December 2007
Year of Progress
2007 is a year in which MatchWork introduced many new enhancements to the MatchWork system and services, with three specific objectives: -
· To generate new revenue streams for our partners
· To make life easier for our partners, and/or their customers
· To improve the general usability/accessibility of the system.
This past year we have seen our network of partner publishers continue to expand, with more new job sites and CV matching sites launched. This has seen the CV database grow substantially, meaning more value than ever for advertisers, and partners using CV Match are reporting good results throughout 2007.
Some notable success stories came out of 2007. In the UK the launch of a new job site, “The Jobsmine”, for Manchester Evening News was undoubtedly a hit, providing MEN with a strong platform to take into the New Year and the increasingly competitive market.
Elsewhere, in Sweden a highlight of the year was our appointment to handle the Merajobb website for Sweden’s three largest morning newspapers, in Denmark Fynske Medier decided to focus on their own-brand online job solution powered by MatchWork and, in consequence, reduced their cooperation with the online job syndicate which they have been working with for some years, in Germany you can read about Verlagsgesellschaft Madsack’s exciting initiatives below.
Launching new websites for our publishing partners is obviously the most visible aspect of the work that MatchWork carries out, but these are not the only projects we have been focusing on. 2007 saw a substantial investment in technology and architecture, ensuring that we are fully prepared for the future in our fast-moving environment. Currently our new technology is in the background, but we will soon be showing off the improvements that it can bring to the front end of your websites and products, enabling us to improve every single one of our publisher sites. We are very excited about this and you will be hearing more about it in the New Year.
We have also been busy working on developing new products and features, guided by our perpetual Development Roadmap. Elsewhere in this newsletter, we talk about the new features and improvements launched over the past couple of months and it is exciting to be able to take these improvements into the New Year and be even more effective in all our markets.
We must also be very conscious of market trends as a new survey has suggested that almost two thirds of internet users in Europe are trading other forms of media for online.
According to figures from the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA), 62% of those surveyed are now turning to the internet as a main source of news rather than traditional media.
The EIAA Mediascope Europe Study, which interviewed 7,008 people from the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Belgium in September, found that 65% of European internet users access news sites at least once a month.
In addition, 28% of the respondents admitted to reading newspapers less frequently as a result of the availability of news online. A further 40% said they watched less television, while 22% found they were listening to the radio less.
Listening to the radio and watching television or video clips online, however, featured in the top ten most popular online activities across Europe with 31% of those surveyed having listened to radio on the web and 30% having streamed television or video.
These trends underline the importance of what we and our partners are doing together – with ’total audience’ rather than ’circulation’ the benchmark for the future.
So, whilst we can look back on 2007 with satisfaction, we won’t be getting complacent – this is a challenging marketplace. MatchWork will ensure that all of our partners have the right tools to hand during the very active January recruitment market and make it a successful start to 2008.