Metropolitan News » Internet Marketing News

Is Pinterest Right for Your Business?

admin — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:29:37 +0000

The epic growth of Pinterest is nothing short of amazing and it is no accident. The product rollout and target demographic were carefully planned and executed to maximize the initial footprint and it worked. The latest estimates on the number of signups for this new social media platform make it one of the strongest rollouts ever.This latest social media phenomenon is based on the idea of collecting. Founded by three innovative guys in Palo Alto, California, Pinterest has quickly become the next social media darling. According to comScore, Pinterest usage in the US shot up from less than half a million unique visitors in May 2011 to nearly 12 million in January 2012.

Read fullÂ article via Pinterest Grows on Beauty But Lacks Substance : NOVA Business News.

Google Rolls Out Live Search Then Takes It Away

admin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:30:26 +0000

Google continues to rollout fresh new â€œWhat Have We Hereâ€ items. The latest is Live Search. This new product appears in the normal SERP and gives searchers a peak into the stream of new posts from Twitter, Facebook and blogs.It is the culmination of Googleâ€™s agreement with Twitter and allows them to provide users access to immediate information. If you Google â€œTigerâ€ you can get a peak at the new feature.As an internet marketing professional I look at it as something to keep an eye on. It will be sometime before it pairs down to low search volume queries, but it is certainly a way to feed info to pop culture monitors for now.

via Relevance meets the real-time web, Google Live : NOVA Business News.

Fishing Meets Social Networking – GoFISHn.com

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:32:37 +0000

With one eye on some of the $45 billion recreational fishing market and the other on the hundreds of millions of users Facebook has attract, GoFISHn.com is the latest site angling for anglers. â€œNobody has done a good job in enthusiast sites,â€ founder Ned Desmond, looking to buck the trend, tells TechCrunch.

Read full story via Newser

Apple’s Schiller Defends iPhone App Approval Process

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:19:55 +0000

Apple (AAPL) is under fire from some developers for the way it vets applications that can be sold on its online App Store. Facebook developer Joe Hewitt goes so far as to say he’s “philosophically opposed” to the very notion of a company deciding which applications can and can’t be used on its hardware.

Trrad full story viaÂ BusinessWeek.

Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact against Google

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:38:15 +0000

Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company being paid to â€œde-indexâ€ its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.

The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.

Read full story via FT.com

Google Acquires AdMob to Bolster Mobile-Display Ad Business

admin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:00:11 +0000

In a bid to bolster its toehold in mobile-display advertising, Google is acquiring mobile-advertising network AdMob for $750 million in stock, sparking what could be the beginning of a major consolidation in the mobile-display advertising sector. Google’s strategy to buy rather than build was an admission that it needed outside expertise in display advertising, as it seeks to shore up its brand-building capabilities, creating a parallel mobile marketplace to its recently relaunched DoubleClick display-ad exchange.

Read full article via Advertising Age – Digital.

Rumored Deals Could Give New Meaning to ‘Apple TV’

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:54:28 +0000

Is Apple about to disrupt the television industry even further? Rumors are circulating that the company is looking into the possibility of offering a TV subscription service through iTunes for $30 per month. It might offer content producers an alternative to becoming ‘Napsterized,’ suggested analyst Michael Goodman.

Read full story via E-Commerce News

Googleâ€™s Music Search Will Be Wrapped Up With MySpace

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:42:32 +0000

At the famed Capitol Records building in Hollywood, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) officially unveiled its OneBox music search service. First news tidbit to emerge is that MySpace will be the brand powering the streaming music, videos and track purchasesâ€”not new acquisition iLike, as was initially reported.

Read full article via paidContent.

Adobe Acquires Omniture, Inc

admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:40:54 +0000

Adobe announced itâ€™s acquisition of the online marketing company Omniture.

Adobe Systems Incorporated is pleased to announce its recent acquisition of Omniture, Inc. Weâ€™re excited about the opportunities this combination creates. By combining Adobeâ€™s content creation tools and ubiquitous clients with Omnitureâ€™s Web analytics, measurement and optimization technologies, the company will be well positioned to deliver solutions that can transform the future of engaging experiences and e-commerce across all digital content, platforms and devices. To learn more about the acquisition, please visit: http://www.omniture.com/en/company/adobe_faq.

Read via Adobe Acquires Omniture, Inc. : NOVA Business News.

McCain Locks Horns With FCC on Net Neutrality

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:16 +0000

Sen. John McCain has increased the volume in the Net neutrality debate on the heels of the FCC’s notice that it would begin crafting rules. McCain opposes any regulations that would impede the freedom of Internet service providers to decide how to manage traffic on their networks.

via E-Commerce News

Bing and Google Fight Search Battle in Real-Time

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:12:57 +0000

Within hours of each other, both Bing and Google announced new deals to tie their search engines in with two of the biggest names in social networking — Facebook and Twitter. Status updates and tweets will become searchable content on both engines. The goal is to give searches more up-to-the-minute relevance, and that means looking at what people are doing and thinking right now.

Read full story via E-Commerce News

Google Music Service No Myth: The Screenshots

admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:55:18 +0000

None of the companies involved will confirm the new Google Music service â€“ we have â€œno commentsâ€ or absolute silence from Google, LaLa, MySpace and iLike. But the new service is all but confirmed.

