Media Usage Increases Amongst Affluent

Defined as Adults 18+ with an annual HHI of $100,000+, a recent survey, conducted by Ipsos Mendelsohn, shows that media usage has increased amongst the affluent over the past year. Over 98% regularly go online (over 30 hours in a typical week), and are doing so on an increased number of devices, such as smartphones, e-readers and tablets. The data showed increased usage of specific sites, including Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Pandora, indicating a growing desire for entertainment, social networking and shopping. Furthermore, usage of other media, such as Print or TV, is not decreasing, showing a growing desire for content in a variety of forms.

Insight: As the number of content channels increases, one is not growing at the expense of another. Conversely, the growing connectivity of users to content through an increasing number of devices, is increasing the consumption of content across media. Increased access to the Internet allows consumers to constantly be in contact with media, and, of course, this is not only limited to those meeting the survey’s definition of “affluent”.

World Series Slump

Is baseball still “America’s Pastime”? Ratings of the October MLB championship have steadily decreased since the late 70′s/early 80′s. The 2008 Series, which featured two “smaller-market” teams (Tampa Bay and Philadelphia), generated an average audience of just 13.6 million. Series featuring large-market teams can reach up to around 25 million viewers, but these figures are a far cry from the record set in 1978, when an average of 44.3 million viewers watched the Yankees and Dodgers. While 10 to 15 million viewers is a dream for many networks or programs, when compared to the investment for sports rights and the fall programming launches pre-empted by the games, these ratings can be viewed as disappointing.

Insight: With the ever increasing number of entertainment options available to consumers, few programs or events can capture the audience figures easily attainable only a few decades ago. Meanwhile, the cost for advertisers for a presence on these programs has steadily increased. Because advertisers drive how networks select programming, will traditionally large events, such as the World Series or Olympic games, soon no longer be cost effective to broadcast?

Occupy Google Reader

Google announced plans to rehaul its RSS-parsing application, Google Reader, which resulted in an unexpected backlash from its small group of enthusiastic users. Despite providing users with data exports of information accumulated through the service over time, Google’s plan to integrate social features into Google+ sparked concerns from users that prefer insular and isolated sharing versus integration into a social networking site. Additionally, Iranian users expressed concerns that the integrated service will be blocked in their country, pulling the plug on the product for certain international users.

Insight: Google’s decision to integrate Reader into Google+ reflects the company’s currently aggressive push toward social networking. In light of recent platform concerns, moving social features to Google+ is a reasonable solution that promotes adoption of the company’s social network. However, it will be telling to observe how the concern and issues expressed by Iranian users and other impact this transition.

Who Gets Hurt If Groupon Collapses

In preparation for the company’s initial public offering, this article from VentureBeat postulates what might occur if Groupon were to collapse, drawing a parallel to the subprime mortgage crisis of the late-2000s. According to VentureBeat, all stakeholders involved stand to lose if the Groupon machine stops running: consumers, small business, credit card companies, employees, investors, and even, the city of Chicago.

Insight: Should VentureBeat’s assessment of a Groupon collapse prove fact, there is a cause for alarm. If merchants begin to lose money and stop honoring deals, demand for Groupon will be suppressed, and ultimately, fewer merchants may be willing to sign on. With a business model predicated on using money from new deals to pay merchants from pervious deals, the company may not be able to endure if new merchant partners are more difficult to find.

Newest Job Recruiter Tool: Social Network Screening

In creating this infographic, Reppler interviewed 300 hiring professionals to learn how they use social networks to screen potential new hires. The study revealed that 91% of recruiters use social media sites when assessing job candidates. Amongst the networks used, Facebook (76%) and Twitter (53%) are the most popular, followed by LinkedIn (48%), which was initially established for professional networking purposes. In addition, 69% of the hiring professionals report rejecting a candidate due to the information found.

Insight: Within the marketing and online sectors, more and more positions are listing “social media experience” as a positive for potential employment; however, these platforms can act as a double-edged sword. Individuals should strive to be conscientious not only of the types of information and content shared through their individual pages, but also the profiles of those with whom they frequently exchange posts. In addition, it is important to always ask the question of “If I didn’t have context, how would I interpret this message?”.

Bing plans to connect your friends’ product and page ‘Likes’ within organic search results by implementing Facebook’s Open Graph protocol directly into SERPs. This new feature is not expected to affect search rankings, so it won’t have any effect on SEO implementation as we know it. However, juxtaposing your friend’s preferences and opinions next to previously unbiased results could most certainly change user behavior within the organic search results.

