oct 30 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    18,091 views, 40 comments

    Most discussed Trick: It is really sad how tarnished the Mac image has become. Now anyone with $200 left on their credit card think more »

  • online advertising

    ComScore ruins ad networks' favorite scam

    Web metrics firm ComScore says it going to begin tracking ad networks' "potential reach" and "actual reach" for online-ad buyers and sellers. A translation: Ad networks, in theory, can place ads on all of a Web publisher's pages, and those are the numbers they trot out when luring ad dollars. Operations like Glam Media compound the confusion by portraying some of the sites they represent as if they were websites they owned. In practice, publishers of a respectable size use networks only to fill a small percentage of their least valuable inventory. The net effect: industrywide, advertising inventories look much larger than they actually are, leading ad buyers to drive harder bargains. If ComScore can expose this part of the ad-network scam, publishers may benefit from higher rates. Ad buyers? They won't complain: As soon as they've spent their clients' online budgets, it's time for a two-martini lunch. More »

    7:00 AM on Thu Aug 14 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    789 views, 3 comments

    Latest by Advertising-News: I think that the ad industry is moving to a more publisher-centric model as this article explains [www.adweek.com] I believe more »

  • the chart

    Google loses search market share to Yahoo, Microsoft

    Reversing a long trend, one research firm says Yahoo and Microsoft have posted gains in search market share — at the expense of industry leader Google. ComScore reports that 61.5 percent of all U.S. searches went through Google in June 2008, 0.3 percent less than in May 2008. Yahoo saw 20.9 percent of the searches in June, up from 20.6 percent in May. Microsoft went from 8.5 percent to 9.2 percent. Does this argue for a Microsoft-Yahoo merger? Not especially, since those small, hard-won gains would likely evaporate while the combined entity fumbles for years in post-deal internal politicking.

    8:40 AM on Mon Jul 21 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    1,402 views, 7 comments

    Latest by ThaiKitchen: Well, Google shouldn't worry... that .3% they gave to Yahoo, they are the ones offering ads, so the money hasn't more »

  • stocks

    Google's Ad Planner announcement like a rusty shiv to ComScore's kidney

    ComScore's stock dropped 23% on Tuesday when news broke about Google's Ad Planner — because now you can get demographic info from the same shop you can buy Web ads from. However, that's exactly the reason ad agencies and marketers might be wary to take Google's information at face value. [Silicon Alley Insider]

    2:00 PM on Wed Jun 25 2008
    By Jackson West
    636 views, Comment

  • the chart

    While Microsoft and Yahoo talk, Google takes more search market

    Why is Microsoft so desperate to acquire Yahoo's search business? According to ComScore, Google's video-sharing site YouTube and Google's other subsidiaries alone attracted more search queries than all of Microsoft's properties combined in April. Comparing total searches for each company is similarly lopsided; Google controls 61 percent of the search market to Microsoft's 9.1 percent, which is a decline from 9.4 percent in March. Problem is, buying Yahoo might not help. Yahoo lost search market share last month, too, dropping from 21.3 percent to 20.4 in just one month.

    11:20 AM on Thu May 22 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    933 views, Comment

  • rumormonger

    Revolution Health lays off an entire business unit

    Revolution Health, the company founded by former AOL Time Warner chairman Steve Case, has laid off its entire business-to-business unit, according to a tipster. In the rest of Revolution Health, there's little sign of its original mission — helping consumers lower healthcare costs. Instead, it's operating a series of vaguely health-related websites, and selling banner ads against them, a push for traffic for traffic's sake which began last year. But most recently, another source tells us, Revolution's pageview games have started to look desperate: More »

    10:40 AM on Thu May 22 2008
    By Jackson West
    2,435 views, 8 comments

    Latest by jwoodywild: Revolution can position themselves as a media company or not. It doesnt matter. They have nothing unique that cant be more »

  • stats

    ComScore plays Google whipping boy, but Web statistics firm actually saved search giant's bacon

    In February, ComScore reported underwhelming growth in clicks on Google ads in the U.S. Google shares sank below a 52-week low for the first time in the company's history. Then, yesterday, Google reported 42 percent year-over-year revenue growth, surpassing expectations. Burned, Wall Street traders reacted harshly toward ComScore, dropping the company's shares by 8.4 percent after hours. Today, ComScore wants to remind the world that it never said Google's revenues would sink and that it only measures clicks on Google ads in the U.S., not internationally But really, Google investors owe ComScore a large debt. More »

    11:40 AM on Fri Apr 18 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    1,047 views, Comment

  • great moments in pr

    Brooke Hammerling, online-video PR rep, weighs in on online-video audience debate

    BrewPR's snacky flack Brooke Hammerling penned a guest column for Silicon Alley Insider, arguing that the Web video industry needs to come up with a strict viewership metric. Though she doesn't mention it in the piece, New York-based online-video startup NextNewNetworks is a Brew client. (It's disclosed, in tiny type, at the end.) We could ask why Henry Blodget is giving a self-interested company rep a soapbox, or why they couldn't fix the red eye in Hammerling's photo. But the real question is why Hammerling suddenly cares about online video analytics. More »

    6:00 PM on Tue Apr 15 2008
    By Jackson West
    1,340 views, 4 comments

    Latest by WillClark: I think it's time for another Snacky or Flacky contest. more »