Apple's debut of Ping is the right move at the right time for social media regardless of what company you are. Social media will spread out and allow different brands. Facebook will be the WalMart of the category, which is great for them but also leaves a lot of room for innovation and specialization. Kind of like Prince sang back in the day: “You can be the president; I’d rather be the Pope.”

Today's bytes: Now, business can pay to have their logos show up on Google Maps. Will the iPad be Apple's device that cracks the enterprise market? And display ad CPMs were up 25% in Q2 vs. Q1.

In the past few weeks, we've seen a number of social gaming mergers and acquisitions. Most recently it was Google's acquisition of Social Deck, a cross-platform game developer. Now, there are hints that even Apple has a social gaming platform in the works. Big news for Facebook and various social gaming startups -- but what does it mean for brands?

Today's bytes: How can publishers best use location-based technology to monetize and promote their content? Google helps tackle the problem of email overload. And how well do Apple's iAds serve developers that want to promote their apps? (Hint ... not well at all).

Big Fuel CEO Avi Savar has a theory about how the marketing strategies of most major brands are evolving, and not surprisingly, it's bullish on social media and branded content. In this interview, Savar shares some of the learnings from clients like Fisher-Price and Colgate -- and offers up the four "truths" that will be found in every successful, socially-influenced marketing strategy.

The “gray wave” is hitting social media. While most companies are approaching social networks with Millennials in mind, older consumers have doubled their use of social media over the past year, according to Pew Internet research. Although email continues to be the primary way that older users maintain contact with their professional and personal networks, almost half (47%) of Internet users ages 50-64 and one in four (26%) users age 65 and older now use social networking sites.

Social media is being used more aggressively as a channel to increase customer loyalty, according to a new survey from the DMA and loyalty strategy publication Colloquy. In fact the survey shows that companies that use social media primarily to deepen customer loyalty spend almost twice as much as competitors who use it for brand awareness, customer acquisition and other core marketing purposes.

BtoB companies and publishers are finding that quantity may actually give way to quality where niche businesses are at stake. Smaller scale is becoming a marketable commodity in the BtoB business. A good example can be seen at Canon Communications. The company is a leading producer of exhibitions and media brands for technology-based manufacturing industries. Earlier this month it launched a new platform that enables behavioral targeted advertising and content opportunities across its 45 business-to-business websites. [...]

Today's bytes: The Bartab app lets Facebook friends send each other drinks in the real world. Yelp challenges Groupon with its own limited-time, local deals. And another example of video ads showing up in a print publication. (Yep, a definite head-scratcher).

A few years ago, hotels were slow to adopt social media as a legitimate marketing strategy. For one, most patrons shop according to price -- so, no matter how "hip" a hotel is, an $80 per night client won't buy a $800 hotel room -- regardless of what's been tweeted about it. But now hotel marketers know that their customers will inevitably be chatting, emailing and reading reviews online, so they've made social media an integral part of the marketing mix.

Today's bytes: Is Hollywood trade pub The Hollywood Reporter becoming more trashy now that a former tabloid editrix is at the helm? Why some Pepsi Refresh fundraisers have lost interest. And soon, your iPhone will be able to tell you exactly which aisle those discounted cookies are in at the supermarket.

This year's MOBI award finalists offer a virtual embarrassment of riches in DIGIDAY's second-annual competition, which drew entrants from Europe and Israel in addition to a plethora of innovations state-side. What impressed judges this year was the extent to which mobile campaigns moved beyond after-thoughts in cross-media mash-ups to becoming the true focal point of outreach to a particular audience segment. Winners will be announced at a gala event Sept. 13 in New York City.

It was Tip O’Neil who said, “all politics is local.” Maybe online advertising is too. Borrell Associates is predicting a bold growth rate for online ads in 2011, led by local advertising. The company’s latest predictions place total online ad spending to grow almost 14%, from $45.6 billion, in 2010, to $51.9 billion, in 2011. The fastest-growing segments, it says, will be local, targeted display, and “everything” involving social media.

