Marketing Pilgrim

Google is at it again. They are making the world a better place by helping everyone do everything at a faster pace and now helping us with difficult spelling issues that names can create. The latest improvements in Google search are designed to help search happen with fewer keystrokes. Among them is the further localization of Google search suggest. The Offiical Google blog tells us.

Last year we launched localized Google Suggest by country, offering relevant popular search queries tailored for different regions. However, just as people in the U.K. often look for different things than people in U.S., we’ve found that people in Seattle tend to look for different things than people in Dallas. So last week, we rolled out a version of Google Suggest that is tailored to specific metro areas in the U.S.

A few months ago I started following Mona on Twitter. The best way to describe Mona is quite simply, fun. She has a ton of fun with social media and always seems to be “on”. Because of which, it wasn’t a huge surprise that MySpace signed her this week as their newest full time social media marketer. Prior to her work at MySpace, Mona, was a project manger at Oracle, then went on to freelance consulting up until MySpace snagged her up! I asked Mona if she wouldn’t mind answering a few questions about her new job at MySpace. For our benefit she graciously agreed!

Joe: So you are working at MySpace that’s awesome! What exactly do you do there?

Mona: Supplementing existing marketing initiatives with social media magic!

It’s no secret that third-party apps and clients are popular for Twitter users. And it looks like they’re in for some major competition from Google. No the search giant isn’t building its own Twitter client—it’s just bringing you all the functionality you’d expect from one.

Last October, Google announced a real-time search deal with Twitter. Or, really, the stuck a few Twitter results into semi-relevant search results. They’ve added a scrolling update display, but research suggests real-time search isn’t useful to searchers. Just two days ago, Google announced Twitter replay to take a historical view of tweets. And within hours of that announcement, they added a Follow Finder to . . . well, help you find people to follow.

The FTC’s blogging guidelines have drawn a lot of attention—but little if any action by the consumer protection agency. But several bloggers think they’ve found a great opportunity for the commission to step in—or a great opportunity to ridicule the FTC’s guidelines—with Apple’s iPad and the New York Times.

Apparently (as you can see), some iPad ads feature the New York Times website including the paper’s logo. Dan Gillmor, for example, has petitioned the New York Times to reveal whether it’s compensating Apple for the use of its logo—a material connection under the FTC guidelines—while reviewing the iPad in its paper.

Other bloggers, TechDirt reports, point out that the Times and other news outlets may have a vested interest in seeing the iPad succeed, if they can successfully use that platform to build a fee-based content system.

In a move that went somewhat under the radar a month ago, Ning’s co-founder and CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal. This signaled the end of the of a few things: at the time, Bianchini’s long time influence on the platform. Then yesterday, the end of Ning’s free offering and the end of many jobs at Ning.

TechCrunch reports

One month after long-time Ning CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal , the company is making some major changes: It has just announced that it is killing off its free product, forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere. Rosenthal has also just announced that the company has cut nearly 70 people — over 40% of its staff.

Google reported it’s results from Q1 of 2010 yesterday and the news was good for Google. Many feel that what is good for Google is good for the rest of us. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t but at least Google is showing some of the signs of upward movement that we grew accustomed to (and were really spoiled by) in the days before the current economic doldrums we are experiencing.

Before we get to the number,s there was the noticeable absence of CEO Eric Schmidt from the call. The call was handled by CFO Patrick Pichette and this is apparently going to be the protocol moving forward. A report of the “news” of Schmidt’s absence comes from the AP reporting on the question asked of Pichette during the call: