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New Book Offers Marketing Advice Beatles Style

posted on January 21, 2011

When you look at the history of The Beatles, it may seem that their rise to the top of the charts was based on a series of fateful meetings and lucky breaks. But according to Richard Courtney and George Cassidy, there was nothing accidental about it. They say that every move, every junction was carefully planned and vetted with an eye always toward being a musical success. They say, that by following the blueprint set out by The Beatles, any company could rise to the top of their own industry chart and that is the premise of their new book.

Come Together: The Business Wisdom of The Beatles is a simplified, straightforward look at the steps that made The Beatles one of the most successful musical acts in history and how those same steps can be applied to business.

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27% of Americans Have Checked Facebook While in the Bathroom

posted on January 21, 2011

Have you ever checked Facebook while in the bathroom? 27% of the people AIS Media surveyed said they had. Granted, they only surveyed 500 people, but I’d bet that real percentage is even higher than that. Go into any women’s restroom  in a club in Los Angeles and you’ll see that it’s true – lipsticks and cell phones all over the place.

So what does this mean to you, the marketer? A lot, actually. It’s another example of how social media is changing the way we go about our. . . shall we say, daily business. We’re becoming input junkies who can’t go ten minutes without connecting to our friends be it through social media updates, check-in services or text messaging.

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Google Cutts Spam from the Search Engine’s Menu

posted on January 21, 2011

You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it. And now even Google’s head of spam prevention, Matt Cutts, has seen it.

What am I talking about? This:

In a post today, Cutts admits that Google has ”seen a slight uptick of spam in recent months.” Keep in mind that this is the company that doesn’t like to admit anything is ever wrong over at the Googleplex. Mention click fraud, search spam, or anything else nefarious and you’ll get flat-out denials. So, it’s interesting that Google’s chief spam fighter is admitting that search spam is on the rise.

If Google’s admitting it, it’s probably worse than we first thought.

OK, now that we’re discussing the elephant in the server farm, let’s look at what Google plans to do to rope this stuff in. First, the easy spam–keyword stuffing:

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SMB’s and Social Media STILL Playing Hard to Get

posted on January 21, 2011

With all the attention that the SMB space is getting from the sudden realization that people shop locally (really?!?!), it’s important to see if all of this is just media hype or are the actual small and medium businesses of the world actually catching on.

If the findings reported by eMarketer are any indication then the answer is a resounding “Kinda”. The chart below speaks to the results from a study done by Ad-ology. The standard MP research warning alert is in effect. We keep our research validity threat level at a constant orange (high risk of PR drenched research) and we are not adjusting for this data. You have been warned :-) .

So Facebook leads the pack. No surprise there.

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Google Set to Deal Groupon Some Competition with ‘Offers’

posted on January 21, 2011

Following yesterday’s headline grabbing news about Eric Schmidt being removed from his CEO post in early April, Google just happened to let the cat out of the bag on a new product designed to give Groupon and LivingSocial a run for their money. The new product is around the daily deal concept and will be called Google offers.

Of course, no one is naïve enough to think that this ‘leak’ was an accident. Even if it was in this day and age no one believes that anything is ever ‘leaked’ anymore but rather given to a publication in exchange for some drama filled presentation of the ‘news’.

This particular exclusive went to Mashable and they report on Google Offers

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Like Everything Else, Email is Going Mobile

posted on January 20, 2011

comScore’s latest study on email usage returned a result we already suspected was true – more people are using their mobile phones to access their email causing a drop in web-based email usage.

The shift is more about the advances in technology and less about the way we use email to communicate. Web-based email has always been about ease of access. If you’re only using Outlook then your work emails stay at work and home emails stay home. Forwarding emails from one computer to another was the only way to gather all of the information in one place and if you were traveling the you were stuck.

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Holy Schmidt! Google CEO Given the 301 by Page & Brin

posted on January 20, 2011

If you missed today’s earnings call from Google, here’s what you missed:

Google did $8.44 billion in revenue–a  jump of 26%. Net income was up 18% to $2.2 billion. Google ended the quarter with with $33.4 billion in cash and 23,300 employees.

Oh, and Eric Schmidt is no longer the CEO.

Say what?

No kidding! Google’s CEO for the past 10 years is stepping down from that role. In a blog post Schmidt states…

…we have also agreed to clarify our individual roles so there’s clear responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.