Sam Michel's blog

Panorma's dotcom fever, curse or blessing?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - April 7, 2000

Last week's Panorama certainly got under the collars of most new media folks on the list, some decried the poor journalism, others the lack of focus. Is this symptomatic of the way traditional media treats the Internet?

Is a .com address going out of fashion?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - March 31, 2000

A few weeks ago adding a '.com' to the end of your business' name ensured a valuation on the way up and excited whispers about e-commerce plans around the city. The recent slide in new media companies' share prices, the explosion of dotcom advertisers, the difficulty of obtaining both '.co.uk' and '.com' domains may be causing marketers sleepless nights.

The impact of Lastminute's share plunge
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - March 24, 2000

It was bad enough before the IPO, but after Lastminute hasn't been out of the headlines, whether it's heavy debate from the broadsheets or the daily tally on how much investors lost, from BBC Online. Given that a sizeable number of UK-Netmarketing subscribers work in start-ups, a heated debate was inevitable.

The marketing potential of virtual communities
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - March 17, 2000

In the never-ending search to increase a site's stickiness the concept of community is highly prized. One possible way of achieving this is through virtual communities; chat rooms, which allows users to adapt different forms (avatars) and interact with others in a virtual reality world.

Where have all the good employees gone?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - March 10, 2000

What a week. Lastminute.com has to increase their IPO price in response to demand. There's no clearer evidence of the boom than in the job pages of this fine publication. Finding good people though, appears to be harder than it might seem.

Amazon grabs a patent on affiliate programs.
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - March 02, 2000

The week started with much surprise and equal chagrin after Amazon.com was granted a patent on that favourite technique of most e-tailers, affiliate programs. Anna Pedroza was first in, writing, "Any view on Amazon's new patent of their affiliate program?" Unsurprisingly the list�s members had plenty to say.

Marketers vs. Programmers: Internecine war?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - February 25, 2000

The UK-Netmarketing list has been around for over 2 years now - in fact its exact day of inception has been lost to the mists of new media time. So you can imagine that the lists' subscribers are a pretty eclectic bunch who have a wide range of disciplines between them.

The big question of content management
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - February 18, 2000

You�ve raised the funding, put in place a team of editorial staff and you're churning out content that, if printed on paper, would crush a small house. The challenge facing many companies is how to manage this treasure. Fortunately, several companies are touting offerings, which claim to ease your content management headaches.

CASE STUDY: BBC Essentials
11/2/00

iJack score strong response and maximum exposure.

The banner is dead, long live the banner...
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - February 11, 2000

Unsurprisingly the topic of the humble banner advert makes frequent appearances on the UK-Netmarketing list. This week, William Wemyss kicked things off with his thoughts on how the fairly dismal industry average click-through could be improved.

High bandwidth, high expectation...
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - February 04, 2000

The announcement of the high-speed, �always on� ADSL service from BT was heralded by some as a milestone, which would bring great change for the new media industry. After a short trial, the service is being gradually rolled out across the UK, whilst the uptake in the US is much more dramatic. Following a question for users� experience, those lucky enough to be on the trial shared their experiences.

Offline ads getting over-priced?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - January 28, 2000

Since the New Year it's been hard to pick up a magazine or walk past a poster site without seeing www.something-or-other.com advertising their wares. Chances are a big chunk of any new dotcom's launch budget has been allocated to offline advertising, with some list subscribers complaining that this is causing offline ad rates to go through the roof.

The domain name game...
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - January 21, 2000

Finding the right name for your business can be a difficult task. These days it's compounded by the difficulty in finding a domain name that fits as well. The whole issue was highlighted after a simple question from A. Amor, who wrote, "I would like to know your point of view regarding domain names marketing. I bought about 100 domains and I will try to sell them to ebusiness market. What is the best way to sell them?"

AOL/Time Warner behemoth to rule the new and old media worlds?
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - January 14, 2000

Xmas Shopping online: the highs and lows...
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - January 6, 2000

The last couple of mailing list round-ups in the last century (doesn�t that sound weird?) tended to focus on the problems some of the ecommerce websites were finding before Xmas, with dire prophecies of what might happen in the New Year.