As August winds down, so does National Breastfeeding Month. That fact may spur some wiseguy comments from the peanut gallery but it is a serious and passionate issue for many women and the subject of an innovative new digital marketing effort form Evenflo. Evenflo’s subsidiary Ameda, which makes breast milk pumps and accessories, has capitalized on the passion and information need around breastfeeding with a social media campaign that started at the beginning of August, called “I Breastfeed Because. [...]

David de Rothschild's Adventure Ecology engaged a global audience of environmentally-aware fans by connecting them to boat made of plastic bottles as it sailed the Pacific Ocean. The company also attracted big brands like Kiehl's and HP along the way. Read on for insights into the social media strategy that tied it all together.

Today's bytes: Is Android really the open-source mobile platform for consumers, or is it geared toward giving carriers like Verizon even more control? One out of every five Americans has played a social game in the past three months. And details on how the Seattle Times is using mobile video and Twitter to win the online news race.

As the summer fades and the inevitable back-to-work anxiety builds, it's time to consider the balance of what has turned out so far to be a typically unpredictable year in Internet content and advertising. This is not a lame year in review. But it is the five trends and stories to watch as the rest of 2010 plays out.

The fragility of the social media ethos is apparent -- if we are not sharing tunes, photos, playing games, or chatting, then why are we "here?" But "green" companies rarely have an identity crisis when it comes to using social media for branding. A sense of mission permeates virtually every social action, as is the case with Adventure Ecology, the company founded by British environmentalist David de Rothschild. In the first of a three-part series, we analyze the overall social strategy behind Adventure Ecology's Plastiki project, which used a boat made of 12,500 plastic bottles to educate people about conservation and waste management. [...]

A new report from King Fish Media sheds some light on how social media is being managed within companies and within budgets. While it shows spending on social media will increase over the next year as three quarters of all companies are planning to increase social marketing investment, it also shows that the social budgets are split with a third tying it to a specific custom media project and another third adding an incremental increase to their marketing budget. More than 20% are reallocating money from advertising or other mainstream marketing tactics as customers migrate to social media platforms. [...]

Overtone CMO Neil Patil says successful branding is all about companies learning to listen. While small companies can respond to emails and phone calls individually, thus interpreting consumer needs "in context," huge companies don't have that same advantage. So Overtone's OpenMic platform aims to do just that for companies with millions of clients.

In five years, white-label social network provider KickApps has amassed a roster of some of America's largest companies as clients. Yet, in a world where 500 million people are already on Facebook, why do brands need private customized social networks? And what do they really mean to the bottom line?

Today's bytes: H&M shares performance stats from its location-based, virtual goods campaign within MyTown. Should there be a digital copyright window that would give news sites a chance to "protect" their content for at least 24-hours? And why the class of 2014 thinks email is "slow."

More BtoB applications are emerging for social media. A new CareerBuilder survey reports that 35% of employers use social media to promote their company. One-quarter (25%) of these employers said that they are using social media to connect with clients and find new business. Others use it to recruit and research potential employees (21%), or strengthen their employment brands (13%).

Today's bytes: Believe it or not, one time high-flyer Lycos has been sold. Also: College professors are so over email, Hulu is drawing as many doubters as investors, and AOL is getting some high fives for its local journalism project.

Virtual goods revenues are playing a major role in the growth of gaming apps and social games. At Monday’s DIGIDAY: Apps conference in New York, several speakers said that the surge in virtual goods expenditures in the social gaming space is in large part due to greater education of users about virtual goods through social networks.

In the end it all comes down to the business model. Even in the face of the dispersion of the audience and the flagging numbers surrounding print, business models came front and center at DIGIDAY:Apps on Monday in New York City. Although apps will not save print content, panelists were almost unanimous in their belief that it provides new opportunities for growth and engagement.

Social media needs to be more closely tied to customer strategy. That’s the point of a new book that urges marketers to look beyond the face value of followers and fans as the social networks get bigger and more sophisticated. In How to Make Money with Social Media: An Insider’s Guide on Using New and Emerging Media to Grow Your Business from Reshma Shah, assistant professor in the practice of marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School, and co-author Jamie Turner encourage marketers to think tactically about their goals and outcomes. [...]

DM2Media, publisher of DIGIDAY:DAILY and the DIGIDAY conferences has teamed with Livestream to offer live streaming of our widely popular DIGIDAY:APPS conference Monday, Aug. 16, beginning at 8:30 a.m. EDT. We'd like to thank Xtify, a new geo-location platform for apps, for providing commercial sponsorship of this event, which will offer a deep dive into the challenges and success stories of the explosive mobile and social app market with the medium's heaviest hitters.

Today's bytes: Has Google invested in iPhone games developer ngmoco? Should the SEC turn to crowdsourcing for help with policing the stock market? And Kroger launches a "digital coupon center" that connects shopper's online discounts to their supermarket rewards card.

Since Mike Wehrs is actually that rare breed of adviser and true guru, we actually needed 8 questions to mine his views for what's next in mobile marketing generally and Scanbuy in particular. From what's working overseas, to what's next domestically, we think you'll agree that Wehrs certainly seems to be in the right place at the right time.

Leading players in both the financial analysis of the mobile handset and digital advertising markets and mobile marketing have joined DM2Pro.com, the sister publication of DIGIDAY:DAILY in our semi-annual APPS State of the Industry Survey. We'll be releasing top-line data from this important industry benchmark study Monday, August 16 at the DIGIDAY:APPS conference in New York City. Even if you can't join the hundreds of industry insiders already registered for this event, you can participate in sharing your experience in both mobile and social apps. [...]

In a market full of “cheerleaders,” it’s almost refreshing to read a market study that acknowledges that the second quarter was “challenging” at best for digital out of home advertising (DOOH for short). Plans to execute campaigns in this emerging medium were largely deferred and delayed; yet there were bright spots. In a period where it fought “Fin-reg” and the perception of corporate greed, financial services emerged as an unlikely leader in the space. And, Adcentricity, the company that just released the “Q2 Digital Out-Of-Home Market Review” to help advertisers and agencies better understand this market, Adcentricity posted its best bookings ever. [...]

Wowd's new Social Discovery Client helps Facebook users cut through the newsfeed clutter (read: Farmville requests, drunken photos and dozens of status updates), in a way that the network doesn't allow on its own. But do people really need a separate tool to "manage" Facebook?

Internet gambling will be a legal reality by this time next year. Maybe sooner. And it will have major ramifications for Internet content and advertising as companies that you might not have taken ads from in September 2010, start to look legit in September 2011. In fact, I think the major issue concerning Internet gambling is not whether it will happen, but whether you’re company is ready.

Virtual goods are a multi-billion dollar industry in Asia -- and especially China -- and the U.S. is still playing catch-up. One big advantage U.S. companies have is that the global virtual goods market hasn't really been cracked by brands, meaning there's a huge opportunity for game developers and brands to generate revenue and consumer loyalty by offering users branded virtual goods. Data from Viximo and Virtual Greats shows just how lucrative the opportunity could be.

Arts and culture site OvationTV built a loyal, monetizable community by integrating video and photo uploading tools, as well as other elements of the KickApps social media platform. The focus on community led to major boosts in user engagement, interaction and time-spent on OvationTV.com, which is why the site earned the 2009 SAMMY Award for Best Social Community.

And on day two the FCC bailed. That was the major news on day two of the Google-Verizon saga, a day in which Google also denied that the two companies were close to a deal that would neutralize the net neutrality debate. According to a report in PC World the FCC has called off negotiations on a network neutrality compromise scheduled for the coming days, saying the talks have not been fruitful enough. Earlier yesterday a Verizon representative said that reports around the Verizon-Google negotiations “fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. [...]

