Global Search Engine Marketing & Social Media News And Analysis » Portugal

European Interactive Advertising Association Report Dec. 2010

Sante J. Achille — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:47:35 +0000

The European Interactive Advertising Association has published the EIAA European Media Landscape Report Summary, December 2010.

The key findings of the report include:

521m 16+ year old people in the 15 European countries sampled
According to EIAA’s latest Mediascope Europe study 76% (396m) of all 16+ year old people across 15 European markets surveyed use different media simultaneously with almost a third (30%) using the internet whilst they watch TV
A third (33%) of Europeans cannot live without the internet, equal to the percentage of Europeans who claim they cannot live without TV
54% (279m) of Europeans use the internet in a typical week spending 12.1 hours online
16‐24 year olds use the internet more frequently than they watch TV – 79% of this younger demographic use the internet between 5 and 7 days each week while 76% watch TV as regularly
More than 8 in 10 (83%) online Europeans use a broadband connection and over half (52%) of these broadband users are wireless
The most popular web activities amongst all European internet users include;
- email (76%), communicating via social networking sites (45%)
- instant messaging (40%)
- watching film, TV or video clips (32%)
- contributing to ratings and reviews (27%)
71% state that as a result of the internet they are staying in touch with friends and relatives more, half (50%) have chosen better products or services and 47% are better able to manage their finances online
55% of European internet users actively change their mind on what brand to buy after online research

Other relevant information provided in the report:

51% access the Internet on a PC
14% access the Internet via a mobile device
43% watch or downloading films and video or stream TV
80% of the population in Norway Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands access the Internet at least once a week, with the European average fixed at an estimated 54%

Source: http://www.eiaa.net/

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Google expands new trademark policy – but sidesteps Europe

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:12:38 +0000

Following the expansion of their trademark policy to the UK last year, Google has widened its looser trademark policy which basically allows all-comers to bid on trademark keywords increasing the cost of trademark advertising via the number one search engine and allowing competitors to aggressively buy each others ‘marks. The new change expands the ‘we won’t intervene’ approach to a total of 190 countries. The change comes into force on June 4th.

However, Google has sidestepped the key European countries with the strongest legal rules and where cases have cost Google most in fines (see list below). From calculations, the removal of protection for trademarked terms increases advertiser costs by as much as 80% – as well as taking revenue from additional advertisers on those terms. The policy, therefore, enables Google to increase its adverising take from advertisers. The approach also affects major global brands most significantly – because they generally spend proportionately more on advertising their brands because it is those brands – and the associated products – which have made them global.

Google has long struggled to persuade blue chip advertisers to move more of their advertising budgets to Google Adwords – this is step which leaves them with no choice. However, it is a dangerous move as it could also contribute to tipping the ROI see-saw towards other newer forms of promotion such as social media and Twitter.

Having received no significant kick-back from its UK change of a year ago – it’s no surprise that this is being rolled out now. Probably, another year will pass before more countries – especially European ones – are added. I predict that France, where the courts have levied the largest fines against Google, will be the last to go.

So the following countries (European Union countries in bold) will not see the change – at least yet. Via Search Engine Land

Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Cyprus
Denmark
Finland
France
Greece
Germany
Hungary
Italy
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden

Australia
Bahamas
Brazil
China
Iceland
Macau
New Zealand
Norway
South Korea
Switzerland
Taiwan

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Portuguese Online Buying Behaviour

Nuno Hipólito — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:56:24 +0000

Portuguese who search for products of services online, spend in average €220.

This is the main result of the first online buying behaviour study done by Google Portugal. In this study more than 2.000 people were asked for their online buying (and searching) habits. Other interesting conclusions were:

People who search online and buy offline spend in average €192
People who search and buy offline spend in average €94

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Google Analytics now in Portuguese

Nuno Hipólito — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:06:17 +0000

Google Analytics is now available in Portuguese. Google Analytics is a widely used web analytics tool, provided for free by Google and already used by many webmasters in Portugal.

