More businesses are set to use Twitter to market their brand over the coming year after new statistics revealed that advertising revenues from the social networking site will soar.

eMarket's latest report found that around $45 million (£28.54 million) was generated from advertising on Twitter last year.

However, this figure could more than treble to $150 million (£95.15 million) in the next 12 months with another $250 million estimated to be? made in 2012.

Debra Aho Williamson, the author of upcoming report Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending: 2011 Outlook, said that the general outlook for online advertising is looking good.

"Twitter is poised to go after the same performance advertising business that has funded much of Facebook's growth," she said.

"If Twitter can grow its user base and convince marketers of its value as a go-to secondary player to Facebook, it will succeed in gaining revenue."

Justin Cooke, chair of the British Interactive Media Association, said earlier this month that social ecommerce would "come of age" in 2011, giving businesses another outlet from which to make money.

That is according to a new report published by Sedo, which found that only 15 out of the 30 growing companies it questioned had registered their .com domain name.

Figures published in the Daily Telegraph also found that less than ten per cent of those asked had registered their .net or .biz addresses.

Furthermore, none of the companies questioned had their equivalent domain name in France, China, Russia or Brazil, according to the report.

Last week, social networking site Facebook announced that it had purchased fb.com for £5.31 million from the American Farm Bureau Federation, proving the value of having certain domain names.

Additionally, gambling company 888.com recently bought poker.com.au for £64,000 even though gambling advertising is currently banned in Australia.

Sedo's report also found that 13 per cent of businesses had the Irish .ie domain name for its company.

Cloud computing is "fundamentally changing" the way that businesses access and pay for their IT and has made its mark across the world.

That is according to Rob Lovell, the chief executive officer of ThinkGrid, who said that the technology is relieving businesses of cost problems and the "pain of managing" certain aspects of IT infrastructure.

Research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, published last month, found that £148.7 billion could be generated per year by 2015 if all of Europe's largest five economies adopted cloud computing.

Mr Lovell believes that companies are looking at their IT departments as a way of getting more for less and that expenditure savings are only a part of the benefits.

"They want more choice and flexibility around IT and cloud delivers on this," he said.

"Companies are asking themselves why they should continue with the status quo, making upfront capital expenditure investments and carrying all the risks associated with large scale IT implementations."

Ecommerce businesses will need to continue adapting their sites at a fast pace to keep up with the public appetite for new technology.

That is according to Andy Mulcahy, communications executive at IMRG, who said that online retailers are "going to have to adapt" to mobile technology and the ability to research products online while they are in stores.

Research by Cisco, published on January 10th, found that there has been an increase in the interest of 'mashops' among UK shoppers, where people combine online information - such as pricing - with the physical browsing experience.

It added that 63 per cent of those asked were using technology to find the lowest price item, with a further 43 per cent using it to save time.

Mr Mulcahy added that businesses with ecommerce sites need to keep up with consumers that are quicker at picking up technological trends than some firms.

"People are really good in this country at adapting to technology, certainly a lot faster than retailers are able to keep up with," he said.

"It's a big change in consumer behaviour, and technology has really tapped into that."

Online marketing can be successful if businesses "know their users" as targeted advertising is more likely to succeed.

That is according to MB Christine, head of product management at the Financial Times website (FT.com), who said that their advertising revenues have not suffered because firms are researching their markets.

The news provider placed its content behind a pay wall in 2007, with other news organisations, such as The Times and News of The World following suit earlier this year.

But Ms Christie told the Westminster Media Forum Keynote Seminar that online marketing has far from dropped despite them asking to pay for content, suggesting that as long as it is targeted well, advertising will succeed.

She said: "Our advertising revenues have far from suffered – they've grown with the introduction of our subscription model. That's because now we know our users.

"We collect demographic data from our three million registered users, and with that we can target our advertising better."

More Security news

Software as a service (SaaS) is "the biggest shift" in the IT product market in the last five years, according to an industry expert.

Stephen Mann, an Ovum analyst, has written a report on SaaS delivery and how they can provide IT management services and concludes that hosted applications are becoming a "mainstream" part of computer departments.

Gartner predicted earlier this week that IT expenditure will increase by around five per cent this year as more firms look at using hosted IT and other services.

But Mr Mann warned that businesses must make sure they are looking to use SaaS for the right reasons instead of implementing it because of hype.

He said: "SaaS is now becoming a mainstream part of the corporate IT mix but using it for the right reasons, in the right places and in the right way within an organisation is crucial.

"CIOs need to establish this before embarking on an implementation project."