The Week in Review

Mobile Apps: More Buzz than Bite?

Mobile apps are all the rage these days, but a recent study from Pew Internet shows that while 82 percent of all U.S. adults have cell phone, and though 35 percent of this group has apps, just 24 percent of this app-owning group actually uses them. The study also found that 57 percent of app users were male as 43 percent were female. (CNET)

Bing is No. 2

Being No. 2 isn’t usually something to boast about, but for Microsoft and its search engine Bing, it’s quite the accomplishment. According to Nielsen, for the first time ever, MSN/Windows Live/Bing Search leapfrogged Yahoo to be the No. 2 search engine in the U.S. in August, as it claimed 13.9 percent of all searches. This was a 2 percent month-over-month increase, and a 30 percent year-over-year increase. (Nielsen)

5 Holiday E-mail Marketing Predictions

Here are some bold predictions for this upcoming holiday season. Among them are that social and rich-media campaigns won’t get much traction after mid-November, discount codes will grow to be prominent in preheader messages and subject lines and designing mobile-friendly e-mails is more important than ever. (MediaPost)

Google Instant AdWords Trouble

With so much focus being paid to SEO’s demise at the hands of Google Instant, the overlooked part of the picture is the commercial side of search – sponsored results and Google AdWords. Understanding how search behaviors will change will be key for taking advantage of new opportunities. Read about the prominence of plural words, SEO vs. AdWords, censorship, the long tail and CTR, among other Google Instant-related topics. (Search Engine Journal)

ChaCha Unveils MMS Rich-Media Ads

The answers service is rolling out MMS ads to its users. These will include movie trailers, coupons and other rich-media content. As mobile advertising continues to step further into the spotlight, this could be an early peek at how powerful the medium can be. These ads will be inserted in response to specific questions or keywords, according to the company. (WebProNews)

5 Signs Your Business Might Not Be Ready for Social Media

Just because social media is popular doesn’t mean you should blindly walk into it. If you think Facebook and Twitter are social media, don’t know where your customers are online, are new to online marketing, are unwilling or unable to put a value on your time, or see social media as a panacea, not a channel, you probably aren’t ready to take on the the challenge. (Econsultancy)

Video and E-mail Marketing

About 70 percent of marketers said they were using some type of online video in their digital marketing campaigns, according to a report from the Web Video Marketing Council. Meanwhile, about half of marketers said they’re using video in conjunction with e-mail. However, there are significant challenges to integrating video into e-mail campaigns, including ease of implementation, cost, availability of video assets and receptivity of consumers. According to 40 percent of marketers, a link to a video landing page is the most effective way to use video in e-mail marketing, followed by 33 percent who said the best way was to embed a video player in an e-mail message. (eMarketer)

Twitter.com Gets a Makeover

Twitter unveiled a brand-spankin’ new version of Twitter.com, which looks a bit like its iPad app. It’s a new two-pane experience, which includes a right pane that shows replies. The profile page is more focused on identity. Content deals for pictures and videos have been nailed down with the likes of YouTube and Flickr. It will be rolled out to users in the coming weeks. The bad news? Still no support for multiple accounts. (TechCrunch)

Search is Getting Social

Getting information from friends is akin to the old-fashioned “yakking across the fence,” and it’s this simple notion that’s permeating the realm of search, which has been ruled by empty boxes and search results pages – until now. From Amazon to Yelp to Facebook, there is a growing horde of services out there that aim to leverage your friends’ preferences to help inform your own. (NYTimes.com)

YouTube Going Streaming

YouTube is ramping up its launch of a full-blown live streaming video platform, which will allow its content partners like Justin.tv, Livestream and Ustream to stream their video content directly to users in real-time. It will go into alpha mode for a short while and won’t be completely available for a while, but now we know the rumors are true. (TechCrunch)

The Crystal Ball for Yearly Traffic

Many in-house SEO teams are having difficulty coming up with accurate traffic-based goals. Sure, you could use the Google Keyword Tool, but there are other ways to delve deeper into the matter. First, you must figure out how many impressions a keyword or set of keywords can bring in on average. You can do this by pulling from Google Tools and other keyword tools, and by running a PPC campaign. (SEOmoz)

All About Net Neutrality

If you’re one of the many people whose eyes glaze over with numb ignorance when they read the words “net neutrality,” you’re in luck: this post offers a handy and helpful rundown all about the topic, which is quite important if you couldn’t already tell. From a definition of the issue, to whether or not the Internet is “open,” to the outlook – it’s all here. (CNET)

Twitter’s t.co is Changing the Game

It’s easy to gloss over Twitter’s now-ubiquitous t.co link shortener, but there’s a lot going on there. “But it’s a massive power shift in the world of analytics because now Twitter can measure engagement wherever it happens, across any browser or app. And unlike other URL shorteners, Twitter can force everyone to use their service simply because they control the platform. Your URLs can be shortened (and their engagement tracked by Twitter) whether you like it or not.” Twitter is a “message bus for human attention.” (O’Reilly Radar)

The Middle Class is Struggling

This post starts off with a stunning visual of just how deep and wide the current employment recession is compared to past ones. As a result, middle-class consumers are struggling. While the classes below and above it are continuing to spend more money online, the middle class actually spent 2 percent less in the second quarter, according to comScore, and e-commerce for households with children has dipped 9 percent. (comScore)