In October, Google had already announced that Google Sites – a tool for creating free sites online – was also available in the Portuguese language.

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Portugal buys 500 thousand Intel Classmates

Nuno Hipólito — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:41:38 +0000

Intel signed a deal with the Portuguese government in which they will provide experience and know how in the education market in order to put 500 thousand small PCs in the hands of children with ages raging from 6 to 10 years old.

The computers, named “Magalhães” in honour of the Portuguese explorer, will cost between zero € (for underprivileged kids) up to 50€. When they come out of the factory (which by the way is in Portugal), the retail price is near the 180€ mark, the remaining value being subsidized by the government and telecommunication companies.

The computers include wifi capability (as well as broad band Internet access), but the price does not include home Internet connections.

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Liberalization of the .pt TLD delayed again

Nuno Hipólito — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:32:08 +0000

The decision to allow anyone to register a .pt TLD has suffered yet another blow, as the authorization from the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology was postponed to an unknown future date.

6 months ago the request to liberalize the .pt TLD was proposed by the Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN) in order to stimulate the market. Only about 116 thousand .pt domains exist. This number is considered very low, and should be between 200 thousand and 1 million, if compared to similar European Countries.

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TV ad campaign in Portugal uses blogs

Nuno Hipólito — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:36:23 +0000

A tv ad campaign for ZON (a cable operator that offers a triple play service) began airing the passed week on the main Portuguese tv networks.

The campaign isn’t very out of the ordinary, but for one thing: it mentions a blog url . Here’s the concept: people who sign in with ZON are so called “enlightned”. Among them are mostly common folk, one being a cleaning lady that keeps a blog where she talks about her job. Still doesn’t sound that interesting? What if she was the cleaning lady in the Olimpus?

Sure… the idea won’t win any gold lions at Cannes, but it is probably the first time a big tv campaign mentions a blog. And the blog is actually online, and being updated in a fairly regular basis. You can call it a first attempt at mass media viral marketing.

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Eco Find – The green search engine

Nuno Hipólito — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:35:23 +0000

It uses a black background and therefore offers great energy savings, because black uses less energy than white on computer monitors.

Called Eco Find, it is interely Portuguese in the making, but it uses Google results.

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24 European states go borderless under Schengen

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:54:49 +0000

The Schengen agreement has been extended from 15 countries to 24 giving a wider borderless Europe with no internal border controls or checks and an open market of over 400 million people. Coming into force on the 21st December, the Schengen agreement makes physical inter-trade between bordering countries easier to manage for marketers. As Europe opens its borders, and search grows quickly in Europe, Schengen makes European business roll-outs more attractive and achievable with faster distribution and lower border costs.

The new countries joining the agreement are:-

Czech Republic
Slovakia
Poland
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Estonia
Malta
Slovenia

I decided to test this with a visit to the most northerly Balkan state of Slovenia travelling from Austria through a 5 mile tunnel to the south side of the Alps. True enough the European blue flag and stars had become the standard border crossing notification and the rows of kiosks and border controls were empty and unmanned as we headed to the capital Ljublana.

Ljubljana is a town of around 230,000 people with a pretty baroque style and attractive old quarter. The local search engine is “Najdi” and the local domain is .si.

The Schengen agreement was first signed by five countries in 1985 in a small Luxembourg town ‘Schengen’ – these original five were later joined by ten others and the agreement came into force in 1995. The agreement basically means that the internal borders between the treaty countries are removed – but that those same countries cooperate to strengthen the outer border using the Schengen Information System – a database where data is exchanged. There are also special rules on how police forces work together.

The original five countries were:-

France
Germany
Netherlands
Belgium
Luxembourg

Other countries which joined up to 1995 when Schengen was finally realised are:-

Spain
Portugal
Greece

Countries who joined after 1995 but before 1997 are:-

Italy
Austria
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Iceland
Monaco

The Schengen Agreement has only ever, in part, been deployed by the British or the Irish for fear of it encouraging immigration and terrorism – though it doesn’t seem to have helped much staying out.

