Marketing Pilgrim

Back in March, we told you that Google’s Ad Sitelinks were a huge success for…Google.

OK, maybe advertisers liked them as well, but if you weren’t careful, you could find your ads see a 30% increase in click-throughs. That all sounds great, as long as you were prepared to cover the cost of those increased clicks.

Anyway, Google would like more of your paid search spend and is rolling out Ad Sitelinks to all advertisers and throwing in a new one-line format to boot!

When a user’s query matches a keyword in your Ad Sitelinks-enabled campaign, Google will automatically determine if your ad qualifies to show Ad Sitelinks and whether to show the two-line or the one-line format based on the quality of that ad. Ads that currently qualify for the two-line format will not be affected by the addition of the new one-line format.

It seems to be clearer than ever that Facebook is really making a run at Google around search. The announcement that “all Open Graph enabled web pages will show up in search when a user likes them” this new area for search abuse optimization is now becoming a reality.

All Facebook reports

Earlier this week we published about the new Facebook SEO that’s possible via the Open Graph, but now it’s clear that this is the beginning of Facebook’s internet search strategy. The race is now on for publishers to optimize their sites for Facebook’s search engine.

Microsoft has paid close attention to the apparent early success of Apple’s iAd platform and it would like a piece of the action.

In fact, it believes its new Windows Phone 7 ad platform will be the best thing since sliced bread–seriously! It’s calling the platform “Toast!”

Windows Phone 7, due out for the holidays, will allow advertisers to push notifications about their products to people’s phones through a platform called “Toast.” Even when a company’s app is not active, a small ad box can slide down from the top of the phone’s screen to alert the user there’s an update or new offer from that brand.

With all of the mess that surrounds Facebook and data security etc., it seems at times that other web properties are doing it well. That’s a dangerous assumption. Yesterday Twitter was thrown into the data security spotlight when it took some medicine from the Federal Trade Commission regarding data / security breaches in the past.

The LA Times reports

Twitter has agreed to settle allegations by federal regulators that it put the privacy of its users at risk by failing to protect them from data security lapses last year that let hackers access their accounts.

The Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that the settlement bars Twitter from misleading consumers about its security and privacy practices and requires the start-up to establish a comprehensive information security program.

Just minutes after Twitter announced a feature to see which of your Facebook friends are on Twitter, Facebook blocked it!

Now, thanks to Techdirt, we can see that this is not just some harmless mistake. Facebook does not want you having access to the data you’ve worked hard to compile. In other words, if you try to access any of your Facebook data via a 3rd-party app then the social network won’t just block you, it may sue you!

Which company do you think of when you hear,” when it absolutely has to be there overnight?”

OK, that was an easy question, considering FedEx is mentioned in the post title.

But, imagine if thousands of customers were facing “when you have absolutely no idea where it is or when it will get here!”

That’s the situation I–and thousands of others that had pre-ordered the Apple iPhone–found myself in, when FedEx’s normally reliable package tracking tool collapsed under the strain. OK, maybe it didn’t actually collapse, but the data was so inaccurate that the system may as well have crashed.

At this point, I’m mad at FedEx.

Should I stay in, should I print off a signature release? Will the iPhone arrive today, tomorrow, ever?