Today's bytes: You can play (word) games on the Kindle now. Conde Nast plans to launch magazine-themed restaurants overseas. And Spot Runner is pulling the plug on its Malibu web-to-TV video ad-buying platform.

Sometimes you wake up in the morning and nothing is the same. Welcome to one of those mornings. Looks like Google and Verizon will try to put together an arrangement that finds a loophole in net neutrality and potentially changes the economics for digital publishing and consumption. And all this time the attention was on the “real” action, at the FCC.

Despite the fact that the majority of Facebook's 500 million strong tribe lives abroad, a new study by Buddy Media finds that blue-chip brands seem hesitant to embrace the platform as an effective marketing tool for customers outside the U.S. So what are some steps that brands can take to try to engage their global audiences?

What's the future of email marketing in the age of flashy apps and social networking tools that make simple product announcements, newsletters and press releases seem obsolete? For Wrapmail, the future means garnering exposure for brands like Verizon Wireless in emails when potential consumers are least expecting it; that is, when the emails come from their friends and business associates' corporate accounts.

Today's bytes: Boucher gives the Comcast-NBCU merger his blessing. Gowalla uses personalization to differentiate from Foursquare. And why research analysts are pegging the Android Market to overtake the App Store in terms of variety and volume.

Social media. Immediately the associations are fans, likes, consumers, and networks of friends. But often underlooked is the business side of social media. More companies are looking to social media networks as a way to communicate internally and one of the companies successfully riding this trend is Mzinga. With more than 50 percent of its business currently coming from companies that want to communicate and measure that communication internally, it has released a new updated solution called OmniSocial. [...]

Communication, rather than gathering information, has now become the dominant consumer activity on the Internet. A new survey from Nielsen shows that Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (a 43 percent increase). Americans now spend a third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging. That means 40 percent of online time is spent on just three activities – social networking, playing games and emailing. [...]

It has been anything but a lazy summer in the e-reader market. After a round of price cuts just weeks ago, Amazon took the scalpel out again for the Kindle on Friday, dropping the price to $139. Not to be outdone, Barnes & Noble announced a new in-store strategy for marketing the Nook. Most pundits write the strategy off to the iPad’s popularity and pricing, as well as the impending introduction of a $99 e-reader from a small manufacturer called Copia.

Today's bytes: Is your online video strategy bankrupt without a syndication plan? Chronicling Google's struggles to evolve into more than just a one-trick (search) pony. And is your town cool enough to have a foursquare scavenger hunt? Chelthenham, in the U.K., certainly is.

There’s a true energy about entrepreneurs, especially those making their mark on society and culture through technological advances and innovative applications of same. In a room filled with so many positive ions – as was the case this week at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit – why does it always seem that you need a few negatively charged ones to keep Silicon Valley Earth-bound -- especially when there are so many more problems to solve?

Today's bytes: Grooveshark offers streaming mobile music for just $3 per month. Email can be a great tool for driving traffic to your social media sites. And what are the top 50 most influential mommy blogs out there?

Today's bytes: Will your house be one of the 3.4 million homes that gets a 3D TV this year? Wall Street responds to rumors that RIM will (finally) release a BlackBerry that can compete with the iPhone. And is Google planning a platform that will set social game developers free from their dependence on Facebook?

According to a mix of venture capitalists and banks, and entrepreneurial experts across the globe, the top of the food chain in private companies are represented best by: Tapulous, an app game maker just sold to Disney; Appirio, a cloud-sourcing company; SecondMarket; OpSource, a cloud hosting service; and FreeWheel, a system that monetizes syndicated video. SecondMarket, a company that provides a trading floor for illiquid assets was judged the company most likely to succeed for its investors, according to a mix of criteria including the likely return to initial investors, media buzz and revenues. [...]

The BBC's new iPhone app has rival newspaper publishers crying "auntie" in Britain's bloody online news war. Should a government-backed news organization have the right to try to dominate the market for digital news at such an early stage?

