Gasta Tech Update : $2.5 Billion in Ad Spending

Social Networks to Get $2.5 Billion in Ad Spending in 2010
by Jason Hahn

Gasta.com and Gasta.es consistently the most top performing web search engines outside the big three. Online since 1997 Gasta.com has now grown into a 900 strong network regional search engines

Social media is no mirage, says Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer. Her company projects that 2010 will see continued growth of advertising spending on online social networking sites.

eMarketer forecasts that $2.5 billion will be spent on ads on online social networks worldwide in 2010, up 14 percent from the $2.2 billion spent in 2009. About $1.3 billion will be spent in the U.S. alone.

In 2008, $2.0 billion was spent on ads on these sites worldwide, a 61 percent increase from 2007. The company projects that this figure will reach $2.9 billion in 2011, which would be a 13 percent increase.

Approximately 64 percent of U.S. Internet users will interact with user-generated content in 2010, while 26 million U.S. adults will use Twitter at least once a month, according to eMarketer. Oh, and mobile social networks will reach 223 million people around the globe.

Williamson refers to eight separate surveys, with each showing that the majority of U.S. marketers are already using social media.

For example, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research indicates that 80.0 percent of marketers in the U.S. are using social media, a dramatic increase from 49.0 percent in 2008.

But with great spending comes great room for error, according to Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer. The “enormity of this opportunity leads many marketers to chase after every technique, tactic and metric that passes them by,” he said.

“Instead, marketers should focus on fewer but better-defined objectives—and remember that listening, establishing trust, adding value and projecting authenticity are among the best practices that are critical to their success with social media,” writes Williamson.

According to comScore’s “The 2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review,” Yahoo! Sites continued its reign as the top publisher of display ads from December 2008 to November 2009, with 521.2 billion impressions.

However, Fox Interactive Media, led by MySpace, was second on the list with 367.6 billion impressions, followed by Facebook with 329.6 billion impressions.

Microsoft Sites was fourth with 218.1 billion impressions, AOL was fifth with 192.2 billion impressions and Google Sites was sixth with 69.9 billion impressions.

eBay (36.4 billion), Glam Media (24.8 billion), Amazon Sites (21.7 billion) and United Online, Inc. (19.5 billion) rounded out the top 10 list, according to comScore.

Facebook recently took over the display ads on its site from Microsoft, which was a shift from their original deal in 2006. Microsoft will continue to handle text ads and is claiming that the search agreement with Facebook is being expanded.

gasta web 2.0

About Gasta
Started in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1998 Gasta is a global search engine and web directory. Translated into six Languages, Gasta has now launched search engines in Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, French, & German,


Gasta has now launched SearchMatch paid inclusion programs for all 400 of its search engines and sees paid listings as the future of Internet marketing enabling and empowering advertisers to bid on niche contextual Keywords and phrases that are directly related to their business. Gasta organic growth of traffic extends the long tail of keywords and adds added value to all our client campaigns.

Platform
Gasta is written in MVC Asp.net, C#, and XML, Jscript,

Social Marketing Services
Gasta now offers the ability to share web search results, videos, news items, images, and Blogs with your chosen social networking partner site, Gasta now has social marketing links with FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Bebo, and Digg. This service not only offers an added value to our users but also greatly assists our advertisers with their social marketing and brand awareness campaigns.


Geo Targeting
Gasta automatically includes effective Geo Targeting of advertising across regions so the user searching in Dublin receives adverts from Dublin and UK Regions and the user searching in New York receives inventory from USA regions.

More than 97% of gasta.com users live and/or work in the regional search areas the index is aimed at. This offers an extremely focused way of targeting prospective customers. Localize to globalize. With Gasta.com you the advertiser only pay for the traffic you receive. Gasta.com has a unique featured Site scheme allows you to directly gear expenditure to traffic. This is the most cost effective method with no wasted clicks.

Diverse User Base

Gasta.com search results are rendered by a network of Search Partners ranging from major Internet brands to organizations who specifically address the Region. Gasta has also implemented social marketing tools on all search results to share video, news, images, blogs, and web results as well as the actual SearchMatch ad itself. A unique service for a search engine.
Gasta.com has a more focussed appeal because it is targeted directly to a local audience

Ad Management
24/7 Ad Campaign Management access your account and manage your listings 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with the gasta.com Management and bid System

Gasta white Label solution
The Gasta Hosted white label solution can be launched in a matter of minutes and offers a variety of solutions and ad platforms to Partners. These search engines can start earning revenues as soon as they are launched with a variety of monetisation features such as preloaded Google Adsense and SearchMatch and InstantAds platforms. Gasta has now launched white label partner sites in India, USA, and Australia. We are currently seeking regional partners in China, Singapore, and Latin America.

