Welcome to February's Click-thru, your indispensable round-up of the latest online industry news, brought direct to your inbox from the Internet Advertising Bureau.

The internet has hardly been out of the news over the last month and an AOL marketing campaign has been encouraging us all to debate the positives and negatives of the medium.

Nowhere were online's conflciting sides better represented than with the news of Alex Pew succeeding in his mission to raise $1million through his pixel advertising venture, only for the site to be hijacked and held to ransom by hackers.

An internet success story in January without a bitter aftertaste was the news of the Arctic Monkeys achieving the fastest selling debut album of all time thanks to their exposure on the internet. With the news of a UK version of Myspace due to launch soon, are we in the midst of an online entertainment revolution? More on this next month.

Further details on these stories and many more are included below.

Kind regards



Guy Phillipson
IAB, CEO

The online audience

Myspace moves to UK As the popularity of community sites increases Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinson has announced that a UK version of the online social networking MySpace.com will be launched later this month. The American version of the site that facilitates the sharing of videos, blogs and photos is only two years old, but has 50 million registered users. BBC, January 24 Click-thru for more Small community sites shoot down the big guns Small community websites featuring user-generated content have topped the list of fastest-growing online brands of 2005 research has revealed. It wasn't Google, Yahoo or other major online corporations that most increased their audiences last year, but a photo website builder tool and community site called Piczo. Piczo increased its amount of unique users by 97 times from 12,500 visitors in 2004 to 1.2 million in December 2005. The Guardian, January 23 Click-thru for more Downloaders are Wizards, Pirates, Dinosaurs or City Slickers Are you a Digital Dinosaur, A City Slicker, a Professional Pirate or a Web Wizard? Centennial research has revealed that internet downloaders fall into four distinct categories of behaviour. The research analysed what audio or video clips users downloaded and also the risks they represent to their employers. Netimperative, January Click-thru for more

Entertainment

Music

UK bananas for Monkeys The Arctic Monkeys not only achieved the feat of releasing the fastest selling debut album of all time, but the Sheffield band's official website was the most visited in the UK. The teenage group's success has been fuelled by the increase in popularity of online community sites that have created a major buzz around the band. Netimperative, January 31 Click-thru for more Levis-pods the latest jean-genies Levis Strauss has launched a pair of jeans with a built in iPod docking station and controls - the latest example of the new trend of iPod-compatible clothing. Times online, January 13 Click-thru for more

Movies

Pirate's vessel used by land-lovers BSkyB Peer to peer (P2P) file sharing technology, long the enemy of record industry lawyers, is to be used by BSkyB as a high speed distribution system for online video content. The technology will be deployed to transmit full-length films via broadband. January 10 Click-thru for more Warner Bros P2P service to provide alternative to piracy Warner Bros has also announced they are to use P2P networks to make films like Batman Begins and hit US show the OC available in selected European countries. The In2Movies service will use the file-sharing technology to provide Germany, Austria and Switzerland with movie and TV content from March. In response to questions over piracy, Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros Home Entertainment Group said "One of the most effective weapons for defeating online piracy is providing legal, easy-to-use alternatives." BBC, January 31 Click-thru for more

TV on the internet

ITV united through new portal ITV will place the newly acquired Friends Reunited website within a new broadband entertainment portal that could eventually become a platform for the online broadcast of ITV shows. ITV have said of their vision of the future of their website, "ultimately we want to make all of our programmes available via the broadband portal." NMA, January Click-thru for more Parenting Video-on-Demand service to help with demanding kids The BBC is launching a parenting video-on-demand player. 70 hours of video tips for mums and dads have been made available online, made up from clips of BBC TV shows such as Child of Our Time and Little Angels. The latest package in the BBC's TV plus pilot, the parenting VoD player will be available for the next six months and reaffirms the BBCs commitment to examining alternative methods of broadcast. NMA, January Click-thru for more

