Leadpile's Blog» microsoft

US Online Advertising To Recover This Year

Christina — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:58:39 +0000

Spending on Internet advertising in the US should “almost completely recover” this year according to the IDC.

With Search and Mobile advertising seeing the largest growth.

Search revenue is expected to increase from 13.8 billion to 27.3 billion between 2009 and 2014. Mobile will see an astonishing growth of 220 million to 1.8 billion.

Currently Google holds a 64% share in the US search market with Yahoo at 18% and Microsoft at 12%. With Yahoo recently agreeing to outsource its search to Microsoft and Google’s proposed $750 million purchase of Admob it will be interesting to see how these big players affect online and offline advertising.

Hotmail Making Improvements…

Natasha Aronov — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:34:05 +0000

In an effort to bring an advantage to Hotmail over Yahoo or Google Microsoft is completing upgrades to the free Web mail service , the changes expected to be available in July or August. According to the Associated Press, the upgrades will automatically sort incoming messages into different categories devoted to users’ key contacts and Internet social networks. It will also show a thumbnail preview of incoming photos or videos without having to open the attachment. The improvements are also going to make syncing Hotmail on mobile phones easier.

Currently Yahoo’s email service has 95 million U.S. users, Hotmail trails behind with 47 million and Gmail a close 3rd with 43 million.

Apple & Bing: Search Engine Partnership?

Mari Woods Holt — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:01:18 +0000

Am I seeing this correctly? Apple is actually entering into conversations with Microsoft to discuss the possibility of using it’s Bing search engine as the default browser over Google? Can this be true? There must be something true to this buzz because there are several stories referencing this news on the internet. Financially, if this is true, this could be a big blow to Google because they are currently generating revenue from being the default browser, and this could be potentially going to Microsoft. Something like this is not really surprising me too much because in recent months/year Google and Apple have been neck and neck on who has the “best” smartphone.
Could this be a low blow to Google if it gets removed from the iphones? I would say absolutely yes! Let’s see if this is just a lot of smoke blowing, or the beginning of a cyber WAR .

The Future Of Wi-Fi Is In Our Cars!

Mari Woods Holt — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:35:56 +0000

Believe it or not Wi-Fi is going to be available in cars in the near future (2010 to be exact). Many of us need to go to coffee shops or other public places that allow us the convenience of getting internet access, however it seems that Ford cars are going to be starting to install WI-FI capabilities in next years models. This will be possible with the SYNC system who is partnering up with Microsoft. Consumers will then be able to utilize their laptops in their cars wherever they want!
The advancement of technology is so amazing. Not only can people use their cell phones to access the internet, now they are going to be able to sit in their cars and be on an actual laptop when needed. So will something like this maybe impact the lead generation world, where more people can potentially fill out online forms such as Leadpile’s Microclick form on a website? I think so!

Obama Names A National Cyber Security Chief

Mari Woods Holt — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:05:47 +0000

After months and months of talking about naming someone to help with our nation’s cyber security, the White House has finally named someone to run this very important division. This past week, they named Howard A. Schmidt as the National Cyber Security Chief. Schmidt is bringing some attractive experience with him, with having worked for eBay and Microsoft.
So the question is what is someone like this going to do to help with cyber security? This sort of position is not something that any other president has appointed, so what will he be doing? The one thing we do know is that the computer systems of the US government need watching, but what about the watching over of the whole technology world that is currently exploding?
Either way, this gentlemen seems to have some history under his belt to help with the US government’s computer systems and hopefully any threats to the our nations cyber world. Time will tell exactly what this new role will be responsible for, however I am sure it is a position that will be constantly evolving with what is going on in Cyber world!

Sidekick Data Loss: Lessoned Learned?