Partners
Gasta partners include:
Services: Microsoft Bing, Google, Miva, ABC Search, Adify, BT, Mirago UK, Admeld, Adconion,
Social Marketing: LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, Bebo,
Content : BBC, Irish Times, Irish News, Belfastmedia group, FlashSeek,
Francis Higgins
bizz@amiwired.com

Gasta SearchMatch

Your Customers Are Online: Can They Find Your Website?
The search world is fluid; keywords, rankings, links and more change everyday, and define your brands online success or failure. Help your customers find your products and services by effectively promoting your online brand with proven techniques. A recent Datran Media survey found 57% of marketing executives identified search marketing as one of the strongest advertising mediums for their company. Another 54% indicated that they have increased budgets for search while decreasing offline and direct marketing efforts.
Gasta SearchMatch™ now offering the best value for European keyword advertising across 200+ internet search engines. Get your niche targeted keywords now with a unique Instant Ad Free/

Social Marketing Services
Gasta now offers the ability to share web search results, videos, news items, images, and Blogs with your chosen social networking partner site, Gasta now has social marketing links with FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Bebo, and Digg. This service not only offers an added value to our users but also greatly assists our advertisers with their social marketing and brand awareness campaigns.

Gasta Tech News: NISP CONNECT’s Expanded £25k Awards

NISP CONNECT’s Expanded £25k Awards renews its ‘search for the next big thing’
Following a record performance in 2008, Northern Ireland Science Park (NISP CONNECT) has launched an expanded £25k Awards for this year’s search to uncover ‘the next big thing’ within the local research and business community.
Sponsored by the Bank of Ireland, Invest NI, QUB and the University of Ulster Business School, NISP CONNECT’s £25K Awards have been designed to flush out Northern Ireland’s hottest intellectual property concepts and then transform them into commercialised, market-ready products.
2008 was a breakthrough year for the £25K Awards:
• a record 71 teams entered
• of last year’s top 20 finalists, 18 teams plan to execute their business models by incorporating a company or licensing their technology
• 40 people from the private sector volunteered support to mentor or judge the teams
• two of the biggest names in UK venture capitalism were drafted in along the way to judge the finalists: Donald Fitzmaurice, Partner at ePlanet Ventures which has yielded successful exits with an aggregate market value of over $20 Billion; and Sigurður Sævarsson of Thule Investments.
As a result, additional research centres – Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute; QUESTOR; College for Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise – are getting behind the awards for the first time.
NISP CONNECT Director Steve Orr said it was “hugely encouraging to see all sections of the business and research community working together and demonstrating the practical benefits of being associated with the competition”.
He added: “This competition is all about tooling up young innovators for the marketplace and creating a much-needed pipeline of new start ups. And this year we intend to broaden access to the wider research community and to focus on creating even more business start ups.
“The level of support and advice available through the £25K Award is invaluable for start up companies – more so in the current climate. We want to see ever greater numbers of entrants coming forward and successfully going to market.”
Bernard Rooney, Bank of Ireland Regional Manager, Commercial Banking, said: “Following the success of last year’s £25k Awards, Bank of Ireland are proud to announce that they will be renewing their sponsorship for 2009. Building on our partnership with Northern Ireland Science Park, we are pleased to be associated with ‘the search for the next big thing’ and to assist in any way we can to help bring innovative concepts to the market. This can be through offering financial advice and support along with Bank of Ireland packages such as Essential for Business tailored for start-ups and SME’s.”
Bernard added: “£25k Awards is a prestigious competition, providing an excellent opportunity for individuals or teams to think differently about their innovative project or ideas and provide more value for the end user, with the assistance of mentors. There is a key theme of forward thinking within the awards as it focuses on innovation and its main purpose is to identify, qualify, prepare and present technological projects or services that will lead Northern Ireland down the route of innovation and help create jobs in the future. It will be interesting to see what entries come through this year’s £25k awards in its 9th year of running.”
Concluding, Steve Orr said: “NISP CONNECT is designed to bring people, technology and capital together to drive innovation and create wealth. Participation not only improves end product, but also boosts the confidence and competencies of people behind the product. We are determined to continue to expand and extend the benefits of the £25K Awards to an even wider spectrum of people.”
To enter, participants must submit a two-page concept plan within one of four categories (Hitech; Biotech; CleanTECH; and Digital Media) by the deadline of Friday April 24 2009. Following this, the next phase of the awards will see the field whittled down the best 20 teams who then go forward for the QuickPitch Competition.
Further information on how to register is available online at http://www.nisp.co.uk/25k-award-09-home.aspx and by contacting Roisin Clancy on 028 9073 7800.

Publisher Contact Information:

Northern Ireland Science Park
028 9039 3837
g.mcgimpsey@morrowcommunications.com