Broadband

Revolutionary internet on the move technology gets the green light Wimax, a new broadband technology enabling access to the internet on the move is being readied for launch in the UK by broadband company Pipex. A worldwide standard has been agreed for the wireless technology that is set to revolutionise mobile online access in the UK. Times online, January Click-thru for more

Blogging

Cadbury commits to online Cadbury Trebor Bassett is to give online a central position in customer relationships as it significantly boosts its internet marketing efforts this year. 2005 saw Cadbury's year long Centenary campaign and recorded record levels of online engagement particularly with the Dairy Milk brand, worth £320m. They aim to build on this in 2006 by utilising blog and podcasting marketing. NMA, January Click-thru for more IAB Europe relaunch site to stop cookies jarring In an effort to tackle cookie deletion rates and to educate publishers, media owners marketers about the privacy issues surrounding cookies, IAB Europe has relaunched its AllAboutCookies.org website. NMA, January Click-thru for more

Online Creative

Viral

Leaving Las Vegas director, Figgis creates Agent Provocateur viral A short teaser film will precede the Mike Figgis directed Agent Provocateur viral campaign. The trailer can be viewed on a microsite until the full eight minute film, "Tied Up at the Office", is launched on February 9. Brand Republic, Jan 24 Click-thru for more

Online campaigns

Relevance flagged as key factor by email marketers A new study from email marketing firm Responsys has revealed that 90% of marketers want to improve the success rates of their email campaigns, with increasing the relevance of their messages their holy grail. Of the 4,500 respondents, 86% said they will tackle this issue by utilising relevance-based tactics on future campaigns. Netimperative, January 26 Click-thru for more

Online awards, events and polls

The winner of January's Creative Showcase is glue London with their campaign for the Royal Marines. The recruitment campaign uses a series of interactive banners, skyscrapers and rich media executions that focus on the advanced levels of fitness, initiative and determination demanded of new recruits.

Yahoo award cloud site's silver lining A cloud website, a site detailing a man's attempt to meet celebrities and a primary school site were just a few of the winners at Yahoo's fourth Finds of the Year awards. Rewarding the best of the internet, the award ceremony "celebrates the huge diversity on the web," Yahoo Search's Andy Williams said of the event. BBC, January 26 Click-thru for more IAB seminar programme To learn more about online marketing, come to one of the IAB's seminars. These are informal events, designed to educate the industry on the latest developments, research and best practice within online. Click here to download the full events schedule for Q1 and Q2, which begins on 16 February with a joint Handbag.com/ iVillage seminar on targeting women online. Online booking facilities are available on the IAB website. Click-thru for more

Ecommerce

Who was the real Christmas no.1? The record Christmas ecommerce figures of 2005 displayed the extent the nation has embraced the internet as a shopping channel. But which were the sites most visited during the festive shopping blitz? Net Imperative reported the Hitwise top 20 shopping and classified websites by UK visits for the week ending December 17, 2005. Netimperative, January Click-thru for more

Global snapshot

60 million Americans can't be wrong A study into US online behaviour by US think-tank, Pew has revealed that 60 million Americans would agree that the internet has played an important role in their life decisions. Whether it's for house hunting, career tips or help with illness 45% of Americans look to the internet for assistance. BBC, 26 January Click-thru for more No place like the internet for homes A different survey provides further proof of the internet's influence on American life. Despite 90% of home buyers still going through estate agents to buy and sell their homes, new figures from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has shown the internet's growing effect on the house-hunting process. The internet is now the most used aid for home-buyers, with 77% of those looking for a new house using the medium in 2005, compared to just 2% in 1995. eMarketer, January 26 Click-thru for more US over-54 internet use balloons says Burst! A report from Burst! Media has revealed that those US internet users over the age of 54 are spending more time with the internet and less time with other, more traditional media. Two-thirds of respondents said they were visiting more websites than a year ago and as a result are spending less time watching and reading offline news. eMarketer, January 6 Click-thru for more