Yahoo will today unveil the latest step towards democratising the news by unleashing Yahoo Upshot, a news blog based entirely around search data and trending topics. This new approach towards journalism gives great power to the online community as their interests will essentially determine what is newsworthy, rather than the traditional powerbase of news editors assessing the value of incoming latest stories.
Google have stepped up testing of a new style of advertising known as ‘cost-per-action’ that will act as an alternative to their popular pay per click service. While PPC charges companies based on the number of clicks their advert attracts, cost-per-action will only charge businesses when online customers take ‘action’ on their website, such as making a purchase or filling out a form.
Being the number one search engine provider by some distance for many years, Google ads have proved to be hugely successful both for the search engine company themselves and their clients. Not long ago PPC was a new concept, but cost-per-action looks set to provide clients further assurance that their adverts are attracting custom.
HM Revenue & Customs have announced that charitable organisations will no longer have to pay VAT on their pay per click advertising. This will act as a huge boost to the charity sector, who had been lobbying for some time for zero-rated VAT on their online advertising requirements.
Charity advertisements placed on third party websites had already qualified for a zero-rating in terms of VAT but until recently HMRC had adjudged that a PPC advert acted as a means of access to the charity’s website and refused to back them with zero VAT. However, following some fairly strong complaints from the charity sector, HMRC has conceded that PPC, along with the associated copyright and design services, qualify for a zero VAT rating.
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