Marketing Pilgrim

After 18 months on the job, current Ask.com chief executive, Jim Safka, will be leaving the company.

The decision to leave was difficult for Jim, and it came about under very unfortunate circumstances. Jim’s brother recently passed away, causing Jim to re-evaluate his life. Marketing Pilgrim wishes Jim best of luck in his future endeavors.

Jim’s departure won’t be easy for Ask, as they are already far behind competitors in the search engine realm (only a 2.1% market share in March). Jim was originally hired to replace Jim Lanzone as part of the company’s shake up back in January 2008.

In an e-mail to the company’s staff, InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller acknowledged Jim’s contributions to the company:

It looks like Twitter is now in the process of deciding how they can please everyone all the time. Its most recent change to its service is to eliminate the option to see @replies that involve folks you don’t follow. Here is part of Twitter’s explanation from their blog

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

According to new estimates from Strategy Analytics, Google’s Android operating system for mobile phones will outgrow competitors this year.

The company predicts shipments of Android-based smart phones will grow by 900% this year, while Apple’s iPhone will achieve a measly 79%–poor things.

Of course, when your market share is less than 1% and only available on one phone, it’s easy to see how Android will achieve its growth.

So, where’s this growth going to come from? Our money is on Astronomers!

Hitwise reports paid search traffic is down 26% over the past 4 weeks (compared to 2008).

Surprisingly, the company makes a sweeping statement about the reason for this decline:

This is no doubt a result of cutbacks in marketing spend due to the recession.

Er, I have some doubt. For one thing, you’re own observations raise doubt:

Consistently, brand name terms (such as “travelocity”, “orbitz” and “walmart” saw a sharp decrease year over year in the share of paid clicks. For example, 35.75% of clicks on searches for “orbitz” were on paid listings in the four weeks to May 9, 2009. This compares to 46.56% in the same four week period in 2008. This represents a 23% decrease year over year.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Google is shutting down its radio advertising business–especially if you’re a regular reader.

When reading the WSJ’s account of how Google failed to penetrate the radio ad business, I almost dismissed the story–after all, we’ve already talked about its demise. Then I started thinking–which often kicks in after my 2nd cup of coffee–and realized a common theme.

Google’s a star, when it comes to creating markets, but fails miserably at shaking-up existing ones.

This says it all:

But media-buying agencies, fearing Google’s technology would put them out of business, were a tough audience. Google refused to create bundles of spots and negotiate prices ahead of time, which was how radio was generally sold, say people familiar with the discussions.

Google’s attempt to have a picture of everything on this Google earth that we are allowed to live on has created more privacy concerns. This time the complaints are coming from Greece and depending on who you listen to these concerns are of varying degrees of intensity.

The New York Times reports that the Greek Data Protection Authority (DPA), which is a watchdog group has a history of clashes with many groups including the Greek government and the Greek Orthodox Church about privacy concerns, has banned the service from continuing to take pictures of Greek properties.