'Net Features : 101212

Google's Affiliate Ads Cross the Pond

Michael Garrity — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:45:00 GMT

Earlier in 2012, Google launched Affiliate Ads through its Google Affiliate Network for Blogger users in the United States. The program was such a smashing success that the company has decided to ship Affiliate Ads across the Atlantic for Blogger in the U.K.

The Google Affiliate Network allows affiliate marketers to earn money from their blogs with ads that pay based on conversions. Affiliate Ads come in the form of a gadget that bloggers can easily insert into a blog post. Then, anytime a visitor clicks on the link, goes to the advertiser’s site and purchases something, the publisher will get paid.

Among the advertisers included in the program are Cheapsuites.co.uk, Crooked Tongues, eFlorist, Diamond Manufacturers, Bestbathrooms.com, The Snugg, Hudsonreed.com and Perfume Click, though Google is apparently hard at work adding new advertising partners every day.

U.K.-based bloggers can being using Affiliate Ads tody by simply signing into AdSense and going to the “Earnings” tab in Blogger (of course, they’ll have to sign up with AdSense first, if they haven’t already). Once they’ve clicked the “Get Started” button, they should see the “Advertise Products” gadget appear when they go to write a new blog post. They can go ahead and search for and select a relevant affiliate ad from the gadget, insert it into their post and then publish it. All they have to do next is wait for the money to roll in.

It should be noted that right now the gadget is only offered to “select” bloggers in the U.K. (and U.S., for that matter) whose blogs match the ad categories that are currently available.

Get Personal with Content, See Results

Allison Howen — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:45:00 GMT

Site visitors are most engaged when they are provided with personalized content – for obvious reasons.

This is why Local Offer Network, a provider of e-commerce technology, data and services, has launched the Catalyst platform, which combines real-time personalization and content scoring to help publishers deliver the right coupons, offers, deals or other content to visitors from their very first visit.

Catalyst assembles data from multiple Web-wide sources, including MasterCard audiences, into an anonymous user profile. The platform then takes out the most relevant content for that specific user from Local Offer Network's database of more than 100,000 offers, coupons and deals. That content is filtered for quality via Local Offer Network’s Adaptive Response Model Score, which is a predictive algorithm that scores content items for expected performance, and is then served to the publisher for display on any site, app or email.

"It's well-known that when faced with a flood of choices, consumers tune out and make no choice at all," said Dan Hess, CEO and co-founder of Local Offer Network. "Catalyst creates an up-to-the-minute shortlist of shopping content for each user – and when that happens, both consumers and publishers win."

Say Hello to the New eBay

Allison Howen — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:43:00 GMT

eBay has released a series of design and general experience updates intended to improve user engagement and also compete with the popular daily deal site, Groupon.

The changes include a site redesign, a new daily deal section and a tool that will help one of eBay's largest customer segments – collectors. Learn more about the updates below:

eBay Feeds

It seems as though eBay is embracing change, because the company’s recently updated logo is now accompanied by a redesigned website. The most prominent site change is the eBay Feed, which is a personalized page of items that are displayed in a Pinterest-style layout of image tiles. The Feeds are completely customizable, with the displayed products being tailored to the categories or items that users choose to follow. It is safe to say that the new image-oriented design focuses on usability, because it provides users with a simple way to quickly discover new products.

Lifestyle Deals

While the eBay Feeds take a page out of Pinterest's design handbook, the auction site’s new daily deal feature takes a page out of Groupon's business model. The new service, which is called Lifestyle Deals, currently runs offers in a limited number of cities, including New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The deals are arranged through a partnership with a company called Signpost, which assembles deals with local merchants and posts them online. In the past, eBay has focused on offering deals for products, so jumping into the deal industry with a focus on services is definitely a big step for the company.

Setify

Aside from the new site design and daily deal venture, eBay has also launched a new tool that focuses on helping one of the company’s most popular customer segments – collectors. To many people, collecting is more than just a hobby. However, the collection process can be very time consuming because it requires a lot of research, tracking and even at times, some networking. This is why eBay has made the collection process a little easier with the launch of a free tool called Setify. Currently in beta, Setisfy helps collectors track the items that they own, share their collections, build wish lists and shop for additional collectibles. Although Setify currently only supports comic book and coin collectors, support for more categories is expected to come in the future. Those who are interested can request a beta invitation here.

Groupon Lands a Savory Platform

Allison Howen — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 15:45:00 GMT

Groupon is sinking its teeth into the restaurant industry with its recent acquisition of Savored, which is a platform that enables diners to make free online reservations and pay lower prices at restaurants across the United States.

