NYTimes.com

Web companies with big global audiences and renowned brands struggle to turn even a tiny profit. Call it the International Paradox. Web companies that rely on advertising are enjoying some of their most vibrant growth in developing countries. But those are also the same places where it can be the most expensive to operate, since Web companies often need more servers to make content available to parts of the world with limited bandwidth. And in those countries, online display advertising is least likely to translate into results.

Build huge global audiences with a free service, and let advertising pay the bills. But many of them ran smack into global economic reality. There may be 1.6 billion people in the world with Internet access, but fewer than half of them have incomes high enough to interest major advertisers.

• Last year, Veoh, a video-sharing site operated from San Diego, decided to block its service from users in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, citing the dim prospects of making money and the high cost of delivering video there.
• MySpace — the News Corporation’s social network with 130 million members, about 45 percent of them overseas — is testing a feature for countries with slower Internet connections called Profile Lite.
• YouTube, which a Credit Suisse analyst, Spencer Wang, recently estimated could lose $470 million in 2009, in part because of the high cost of delivering billions of videos each month. Google does not rule out restricting bandwidth in certain countries as a way to control costs — essentially making YouTube a slower, lower-quality viewing experience in the developing world.
• Facebook faces the expensive prospect of storing 850 million photos and eight million videos uploaded to the site each month. It is struggling to finance its expensive global growth.

"Serving videos to the entire world is just not supportable at this time.”

Primates on Facebook | The Economist

Primatologists call at least some of the things that happen on social networks “grooming”.

Several years ago, therefore, Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who now works at Oxford University, concluded that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Extrapolating from the brain sizes and social networks of apes, Dr Dunbar suggested that the size of the human brain allows stable networks of about 148. Rounded to 150, this has become famous as “the Dunbar number”.

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SilverMatters™ Reports - Marketing Report for Asia Mature Market

In Asia (and elsewhere) there are huge opportunities presented by the ageing populations and the online usage among the 50 plus market in the region - the Silver Surfers.

 Download the electronic version of 'Rise of the Silver Surfer' Presentation.

Insights Library | Yahoo! Advertising Funnel

Yahoo!’s most recent research states that consumers no longer follow the traditional “purchase funnel.” Instead, they chart personalized purchase trajectories that work for them. This study takes a deeper look at the emergence of this new, non-liner buying process that has evolved as consumers have become more engaged in consumer electronics.

• Consumers see technology products in a new way
• The new buying process is consumer-drivenand non-linear
• From a seemingly erratic process, a pattern emerges that indicates unique patterns and a compressed shopping cycle

“Tech socialites” and “Sophisticated want-it-alls”are the most likely to be brand advocates and to try new products. Using the right messagingand tone is imperative to reaching them.

Marketers need more individualized touchpoints that provide the information and connection consumers are seeking.

 Download the electronic version of 'Tech Enthusiasts' Study.

Social Media Marketing Industry Report

Social media is seen by many marketers as the next gold rush. Michael Stelzner set out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing with this report.  Nearly 900 of your peers provided the kind of insight that previously has not existed.

 Download the electronic version of 'Social Media Marketing Industry' Report.

Nielsen | Reports (many!)

Two-thirds of the Global Internet audience visits member communities and adoption of social networking shows no signs of slowing.

In this new report, Nielsen examines the global footprint of the category and the implications on both consumers and the media economy.

 Download the electronic version of 'Global Faces' Study.