Google has been voted the UK's best-loved brand, according to Marketing magazine.

Web users feel "out of touch" when denied access to the web, as they form an emotional connection with the Internet, according to a study.

40% of all UK Internet users now use broadband according to NOP World.

The Consumers Association says the UK version of Apple's online music store iTunes charges 17% more per download than in other European countries.

UEFA New Media launched a new broadband football service offering audio and video coverage of the UEFA Champions league.

Every standard curriculum primary and secondary school in the UK now has its own .sch.uk Internet address.

Recruitment company Hotgroup bought rival Workthing for £6m.

Shazam Entertainment has partnered with live music promoter Mean Fiddler to launch a new mobile music service.

Yahoo has bought Musicmatch, the online jukebox provider for £89m.

easyGroup has launched EasyMusic.com, offering music downloads from as little as 25p.

And finally...like just about everyone else in the world, the London Evening Standard launched a new digital music service too.

Top screen resolutions

1. 1024 x 768 48%
2. 800 x 600 32%
3. 1280 x 1024 13%
4. 1152 x 864 4%
5. 640 x 480 1%
6. 1600 x 1200 1%
7. 1152 x 870 1%

e-mail marketing: ensuring your message gets delivered

e-mail marketing is often unfairly associated with spam, the unsolicited junk mail that we all seem to suffer from in varying degrees. So how can a legitimate marketer help to ensure that their legitimate e-mail – and the message it contains - gets through.

If you are sending mails from your own server, it's a good idea to monitor any blacklists to see if your IP range has been added. If this is the case, you can trace this back to the ISP who listed you and find out why. Your company can sometimes be added to a blacklist via association too, if another company in the same IP 'neighbourhood' as you is considered a spammer.

You should also monitor the 'bounce rate' of your mailings. There are 'hard bounces' whereby the e-mail address is invalid and 'soft bounces' where the address is valid but your mail receives an automated reply, and may not be delivered for a number of reasons. You are bound to get a number of both kinds of bounces in any case, but monitoring these means that you can delete the bounced e-mail address from your database once you've established that it is a bad address. read more about e-mail marketing

Searches tailored to social status?

We thought that this month we wouldn’t mention search engines as they’ve been high on the agenda of the last two newsletters. However, we couldn’t resist reporting the rumours about the Argos web site. A current hot topic for search engine’s is the ability to personalise search results to individual users. However, the Argos site appears to be able to tailor search according to social standing. Searching for current council estate slang phrase “chav” on the site returns a page of extremely “bling” chunky gold jewellery that wouldn’t be out of place around Del Trotter’s Gregory. Understanding your market, or pure fluke? Argos isn’t saying…

BPI set to sue 28 online ‘pirates’

Given the current proliferation of music download services (see the news column opposite), the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is making a stand against what it calls “major uploaders”. It’s currently trying to force ISP’s to release the personal information of these 28 users via the courts. Once they have been served with the legal action they will be given the chance to settle out of court. If they do not, the BPI will seek damages and an injunction to stop them using file-sharing sites.

The action follows a warning issued by the BPI in March that it would take legal action against users of peer-to-peer music services. It sent messages to over 350,000 desktops warning users that song-swapping web sites were being watched. The objective behind the action is to protect investment in new acts, says the BPI.

Ofcom to invest in IP broadcaster to rival BBC

As part of the second phase of Ofcom’s public service broadcasting review, it has proposed investment of over £3 billion in a new public service broadcaster which would rival the BBC. The proposal has been made because the regulator believes that the BBC will be in a monopoly position to provide public service broadcasting following the switch off of analogue broadcasting in 2012.

Under the proposal, a new public service publisher would use IP technologies currently used for the Internet to deliver content via broadband, mobile networks and cable and satellite TV. The broadcaster would receive funds of around £300m per year via direct user taxation, an increased TV licence fee or via taxation of existing UK licensed broadcasters. The proposals are subject to public consultation until November.

Only on the web:

I see little stick men... everywhere!
http://j-walkblog.com/blog/docs/platform.htm

About:

Esquared is a regular digest of news, opinion and developments within interactive communications which we find interesting and hope you will too. If you want more information about anything that we mention, or have any comments, please call us on 01992 500990 or e-mail esquared@experience-engine.co.uk.