Read full story via techcrunch.com

Yahooâ€™s paid inclusion program Search Submit Pro is DEAD

Resident — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:58:58 +0000

While Yahoo occupies a distant second in the realm of search engines it certainly cannot be ignored. It has always had it quirks and different ways of doing things, the most obtuse of which was the paid inclusion “feature.” For a small fee you could guarantee inclusion in their database. It seems this “feature” has been deleted from the next version of Yahoo. Yahooâ€™s paid inclusion program Search Submit Pro (aka Yahoo SSP) is being discontinued effective December 31, 2009. The collaboration with Bing is forcing Yahoo to examine it’s approach and this seems to be the first substantive change in their strategy.

I am glad to see it go. It’s hard enough to explain to clients the difference between organic search management and paid search. The mixing of the two by Yahoo has always been of limited value and caused more confusion than benefit.

Is Quicken at the end of the road?

admin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:10:56 +0000

Conventional wisdom is that Intuit’s acquisition of the personal finance Web service Mint will mean the end of the line for the company’s standalone software app, Quicken. Upstart Mint, which is being acquired by Intuit for $170 million, has a personal finance product more in line with the times, with a younger demographic, a working business model, and a passionate CEO, Aaron Patzer, who’s slated to take over the Quicken product line at Intuit once the acquisition closes.

Read full story viaÂ CNET News.

Data-Driven Marketers Set To Dominate

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:02:52 +0000

A firm’s finance, accounting, operations and sales departments all rely on hard numbers to optimize performance. Why should marketing be any different? Gone are the days when marketers could rely on gut feelings alone to make decisions. Top firms are making heavy use of data for customer engagement through segmentation, customer profiling, and multi-channel initiatives.

Read full story via E-Commerce News

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Google to launch Google Editions book platform

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:33:09 +0000

An executive with Google says the company will launch a new platform next year that lets readers buy books that can be accessed from anywhere, be it a personal computer, cell phone or other platform.

Tom Turvey, the head of Google Books partnership program in North America, Southern America and Asia, said Thursday that the search giant, which launched Google Books in 2004, is â€œmoving to a platform allowing users to buy a book.â€œ

Read full story via Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Twitter Sputters Over Spammers and Spitters

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:11:23 +0000

Twitter has introduced a “report as spam” button so users can identify junk tweets to admins. The activity Twitter wants to stamp out, though, isn’t exactly the same as the junk you want to keep out of your email in-box. The Twitter equivalent is the “spitter” — users with botnets that create fake Twitter profiles, auto-follow users in order to get them to follow back, and spew out things like porn-related links.

Read full articel via E-Commerce News

FCC Digs Deeper Into Google Voice Dilemma

admin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:11:30 +0000

The FCC is seeking more information from Google about its Voice application. AT&T had previously complained to the commission about Voice’s refusal to carry calls to certain numbers in locations where local carriers engage in so-called traffic pumping practices that drive up costs. Google counters that in the past, AT&T has asked the FCC for permission to block calls to these numbers for the same reason.

Read full story via E-Commerce News

Ask.com Clips Out New Niche With Coupon Engine

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:25:56 +0000

Ask.com is a distant fourth among Internet search engines, but it may be able to differentiate itself and draw more users with new functionality that corrals coupons and deals offered online. “Google and Yahoo don’t have anything similar to this,” said Nick Stamoulis, president and CEO of Brick Marketing.

Read full story via E-Commerce News

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FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:59:32 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it has approved final revisions to the guidance it gives to advertisers on how to keep their endorsement and testimonial ads in line with the FTC Act.

The notice incorporates several changes to the FTCâ€™s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which address endorsements by consumers, experts, organizations, and celebrities, as well as the disclosure of important connections between advertisers and endorsers. The Guides were last updated in 1980.

Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides â€“ which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as â€œresults not typicalâ€ â€“ the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.

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The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that â€œmaterial connectionsâ€ (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers â€“ connections that consumers would not expect â€“ must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other â€œword-of-mouthâ€ marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement â€“ like any other advertisement â€“ is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.

Celebrity endorsers also are addressed in the revised Guides. While the 1980 Guides did not explicitly state that endorsers as well as advertisers could be liable under the FTC Act for statements they make in an endorsement, the revised Guides reflect Commission case law and clearly state that both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement â€“ or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers. The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media.

The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.

The Commission vote approving issuance of the Federal Register notice detailing the changes was 4-0. The notice will be published in the Federal Register shortly, and is available now on the FTCâ€™s Web site as a link to this press release. Copies also are available from the FTCâ€™s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580.

The Federal Trade Commission works for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish, visit the FTCâ€™s online Complaint Assistant or call 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357). The FTC enters complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to more than 1,700 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad. The FTCâ€™s Web site provides free information on a variety of consumer topics.

via FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials.

iPhone Apps Mostly Marketing Tools

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:57:49 +0000

When Stanley Works, the hand tool maker, offered an iPhone App that turned the phone into a level, its goal was to create young loyalists to the Stanley brand. The company does not know if the iPhone app drove a single sale or fostered any brand loyalty but based on the 400,000 downloads, Stanley declared the iPhone level a resounding success and is now looking for other tool apps.

Read full story via NYTimes.com.

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Comcast’s Bid for the Future of TV

admin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:31:38 +0000

If Comcast succeeds in buying up 51 percent of NBC Universal, the cable company will have actual content producers in its pocket, not just the pipes that deliver the content. That could give it greater power in shaping the future of entertainment delivery, where cable’s power is weakening. Some think it’s a brilliant move, but many investors say they don’t see how the puzzle pieces will fit.

Read full story via E-Commerce News