Marketing Pilgrim

It’s official: the first roundup of marketing news of the 2009—and it’s heavy on the Google.

• Have ideas for new Google Mobile products? Now you can suggest and vote for new Google mobile product features at Product Ideas for Google Mobile.
• Google shuttered its Second-Life–wannabe Lively six weeks ago. But apparently the short-lived service had such devoted fans that they went out and built their own replacement, the cleverly-named NewLively.
• And if you’ve despaired over using Google’s picture tool on your Mac, good news. Today Google announces Picasa for Mac.

Just a few weeks ago we reported that Facebook was growing by 600,000 users a day. If that wasn’t enough, CNET reports that Facebook set record traffic numbers on Christmas Eve.

During the month of November, Facebook was averaging 1.42% of all U.S. Internet traffic. On December 24, they hit a Facebook-best 2.18% market share that day. That’s a 54 percent increase over November average and a 53 percent increase year over year. Needless to say, things are going well for them.

According to CNET, that pattern was mirrored in the U.K., where visits to the social networking site had a market share of 4.65 percent, accounting for one in every 22 Internet visits.

As for what is causing this strong traffic increase, Heather Hopkins of Hitwise theorizes it was a combination of boredom and bad weather. Facebook’s primary markets (New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia) were all slammed with bad weather.

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It wasn’t long ago that we reported on Power.com’s expansion into the North American market. The social networking aggregator that allows users the ability to navigate and participate in multiple social networks at once, now finds itself in hot water with social networking giant Facebook.

Court documents filed December 30th reveal that Facebook is suing Power.com for a host of reasons including copyright infringement, violations of terms of service, and the scraping of what they consider “proprietary data,” which I assume is user information. It appears the mere inclusion of Facebook into the Power.com site is not at issue, but rather the fact that Power.com did not use Facebook’s public API. As of now Power.com has removed every mention of Facebook from its site.

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In a recent interview with TechRadar. Google’s Vice President of Search Products & User Experience, Marissa Mayer hints at the future of search. Mayer continues what seems to be a repetitive message in the search industry, “We think it’s really important to move beyond just keywords and allow people to ask questions…” This statement comes after we have seen other Googlers say very similar things.

“Beyond just keywords” means increased deployment of universal search, personalization, and social integration.

Universal Search

In a blog post Mayer wrote back in September, she highlights the significant growth of universal search; “We’ve barely scratched the surface with universal search.” Now, she elaborates more with, “We’re also looking at how to weave new media into it and how we can bring books, videos and news right into the search experience.”

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Without an official statement from your company, your stakeholders will often fill the void with rumor and speculation.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve recited the above statement at conferences, on client calls, and in blog posts. For many businesses, it’s the one truth that finally gets them to embrace a radically transparent culture. The latest to realize this truth is Apple.

For many months speculation and rumor have circulated about the state of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ health. That speculation hit a crescendo when it was announced he would not keynote the upcoming Macworld conference. The chart opposite demonstrates just how much that has effected Apple’s stock price.

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China has launched a major crackdown on pornography today, and is asking Google and Baidu to do their part. Pornography is banned in China, but government officials are still struggling to block pornographic websites that are based abroad.

Despite pornography being blocked, both Google and Baidu are still returning search results that include pornographic links. China is now calling them out on their failed attempt to do their part in the crackdown against pornography.

In an attempt to get Google, Baidu and other websites to comply, the Chinese government released a statement on their website saying that “violators will be severely punished.” What exactly that punishment is remains unclear.

According to Cui Jin, a Google spokeswoman in China, Google is already in full compliance with Chinese law, and is not serving an pornographic links.

“If we find any violation, we will take action. So far, I haven’t seen any examples of violations,” Cui said.

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The big question isn’t, is Microsoft planning to cut 15,000 employees from its workforce? Nope, the big question is, why is everyone so shocked?

Yahoo just gave pink-slips as Christmas presents and even Google had to scale back on its staff, so why is there so much shock at the prospect of Microsoft following suit?

