Marketing Pilgrim

Just last week our own Cynthia Boris posted “Facebook to Buy Skype? Say It Ain’t So!” Well, Cynthia, it ain’t so but since the real buyer is Microsoft we’ll have to see how you feel about that one.

Microsoft has officially announced their purchase of Skype after the rumor mill had all but confirmed it late yesterday. The price was a rather substantial $8.5 billion in cash.

As with most purchases of this magnitude (especially by Microsoft who has been out of the major M & A picture for quite some time now) opinions about the general goodness or sheer awfulness of the move abounds. For the record, my thoughts are if Microsoft simply owns it, leaves it alone and just is most interested in keeping it out of the hands of the Zuckerberg’s and Page’s of the world that’s fine by me. If they, however, give it the Microsoft treatment (in other words, eff it up because it’s one of those Internet thingys) well then that would suck.

Marketers, start your engines! As of right now, Q&A site Quora has not only lifted their ban on self-promotion, they’re actually encouraging it.

The old policy said that content that was “primarily self-promotional” was prohibited. Here’s why they changed the rule.

Quora’s key principle regarding content is that users should make the site a great resource for people who want to learn. The quality of the answer is what we care about. Evaluating the intention of an answer does not support this policy.

We want to encourage users to provide answers based on personal experience, and this often involves — or even requires – discussing subject(s) in which the writer has personal experience. Personal experience is an asset, not a liability, and is a key element of many of the best answers on Quora. In other words, we want users to write about what they know and care about – companies, organizations, causes, people, products, etc.

Hearst, Time, Inc and now Conde Nast are all jumping on the digital train, with deals that allow subscribers to buy their most popular magazines on the iPad. Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, O, the Oprah Magazine — it’s a wide reach, but are readers ready to pass on tearing out articles in favor of a digital bookmark? Magazine publishers hope so, but magazine advertisers aren’t so sure.

Right now, this whole digital subscription idea is rather speculative. We may find that business people love having all that information at their fingertips, while casual readers prefer having pages to turn. The trouble is, ads have to be priced and paid for now, before the data is in.

There are three options:

• Digital ads cost more than print ads in the same magazine (not likely).

Here at Marketing Pilgrim we like Pew studies. They are among the few that seem to be less about promotion and more about finding out the truth.

The latest study, Navigating News Online, shows that Google is still the top influencer for news sites. What is interesting to note though is that while it is still far behind, Facebook is making its move on Google’s domain.

Now a look at Facebook.

Right now the numbers don’t cry out real competition but it’s hard not to recognize that Facebook has momentum on its side. As a result, Google is probably more than a little nervous.

Imagine you can get a discounted ticket for the hottest show in town. Now pinch yourself and wake up from the dream you are having.

The top concert promoter LiveNation and Groupon are teaming up to offer GrouponLive to offer deals on tickets for sports, concerts and other events. By reading the press reports it’s easy to imagine that tickets will be discounted for anything but I seriously doubt it.

Reuters reports

Top online group buying site Groupon tied up with Live Nation Inc to launch a new online ticketing deals web site that will allow customers buy tickets to concerts, theatres and other live events at discounted prices.

The location based services market is growing but there are still hurdles to overcome including privacy concerns. It appears as if there have been enough scary stories in the press to make people a little nervous about whether joining the location game is worth the effort. Couple that concern with many people not really understanding just why they need to tell everyone where they are at all times and you have some roadblocks to acceptance for those playing in the location sector (not much, granted, but at least some).

eMarketer reports on a survey conducted the firm White Horse that shows more people know about location based services but aren’t necessarily using them.