When a salesperson talks budgets with a CEO, the chief's eyes may either light up or send sparks, depending on the news conveyed. But when a search marketer brings up budgets, the CEO may just get that deer-in-the-headlights look. That's because "few marketers explain how search can affect the goals ... more

The number of digital cinema screens around the world reached 16,405 in 2009, up 86.4% from a year earlier, with further growth expected in 2010 as digital 3D pushes the market toward a 35mm-free cinema sector, according to Screen Digest. more

Good news, nonprofits! At Le Web this year, Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan discussed how, in an era when a panoply of tech options are available to us at a finger-swipe, we can pick and choose the charitable causes we support in the same way we pick and choose ... more

Nearly one-third (30.8%) of smartphone consumers accessed social networking sites via mobile browser as of January 2010, up 8.3 percentage points from 22.5% a year earlier, according to comScore. more

A recent Nielsen study found that global consumption of social media increased 82 percent from Dec. 2008 to Dec. 2009 in the 10 countries surveyed, with users spending an average of 5.5 hours on their sites of choice per month! US and Australian addicts are among the heaviest users of all, spending 6 ... more

Over the past 10 years (2000-2009), the Academy Awards ceremony has generated $711.2 million of advertising revenue, of which one-half (50.9%) has come from three industries—financial services, beverages, and automotive—according to Kantar Media. more

Over one-third (37%) of adult cell phone owners are the "on-the-go" mobile news consumers—that is, voracious readers of online news who use their mobile phones to access news content more frequently, and from a greater number of news platforms, than the typical online news consumer—according to a survey from Pew. more

Advertisers spent an estimated $117 billion on US media in 2009, down 9% from the previous year—and continuing a trend of six consecutive quarters of negative growth in the ad industry, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen. more

Social media is an essential marketing tool that most companies are embracing in 2010: 70% of senior marketing executives surveyed are planning new social media initiatives during the year, according to a new survey from Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) and Anderson Analytics. more

Faced with a weak economy and reduced marketing budgets, many small businesses are fighting back with more creative—and less costly—approaches to marketing, including social media, according to a survey from Network Solutions and the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business. more

Everyone has a website stuffed with content ranging from the important to the useless. But marketing initiatives aimed at a highly targeted audience require their own space and identity if they are to succeed. When you use the Web as your vehicle for your campaign, the obvious solution is a ... more

Dudes: Are you ready to give off some fresh new surfer vibes? Search engines are constantly looking for new signals they can use to improve the quality of the results they provide to Internet surfers, says Eric Enge in a recent post at Search Engine Watch. "Search engines continue to ... more

Local newspaper websites remain the most used and valued online sources of credible and trustworthy local content and advertising: 57% of consumers cite their local newspaper website as the top online source for local information, followed by online portals (54%), and local TV websites (53%), according to a new survey ... more

Let's face it: If your marketing approach consists of sporadically touting your company's greatness via the overpopulated social mediaverse, you're about to get absolutely nowhere—except ignored. Or hated. Blacklisted, even.  Frustrated with today's confusing social-media etiquette? Well, don't be! There are sassy methods for making your outreach simply ooze old-fashioned Southern ... more

Apple's share of the smartphone market jumped to 14.4% in 2009, overtaking Microsoft's Windows Mobile to become the No. 3 smartphone operating system, according to Gartner. more

"In the technology industry," writes Morgan Stewart in an article at MarketingProfs, "we are constantly focused on the next big thing." And there's often an assumption that whatever comes next will wipe out whatever came before. Do you remember, for instance, when computers were going to make paper obsolete? Or ... more

In a recent Search Engine Land article, Andrew Goodman predicts that the biggest risk in 2010-2011 for search marketers may lie in working with outdated assumptions about the size and potential of target markets and the paid-search channel. As a remedy, he suggests five investment or expansion "risks" that could ... more

We like to emphasize that mobile is probably the most personalized technology available so far in the 21st century. And these days, finding ways to incorporate yourself into users' daily rituals is crucial to maximizing brand exposure on their up-close-and-personal handhelds. That's one reason for taking a look at GM's new ... more

Nearly one-quarter (24%) of consumers say they regularly play games on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace––and contrary to prevailing stereotypes, the typical social gamer is a 43-year-old woman, according to a new survey from PopCap Games. more

Most consumers (85%) want free online content––and nearly eight in ten (79%) say they would stop using a website that introduced charges, presuming they could find the same information at no cost elsewhere, according to a survey from Nielsen. more

Local small and medium-sized businesses are applying social media to their ad plans: Nearly one-third (32%) of SMBs plan to use a page on a social networking site in the next year, and 39% plan to use customer-generated ratings or reviews on their website, according to a survey from BIA/Kelsey more

Looking to make your brand trendier? Get a load of Trendistic, a clear and simple way to watch the ebb and flow of buzz on Twitter. A visit to the Trendistic homepage gives you a quick glimpse at what keyword is hottest on Twitter right now. In addition to the most current ... more

In May 2009, Omniture and The CMO Club asked 102 CMOs to rate the relative effectiveness of digital-marketing media. The vast majority (78 percent) gave top marks to email marketing, but a sizable minority (33 percent) reported success in emerging social-media channels, too. That's because, these days, consumers "engage with a ... more

Despite the tough economic environment and unprecedented challenges to the industry, consumers' use of digital media climbed to new heights in 2009 as the Internet continued to evolve as an integral component of Americans' personal and professional lives, according to data from comScore. more

Baby Boomers' consumption of media has shifted dramatically to the Internet: 62% of Boomers (age 45-63) spent more time on the Internet in 2009 than they did the year before, and the majority of Boomers had joined Facebook within the previous six months, according to survey conducted by CPH Research ... more