Marketing Pilgrim

I think I made up a word in ‘facelifted’ but sometimes you have to do things for the sake of alliteration. What has happened is that Google has taken its purchase of Feedburner from two years ago to another level with a new look and new features as well. The question is “Is it too little too late?”

TechCrunch reports

Three and a half years ago, Google made what seemed to be a pretty big $100 million acquisition: FeedBurner. You remember that company, right? They’re the ones that dominated RSS management before all of that real time tech came along and rendered it obsolete for many people. Today, Google is putting the real time paddles to FeedBurner’s heart in an attempt to rivive it.

I live in North Carolina. It’s a pretty state. You get a taste of the winter months but you don’t get a lot of winter weather per se. Sure the summers are hot but that’s what air conditioning is for. Overall, it’s a great place to live and raise a family.

That is except for the state government and their attempts to collect taxes on online purchases made from Amazon. They have already pushed Amazon far enough that the online retailing giant ended its affiliate programs with North Carolina residents in 2009 thus depriving residents of the chance to bring money into the state that would be spent in the state and would give some ailing jobless folks a chance at survival. Nice move!

Ebay is the latest in a series of websites to partner with deal site Groupon and it  looks like a win-win for the two websites – but what about the site users?

The first deal to hit the site was The Body Shop offering $40 worth of product for $20 and just in time for the holiday shopping season. Groupon has its own eBay page which is tied to your IP address so you’ll only see offers that are national or local to your area. 1676 people picked up the deal today and as a bonus, they also received $1.00 in eBay Bucks.

eBay Bucks is a new loyalty program that gives you a small kick-back on every eBay purchase and purchases of related deals. At the end of the quarter, eBay gives the user back the bucks in the form of a gift certificate that they can spend on eBay.

Ask MySpace what he wants to be when he grows up and he’ll tell you flat out – “Facebook.” It’s a typical case of big brother worship and we shouldn’t laugh about it but it’s funny, you know. When the little one tries to dress and sound like his successful big brother. Clomping around in shoes that are too big, hoping his friends will come over and hang with you if you make it easy for them to connect.

But sometimes, idol worship can get you in over your head. Like this week, when The Wall Street Journal caught MySpace leaking user data through apps. Who does that sound like, huh? Who got caught by The Wall Street Journal just a few weeks ago doing the same thing? Facebook.

It’s not a surprise that Google is big.

Perhaps the surprise is that the search giant shows no signs of slowing in its growth. Indeed, according to estimates, Google’s share of all internet traffic is anywhere from a modest 6.4% to an estimated high of 12%!

It appears that if you are looking for real job security in today’s market you would want to be part of the Google legal team. Not only does everyone and their brother want to hit them up stateside in hopes of hitting a Legal Lotto payday but all around the world even governments are anxious to get a piece of the search giant’s cash.

The latest to chime in? The British who are none too happy about Google’s Street View shenanigans. For Google, Street View appears to be the business equivalent of an STD since ongoing legal issues will apparently be the gift that keeps on giving.

The Independent reports

Google faces being the first company to incur heavy fines under British privacy laws, after admitting downloading private emails and passwords.