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Alexa Wants Bloggers’ Attention Again; Gives Back Inflated Rankings

posted on April 3, 2009

Spotted by Daily Blog Tips, Alexa.com has made a dramatic change to the way it calculates the traffic rank of certain sites. It appears that sites that were recently penalized for having too much of their traffic from social media are once again finding favor with Alexa’s algorithm. And I think I know why.

At the exact time that Alexa cut back the rank of sites like MarketingPilgrim.com and other blogs, us internet marketers stopped talking about, and using, the service. We quietly decided that any metric that didn’t give us the credit due, was not one we wanted to tell our readers and clients about.

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More Google/Twitter Rumors to Drive You Crazy!

posted on April 3, 2009

Rumors that Google is in negotiations to buy Twitter have been running rife for the past few months. TechCrunch kicks things up a notch by passing on a new rumor that “Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter.”

But, before you either jump for joy, or abandon ship, AllThingsD pulls a Lee Corso’eque “not so fast!”

While the “news” that Google was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn’t accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation.

In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been engaged in “some product-related discussions,” according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.

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English Mob Stops Google Car

posted on April 2, 2009

No, this power-to-the-people headline isn’t a belated April Fools’ joke. A Buckinghamshire neighborhood barred a Google Street View car from photographing its homes and streets with an impromptu mob.

The Times reports that after a string of robberies recently, residents had been on the watch for suspicious vehicles. Unsurprisingly, a car with a sphere of cameras mounted on its roof fit that bill.

Resident Paul Jacobs first saw the car. Jacobs went door to door alerting his neighbors, who gathered in the road. They blocked the Google car from passing and called the police. Eventually the driver turned around and left. Jacobs told the Times:

My immediate reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.

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Internet Marketing on the Go

posted on April 2, 2009

Mobile Internet connectivity improvements through upgraded networks, smart phones, better data plans and more content are the main reasons why mobile advertising is starting to shift from “What’s all the hype about?” to “Finally, it’s catching up to the hype” mode. eMarketer reports that 2008 was where hype and reality crossed paths and now the future of the mobile advertising industry is poised to explode.

Regular readers of Marketing Pilgrim may be familiar with my disdain for predictions of how an industry will grow 5 years from now. These prognostications are educated guesses at best and wild eyed speculation at worst. Though they can be fun to gawk over they often times look ridiculous when seen through the rear view mirror of reality. The following chart shows just eMarketer sees the growth of US mobile advertising spend for the foreseeable future.

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Google Finally Lifts the Lid on Its Top Secret Servers

posted on April 2, 2009

I wouldn’t normally bore you with details of the inner workings of a computer server, but, well, this is Google and the company has finally revealed details of the cheap computers it uses to power the world’s most sophisticated search engine.

Et voila!

Purty ain’t she?

I agree, she’s the kind of server that only a mother could love. CNET’s Stephen Shankland has more patience to go through the server’s specs than I do, so you can head over there for the full details. For those of us that just want the vitals, here you go:

  • Each computer has its own battery back-up built-in–which Google says is more efficient than using a central UPS.
  • Google houses its servers in standard shipping containers–1,160 in each, consuming 250 kilowatts.

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Twitter Redesign Includes Search & Trends

posted on April 2, 2009

Reason #253 why you should subscribe to Marketing Pilgrim: Back in October we had the exclusive on the new user interface for Twitter. Today we learn that selected Twitter users will indeed start seeing this new layout.

Twitter admits its recent test of the search box at the top of the interface was a flop, so instead, it’s going back to the drawing board. Well, actually its original redesign drawing:

Here’s how the new design will look:

discovery

A subset of users will start seeing the above interface soon. In addition, Twitter is testing a feature that should be welcomed by many:

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Spammers Show Resilience

posted on April 2, 2009

Spammers are stepping up their efforts as the “industry” recovers from the loss of McColo, a web hosting google-mail-iconcompany whose clients generated some 75% of the spam e-mail we get to enjoy on a daily basis. It seems that these folks are back up to their old levels again according to a report from Postini, which provides the security for the approximately 15 million users of Google’s enterprise e-mail offering.

The rate of growth for spam is higher than ever

Overall spam growth is the highest it’s ever been, increasing 1.2 percent a day in the first quarter of 2009 (compared with 1 percent a day in the first quarter of 2008, which was a record at the time).