Marketing Pilgrim

Sometimes I make a mistake in my writing. I know, hard to believe.

So, after correcting an earlier typo, I just happened to check Google’s search index to see if my post had been indexed yet. Not only had the post been indexed, but the typo fix–from just seconds earlier–had already been updated!

0 to indexed in just 37 seconds? That’s pretty “real time” don’t you think?

Is there a fine line between “rallying the troops” and “astroturfing?”

Well, if there is, AT&T will be our case study for the day, after an internal email–asking employees to oppose net neutrality–has surfaced.

It appears that proponents of net neutrality–and AT&T’s detractors–have jumped on a single line of the wordy memo:

We encourage you, your family and friends to join the voices telling the FCC not to regulate the Internet. It can be done through a personal email account by going to www.openinternet.gov and clicking on the “Join the Discussion” link.

The “done through a personal email account” part has been translated into “hide the fact that you are an AT&T employee” by many bloggers.

2008 was a rough year for Yahoo. First Microsoft tried to acquire them, then Yahoo spurned them, then shareholders wanted a merger, then they lost CEO Jerry Yang, then their search ad deal with Google fell through. There was nowhere to go but up in 2009, right? We got a new CEO, Carol Bartz, and Yahoo finally looks like it’s making an effort and has a new search ad deal with Microsoft in the works.

But in some ways, they’re wishing for the old days—the Q3 report today says that the company has seen a year over year drop of 12% in revenues (to $1.575B). They’ve also seen a drop in operating cash of 6% ($384M). Considering last year’s Q3 was rough (although even then, their revenues were up), even lower revenues this year isn’t exactly what they wanted to hear.

It hardly seems possible, but it was just last year that the Goohoo (Yahoogle?) search ad deal was under scrutiny from the US government. Ultimately, that scrutiny killed the deal—since the DoJ informed Google that they’d face anti-trust charges if they went through with the deal.

Here we are, a year later, and two search giants are once again bringing a proposed search ad deal before the skeptical DoJ. And once again, we have a powerful organization weighing in. Last year, major advertising groups, including the American Association of Advertising Agencies, spoke out against the Googahoo deal. This year, they’re weighing in again—this time in favor of Microsoft and Yahoo’s deal.

In a letter (PDF) to the Department of Justice, Nancy Hill, president and chief executive of the 4A, urged the governmental body to approve the deal—and fast:

When the Google Analytics team shared today’s new features with me, they wanted to walk me through all of the minor updates–before they revealed the big news.

I’m not going to do that to you!

You’re getting algorithmically driven, artificially intelligent, email alerts!

Andy, in English, please!

If Google Analytics detects a change in the data patterns of your site’s metrics it will send you an email alert to let you know. So, for example, let’s say your site gets to the homepage of Digg–and you were honestly unaware of it (yeah, right)–Google Analytics would send you an email alert to let you know “hey, you’re getting WAY more traffic from Digg than you normally get, hoss. You may want to come and investigate it.” OK, maybe not those exact words, but you get the idea.

While Apple is making waves about the latest and greatest gadgets they are rolling out to the waiting public Google has made a little announcement of its own: It’s a phone! The word on TheStreet.com is that Google is planning on entering the hardware arena with the new Android offerings. It seems as if the expansion / experimentation of Google isn’t likely to end any time soon is it? Beore we go any further just remember that this a rumor so that has to be taken into consideration. RIght after you forget that fact though you can say whatever you want.

In what is likely to be seen as disruptive to the wireless status quo, Google is working with a smartphone manufacturer to have a Google-branded phone available this year through retailers and not through telcos, according to Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar, who has talked to Google’s design partners about the plan.