Easy Media

NRIs continue to drive traffic to Indian news sites

Sunil Saxena — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:10:38 +0000

It is more than a decade since the arrival of Internet in India. But NRIs continue to form a large chunk of traffic to Indian news sites. This has been confirmed once again by ComScore.com, a global leader in measuring the digital world. It has found that almost one-third of traffic to top Indian news sites comes from abroad. The Times of India, which ranked as the largest site in the Newspaper category with nearly 7.9 million visitors in India (age 15 and older accessing from a home or work location), attracted 36.2 percent of its global traffic from outside of India in September. Oneindia reached more than 4.4 million visitors in India in September 2011, with 31.6 percent of its global visitor base accessing from outside of the country, while HT Media Ltd. saw 28.1 percent of visitation from outside of India. In the case of NDTV this figure stood at 38.2 percent. Among the selected news sites, Mid-Day.com and DeccanChronicle.com displayed the largest percentage of visitors from outside of India with both drawing more than 45 percent of their global audiences from outside of the country. The same was true of financial and sports portals which drew a [...]

Social media must remove abusive content

Sunil Saxena — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:16:46 +0000

India’s IT and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has stirred the hornet’s nest by announcing that social media sites must screen content. There is horror and disbelief among netizens, many of whom consider the announcement as nothing short of censorship. These netizens forget that social media must remain social if it is to be of use and value. You cannot have a law and order problem in Udaipur for postings made on Facebook that disparaged a Muslim shrine. How would these netizens feel if they were pilloried and abused in the name of freedom of speech? That is what is happening. Individual reputations are being savaged by a small minority of malcontents; religious sentiments are being trampled upon; and abusive and inflammatory content is being allowed to be posted by social media sites. All these postings are being made by individuals who use pseudonyms. None of them has the courage to identify himself by name or place. But they have no hesitation in attacking a fellow individual on grounds of caste, language, religion or political affiliation. It is this content that Kapil Sibal has asked social media sites to remove. Is anything wrong in it? The social media sites too realise [...]

How to maximize your earnings from Google ads

Sunil Saxena — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:43:10 +0000

It is not enough to be an Ad Sense publisher. It is equally important to maximize your earnings from the ads run on your site. The best way to do so is ensure that your site gets the highest-paying available ads. You can do so if you adopt the following practices: 1. Placement Place the ad units above the fold, and close to the content. Your site visitors should notice the ad unit without scrolling down. 2. Ad formats The four top-performing Google ad formats are: a. Medium rectangle (300×250) b. Large rectangle (336×280) c. Leaderboard (728×90) d. Wide skyscraper (160×600). Make sure that you select these four formats because most advertisers use these ad sizes to design their campaigns. 3. Ad styles Don’t make the mistake of choosing either text ads or image ads. Make sure that you choose both. This will give you access to the full ad inventory that is relevant and available for the kind of content run on your site. Just follow these tips, and you will see your Ad Sense revenue go up.

5 top daily activities on Facebook

Easy Media Desk — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:14:05 +0000

What do 800 million plus Facebook users do every day? According to the official Facebook Statistics page, the top five activities that occur on Facebook are: 1. More than 50% of Facebook’s active users log on to Facebook every day. 2. They interact with over 900 million objects — pages, groups, events and community pages – every day. 3. They like or comment on more than 2 billion posts every day. 4. They upload, on average, more than 250 million photos every day 5. They install, on average, more than 20 million apps every day

How peer pressure affects online buying

Sunil Saxena — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:35:35 +0000

We have always known it. But now there are two digital studies that confirm how peer pressure influences online buying decisions. One study was carried out by the Social Computing Group of HP Labs and another was done by ComScore.com’s Social Essential services unit. The two studies indicate how peer pressure, now delivered through social media channels, can influence buyer behavior. The findings are invaluable for social media marketers, and companies that want to build brands and influence buying behavior. HP Labs ran the experiment to find out how people’s choices are reversed by the recommendations of others. It showed two photographs to the respondents. One picture was of two babies. The participants were asked to choose the baby that looked cuter. The second photograph was of two couches or love seats, and the participants were asked to indicate which one they thought was better. The participants were then asked to make a second choice. This time they were given the preference of others too. The result: “People’s opinions significantly sway people’s own choices.” According to the researchers, “People are most likely to reverse their choices when facing a moderate number of opposing opinions.” This was not all. The researchers [...]