80% of Social Media is About ME

Yes!! Just last week I was lamenting that everything is all about you—but it turns out that now it’s all about me! Or at least when it comes to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, according to Rutgers University researchers Mor Naaman and Jeffrey Boase (and Mashable). After analyzing 3000 tweets from >350 tweeple, the [...]

FeedBurner Goes Full-on 301

Back in April 2007, we pointed out that if you used FeedBurner click tracking to see which feed items people clicked on, it might be “siphoning off your link juice,” if people used those redirected links instead of your real URL. For example, your URL might be http://adsenseforfeeds.blogspot.com/2009/08/feedburner-terms-of-servic e-update.html but the redirect would be http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MQiv/~3/Z8Es5QuvgEI/feedburner [...]

Follow Me Follow You: WhyFollow Twitter Poll

With Twitter riding the social media wave to a $1 billion valuation, the attention from celebrities, usefulness for everything from real-time communications in natural disasters to serving as a profitable marketing channel, a momentum of interest has spawned in how to make the most out of spending time on Twitter. Like any tool, Twitter is [...]

66% Americans Don’t Want Ad Tracking…or “2 for 1″ on Coke 12-Packs

Professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley just conducted one of the largest independent studies on privacy and advertising tracking–and you may want take note of the findings. Of 1,000 adult internet users: …66 percent that said tailored ads were “not OK,” an additional 7 percent said such ads were not OK [...]

For Tech Execs It’s Not About the Money…This Just In: It’s About the Money

Isn’t funny how there tends to be disconnect between what technology execs say and what they mean? Take Shashi Seth for example. When he left Google’s YouTube, he stated “Google got a little big for me.” Well, apparently the one year at Cooliris was enough to either a) throw us off the scent, or b) help [...]

UK Internet Ad Spend Tops TV for the First Time

The headline is pretty spectacular, to be sure, if you are in the Internet marketing biz. The UK has become the first major world economy to report that online ad spending has topped that of television. The IAB put together numbers as reported by The Guardian that attests to the true coming of age of [...]

Do You Actually Watch 157 Videos Per Month?

This week comScore has released the latest numbers regarding video viewed online and I am still scratching my head. According to the findings (remember class, repeat after me â€" “It’s research and research ain’t perfect”) in August of 2009 there were just over 25 billion videos viewed by the approximately 161 million US Internet users. [...]

More Insight into YouTube

Mm, I love the smell of data in the work day. Introduced in March 2008, YouTube Insight data and stats on video usage. In May of that year, they added demographic data. And that October, they unveiled Click-to-Buy, which used their Content ID system to find copyright-violating music and video on UGC content on the [...]

Twitter Gets Blitzed Out of Lubbock

Unless you are a college football fan (hang in there social media geeks, we’ll get to your stuff soon enough ) you probably wouldn’t even have a clue what this post is about. Honestly, unless you are a Texas Tech student or fan or resident of Lubbock, TX you may not know what [...]

Do the Wave: Google Wave to Roll Out to 100,000 Testers

I’m certainly jealous. Google first showed off its new integrated communications platform, Google Wave, back at Google I/O in May. When I first heard the stories, I was all ready to roll my eyes and berate the new technology. IM and email and pictures and social networking-type stuff in the same place? Get real. And then [...]

Google Still Can’t Deliver Real-Time Search; Offers Warmed Up Leftovers Instead

There’s no doubt that Google’s feeling the heat from Twitter. Just about everyone wants to know what Google has planned to address Twitter’s rise in dominance for "real time" search results. The biggest problem for Google is that it’s built its market share by being the most relevant search engine. How can it balance relevance [...]

Why Internet Summit Might be the Best $295 You’ll Spend in 2009!

When do you ever find an internet marketing event with this much to offer? Speakers? How about this line-up: Google Twitter Microsoft Digg AOL comScore CBS Technorati Expedia Pandora ESPN Many more! Session topics? Broad and deep: Blogging Search marketing Mobile Cloud computing Social Media Email marketing Video Real-Time Plus more great topics! Location? The mild Fall temperatures of Raleigh, North Carolina. The cost? Just $295 if you register this week! Yes, just $295! Last year’s Internet Summit sold out early [...]

Google & Bank Work Together, But Still Can’t Reactivate Gmail Account

So it was all for nothing. After having a panic attack and asking a judge to shut down a Gmail user’s account, Rocky Mountain Bank and Google have worked together on a resolution. The only problem is, Google can’t reinstate the Gmail account without the judge’s permission! “While we regret that the user has been locked out [...]

Google Docs and the New World Student

If you are going to school it is probably hard to imagine a better resume builder than an internship at Google. I suspect that those folks will have a bit of an advantage in an interview situation over the kid who tries to spin his gig waiting tables at the beach for the summer by [...]

