Marketing Pilgrim

eWeek has soundbites from Tim Armstrong, Google’s advertising sales vice president, on the growth of online advertising.

“There is robust interest in online advertising and that interest is now turning into real dollars,” Armstrong said, noting that market analysts are predicting a banner 2005 year with forecasts ranging from $10 billion to $15 billion.

“The experimenting and testing phase begun in the 1990s has ended. Corporate ad buyers are investing now,” he said.

Indeed many are seeing a growth in the percentage of ad-spending heading to the Internet.

While estimates vary, analysts believe around 5 percent of U.S. advertising dollars will be spent online this year, up from around 2 percent just a couple of year ago. In short order, 10 percent or more could move online, analysts say.

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After using AIM, Trillian, MSN Messenger, ICQ and a whole host of other instant messenger tools, I can tell you that switching to Google Talk was the best move yet. For those of you who want to keep up to date with the latest development news can head over to the new Google Talk blog.

Fortune looks at Yahoo, Flickr, MyWeb and how they all point to the future for Yahoo.

Over at BusinessWeek, Ben Elgin drools over Google Maps and reviews the many features it offers.

This is interesting. According to eWeek, a Canadian blogger was recently refused re-entry to the US after border guards entered his name on Google, found his blog and then determined that he was trying to live in the country illegally.

In case any US border guard ever questions me; for the record I am now a US citizen so no deporting me to England.

Every day, a blogger or forum member is discussing something important to your business – your company’s brand, your key executives, your competitors or your industry. Are they hyping your company, building positive buzz for your products? Or, are they criticizing your services, complaining to others about the poor quality of your new product launch?

Keeping your eyes and ears on the world of consumer generated media (CGM) can be a daunting task for any company. Blogs, forums, wikis and social networks gain popularity every day and without a plan to monitor and manage your company’s online reputation, you could be at risk.

Internet marketing consultant, Andy Beal, offers a wide range of different online reputation management services for businesses of all sizes. What starts as a ripple in a small pond of discontent, can quickly become a tidal-wave of negative consumer sentiment, unless your company is able to quickly identify potential negative blog posts and move quickly to protect its online reputation and brand.

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While you were sleeping, Yahoo went ahead and added an RSS reader to its Mail Beta product.

Yahoo! Mail Beta users will be able to read RSS feeds by clicking on a new ‘All Feeds’ icon, which will appear below the user’s e-mail folders. This new feature will automatically provide users with access to full posts – whether from their personalized My Yahoo! page, a selection of the most popular feeds or favorite feeds that they manually enter.

The ‘All Feeds’ feature offers users the ability to read and digest all open content sources in one continuous stream of news. For instance, if the user selects feeds from three newspapers, two blogs, and one sports site, ‘All Feeds’ will automatically aggregate these updates into one chronologically ordered digest.

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Just because Google Analytics is now free, it doesn’t mean you’re going to instantly get the best out of it. Fortune Interactive has always offered Urchin/Google Analytics free to our search engine marketing clients but if you’ve decided to go it alone, you may find you still need some help.

My good friend Tim Seward is one of just a handful of authorized Google Analytics consultants in the US and he’s just launched ROI Revloution for those companies looking for help in understanding all of that data.

Having worked with Tim first hand, I can tell you his company knows its stuff!

Scot Wingo points to a new Microsoft Live product code-named “Fremont” that will likely compete with Google Base and Craigslist.

This product represents a unique offering by Microsoft to address the person-to-person marketplace. The product, code-named “Fremont,� is a dynamic new listing service that enables people to easily buy, sell, or swap among friends, co-workers, or the public. Fremont enhances your ability to:

* Connect with those you trust – your messenger buddies and your coworkers,
* Locate items in your neighborhood or across the country through integration with MapPoint and Windows Liveâ„¢ Local (formerly Virtual Earth),
*List easily, instantly, and for free.

Mediapost reports that Google is offering free web access to travelers using LHR.

At Heathrow, the Internet-ready lounge, dubbed Google Space, is intended to provide passengers who are waiting through layovers or flight delays with access to the Internet. The lounge is staffed by Google employees who will provide assistance and advice to the Google Space users. Google Space will be active in Heathrow until Dec. 17.

Softpedia seems to think that Google Suggest demonstrates the world is full of nothing but racists.

These suggested queries are based on what other people searched for before and it was proved that people are interested in finding evidence that “blacks are inferior”, “blacks are lazy” or to prove that the “white race is superior”.

Hardly compelling. My own research found…

“blacks on blondes” – whoops there goes the PG13
“white men can’t jump”
“caucasians are too damn tall”
“cats are better than dogs”
“british are coming”
“canadians are not americans”

It seems like this topic has been a bit of a bandwagon as of late, and I’ll give it a shot, jump on, and throw my $0.02 in.

This has always been something that’s proven difficult in the more than four years that I’ve been in this industry. In my history hiring and training SEMers, I’ve personally interviewed and hired over 30 search engine marketing specialists, and trained well over 100 people (between sales, service, and search marketing specialists). With whatever credibility that lends, I can honestly say that finding and hiring experienced search marketing specialists is the most difficult.

The reasons are obvious: This is a new industry, those with knowledge and experience are mostly self-taught (and often independent consultants), it is not a glamourous industry (if it were, there would be a greater interest), and the combination of marketing and technical aptitude to truly become an expert is quite unique.

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