Marketing Pilgrim

This morning, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) was named chairman of a new Judiciary subcommittee for Privacy, Technology and the Law. The list of activities that the committee will oversee is a long one and it includes the collection of information for behavioral advertising and privacy in social networks.

Says Franken:

“The boom of new technologies over the last several years has made it easier to keep in touch with family, organize a community and start a business. It has also put an unprecedented amount of personal information into the hands of large companies that are unknown and unaccountable to the American public. As chairman of this new subcommittee, I will try to make sure that we can reap the rewards of new technology while also protecting Americans’ right to privacy.”

Google has announced an interesting Chrome extension with regard to content farms and their pesky low quality content. Essentially, Google is saying that you can remove certain sites from your own search results because you don’t want to be bothered with that craptent. In exchange for this ability, Google gets to see what you think falls into this craptent category and then sees if there is enough to merit an algorithmic change based on these results.

The Google blog tells us the following

We’ve been exploring different algorithms to detect content farms, which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. One of the signals we’re exploring is explicit feedback from users. To that end, today we’re launching an early, experimental Chrome extension so people can block sites from their web search results. If installed, the extension also sends blocked site information to Google, and we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo said that the service is “already making money.” But as the reporter for The Wall Street Journal pointed out, he didn’t specify whether that was income or profit.

Let’s go with profit, as Twitter is now poised to raise the cost of their Promoted Trends from $70,000 to $80,000 a day to a potential $120,000 a day. Since the ad space routine sells out, it sounds like a case of what the market will bear. Now all Twitter has to do is find a way to personalize the delivery so they can sell more than one trend slot a month.

While the SEO and search engine world in general is all fired up about the New York Times’ piece on JC Penney’s search dalliances it’s probably important to recognize what Google’s actions in response to the situation were: PR.

Now, that the New York Times is the new Google police (that’s for another discussion but between this, the Decormyeyes and Foundem it’s starting to look like the Times wants to make some waves by rocking Google’s boat) maybe the best way to get something done at the search engine is through the Times. When asked about this phenomenon of Google acting only when prodded by a major media outlet, Marketing Pilgrim’s Andy Beal had this to say

Did you forget to send your sweetie a Valentine’s day card?

Is the florist all out of flowers?

The candy-isle picked over?

Never fear! Google is here to your rescue! Using a romantic interface and Google Maps, the search engine is hoping you’ll remind your valentine of that special place you… [fill in the blank]

Here’s one I created, so you can see how it looks.

Don’t tell Andy and Frank, but my secret goal with this weekly column is to meet cute girls on the internet. OK, maybe not really. But, I do want to talk about successful ways to pick up chicks. So, I know what you are thinking, pick up chicks? What the heck does that have to do with marketing?

Whether you like it or not, breaking the ice with that special someone is a talent that every marketer needs to have, especially, in social media. Take for example high level influencers that can spread your message across the web with one tweet. Getting on their good side is key to successful engagement. So to get you ready for Valentine’s Day, and your next social media marketing campaign, here are a few solid tips to engaging that special someone.