ComScore and Telephia have released a report showing that the number of people accessing the internet in the UK using a mobile device is already one-fifth the size of those using PC's to go online.
Also: Robert Scoble joins the internet measurement debate | move over Wikipedia here comes Encyclopedia of Life | Google faces jury trial against AdWords |
According to a study conducted in January, 5.7m people in the UK used a mobile device to access the web; compared to 30m people aged 15 or older who used a PC to do the same. At 19% comScore says this puts the UK mobile market slightly ahead of the US on a relative basis (17%).
The research, conducted in conjunction with MobileWeb Matrix, also found that 63% of UK mobile internet users are male - a similar finding to the internet usage demographics of "10 to 15 years ago," says Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe. "Men under the age of 35 are early adopters of new technology," he adds.
Robert Scoble joinns the internet traffic measurement debate
Robert Scoble has put up a post joining in the age-old lament over the accuracy of website measurement firms.
In his "we need better statistics" blog he talks of how entreprenuer's "whine privately" about the fact that stats they see on places like Alexa and ComScore are always so low.
We have covered this issue before, in a slightly different way, particularly over how Daily Telegraph editor Will Lewis used selective statistics to back up claims relating to the papers online audience.
Move over Wikipedia here comes the Encyclopedia of Life
TechCrunch has an interesting story relating to $12.5m in funding that a new online reference source and database called Encyclopedia of Life has scored.
Aiming to be the depository of information on every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on earth, tens of thousands of "citizen scientists" around the world are responsible for the creation of content.
In a comparison with this niche in Wikipedia TechCrunch points to a chap called Thomas Goetz who says that Wikipedia "sucks when it comes to Science topics", not for being inaccurate, but unapproachable. "On science, there's a oneupmanship going on, and a topic will be honed to an ever-greater level of expertise. That's great for precision and depth, but horrible for the general user".
Google's AdWords faces landmark jury trial over trademark infringement
Google is to face a jury trial defending its pay-per-click advertising system, AdWords, against a trademark infringement case filed by US window blinds reseller, American Blind & Wallpaper Factory.
Reuters says that this is the first case against keyword advertising ever to face the jury.
American Blinds is saying that Google's system violates trademark law by allowing competitors to use Google's system to buy keyword search terms, such as "American Blind," which trigger ads from rival companies.
Apparently, AdWords constitutes 98% of Google's $10.6 billion revenue earned in 2006. Jury selection is slated on November 9.
Google has won two prior U.S. trademark suits filed against its pay-per-click advertising program.
Auto insurer GEICO settled a federal case in Virginia after a judge ruled partly in Google's favor, and computer repair site Rescuecom lost a similar federal case, but is appealing.
Last year, however, it lost a ruling in a French court on related issues in a trademark case brought by luxury goods retailer Louis Vuitton.
