Marketing Pilgrim

UPDATE: Google Buzz is now live!

The buzz around the Internet marketing and social media circles is humming with the news (or the rumor, call it what you want) that Google is getting set to introduce a new feature to Gmail. No, it has nothing to do with your e-mail but rather your ‘experience’ with Gmail and in particular your social experience. Looks like Google is getting into the social game.  This comes on the heels of the talk of Facebook getting into the e-mail game as well. What’s going on? It’s like opposite day with Google going social and Facebook getting all e-mail on us.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Everyone in the world of marketing whether you are online or offline (or hopefully the right combination of the two) wants to better define social media and its uses. Different sectors or verticals see how the various social media tools impact their particular type of business and no two seem to act alike. Much of that has to do with having too little real data to draw firm conclusions from and the learning curve that is occurring on the customer side of this equation.

Since its unveiling last month, the iPad has been labeled a Kindle killer. The parallels are obvious—the largest (and newest) Kindle has the same size screen, both have Internet connectivity, and both can be used to read books. But that just about sums up the Kindle’s selling points, and the iPad’s features list continues on out the door. So could a full-color touchscreen tablet computer and a B&W eReader really be considered the competitors the media continue to make them out to be?

Heck yes, if Amazon has anything to say about it. Last week, Amazon acquired touchscreen maker TouchCo. The small startup had developed a new way to add touch screen technology. (Kindle direct competitor the Sony eReader already has a touchscreen version, which outsells its cheaper alternative.)

Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer survey shows that traditional media is trending downward among “informed publics aged 25-64 in 20 countries”—and so is their trust in “a person like yourself” (although much less dramatically).

The executive summary shows traditional media trust is diving, with TV news down 20%, radio news down 17% and print news down 12%. However, digital media isn’t exactly making up the gap—radio and TV news coverage still slightly beat out online search engines (38%, 36% and 35%, respectively), and newspaper articles close behind (34%). Corporate communications (press releases, I guess) were also in the same tier—significantly ahead of social networking sites (19%), which only barely edged out product advertising (17%).

Holy language gap, Batman! Google looks to be creating some pretty cool futuristic gadgets for its utility belt. Now, when Eric Schmidt puts out the Goog signal he can feel confident that ex-Google employees in all parts of the world will understand the signal without have to spend time changing out the filter on his light signal. (I had to use this picture again after all the trouble Andy went through to make it). This will all be made possible by Google’s translation tools that are moving toward translating voice on the fly.

Now, this technology is a few years away but The Times of London is bringing the project to our attention.

Well, since Google’s Super Bowl ad has signaled that it is in trouble by sending some kind of message that there is fear in the air (c’mon people relax it’s not the big deal you may think it is), what does a company that is obviously reeling on its heels look to do? Find other ways to make money of course.

Now I do not believe that Google is reeling at all. I don’t think that their Super Bowl ad is evidence of anything other than the fact that they could use an already created and packaged message to reach a large audience when their competition wasn’t. Nothing more and nothing less. Do you really think that the cost of that ad is of any consequence to Google’s bottom line? I suspect they figured they could smoke the crappy ads for chips and beer with a simple message and create buzz worth more than $ 3 mil. Mission accomplished.