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Pilgrim’s Picks for September 4

posted on September 4, 2008

Good morning! Go grab a cup of coffee and take a break with today’s Picks:

  • Want to know the geographic location of those clicking on your AdWords ads? Ta-da!
  • It should come as no surprise that Google fully expects its Chrome browser to appear on Android at some point.
  • AOL’s Platform-A division is bringing optimized ads to your iPhone.
  • Darrell Long doesn’t often sit still long enough to be interviewed, but the Get Elastic guys managed to glue him to a chair and get him to spill some good tips about online reputation management. (Thanks for the Trackur shout!)
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Search Spend Growth Drops Below 30%; Mocks the Recession

posted on September 4, 2008

Take a look at these two headlines:

U.K. SEM Spend Slows, Signaling Market Maturity

JPMorgan analyst lowers online ad forecast, says economic weakness hurting Internet

Time to call it quits as an online marketer and find a new job? Hardly!

Whenever you see headlines like this, be sure to read the entire article. In this case, you’d see that the "weakness" and "slows" in online advertising are still much healthier than other industries; say real estate or the auto industry.

So, what’s up with the state of the online advertising industry? Well, in the UK…

[E-consultancy's] 2008 search engine marketing buyer’s guide, released this week, predicts that SEM spend in the U.K. will rise by 24 percent in 2008, down from 58 percent year on year growth in 2007 and 65 percent growth in 2006.

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Will Google Chrome Replace Your Browser, or Even Your OS?

posted on September 4, 2008

Over at BusinessWeek, I was asked to share my thoughts on the initial launch of Google Chrome. I try to debunk any talk that Google Chrome is an attempt to replace your operating system and also tackle whether Google can steal market share from Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Here’s an extract:

It should come as little surprise that Google is entering the Web browser market. The search heavyweight already has a substantial stake in our online activities. Search, check! E-mail, check! Office documents, check! The list of Web applications offered by Google is both long and varied. With its goal of providing all of our online needs, it makes perfect sense that Google would step up and provide a Web browser built to accommodate its applications. With Chrome, Google is betting that more of us will move more of our computing from desktops to online, relying on the vast data centers known as "the cloud." But can Google’s Web browser singlehandedly entice us to dump a favorite Web browser and our computer’s operating system?

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Pilgrim’s Picks for September 3

posted on September 3, 2008

I don’t like September. Sure, the weather in Raleigh drops back down to the 80′s but that just reminds me that winter is on the way.

While I get over it, and remind myself that I’m lucky to live the moderate climate of the South, you can enjoy today’s Picks:

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Google Sucking-up to Ad Agencies

posted on September 3, 2008

Stories of Google attempting to steal away big spending clients from advertising agencies have circulated the web for years. It’s no secret that Google is willing to pull out all the stops to try and get a company to deal directly with them. Now, it seems that Google is trying to make peace with ad agencies–or at least bribe them with free stuff.

The most visible part of the new Google strategy is an event called Campus@, which started up in the spring. So far the Campus@ team, which has a core of six employees, has held six events, including one for Leo Burnett, which is part of the Publicis Groupe.

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Recycling Google Chrome News

posted on September 3, 2008

If you’ve tried–and hated–Google Chrome, you’d better disconnect from the internet-tubes for the next day or two–the news is just buzzing with Google’s entry into the browser space.

For those of you who with a rebel yell for "more, more, more," I’m happy to oblige.

First, in case you weren’t invited to the exclusive Google Chrome launch demo, here’s the video:

Second, co-founder Sergey Brin explains why it took so long for Google to launch a web browser:

Next-up, Google’s Matt Cutts explains when and how Google Chrome shares data with Google and answers some common questions about Google’s motives.

Lastly, maybe you shouldn’t worry so much about Google spying on your browsing habits. It’s the hackers you should worry about–they’ve already found a security flaw in Google Chrome.

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Google Chrome Now Live

posted on September 2, 2008

If you’re a Windows user you can now download Google Chrome, the new web browser from Google.

Maybe if you’re switching from IE6, you might find Google Chrome to be cool. As a Firefox 3 user, I find myself thinking "what’s the big deal?"

All browsers have to start somewhere, right? It’s still early days, but this video from Google explains the engineering behind Google Chrome.

Have you tried Google Chrome? Let us know what you think of it.