To enforce user privacy, Bing will ask individual users before activating the feature, giving them the opportunity to “disable” or to learn more about it. This is quite the opposite of Gmail users who awoke one day with a new social network to monitor: Google Buzz. Additionally, users will only see information from their Facebook friends versus any publicly available and relevant Facebook data.

Google vs. New Bing

Google’s groundbreaking innovation was an algorithm that displayed the most relevant information to a search, using a formula that takes into consideration websites’ content, linking power, as well as structure. Bing’s newest advancement is to display not only the most relevant information, but also the most trusted information, based on what your friends’ opinions.

For example, if you are searching for “auto insurance” in Google, your will get the most relevant results for websites containing information about ‘auto insurance’. However, if your friend John ‘Likes’ Geico or State Farm, and they have shared that information on Facebook, it will appear on Bing’s results as well.

Marketing Takeaway

Companies that incorporate social media, by creating a Facebook business page and adding a ‘Like’ button to their website, are more likely to be shared on the Internet by a Facebook user—creating more opportunities to appear in Bing’s search results.

Bing’s Facebook partnership will require companies to focus more on improved customer experience for the sake of word of mouth. If someone ‘Likes’ your company and they share it on Facebook, Bing will share it with the world.

Mobile

Android operating system is showing great dominance—one more time. Is Android the best Operating System in the market? Maybe so, but if Apple strikes a deal with Verizon and T-Mobile, it could be a different story!

It would be really nice to be able to search with your mobile phone’s camera instead of the keyboard huh? Google “goggles” is the new promising technology that will allow users to do so.

Web Development

Our web development team found an awesome tool that generates a report on how “sloppy” your HTML code is. This tool scans all source code in a folder and generates a quick report. “Sloppy” is defined as repetitive code with pointless complexity.

Remember that old and slow browser called Internet Explorer? Six years ago they owned about 90% of the market share – today, they’re losing the browser war. Their biggest competitors are Firefox and Google Chrome.  Check out the latest stats on web browser maker share.

Marketing

A new eMarketer study reports that Healthcare Professionals spend more time online, increasing the overall web presence of healthcare dramatically since 2002. Google and Hall & Partners data found that the Internet was the number one place medical professionals looked for information on health.

Tipp-Ex launched new marketing campaign with an interactive viral video on You Tube. Talk about thinking outside the box—literally. This video called “A hunter shoots a bear” lets you re-write the story by mad-libbing the title, letting users write the story in a Choose Your Own Adventure style. Very fun.

Social Media

You would love to be socializing with your friends, but you also have to run errands. If you could shop via Facebook with a couple of clicks, wouldn’t you? Read about The Power and The Glory of Facebook Commerce.

Instead of reading the random stories on Google News, you will be able to read all the news your Twitter friends are sharing. This new feature is officially called “Friends.”

Use Twitter to boost buzz, sales & engagement. UNIQLO UK recently launched a marketing campaign compelling users to tweet about the company’s product. With each tweet, word-of-mouth built up momentum and accelerated sales.

Facebook’s new “take-it-with-you” feature allows you to “download every keystroke and posted picture you’ve ever input on Facebook”.  Additionally, there are two new features—New groups and an insights dashboard.

SEO

Paid traffic and email marketing tended to have the highest conversion rates in SEO. The surprise is: social media performs better than organic SEO traffic and direct navigation.

After you enjoy these mind-blowing links, Tweet, write on our wall or leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

Marketing

Samsung reveals tablet launch details.

iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch to get wireless printing with iOS 4.2.

Facebook passed Google in “time spent,” so what does that mean?

How to generate links through media relations.

What moms can teach us about the Internet.

Business writing for the Web: 27 ways to write more better-like.

The anatomy and evolution of Google Search results listings.

Matt Cutts acknowledges SEO 2.0 tactic of linking out as a ranking factor.

Design

A design is only as deep as it is usable.

What businesses can learn from designers.

Don’t make me wait. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

Everyone who tried to convince me to use Vim was wrong.

Charts of the Yay!

Bing beats Yahoo for number two spot in search rankings.

Google’s Search share flatlines.

The ugly outlook for Nokia’s new CEO.

Oh, and remember to check out our delicious tags to see what else we’re looking at.

After you enjoy these awesome links, Tweet, write on our wall or leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

Marketing

How to track Google Instant in Google Analytics.

Instant Elements: Tom Lehrer’s “Elements Song,” with Google Instant.

And how about YouTube Instant?

Eight tools to help you manage social media content overload.