All you have to do is consider the facts:

1. Windows Vista was a bust, and MSFT is moving quickly to get Windows 7 to the market.
2. Windows Live Search still can’t catch Google–and failed attempts to buy Yahoo cost the company time and money.
3. Who really needs Microsoft Office, when we can either download free alternatives or, in my opinion even better, move to the cloud?
4. XBox 360, while doing better than the Playstation 3, was "pwnd" by Nintendo’s Wii gaming system.

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If you’re reading this post using Internet Explorer 6, Google wants you to know that you’re a loser.

OK, maybe I’m paraphrasing a little (lot), but according to Ars Technica, Google is trying to convince Gmail users to switch from IE6 to a faster browser.

With a simple "Get faster Gmail" message (which only appears in IE, and not in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome), Google is luring users of its e-mail service to a support page which explains that IE is slow at running Gmail.

When you get to the support page, you’re encouraged to download either Firefox or Google’s own Chrome. There’s a brief mention of IE8’s beta release, but we suspect that was only added after this news first broke. Google’s not shy in trying to get you to switch browsers either:

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Happy New Year!

I hope that 2009 started well for you and I hope it only gets better from here on out. While you’re making your list of new year resolutions, why not include Marketing Pilgrim?

Don’t Miss Out in 2009!

In 2009 we plan to continue bringing you the very best internet marketing news, analysis, and opinion. In addition, we’ll pass on exclusive discounts and give away some fabulous prizes–2008’s prizes included iPods and Netbook computers.

So, why not take this time to ensure that you’re signed-up to receive alerts from Marketing Pilgrim? There are two easy ways to ensure you never miss a post.

1. “As it happens” RSS Feed - subscribe to our RSS feed and receive an almost instant update of each new post.
2. A daily email newsletter - if you prefer your news in your inbox then our email updates will deliver all of our posts in one daily roundup email.

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At this time of year big news stories are hard to come by, so we’ll just have to go with a pretty juicy rumor.

According to Valleywag, Google’s face of innovation, Marissa Mayer, could leave the company this year:

Top Googlers, overheard at a holiday party, chattered about Mayer’s departure as a matter of if, not when. And in some ways, it’s surprising she’s stayed as long as she has.

No real court would ever allow the above as evidence, but in the court of public opinion, a rumor like this may as well be a smoking gun!

Now, here’s a question for you–all in fun, with no claims on my part–who will leave Google first? Marissa Mayer or Matt Cutts?

Matt Cutts is another prime candidate for a Google exit. Also an early employee–which means he’s likely done well with his stock–Matt has been slowly cutting back his conference “face time” and is certainly smart enough and liked enough to do his own “thang.”

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While not a shock considering the way this past quarter has been going for the economy in general, the Wall Street Journal reported online sales declines for ecommerce for the first time ever during this past holiday shopping sales.

The numbers aren’t dramatic but some would say that just the fact that they were negative is enough. Online spending from November 1 through Christmas Eve was down 2% compared to 5.5% to 8.5% for retail as a whole. This is the first time that online sales for the holiday season have not grown. Normally we are talking about how ridiculous complaints are of growth numbers that are the envy of all (what only 15% growth, why not 35%?) but now the industry must examine how the current economy is finally impacting online business.

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By Trisha Lyn Fawver

Will they or won’t they sell social news site Digg?  It’s been on the rumor mill for years, whether it’ll sell to Yahoo or Google, no one can tell.  But I can tell you one thing - you can’t sell a sinking ship, and with Digg’s Miserable Business as reported at Silicon Alley Insider - they might need to launch a life boat or two.

I’d hope a site with the advantage of having over 20 million unique visitors each month would be apt enough to monetize the site wisely, but it seems with their recent losses in the millions of dollars, they’re certainly not making themselves attractive for any acquisition offers.  Here are the numbers BusinessWeek got a hold of:

• Last year the company lost $2.8 million on $4.8 million of revenue
• In the first three quarters of 2008, Digg lost $4 million on $6.4 million of revenue.

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