why internet marketing

First Consumer Reports took on the infamous Microsoft Kin “sexting” commercial, and now it’s going after a new series of ads for the device in which a girl named Rosa sets out to meet her entire social network.

After Consumer Reports covered the previous commercial — in which a boy takes a picture of his chest — Microsoft edited the spot. Why? CR thought it promoted sexting, and that it was “downright creepy.” The new ad that CR is taking offense to features an “online flirt” named Matty Goldberg, who flirts with Rosa via Facebook chat even though they have never met (apparently, Rosa doesn’t know how to hit the “unfriend” button).

Rosa goes to meet Matty, and ultimately decides that he’s an OK guy, even if he is extremely socially awkward, says semi-lascivious things and admits to using the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet to pick up girls. CR thinks that the whole thing is dangerous and, well, creepy. Basically, they think it sends the wrong message: That everyone on the web is nice, and it’s OK to go hang with strangers.

CR has yet to hear from Microsoft — we’ll keep you updated when they do — but we’ve embedded the clip below so that you can draw your own conclusions.

Is this ad “creepy”? Does it encourage kids to engage in risky behavior? Let us know what you think. This whole Kin thing is shaping up to be a quite a hotbed.

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For more web video coverage, follow Mashable Web Video on Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter or become a fan on Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook

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Geo-Marketing (or Geographic Marketing) is a new method of marketing a business and its website through web searches, mobile searches and social media.  As you can see, the geo-marketing tools being used are digital and through the Internet or Mobile devices.

While geo-marketing’s definition is the association of data and maps in the traditional sense, the added convergence of local business listings, mobile marketing, and social media makes this method of marketing more powerful than ever before.  This marketing tool is no longer just a large business marketing tool, but is available to small and medium size businesses too.

We should define what we mean by local business.  A local business is any sized business dependent on the local consumer for its revenue.  This means you could be a national company like Home Depot, U-Haul, or Best Buy or you could be a local florist or independent store only known to your local geography.

From a technical standpoint an Internet users IP address is tied to GPS data, like longitudes and latitudes, which are mapped with technology to geographies around the world down to the city and street level.  While all this data may seem overwhelming, the good news is that most businesses do not need to concern themselves with this part of geo-marketing. Many of the tools already have all of this information built into their software or hardware technology so we can stay focused on how we will use geo-marketing tools.

The difficulty with any new marketing tool is a business’s inability to adopt the methodology early.  When it comes to technologies and the Internet, in the past, by the time most businesses are ready to adopt a marketing tool, the industry has already moved on to something new.  Being an early or at least an earlier adopter of marketing methods on the Internet and through digital devices can only benefit the business.

We have seen many signs over the past two years regarding the evolution of geographic marketing.  When companies like Google, Apple, and the investment community of Wall Street start to put $100+ million and more behind a technology it will become part of our daily lives whether a business wants it or not.  Consumers have and will be using more of these geo-marketing tools to find a business, service or products near them.

Let’s take a look at the three main tools that consumers are using to find a business, products or services close their geography.

1. Web searches are the first and most obvious, however, these are web searches in which a map displays with targets of businesses that match the search criteria.  Unlike the traditional yellow pages, these geo-listings (a.k.a. Local Business Listings) can be claimed and updated with your business marketing information in order to meet these search criteria.
   While this may sound relatively easy, geo-listings also include consumer reviews that need to be managed, the clean-up of duplicate listings, coupons, offers, discounts, offers, video, photos, citations, QR bar codes and hyper local websites.  Understanding what to start with and how to strategically use these components can be done by a professional marketing firm that specializes in this area.  You can read more about these components in one of our previous articles on local business marketing.


2. Mobile Marketing is the next most significant geo-marketing tool in which SMS Texting, Mobile Applications, Mobile version of your website, and Mobile advertising are your key components.  The starting point in this process will be with SMS Texting to get your alerts out to customers that subscribe to your short bursts of information.  The reason why this is your starting point is that it will take time to build your list of subscribers.


