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Local Advertising to Make Gradual Comeback With Digital Leading the Way

posted on February 22, 2010

Advertising in general has had a soul crushing last couple of years. That’s not a surprise. Combine the rapid changes to how everyone communicates with the worst economy in quite some time and you have the perfect storm for advertising woes. The ones who have the greatest difficulty in these times are the local advertisers because they have limited cash flow and limited ability to keep up with rapid change.

Hopefully there is an end to this cycle sooner than later. A study conducted by BIA/Kelsey sees the rebound in local advertising overall but more importantly a significant shift to digital which could account for 25% of local ad spend by 2014. ClickZ gives us some more to consider

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Research Suggests We Don’t Lie On Facebook Anymore

posted on February 22, 2010

It appears as though the concept of being “radically transparent” is reaching the huddled masses on social networks.

Back in 2007, 31% of social network users admitted that they had falsified some of their profile details. Today, a new study suggests that we’re all actually quite honest about how we portray ourselves–at least, on Facebook.

Psychologists studied 236 US and German students and looked at how closely their real personalities matched up with their “idealized personalities”–who they’d like to be online. Apparently, the majority of the group didn’t play out their perfect persona, instead they were pretty transparent in who they were:

…there was no evidence of self-idealization, and ideal-self ratings did not predict observer impressions above and beyond actual personality

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Cup of Joe: Bonnie Raitt Knows the Secret to Social Media Marketing

posted on February 20, 2010

The other day I was on Twitter and saw a tweet that really summed up social media marketing. OK, so I know that James is talking more about SEO here, but truthfully, giving your audience something to talk about is at the heart of social media marketing. Bonnie Raitt knew this secret in 1991–way before our modern conception of social media existed!
talkabout
When folks are talking about your content they are talking about your brand. When folks are talking about your content they are sharing your ideas. When folks are talking about your content they are linking to your site. When folks are talking about your content they are strengthening your brand by contributing to the dialog. When folks are talking about your content they are making you money.

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Google Reader Gets (More) Personal with Recommendations

posted on February 19, 2010

Last October, Google Reader added magic, popular items and recommendations. (Seriously on the magic—they’ll sort your items by newest, oldest or “magic.”) Now they’re revamping those choices, losing the popular items in favor of more personalized recommendations.

Google doesn’t even hint at how they’re making these recommendations, though TechCrunch speculates that they’re based on our social graph’s preferences, your Reader Trends and your Web History, if you’re using it. Additionally, they also take into account global popularity: in my popular items, I found tech-type blog posts recommended by >100 people (none of which I’m following or even know), items other blog genres I’m interested in with 3 recommendations, and items I’m not really sure why they’re there with 0-100 recommendations.

Google also adds more related feeds—if you like a feed, they can show you more like it.

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Coming Soon to a Mountain View Near You: Googletopia

posted on February 19, 2010

It sounds like a cross between Tomorrowland and a college dorm: Google wants on- (or near-) campus housing for their employees. Yes, the free on-campus laundry, free on-campus eateries, on-campus childcare (I’m just assuming that’s not free, but you never know) and free on-campus exercise facilities (making them 75% more free than where I went to college, but anyway) are just not enough to keep their employees at the Googleplex enough hours of the day.

I don’t think the housing will be free, but you never know.

This doesn’t necessarily mean Google has any plans to get into real estate development. Remember their wireless spectrum bluff? Google may be appealing to make the change, hoping if you “rezone it, they will come.” It’s not a terrible theory—potential builders would have a built-in set of potential renters/buyers for the residential properties, which would make office retail space desirable there, too.

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School Kids Brought Google to Its Knees

posted on February 19, 2010

Computer security experts and the National Security Agency have been hard at work, trying to figure out where in China recent attacks on Google originated.

It turns out that Google did not suffer at the hands of the Chinese government, but, wait for it, school kids.

Tracing the attacks further back, to an elite Chinese university and a vocational school, is a breakthrough in a difficult task. Evidence acquired by a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has even led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at the vocational school.

Did you get that? A computer science class is responsible for attacking one of the most sophisticated technology companies in the world. School kids!

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Microsoft Yahoo Search Deal Passes Regulatory Hurdle

posted on February 19, 2010

Well, it’s official. The partnership which will lead to the blending of the “other search engines” Yahoo and bing, has been given the government seal of approval by both the US Department of Justice and the European Commission.

The integration of the two engines will be started immediately and it will take until 2011 before the advertising part of the deal is integrated. According to the Yahoo Search Blog what lies ahead is something they are pretty excited about.

And what you’re seeing today is just the tip of the iceberg. With Microsoft providing us the underlying list of search results, our Yahoo! team can now focus on making the overall experience of finding stuff online and getting things done easier for you – whether you’re searching at yahoo.com or just looking for specific information in the moment while using our many great products and properties on any device. We have lots of ideas for things we can do to help you with three main aspects of searching: