Global Marketing News – 29th October 2015
Google goes head to head with German publishers
Google and German publishers have failed to reach an agreement regarding whether the search giant should pay publishers for content shown online, meaning that a court case could be on the horizon.
German publishers argue that Google should pay them for displaying their content, saying that Google is taking advertising revenue from them by making their content freely available on sites such as Google News and YouTube.
Various publishers, including the German newspaper giant Axel Springer, have said they will take Google to court over the disagreement, claiming that ancillary copyright laws have been broken.
Google denies any wrongdoing, with a spokesperson claiming that they “pass on 500 million clicks a month to German publishers’ pages alone”.
This is not the first time Google has found itself in trouble in Europe. It is currently under investigation by the European Commission for allegedly engaging in anti-competitive behaviours.
Study reveals Bangladeshi mobile internet landscape
Bangladesh has ranked higher than its larger neighbours India and Pakistan for the proportion of citizens who have mobile internet subscriptions.
In the world internet rankings report put together by the ITU and UNESCO, Bangladesh came 149th out of 189 countries for the proportion of mobile internet subscriptions in the population.
6.4% of Bangladeshis have a mobile internet subscription, compared to 5.5% of Indians and 5.1% of Pakistanis, whose countries ranked 155th and 156th in the world respectively.
While 6.4% is still very low, there is great potential for mobile internet subscription rates to rise, with around 40% of Bangladeshis having an internet-enabled mobile phone.
A spokesperson from the consulting firm BCG described Bangladesh as “one of the greatest untapped growth markets in Asia”.
In September, the social media giant Twitter recognised Bangladesh’s potential by expanding its advertising platform to the country as part of a large international rollout.
Internet usage amongst Kenyan women very low
Research by the International Association of Women in Radio and Television has revealed that internet usage among Kenyan women is still very low.
High levels of illiteracy amongst Kenyan women, the high cost of internet access and internet-enabled devices, and lack of training were all put forward as reasons for this statistic.
Education and literacy were picked out as being particularly important factors, with the report finding a strong positive correlation between education levels and internet usage.
Some Kenyan women also reported that they stayed away from the internet because they were afraid of being bullied or harassed online. Over a quarter of women who used the internet said that they’d experienced some form of online harassment.
The report recommended that the government should set up computer schools to teach women how to the use the internet, as well as put pressure on mobile manufactures to lower their prices in the country to make them more affordable to women.
Rocket Internet buys Egyptian online food ordering company Otlob
Rocket Internet has just acquired the Egyptian online food ordering company Otlob for an estimated 12 million US dollars.
Otlob, which launched in 1999, allows users to order food from Egyptian restaurants online, a much needed resource as many restaurants do not have online ordering systems of their own.
The company handles around 3,000 orders every day, and has 200,000 registered users and 500 partner restaurants, making it the dominant online food ordering company in the country.
New Zealand must improve digital marketing practices
And finally, New Zealand needs to improve its digital marketing practices in order to be competitive in export markets, according to research by Market Measures.
The research found that only 35% of New Zealand companies used digital marketing techniques, such as PPC, social media and email marketing, as their main method of driving sales.
This was reflected by poor export performance, with 70% of new Zealand exporters making less than 5 million New Zealand dollars a year.
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Cal O'Connell
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