Marketing Pilgrim

With Facebook talking about reaching their lofty revenue goals for 2009 you would have to suspect that Twitter has to address the issue as well. Bloomberg reports today that Twitter is planning to show revenue in 2009 from clients like Dell, Whole Foods and Starbucks. This is coming from Biz Stone himself but when it comes to the details, well, let’s just say they fall well short of the 140 character limit.

“The idea is if they are getting value out of Twitter then we could add more value to what they are doing and we could get some revenue,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in an interview today. “We think we’ll get to something this year, however simple, that shows we’re making some money.” He declined to give sales estimates for this year.

Just the other day, I was browsing through Google Maps and I saw what is properly classed as a “big ol’ building.” Aerial shots and even Street View couldn’t tell me what said building was, and I wished that Google could just check the repository of the Internet tell me what that building was.

Well, it looks like my wish really is Google’s command! Google Maps has added a new feature called “What’s here?” Right-click on the USO (unidentified stationary object ) and you have the option of asking “What’s here?”:

In most of the fairly random places I asked about, the answer seemed to be “We dunno . . . um, an address?”:

However, shopping centers and office parks were more helpful:

What, no shop listing?

UPDATE: Google Blogoscoped has screen shots of product ads in the wild.

Google Blogoscoped received an anonymous tip Friday about Google’s next move in search advertising through its Affiliate Network: product ads. According to the email the tipster passed along,

Product ads are paid product listings that appear [on Google.com SERPs] when users search for products on Google. . . .

Google product ads will feature product specific information directly in the ad such as price and product image. During the beta program, Google will be testing to identify the most effective ad formats. Google product ads will complement standard text ads on Google.com and will run independently during the beta.

Marketing Pilgrim’s mock up of the potential future of Google

Facebook is charging hard toward hitting that $550 million in revenue number that was put in front of potential investors recently. Of course, their pay per click model of advertising is going to be a critical component of getting there. It seems that there have been some troubles with click fraud for the past month or so which as TechCrunch reports, has set off some heated discussion of Facebook and its inability to tell advertisers “what’s on their mind.”

As initially reported yesterday there were click fraud complaints that up to 100% of clicks were fraudulent. While click fraud is nothing new to pay per click advertisers this was a bit different. Many Facebook advertisers were getting charged for clicks that simply never happened. In ‘traditional’ click fraud (if there is such a thing) the clicks are seen by advertisers but they are ID’d as not legitimate sources thus labeling them fraudulent. Facebook advertisers just were getting charged and there were no clicks.

Forbes and Google have released a new report called The Rise of the Digital C-Suite: How Executives Locate and Filter Business Information.

It’s a fascinating read–mostly because it highlights the difference in internet habits of C-level executives,  based on their age. Why is this important? Because those executives that are under 40 will likely, in the next 5-10 years, be the ones taking over the CEO role.

When they do, we’re going to see a dramatic shift in the way company executives research and contribute to the web.

And there’s good news for search marketers too!

Get your free copy of the report!

BusinessWeek’s Rachael King specializes in helping small businesses understand technology. Her latest article looks at the online reputation management industry and includes lots of great advice–including some from yours truly.

A number of free tools also can help you scout the Web, social networks, and online forums for mentions of your company, brand, or products (chart). Google Alerts, for instance, will send an e-mail each time your name shows up in Google () searches. "One of the most important steps is to do an audit of what people are saying about your business," says Andy Beal, a reputation management consultant at Marketing Pilgrim in Raleigh, N.C. He suggests doing a monthly Google search to see what shows up in the top 20 results, which might call up a customer’s comment or review on sites such as Yelp, CitySearch, or TripAdvisor.