Marketing Pilgrim

Let me preface this post by saying that I have not done any (as in zero) research as to what the financial implications of a merger between Aol and Yahoo would be. I don’t own any stock in either company and really have no interest in the financial aspects of such a merger. Companies appear free to make financials look however they need to anyway as long as they have a lobbyist and a politician (or two or three) on their unofficial payroll. So the idea of Aol and Yahoo merging from a financial perspective means nothing to me.

If you ever deal with any aspect of local SEO you know the Google Places dance. One step forward with 2 or three giant steps backwards followed by a bit of stumbling around then falling flat on your face with no one to help you up. It’s not a lot fun to do but apparently Google likes to watch their customers suffer through it.

Well, there may be some help. Starting last Thursday (Sept. 8, 2011) Google Places users have a two week window to pose questions about the things that baffle them about Google places like merged listings, listings appearing out of nowhere, places being listed as permanently closed. You get the drift.

The Google Small Business blog tells us

Let me first start off by apologizing for what looks like a ridiculous indie art project. I mean seriously what the heck does a girl wandering in the woods have to do with this quote? Anyways do your best to ignore the picture and focus on the wise words of Mr. Mark Twain.

Twain’s words are spot on. Of course avoiding people that belittle your ambitions seems to be common sense. However, understanding that your success is tied to those that support you is oftentimes completely ignored. Because the truth is there are no self made men or women. Everyone finds success and even failure with the help of their communities. Great people do great things with the support of others. You are only as good as the people supporting you. Therefore it’s only logical to help empower your community as much as possible.

Earlier this week, Frank took you through the MillennialMedia S.M.A.R.T report for Q2. Now I’m here with a closer look at the month of July, specifically the Post-Click Campaign Action Mix.

“Watch Video” showed the biggest growth with a 69% jump month-over-month. This is likely due to the heavy push from movie studios promoting their summer blockbusters and it made it one of the top three actions along with “Enroll /Join/Subscribe”.

Also tying for the top spot was “Application Downloads” which grew 12% month-over-month.

Coming right behind the leaders is “Mocial,” with growth of 34% month-over-month. It’s fun to note that “Place Call” dropped from 42% in May to only 21% in July. In the next ten years, I imagine we’ll have to drop the word “phone” all together and simply go with mobile device.

I have a digital movie camera, but for the life of me, I can’t remember where it is. It’s not that I’ve stopped taking movies, I just use my phone to do it.

A TNS survey says that 46% of all mobile phone owners use the video camera app and 62% use the still camera. That’s up a smidgen over last year, but growth is growth.

eMarketer reports that online photo sharing service Photobucket is bursting at the seams with 45% of members saying they upload at least one video a week and 17% uploading one video per day. 9% of their members said they upload multiple videos a day. That’s pretty amazing when you realize that as recently as 2001, we were using cassette tapes to record our home movies.