Programming

Programming tips I wish I knew earlier.

How to debug your jQuery code.

Custom styling of the SELECT Elements.

Check out our delicious tags to see what else we’re looking at.

After you enjoy all of these awesome links, Tweet, write on our wall or leave a comment below to let us know what you think.

Programming

Riding Rails: Rails 3.0: It’s Ready!

CSS3 Gradient Generator.

Google Code University.

Marketing

Dan Cobley: What physics taught me about marketing.

Tempo, tempo, line and length.

Online content doesn’t have an expiration date.

Gmail Priority Inbox launches: Your email will never be the same.

How to use social media monitoring tools for outreach marketing.

How to write a whitepaper that will capture leads.

Design

60 high quality Photoshop PSD files for designers.

Design is a drug.

But wait, there’s more!  Check out our delicious tags to see what else we’re looking at.

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Design

Give users some credit.  They are not (all) idiots.

250 beautiful typography t-shirts.

Applying LEED principals to graphic design.

Marketing

Why tumblr trumps micro blogging.

Infographic: The Geosocial Universe

SEO

23 awesome SEO blogs everyone should read.

New marketing data: Top SEO objectives.

How long until Facebook passes Google in traffic.

It’s official: Yahoo’s results now come from Bing.

Qualitative web analytics: Heuristic evaluations rock!

Programming

Spritely: Flash-like animation with jQuery.

Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world.

12 standard screen patterns.

And don’t forget to check out our delicious tags to see what else we’re looking at.

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Search

An in-depth look at search auto-suggestions.

Readers who liked this article also read…

Yahoo News testing related search results on news stories.

A Joint Policy Proposal for an open Internet.

Bringing sexy back to search.

Feeling lucky?

Using Google Earth to graffiti the planet.

Programming

Contrary to new survey, you should investigate location-based apps.

Ideas for iPhone apps.

Flip! A jQuery plugin v0.9.9.

Dynamic FAQ Section w/jQuery, YQL & Google Docs.

App icons on iPad and iPhone.

Marketing

Do we really need to be social on social media?

Take a walk on the client side.

3 ways Facebook’s pending page changes affect marketers.

Design

A man, a plan and a Sharpie: “The Great Typo Hunt.”

100 pages of images, fonts, & amusement!

Showcase of delicious coffee websites.

Beyond “I hate green:” Managing Productive Visual Design Reviews.

And don’t forget to check out our delicious tags to see what else we’re looking at.

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Design

Why 37signals’ Advice is irrelevant.

Listen to your mother and drink your Design Milk every day.

Learn how to Design the Experience.

Alphabet Book’s Visual Index of New Orleans.

For more local designs, check out Good’s New Orleans Issue.

Social Media

15 Excellent Corporate Blogs to learn from.

The origin of Twitter’s “Fail Whale.”

The 4 Hottest Social Media Marketing Trends explained.

How Social Media is Turning Us Into Responsible Voters.

Programming

An HTML5 Video Player in CSS with Silverlight and Flash.

An example of MarkerClusterer v3.

Marketing

How to demonstrate and deliver Lead-Nurturing ROI.

Mobile Video is expected to Double Reach by 2013.

An update on rankings for long-tail searches.

SEO

Do 301 redirects Dilute PageRank?

Google’s search party is over.

Can’t wait for the next link roundup? Check back here everyday to see what topics interest us.

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By the Numbers

3 tips for Building an Effective Landing Page.

4 ways to Keep Your Hospital’s Website Clean.

3 Twitter tools to take away from the BlueGlass LA Twitter conference.

10 Tips for Designing Mobile Websites.

Chart

More and more businesses are Warming up to the Mac.

Design

Abduzeedo has a great article about a Psychological Study of Web Designs.

Penguin Classics is celebrating its 75^th anniversary in publishing by letting you design your own classic book cover in the Speaking to the Past contest.

Six Revisions: useful information for web developers and designers.

Marketing and SEO

How Infographics Create Organic Links for websites.

Keyword Targeting: The Essential Guide for Website Owners.

The Paradox of Promises in the age of word of mouth.

Why Consumers Connect with Marketers via email and social media.

Bing Solidifies Growth as Yahoo loses share in Q2.

The next big thing for marketers: Social Magazines.

How the fashion magazine industry Plans to Profit from Digital This Fall.

Updated Bing Webmaster Tools.

Examining the differences between Email, Facebook and Twitter audiences.

Tips to help you Assess Your Email Opt-In Process.

Can’t wait for the next link round up?  Check back here everyday to see what we are interested in.