Communicate Monitor (Nov’09): Bing, Twitter, Virtual Vouchers, Facebook

Read in Communicate (Issue: November 2009) about interactive/digital media:

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Sports sites score over Twitter – Research commisioned by Super.ae, a football Web site recently launched by Abu Dhabi Media Company, has found that male Internet users in the Middle East are more than twice likely to visit a sports site as to use Twitter…

Bing gains dollars and traffic – The US search advertising market is coming back, and Microsoft’s Bing is slowly gaining share of search-ad dollars. Two digital agencies in the country has released aggregate client search-spending data from the third quarter…

The virtual vouchers – Like every other facet of the marketing industry, the coupon business is not immune to the digital revolution. Now one Dubai company says it’s time to bring the voucher book online – and into the 21st Century…

The dawn of the e-endorsement – Though sen as scourge, sponsored posts can boost an online effort.  Is there a difference between paying Kim Kardashian to tweet about Armani purses and compensating Tiger Woods to star the Buick commercials? Is it really word-of-mouth if you have to pay for it? Maybe it doesn’t matter. As marketers rush to develop relationships with key influencers and consumers, a bevy of entrepreneurs are carving out businesses helping brands do in the social space what they’ve long done in other areas: spend money to generate impressions…

School’s out: Are students taking a pass on Facebook? Experts look for answers as school affiliations decline, yet student-age users continue to grow. A funny thing happened amid the explosive growth of Facebook: Sometime between January and July, about 900,000 high-school students and 1.6 Million college students appear to have gone missing from the site. It is unclear – doubtful even – that students actually stopped using Facebook. The network’s own data and third-party ComScore data shows users under 18 and 18-to-24 age group continued to grow through the period. But Facebook data for advertisers show the number identifying themselves as being in high school dropped 17 percent, and those identifying themselves as college enrollees plummeted 22 percent…

You can find Communicate (In association with Advertising Age) on newsstands in Egypt 10 pounds | Lebanon 5,000 pounds | Qatar 15 riyals | Syria 100 pounds | Jordan 4.000 dinars | Morocco 22 dirhams | Saudi Arabia 15 riyals | Kuwait 1.2 dinars | Omar 1.5 riyals | Switzerland 8 Francs | UAE 15 dirhams.

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Tarek is the founder and chief researcher at Youngberry, a youth research and marketing firm dedicated to the region. Tarek founded interactiveME.com and previously worked as Manager at Flip Media (Interactive Agency), Bayt.com (Job Site) and Consulting House Qatar (Consulting firm). He is researcher and writer on internet & disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship, and youth culture.