Cloud computing provider Caspio is exploiting rival Quickbase's service outages with a free year's service offer and other benefits. Confidence in "the cloud" could hang in the balance, especially since Quickbase is backed by Intuit.

We’ve reached the point in the digital publishing business where definitions are gaining importance. Case in point: Ad networks. In these days where every person and every website is a potential interdependent point of a larger whole, advertisers need to know what they’re spending on. And publishers need to know what they’re signing on to be a part of. Hanging in the balance of all this are those cool little nebulous concepts called reach, audience, and targeting.

Today's bytes: Will you trust an automated program to test the "tone" and sentiment of your business emails? Are traditional agencies gaining ground against digital agencies in terms of social media campaign success? And universities including OSU are testing the iPad as a classroom learning tool.

In this installment of The SAMMY Files, we profile the winners of the 2009 SAMMY Award for Social Good: Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (under the Katalyst Films banner), who teamed up with Kellogg's Cares to help feed hungry Americans. Click through to find out more about the campaign, watch the video and see why our judges gave them the award!

Today's bytes: Why the FCC has both Democrats and Republicans steamed about its attempts to regulate broadband internet access. Eight tips for using a custom landing page for your Facebook fans. And why the U.S. State Department is planning a big brainstorm about mobile commerce.

Apps are moving into virtual goods and a measurement currency that moves away from the traditional benchmarks of impressions. In fact, a new case study from appssavvy and wireless charger marketer Powermat is making bold statements about branding and metrics with data to back it up.

Consumers are letting their guard down on privacy and digital security. That’s the general conclusion from a slew of research presented Thursday by KPMG in its latest installment of "Consumers and Convergence.” The use of mobile technology, it reports, has apparently made U.S. consumers more comfortable with safeguards and less concerned about privacy and security on their wireless devices and networks.

On July 2 the Murdoch UK flagship put all of its content behind a paywall. With estimates ranging from a 66 to a 90 percent hit as a result, the move is attracting more attention than a Royal Family scandal.

Today's bytes: Honda's social media and video campaign "Live Every Litre" borrows elements from Ford's Fiesta Movement. Meet Flipboard, the new iPad app that has some publishers "flipping" about its potential. And why the new proposed online privacy bill has both privacy advocates and industry execs in agreement.

Antennagate aside, the peripheral customer value of iPhone users continues to be illustrated by new research reports. Both the Yankee Group and Juniper Research unveiled reports analysis on Tuesday that shows iPhone users are a competitive goldmine after they make their initial purchase.

Today's bites: Why some record label execs are paying more attention to Google (and YouTube) than iTunes. Live-streamed NBA games could be coming to the iPad this fall. And why there will be no standards for in-app metrics from the IAB (at least for a while).

Despite the almost obsessive focus digital marketers have on Millennials, they may be leaving out their parents. And that’s a mistake. A new report from Nielsen says that media companies focus on reaching consumers age 18-34 or 18-49, who spend (or have a key role in spending) billions of dollars every year. But by solely focusing on these groups, advertisers and consumer goods manufacturers are overlooking a group that maintains tremendous buying power: the 78 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. today. [...]

Einstein said the speed of light was E=MC squared. ZenithOptimedia says it’s more like the growth of social and mobile media. The agency upgraded its Global Ad Forecast on Monday, with its general optimism heightened by a quantum leap in digital marketing’s two runaway media. In the US, between 2009 and 2012 Zenith forecasts mobile advertising to grow by an average of 43.2% a year, while social media advertising will grow by 30.2% a year, compared to 15.6% a year for the internet as a whole.

Content matters. It is the tagline and mantra of Perfect Market, which is on the surface a company that applies algorithms to digital content to align it whit maximum search possibilities. Sounds a bit like a content farm, no? No. Today Perfect Market announced a new dashboard called The Vault that provides newsrooms with the information not to keep serving the same story for traffic’s sake, but to include the right headlines and key phrases for traffic’s sake.

