Marketing Pilgrim

Google has never had much luck breaking into the TV business. Its latest foray, Google TV, could end up being a non-starter as well.

It’s hardly a big secret that TV networks and Google haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye, but the battlefield has typically been within your web browser. In other words, Google’s turf.

Now that Google is taking the battle to your actual television set, the big networks are fighting back. In fact, they’re blocking you from using Google TV to access their content.

So, what’s actually going on here?

Well, Google TV–in all of its flavors–allows you to watch video content posted on the web, on your TV. It’s basically a browser for your TV set. In theory, that means any videos on the web, should be available on Google TV.

Over the years, my husband has spent thousands of dollars on tools from Snap-on, but his connection to the company was always through a local franchise owner and not with the corporate office. But if you look for Snap-on on Facebook, you’ll find only a few dealers have pages. Of those, most are out of date and one is friends locked. That’s no way to do business.

According to comScore’s Local Search Usage Study, (as reported by Clickz) “69% of consumers are more likely to use a local business if it has information on a social networking site.” 22% contacted a business after finding them on a social network and 67% of those consumers went on to make a purchase.

I call this the Friday Fact section (which I reserve the right to not do every single Friday) because it sounds good but the reality is there are no real facts about the social media space. There is information and there is research but none of it should be held as the absolute truth.

Having said that today’s fact is about the wealthy and Facebook. The Wall Street Journal reports on a poll conducted by the SEI Wealth Network that found the following.

The poll from SEI Wealth Network, a wealth-advisory firm, showed that 70% of respondents with $5 million or more in investible assets are users of Facebook and other social media sites. That is more than the 61% of the broader population who use such sites.

The last time I was in a Starbucks, I was surprised to see a large number of patrons hunched over laptops and iphones as they silently sipped their trendy drinks, completely ignoring the actual human sitting across from them. I imagine it’s this need to be virtually connected at all hours of the day and night that has led Starbucks to launch their own digital network.

Working in partnership with Yahoo! the Starbucks Digital Network offers in-store Wi-Fi users a taste of new music, local news and events and the low down on the latest lifestyle must haves.

In a company press release, Stephen Gillett, Starbucks executive vice president, chief information officer and Digital Ventures general manager (and geez, by the time you finish calling him, he’s late for dinner) had this to say:

Whenever there is a great controversy or conflict regarding the appropriate use of social media by the traditional media (in this case the journalists for the Washington Post) it’s important to look at several things. First, what is the subject matter that triggered the ‘discussion’ (which in this case is one of the one of the most volatile you can imagine: homosexuality). Second, where it was printed in the paper (in this case it was a column on faith so you can connect the dots there) and third is it about social media or about the subject matter itself?

Over at Mashable, the claim is that the Washington Post is making a mistake by shutting down interaction by its journalists on Twitter.

You know how we feel about research here at Marketing Pilgrim. If you don’t have your ‘grain of salt’ hat on when you read most surveys and reports you could be led down a path that isn’t what you thought it might be.

The latest version of this is a report from Nielsen (as reported by MediaPost in an article titled “More Confidence, More Advertising) about increased ad spending trends. Here is the chart that was of most interest to me. Needless to say, when I saw it I had a few questions.

First, take a look at the sectors that have increased their ad spend the most. Automotive and things connected to automotive. Where is that ‘confidence’ coming from? Well, read some of the details behind the numbers and you may be able to guess.