Marketing Pilgrim

Apparently, Twitter is making waves with Microsoft in ways that you may not consider. Yesterday Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet reported about some of the tweets coming from the annual Microsoft product demo event (and pep rally – her terminology) held at Safeco Field in Seattle. About 20,000 folks attended and were leaking some info (not much but some) about the possibility of Bing 2.0 as early as this fall. Oh boy, I can’t wait!

Foley says

Based on a handful of Tweets I’ve seen so far, meeting attendees (including those who are watching remotely) have seen a demo of Bing 2.0. At least one Tweeter claimed the new update of Bing is going to be rolled out the week of September 14.

Is it just me, or does it seem like every time one social media service comes up with a cool feature, it’s only a matter of time before every other site copies it, and there are no cool new features left? This time, Facebook is copying Twitter (yet again) and YouTube is copying Facebook.

YouTube’s latest feature will suggest friends in a “People you may know” box on the homepage (just like Facebook! *fake surprise*). The official blog announcement says that the friend suggestions will come from email addresses you’ve sent videos to (using YouTube’s email feature, not just your email account)—and your Gmail contacts, if your Gmail and YouTube accounts are linked.

If you were just waiting for the other shoe to fall on the Yahoo-Microsoft deal—good news. Wait no longer. The US Department of Justice is taking another long, hard look at the deal.

The New York Times reports that the DoJ has requested a second round of information from the companies about the pending search deal. (Refresher, in the NYT’s terms: “Under the agreement, Yahoo would use the Bing search engine from Microsoft on its Web sites, and Yahoo would sell ads next to the search results.”)

Interesting that the DoJ is worried about antitrust measures from the companies best positioned to take on Google, the overwhelming favorite in search engines all over the world.

That great idea you had that involved launching a new SEO company using PwnGoogleRankings.com? Yeah, you probably should have saved the $10 you spent on domain registration fees, because you have approximately zero chance that ICANN will let you keep it.

Just ask Absolutee Inc which registered googlewebmarketing.com hoping to convince us all that it was the go-to place for, well, Google web marketing. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t think that Google might have something to say about it.

Google disputed the domain ownership and ICANN’s arbitration forum agreed that the domain name was registered to take advantage of Google’s reputation and knowingly infringe its trademark.

“…under the ICANN Policy, the Panel concludes that relief shall be GRANTED. Accordingly, it is Ordered that the domain name be TRANSFERRED from Respondent to Complainant.”

I know it may appear I go looking for trouble, but I promise you I just like to share with you my concerns. In the case of Twitter’s update to its Terms of Service, I started thinking about what the changes could mean to us users.

I’m a huge fan of Twitter, and very much rely on the service for my micro-communications, so I hope none of these scenarios ever materialize.

1. Ownership of Tweets

While Twitter’s new Terms state that you maintain full ownership of your Tweets, it provides no guarantee that you can get access to, or download, such content.

We reserve the right at all times (but not [sic] will not have an obligation) to remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services and to terminate users or reclaim usernames.

Back in August we told you of the premature introduction of Facebook Lite. Many people speculated about what this could mean for the social media world and Facebook tried to calm everyone’s nerves by deflecting all the fuss and launching the beta version just a few days later.

Well, now it’s official. Facebook Lite is here (for real, honest). Over at Inside Facebook we learn that

Facebook has just launched a new version of the site, called Lite, to give users a simplified, faster-loading experience than the traditional www.facebook.com. The company says it’s intended to help new users, especially people with with poor internet connections, have a better experience than they have been so far when they have joined. The app is only live in the US and India, according to Facebook developer Blake Ross, but a worldwide rollout doesn’t seem too far away.