Widgets Emerge as Ad Venue

So far, social network ad spending is about as concentrated as search advertising is. MySpace alone gets 53 percent. Add in Facebook and two companies control 72 percent of all social network advertising.

It is interesting that widgets have emerged as the only identifiable category among the "other" sites that get some advertising support.

Social Networking Doesn't Drive That Much Advertising

Social networks aren't yet driving a huge amount of online advertising, and might not, say analysts at eMarketer.

An Advantage for Cloud Computing

Come to think of it, computing in the cloud, as a service, might have some important implications for software distribution and use. Piracy, for example, might be far less a problem.

Although piracy of software on personal computers declined in many countries in 2007, fast growing PC markets in some of the world’s highest piracy nations caused overall numbers to worsen—a trend that is expected to continue. Moreover, dollar losses from piracy rose by $8 billion to nearly $48 billion, according to the Business Software Alliance.

Of the 108 countries included in the report, the use of pirated software dropped in 67, and rose in only eight. However, because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide PC software piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38 percent in 2007.

“By the end of 2007, there were more than 1 billion PCs installed around the world, and close to half had pirated, unlicensed software on them,” says John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC.

Among the nations studied, Russia led the way with a one-year drop of seven points to 73 percent, and a five-year drop of 14 points. Russia’s piracy rate is still high, but it is decreasing at a fast pace as a result of legalization programs, government engagement and enforcement, user education, and an improved economy.

The three lowest-piracy countries were the United States (20 percent), Luxembourg (21 percent), and New Zealand (22 percent). The three highest-piracy countries were Armenia (93 percent), Bangladesh (92 percent), and Azerbaijan (92 percent).

For some observers, that might suggest a generally non-touted advantage for Web-based and cloud computing. Users cannot steal software that isn't there.

EarthLink Shuts Philadelphia Metro Wi-Fi Net

EarthLink is terminating its Philadelphia Wi-Fi service, after failing to reach agreement with the City of Philadelphia and a non-profit organization to transfer to either the City or to the non-profit the entire $17 million Wi-Fi network, for free, as well as pay cash and donate new Wi-Fi equipment.

EarthLink will continue to provide Wi-Fi service to its customers in Philadelphia during a transition period that will end on June 12, 2008. EarthLink will begin decommissioning the network shortly after the transition period.

That's the story these days: Municipal Wi-Fi is so unattractive a business proposition that assets cannot even be given away.

New Android Apps

Silicon Alley blogger Vasanth Sridharan picks five Google Android applications deemed especially cool or useful.

Android Scan scans barcodes on any book or CD when a user is in a store and will pulls up Amazon reviews. The application also will check local library listings to see if the book is available to check out.

CookingCapsules allows users to look up recipes, find a store nearby to get groceries, and provides step-by-step cooking directions.

Eco2Go calculates the carbon footprint a user leaves every time he or she takes a trip, and buys carbon credits to offset the impact.

Locale is a user preferences tool that automatically adjusts ringing or call forwarding rules when a user is in certain locations. At the office, the phone automatically goes on silent. At home, it automatically re-routes calls to a land line.

TuneWiki is a karaoke application and music player for the Android phone.

Online Ad Prices Falling

PubMatic's Web site ad price index indicates that the economic slowdown in the United States is beginning to affect the online advertising industry, with overall monetization dropping by 23 percent. The PubMatic AdPrice Index is based on data from over 3,000 publishers and billions of ad impressions.

The PubMatic AdPrice Index revealed surprising weakness in monetization for the vast majority of Web sites.
Large Web sites fared the worst while small Web sites managed to maintain their monetization rates. eCPMs for large Web sites (more than 100 million page views per month) dropped dramatically by 52 percent from 38 cents in March to 18 cents April. Medium Web sites (1 million to 100 million page views per month) were nearly flat, with monetization dropping from 34 cents in March to 33 cents in April. Small Web sites managed to improve their monetization, increasing from $1.18 in March to $1.29 in April.

82% Internet Pentration and Rising

Roughly one fifth of all U.S. heads-of-household have never used email, according to Parks Associates. That's not even close to being the most significant implication, though. If the Parks survey data can be extrapolated to the whole population, and Parks Associates believes it can, then Internet subscriptions now reach 82 percent of U.S. consumers.

The most recent annual phone survey of U.S. households found 20 million households are without Internet access, approximately 18 percent of all U.S. households.

“Nearly one out of three household heads has never used a computer to create a document,” says John Barrett, director, research, Parks Associates.

The Parks Associates poll found seven percent of the 20 million “disconnected” homes plan to subscribe to an Internet service within the next 12 months. And "Internet resisters" continue to dwindle.

At year-end 2006, 29 percent of all U.S. households (31 million homes) did not have Internet access. So 11 million more homes have gone online over the past year, if the Parks data can be extrapolated.

One half of those who have never used email are older than 65, and 56 percent had no schooling beyond high school.