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Google Portugal now has navigational links

Nuno Hipólito — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:28:32 +0000

As was announced by several SEM blogs and media, Google launched internationally the navigational links in their homepage. This was a feature previously only available in Google.com (US).

The order of the links in the Portuguese version of Google (Google.pt) is now the following:

This differs sightly from the US version of Google, and that is explained by the fact that Google adapts its navigational menu according to each country.

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EURid suspends 10,000 .EU names squatted in China

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:14:09 +0000

The .EU domain registrar management organisation, EURid has suspended 10,000 EU domain names which have been apparently legally registered by a Chinese woman – reports out-law. EURid has the power to remove the domain names from the woman – but has said that it would prefer a court to do it.

According to reports, the woman was buying the names to sell on to other parties at higher prices – nothing new in that then. EURid says that is has received complaints – not particularly new either. One key point is that only European-based organisations are allowed to hold .EU domain names.

Out-law carries this great quote from EURid, “When we screen our data bank we see that some people have an amazing amount of names. Nobody needs 10,000 names.” Strange. You’d have thought that EURid had a little more knowledge and insight about the industry in which they operate. Perhaps that’s why there were so many complaints at launch!

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Google webmaster tools starts to think international

Andy Atkins-Krüger — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:20:03 +0000

At least two major new features are arriving in Google’s webmaster tools console according to information from the SES San Jose conference and the official Google webmaster tools blog.

The latter has announced support for the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) and a series of further enhancements are expected. IDNA enables webmasters to use domain names which exist outside the original 26 characters used for the English-language – but not for too many other languages since many have odd accented characters. Additionally, this brings greater support for asiatic and arabic character sets.

The other new development which is currently being looked at, according to a senior Google source, is the addition of a tool within webmaster tools whereby you can specify the country your site relates to. The countries will be listed in a drop down list – and you’ll almost certainly only be able to choose once country per site.

For a long time it has been a problem if you site was a .com site with no history of activity in a country for Google to pick out the right ‘bucket’ in which to list your site. For some this was an embarrasment – for others a major business hurdle. Matters were worse for those .coms hosted in a country other than the one they were targeting – perhaps for business political or content management system reasons. The result was you might be targeting France with a site hosted in Norway – but not end up appearing in the ‘Pages Francophones’ of Google.fr – even if the language of the site was French.

The simplest way of solving this problem has always been to have local country domains in which case – contrary to what one SES panelist advised in San Jose, the hosting location becomes irrelevant. For many, this isn’t practical – hence the reason why some have chosen to host locally to get around the problem.

These two developments combined will help international SEO specialists manage their projects with less frustration!

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Portugal’s Department of Justice launches arbitration centre in Second Life

Nuno Hipólito — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:39:02 +0000

It’s called e-Justice Centre and it represents a joint project of the Justice Department and Aveiro’s University, which already has a strong presence in Second Life.

The Justice Department’s press release explains that the centre aims to be a place where Second Life residents can resolve conflicts that come about in the 3D world, such as interpretation of contracts or problems with acquiring consumer goods on line.

This initiative is an important one, because it is announced exactly when Portugal is presiding to the European Union and is meant to send a strong signal to all European partners that Europe is now a strong believer in these methods of resolving legal issues. And of course it is also a sign that the on line world is not ignored by the higher instances of goverment, at the European level.

Hopefully it will also mark the beginning of the use of more modern technologies applied to solving the delays of common rule of law in the courts, in Portugal and elsewhere.

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AEIOU launches new Sponsored Links program in Portugal

Nuno Hipólito — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 15:13:51 +0000

There are not a lot of alternatives if you want to do paid search advertising in Portugal. Basically you have two big players – Google Adwords with the lion’s share and Anúncios Sapo a very distant second.

Now AEIOU, a portal which was recently bought by one of Portugal’s biggest media groups Impresa, announced they are launching a new sponsored link program. Unlike adwords or anúncios Sapo, AEIOU doesn’t allow for anyone to use their system, but accepts contacts from companies or individuals that may be interested.

