Marketing Pilgrim

Each month we do the “Who made progress in search market share” dance. Based on your responses to past posts this dance is getting pretty old. Why? It’s because there never is any real news. It actually plays out Einstein’s definition of insanity which is “doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results”. This is getting pretty much insane at this point.

To sum it up, the search market share picture month in and month out plays like this. Google might fluctuate a point of two but it’s usually more like fractions of a point like this month. Meanwhile, the Internet press tries to make a story out of share between Bing and Yahoo. Here are the latest comScore results for January 2012 to examine.

If you live in the right place and are running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) on your Android device you can now get Chrome for Android. As the Google Mobile blog promises

Today, we’re introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices.

Here is the video telling you more.

If you have it or have tried it, let us know what your experience has been.

Need a shot of the milk of human kindness? Spend a little time on a social network and your faith in humanity will be renewed.

So sayeth the majority of the 2,260 adults who responded to the latest Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project study.

“The tone of life on social networking sites” takes a look at people’s perceptions about their interactions on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

85% of adults said that their experiences were mostly kind. 68% went so far as to say that they had an experience that made them feel good and 61% felt closer to another person thanks to social media. And how about this? 39% said they frequently saw acts of generosity by others. Frequently!

Back in the days when we all knew our neighbors, borrowing from them was a common occurrence. Lawn mowers, hand tools, and that insane “cup of sugar” that appeared on nearly every TV show in the 50′s and 60′s.

Jump forward to the 90′s and borrowing wasn’t so hot anymore. Much of this was due to the change in the way we live and socialize. People who knew their neighbors well enough to ask a favor became the minority. We also became more possessive. If we wanted it, we bought it. If our friends had it, we bought it. Even if we were only going to use it once, we bought it.

We haven’t talked about Groupon in a while. There is actually a reason for that. Mostly it’s because when we post about the company our readers don’t seem to care. I have wondered why that is (maybe you can help enlighten me in the comments?) but this is somewhat significant to help us understand the state of the daily deal industry. So here we go.

According to USA Today

The online deals site, reporting for the first time as a public company, said its fourth-quarter revenue nearly tripled, but it lost money and its shares fell sharply after hours.

Groupon’s net loss totaled $42.7 million, or 8 cents per share, for the final three months of 2011. A year earlier, as a private company, it booked a larger loss of $378.6 million, or $1.08 per share.

No matter how you feel about Google, Plus 1′s and Google + or how you think they should or should not influence search results you have to admit that Google has created some positive social waves for the first time in its history.

So just how big is this impact? Compete calls it enormous

It is now safe to say that Google+ is becoming an enormous success, with nearly half of the unique visitors of Twitter (40,411,065 unique visitors in December). With a steep upward trend and knowledge of the power behind a Google product, expect continued growth from the unequaled search engine’s social platform known for ingenuity, creativity, and revolutionary product offerings.

Compete uses the following numbers as the support for this claim.

It’s February. Love is in the air and the chocolates are piling up in the stores. Valentine’s Day is less than a week away but folks are still planning on how they’ll honor their partners without going over budget.

A new survey from PriceGrabber shows that 68% of shoppers will spend under $100 on Valentine’s Day, most spending between $25 and $50. For most shoppers, this is about the same as last year.

4% of loved ones are going to be in for a shock when their partner comes home empty handed.

In addition to buying for their spouse, 36% of shoppers said they’ll be buying for other relatives, including their kids. Only 17% said they’d be forking out for the boyfriend or girlfriend. What’s up with that?