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Internet advertisng nears £1 billion for first six months of 2006

Figures released by Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) reveal that online advertising now has 10.5% market share and is now:

• Double the size of outdoor (5.1%)
• Double the size of consumer magazines (4.6%)
• Three times the size of radio advertising (3.4%)
• Half the size of the TV advertising market

Whilst TV, press, radio and direct mail have all experienced declining revenues online advertising expenditure is up to £917.2 million compared to £630.5 million for the same period last year.

Once again the Internet is the fastest growing advertising medium in the UK and is expected to overtake the spending on national press by the end of 2006.

Whilst all major online ad formats have performed well, Paid-for-search (PPC) in particular has seen a surge in spending up some 57.7%  to £531.3 million accounting for 57.9% of total online revenues. In terms of advertiser profiles, recruitment and finance remain at the forefront which probably reflects the fiercely competitive nature of these sectors.

The full report can be read on the IAB website.

Internet Explorer 7 (IE7)

Following my earlier posting (see here)  highlighting the continuing problems of phishing attacks, Microsoft has now released an upgrade to its web browser Internet Explorer, the first upgrade for more than five years. The new version is available as a free download from Microsoft and will be included as an automatic update to Microsoft XP from November 06.

Amongst many new features will be an anti-fraud system that changes the colour of the address bar to red when a user visits a known phishing site. Additional warnings will pop-up if the user strays onto sites displaying suspicious activity such as unusual or inconsistent URLs.

You can read more at the BBC news services.

Gone Phishing!

Although phishing has been around in one form or another for some time now, it seems all of us are susceptible to scams even though we may take sensible precautions. A study conducted by Harvard and Berkeley academics demonstrates that even the most security conscious surfer can still fall foul to bogus sites. The full research document (PDF) can be downloaded and is well worth a look whether you are a consumer, web developer or company that promotes its products and services online.

It appears that many consumers still fail to recognise even the most basic security measures such as 'typejacking attacks' that use similar-looking URLs, presence of 'HTTPS' and associated padlock icon through to the use of SSL certificates. However, given that many casual surfers may not even be aware of these security protocols, it's hardly surprising they are frequently overlooked!

It would seem that the lack of basic 'online security' awareness within the wider population will continue to line the pockets of the unscrupulous operators for some time to come. The best tip I have received to provide some protection when conducting online transactions is to use a secondary credit card with a much lower credit limit- say £250, £500 or whatever is appropriate to your lifestyle. This way you should be able to protect yourself from the worst case scenario if you ever get caught.

I'd be interested in hearing other useful tips relating to online security and may well create a short course within our forthcoming Edgeworks Academy.