Marketing Pilgrim

These two charts say it all really:

Of the 22% that do use Twitter:

• 85 percent follow friends
• 54 percent follow celebrities
• 29 percent follow family
• 29 percent follow companies

Not much for brands to cheer about, but keep your chin-up, you have the same attention as Gen Y’s parents.

What do you think? I would have thought that more than 22% would be on Twitter, you?

Get the full study details from PMN.

The New York Times is reporting that Google’s head of global public policy, Andrew McLaughlin, is headed to Washington, DC to join the Obama administration. Considering CEO Eric Schmidt’s position on PCAST (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) some are wondering if there isn’t a tether attached to the Google Mothership in Mountain View that might raise some eyebrows.

The Times reports

Mr. McLaughlin will be deputy chief technology officer, reporting to Aneesh Chopra, the chief technology officer, who was previously Virginia’s secretary of technology, said these people, who agreed to speak only if their names were not used because Mr. McLaughlin’s appointment had not been announced.

Mr. McLaughlin’s move is likely to renew concerns among some Google rivals and public policy groups about Google’s growing clout in Washington.

Having spent the last few days in Dallas I am ready to go home. Don’t get me wrong. Dallas is a nice town. The Inbound Marketing Summit put on by New Marketing Labs’ Chris Brogan was great. Here’s why I need to get out, though. You see, I am a New York Giants fan. Although I only told one person on my entire trip of this fact, I suspect that Dallas Cowboys fans have some powerful social network that is at work behind the scenes. They know I am a Giants fan and they don’t like it. My plane can’t get off the ground fast enough. It’s not safe here for people like me.

As for the Inbound Marketing Summit? Great event. The two day program was rapid fire and full of relevant information about Internet marketing for all skill levels. Of course, the emphasis was on social media. Honestly, would you expect any different from a Chris Brogan event?

Google claims we can expect to see at least 18 phones with the Android operating system by year’s end, possibly 20. Which phone carriers they will be on has yet to be determined, according to the New York Times. Currently T-Mobile’s G1 and a phone available in Europe called “Magic” by HTC are the only phones that give Google credit for using their Android OS.

If the Android phones can be released sooner rather than later, it should provide some interesting competition for the summer phone war against the iPhone and Blackberry, among others. The applications available for the Android will play a major factor in consumer’s buying decisions.

This is where there is still some confusion regarding the Android OS. According to the Times, there are three types of Android platforms. Each places different requirements on the handset manufacturers and wireless carriers. The Times broke each of these types out, here is a short summary of them:

Not so much a revelation, but more of tying-up a loose end. As expected, Time Warner’s board of directors have approved the spin-off of AOL–sans the dial-up division.

Time Warner hopes to conclude the spinoff, which requires an SEC review, by the end of the year. The company also expects to buy back Google’s 5 percent stake as part of completing this transaction but there is no confirmation that Google has agree to the terms or whether a agreed-upon valuation has taken place.

I’m sure AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is licking his chops at the news. Now we’ll get to see what he’s made of.

You have to give Facebook credit. They get in the news more a lot. Maybe it’s investment. Maybe it’s a look at their numbers. Maybe it’s someone on the executive team has a hang nail. You name it they are there.

That’s why this news seemed more interesting than just the usual talk. TechCrunch reports that Facebook has announced the 20 winners of a competition to be included in a program to help them develop their platforms with a combination of money and other benefits.

Twenty companies, which include two nonprofits, will take part in a program headed by Founders Fund’s Dave McClure, and will have the chance to work with Facebook engineers and a range of Silicon Valley veterans. Facebook intends to keep us posted on the startups’ progress throughout the session, and will be holding a demo day at the end of the summer to help expose the companies to investors and press.

Question for you rock and roll historians: Do you remember Sammy Hagar (The Red Rocker prior to his days as the front man for Van Hagar Halen)? Do you remember the song that made him just famous enough to replace David Lee Roth? It was “I Can’t Drive 55”.

So what the heck does this have to do with Facebook you ask? In an article at MediaPost it appears that Facebook may be having their own trouble with the number 55. For them, however, it’s not about a speed limit but rather the shift in demographics in a direction that Facebook is not too familiar with which is down.

Earlier this year, women over 55 were identified as the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook. Now it looks like they’re going in reverse. During April and May, the number of U.S. Facebook users over 55 actually dropped by 650,000 after increasing by 1.6 million the prior two months, according to new data from the Inside Facebook blog.

You know, just the other day I was using my email and I found myself scoffing with disgust. “This is so last century!”

Okay, not really. But apparently down at Google Australia, that’s exactly what they’ve been thinking lately—and Lars and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon came up with a way to revolutionize email and instant messaging called Google Wave. As Lars says, “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today.” (Official announcement.)

After a long demo, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler was inclined to agree with the seeming overstatement. Just reading about this new product is making my head spin. The integration of social and email here goes WAY beyond having a pane for GTalk in your Gmail.

Here’s a screenshot of the basic inbox, from TechCrunch: