Social Media and Online Marketing News

During the keynote at Google I/O last week, in which Google introduced both Google TV and the latest version of Android (Froyo), VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra talked about advertising with regards to mobile (and this was before the AdMob acquisition got the green light from the FTC). "It turns out we know a little bit about advertising," he said (and I’m paraphrasing, based on my live notes from the event). "This year is Google’s tenth anniversary of providing ad solutions. We’ve learned a few things. If you want a healthy ecosystem, you need advertisers and we have hundreds of thousands of them. We’re not new at this game."

"We have some tools like DoubleClick, Analytics, AdSense, AdWords, – the tools the industry knows and loves are being extended to the mobile environment," he added. He may have said these things with mobile in mind, but it doesn’t change much when you think about TV. If anything, you can ad Google TV Ads to the conversation.

In fact, throughout that day at the Google I/O event, there were multiple parallels drawn between Google TV and Android apart from the fact that they actually integrate with one another. For example, during a press conference I attended, Jason Kincaid asked if the web was ready for big screens, and Google Senior Product Manager Rishi Chandra said that we’d probably see a similar situation play out as we did with mobile in that sites will start optimizing for that experience.

Gundotra said that just like they’ve built ad formats for Android, they’ll probably do the same for Google TV too.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who was also in that press conference, noted that ads will be on websites, sold through websites, and they’ll be sold through Dish Network (one of the Google TV launch partners). One can only assume that future partnerships may also play a role in how advertisers are able to reach Google TV users.

The bottom line is that there will be no one way to reach users. Then of course, there are the ad opportunities within and around the content itself, which would obviously be on a by-provider basis.

During the conference, Google TV Technical Director Vincent Dureau said Google’s building a platform – yes it’s going to create opportunities for Google, he said,  but it’s going to create them for everyone else too.

Chandra said, "We want to get the product experience right first."

That experience will not even be available until the fall, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. In the future, Google will likely roll out new ad formats and solutions as time progresses past the product’s general availability. Like with everything else Google does, we can no doubt expect gradual improvements and tweaks over time.

If there’s one thing for certain, it’s if Google TV really does take off and become a household name, advertising with Google will be more attractive than ever. It would be interesting to see the kind of cross-format web/TV campaigns that would come out of it.

Online travel website TripAdvisor has launched a new TripAdvisor iPhone application, available on Apple’s App Store.

The free applications allow users to search for popular hotels, restaurants, attractions and cheap airfares. The application is available in 13 languages, giving users a localized experience on TripAdvisor.

"Our iPhone app gives people in 20 countries and 13 languages a new way to access the more than 35 million traveler reviews and opinions available on TripAdvisor," said Steve Kaufer, founder and CEO of TripAdvisor.

"Now, travelers can find a great hotel, restaurant or attraction and book a cheap flight whether they’re at home or on the go."

The new TripAdvisor iPhone application replaces Local Picks in the App Store. The app uses the iPhone’s GPS technology to allow users to search for nearby hotels, restaurants and attractions. Users can search by rating, distance and price. Users can also send in reviews while they are traveling.

Additionally, travelers can use TripAdvisor Flights, the sites flight search engine, to find cheap airfares using their iPhone.
 

Google has launched new stable versions of its Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

"Since last December, we’ve been chipping away at bugs and building in new features to get the Mac and Linux versions caught up with the Windows version, and now we can finally announce that the Mac and Linux versions are ready for prime time," says Chrome product manager Brian Rakowski.

Google says the new releases are the fastest yet. For reference, check out Google’s recent speed tests for Chrome:

"We’ve improved by 213 percent and 305 percent in Javascript performance by the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks since our very first beta, back in Chrome’s Cretaceous period (September 2008)," says Rakowski.

New Chrome features (other than speed improvement) include the ability to sync browser preferences (bookmarks, themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages, and page zoom settings) across multiple computers, new HTML5 capabilities (Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop), and a new bookmark manager.

"For a taste of HTML5’s powerful features, try browsing through websites developed in HTML5 such as scribd.com, dragging and dropping attachments in Gmail, or by enabling the geolocation functionality in Google Maps," says Rakowski.

Google has also fixed numerous minor issues, such as non-exploitable crashes, hangs, and other annoyances, according to Anthony Laforge of the Chrome team.

The new stable release does not include Adobe Flash Player integration, but Google has been beta testing this and plans to enable it soon.

Later this year, Google will open the Chrome Web Store, which will feature a gallery of web apps that will actually work not only with Chrome, but other web browsers. However, Chrome users will be able to create convenient shortcuts for easily accessing the apps they download.

Dating website Match.com, owned by Internet company IAC/InterActiveCorp, has reached a deal to become the exclusive online dating site on Yahoo.

Match.com will replace Yahoo Personals, allowing existing users to switch over to the new service "Match.com on Yahoo." The two companies say they are working together to help users make a smooth transition to Match.com on Yahoo.

"The key to a successful online dating experience is having both a thriving community of active members and a sophisticated site experience optimized for dating success," says Greg Blatt, CEO of Match.com. 

"By bringing Yahoo! Personals members to Match.com, our community, which we already believe to be the largest and most vibrant in the space, has become even more compelling for our members.  When you add this to our unparalleled site experience, evolving every month with new features and enhancements, we feel the distance between the online dating experience we offer and that of others in the space is growing even larger."

Over the next two months, existing Yahoo Personals members will be given the chance to move their Yahoo Personals accounts over to Match.com on Yahoo.

Financial terms of the deal were not released.
 

A few travel experts are themselves completing a trip this morning.  Google’s managed to get the folks behind Ruba – a travel site – to join its organization, and they’re all going to the Googleplex.

Ruba is 15 months old, and prior to this arrangement, was backed by Benchmark Capital (which has also invested in eBay, Twitter, and Yelp) and Draper Fisher Jurvetson (of Baidu, Hotmail, Skype, and Tesla Motors fame).  That speaks to some pretty interesting things taking place.

A post on the official Ruba Travel Blog hinted at a travel experience with heavy social underpinnings.  It explained, "[W]e’ve worked to create a unique and fun visual travel site and community focused on guides, photos, maps, and interactive tour listings to improve the online travel research experience."

And "we," by the way," refers to at least Mike Cassidy and Arnaud Weber, Ruba’s cofounders.  Cassidy’s previously sold business to Ask, Viacom/MTV, and a company called Artisoft.  Weber actually last worked as a technical lead on Google Chrome.

Unfortunately, one unknown detail is how much money changed hands.  Still, the last travel-related purchase Google was rumored to be considering might have cost it $1 billion, and it’s a sure thing this arrangement involved a lot less cash, anyway.

Although the stock market has still been moving up and (mostly) down in a disturbing manner this week, comScore’s provided evidence that the ecommerce market is healthy again.  According to comScore, ecommerce spending for the first quarter of this year was up ten percent on a year-over-year basis.

As the table to the right shows, online retail spending approached an impressive $34 billion for the quarter, and comScore’s report emphasized that this is the first time since the second quarter of 2008 that double-digit growth has occurred.

comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni also said that "this momentum is encouraging."

Pessimists would be right to point out that ten percent isn’t the same as 23 percent, 19 percent, or even 11 percent, of course, and Fulgoni outlined some potential problems, adding, "[W]e should note that upper-income households are currently shouldering much of the growth.  Should the economy falter in the second half of the year and upper-income consumers return to a savings mode, we could still see growth decelerate."

Still, it’s hard not to interpret a gain as good news, and with any luck, we’ll see proof of continued ecommerce growth when the stats regarding the second quarter are released.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, MySpace was the top social network in the land. Eventually, Facebook took over that role, and has not looked back since. Earlier this year, the company announced that it had over 400 million users, then at its developer conference, Facebook made what could be considered its biggest announcement ever – the Open Graph. Since then, despite a growing amount of interest and discussion around whether or not people should delete their Facebook profiles, Facebook is reportedly just growing and growing.

Facebook is expected to close in on 500 million users next month, and as this Open Graph continues to grow (which it will – a lot), we may see that number rise faster than ever. Unless – all of this negative publicity the company is presently experiencing actually does catch up with it and people do turn elsewhere.

MySpace is no doubt hoping to gain back some momentum from Facebook’s woes, Twitter is certainly a popular option, and growing itself. Google Buzz is still the new kid on the block, but none of these have captured user attention quite like Facebook, and none of them have found such a brilliant way to infiltrate more and more of users’ time spent online as Facebook has.

  Facebook has survived user backlash in the past, and it most likely will again, but privacy stuff really freaks people out, and whether or not blaming Facebook for any privacy issues is justified (it can and has been argued that you are really the one responsible for your online privacy), there are parties rushing to offer alternatives, and you can bet that there will be plenty more.

Facebook has already changed the Internet, and many expect it to turn online advertising on its ear as well. While Facebook users go around liking everything all over the web from a growing number of sites that implement its plugins, they are giving Facebook more and more power for the potential targeting of advertising that is truly targeted at them through things that they really do like.

The Like button is a game changer because all of a sudden you have the whole world wide web of content to "like" not just what’s within your immediate network within Facebook and what you may have taken the time to add to your profile two years ago. It keeps user interests current and enables an infinite amount of interest indication that advertisers would salivate for.

Facebook could challenge Google’s AdSense if they were to release a product for publishers to implement Facebook ads into their sites. And these would be the kinds of ads that users wouldn’t be as quick to ignore. In fact, they might even be welcomed with open arms. An ad that is truly relevant is useful to the consumer. And this gives users more reason to keep "liking".

It won’t work without the users though. If Facebook loses a lot of users, it won’t be quite as attractive to advertisers, but there is nothing indicating that this will happen, despite all of the commentary out there. Facebook is growing. People have already invested a lot of their time and web presence into Facebook, and it this point Facebook is just making it harder and harder to leave as it gets tied into more elements of users’ complete online experience. A lot of the people who have talked about deleting their FB profiles have even found it too hard to actually go through with it.

You might have Diaspora and others come along and try to open things up, but at this point, can Facebook really be replaced? 500 million users. To put that in perspective, the U.S. Census Bureau has 309,293,729 for the total U.S. population. They’ve got the world at 6,821,567,786. Facebook is hardly slowing so far.

Can Facebook really be replaced as THE social network? Tell us what you think.

Since Facebook announced its plans to take over the web, there has been a lot of talk about privacy concerns, and about deletion of Facebook profiles. There is also concern about the lack of openness in Facebook’s Open Graph initiative. Others are just bored with the social network. Whatever the reasons, an increasing number of people seem to be interested in deleting their Facebook profiles.

Have you considered deleting your Facebook profile? Let us know.

Matt Cutts and other Googlers de-activated their accounts soon after the Open Graph initiative was announced. Remember, you don’t have to delete the account to de-activate it. Facebook makes it very easy to stay. In fact, if you go to delete your account, they will try to guilt you into staying by telling you which of your friends will miss you.

There are apparently (as Danny Sullivan points out) so many people searching for how to delete their accounts, Google is even offering the suggestion "How do I delete my Facebook account?" as a suggestion for a query begining ‘how do I":

It would be interesting to know how many people that are figuring out how to delete their profiles are actually going through with it. Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb, for example, just stood on the "edge of the cliff" before backtracking (though I don’t think he intended to go through with it).

Google Insights for Search data shows a pretty big upswing in Facebook account deletion interest over the last year or two (hat tip: Huffington Post):

Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur posted the following video talking about why it’s probalby not the greatest idea to delete your Facebook account:

Loic makes a pretty good point about Facebook’s usefulness as a source of public data, and about how you should basically consider everything you do online to be public, if privacy is your concern. As he notes, even emails can be forwarded.

Still if you choose to stick with Facebook, knowing your privacy settings is a good idea. The New York Times has an interesting diagram of what it calls a "bewildering tangle of options" for managing privacy on Facebook. "To manage your privacy on Facebook, you will need to navigate through 50 settings with more than 170 options," the publication says.

It will be very interesting to see if a significant amount of people drop Facebook, but at this point, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. One guy recently started an initiative to get people to join him in leaving Facebook. It’s not working out so well so far. Josh Levy pledged, "I will delete my Facebook account but only if 10,000 other Facebook users will do the same." The deadline is May 31st. So far he has 76 people.

This isn’t like when people started abandoning their MySpace accounts for Facebook. There’s no service here drawing people away. People have a lot invested in their Facebook accounts at this point, and as Facebook becomes integrated more and more into the fabric of the web and popular culture as a whole, many will find it hard to walk away even if they have considered it. Then of course there are the many, many people who simply love Facebook.

Do you think it’s a wise decision to abandon Facebook as it becomes a greater part of the web? Share your thoughts.

Facebook has surpassed Yahoo to become the leading publisher of display ads in the U.S. according to a new report from comScore.

In the first quarter Facebook delivered 176 billion display ad impressions, representing 16.2 percent market share. Yahoo sites ranked second with 132 billion impressions (12.1%), followed by Microsoft sites with 60 billion impressions (5.5%) and Fox Interactive Media with 53 billion impressions (4.9%).

Overall, U.S. Internet users received a record 1.1 trillion display ads during the first quarter, marking a 15 percent increase over the same time period a year ago. Total U.S. display ad spending in Q1 reached an estimated $2.7 billion, with the average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) equal to $2.48.

"Following a severe ad recession that began in late 2008 and continued through the first three quarters of 2009, we’ve been seeing a strong resurgence in the online display ad market," said Jeff Hackett, comScore senior vice president.

"The first quarter of 2010 posted strong volume in online display ads, coinciding with increasing expenditure from advertisers and higher CPMs for publishers. This pickup in activity should bode well for the online advertising industry as we move forward in 2010."

AT&T led rival Verizon as the top online display advertiser in Q1 with 26.3 billion impressions, accounting for 2.4 percent of display ads. Verizon trailed with 21.9 billion (2%), followed by Scottrade with 16.4 billion (1.5%), Experian Interactive with 15.6 billion (1.4%) and Sprint Nextel with 10.1 billion (0.9%).