Marketing Pilgrim

Google Buzz lived up to its name in its first week. After not fully testing the product, Google launched Buzz and forced all Gmail users into it without a way to opt out. Then we realized they were automatically sharing the list of people we chatted with and emailed most frequently. Finally, Google backed off many of these “features,” and made it possible to disable Buzz (and not just hide it). But there are still some privacy concerns, especially for people who joined Buzz before the privacy changes.

Mashable reports that Google will be issuing a “privacy reset” for Buzz tomorrow. The reset will automatically show all Buzz users the settings page the next time they click on the Buzz option in Gmail, to ensure they’ve set their privacy levels how they really want them:

Google is starting to make some changes in search results that are designed to “cut to the chase” when a situation could be time sensitive. In a way, it is Google admitting that sometimes you need to dig quite a bit to find what you are looking for on the search engine. In some cases though it’s likely that a person may not have the time, or the desire, to look for the “right” answer so Google is helping them get information that in this case could save a life.

What Google has decided to do is to offer is a special search result when a search is focused on the term “suicide”. Here is the result I get when checking this out.

Back in November, Google started testing a new user interface with the search option automatically displayed in the right column (first tested a year ago, added to the SERP in May, but off by default). Users are spotting that layout test again, with some new features including localization.

As Barry Schwartz reports, Sara Holoubek noticed the auto-detected localization feature:

Vanessa Fox (formerly of Google) also saw the new SERP tests. She notes several new features from the previous tests of this layout, including more customization based on the query (as well as location).

One of these changes is a box at the bottom of the left column (it sits on top of the search options, actually, and they scroll behind it). The box contains related queries—or “Not Entirely Unlike” queries.

Well, have you been able to gather yourself after the iPad finally launched this weekend? There was significant buzz around this event that appears to started out with 300,000 units sold (200,000 of those were pre-orders). Lines formed at all the Apple stores in the US but I found it rather funny that in an interview segment conducted by the Wall Street Journal featured a rather tired sounding mom getting 2 iPads for her kids and another guy who was there waiting in line because he Mom told him to get her one!

Well, advertisers are hoping that the rest of these 298,998 users of the iPad are ready to accept some advertising. We have looked at this before at MP but now that the iPad is on the street we’ll take another peek. Clickz tells us a little more.

While you were either a) drooling over your new iPad, or b) wishing those that had a new iPad would shut-up already, Google went out and bought a company you’ve never heard of.

What’s pretty cool about Episodic’s announcement of their acquisition is that they admit you’ve probably never heard of them. I’ve seen many acquisition announcements that had me scratching my head and saying out loud, “who are these guys?” Episodic answers that exact question for us:

What is Episodic?
Episodic is a comprehensive platform for broadcasting live and on-demand video to the web or any web-enabled device. The platform lets publishers and marketers host, stream, measure and monetize video content. Content creators, marketers and enterprise customers use Episodic to deliver video to the Web and mobile devices.

I do a lot of different things in the Internet marketing industry. But I think what I do the most, and quite possibly the best, is product development. I write code, I manage designers, and I promote products. All of these things have to do with product development. Over the years I’ve come to believe that every product developer must make a decision when developing a new product. They must decide whether they are building their product to make money or to solve a problem. Sure you can make money by solving problems but you can also solve problems without making a dime and make tons of cash without solving problems.

Are you still following me?