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Who Needs a Company Website When You Have Facebook?

posted on March 3, 2011

If you have a Facebook page with 21 million “likes,” do you really need a company website? Stephen Haines, commercial director of Facebook’s U.K. operation, says no!

Speaking at the Technology for Marketing and Advertising conference in London yesterday, Haines demonstrated the power of Facebook by comparing “likes” to web page views. For example, Starbucks who has 21.1 million likes to 1.8 million site visitors, or Coca-Cola who has 20.5 million likes compared with 270,000 visitors.

CNET, who covered the event, thought there was some merit to the idea.

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What’s The Future Hold For the Daily Deal Space?

posted on March 3, 2011

I guess today is the Daily Deal day here at Marketing Pilgrim since we have already told you about the New York Times foray into the deal a day space.

It just so happens that there has been a report released by BIA/Kelsey looking at the future of the daily deal space. What is intriguing about this report is how the research is divided into a 3 sections. Below is a chart about the revenue prospects for the daily deal industry through 2015. Notice that there is a low-end call, a high-end call and a most likely call (which looks to basically split the difference).

Right now, Groupon has the lion’s share of this total revenue while Amazon funded LivingSocial is trying to chip away at that. The rest of the deal space, according to BIA/Kelsey, has about 200 players currently.

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Google Profiles Get a Facelift; Mine Just Gets Schizophrenia

posted on March 3, 2011

Google has announced the upgrade to Google Profiles. The only problem is, I have no idea what’s going on with my profile and why it has multiple personality disorder.

Take a look at the new profile that I see when I log in to profiles.google.com:

Nice, clean, certainly something I’d be happy to have show up in a reputational search for my name. Problem is, this is not the profile that others see in Google. This one is:

Notice that not all of the info from the first profile has made it over.

After digging around, I found how I can edit the second profile, but it’s basically a different interface to the one Google is pushing in its announcement. In other words, I technically have two different Google Profiles.

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NY Times Starting Its Own ‘Daily Deal’ Deal

posted on March 3, 2011

Ever since the Groupon valuation craze set off by Google’s attempt to buy the daily deal site there has been speculation about just how valuable the site can really be moving into the future. Right now it’s putting up great numbers. Interestingly enough, the chatter around Groupon has become minimal since their Super Bowl ad shenanigans and valuation talks putting the company in the $15 billion range. POP!

Part of that could be that many people are coming to their senses and realizing that while Groupon has made the biggest splash in the daily deal space the model is far from bullet proof. Other deal sites are cropping up and not demanding the first born of deal providers or asking vendors to jack up prices to make it look like a deal. One such newcomer to the space is the venerable New York Times. paidContent.org reports

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A&E Uses Augmented Reality to Market New Series

posted on March 2, 2011

If you’re in NYC on Thursday, March 3 and you happen to see a man in an orange prison jumpsuit, don’t call 911. Just dial up the Breakout Kings app on your iPhone and you could win a prize.

A&E is going all out with an augmented reality promo for their new prison break / conman series and I fear it will be the Mafia Wars incident all over again.

Though I’m sure the actors playing prisoners on the loose will be clearly marked with a Breakout Kings logo, certainly their presence in the city will cause some confusion and spark a few calls to the cops. Right? A&E is ready to take that chance maybe because even if they end up paying a fine to the city, it’ll only help them make bigger headlines.

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Women Love a Sensitive Man

posted on March 2, 2011

Don’t worry, you didn’t accidentally stumble upon a new relationship blog, this is still Marketing Pilgrim, but today we’re going to talk about the softer side of men. According to January’s Women and NBCU’s Brand Power Index, women are warming up to marketing campaigns that show men as emotional and sensitive.

Melissa Lavigne-Delville, VP of Trends and Strategic Insights for Women at NBCU says;

“After a year of advertising that touted the ‘alpha male,’ with campaigns like Dockers’ ‘Wear the Pants’ or Dodge’s ‘Man’s Last Stand,’ we are seeing a noticeable shift in the marketplace as brands break down gender stereotypes in their ads and portray a less traditional and more sensitive, family-centric male.”

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Geeks Unite! Android Developers Trying Union Approach

posted on March 2, 2011

And you thought that only Wisconsin was having union issues huh?

According to a report on The Next Web, some Android developers have had enough of trying to get Google to move on certain things so they have formed a union. (If there are any Rush fans reading, I can’t help but hum “The Trees” while writing this).

A group of Android developers have formed the Android Developers Union, a movement that intends to protest Google’s Android Market policies.

The group has made seven demands and claims that its members will, if demands are not met, move to other platforms and attempt to dissuade fellow developers from working with the Android platform.

The Android Developers Union‘s seven demands are as follows:

  1. Re-negotiation of the 32% Google-tax on application sales