Social network ad spending to grow 70% next year

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Thursday, December 27, 2007 Issue 52 VOLUME 2 ISSUE 52





News
CarMax: Online hybrid car searches rising
CarMax, Inc. which is in a position to know as the nation's largest retailer of used cars, says carmax.com online searches for hybrid cars are on the rise. Examples of the most searched hybrid cars include the Ford Escape Hybrid, Toyota Prius and Toyota Camry Hybrid. Carmax.com says searches for hybrid cars have increased 10 percent over last year and 43 percent from October to November.
[FULL STORY]









Startup monitors traffic via Web providers
Privacy an issue

As Internet advertising is increasingly precisely targeted to meet consumers' presumed desires, the trick for advertisers is to sniff out people's interests and needs without riling their privacy defenses, The Detroit News notes in a recent story about a Silicon Valley startup, NebuAd Inc., that believes it has reached this balance with a new ad-serving system -- even though its system of peering inside Internet traffic might seem ominous.









Buzzing about battery power - Volt is big on the Web
The Chevrolet Volt is slowly consuming Lyle Dennis' life. A year after casually launching a blog devoted to General Motors Corp.'s ambitious efforts to build a battery-powered Chevy, Dennis, a neurologist from Suffern, N.Y., has become a cyber-celebrity of sorts, The Detroit News reports. "I just wanted to do anything I could to make it happen, and I thought it might be fun to have a blog," Dennis said. "I didn't expect all this. It can be challenging." His Web site, GM-Volt.com, gets about 100,000 visitors a month, he said. More than 7,400 people have signed a waiting list he's compiling that he says he'll send to the company to convince it that there's a market for the product. They will have to wait. The car is still years and some significant scientific advancements away from becoming reality, GM says. Still, the Volt is also showing up on other Web sites, forums and social networking pages such as Facebook.com.









Wired readers dis Tesla Electric Roadster
The Information Age publication Wired, like many others, has published an end-of-year Top Ten list. The difference here, notes EdmundsInsideLine, is that based on reader votes, Wired has called to its 2007 Podium of Shame 10 "most-prized products that were promised but never delivered." The name of the list: the Vaporware Awards. Number nine on the list is the Tesla Roadster, which, as the magazine says, "has been appearing everywhere...except the blacktop." The all-electric sports car, promised to be out by October, has had its release date pushed into 2008.


Toyota pegs worldwide '08 sales at 9.85 million
Toyota plans to sell 9.85 million vehicles worldwide in 2008, the company said Tuesday, setting an ambitious target despite worries about a slowing U.S. auto market as it tries to become the world's top automaker, according to wire reports from Japan. Toyota also said it plans to produce 9.95 million vehicles worldwide next year, up 5 percent from this year -- the same as the projected annual percentage jump for Toyota's global sales. Its recent growth has put Toyota Motor Corp. on track to top General Motors Corp. as the world's largest automaker by sales. GM has said it estimates this year's sales to total 9.3 million vehicles; Toyota estimates 9.36 million sales.






Swapalease.com selects DataScan Field Services
DataScan Field Services, the largest full-service automotive audit and inspection company in North America, has been selected as the exclusive vehicle inspection company for customers of Swapalease.com, the world’s largest online lease marketplace.
[FULL STORY]


Social network ad spending to grow 70% next year

Advertisers are avidly experimenting on Facebook, MySpace and niche social networks. In 2008, they are expected to spend $1.6 billion—a rise of 69 percent over the $920 million they spent in 2007, according to a new eMarketer report, Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending and Usage. Social networking may get more than its fair share of media attention, but it is not a fad, says Debra Aho Williamson, author of the report. “In 2007, 37 percent of the US adult Internet population and 70 percent of teens used online social networking at least once a month.” There is little to suggest that this activity will go away. eMarketer predicts that the total US social networking audience will grow by 46 percent over the next four years to 105 million in 2011.