European Internet Statistics for February by Comscore show that Ireland still trails in terms of our internet penetration. Naturally the figures are based on sheer numbers, but even when compared to individual populations we are still laggards in European terms.   Actually, when compared to the same month last year, our usage has declined, as have many countries across Europe. A figure that leaps off the screen is Italy, who has increased its internet usage by 15% in the past 12 months. If the penetration is static, the hours are not increasing marginally over the year. 2012 2012 2011 2011 (000)

    Country Visitors (000)  (%) Rank  Ave Hours per Visitor Rank Ave Pages per Visitor Rank2 World-Wide 1,444,092 24.4 13 2,354 13 Europe 381,546 27.5 5 2,935 5 Russian Federation 53,345 38% 17 25.1 11 2,792 7 Germany 51,008 62% 8 25.2 10 2,885 6 France 43,009 66% 5 27.5 5 2,786 8 United Kingdom 37,504 60% 9 35.6 1 3,297 2 Italy 24,468 40% 16 17.7 19 1,900 19 Turkey 23,369 32% 18 33.7 2 3,974 1 Spain 21,600 47% 14 26.9 8 2,321 14 Poland 18,194 48% 13 27.8 4 3,156 4 Netherlands 11,997 72% 1 32.2

Yet another interesting summary on the state of the Net for Comscore and the penetration of the internet across various different countries in Europe. It’s not really a precise science to look at the numbers in isolation, as the relative populations have to be taken into account. Looking just at visitors The Netherlands has the highest internet penetration of any of the countries under scrutiny at 72%. Ireland lies #12 with a 535 penetration. If we were to allow to merge this figure with another from Social Bakers it renders an interesting statistic. The latter suggest that there are 2.089m

Group Deal Sites and SEO Site Coupons Daily Deals Deals of the Day Deals of the Week Discount Coupon Group Deals Voucher www.5hop5.ie – 2 – – – – 22 www.boardsdeals.ie – 15 13 – – – – www.bonkers.ie – 6 – – – – – www.citydeal.ie – – – – – – – www.clicknsave.ie – – – – 1 – – www.couponmaster.ie – – – – – – – www.crazydeals.ie – – – – – – – www.dailydealsireland.com – – – – – – – www.dealrush.ie – – – – – – – www.dealsireland.ie – – – – –

There have been some very interesting studies conducted recently into the world of the ‘Daily Deal’ and coupon redemption. Perhaps one of the more interesting of these was conducted by Rice University in September of last year and again in June of this year. But…. if you’ve been tempted, have a look at something we cooked up, a daily deal calcutator  Their research findings are a fantastic guide to any business tempted by the lure of a daily deal. Whilst many of the business running these deals are very satisfied with the outcome, many are not. There are some parts

In an effort to try and bring some reality as opposed to hype Daily Deals, we’ve put together an interactive spreadsheet sheet to try and help you get to the bottom of the numbers. There are so many variables it can really be a bit of a nightmare. But hopefully below will at least give you an indication of how a potential promotion might do. There are a few items that you can fill in with certain levels of confidence and others that are very much picked out of the ether. One those, it’s best to try and err on

Taco Bell, the Mexican/American fast food chain, recently got itself into a spot of PR bother. A customer took offence to the amount of beef contained in her beloved Taco and so offended was she that she took a class action suit against Taco Bell – as you do. The law hired firm came out blazing and claimed that the mixture was only a paltry 35% beef, the rest was “other ingredients”. The people at Taco Bell (I’m at pains not to use the initials of “TB” as I think they have suffered enough in the publicity department) were not

Some very interesting Facebook statistics are available at Social Bakers. So we put a few of these together here, just to give you an idea of what’s happening on Facebook as we write. Firstly we will look at Facebook penetration worldwide. There’s really two ways to look at this; absolute numbers or penetration as a % of the population. In numbers, the United States is, naturally, way ahead of the rest of the field with over 150 million Facebook users or the equivalent to half of its population. Ireland’s figure is always going to be low in comparison and we

Here’s a interesting take on the recent Google Panda update – specifically on Google.com. Below is the before and after of an Irish website whichwas competing for a fairly competitive key phrase. Before the update we had tracked it in and around 10th# and it had been relatively stable over that months up to that give or take a position or two. The landing page for that keyphrase on that particular site was, well, a bit light and really didn’t live up to the promise. After the “update” they currently reside in 75th#. That has to hurt.

Some interesting stats and facts have come to light this month – in this instance concerning the rise and rise of m-commerce. In a report conducted by Tamar (UK Based Research) suggest that 19% of consumers will do their festive shopping via a mobile handset in 2010. I’d hazard a guess that there are also a huge number of individuals that will conduct their primary research on a mobile but might leave the “last mile” to be concluded elsewhere for a variety of reasons (some set out below). Tesco in the UK expect 10% of their sales will come through

An interesting digging match is ongoing in London over the use of trademarks and Google adwords. The case was taken by Interflora against M&S over their used of the trademark name “Interflora” as a keyword in their adwords campaign (CPC of the keyword is €0.63 here). The case even dragged Google in with Interflora looking to hit them in the suit as well. However the ruling stated that Google simply facilitated third parties and did not mean that Google itself was using the mark. The court ruled that a third party could be liable ‘in the case where the ad

The Sunday Business Post ran adverts for Sherry FitzGerald last Sunday where the adverts carried QR codes. The codes, once read in an appropriate reader on a Smartphone, will link the advert to the sherry FitzGerald website. And fair enough, it’s a bit of innovation in an arena that slow to innovate. A follow-up article this week gave the impression that this was somewhat ‘cutting edge’. Whilst Sherry may have been the first to use the QR code in an advert, its far from cutting edge. Similarly, there was a story in the Irish Times in April extolling the virtues

EuroStat, the research body for Europe, published some interesting comparative figures in late September, which I finally get to comment on (not that the boffins in the EU are holding their breaths waiting for my comments!). The survey was conducted in the EU 27 countries and a further four countries to cover a ‘euro zone’. The questions are fairly basic but at least we are able to draw a competitive between ourselves and the rest of this Eurozone. Looking at the stats it has to be remembered that there are massive regional differences. Some countries adopted to the Internet much

Further to the post yesterday and whilst I am waiting for some updates, I decided a look over the pond might be in order. If we thought that our market was competitive for car insurance, then the UK would take your breath. Flick through any of the Golds or Paramount channels and you will see an array of direct and comparison sites for Car insurance vying for eyeballs. Anyway, I did the same as yesterday and took the top sites currently appearing in Google.co.uk to see where they would end up, if and only if, the Caffeine formula was applied

With Google testing its current beta search engine “Caffeine” its worth having a look at one incredibly competitive market – Car Insurance. It’s interesting to see how the different companies square up to each other now – and how, under the proposed changes of Caffeine, will the rank thereafter. It should be noted that this search engine is very much in development and that the results should, like the engine, the treated as beta. There are no guarantees that after the new formula has been adopted the results here will be the same. As people comment on the results Google