Marketing Pilgrim

Baidu is the search engine of choice for China, at least for now. PaidContent reports that the Chinese company is experiencing ‘Google-esque” success in the largest growth market online in the world. Meanwhile Google itself is in a rather unfamiliar position

According to Bernstein & Co., Baidu’s share of the Chinese search market increased to 64.5 percent from 62.3 percent during the quarter, while Google may have lost share.

Google and the Chinese government have had their issues in the past but that can’t hide the fact that the Chinese people have spoken and they choose Baidu. The company is reaping the rewards of this popularity by posting some percentage increases that Google used to experience on a regular basis.

What happens when the irresistible force meets an immovable object?

The irresistible force wins! The immovable object publicly complains.

That appears to be the case as Google announces Google Latitude for the iPhone and, in the same announcement, gripes that Apple is to blame for the lack of an actual application.

We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles.

Let’s try something a little different as the focus goes to Twitter (yet again) and its impact on the free world’s ability to function properly. I have said on many occasions that regular users of Twitter are not the best people to be actually examining Twitter’s success or lack thereof. Why? Mainly because there seems to be this assumption that the rest of the world understands what Twitter is as well as social media ‘regulars’ do. The simple reality is that that kind of thinking is, how can I say this diplomatically….. stupid. The real fact of the matter is that most of the world is confused by Twitter. Fortunately, Biz and the boys (and girls) at Twitter are recognizing this fact and are taking steps to remedy the situation.

I long ago gave up trying to get spammers to “cease and desist” their scraping of Marketing Pilgrim’s content–I never was much good at playing whack-a-mole.

Well, it appears that The Associated Press loves carnival games as the NYT reports the news organization is determined to put an end to the scraping of its content.

Each article — and, in the future, each picture and video — would go out with what The A.P. called a digital “wrapper,” data invisible to the ordinary consumer that is intended, among other things, to maximize its ranking in Internet searches. The software would also send signals back to The A.P., letting it track use of the article across the Web.

We have talked on several occasions here at Marketing Pilgrim about Google’s Washington, DC connections. Some wonder if there is too much Google in the capitol while others just think it’s the normal course of big business. Either way you look at it there is no denying that Google is as much a part of the Beltway Bunch as Democrats and Republicans.

According to the Wall Street Journal Google spent $950,000 in the second quarter on lobbying efforts

The sum tops the $880,000 it spent in the first quarter and represents a 30% increase from the second quarter of 2008, when it spent $730,000.

While Google continues to raise its presence in Washington the money that they spend is still less than Microsoft ($1.9 million in Q2) and AT&T ($3.1 million in Q2).

Facebook has milked the vanity URL deal for all its worth until this point so why not try to get a little more mileage out it, right? Over the past few months Facebook has been allowing individuals to choose their username but has put the rather strict caveat on the practice that it is a “one and done” proposition. In other words, when you make that fateful decision to make your vanity URL something that was something funny but not very practical you were stuck with it. Well, the mighty Facebook is showing its merciful side by allowing users to pick another username. Beware though, you only get one shot …… again.

ReadWriteWeb outlines the process for us