It doesn’t look like the dawn of the terrible twos for HPs MagCloud technology. Today it celebrates its second anniversary by coming officially out of beta and announcing some key changes that it hopes will attract traditional print publications to its on demand platform.

A survey of “marketers who make decisions about media spend” spearheaded by the Mobile Marketing Association indicates that their mobile marketing budget will rize more than 124 percent from 2010 to 2011. That still puts the total allocated to the channel at just over 4 percent, but $5.5 billion in 2011 is nothing to sneeze at.

Greystripe's Immersion Ad units -- with game functionality and video -- showed promising results in a Buick Lacrosse campaign. Click-through rates, brand awareness and brand recall stats were off the charts for mobile ads. The ad units offer the first glimpse into how Apple's iAd units might perform, but the results could also be a bit misleading.

If Brian Silver has his way a very important part of the digital marketing lexicon has seen a better day. The Travel Ad Network CEO would actually be happy if publishers and advertisers struck the phrase “ad network” from their vocabulary. Instead Silver wants his company and other true content and commerce site aggregators to be known as “vertical media companies.” He includes the partnership necessary in delivering audiences inherent in that definition.

Get your TV shows here! That's been the rallying cry of sites like Hulu, TV.com, and individual network properties. But how long after the date they air can viewers really access those shows? Just six weeks on average, meaning that both viewers and advertisers have a limited time to make the most of that content. The short online viewing windows are just the latest indicator that even premium web video has a long way to go before it catches up with TV.

It has been an intriguing but hard to access technology for the past year. But now augmented reality may be on the cusp of a breakthrough with new applications from a partnership between Oddcast and PointRoll. The companies are teaming up on an AR solution that removes the “markers” that complicate it for consumers and advertisers.

Today's bites: How Wieden+Kennedy (and the Old Spice guy) are using YouTube videos to respond to fans' tweets in real-time. Kraft's new utility-based iPad app. And are over 10 percent of Google searches now coming from mobile phones?

Want to know the quality of interactions your fans are having with your brand on your Facebook page? Now there's an app for that. Networked Insights has launched SocialSensefb, a Facebook-centric tool that aims to offer real-time analysis and interpretation of how consumers are really "feeling" about a brand.

You might call them sneakers but Keds have transcended the standard labels applied to footwear these days. Its innovative new cross-promotions and digital applications have taken this century old brand into new territory. Forget “Just Do It.” At Keds the tagline could be more like a runway riff: Just Work It.

While the Nook, Kindle, and Kobo play a high-stakes discount game with the future of their parent companies at stake, a new survey of Wharton Business School professors predicts it may be in vain. They say e-readers are at best a niche market and at worst may soon become extinct.

RecycleBank is an innovative concept that works digital content and applications to allow communities and their residents to earn credits for their recycling efforts. Similar to frequent flier programs, the more a family recycles, the more RecycleBank Points that household earns. They are tracked via special new recycling receptacles equipped with special tags that connect the address with individual RecycleBank accounts. Each time a household recycles, the amount is recorded and converted into RecycleBank Points, which can be used to "shop" online for rewards from hundreds of businesses in more than 20 categories, including Automotive, Beauty and Health, Beverages, Entertainment, Food and Grocery, Restaurants, and Sports and Recreation. [...]

Arguably no generation in history has been analyzed more than the Millennials. Call them the “echo boomers” or GenY, the children of baby boomers are 60 million strong and most importantly are having their own children. They grew up digital. You can find hundreds of reports on how to manage them, sell them, and market them. But when Evenflo wanted to reach them, it found one attitude among Millennials more important than any tangible data point.

First came the e-Reader price drops, now comes the e-Book store wars. Amazon has been the ruler of the online book marketplace ... well, since it created the online book marketplace. Apple upped the ante with all of the iBook apps, and now, Borders has entered the fray with its new online book store. But how does it stack up -- in terms of the robustness of the library?