After booking a reservation with Savored and visiting the restaurant, diners receive up to a 40 percent discount applied automatically to their bill. However, the service is also beneficial to merchants, because they are provided with increased revenue for tables that would otherwise be empty. To date, more than 1,000 restaurants nationwide have used Savored’s platform for yield management.

“Savored’s platform nicely complements Groupon’s efforts in yield management, an area we’ve pioneered with Groupon Now!,” said Dan Roarty, VP of Groupon Now. “We look forward to working together to achieve a common goal - making dining out even more fun and affordable for consumers while helping restaurateurs manage inventory and grow their businesses.”

Although the terms of the deal were not disclosed, it is important to note that Savored is currently continuing its service for diners and restaurants, and interested merchants can learn more about participating in Savored’s free 30-day trial here.

Facebook Ads a Sure Bet for the Holidays

Allison Howen — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:45:00 GMT

If your business has been contemplating launching a Facebook adverting campaign, this upcoming holiday season could be the perfect opportunity to do so.

This is because a recent study from digital ad management platform Marin Software reveals that many consumers turn to Facebook during their hunt for deals around Thanksgiving time. The “Online Marketer’s Guide for the Holidays” study gathered holiday trend data from Marin Software’s more than 1,800 advertisers, with the results showing that Thanksgiving weekend produces five of the top six shopping days of the year for online advertisers.

According to the study’s data, in 2011 online advertising revenues surged during the days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. In fact, Black Friday obtained the highest return for marketers who acquired 300 percent more revenue from paid search ads compared to 2010, followed by Cyber Monday which received a 260 percent increase. These increases indicate that more consumers are looking for holiday deals through online search, which also proves how important it is for retailers to coordinate their campaigns with the holiday season.

However, the study also shows that Facebook holiday shopping trends in 2011 were similar to the paid search statistics – with Facebook-originated ad revenues also increasing during the Thanksgiving weekend. This means that in addition to search, consumers are also turning to Facebook to find holiday deals. Additionally, it is important to note that one of the study's most surprising findings revealed that Cyber Monday actually returned a higher level of revenue than Black Friday for Facebook advertisers in 2011.

"The pressure is on for retailers heading into the holiday season. Based off of what we saw last year, the stretch between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday will be critical to retailers' success as shoppers become increasingly attuned to promotional events during the holidays," said Matt Lawson, vice president of marketing and partnerships at Marin Software. "Similarly, Facebook is an advertising channel that smart marketers should not ignore as our data shows the social site taking on search-like characteristics during the holiday season."

Afternic Gains Endurance

Michael Garrity — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:46:00 GMT

Premium domain marketplace Afternic has teamed up with the Endurance International Group in a partnership that will bring Afternic a noteworthy collection of fast transfer-enabled domains.

Endurance is one of the top ICANN-accredited registrars and providers of domains, as well as Web hosting and other online services for small- and medium-sized businesses. It also happens to offer the fastest transfer domains worldwide for sale through its various brands, which include Domain.com and Dotster.

Now, the customers of Endurance’s businesses can see the AfternicDLS inventory of domains whenever they do a domain search. Plus, they will now have the opportunity to list their domains in Afternic’s system, which puts them in a huge marketplace and makes them available to many more potential customers.

After combining the number of domain registrations made by its hosting companies and registrars, Endurance International Group is actually the third largest domain registrar on the Web, largely because it works with a number of very large hosting companies, like HostGator, BlueHost and Fatcow.

For now, Afternic domain listings are live on Domain.com, and they’re expected to appear on other Endurance brands over the next few weeks.

What is TypeScript?

Michael Garrity — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:46:00 GMT

Have you heard of TypScript, yet? That’s Microsoft’s new JavaScript-like programming language that the company just released a developer preview of a few weeks ago.

TypeScript is translated into good old JavaScript so that apps developed with the language can run in any type of browser, which naturally begs the question, “Why come up with TypeScript to begin with?”

See, while this new language has a similar syntax to JavaScript, it also offers a slew of additional features that you can’t get with JavaScript, including optional static typing, class declarations, a Visual Studio plugin and module support. According to Microsoft, this will make it easier to build larger, more complex applications without straying too wildly from the commonly used JavaScript path.

In fact, Microsoft has been looking forward with this new project, and apparently much of TypeScript is based on the next version of JavaScript that is currently being developed by the ECMA.

Also in an effort to be more forward-thinking, TypeScript is being developed to work with existing frameworks and libraries like Backbone.js, which intend to make it easier for people to create more large-scale applications suited to the Web today. Thus, any JavaScript code should be able to be pasted into TypeScript and work just fine.

TypeScript was developed by Microsoft’s Anders Hajlsberg, along with Steve Lucco and Luke Hoban. The language’s source code has been licensed under Apache 2.0 and now on Codeplex.