3. Social Media Marketing continues to evolve and is, also, geographic in its targeting ability.  Consumers are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wiki sites, Four Square, Instant Messaging and other social community tools on their mobile devices.  While they use it mostly to find business, products and services, in the social communities they are seeking recommendations from their friends (near and far).  They are, also, using these social communities to post their experiences with a business, product or service.  For this reason you have to monitor the social communities in order to embrace any potential problem situations and work with them.

These three geo-marketing components are important to any business size – large or small – and each have their own sub-components that need to be well understood in order to succeed. Understanding the strategy amongst them; the acceptance and embracing them early; and, finally planning on a 3-year return will put you on the right path of geo-marketing.

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personal finances help

(CNN) – Two hard-hitting new ads are heating up the Pennsylvania battle for the late Rep. Jack Murtha's congressional seat.

Republican Tim Burns is facing off against Democrat Mark Critz in a the May 18 special election. The race has stepped up in intensity in recent weeks, with both campaigns as well as national party committees going up with television ads.

The Burns campaign came out Tuesday with a new television commercial that questions the ethics of Critz, a longtime aide to Murtha, a Democrat who represented the district for 18 terms until he passed away earlier this year.

"Mark Critz. A Washington bureaucrat bankrolled by Pelosi. Critz was investigated by the congressional ethics office and Critz was in charge of the finances for a company caught on paying their taxes," says the narrator in the ad.

"The Ethics Committee found that Mr. Murtha did nothing wrong. Tim Burns knows this," Critz told CNN, responding to Burns' ad. "I worked for Parkins, a local small business, because I wanted to try to help my brother-in-law's company turn around its operations so that it could bring jobs to our community. I left because I disagreed with decisions that were being made over the company's future. These misleading personal attacks are Tim Burns' attempt to distract from his own record on job loss and outsourcing."

Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up with a new ad that goes after Burns.

"Millionaire Tim Burns sold his company, sold it to a corporation that used a tax loophole which encourages sending American jobs overseas. Burns got rich even though he knew there may be layoffs in Pittsburgh," says the narrator.

"The new DCCC ad is more false, negative attacks from the Pelosi attack machine in Washington. Tim Burns started TechRx in the basement of his home and grew it to over 400 new jobs," said Burns spokesman Kent Gates. "TechRx was sold to NDCHealth with the goal of expanding operations and increasing employment. NDCHealth was never Tim Burns' company though he did remain for a brief period during the transition of the sale. NDCHealth followed existing laws to maximize revenues for job creation."

Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district, which stretches from Cambria County in west-central Pennsylvania down to the southwestern corner of the state, is considered socially conservative. In the 2004 presidential election, Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, won the district by 2 points. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, narrowly edged out then Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in the district in 2008, even though Obama carried the state by 10 percent.

Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg, two well respected non-partisan political handicappers, both rate the race as a toss-up. The winner of next month's special election will have to defend the seat in November.

Updated 5:46 p.m. : Late Tuesday afternoon Cook moved the race to lean Republican.

Follow Paul Steinhauser on Twitter: @psteinhausercnn

Hullabaloo

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

 

Happy Days Are Here Again

by digby

Well, not really. If you're unemployed anyway:

A disturbing new survey from Rutgers University explores the damage in stark terms. Titled “No End in Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment,” it finds that recent economic growth “has done little to reach millions of skilled workers still adrift in the most severe period of prolonged joblessness in decades.”

The details are grim. The survey finds that eight in 10 people who lost jobs in the recession have yet to find new employment. Most of those who have found work have taken pay cuts and/or lost benefits; six in 10 of them say it’s not the job they wanted, but one they took simply to make ends meet.

But it’s toughest for those still out. The share of job-seekers who’ve spent more than seven months looking for work has jumped from 48 percent last August to 70 percent today, Rutgers finds.

Consider the impacts:

- Ninety percent of the unemployed rate their financial situation negatively. Seventy percent are spending money they’d saved for retirement, more than half have borrowed from friends and nearly as many have run up credit card debt.

-Four in 10 have skipped medical care, as many have sold personal possessions to make ends meet, nearly a third are using food stamps and one in five reports using a food pantry. A fifth have had to move their home; as many are bunking with family or friends.

-In personal responses, 70 percent are under stress, 60 percent report depression, half anxiety and 40 percent helplessness and anger. One in 10 has sought professional help with the emotional fallout.

