Marketing Pilgrim

Despite the millions of dollars Microsoft is spending in an attempt to get us to use Bing, it’s apparently still well aware of the hand that feeds it.

A lot of searchers are still conditioned to begin all web browsing at Google, and Microsoft knows that it’s crucial that Bing is easily found. So, you can imagine their angst at seeing the following in a search for Bing:

Yep, the second result for Bing suggests searchers might wan to stick with Google for a while. Now, if you read the snippet, you’ll see why we even got to this situation–a power outage last Friday temporarily took out Bing’s Travel site.

Apparently, Google’s spider has been on vacation since then:

As was widely reported this week Google is venturing into the world of operating systems, which is kind of like walking into Microsoft’s living room and saying “We’re here!”. Microsoft has been trying to for years to make a dent in the complete dominance of the search space that Google has. The introduction of Bing as served to move them in that direction but no one really expects them to unseat Google as the #1 search engine.

I have to admit that any story about e-mail marketing and an increase in open rates is a bit baffling. Why? I know how I handle e-mail these days. A quick scan and if the sender or subject doesn’t ring a bell I have developed the Internet equivalent of a quick trigger finger – check the box then flush it with the rest of the e-mail I have no time for. I realize that I don’t represent everyone by any stretch but the amount of e-mail coming down the pike on a daily basis is daunting. As for anything unfortunate enough to hit my spam folder? No hope there. I rarely peruse it and usually just send it packing.

What do you get when you put Liberty Media Chairman John Malone, IAC Chairman Barry Diller, and Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger on a panel together? The three were on a panel at the annual navel-gazing Sun Valley press-free media and technology conference talking about the digital future. As you can imagine, they weren’t exactly bullish.

Malone said he didn’t think that an advertising model made sense on Twitter, but there was some hope for a subscription model. “Sooner or later people will be willing to pay for these services,” he said. Warren Buffett privately told him that he would pay $5 a month for YouTube, he added.

Murdoch, on the other hand, was pretty firm in his beliefs on the latest social media hit: “Be careful of investing here,” he said of Twitter.

Let me guess. YourCompanyName.com, Your-Company-Name.com, Your-Company-Name-Industry.com (and all their .net counterparts) were all taken when you came to register your site. It’s understandable that you’re excited about ICANN’s new policy on TLDs—you’ll be able to register justabout.anything.

Yeah, well, I hate it. I’ve always hated the idea and I had a really hard time understanding how the ICANN, the organization that arbitrates Internet domain names, could reject the .xxx TLD two years ago and turn around to make it—and almost anything else—okay now. (Their reasoning for rejecting it at the time, compliance and “public-policy concerns,” doesn’t seem to have been resolved in the interim.)

But porn has nothing to do with why I hate this idea—and nothing to do with the ICANN’s still-shoddy logic. According to Slate, they’re doing this to help with the all-new (not) problem of cybersquatting:

Remember when Twitter first launched its sidebar ads? Only, Twitter told us all that they weren’t actually ads? Then, guess what, they magically started turning into real ads.

OK, so explain this mysterious “public service tweet” that’s started showing up on Twitter:

Actually, Biz Stone has explained it and he says it’s not an ad, just a way to help users upgrade to a browser that supposedly will ensure a “better Web experience on Twitter.”

<Crosses arms, tilts head>

Really? OK, I’ll buy that these are nothing more than a PSA, but I’ll also give it 6 months before ads start showing up in the exact same place–maybe even linked to the #hashtags you’ve clicked on. Oh wait, you didn’t realize that Twitter made #hashtags clickable, so it could track your interests?