Bleak outlook for 2009 Web ad-spend

A report by research firm eMarketer has forecast that UK Internet ad spend growth will diminish by more than 50 per cent in 2009 and predicted that the digital media sector will not fully recover from the economic downturn until the London Olympics in 2012.

eMarketer predicts that the Internet will continue to outperform other media with positive growth in 2009, but will still take a "big hit" as advertisers tighten up on all forms of marketing expenditure. The report states that 2009 will be a "very tough year" for UK digital media. In May, the firm was forecasting 17.2 per cent year-on-year growth in 2009 for the sector – now it has cut this by more than half to 7.2 per cent, or £3.58 billion (E3.89 billion).

The research company added that the UK online ad market should improve again within two years, "but slowly". eMarketer forecasts 10 per cent year-on-year growth in 2010 to £3.94 billion, and a 12.3 per cent rise in 2011 to £4.43 billion.

However, in 2012, the year of the London Olympics, digital growth will surge by 14.6 per cent year on year, to just more than £5 billion, according to eMarketer. The rate of growth will slow the following year, to 10.8 per cent – but the UK digital media market will still be worth £5.62 billion.

Dell setting to Launch Mac Airbook rival

This is the only content displayed on http://adamobydell.com/.
It is believed that Adamo is a Mac airbook killer
Lets wait

Google snatches search share from rivals

Google's search share encroached on rivals, rising 0.4 percentage points to 63.5 percent from October to November.

(Credit: ComScore)

Google grabbed a chunk of market share from rival search engines in the United States in November, new figures from ComScore show.

Google's share increased 0.4 percentage points to 63.5 percent from October to November, while Yahoo dropped 0.1 percentage points to 20.4 percent and Microsoft dropped 0.2 percentage points to 8.3 percent.

Further down the pecking order, Ask.com dropped 0.2 percentage points to 4.0 percent and AOL rose 0.1 percent to 3.8 percent, ComScore said.

The total searches performed dropped 3 percent to 12.3 million, though, so even Google lost out in absolute terms even as it gained share. Each search holds the potential to show search ads, so the query total is financially significant.

Samsung Plans Android Phone for U.S. in 2009

Samsung will release at least one Google Android device in the US next year, according to a Korean news report. According to etnews.co.kr, the Samsung Android phone will come out on Sprint and T-Mobile in the second quarter of the year.

Samsung's U.S. press representatives, as well as Sprint's and T-Mobile's press people all declined to comment on this story. (Not a big surprise.)

According to the Korean report, the new devices will use a full-touch-screen form factor, like their existing Instinct for Sprint and their Behold phone for T-Mobile. Just as with the Instinct and Behold, we expect that the two phones will be significantly different inside, but look pretty much the same from the outside.

Samsung, LG and HTC are all rumored to be bringing new Android phones to the US this year, with dark-horse candidates possibly coming from Motorola, Kyocera and Sony Ericsson. We don't expect to see any of these phones at CES in January, but we expect a big roll-out of European models at the Mobile World Congress trade show in February followed by some US models at the CTIA show in early April.

Right now, the only Android phone on the market is T-Mobile's G1, made by HTC.

Apple to Stop attending Mac Expo

After some 25 years, Apple has decided that it can do without the Macworld Expo.

Apple announced that CEO Steve Jobs had given his last keynote address at Macworld in San Francisco and that January's Macworld would mark its last year participating at the show. Apple said Phil Schiller, the company's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, will deliver the keynote, usually handled by Jobs.

An Apple representative declined to comment on Jobs' health, a prominent topic of discussion this year. Jobs' keynote addresses at Macworld have become almost legendary events, launch pads for some of the company's most important products and strategies. His absence from what many in the Apple community consider their Super Bowl has once again revive rumors that Jobs is ill.

Steve Jobs in January 2008 giving what we know now was his final Macworld keynote.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

The decision reveals an Apple that has decided it no longer needs to make an appearance at the event that has come to define the company in recent years. In doing so, it's also preparing for a future when its iconic founder no longer dominates the stage the way he currently does while confirming a shift in its strategic thinking when it comes to reaching customers.

But industry events like Macworld Expo have been losing their luster inside Apple for some time. This is not a company that spends much time hanging out with its peers in the personal computing and mobile phone industries. And quite simply, the nature of technology marketing has changed a great deal as tech has evolved from something reserved for professionals to something that almost everyone uses on a day to day basis.

The announcement "completely blindsided" IDG, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, coming just weeks before the event was scheduled to take place. IDG World Expo, a division of tech publishing giant IDG, had no reason not to expect Jobs would make his customary appearance at Macworld. Then came the word from Cupertino, Calif.

What is not clear is when Apple decided Jobs would skip the keynote. The source indicated that Apple had strung IDG along for weeks, implying that it was business-as-usual concerning Jobs' pending appearance up until the moment that it wasn't. One big question is how this will go down with the Mac faithful who have flocked to this annual event through good times and bad. To be sure, there will be official Apple events in the future, like the Worldwide Developers Conference. But most fans--the civilians--likely won't be able to gain access to such events, which are usually reserved for press, analysts, VIPs, and developers.

So, as one colleague put it, Macworld has long been the public carnival for Mac fans, and Apple's decision to get out after the 2009 version doesn't bode well for Macworld's future or for the future of a single, mass event for the hardcore Mac community.

Researcher Revives 'Shocking' Human Experiment

After Four Decades, Torture Experiment Still Raises Eyebrows

By AUDREY GRAYSON
ABC News Medical Unit

In the early 1960s, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram shocked America when he demonstrated that ordinary people will commit acts of violence that conflict with their personal conscience and moral convictions if instructed to do so by an authority figure.

Now, a replication of that famous experiment is uncovering some of the same findings and controversy.

In the original experiment, Milgram asked ordinary people to administer painful -- and in some cases, even fatal -- shocks to other people posing as research subjects. The maximum voltage they could administer was 450 volts -- enough to cause permanent damage or even death to the study subject.

In reality, the "research subjects" were not receiving any shock. But the act of inflicting harm on another individual was still very much real to the people administering the voltage.

Windows 7 Preview