A new survey of U.S. home computer users shows that the replacement of PC software by websites has already spread far beyond early adopters in the U.S., with over a third of U.S. home computer owners using at least one web application to replace software that was previously installed on their PCs.

“Most industry observers talk about ‘Web 2.0’ applications as something that’s coming in the future, but our research showed that some web apps are already spreading rapidly through the PC user base,” said Rubicon Consulting’s Michael Mace. “Most computer users are very practical. They don’t care if a software program is installed on their computer or built into a website. If it solves their problems, they’ll use it. The barriers to adoption of web applications are very low.”

The Rubicon study comprised feedback from more than 2,000 U.S. home PC owners during the summer of 2007.

Online competitive intelligence company Hitwise announced Sept. 19 that Google accounted for 63.98% of all US searches in the four weeks ending Sept. 1, 2007. Yahoo, MSN and Ask each received 22.87, 7.98% and 3.41% respectively. The remaining 48 search engines in the Hitwise search engine analysis tool accounted for 1.68% of U.S. searches.

Google an Increasing Source of Traffic to Key Industries

Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories.  Comparing August 2007 to August 2006, the travel, entertainment, and business and finance categories received double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.

There’s been a lot of concern surrounding the Facebook code that found its way to the Web in August due to a web server error.

While it reportedly hasn’t caused any members’ personal information to be exposed, it is a reminder of potential vulnerability on social networks. They can be enticing targets for hackers and identity theft.

For that reason, it’s probably a good idea to think twice before posting sensitive information on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Google, whose $13 billion in revenue mainly comes from clicks on ads, plays down click fraud.

Meanwhile, the rate of fraudulent clicks was 15.8% in the second quarter of 2007, up 1% from three months earlier. Plus, Click Forensics estimates that more than 25% of all clicks were fraudulent, up from about 22% in the previous quarter.

Forbes’ Andy Greenburg talks to Google’s Senior Product Manager Shuman Ghosemajumder about this issue in the article Counting Clicks.

You’ve got plenty of traffic, but you’re not able to persuade visitors to take action. It’s a common and aching issue for many online businesses.

Too often, business owners impulsively throw more money into existing marketing campaigns, believing it’s merely a numbers game — i.e. “I just need more traffic and the sales will materialize.” But one has to realize the simple fact that a zero per cent conversion rate means no sales, whether you’re attracting 10 visitors a day or 10,000.

Presuming you’re driving the right people to your site, Web site conversions can be boosted through various means, explained Yuval Karjevski, Senior Software Engineer at New York-based Reditus Solutions, which helps companies analyze their online performance in a bid to achieve optimal results.

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Forrester Research reports Europe’s search engine marketing investments will exceeds €8 billion in 2012.

Search spending will soar with 80% growth in the next five years as marketers use search marketing to alter their customers’ buying decisions, forecasts the independent technology and market research company.

In 2012, Forrester expects search investment in Europe to top €8.1 billion, up from today’s spend of €4.5 billion. Paid search is expected to uphold the largest share of investment.

“Marketers will continue to like performance-based media buying,” suggests the organization. “Over the next five years, as broadband and e-commerce expand, search marketing investment will double in 12 of the 17 European countries tracked.”

Forrester also reports European e-mail marketing spend will hit €2.3 billion in 2012.

In fact, European online consumers get almost twice as many commercial messages as work-related or personal e-mails, reports Forrester’s Senior Analyst Rebecca Jennings.

She notes: “Even though many of them delete the marketing e-mails unread or have spam filters, e-mail remains a strong marketing channel.”

Over the next five years, Forrester estimates that the volume of these messages will double, with the value of the market increasing from €1.5 billion in 2007 to €2.3 billion in 2012.

Concluded Jennings: “Marketers will use more sophisticated targeting, messaging, and analytics to engage the critical consumer.”

Editor’s note: PricewaterhouseCoopers recently reported on online spending in Canada, Asia and Latin America.

Businesses need to dig deeper to connect with customers in the expanding sea of Web 2.0 user-generated content.

The rapid rise of social networking and blogging is churning out information at record rates, creating a flood of independent ideas, views and expressions.

Web authority Technorati reports there are more than 100 million blogs sailing the Web, with 175,000 new blogs diving in each day. What’s more, bloggers are updating these sites with more than 1.6 million posts per day, which translates to more than 18 updates a second.

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Too many web designers seem to be stuck in the 90s.

Like glammed-up big hair bands of the past, they’re churning out more flash than substance.

Meanwhile, for more than a decade, Internet experts and users alike have been calling for simple, unobtrusive and accessible designs. It seems straightforward enough: a website that promotes productive and positive online experiences will form a fan base.

Yet, useless Flash intros, superfluous splash pages, confusing menus and difficult-to-detect scroll bars continue to be created. Plus, music — usually of the cheesy genre — is still making users frantically reach for the mute button at the office and home (during the wee hours, when the rest of the household is fast asleep). The list goes on.

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To get the right web copy working for your online business, you need to know exactly what market you’re targeting.

For instance, I recently consulted HR firm directors who want to invest in keyword-rich web copywriting to boost their organic search engine rankings. But they’re putting the cart before the horse; they have yet to clearly define their target market.

You can’t optimize your web copywriting with the right keywords if you don’t know exactly who you’re targeting and in what market or region. It turns out they will attempt to incubate a local network, and moving forward they’ll try to make themselves known to select organizations across Canada and the U.S.

Depending on the nature of your business, your SEO copywriting might need to be ‘regionalized’ to reach your target market. For instance, a North Vancouver-based skin care clinic we recently performed work for would have little or no benefit receiving traffic from other cities as all services are performed locally.

Hence, all SEO efforts had strong regional emphasis in a bid to attract local consumers. Again, online visitors from New York would have no value to this client, so we didn’t water down our efforts by targeting global or general terms.

The strategy and effort paid off. Within five weeks, the client benefited from 58 number one positions on the top three search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN. In fact, the client reported a significant number of website-generated leads — all made possible by purposefully targeting regionalized keywords and phrases.

I enjoyed this worthy article by essayist and programmer Paul Graham: The 18 mistakes that kill start-ups. Anyone planning to launch or grow a business should read it, and then print a copy for reference.

My only comment would be to expand item #12 to read: Spending too much or too little. Business owners can often gain ground by focusing on what they’re good at, and delegating the rest.

Not too long ago, Webcopyplus interviewed business expert Mark Wardell to discuss this exact topic. In the article Delegate or die: 6 steps to business growth, Wardell explains many entrepreneurs don’t employ this vital tactic because they fail to place value on their time.