Marketing Pilgrim

The headline alone should not be a surprise to anyone who is in the marketing, and particularly the Internet marketing, space because despite the economy social media is on the rise. The number of users and the amount of time spent on various social media sites has seen the ‘hockey stick’ kind of growth that most only dream of. So in our wonderful modern world, where there are people there will be ad spend. Nielsen tells us that this trend is taking hold as reported by ClickZ

Whether you saw Google’s attempts to insert Chrome into Internet Explorer as genius or evil, both sides just upped the ante.

First Google. OK, technically Google didn’t thump it’s chest over these startling numbers…

• IE7 using Chrome Frame is about 40 times faster at running through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test than IE7 alone.
• IE8 using Chrome Frame is about 10 times faster at running through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test than IE8 alone.

But, Google employees were quick to help spread the word…

Jolly good! We can all inject Google’s Chrome into our IE then, can we? Safer than Botox injections, right?

Not so fast, my friend! A Microsoft spokesperson tells Ars Technica:

Twitter asks “What are you doing?” and people respond in 140 character max chunks of ‘wisdom’ ranging from helpful to inane. As the rest of the world gets used to what many technophiles have known for years they will have the opportunity shortly to not only know what someone is doing but where they are doing it as well.

While I am not sure if this marks a new beginning or the end of the world as we know it (you can start humming the REM song now) it certainly may be interesting at the very least. We hear from Gina Trapani at Smarterware from the Twitter Conference in LA that Twitter’s platform lead Ryan Sarver gave the group a rundown of some service details. By the way, it was supposed to rolled out at the conference but there have been delays so hang in there.

It’s bad enough that financial institutions are screwing up our economy, they’re now screwing up our privacy and freedom of speech!

U.S. District Court Judge James Ware, in the northern district of California, just issued a court order forcing Google to shut down a Gmail account and turn over users identity & contact information. The user did nothing wrong!

In fact, this incredible situation is the final outcome of a screw-up by Rocky Mountain Bank…

On Aug. 12, the bank mistakenly sent names, addresses, social security numbers and loan information of more than 1,300 customers to a Gmail address. When the bank realized the problem, it sent a message to that same address asking the recipient to contact the bank and destroy the file without opening it.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Twitter is on the edge of raising another $100 million in VC from around seven investors. Just last week the scuttlebutt was that this round was going to be in the range of $50 million but hey, what’s an extra $50 million amongst friends, right?

The Journal reports

Twitter, the messaging web site that has become an Internet sensation, is nearing a deal to close as much as $100 million of new funding from as many as seven investors, according to people familiar with the deal.

The investor group includes mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price and private-equity firm Insight Venture Partners, which are new investors to Twitter. The $100 million investment is about twice as much as Twitter was reportedly expected to haul in this latest round of fund-raising.

Microsoft is building a social media monitoring tool called Looking Glass.

Now, at this point, you’re probably thinking that I’m panicking. After all, isn’t that what my own company, Trackur, does? Aren’t I scared stiff that Microsoft will hurt my business?

Nope. In fact, when I spoke to Microsoft executives in 2008, I asked them why they didn’t already have a tool like this? If I can build Trackur, shame on Microsoft for not having its own offering.

Am I insane? Possibly, but for different reasons. Let’s explore this announcement.