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Courts Disagree on Expectation of Privacy Regarding Social Media

posted on September 30, 2010

If you want to know anything about privacy laws, Kashmir Hill from Forbes is your gal. She writes a whole column on it and earlier this week she wrote an interesting piece about two Facebook privacy cases with two very different results.

Both cases involved a person with a Facebook account who was suing a company for something totally unrelated to social media. In California, an artist sued an apparel company for putting his designs on items they hadn’t agreed on, like maybe condoms. Lawyers for the company asked for access to all of the artist’s Facebook and MySpace updates, obviously hoping to catch him saying he was thrilled about being featured on a condom, or something like that.

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ShopLocal Adds Wish List Component

posted on September 30, 2010

Have you made your holiday gift list yet? Not the list of things you need to buy for others, the list of things you want other people to buy for you. ShopLocal is making it easier with a new gizmo they’re adding that connects their Smart Circulars to Facebook, natch.

I couldn’t find a picture of the “Gift Me This” widget in action, but it’s likely just a rebranded version of the graphic you see right here. When a consumer flips through the online version of a ShopLocal circular, they have the ability to choose items and send them to Facebook. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to spread the word about a bonus offer on a DVD from Best Buy or a cool deal on recyclable paper at Staples.

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Yahoo Executive Exodus Continues

posted on September 30, 2010

You know that we here at Marketing Pilgrim have had boatloads of fun at the expense of Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz. Initially, I thought (like many others) that her brash style would be good for the ailing Internet property that was once at the top of a pretty large heap in the Internet space.

As is often the case with perceptions they can fall far short of reality. Carol Bartz’s tenure at Yahoo to this point has to be classified as at least a perception gone horribly wrong. The evidence comes in the form of the continued executive level departures at the highest levels of the organization. While some at Yahoo are trying to spin this executive revolving door as a planned action, not many are buying it.

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Facebook Revenue Estimates Continue to Rise

posted on September 30, 2010

As if we needed more evidence that Facebook is not only making money but it appears to be making very real money, the estimates for this year’s revenue keep going up.

paidContent reports

It was only last month that eMarketer said Facebook’s ad sales for the year would likely total $1.2 billion. In a report today on the state of the overall ad market, Cowen & Co. analyst Jim Friedland says he expects that number to actually total more than $1.6 billion and non-ad revenue to bring Facebook’s overall sales to nearly $1.75 billion for the year.

Not bad for a company whose beginnings are the stuff of Silicon Valley lore that will this weekend show up in the theaters as entertainment.

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Search: Desktop by Day, Mobile by Night

posted on September 29, 2010

The chart from iCrossing Mobile via SAI below tells me one thing clearly. When people get to the office in the morning they start searching like crazy. I’m not saying they are working but they sure are searching.

As the day wears on, the office search mojo wanes probably because there may be actual work to get done before heading home. Mobile search, however, picks up the slack in the evening. I suspect that is due to the “watch TV but use your phone to surf” syndrome that many of us are afflicted with.

SAI stated

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday at the TechCrunch conference that he believes mobile search activity and revenue will eventually be bigger than desktop search. For Google to say that, it means mobile search is going to have to be huge.

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New Report Says Social Media Creators Have Stopped Creating

posted on September 29, 2010

When it comes to social media usage, Forrester categorizes the world using their patented Social Technographic Ladder. Creators (23%) are at the top. These are the people who create blogs, upload videos and write articles for the web. (I’m one of those. Are you?)

Right under that are Conversationalists and Critics who exchange info by Twitter, forums and Facebook posts. The majority of social media user fall into the middle of the pack and they are Joiners and Spectators. The difference being that Joiners have social media profiles but they’re not overtly active.

For the last few years, Forrester has tracked growth in all areas but this year Creators hit a plateau. According to their 2010 Global Social Technographics report, despite advances that make it easier, creators aren’t creating like they used to.

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Pre-Purchase Online Research Done by Nearly 60% of Americans

posted on September 29, 2010

As many of you have figured out over time, I really don’t trust research especially that about the online space. Why is that? In the vast majority of cases when you look at the ‘sponsor’ of that research, they have a vested interest in the findings looking a certain way. I’m not saying the research is completely unreliable but it does look funny when these ‘coincidences’ happen more often than not.

Research I do trust much more than others is what comes from the Pew Research Center. As a result, their report “Online Product Research” will get some time here. The Internet and American Life Project reports that nearly 60% of Americans have researched products on line. In fact, the chart below just how often it happens daily.