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SMB’s Learning to Tie Social Media to E-Mail Campaigns

posted on June 23, 2010

From time to time I address the current situation of the SMB (small and medium business) as it relates to Internet marketing as a whole. It’s an interesting study because while the vast majority of the companies in the US fall into this category (some estimates place it as high as 95%) they are the least understood of all businesses as it relates to Internet marketing.

An article from eMarketer (hat tip to Mike Moran) takes a look at just how this group is trying to catch up with big business tactics as it relates to their use of e-mail and social media to help their businesses grow. From the looks of things there may be some traction this year but it has been slow in coming.

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Bing Announces Entertainment Upgrades…in a Gazillion Words

posted on June 23, 2010

Bing’s announcements annoy me. I’m sorry, but it’s true.

Why do they annoy me?

Because if something can be said in 50 words, Bing will figure out how to say it in 5000. A common theme among Bing’s announcements is too much explanation of the features they’re rolling it. It’s like they’re trying to convince us that we’ll like the features. Look, we’ll either like them or not, so just tell us what they are!

So, I’ve decided to cut and past Bing’s latest announcement and highlight the actual news….all in good fun, of course! ;-)

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Yahoo Apparently Gives Up On Search Relevance, Fires Editorial Team

posted on June 23, 2010

There are three ways to look at this announcement:

“Yahoo started its week with layoffs in Sunnyvale,” an employee tells us. “Seems to be affecting the editorial team that does search relevance testing.”

  1. Yahoo is preparing for Bing. You don’t need search relevance teams when you’re handing over your search results to Microsoft.
  2. Yahoo is admitting that their search results have never been that relevant and so why even have an editorial team.
  3. Yahoo’s just as tired of crappy results as we are, and is hiring better people.

Personally, I like Option 2, but according to an official statement from Yahoo, Option 3 might be closer to the truth:

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LinkedIn Groups Gets A Facelift

posted on June 22, 2010

LinkedIn is sneaky. You would think that a site that just announced it reached the 70 million user mark would be hard to keep off the radar but sometimes it feels that way. Just check out how many social media ‘experts’ and ‘gurus’ admit that they need to work on their Linkedin presence more. In terms of being cool it comes in a distant third to Facebook and Twitter for sure.

However it is perceived, one of the aspects of LinkedIn that gets plenty of play is the Group feature. This allows for users to create affinity groups and have discussions around topics that are targeted and available to those who want to join. With over 650,000 of these groups formed LinkedIn has upgraded its offering. Check out this video for a good description of the changes.

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Pilgrim’s Picks for June 22 – Monday’s Over Edition

posted on June 22, 2010

How was your Monday?

Mine? Mine was pretty awful and I’m glad it’s over. Still, today is a new day and, so far, it doesn’t suck! :-)

Let’s get your day started off on the right foot with these Picks:

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New iPhone OS Brings Privacy Updates

posted on June 22, 2010

If you are a big player in the Internet space these days you will be brought into the spotlight for anything around privacy. You can be confident of that. With Apple getting plenty of attention with a new iPhone OS release (iOS 4) and the latest generation iPhone 4 about to hit the hands of those pre-order folks (keep your fingers crossed!) there is also talk about the new privacy policy that comes wit these changes.

All Things Digital reports

Apple is rolling out its new iPhone operating system, which means that it is also rolling out its new iAd platform. Which means that Apple now has to make its users the same offer that other big digital ad players offer: You can opt-out of our ad targeting program, if you’re willing to do a little work.

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Google & Twitter Fight for Your Right to Break the News First

posted on June 22, 2010

Did you know there’s a ruling before the appeals court that, if not overturned, might prevent you from using Twitter to share some hot news topic you just heard about?

It might also prevent Google News from indexing a blog post until given the go ahead by the original source of the news?

Crazy? Yes, but you can thank the antiquated laws of this country. You can also thank Google and Twitter for going to bat on our behalf. And on behalf of Theflyonthewall.com.

Google Inc and Twitter Inc have asked an appeals court to overturn a lower court’s decision to bar Theflyonthewall.com from issuing immediate news on analyst research from several Wall Street banks…In March, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said Theflyonthewall.com engaged in “systematic misappropriation,” essentially getting a “free ride” from its quick publication of upgrades and downgrades that can move stocks higher and lower.