Online marketing professionals may need to get used to yet another game changing development on the internet soon, if reports of Facebook’s latest cunning plan turn out to be true.

Sources have revealed that the social networking phenomenon is busy on a new feature, grandly codenamed Project Titan. This is nothing less than a comprehensive email service aimed at eclipsing such established contenders as Googlemail, Yahoo and Microsoft’s venerable Hotmail.

According to the reports, Facebook will be an entirely web-based email service, operating within the social networking program itself and users will be offered a “facebook.com” email address. But what sets this plan apart is the ambitious message filing system.

Sources say that the application will analyse events, photos and friends on Facebook proper and use the information to sort emails by what it believes are the highest priority.

Facebook has tentatively announced that it will be staging a “major press event” on Monday in San Francisco, with the invitations strongly hinting that it will concern messaging and emails.

The new email service should prove a boon to online marketing campaigns, with another set of targets for online advertising and commercial mailouts. Companies such as Google are likely to feel threatened by the development – Google has already had a public spat with Facebook over the sharing of data – and online marketing experts are predicting a response from the search engine giant – expect to hear of new applications and features on Google soon.

Until Monday’s grand unveiling by Facebook, that classic dictum applies – watch this space.

New figures published yesterday revealed that Facebook is the single largest platform for online advertising in the UK.

The data, by analysts comScore, showed that the market share of display advertising controlled by the social networking phenomenon had soared since 2009 to nearly a third of Britain’s online advertising sector.

Researchers estimated that UK internet users were exposed to almost 221.1 billion display ads in the third quarter of this year, representing a 34 per cent year-on-year increase.

They then subdivided these into a top ten – some 68.7 billion were on Facebook, well ahead of the 13.7 billion placed on various sites under the Microsoft umbrella, the 8.8 billion on eBay and the 8.2 billion via Google. There were 7.7 billion display adverts on Yahoo, an increase which was more than twice those seen on lesser platforms such as Glam Media, Trader Media Group, AOL, Bebo and Amazon.

The largest number of these ads were provided by large companies who have been swift to embrace the possibilities of online marketing, such as the Virgin Group, which was responsible for 4.4 billion adverts concerning its broadband, mobile and TV services – topping the comScore list of brands.

It was followed by the O2 group’s owner Telefónica, with 2.9 billion ads, and broadcasting company BSkyB, with 2.6 billion.

In fourth place was telecoms giant BT, with 2.3 billion ads, followed by eBay, Microsoft and Google itself, with 1.2 billion, 1 billion and 814 million ads respectively.

ComScore Europe managing director Mike Read noted that many companies were responding to the global economic downturn by placing more of an emphasis on online marketing.

“Following the ad recession that occurred from late 2008 through most of 2009, we are now seeing a strong resurgence in the online display ad market,” he said.
Mr Read predicted that the market would expand even further in the final quarter of the year.

“In the run up to Christmas with consumers searching for gifts, the growth in online advertising is likely to continue its ascent,” he added.

Social media are going to play a large part in online marketing campaigns this Christmas, according to new research.

Research by internet marketing affiliate network LinkShare found that at least 43 per cent of companies involved in some form of online advertising campaign over the holiday period this year will be taking advantage of the unprecedented opportunities offered by Facebook, Twitter and other social networking websites.

Another 37 per cent of online marketing respondents said that they would be hoping to tempt customers over Christmas with online vouchers and special offers, while 17 per cent would be creating videos to promote their online advertising.

Just 18 per cent of companies surveyed believed that next year’s rise in VAT would have a deleterious effect on their online marketing budgets – with 30 per cent sure that the increase would spur companies on to make more effectively targeted campaigns than ever before.

The network’s managing director Liane Dietrich commented: “A call for more targeted and measured campaigns is certainly in line with what we are seeing from our own customers who are looking to increase their efficiency, and after the Christmas sales boom this will remain important.”

With the growing popularity of iPads and smartphones, many companies that use internet advertising believe that video campaigns are set to become more important than ever next year.

Nearly 30 per cent of respondents surveyed agreed that online videos, which can be searched for using Google or other engines, would be the largest digital advertising format, although another 28 per cent were sure that the likes of Twitter and Facebook would continue to reign supreme in 2011, dominating the online marketing world.

Social Media Portal founder Tim Gibbon has claimed that social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook have more potential for online marketing than straight advertising.

Mr Gibbon said that online marketing social media had the advantage of “seamless” integration and so was able to avoid the weakness of direct online advertising – the “unwanted” factor.

He said that since 2005 there has been a huge shift towards social networking, a shift that was finally being recognised by companies who are now focusing on Facebook and Twitter for their online marketing efforts.

