Ever wanted to share a snowman in springtime, send a love letter to a stranger—or surprise a loyal customer with a gift message? Get a load of Layar, which puts the magic of augmented reality in the hands of anyone with an idea and an iPhone 3GS or a phone that ... more

Boosted by newer advertising channels and increased marketing activity, ad spending is forecast to increase on average 0.6% in 2011 from 2010 levels, with outlays led by the diversified food products, pharmaceutical, and telecom industries, according to Schonfeld & Associates, Inc. more

With the Internet's speed and rate of growth, who has the time to keep up with everything on it, let alone analyze your website's link structure to see what sites are linking to you? So asks Nick Stamoulis in a recent post at the Search Engine Optimization Journal. Still, "it ... more

Despite major shifts in the publishing world—including dramatic declines in print ad revenues and numerous closures of print publications—consumers still want to read print magazines: 92% say they plan to stick to print; and when given the choice of print, e-reader, or online delivery, 90% still prefer print, according to ... more

"Adding social-media icons to your email campaigns … takes just a few seconds," writes Jim Hitch at the Emma blog, "but it can increase your reach and help you identify your most avid followers. Who knew all of that could be as simple as pushing a couple of buttons?" According ... more

Most social networking sites have lost active users in the past six months, but Facebook has bucked that trend, a new study finds. Eight out of ten active social media users (80%) have an account on Facebook, up from 71% six months earlier, and among them 54% visit Facebook at ... more

The iPad has the potential to provide an all-in-one tablet that people are going to use everywhere—on their couch, while on vacation, and from all the places in between. No doubt brands are salivating at the chance to use the device to connect with consumers. Since many are hitching their ... more

You may be wondering about the evolution of SEO—and whether you'll get left behind as it grows in sophistication. Well, you're not alone. A recent interview with Nathan Thompson at the Inbound Internet Marketing blog yielded some takeaways that may help clarify SEO's development—and demonstrate how you can beef up your efforts ... more

Consumer adoption of new media formats has increased at double- and triple-digit rates in the past two years, as technologies such as high-definition TV, digital video recorders, and the Internet create higher quality and more convenient viewing experiences for consumers, according to Nielsen's latest Three Screen Report. more

Remember Foursquare, the mobile game where users check in to gather badges and mayorships at their favorite local spots? If you're not a brick-and-mortar retailer, it's understandably hard to imagine how to leverage this strange new breed of socnet, which now serves more than 800,000 users worldwide. To help you get ... more

Worldwide online advertising revenues are forecast to reach $61.0 billion in 2010, up 12.4% over 2009 levels, according to MagnaGlobal. It forecasts global online advertising to grow 11.7% in 2011—and thereafter by an average annual rate of 11.0% through 2015, reaching $103 billion in global spending that year. more

When people click on your unsubscribe button, there's a good chance it takes them to a preference page where they can confirm the unsubscribe request, or adjust their subscription to a topic and frequency they prefer. But what about including an offer that tempts them to stay? In a post at ... more

With the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa set to begin on June 11, US Internet searches related to the World Cup during the week ended May 29, 2010 were up 10% from levels recorded a week earlier, and up 64% from a month earlier, according to Experian Hitwise. more

Facebook has more than 400 million active users who collectively spend more time on the platform than on any other website in the world, sharing detailed information about their likes, dislikes, and preferences. No wonder advertisers are salivating at the chance to reach Facebook users with precisely targeted ads. more

Most online consumers (53%) now own a smartphone or Web-enabled mobile device, and among them 35% say they participated in some type of mobile shopping in the previous 12 months, such as comparing products and prices, up from 17% who said so a year earlier, according to a survey from ... more

A few years ago, John W. Ellis wrote the post, "If Paid Search Isn't Working, Then You're Doing Something Wrong" at the Search Engine Land blog. Recently, now at his own blog, Ellis reviewed the article to see how current it was—only to find that it is still spot-on! "The fact ... more

Nearly seven in ten (69%) adult Internet users—or 52% of US adults—now use the Internet to watch or download video content, and 14% have uploaded video to the Internet—nearly double the 8% who did so in 2007—according to a report by the Pew Research Center. more

New digital and social media tools are more likely to be under the strategic and budgetary control of corporate PR and communications rather than marketing departments, according to a study by the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. more

In March, Facebook hosted 484 million unique visitors worldwide, up 22 million from February, per comScore. On average, people log in 11 times a month, meaning a big pile of people increasingly treat the site like home base for sharing and discovering what's cool and in and groovy. Good news for marketers: ... more

Social networks are the fastest-growing mobile content category, both via application and for browser access, confirming the increasing popularity of social networking via mobile devices, according to data from comScore's MobiLens service. more

Millennials are hard to sway using traditional advertising and media channels that don't promote interaction: Only 17.7% say their favorite TV spot has led them to purchase an advertised product, while nearly one-half (48%) say that word-of-mouth communications influence them more than TV advertisements, according to a study from Mr ... more

Some 30.3 billion videos were delivered to US Internet users in April 2010, down 3.0% from 31.2 billion in March, and 177.8 million people watched online videos during the month, down 1.3% from 180.2 million in March, according to comScore data. more

Conversation marketing. Engagement marketing. Social media. Earned media. Consumer-generated media. User-generated Content. Crowdsourcing. Outsourcing. Co-creation. No matter what you call it, the evolution of the way brands reach and interact with consumers has led to mass experimentation with the alluring, yet often hard-to-execute marketing tactic: the video contest. more

Newspaper websites in the top 25 markets continued to grow at rapid rate, reaching 83.7 million unique visitors in April 2010, up 10.1% from a month earlier, and up 15.0% from January 2010, according to data from comScore Media Metrix data released by Newspaper National Network LP (NNN). more

Total measured advertising expenditures reached $31.3 billion in the first quarter of 2010, up 5.1% from the same period a year earlier—the first increase in quarterly ad spending since the first quarter of 2008 and the largest gain since the first quarter of 2006—according to data from Kantar Media. more