Nearly four in ten (39%) Blackberry owners continue to prefer Apple's iPhone as their next smartphone purchase, but another one-third (34%) say they would switch to Google's Android operating system, according to a survey from Crowd Science. more

A local search strategy should include more than just a presence at Google, Yahoo and Bing, says Jay Berkowitz in an interview at the New Times blog. Search marketers should also look to the tools and trends that consumers are embracing, he advises. Here are his tips for adding the latest ... more

Point of fact: One of the most alluring things about Facebook is its infinite capacity to find us a new distraction—be it Farmville, virtual gift-giving or browsing through an old flame's recent family photo shoot (major creepiness factor, BTW). Second point of fact: Some companies know this about Facebook, and are already ... more

Unprecedented change brought on by a volatile economy and the rise of new marketing channels is creating opportunities for marketers—and leading the way for widespread adoption of emerging tactics such as social media, rich media, and mobile marketing, according to a survey of online and direct marketers by Unica and ... more

The adoption of Web-to-TV viewing is in its early stages but is slowly gaining market traction: 24% of US households have a television connected to the Internet, and the most popular types of connections are via videogame consoles, Blue-Ray systems, and Internet TVs, according to a survey from Leichtman Research ... more

A total of 32.4 billion videos were delivered to US Internet consumers in January 2010, down 2.5% from 33.2 billion in December, and nearly 173 million consumers watched online videos in January, down 2.8% from 178 million the previous month, according to comScore data. more

Although most US businesses recognize the growing influence of Hispanic consumers, over one-half (51%) of those surveyed don't market to Latino consumers in Spanish, and 82% have no plans to begin or increase existing efforts aimed at Hispanics in the next 12 months, according to a survey from Orci. more

Consumers are uneasy about the security of their personal information online: 61% of Americans say they are concerned about the amount and security of personal online data that can be accessed by search engines, such as Google or Bing, and 64% are concerned over the amount and security of personal ... more

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

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