Microsoft Premium Audience research

New quantitative research from Microsoft shows that 'premium' and 'luxury' markets are not one and the same thing. Not surprisingly the study finds the answer in targeting premium consumers - who it claims have a more balanced rational/emotional set of needs to luxury consumers - lies online and, more specifically, in behavioural re-targeting.

There are still some interesting findings. See them for yourself here.

Microsoft on Social Media

Katie Box, Head of Social Media at Microsoft tells the IAB why she thinks social media should be important to marketeers and points to social media aggregation tools as a future product development from Microsoft.

News Corp or News Corpse?

After a long late summer (it was summer wasn't it?) layoff we're back. Sorry for the hiatus but we've been immersed in all sorts of interesting stuff. More of which to follow.

First off though, Rupert Murdoch's alleged deal with Microsoft to "de-index" News Corp content from Google in favour of an exclusive paid-content deal with Bing.

Does this set the scene for a search enginge battle which provides a ray of light for the ailing newspaper industry. Some things worth thinking about:

Will the extra money News Corp gets from Microsoft outweigh the lost traffic from Google?
Can News Corp afford to jeopardize it's online share of voice?
Is this a sustainable business model for Microsoft?
Will searchers even notice the difference if Google doesn't list News Corp content?
If this battle ensures, what does it mean for the future of search?

Some seemingly well informed comment from Business Week here:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2009/tc20091124_203544.htm

Interested to hear your views.