Marketing Pilgrim

Forrester Research has just released a study that gives a look over the past five years of the changes that have occurred in Internet usage among various groups. Much of the findings make sense but as always it’s the numbers and percentage increase / decreases that are of interest. For an executive summary of the report you can go here.

Some of the findings include:

- Broadband use continues to grow but is slowing as many of the US households that can afford the service now actually have broadband access to the Internet. The implications for video streaming and other high bandwidth needs are obvious.

You’re looking at Twitter’s new homepage design.

Nice, huh?

What I don’t get is how this helps you to understand how to use Twitter. That was the goal that cofounder Biz Stone stated, right?

Instead of landing on Twitter and thinking, “oh, it’s a place where I share updates about my life,” it now suggests “oh, it’s a place where I can search for stuff…isn’t that what Google’s for?”

There’s been a lot of talk about Twitter’s “real time” search being a challenger to Google, so perhaps this is an intentional change of focus. Still, I can’t help wonder if Twitter’s moved too far “off topic” with this design.

What do you think of it?

Everyone and their grandfather is at least trying to talk about Twitter these days. Or are they? While it’s not fair to use an iconic 82 year old college football coach as the pulse of nation regarding social media, Penn State coach Joe Paterno did make this statement at a press conference that should make you chuckle

“You guys have to talk about something. The fans have to put something on those — what do you guys call those things, Twittle-do, Twittle-dee?”

I bet that his incoming freshmen at Penn State know what Twitter is. What about the rest of the folks though? Last week, Biz Stone admitted that while there is a ton of buzz around the service it has not done a good job of getting people from awareness to engagement.

This will make you chuckle:

Fairfax Media and News Ltd are independently weighing up whether to pull the millions of dollars they collectively spend on buying key search terms on Google following the latter’s decision to list properties for sale on Google Maps.

So, two publishers in Australia are threatening to pull the "millions of dollars" they spend on Google AdWords as a means of protest for Google’s launch of competing real estate listings.

At first glance, you may think to yourself. "Well, Google will sit up and take notice now!" After all, Google doesn’t want to lose any significant revenue, right?

Wrong!

Just so you are prepared, this post is entirely speculation and conjecture based on my following the Microsoft and Yahoo “drama” that has been unfolding over the past century or so. As you may guess from the title, I have had enough. Either make it happen or don’t. Put us out of our misery here.

Think about it. If it takes this long for these two entities to figure out if they can tolerate each other then what will it look like when they live together for real? This whole thing is starting to feel like a marriage that everyone mutters under his or her breath, “I give this one 2 miserable years max”. Couple that general feeling with what is probably a remarkably complex corporate prenuptial agreement and you have a recipe for cordial roommates at best and a complete train wreck at worst.

It appears that Google can’t get any love from Apple. Just days after the electronics company pulled rank on Google’s iPhone aspirations for Google Latitude, we learn that Google Voice has also been blackballed.

According to a Google spokesperson:

We work hard to bring Google applications to a number of mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users — for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.

Not only that, but Apple has apparently started pulling the plug on third-party iPhone apps that provide Google Voice features.