Technology

Small and medium-sized business (SMB) marketers are becoming increasingly convinced of the positive results of video email, social media and personalization, according to a new report from GetResponse.

Over 80 percent of respondents plan to use video emails in 2010 and over 90 percent of SMB marketers who use video emails report it delivers significant conversion rates.

More than half of respondents said video emails can increase click-through rates. One in three marketers believes video can improve brand image and increase customer loyalty. Over 20 percent of marketers believe that video emails can also reduce support and training costs. Only 4.7 percent of email marketers do no see any benefits from using video email.

"Today's marketers are mindful of the importance of delivering relevant content and one-to-one messaging based on preferences and behaviors," said Simon Grabowski, founder of

GetResponse

.

"It's all about putting the 'human element' back into marketing through the use of video and social media conversations."

Other highlights from the survey include:

•   Social media: A 113.2 percent increase in use of links to new messages on social media pages; a 109.1 percent increase in use of sign-up forms on Facebook, etc. fan pages; 88.8 percent will increase share options and 71.6 percent  more will place "follow us" links in email messages.
•   Personalization: 53.80 percent of SMB respondents said they intend to increase targeting and personalization in 2010; 52.40 percent will try to improve email title and subject line personalization.
•   Behavioral targeting: Nearly 75 percent of marketers claim that behavioral targeting can result in significant or moderate increases in email marketing effectiveness. Only 2.8 percent did not consider behavioral targeting an effective practice.

The Internet is now the third most-popular news platform, behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers and radio, according to a new survey out today.

The survey of 2,259 U.S. adults, conducted jointly by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, found 59 percent of respondents gets news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day.

The Internet and mobile technologies are at the center of how people's relationship to news is changing. One-third (33%) of cell phone owners now access news on their mobile phones and more than a quarter (28%) of Internet users have customized their homepage to include news from sources and topics that are of interest to them.

Nearly forty percent (37%) of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or shared it via postings on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

In addition, people use their social networks to filter, assess, and react to news. They use traditional email and other tools to exchange stories and comment on them.  Among those who get news online, 75 percent get news forwarded through email or posts on social networking sites and 52 percent share links to news the same way.

The survey also found the typical online news consumer routinely uses just a handful of news sites and does not have a particular favorite. Overall, Americans have mixed feelings about this "new" news environment. Over half (55%) say it is easier to keep up with news and information today than it was five years ago, but 70 percent feel the amount of news and information available from different sources is overwhelming.

"Americans have become news grazers both on and offline - but within limits," said Amy Mitchell, deputy director for the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

"They generally don't have one favorite website but also don't search aimlessly. Most online news consumers regularly draw on just a handful of different sites."


 

Realtor.com, the website for the National Association of Realtors, has launched a Real Estate Search iPhone app.

Users can search for every property listed on Realtor.com by price, location, property type, MLS ID number, square foot, lot size, open house events, distance from a user's current location and age.

The real estate iPhone app allows users to send a link of a specific property via email, Twitter or Facebook to family, friends or a realtor.

"The Realtor.com iPhone app places the power of Realtor.com in the hands of millions of highly mobile consumers that depend on us to deliver the largest collection of properties with the freshest and most accurate information available on the market," said Errol Samuelson, president of Realtor.com.

"By combining our unmatched search power with the ability to instantly share listings and feedback by email, Twitter or Facebook from an iPhone, millions now have mobile access to a phenomenal property search experience superior to other apps already on the market. We expect Realtors and their clients will appreciate the ease and convenience that our app brings to their experience as they work together to find the ideal property."
 

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Netflix said today it has reached an agreement with Nintendo that will allow Netflix members who own a Wii to instantly stream movies and TV shows directly to their TVs.

Netflix is scheduled to go live on the Wii this spring in the United States at no additional cost to Netflix members who have a plan starting at $8.99 a month, a Wii console and a broadband Internet connection.

"Our goal is to offer Netflix members as many ways as possible to watch movies and TV episodes streamed from Netflix right to their TVs and to give non-members more and compelling reasons to consider the service," said Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings.

"Joining forces with Nintendo, which has been so immensely popular with consumers since its introduction, is a very meaningful step in that direction."

Netflix already has deals in place to stream movies and TV episodes on Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.

Wii remains the fastest-selling game console in history, and reaches more consumers than any other device that currently offers streaming movies from Netflix. In December 2009, Nintendo sold over 3 million Wii consoles in the United States.

"Soon both new and longtime Wii owners will enjoy the benefits of Netflix - and a variety of informational and entertainment options - by being Netflix members and connecting their consoles to the Internet," said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime.
 

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The much-anticipated Boxee Beta has now officially come out. It is available for Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu.

"In the past 4 weeks since we announced the upcoming Beta we had the help of tens of thousands of early access users who tested the Beta on all different platforms and gave us great feedback," says Boxee's Avner Ronen. "Hundreds of bugs have been opened and we’ve been working diligently to resolve as many of them as we could. We feel the version deserves the upgrade from Alpha grade to Beta grade, and we’re going to spend the next year improving it, so we can release 1.0 at CES next year."

