Marketing Pilgrim

Here’s a quick little Gmail update that will come in handy.

The next time a client, friend, or..anyone actually…sends you an email with a street address in it, Gmail will display a Google Map of the location. Like this:

The new feature needs to be enabled via the Gmail Labs tab within your Settings. Oh, and those of you that have persevered with Google Buzz, will find that adding a Google Maps link to a post will also embed a map preview.

I’m not going to even begin to pretend that I fully understand exactly how Twitter will implement its new default URL shortener, all I know is that it’s coming sometime this summer.

…all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL. A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose  /dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users asamazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title. Ultimately, we want to display links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened link and lets you know where a link will take you.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one that’s confused. The Twitter API folks are busy answering questions from developers and addressing any kind of confusion, such as:

In August of 2009 Caffeine was introduced to parts of Google’s ecosystem and there has been plenty of speculation as to just how much it has impacted results. Of course, whenever anything is rolled out to just a percentage of the Google search as a whole it can be tough to see just what it is actually doing.

Now there is no more need to wonder as Google has rolled out Caffeine in all its glory. The Official Google blog says

Today, we’re announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.

With the FIFA World Cup kicking off in just a few days, the search engines are getting in on some of the action. And, among all the iPhone 4 hype, Bing’s search engine sneaks in as the #3 search option on the mobile device–Google still remains the default.

• Yahoo Tries To Score With Football Fans By Teaming Up With David Beckham
• Follow your football team in South Africa, wherever you are
• New Libel Law Proposed In The UK; Gives ISPs Two Weeks To Respond
• AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui On The FTC, Competing With Apple, And Google’s Mobile Plans (Video)
• Social networks now more popular than search engines in the UK
• Bing Comes to the iPhone – But Google Remains the Default

Don’t you hate it when bloggers complain about a company’s actions, yet don’t offer any advice or alternative solutions?

That’s kind of what I did yesterday–when criticizing BP. Well, shortly after publishing that post, I turned to Twitter and started tweeting random ideas that BP could use to be more, well, Radically Transparent. The tips literally took me 10 minutes to come up with, yet were well received by those following me.

So, I thought I’d close the loop on yesterday’s post and share them here.

BP oil spill crisis tip #1: Make each BP station a place for people to share concerns & suggestions. Instead of letting them boycott their local BP station–and drive on by–why not set them up as polling stations. Let people stop in and share their complaints, concerns and suggestions.

While the hype may have surrounded the oh-so-cool iPhone 4 announcement, Apple CEO Steve Job’s also revealed that its recently announced iAd mobile ad platform was doing quite well.

Not only has Apple secured big-name advertisers–such as AT&T, Best Buy, GE, JCPenney,  Nissan, Sears, State Farm, Target, and The Walt Disney Studios–but, according to a press release, has secured more than $60 million in iAd commitments.

Apple has iAd commitments for 2010 totaling over $60 million, which represents almost 50 percent of the total forecasted US mobile ad spending for the second half of 2010.

However you slice it, that’s a pretty impressive number for an advertising platform that’s not even live yet. However, I’d like to slice it this way: that $60 million does not, in fact, represent 50% of the mobile ad market!