13 Ways to Sabotage Your SEO Efforts

Website development is easy to screw up, but so is SEO. Among the 13 ways you can ruin your SEO endeavors are bringing in an SEO specialist after the fact, picking the wrong domain name, having no sense of ranking analysis, decorating the website with graphic headers, and making terrible calls to action. (WebProNews)

CRO for $224

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools have surged in recent times. Three tools in particular can help you: 1) Five Second Test, 2) Crazy Egg and 3) UserTesting.com. All three will cost you a total of $224, but the insights you’ll get will easily yield 10x or 100x back in improved online sales. (SEOmoz)

Google Instant Makes the Long Tail More Important

Though there’s word that Google Instant could kill the long tail, this writer says that Google knows better than that. The average searcher will find the experience to be quite fun, and Google Instant frees them from committing to any query. This means two things for SEOs: 1) page titles are going to need to be even more compelling, and 2) you really need to take a close look at what long-tail keywords Google Instant suggests. (Marketing Pilgrim)

YouTube Instant Leads to Job Offer

For the “story that will make you incredibly jealous” of the week, read about a Stanford student who created YouTube Instant, a spin-off of Google Instant. Chad Hurley liked what he saw and apparently offered the kid a job at YouTube via Twitter. (Venture Beat)

Startups = Jobs?

Here’s a look at the notion that startups create jobs. In addition to the finding that size plays “virtually no role” in the ability for companies to produce jobs, startups are where job creation really happens, along with job destruction. (NYTimes.com)

Thoughts on Google Instant

Econsultancy shares some insights it got from search experts on Google Instant. Among the thoughts are that some will pay a lot more for PPC, it might be a good time to try Bing instead and the importance for search marketers to understand how CTR will be affected. Among the difficulties Google Instant presents is the conundrum it will be for companies like comScore. (Econsultancy, Wired.com)

Google Instant: Windfall for Mobile, TV?

Google Instant could be a big boon for the mobile search game, where it will save users from the arduous task of typing on a tiny keyboard. However, a potential weakness here will be signal strength, which will affect just how “real-time” the results will be. Google Instant could also be a game-changer for TV – namely Google TV. Typing on a remote control is a terrible task, but Google Instant would make it much less arduous. (CNET, Wired.com)

5 Ways to Get Facebook Fans

This “Complete Facebook Marketing System” offers five techniques for getting more Facebook fans and, consequently, more revenue. They are: 1) turning buyers into fans at the time of purchase; 2) incentivizing “like” or “reveal tabs”; 3) Facebook ads (social PPC); 4) incentivized word-of-mouth contests; and 5) e-mail transformation. (Search Engine Journal)

Location-Based Services is Still Small

A report from Myxer finds that just 11 percent of mobile users are participating in location-based social networking communities. They’re simply “not interested.” Of this group, MyTown was the most popular LBS with 56 percent of users, followed by Loopt with 12 percent, Gowalla with 8 percent, Foursquare with 8 percent and Yelp with 6 percent. Another interesting finding: 77 percent of mobile users who do use these social networks check in the most at home, which reflects a disregard for privacy. (ReadWriteWeb)

SEO for Beginners

Everyone tosses “SEO” around like it’s something you’re born knowing, but if you’re new to the game those three letters are probably a bit intimidating. Don’t worry, it’s not rocket science. Here’s a post that offers an overview of the basics, including goals, keywords and tags. (KISSmetrics)

Why You Need an M-Commerce Strategy Now

There’s tons of money in mobile commerce, mobile shopping is on the up-and-up and the holidays are just around the corner. What better time to dive into m-commerce than now? (Mashable)

Google Instant Search Rocks the Boat

Google Instant Search is being rolled out to the search engine’s users, and while it’s a neat, useful feature for searchers, it could potentially be a downer for advertisers. The company admitted on its Inside AdWords blog that “It’s possible that this feature may increase or decrease your overall impression levels. However, Google Instant may ultimately improve the quality of your clicks since it helps users type queries that more directly connect them with the answers they need.” Google is also changing its definition of an impression. The long tail could be in for a rude awakening. (Inside AdWords, Search Engine Land, ClickZ)

Tips on Using Google Instant Search

Want to know how to use the suggested completions, or if you can access Google Instant through your Chrome omnibar (you can’t yet), or if you want to turn it off? Here are your answers. (NYTimes.com)

Groupon Continues to See More Competition

The Groupon model’s success could be backfiring, as more and more imitators are crowding the market. Campus Dibs is one such clone, though it focuses on college campuses, a la early Facebook. Meanwhile, WhitePages’ DealPop is expanding from Seattle to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Its city-by-city expansion isn’t finished, and the sheer size of WhitePages’ audience could determine its success. (TechCrunch 1, 2)

Yahoo Search Suggestions Are Localized

Though its quality lags behind Google’s, Yahoo is now suggesting localized queries to its users. Using the “search suggest” feature can be a valuable tool for keyword research. (Search Engine Journal)

Bing Reaches into Education

While it’s not quite a hop into yet another search vertical, Bing is set to power a website dedicated as a one-stop resource for people interested in learning more about the condition of the country’s education system. (CNET)

Consumers Subscribe, Fan and Follow for Different Reasons

According to a study from ExactTarget, subscribers to e-mail marketing messages want to receive discounts and promotions, freebies and updates on upcoming sales. Facebook fans want to similar things, along with information to stay informed about the activities of the company. Twitter followers are looking for a wide variety of things, including updates on future products. (WebProNews)