Marketing Pilgrim

The headline alone is nothing that will surprise people, especially those in the online marketing industry. In fact, watching the decline and fall of the newspaper industry is some kind of guilty pleasure that everyone seems to relish. Since there are jobs and things at stake maybe that’s not such a good position to take but it is what it is, as they say.

The continued circulation declines however, are real news in the sense that it truly signifies the shift in how people get their information these days. Because of our ‘go-go’ lifestyle most people can’t be bothered with the print version of a newspaper. Commutes in cars make it harder to read a paper (notice I didn’t say impossible since there are still morons that think driving and reading the paper is simply multi-tasking). There is less time in the morning to ‘relax’ while reading the paper. Life is just different. Maybe not better but certainly different.

Google’s Street View has always been a lightning rod of sorts for privacy advocates. After all, if you find yourself looking out your window one day and a Google-mobile or trike or whatever they use these days to get information, shows up and starts taking pictures of your street and your home it can be a little creepy. It kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “It’s a Google world and we’re just allowed to play in it”.

Nowhere has the concern for privacy been greater than in Europe. In particular, Germany has taken issue with many of Google’s information gathering activities. Well, now that there have been the “discovery” of what else Google is gathering the German government is sounding off again.

The Register reports

The University of Maryland’s International Center for Media and the Public Agenda conducted a study of college students, depriving them of the Internet, cell phones, and even TV, newspapers and radio for twenty-four hours. Based on the students’ own comments about how much they missed it and were addicted to the Internet, the researchers concluded that the results of one single day were college students are Internetaholics.

Oh, I’m so addicted to hyperbole.

Feeling dependent on something doesn’t make you actually dependent on it. The students were unwilling to go without media, disliked the experience and claimed to be dependent on and addicted to the Internet and other media—but we’re still a bit short of calling this game.

The forthcoming 2010 Social Shopping Study by PowerReviews shows a marked increase in consumer trust in and reliance on online product reviews. However, their trust isn’t blind—online consumers are also becoming more skeptical of those reviews, willing to take them with a grain of salt.

The majority of online consumers use reviews as research, and more people are reading more and more reviews. Reports MediaPost:

Results from the 2010 survey indicate that 57% of shoppers trust customer reviews as a research source along with other corroborating information, but 35% question whether they are biased. Factors that degrade trust in reviews suggest that 50% do not provide enough reviews to make an educated decision, 39% doubt they are written by real customers, and 38% said a lack of negative reviews or limited information. . . .

Google is changing the way it will interact with agencies using AdWords. They’re discontinuing the Google Advertising Professionals program in favor of the Google AdWords Certification program, and eliminating fees for some agencies using the API, based on client spend.

Agencies that have at least one certified employee may qualify as Certified Partners now. The certification process will also change, with more training materials, harder tests that include application and best practices, and a new badge that includes a “click to verify” CTA. Individuals certifying will now have to pass two tests instead of one, according to Search Engine Land.

For large enough agencies, Google will be waiving the AdWords API fee. They’ll begin accepting applications for that program one month from today.

Last week Google announced the name change from Google Maps to Google Places along with some changes to the local listing service that is so important to local search. At the end of the week Google also announced something that they are not real well known for: support. Here’s how the Google LatLong blog puts it:

With a new name comes a fresh support experience. The Google Places team wants to make sure that, as a business owner, your experience with Google Places is a good one, so we’ve taken some steps to expand and refine our support offerings.