Along with the beta release, Boxee has announced some new content partners:

- TV.com
- Blip.tv
- IGN

Boxee is also showing off the details of its Boxee Box at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. You can read about the remote, and the Box's internals here and here respectively.

The Boxee Beta can now be downloaded here.

Watch for WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

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There may come a point at which Google's popularity maxes out, but we haven't reached it yet.  A new report from comScore concerning online video sites indicates that the search giant's properties attracted considerably more eyeballs in November than the previous month.

In October, comScore counted 126.3 million unique viewers in connection with Google's sites.  In November, this number increased to 129.0 million.  Meanwhile, Google's share of videos viewed rose from 37.7 percent to 39.4 percent.

This didn't bode well for second-place Hulu in one respect, as the site's share slipped from 3.1 percent to 3.0 percent.  Still, Hulu drew in about 1.3 million more unique visitors on a month-over-month basis, and comScore stated, "The average Hulu viewer watched 21.1 videos during the month, representing another all-time high for the property."

As for the rest of the videos viewed rankings, Viacom Digital came in third place, a significant move up from its former position in fifth.  Microsoft placed fourth, and Yahoo followed it in fifth.  Then came Fox Interactive Media, the Turner Network, the Tremor Media Video Network, CBS Interactive, and AOL.

Finally, here's a bit of news about the overall state of things: in November, comScore saw the number of videos viewed online from the U.S. go beyond 30 billion for the first time ever.

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Recently, at the B&C OnScreen Summit, News Corp's Deputy Chairman, Chase Carey, revealed that Hulu will begin charging users to view their content in 2010. "It’s time to start getting paid for broadcast content online", Carey said.

Would you pay to view shows on Hulu? If so, how much would you be willing to pay? Tell us.



According to Broadcasting & Cable, Carey also said...

“I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value... Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.”

Carey also said that even though the subscription system is likely, some content would probably remain free of charge.

Would you consider paying for a Hulu subscription? Let us know.

Social media is causing organizations to rethink and evolve their marketing strategies, according to a new study by Alterian.

The research indicated that 60 percent of organizations think that personal one-to-one engagement with consumers requires a new way of creating content and on-demand services, while 60 percent also feel the existing strategies for understanding consumers needs can be improved significantly.

Mike Fisher, Alterian

"The research clearly evidences that there needs to be major changes implemented in marketing organizations across the globe. The engagement of so many individuals across social networks, blogs and other online channels has meant that organizations need to increasingly treat consumers as individuals - both in order to recruit new customers and to retain existing ones," said Mike Fisher, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, The Americas, Alterian.

"Conversations can now spread across the web in seconds that can have both a dramatically positive or negative impact on a brand dependent on their content. Businesses need to evolve their monitoring and marketing techniques to offer one-on-one engagement with the customer and act on these conversations in real-time."

Social media was identified as the channel which has had the most influence on the customer experience in the last twelve months (27%) and, is the channel which businesses expect to have the greatest effect on the customer experience in the next year (48%).

In terms of return on investment, over a quarter of respondents (28%) cited email as the channel that offered the greatest ROI and the second most popular channel (20%) for investment in the next twelve months.

Other key highlights include:

•  46% of respondents felt that strategy was the most important factor in defining the customer engagement agency
•  25% stated that the top obstacle to overcome in online marketing was the integration of online with database marketing and offline channels
•  The lack of ability to assess or manage internal infrastructure and culture challenges (25%) and the integration of all the technology to power the cycle (20%) were identified as the biggest factors in implementing the customer engagement cycle.

Back in February Google launched the beta version of Google Sync. This allowed Google users to sync their Gmail contacts and Google Calendar events to their iPhones or Windows Mobile devices (Android already synced data). The feature did not come with the ability to sync actual mail, however. That has now changed.

The addition of "push Gmail" support has been a heavily requested feature ever since Google Sync was launched.

"Having an over-the-air, always-on connection means that your inbox is up to date, no matter where you are or what you're doing," says Google Mobile Software Engineer Douglas Gresham. "Sync works with your phone's native email application so there's no additional software needed."

"Once you're set up, new messages are normally pushed to your phone within seconds," notes Google Mobile Product Manager Marcus Foster. "While this type of speed is pretty awesome, push connections tend to use more power than fetching at intervals, so don't be surprised if your battery life isn't quite what it used to be. We've done a lot of work to optimize power usage, but if you prefer to save battery life, you can always turn off push in your phone's settings and fetch mail every 30 or 60 minutes instead."

To set up push Gmail on an iPhone, you have to be using iPhone OS version 3.0 or greater. To use Google Sync, just go to m.google.com/sync from your computer. More information about using Google Sync on various devices can be found here.