Digicel’s move to block ads on customers’ phones across its entire network is part of a wider shift that will become more pronounced in the coming months and force a fundamental change in advertising, according to a leading expert.

Google investors hoping for detailed financial reporting across its range of individual businesses could be disappointed after a major shake-up of its organisational structure was announced.

Irish SMEs will be hit hardest by a change in how Google displays search results as they continue to lag way behind in their online and mobile presence.

Just one in five people working in the marketing profession has even entry level digital marketing competency and if the deficiency is not addressed, the country will not achieve the 150,000 jobs which could potentially be created in the digital economy by 2020.

The Digital Marketing Institute has announced the creation of 39 new jobs over the next 18 months.

More than 900 jobs will be created over the next three years in 53 new start-up companies.

The suggestion by businessman Ian Dodson, who runs the Digital Marketing Institute, that marketing colleges are failing the tech sector by turning out “unemployable” graduates inept in the basic IT marketing skills cannot be ignored.