Picture Proof of Email's Value

Michael Garrity — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 22:00:00 GMT

One of the more well-received presentations at HostingCon 2011 was by Jeff Hardy of SmarterTools about the importance of email. The presentation has been put online and accompanied by an infographic that displays the difference in size and value between email and its closest competitors.

To quickly summarize the data in the graphic:

- Websites: There are 463 million websites, this term meant in the most general sense, that are currenly online with about 3.3 billion daily searches.

- Google+: There are 10 million accounts (obviously this is higher now, since they've had over 25 million users since August) and about 1 billion items shared on the site daily.

- Twitter: Twitter has more than 300 million accounts, though new statistics tell us that over 50 percent of those are inactive, and registers about 140 million tweets a day.

- Facebook: The world's largest and most infuential social network has over 750 million users and sees about 60 million updates every day.

- Email: Across the world, there are 2.9 billion email accounts, or the equivalent of approximately 42% of the world's population, and there are 188 billion messages sent each day.

This means that there are about 3 times as many email accounts as there are registered Facebook and Twitter users combined. Daily posts on those two social networking sites only account for 0.2 percent of the email traffic that occurs in a single day. The total number of searches on Google, Yahoo! and Bing, combined, is only about 1.1 percent of daily email traffic. Finally, the total number of page views on the Internet every day still only accounts for one-fourth of all of the emails sent.

Hmm, what possible conclusion could this draw? Well, let's go out on a limb and say that email is important. Web companies should take note of the power that their email has and how much it means to a company like Google, who find value in users above and beyond the price of email hosting.

As the infographic states, "Email is the most used, most valuable and highly-prized real estate on the Internet. This is why everyone wants it."

It's clear that even with the social media revolution in full swing, it's still going to be a long, long time before email is dethroned as the ruling power in Web business and marketing.

Firms at Risk; Web Professionals Take Note

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:46:00 GMT

A new Fasthosts Internet Ltd survey released earlier this month found that many firms do not have arrangements in place to retain basic control or in some cases even legal ownership of their website and domains because of over-reliance on the IT or web consultants who look after their website.

Ever broadening consumer expectations for the web has led more firms than ever (43%) to opt for using the services of skilled web professionals to help create and maintain their website. 92% of these companies rate their external web consultants positively, with 38% reporting a 'good' return on investment. However, the Fasthosts 'SME & the Web' study found that many UK companies may be risking revenue and reputation as a result of weaknesses in their workflows with such third parties.

Additional insights from the study include:

- During the past 2 years, 1 in 4 firms paying for an external web professional have had their website off-line as a result of a problem related to the other party.

- 1 in 5 businesses incurred delays to projects caused by their external partner, and 17% reported losses of both staff time and sales revenue over £1000 as a result. For 14% of respondents, an external advisor or agency had gone out of business.

- In the event of an issue with their external partner, 56% of firms have no way of making any changes or additions to their website themselves and 80% have no facility for switching their website on/off independently. For these businesses, the link to their external web professional is a single point of failure in their online presence.

- Whilst UK firms invest millions in professional web design each year, 70% of those using a web designer do not retain a back-up copy of their website themselves.

"For many firms, using external web professionals is a very sensible and rewarding option. However, as external parties can come and go, it is vital that businesses protect themselves from the potential disruption, losses and reputation damage that an off-line or out-of-date website can cause,” said Steve Holford, Marketing Director, Fasthosts Internet Ltd.

'Net Features : website

Picture Proof of Email's Value

Firms at Risk; Web Professionals Take Note