Marketing Pilgrim

According to PC Pro, Google has failed in its attempt to have the case brought by Microsoft over its ex-employee Kai-Fu Lee to be heard in California.

Do you remember the time when Yellow Pages ads were about the most effective form of print advertising for small businesses?

That was a few years ago, before Google brought PPC to the masses. Now, according to WSJ, Google would like to take SMBs back to the dark ages by offering print ads.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin told investors earlier this month that its magazine-ad deals are part of a test, although he added that “hundreds of other publications have expressed interest in participating.” The company won’t discuss further specifics of the magazine “test” or any other possible ad brokering activities under consideration. But it is likely that any Google system will provide tools to make it easier for advertisers to target a susceptible audience and track the ads’ performance, as Google’s online ads have done. One possibility: a system of counting the phone calls to toll-free-response numbers featured in Google-placed print ads. That way, advertisers could gauge the success of their ads and Google could charge advertisers only for each response they get — as it does online.

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Dan Gillmor’s feathers are ruffled by a new story from Forbes and I can’t say I blame him. The article in question pretty much labels bloggers as low-lifes who love to cause trouble.

I would never do such a thing but for kicks, how about we all link to Forbes using “trashy magazine“.

Heather Green looks at whether podcasting is just a bubble…

28% of the people surveyed were aware of podcasting, but only 2% actually listened to podcasts.

Yahoo doesn’t seem to think podcasting is just a passing fad, and I don’t either. I’m just not sure where the money is going to come from? Adam Curry has ads and promo’s in his podcast, but I only put up with them because of the quality of his show. Not many other podcasts will have that luxury.

Hat-tip Adverblog.

In an effort to position itself as the leader in vertical search, LookSmart has announced the launch of 161 new vertical search sites in a variety of categories.

In total, LookSmart’s 181 vertical sites fall under the following 13 categories: Auto, Music, Education, Food, Home Living, Money, Health, Cities, Sports, Recreation, Travel, Tech and Games, and Style. LookSmart aims to provide consumers with essential information for passions, needs and repetitive tasks encountered in everyday life.

I have to admit that at first glance, the link tunneling used to narrow down each vertical, appears to work very well. After tunneling thru “Auto” to “Luxury Autos” to “Acura RL“, I was presented with relevant results and some neat refining options.

Could this be the model LookSmart has been searching for? (pardon the pun).

SmartMoney has some choice comments from Bill Gates…

Gates said excellent people work at Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., but he said the state of Internet content search remains terrible compared to what the industry can achieve.

“We do not fear Google, but there is intense competition between us”

“We do not fear Google”…I guess he missed the Sunday-school class on David and Goliath then.

CNet has details of how you can use Google to check flight information.

Users can type in two different cities, or airport codes, in the Google search box to bring up two boxes for entering departing and returning flight dates. Below those are links to several travel Web sites including Expedia, Hotwire and Orbitz. Clicking on one of those links leads directly to flight options on that site.

eWeek interviews Chris DiBona, Google’s open source program manager, and learns about the company’s passion for open source.

Highlights include…

“Google has no plans to release an operating system or an office suite.”

Google has donated $350,000 to a joint open-source technology initiative at Oregon State University and Portland State University.

Proving that you don’t have to launch a new product to make a press anouncement, AOL sends word of the top Halloween costumes this year.

The top 10 costume searches on AOL Search for Halloween 2005 are:

1 Star Wars Costumes
2 Pirate Costumes
3 Tinkerbell Costumes
4 Fairy Costumes
5 Wonder Woman Costumes
6 The Incredibles Costumes
7 Power Rangers Costumes
8 Yoda Costumes
9 Police Costumes
10 Alice in Wonderland Costumes

UPDATE: It’s now 2006, what are the top Halloween costumes for 2006?

1 Pirate Costumes
2 Disney Costumes
3 Indian Costumes
4 Little Red Riding Hood Costumes
5 Star Wars Costumes
6 Playboy Bunny Costumes
7 Tinkerbell Costumes
8 Fairy Costumes
9 Geisha Costumes
10 Gypsy Costumes

Head over to MarketingVox for details on just how big the information industry will grow.

Revenue projections for 2005 are $37.6 billion, with information industry growth of 18 percent in 2005 and a 17 percent compounded annual growth rate from 2005 through 2008.

Kevin Newcomb looks at the not so widely known practice from Google.

Google has quietly been running geo-targeted contextual ads in RSS feeds for several months, but many advertisers, agencies, and analysts contacted by ClickZ were surprised to learn about the placements.

The targeting came to the attention of a New York City-based ClickZ editor when an ad for a nearby single-location spa showed up on an RSS feed for a blog about Apple Computers. The same ad was targeted to other editors in New York, but not to others outside the city. The ad did not seem to be contextually targeted, but entirely targeted by location.

Many advertisers may not care whether their ads show up on Web sites or in Web feeds, as long as the ads perform as expected. In some cases, location-based targeting in RSS feeds could be a perfect fit for some advertisers, according to Mike Marshall, VP of technology at SEM and blog advertising firm Fortune Interactive.

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Andy Beal and Cindy Akus are no longer associated with Fortune Interactive. View Andy’s consulting services.

I know you may not want to hear about Fortune Interactive’s growth, but I’m excited to announce our latest team member, Cindy Akus, Marketing and Communications Manager.

Cindy is an award-winning PR practitioner with extensive media relations, marketing and events planning experience. She comes to us from French/West/Vaughan (FWV), the Southeast’s largest public relations, public affairs and brand communications agency and is going to be instrumental in the growth of our company and the launch of new products that focus on online media relations (more to come soon).