Marketing Pilgrim

We are one step closer to never having to discuss Google’s PageRank again.

According to SER, the PageRank metric has been removed from Google Webmaster Tools, after the search engine realized it was talking out of both sides of its mouth, all the while it continued to display the infamous metric:

In the latest round of social media’s own “You make the call!” game regarding a social media campaign’s failure or genius enter Pepsi and its Amp Energy brand. There appears to be some buzz in social media circles about an iPhone app that Pepsi developed for the drink that is being called crass by some and ‘just entertainment’ by others. So you know, I could care less either way, I just think it makes for an interesting ‘live’ case study about social media and how it can be viewed, and as a result, manipulated.

Last month, Yahoo announced the slogan for its new advertising blitz (perhaps hoping to replicate Bing’s blip of search share success): “It’s You!” On September 28, they premiered the first TV commercial for that campaign.

In our totally nonscientific comments section, people were 2:1 against the ad, either because it didn’t sell Yahoo’s products or because the commercial sucks. Personally, I cringe every time I see it—and I’m not alone. As MediaPost reports, YouGov’s BrandIndex “found Yahoo’s buzz score had tumbled from 35.4 on Sept. 22 to 25.5 as of Monday.”

YouGov measures buzz by asking respondents “Have you heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, was it positive or negative?” The precipitous drop over the last three weeks stands in sharp contrast to their upward buzz trend, running since May.

Have you ever seen one of those people who spends so long studying a group, they begin to believe they’re part of the group? If not, you can now: Technorati has launched a new design/mission/layout, and it looks like the once-awesome blog search engine has been assimilated. As they put it:

While we’ll still track and link to the top blogs, posts, and tags, the unique content written by hundreds of bloggers will complement what the rest of the world is saying. In addition to this, each of our channel editors will be writing a daily column called Blog Focus, in which the top story of the day is told through the eyes of the blogosphere’s varied and eclectic authors.

Do you hate spam? Do you hate Twitter spam in particular? Had it with spam? Well, Twitter feels your pain. I get almost teary eyed thinking about their concern for our well being in the Twitterverse. Here’s their blog post to let you know they are thinking of you.

Folks can now help us conquer spam by calling our attention to a profile they find questionable. Click the “Report as spam” button under the Actions section of a profile’s sidebar and our Trust and Safety team will check it out to see what needs to be done. No automated action will be taken as a result of reporting a user as spam (in other words, it can’t be used to incite an angry mob against an account you don’t like.) And once you report a profile it will automatically be blocked from following or replying to you. You nailed it!

Bing is going to be a monthly issue apparently when it comes to reporting just how good, bad or indifferent their performance has been in the previous month. What does that mean? Well, it simply means that the reporting of results of what the market share is for the Microsoft search offering is going to be all over the map and one wonders what the real performance is after all is said and done.

Very early this month StatCounter got some press reported that bing had slipped considerably in September of ’09 (12 percent to be exact). This ‘report’ was met with some valid skepticism since the StatCounter folks seem to be setting themselves up as the ‘early reporters’ of search engine share. While they certainly are first to line with information it’s the whole accuracy thing that has many folks a little suspect of what is going on there. Even Hitwise reported a 5% drop in bing’s numbers in September.