Online publishers association South Africa | newsletter


	April

MESSAGE FROM THE OPA TEAM
The first quarter is well behind us and our figures (Nielsen/Netratings) show that online usage surged by 15% this year with over 3.1 million South Africans accessing OPA member websites in the first quarter of this year.

“No longer the preserve of young technocrats with money in their pockets, the internet is becoming indispensable to virtually every office and household that can afford it, giving advertisers a customer base beyond their wildest dreams with last year’s advertising spend a massive R174 million, a 24% increase from last year,” says Chris Borain, chairman of the OPA that represents the country’s 31 major online publishers which between them host over 7.4 million website visitors.

	Local News:

Geo-targeting helps companies target ad spend wisely Companies that want to maximise their returns from their online marketing spend should look at ways that they can use geo-targeting and other forms of targeting to reach the users that fall in their target markets while reducing the waste associated with serving ads to those who don't. That's according to Jacqui Boyd, media director at Acceleration Media. She says that geo-targeting opens up a host of opportunities for advertisers by allowing them to focus their online advertisements on users from a certain country, region or even city. ''Check'' out Ananzi's new online shopping site - powered by PriceCheck Ananzi's new platform for e-commerce makes online shopping more convenient and user friendly. Ananzi has joined forces with Cape Town-based online shopping site PriceCheck to introduce a new e-commerce platform in the form of www.ananzishopping.co.za. Media owners, beware social media’s power - Bizcommunity Both online and traditional media are facing their toughest competition yet – their own audience, as material posted by amateurs begins to command more attention than professionally generated content. This is the view of Jovan Regasek, founder and CEO of ITWeb, a pioneer of online publishing in South Africa and a web-based business success story. According to Regasek, in order to remain competitive, we need to change the way we think about doing business in the online world. The Times takes a big byte The South African media community lit up this week with the launch of new Sunday Times daily publication, The Times. It wasn’t exactly a big secret, it was the way developments were announced - on new editor Ray Hartley’s blog – that highlighted a new era in the media sector. Giving details of the path to launch, complete with visuals of the new paper layouts, was unprecedented transparency in the SA media community. 365 DIGITAL SIGNS FIRST ADTECH CLIENT IN KENYA Nairobi based Business Daily Africa has signed an exclusive agreement with 365 Digital in Cape Town to employ the Adtech Helios IQ ad serving technology to deliver their online ad campaigns. 365’s traffic team will handle the online campaign management and implementation. ONLINE JOB HUNTING ON THE RISE Online job seekers are more experienced and older than what is traditionally believed and visitors to online job boards spend more time engaging with the website than other information only websites. This is according to statistics released by South Africa’s leading career website, CareerJunction. The mobile opportunity for classifieds - Bizcommunity In South Africa and across the globe, the migration of advertisers and consumers from print to Internet to mobile is relentless and, by confidently and imaginatively managing the market, local publishers can significantly grow their customer base as they move toward the digital age. This is the opinion of Felix Erken, MD of Junk Mail Publishing Group. Johncom to spin off media assets - M&G South Africa's second-biggest media company Johnnic Communications (Johncom) will spin off and separately list its media and entertainment assets, the group said on Wednesday. Johncom, owner of financial daily Business Day and South Africa's biggest Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Times, said in a statement the new firm, named OpCo, will be unbundled to shareholders and listed on the JSE. Bidorbuy - High value purchases SHOWs faith in online shopping South African based online marketplace - bidorbuy.co.za - reports on increasingly high valued purchases being concluded online despite the recent hype around online security alerts. The Numbers Game The total adspend for 2006 was R20.1-billion. Who got what? Online advertising showed good growth of 24%, although of a small base, while direct mail grew only 12%. Who was spending all this money on advertising in 2006? The retail sector was the number one spending, with revenue of R4.8-billion. It was also the top spending category in daily newspapers with an ad spend of R814-billion. Digital lifestyle magazine goes beta www.mydigitallife.co.za, ITWeb's "combination of social media and lifestyle journalism for people who live for their tech and gadgets", went into beta testing on Friday, 13 April 2007, blogs Vincent Maher. MSN Africa joins the OPA Adrian Hewlett, MD of Habari Media, the official representative for MSN Africa explains his rationale for joining: “The OPA plays an extremely important role in the development of our local on-line advertising industry, not only in terms of building trust in online as a medium, but also by sustaining a vibrancy in the online industry. MSN Africa is proud to be associated with the OPA, and will continue to make every effort to contribute towards the growth of this industry."

	International News:

New Media: Inspiring the Creative Hydra Right now, planners are transitioning from where to how their message lives in new media. An industry that was once format-centric is now distribution driven and interactive professionals must think in terms of the interactive experience. Old paradigms are no longer working and the boundaries have shifted. Only agencies that are prepared to embrace the many elements required to reach the online consumer can succeed. Is Google Too Powerful? Businessweek Is Google Too Powerful? Businessweek As the Web giant tears through media, software, and telecom, rivals fear its growing influence. Now they're fighting back It's the year 2014, and Googlezon, a fearsomely powerful combination of search engine Google Inc. (GOOG ) and online store Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN ), has crushed traditional media to bits. Taking its place is the computer-generated Evolving Personalized Information Construct—an online package of news, entertainment, blogs, and services drawn from all the world's up-to-the-minute knowledge and customized to match your preferences. And it's all collected, packaged, and controlled by Googlezon. Web Giants Account for Nearly All Gross Online Ad Revenue Web Giants Account for Nearly All Gross Online Ad Revenue The 10 biggest internet players nabbed a whopping 99 percent of gross online ad revenue last year - up from 95 percent in 2005 - writes Ad Age, citing recent findings from Marketspace. On a net ad-revenue basis, Marketspace estimates, the Big Four - Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN - nab about 57 percent of total online ad outlays, and the Big 10 about 70 percent. Interview, Randall Rothenberg, President & CEO, IAB: Edited Transcript IAB is out to grow the interactive advertising and marketing marketplace. It is out to grow interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and not incidentally, it is out to grow our members’ share of total marketing spend. If you are not a member, we are happy to have you grow, but we kind of do not love you as much than if you are a member.

	Report

Surprise: Study Finds Online Users Finish More Stories Than Print Readers WASHINGTON In a surprise finding, online readers finish news stories more often than those who read in print, according to the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack study released Wednesday at the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference here. When readers chose to read an online story, they usually read an average of 77% of the story, compared to 62% in broadsheets and 57% in tabloids.

	Case Study

Benefit from Ad Spend Shifts When deciding where to place your client's advertising, look for a site with eye-grabbing interactive elements. Interior and exterior 360-degree vehicle spins and detailed static photos grab the attention of website visitors and keep them there with a broad base of content. A seller will look for these elements when choosing where to list its autos, and a buyer will look for clear, comprehensive images and the 'hands-on' appeal of movies when vehicle shopping.

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