August 2010

As consumers increasingly use social platforms and their smartphones for product research, a recent study conducted by Borrell Associates indicates these channels may lead online marketing expenditures in 2011.

The ad agency anticipates that online ad spend will grow in 2011, from $45.6 billion to $51.9 billion. This growth is expected to be driven by increased interest in emerging and mobile platforms.

Looking to reach 178 million American internet users who watch online videos, marketers are expected to invest more than $5.6 billion on videos - up 60 percent from 2010. The user friendliness of the format is also enabling smaller businesses to take advantage of the large audience online video serves.

Meanwhile, Borrell also anticipates that mobile ad spend will rise as smartphone penetration increases. The firm projects one out of every five marketing dollars will be devoted to the mobile platform.

Research firm comScore recently reported that nearly 85 percent of the entire U.S. internet audience watched online videos. While Hulu delivered the most video ads, ad network Tremor Media reached the greatest number of American internet users.

On Thursday, Google released its voice-over-internet-protocol feature for Gmail users, who proceeded to make more than 1 million phone calls in the first 24 hours.

Currently, only users in the United States and Canada have access to the service, which features free calls to either country as well as cheap international rates. According to Google, it is using the revenue it will collect from international calls, which cost close to 2 cents per minute, to keep the local calls free.

The feature is not available to all Gmail users in the U.S. and Canada just yet, and it is unknown when Google will reach complete availability. The staggered rollout, however, is not uncommon for Google. With its social networking tool, Wave, the company provided invites to some Gmail users to test the program in beta before making it available to all users.

Some have speculated that Google is attempting to dethrone Skype as the VoIP leader, however, others think the company simply wants to provide its users with complete communication services and compete with popular social media websites.

“We assume Google’s ulterior motive is less about disrupting the telecommunications and more about driving engagement within Gmail and its social-networking activities, to better compete with social networks such as Facebook,” Goldman Sachs analyst James Mitchel told investors.

To compete with Facebook, Google must lure customers with these features. According to its most recently released statistics, Facebook has surpassed 500 million total users worldwide.

A study recently conducted at the Def Con 2010 Hacker Conference found 96 percent of respondents believe cloud computing presents greater opportunities for cyber criminals to exploit vulnerabilities in security.

The overwhelming sentiment originates from the belief that companies using cloud computing - whether it’s for SaaS applications or website hosting - do not adequately secure their networks, which 89 percent of the 100 IT professionals surveyed stated. The cloud has become a crucial element of enterprise IT operations, primarily due to the flexibility it provides its users without forcing them to spend too much. Furthermore, smaller companies can use technology that was previously too expensive for them at a fraction of the former cost.

“More than anything, this research confirms our ongoing observations that cloud vendors - as well as the IT software industry as a whole - need to redouble their governance and security assurance strategies when developing solutions, whether cloud-based or not, as all IT systems will eventually have to support a cloud resource,” IT security expert Barmak Meftah said.

In terms of web design, cloud computing has enabled smaller companies to use highly capable solutions without having to invest in servers and other hardware required to manage and protect data.

Google recently announced its popular photo-based search tool, Google Goggles, should be available for iPhone users before the end of the year. The application allows smartphone users to take a photo of an object and conduct a search involving it based upon the image.

Google first introduced the solution for phones using its Android operating system at the end of 2009, and has worked to refine the application since its debut. While the application has hardly become an item of widespread appeal for Android users, many cite it as one of the add-ons they enjoy most. The item has become especially popular for people as a comparison shopping tool to learn more about a brand or item.

While the company fully expects to complete the development of the application by the end of the year, there are some issues it is currently dealing with. Designing it as a third-party application requires different methods than as pre-loaded feature. Google’s database currently contains more than 1 billion images, but the company reports Goggles typically works only 33 percent of the time.

Google has made other announcements in recent weeks aimed at expanding its product inventory and overall capability. The company recently acquired Like.com to expand its ecommerce presence, however, terms of the deal were not disclosed.