We’ve been writing a lot about The Guardian recently on The Wall pondering whether it will eventually have to put up a paywall, looking at its grab for US traffic and wondering if it might be planning to ditch print for a digital future sooner rather than later.

Today, it has two pieces of research it is highlighting. The first, quoting the latest figures from digital analyst comScore, reveal that its website is the third most popular newspaper website in the world.

Considering the competition that is something of an achievement for, as editor Alan Rusbridger puts it, “a little newspaper from London”.

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Yesterday Apple released the latest version of Mountain Lion. I was in two minds about whether to buy it. So I hopped onto Google, did a bit of research, read some reviews and asked my followers on Twitter. On the basis of this five or ten minutes of investigation, I took the plunge and purchased.

Does this process sound familiar?

Today, new consumer research has been released that looks at the different ways UK consumers are influenced before they make a technology purchase.

Just think back to the last time you invested in a new TV, mobile or laptop. What steps did you take? Chances are you didn’t just pop into PC World and grab the first piece of shiny tech on offer. Read More »

As social media dominates more and more of the internet, the companies behind some of the most popular networks are unsurprisingly looking at how to maximise their revenue. Research company Gartner have published some very interesting analysis on how social media makes money.

They say: “Advertising is, and will continue to be, the largest contributor to overall social media revenue and is projected to total $8.8 billion in 2012.” Read More »

Twitter is to hand over the details of the person behind an account spoofing the boss of the Daily Mail’s regional newspaper arm Northcliffe Media.

The account, @UnSteveDorkland, is a “parody” of Northcliffe’s chief executive Steve Auckland. Until recently the account had less than 200 followers until the company decided to take legal action and draw attention to the account, which now has more than a 1,100 followers.

Twitter’s decision to release the details of the account holder follows the news that it would not to support the owner of @UnSteveDorkland in his legal dispute with Northcliffe. Read More »

Foursquare is trialing ads on its service for the first time as it joins Twitter and Facebook in an effort to monetize mobile social networking.

Foursquare might be a lot smaller than its rivals with 20 million users, but it is still faced with the same problem as everyone else as it tries to make mobile pay.

The new Foursquare ads are called Promoted Updates…clearly Foursquare didn’t think too long and hard when devising  a name for its new advertising programme.

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Women are twice as likely as men to refer to their social network contacts, especially Facebook friends, when making purchasing decisions, according to a study.  It also indicates more consumers  prefer informative content on brands’ social channels to simple offers of freebies and incentives, while  brands should tailor their online content according to age, gender and even income or education.

The study of 1,000 UK consumers using the newly-launched, self-service rapid online survey provider, Usurv*, which assessed their consumption of brands’ content online when making purchasing decisions. I’d love to learn from marketers if the below findings match up with their own experiences. Read More »