Mari Woods Holt — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:06:58 +0000

How many people actually back up any data they have on their cell phones or computers? The answer is probably not enough do. I don’t know about you, but if I even forget my cell phone at home I feel totally “naked” and can’t wait to have it in my possession once again. We have all become so dependent on our cell phones, and even our computers as a source for any and all information we need to function. Unfortunately, those that were carrying around a Sidekick phone, and had the Microsoft service (Specifically Danger Inc), had to deal with a horrible situation of having had all their data lost. This is something none of us want to experience. So how do we prevent this kind of thing from happening to us? Really there is not a 100% way to prevent this sort of thing from happening if your data is being stored elsewhere. I think the only thing any of us can really do is look into a service or specific software that can back up our data and everything else that we store on our phones. Let’s take a guess how many people that just lost their data on their Sidekicks, don’t learn from this hard lesson of backing up your data? Do we need to all go through some scary situation like this to learn the hard way? Hope not!!!

To Bing, or Not to Bing?

Natasha Aronov — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:02:47 +0000

Microsoft is gearing up to test a new format for ads appearing in the search ad format. Traditionally, this ad type appears as plain text with links either imbedded into the text or in adjacent to. According to MediaPostNEWS, the new ad type that will be live next month will introduce logos and favicons hoping to attract consumers attention as well as generate more search campaign dollars to Bing.
Bing which has continued to increase its market share of the search engine world, and currently sits at 10.7%, still has a long way to go to catch Google who is number 1 with 64.6% of the market share.
When searching, does the ad type on the page attract you to return to a specific search engine? Does ad type affect your choice, more than habit? I know that I have been making an attempt to utilize Bing, but 9 times out of 10 I am at the search results produced by Google before I even realize I made the decision. Flashier ads may attract additional buyers to the ad, but the consumers will have to be attracted to the search engine first!

Microsoft YouTube Video Generates Controversy

Mari Woods Holt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:48:46 +0000

How could we all not forget the YouTube Video that generated some massive buzz for Britain’s Got Talent singer Susan Boyle? She became an overnight sensation all over the world! Well move over Susan because now a new YouTube video is bringing some buzz for Microsoft. A crazy stunt type video recently came out and just seemed impossible to be true, but it generated 1.4 million + views already. After digging and digging it was discovered that this hard to believe video was in fact bogus. Some great video editing allowed this video to be made into something that looked real, but ended up being discovered that it was in fact the work of some “creative” editing. It seems that Microsoft Germany had not planned on this video getting the type of buzz it ended getting, but thanks to Twitter, YouTube users and other news outlets it did!
YouTube and other social networking sites are a great place to get some attention for your company. Leadpile uses YouTube to create a place for the social networking site’s users to learn about our company. If this is not something that you are currently not using as a source of getting your name out there, I would recommend it. Look how much attention this most recent YouTube video brought to Microsoft? The power of YouTube is priceless!

Watch Out Google, The Microsoft & Yahoo Partnership Is Official!

Mari Woods Holt — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:33:54 +0000

It now seems that Google will have a bigger beast to battle, because Yahoo and Microsoft have officially signed a partnership deal. This is something that has been going on for a while now, but now has become official. This new deal will also create some more potential for Microsoft’s new search engine – Bing, amongst other benefits. The AP is reporting that, “Under the agreement, Yahoo will have limited access to the data on users’ searches — which yield insights that can be used to pick out ads more likely to pique a person’s interest. The value of that information is why Microsoft wants to process more search requests.”
It does not seem that this signed deal will produce any immediate changes that we will all see, however Leadpile and all other lead generation companies that deal with search engines, will see some sort of changes in the near future. There is going to be lots to come with the battle over the market share for Google and Microsoft/Yahoo, and who can come up with what next? Hopefully, we are all going to be the ones that benefit from this battle to be on top! Let’s sit back and watch it ALL unfold.

Microsoft Trying To Take Advantage Of Twitter Popularity

Mari Woods Holt — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:09:12 +0000

It seems Microsoft sees some “good” in Twitter because it is incorporating Twitter messages into the Bing search results. They will be indexing some of the more popular “Tweeters” who have some good followers and tweets. I guess Twitter is not a one hit wonder that is just going to go away. The realtime updates of what people are doing, and talking about, is truly something everyone is trying to get a piece of. These realtime search results are going to be displayed in a separate area of the Bing results page, so people can stay in touch with the Twitter world.
You really can’t blame Microsoft for trying to capitalize on all this traffic going to Twitter. They have some nice competition in the search engine world with Google, and probably want to do anything in their power to make the new Bing search engine work, and work like no other search engine. Score for Microsoft!