I am a sucker for following big brands viral marketing video campaigns. For instance, if there is a video that I think is clever and witty, it is likely that I will send the link to my friends (whom I know have the same sense of humour and interests that I do.) Just today, I watched the Puma Hardchorus (probably for the third time already) and sent it to others I know would enjoy the magic of that cheesy love song being sung by a group of burly beer drinking men. I love it when big brands take a different approach to viral marketing campaigns and involve themselves in something visually entertaining that ultimately gets people thinking and therefore makes it successful. To be honest, I am rather jealous of their viral marketing ideas as I wish I could come up with something just as creative and intriguing, place it online and get a wave of responses – just from one little video or visual campaign. How do these brands know for certain that their campaign will take off and enhance their already big brand even further?

Surprise surprise – Google have entered yet another sector that have no relation to their services in order to offer their customers an alternative to buying their electricity from another source and they have called this Google Energy. Those of us who follow Google’s ventures will see that they are consistently involving themselves in every industry possible. Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past few weeks, you will have heard of Google Buzz. This social networking site hopes to follow the success of Twitter and Facebook and even though many do not feel comfortable with veering away from their usual social networking sites, it is certain that Google Buzz will acquire a following. Google Buzz has been highly publicized due to its nature, but there are many other ventures that Google are involved in that the masses will not even hear of. Google Energy is one of them.

Google is now dealing with the backlash of its latest product. Google Buzz, a social networking service, was launched last week Tuesday, and within only four days it caused a massive outcry amongst users, with most complaints concerned about gaping flaws in the service’s privacy policy.

On Saturday 13 February Google issued a statement on the official Gmail blog, attempting to salvage the search giant’s biggest and most epic fail to date.

Buzz was automatically added onto the Gmail account of every single user. The initial configuration of the product was such that information from Gmail profiles became immediately available to a network of friends created by Google, based on contacts that users most frequently interact with. This network was then visible to a vast audience, widely revealing the personal contact lists of users, with severe repercussions.

So, up until about five minutes ago, I had no clue that the Winter Olympics were scheduled to start today. This could be because a) I am not much of a sport follower, let alone a winter sport follower or b) that I have not checked my Twitter/Facebook/other social networking sites too much this week. Sports are not being left behind in a cloud of dust and are turning to social networking to encourage fans to watch and attend games and basically, get involved. But do they need this form of sports advertising or have they been doing just fine until now?

Imagine that you are a small business. You know that in order for you to be present on the web and take full advantage of your online advertising that you need to employ the expertise of an online marketing company that will aid you in establishing your presence and basically get you noticed. It is no secret that we are always looking for new ways to be recognised as a brand, especially when there is another 5 000 restaurants/hairdressers/frog ornament stores in our area. Many of us have added our info to local search listings and this is a great addition to our online marketing plan but we all know that with Google’s method of random generation, we should not merely rely on this addition and see it as just that.

The ongoing Murdoch versus Google story continues to unfold, providing food for thought about the future of online news and user behaviour.

The stand-off between the newspaper and online industries went up a notch last week when America’s largest metropolitan newspaper The New York Times announced that it will start charging readers for online content from 2011.

Following the subscription model of the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, The New York Times will offer a limited number of articles for free viewing, after which users will have to register and pay for any additional content.

NYTIMES.com is the most popular online newspaper in America and New York Times Company executives are hoping that the new system will enable them to profit from the loyalty of regular users, without completely blocking the site from its millions of occasional readers.

Announcement: the Orwellian, Minority Reportian, Matrixian age of the thought police is here.

Remember a time when the biggest risk of using social media was having your boss stumble upon your Facebook photos from the weekend? Those days are long gone and now your online activity could turn you into a convicted criminal.

On 13 January 2010 Paul Chambers answered a knock at his front door to find some stern policemen outside. The first thing he thought was that something terrible had happened to a friend or relative, until they handed him a print out of his Twitter page.

The 26-year-old was arrested under the Terrorism Act and made to endure a seven hour interrogation, following which his laptop, iPhone and home computer were seized. His crime: a Twitter update in which he jokingly threatened to blow up Doncaster’s Robin Hood airport if his flight was delayed due to snow.

When I think of Hackers, I think of that mid 90’s cult movie starring Angelina Jolie and some other unknown actor that clearly didn’t make it in the industry. I have seen it numerous times and because of this my perception of hacking involves American secret services, floppy disks and roller blades. However, hacking is a major problem and hackers can be a big deal even in the world of SEO.

In light of the recent Twitter hackings at the end of last year, I decided to look at the world of hacking and see if it was just as serious a problem in SEO as it is in say, the social media networking sector. We are constantly seeing Facebook comments saying something ridiculous like “look at this pic of you!” These account hackings were rife last year and many of us had no clue why we were getting all these spammy comments about pictures we did not know we had. As word spread, we began to wise up to the social networking hacking and most of us now send a friendly to the victim saying something along the lines of “dude, you have been hacked.”

A Swedish court has found the file sharing site, The Pirate Bay, guilty of copyright infringement. The four co-accused(who are also the founders), have been ordered to pay a fine of 20 million Swedish kroner or £2.4 million, and serve one year in jail.

The Internet community has been following the trial with baited breath ever since it commenced in mid February. The trial was streamed live by the Swedish public service, and, unsurprisingly, the verdict was leaked on Twitter.

According to the founders, the site did not host infringing files it just made it easy to access them. The site made it possible for users to upload and download music and movie files for free. Basically, the site worked as a search engine for finding torrents and other illegal files online.
Although the verdict only impacts Sweden, the news has been welcomed by the music and movie industries. Paul McCartney has come out in support of the verdict. The former Beatle states: “The problem is you get a lot of young bands coming up and some of them aren’t going to last forever.”

Online advertising is an art form that not many, especially regular internet users, appreciate. In a world where consumers have more power than ever before, and where they use that power to demand greater relevance, efficiency and enhanced performance without having to do any work, online advertisers have to rely on all the advantages that technology has to offer. Even casual observers have to admit that the job is a difficult one. Companies such as Phorm and BT Webwise in the UK and NebuAd and DoubleClick (in partnership with Google) in the US have received an enormous amount of flack from the public for their information tracking and behavioural advertising technologies. As with so many issues that cause public outrage, the online advertising furore is far less serious and far simpler than it has been made out to be.