A number of companies even print their Facebook and Twitter URLs on receipts to make customers aware of their social media presence, Mr Gibbon noted.

New research this week identified another important phenomenon in the UK online marketing sector, which will have quite an impact on the future – mobile devices and applications.

A study by the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) revealed that most publishers are looking to build online marketing campaigns on mobile devices such as the iPad and even more were planning to launch new apps in the 12 months, offering some of their content and services free of charge.

Researchers found that half of those surveyed were already delivering mobile content, and one in six already had iPad apps. Some 72 per cent had mobile websites up and running, while another 25 per cent were planning to launch them over the next year.

An overwhelming 91 per cent of respondents identified the mobile online sector as an opportunity or “major opportunity” for marketing in the next 12 months – 86 per cent saw the iPad and other tablets as a good place to concentrate, while 84 per cent picked the smartphone and apps 80 per cent would be focusing on apps.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has revealed plans next spring to extend its regulatory arm to encompass online marketing and online advertising.

From 1 March 2010, the ASA will have what chairman Chris Smith has described as “the most comprehensive approach to the regulation of advertising in website space anywhere in the world.”

Over the past few years, the ASA has received some 4,500 complaints concerning online marketing, yet has been unable to take little or no action.

However, from March next year it will be able to intervene to maintain online advertising’s self-regulatory system – particularly when it comes to protecting the safety of children on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The ASA website will feature a “rogues’ gallery” of online marketing offenders against its code of practice and warnings will appear in the results of Google and other search engines. There will also be a list of products and brands that defy the code.

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), which wrote and maintains the code of practice decided to extend the ASA’s remit after a formal recommendation from a wide cross-section of British industry.

The advertising and marketing industry has itself agreed to apply a standard 0.1 per cent levy on all paid-for advertising on internet search engines, extending the existing funding mechanism across other media that pays for the ASA. Google is providing the initial seed capital.

Website owners and online advertising agencies are urged to sign up to CAP Services to receive guidance and training so their sites will comply with the new rules before they come into effect.

CAP chairman Andrew Brown said, “Our aim has been to extend further in the online world the principles that are already well established in our system, namely those of effective consumer protection and fair competition.”

A new report from eMarketer has revealed that the USA is leading the way when it comes to the ascendancy of online marketing across a variety of different platforms.

The organisation said that some 6.7 per cent of all online advertising budgets this year will be earmarked for social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, thanks to the slow but steady economic recovery in the US and the focus among marketers of reaching the millions of users of social media.

Researchers estimated that this year will see over $1.68 billion spent by US advertisers on Twitter and other social networking sites in 2010, which represents an increase of more than 20 per cent compared to last year. By 2011 this figure will have rocketed to over $2 billion, they added.

In December last year, eMarketer said that there would be some $1.3 billion spent on online advertising across social networks during 2010, but online marketing across these platforms has been so successful – particularly on Facebook – that analysts have been forced to drastically revise their forecasts upward.

The eMarketer report said that around half of all advertising spending on social networks will go to Facebook, due to the continuing eclipsing of MySpace by the site. Twitter has become part of the eMarketer calculations for the first time, after launching its advertising arm earlier this year.

The group said that while 2010 will see relatively little spent on Twitter by online marketing campaigns, its potential to grow over the next few years is massive.

Just over a year ago, the Tweetmeme company decided to add another dimension to social networking – and opportunities for online marketing – by providing a single place for retweets.

This gifted content providers with a whole new stream of traffic and soon soared in popularity, leading to this week’s announcement by Twitter that it will officially be taking over operation of the retweet button, known properly as wp-tweet-button.

Tweetmeme’s retweet button currently receives more than 750 million hits a day, and its runaway success has unsurprisingly led to its transferral to an in-house feature on the Twitter site.

The new wp-tweet-button function is little changed from the Tweetmeme original, apart from a new design and colour scheme. Nevertheless, the are some new functions which will help content providers and online marketing experts promote their own brands, sites and services on Twitter.

Once the button is used to retweet, the user will see a list of suggested Twitter accounts to follow, which can be taken up by the website itself for its own promotional purposes, helping to make a retweet the next viral sensation.

Twitter has got a lot of interest going already about the new button, with the likes of YouTube and news outlets such as CNN, USA Today and the Huffington Post all ready to add it to their own sites.

On the company’s blog, Tweetmeme chief executive Nick Halstead revealed that his firm would be assisting Twitter with the switch.

“This will manifest itself in the launch of a number of new products and the first of these is being unveiled today,” he said.

One of these is EDataSift, which will allow website developers to create “streams of data” from the millions of tweets held on Twitter’s database.