Basically they offer the chance for companies to appear in ads alongside the search results of the portal. They see it as a chance to capitalize on the already huge online database of companies in their business directory, which is one of the most used in Portugal.

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Portugal’s 430 million Euro Tech Plan for Schools

Nuno Hipólito — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:53:16 +0000

That will put Portugal in the top 5 best educational systems in the EU. Or at least that’s the aim of Portugal’s Prime Minister José Socrates, for the next 3 years.

Since taking charge of the Portuguese government, Socrates has pushed a 430 million euro technological update of the Portuguese educational system, by setting up all the schools in the country with state-of-the-art broadband Internet acess, electronic whiteboards and computer systems.

The so called “technological plan” is set to give all schools 48mps Internet connections by the end of 2010. A great update if you consider that just a few years ago, little or no schools even had a computer room.

The Prime Minister sees in these “Schools of the future”, breading grounds for more prepared individuals, and better prepared profissionals, in what is surely a safe bet in Portugal’s future.

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PT and Ydreams launch a brand new way to access the Internet from home

Nuno Hipólito — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:59:04 +0000

Ydreams and Sapo announced a new product than allows users to access the Internet from home, without using a traditional computer system.

The product is called “Sapohome” and it consists of a touch sensitive screen that allows access to information in a geographical context. This means that the user researches for news, maps, weather, restaurants and other information, based on Sapo maps databases and using the technological platform design by Ydreams – one of the most innovative tek companies in Portugal.

Sapohome can also be used as a digital picture frame, with user defined pictures.

Initially this project is being sold as part of the technologies included in PT’s Smart Home project, although it will be gradually available for sale to individual costumers. The estimated price will be around € 800.

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Hi5 closes deal with SAPO in Portugal

Nuno Hipólito — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:10:55 +0000

Hi5, one of the most successful web 2.0 sites in Europe, and one of the most visited sites in Portugal, chose Sapo, the most important entertainment portal in that country, as the search engine for its Portuguese users.

Sapo replaces Google in both search and ads in Hi5.

According to Netpanel, Hi5 is the 4th most visited site in Portugal with close to 900.000 unique visitors/month. Sapo is 5th, with 800.000 unique visitors/month.

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Portugal’s Aveiro University joins Second Life

Nuno Hipólito — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 11:29:15 +0000

The project, codenamed SecondUA intends to project the Portuguese University by being one of only 70 worldwide to establish a presence in Second Life.

The University of Aveiro bought an island in Second Life and plans to divide it into six big areas, dedicated to online classes, study spaces and leisure. A area called InfoZone will serve as the entrance to the project.

Now the 5 million+ users of Second Life can have the experience of going to a Portuguese University, without leaving their couch.

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Takeover bid over Portugal’s main Telecom fails

Nuno Hipólito — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:52:30 +0000

The ongoing saga of the hostile takeover of PT (Portugal Telecom) by Sonae is finally over. In a meeting, the main PT stockholders voted against the takeover, and trusted the current board of directors with the mission to further expand the company, specially in the South American markets.

At the same time, PT Multimedia, the branch of PT responsible for cable Internet communications, will be split from the main brand, which will cause, in some opinions, a new takeover race, this time for this smaller, but very valuable, company.

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Sapo Noticias takes on Google News in Portugal

Nuno Hipólito — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 11:15:43 +0000

Sapo, the largest Internet entertainment portal in Portugal, launched Sapo Local this week.

This move follows others from Sapo news pages, that now specifically target sport, technology and economy.

Sapo Local uses AJAX to gather news from different places into a personalized “news homepage”. This different places include blogs and other stablished news websites.

A Sapo user can now access news along a broad spectrum of subjects, without leaving the portal. There is also a cool feature that allows users to search the news, very similar to Google News.

Alongside those news you can also find contextual ads, from Anuncios Sapo (Sapo Ads) and Google Adwords.

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