The report, from Rutgers’ John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, puts other data into perspective, including our weekly ABC News Consumer Comfort Index, which despite signs of economic growth – and somewhat less-pessimistic expectations for the future – remains near its record low in 24 years of weekly polling.

In our latest CCI results 91 percent of Americans rated the economy negatively, 76 percent called it a bad time to spend money and 56 percent rated said their own finances were hurting – all signs of the painful impacts of the broad, long-term unemployment explored in the Rutgers study out today.

That makes this an especially good time to tell everyone they need to start sacrificing and suffering. See, the stock market's doing well and everyone who's anyone is fed up with all this whining from people who refuse to get non-existent jobs:

"You can’t go on forever," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, of Montana, whose panel oversees the benefits program. "I think 99 weeks is sufficient," he said.

"There’s just been no discussion to go beyond that," said Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat.

Yes, 99 weeks would be sufficient --- if the unemployment rate wasn't sky high. What the hell are these people supposed to do? Emigrate?

If you have the stomach to read the Rutgers study, do it. This has long term repercussions on our economy and our culture and none of them are good. The loss of wealth from the housing and stock market crashes two years ago, combined with long term unemployment for a large number of Americans has changed the future expectations of all of us. The ruling class needn't worry, of course. They are quite comfy and can't figure out what the fuss is all about. ("Why don't these lazy unemployed people just put together a decent portfolio, for crying out loud?") But everyone who isn't one of the chosen few, even those who kept their jobs throughout, have been changed by this to one degree or another. Everyone's expectations have ben challenged and some have had their dreams completely derailed.

It's a problem that's going to long outlast the great recession.


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digby 5/04/2010 12:15:00 PM


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personal finance blog

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Internet company AOL Inc., which separated from Time Warner Inc. late last year, reports its first-quarter results Wednesday before the market opens.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Signs AOL's online advertising business is getting stronger.

AOL grew up in the 1990s as a dial-up Internet company, but this business has declined for years as faster broadband Internet connections from cable and phone providers become increasingly popular. The company has been working to reinvent itself as a content and advertising business, operating websites like tech blog Engadget and personal finance site WalletPop.

This process has been difficult, with advertising revenue dropping throughout last year. But AOL's revenue fell less in the fourth quarter of 2009 than in previous quarters, as the online ad market began to bounce back from.

WHY IT MATTERS: AOL's performance will provide new information on how well the online advertising market is bouncing back from last year's slump.

So far this year, the market appears to be doing better. Google said earlier this month that its first-quarter revenue rose 23 percent, and Yahoo Inc. said its first-quarter revenue rose 1 percent. Both derive the vast majority of their revenue from online ads.

WHAT'S EXPECTED: Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters on average expect an adjusted profit of 69 cents per share on $679 million in revenue.

LAST YEAR'S QUARTER: AOL, which was then a part of Time Warner, reported revenue of $867 million.

Decrease Personal Spending Successfully in Small Increments

When you find yourself spending too much money frivolously, it can be difficult to cut down all at once. Personal finance blog The Simple Dollar recommends making incremental decreases so it's easier to adjust to the change.

Photo by Charlie Ambler.

If you know how much you want to decrease your spending from what's been typical so far, just cut that up into more manageable chunks:

So, in January, for example, I set a target of 75% of a typical month from 2009, capping my spending at $180. In February, I dropped it to 70% – $165. Each month thereafter, I've dropped it another 5%, leaving May at 55% of my spending from an average month in 2009. In June, I'll be at 50% and I'll stay there for a couple of months, then start dropping further, ending with November and December at 35%. For the year, the total adds up to 50% of my spending for 2009.

Making the changes small and incremental has, at least so far, made it much easier. Each month, I'm pushed just a little more to use the library instead of the bookstore. I'm pushed just a bit more to eat out less. I'm pushed just a smidge more to hold off on buying a new board game, holding off a month or two. I'm pushed to conserve money for things later in the year that I intend to do.

We already know how well this works for debt repayment, saving money, and achieving goals—in fact, this is pretty useful for changing any type of habit. Hit the link for the full article on incremental change, and if you've ever successfully achieved a goal this way, tell us about it in the comments!

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