Aug 23, 20124 min read

Marketing Day: August 23, 2012

Here’s our daily recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

From Marketing Land:

Instagram Traffic Up 38 Percent In July, Tumblr Surpasses MySpace [ComScore]

Interest in Instagram rose significantly in July, enough to make it the top gaining web property in comScore’s monthly tracking of traffic to U.S. websites. ComScore’s July 2012 Top 50 shows a 38 percent traffic gain for Instagram between June and July, with unique visitors rising from 16.5 million to 22.7 million. Overall, that puts […]

Facebook’s New iOS App Represents Company’s New ‘Mobile-First’ Focus

Facebook has rewritten its iOS app with an eye on speed, but the real story isn’t about the app’s features — it’s about how the app was rebuilt and what it represents in the bigger picture. The company claims that the app is twice as fast as the previous version; I can’t confirm that number, […]

Microsoft Adopts Softer, More Colorful New Logo

For 25 years, Microsoft’s brand has been associated with a bold, black, sans-serif font. Most people probably don’t even remember any other version of the software company’s logo. But now, Microsoft is modernizing, with a colorful, softer-looking logo, which features a symbol for the first time in the company’s history. That symbol, a square made […]

The In-Location Alliance Wants To Take LBS Targeting Inside

A new quasi-trade group has formed to promote indoor location and mobile indoor-positioning. It’s called “The In-Location Alliance.” Its stated objective is to “drive innovation and market adoption of high accuracy indoor positioning and related services.” The In-Location Alliance is made up of a group of 22 founding members, led by Nokia: Broadcom, CSR, Dialog […]

Will Google’s New “Red Team” Keep It Out Of The Privacy Danger Zone?

According to a Google job listing and several stories this morning Google is building an internal “Red Team” to address privacy and security issues. The job description reads: As a Data Privacy Engineer at Google you will help ensure that our products are designed to the highest standards and are operated in a manner that […]

How Google Went From Search Engine To Content Destination

Of things I imagined when I first started writing about Google as a hot new search engine in 1998, the idea that about 15 years later, Google would buy the venerable Frommer’s travel guides or sell “Google Play” gift cards weren’t remotely on the list. From Search Engine To Content Engine How did we get […]

Pre-Approved Custom URLs Now Rolling Out On Google+

Earlier this month Google announced the quasi-launch of custom URLs, and today some users have noted that they are available for both profiles and brands. Unlike Facebook who had open enrollment for vanity URLs, Google is slowly rolling out vanity URLs to those they deem most important. If you qualify, a small grey banner will appear with […]

Yelp: iPhones Offer Greater Location Accuracy Than Androids

Roughly a week ago Yelp offered an interesting post on its blog. The post reveals how Yelp prevents false check-ins or “check-in fraud.” But more importantly it’s about how Yelp matches reported user location with business locations. It’s also a comparison of positioning methods and a discussion of their relative accuracy. Yelp explains the three […]

Making An App: Go Lean And Mean

App-making is a good capacity to develop in your business, since the app market is in a big boom right now, and there are still plenty of gaps left for new app-makers to fill. While there isn’t a lot of movement in the top ten apps overall in the main app stores (iTunes and Google […]

FTC Okays Facebook’s Instagram Purchase; What’s Next?

Facebook officially owns Instagram. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted unanimously to approve the deal after reviewing potential antitrust issues. From the organization’s news release: The Federal Trade Commission has closed its nonpublic investigation of Facebook’s proposed acquisition of Instagram, Inc., without taking any action. Accordingly, the deal may now proceed as proposed. The two […]

“Sponsored Results” Officially Launches For Facebook Search

Last month Facebook began testing a “Sponsored Search” ad unit geared towards those searching on Facebook. Today it has been released to advertisers. The new ad unit operates very similarly to traditional Facebook advertising as they can leverage demographics, location, connections and interests/likes. A Facebook rep stated the following about the new ad unit: “We have […]