Marketing Pilgrim

Despite yesterday’s premature announce-ilation by Vivotech, Google announced formally the introduction of their new Google Wallet.

The long and short of it is that Google is looking to own the mobile purchase cycle from search to purchase. That’s a pretty powerful model to say the least and they are out of the gate running.

The Business Insider reports

Google just announced its mobile payments system Google Wallet, which will also be bundled with its Groupon-killer Google Offers.

Google wants to put tickets, credit cards, receipts, coupons, and even your driver’s license in your Google Wallet.

A trial begins this summer in New York, Portland, and San Francisco this summer, with other cities to follow.

Yesterday Google’s Marissa Mayer said at TechCrunch Disrupt that Google anticipates that Google Maps use in the mobile environment will surpass the usage on the desktop by June. This is a significant milestone as the search giant continues to make its play into the location based / social / ‘whatever it is they want’ space.

Mayer called Google a ‘twitchy’ place to work which is an interesting descriptor because their efforts for social thus far seem to reflect that notion of an almost spastic approach to putting together a ‘product’. They are like a kid trying to put together something with Lego’s by using various pieces of several kits rather than having one set with all the parts designed to work together. Nevertheless, people are using Google Maps which is the cornerstone of whatever direction they finally end up going in. TechCrunch reported

Does your Facebook page ask people to sign up for your newsletter? I’m guessing not. After reading about this idea in the new guide from Lyris, I went to Facebook to take a look. I checked the fan pages for four of the brands I follow and not one asked me to sign up for their email list. Interesting.

The Lyris guide, which is all about creating “surround sound” with your marketing efforts, hones in on the idea of using Key Performance Indicators (KPI) rather than traditional methods of figuring ROI.

In this case, the goal might be increasing your email list by 10%. That’s a measureable goal that is likely to bring results because we know that email conversions are excellent.

You would think that any report showing a rise in a media device would be of interest to marketers, but it’s not so when you’re talking eReaders. Why? Because eReaders are only just now starting to take on advertising and it’s a case of coming way too late to the party.

eMarketer has a new chart that shows eReader usage is on the rise. There’s no doubt this is true. With Amazon’s Kindle leading the way and the glut of Nooks that turned up under the tree this past Christmas, more people than ever are experiencing the joy of virtual paper. As it goes, the rise in eReader devices has led to a rise in the number of ebooks being published, so the logic is that this trend will continue.

That headline seems funny in this day and age doesn’t it? You half expect automation everywhere you turn but in certain areas automation just doesn’t cut it. One of the areas where it is less and less attractive is social media and apparently the New York Times is taking the hint.

According to an article at Poynter.org

The New York Times is turning off the automatic feed for its main Twitter account this week in an experiment to determine if a human-run, interactive approach will be more effective.

Social media editors Liz Heron and Lexi Mainland are taking turns running the@nytimes account during weekday business hours, hand-picking and writing the tweets and engaging with readers.

It appears Sony has bought a one-way ticket to reputation-implosionville, and seems happy to sit back and enjoy the ride.

After the embarrassing hacks of its Playstation Network, the electronics giant is once again facing a multitude of security breaches. This time, Sony appears to either not have an explanation or just figures it’s lost all credibility so may as well shut up.

…now that Sony’s apology cards have been played and the hacks and breaches continue, the company has resorted to its only remaining tactic: silence. The Japanese giant hasn’t responded publicly or answered my requests for comment on the five security incidents that have occurred in just the last week.

Oh yeah, silence. That’s always a great tactic for preserving your reputation…not! Ask Dell how sticking its head in the sand worked out for the company!