10 SEO & Social Media Posts To Read Before MIMA Summit

In just under a week the annual Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association Summit will be held downtown Minneapolis at the Hilton. With keynotes from Seth Godin and Jackie Huba as well as a collection of local and national subject matter experts ranging from Greg Swan of Weber Shandwick to Scott Monty of Ford, it should be [...]

What Do Y!ou Think of Yahoo’s New TV Ad?

Presenting the first ad from Yahoo’s multi-million dollar campaign. I’ll save my thoughts for now, but what do Y!ou think of it?

Product Placements with Nobodies?

Let me guess: you’re looking for a way to get your clients’ products placed in all kinds of media—but you can’t afford any celebrity endorsements. Well, if you’re okay with your products being hawked by nobodies, you might be in luck, according to an AdAge article on Udorse. Okay, at first it doesn’t sound so appealing: [...]

How Many Ads Make $1 Billion?

Now that Twitter has been able to convince some pretty wealthy folks that their little ol’ 140 character deal is worth in the range of $1 billion it’s time to get down to brass tacks. What does that mean? Since people now have this huge number in their head there will be continued and likely [...]

Marketers (Still) Taking Facebook Seriously–With Good Reason

It’s always great when the mainstream media realizes (again) that something is big—like social media marketing or Facebook. The Wall Street Journal posted an article Friday on the popularity of social media marketing on Facebook. Okay, so really they were reporting about the Social Data Summit in New York Thursday. At the summit, Facebook’s social [...]

The Secret to Andy Beal’s Reputation Management Success?

Late last week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jennifer Lindsay to discuss online reputation management, Trackur, and, well, life in general. Mid-way through the interview I give up the secret to my success. You can listen to it via the player below:

New Study: One Word Describes Affiliate Marketing via Social Networks – Craptastic!

If you’re an affiliate marketer, 2009 doesn’t hold much growth for you, but Forrester predicts a healthy rise in spending after that–through 2014. In fact, US affiliate marketing spend will increase to $4 billion over that 5 year stretch, realizing a very healthy 16% growth rate. However, if you’re hoping Facebook, Twitter, and others social networks [...]

5 Twitter Tips for Staying Authentic and Transparent

Any marketer who’s successfully made the move to social media will tell you the rules of traditional marketing have to be reexamined. That’s particularly true with Twitter, where brands have just 140 characters to inform, evoke emotion and inspire action. One of the most basic and critical rules for brands on Twitter? Be authentic and [...]

Washington Post’s Social Media Guidelines Get Posted

What is probably most ironic about the story that you are about to read is the fact that an journalistic icon, the Washington Post, is trying to maintain control of its staff while it can’t even keep an internal memo from going public. Having made that observation from the start you can see that this [...]

Cup of Joe: The Danger Of Being Oz

Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of the film classic The Wizard of Oz. One of my favorite parts of the movie is when Dorothy discovers the true identity of the Wizard. This scene is symbolic of many political and social truths in our society. Coincidentally, we saw this same scene play out in the Internet marketing [...]

You’re Doing What Where?

Twitter asks “What are you doing?” and people respond in 140 character max chunks of ‘wisdom’ ranging from helpful to inane. As the rest of the world gets used to what many technophiles have known for years they will have the opportunity shortly to not only know what someone is doing but where they are [...]

New Data Suggests We’ve Grown Bored of Twitter

If we can believe Hitwise, we’ve all hit a Twitter slump: Of course, this could just mean that we’re all switching from the web interface to desktop and mobile applications, but surely if Twitter were adding new users, they’d start with the web site, right? Hmm. Maybe there’s a slump in those seeking out Twitter too! What are [...]

Social Media Ad Spend on the Rise

The headline alone should not be a surprise to anyone who is in the marketing, and particularly the Internet marketing, space because despite the economy social media is on the rise. The number of users and the amount of time spent on various social media sites has seen the ‘hockey stick’ kind of growth that [...]

Friday Fun: DailyBooth Caption Contest

If you’re not familiar with DailyBooth.com, the best way to describe it is it’s like Twitter, but with snapshots of your face. Yeah I know, sounds lame, right? Except that I can help but laugh out loud every time Dream Systems Media owner Matt Siltala posts his latest mugshot to DailyBooth–which he then feeds to his [...]

Rare Video Footage: MSFT’s Steve Ballmer Sitting In–Not Throwing–a Chair!

It’s always nice to see Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer actually sitting on a chair, as opposed to throwing one. In this video, he chats with TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington about a host of Microsoft initiatives. Mid-way through, he discusses search… …the UI, the approach, the algorithms have changed less in the last five years, then more [...]

Google Chrome: 40x Faster at Attracting Malware in Internet Explorer

Whether you saw Google’s attempts to insert Chrome into Internet Explorer as genius or evil, both sides just upped the ante. First Google. OK, technically Google didn’t thump it’s chest over these startling numbers… IE7 using Chrome Frame is about 40 times faster at running through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test than IE7 alone. IE8 using Chrome Frame [...]