Taking the high road with customers hasn’t exactly been a hallmark of social media over the last year. But it is the defining value proposition for Social Twist. The company that enables brands and publishers to turn social media into marketing campaigns has flown in stealth mode until recently when it announced a new website redesign and some surprisingly big numbers. Since its entry into the market 18 months ago Social Twist has served 3.6 billion impressions through more than 70,000 thousand publishers. [...]

Today's bites: Find out the secrets to Dell's successful online marketing strategy. Livefyre gets funding to clean up anonymous comments on news sites. And how Blockbuster is trying to fight back against the influx of Redbox kiosks.

So, if Hamburg, Germany-based wunderloop can target ads the way that German striker Miroslav Klose can pinpoint a soccer ball, AudienceScience may have itself a winner. For some reason, the latter ad technology company dropped news of its agreement to acquire wunderloop during the long holiday weekend, but then, conquering the world one audience segment of the time affords little slack time.

There’s more evidence that mobile marketing affects shopping behavior. After a Knowledge Networks report last week showed the power of mobile apps, yesterday a report conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by Placecast says consumers are becoming more receptive to opt-in mobile marketing. One-third of Americans who have signed up for mobile marketing alerts indicate that it impacts their decision to go into stores and 27% report that such programs have impacted their decision to buy products in physical retail locations. [...]

Digital out-of-home is currently enjoying the best of several worlds, and Adcentricity is right smack in the middle of them. The company claims to be North America’s largest aggregator and strategist for digital OOH. Being digital it can dynamically update brand messages and optimize their placements based on time and audience. It can also target the right audience based on location and then measure response. Although digital OOH has some obstacles to success, it is gaining momentum.

Unless you have a government account, it’s a tough time to be in the market research business. The American Marketing Association issued a report last week that measured the biggest drop in 20 years for the commercial marketing, advertising, and public opinion research services. The study was published in the AMA's Marketing News magazine in its June 30 annual Marketing Research Issue.

Nearly 40% of people in homes with Internet access use the TV and Internet simultaneously at least once each week. And that, according to a new Nielsen report, is a good thing. It’s an even better thing if you’re in the pharmaceutical industry. In a study of direct-to-consumer drug advertising, exposure on TV and online was more than twice as likely to prompt patients to ask their physician about an advertised drug than TV alone. The study also found that premium in-stream video ads which aired as part of a full-length TV episode online generated significantly higher levels of ad recall and brand recognition than other Internet video, display or standard TV ads. [...]

Anne Frisbie, the new VP & Managing Director, North America of InMobi, is experienced enough to know that there is still plenty of room to compete for mobile advertising in the expanding domestic and global market. Her company claims to be the world’s largest independent mobile ad network, and recently announced its official launch in the US market. InMobi already maintains 2 billion US ad impressions monthly following its soft launch in January 2010, most of those for global publishers who have a US footprint. [...]

They app, they shop. A new report from Knowledge Networks has found that among those who use apps on their smartphone, 40% will refer to them at least "sometimes" when making decisions while shopping. Of the more than 1,000 consumers surveyed 32% already say they are more inclined to buy from companies that advertise in apps - a much higher proportion than for other emerging platforms.

After weeks of rumors, Hulu has finally launched its subscription-based service. The deal gives users access to content on multiple devices -- including web-connected TVs, iPhones and iPads -- and all for just $10 per month. Could this be the beginning of the end for the big cable companies?

Zoove made major strides this week with StarStar Mobile Dial Code solution striking deals with several domestic mobile carriers including AT&T and Verizon. The service enables brands and agencies to reserve branded Mobile Dial Codes (MDCs) and use the Zoove platform to launch StarStar Code direct response programs.

Perhaps more than any other business, automotive companies live and die on the Internet. According to new and used car pricing bible Kelley Blue Book, www.kbb.com, Web traffic patterns show big changes in who’s surviving and thriving. Its new intelligence report shows the top five upward-climbing and downward-declining brands in share of market interest for May 2010 over 2009 with Hyundai and Ford both showing a significant increase in share of market interest. During the same time dominant brands Toyota and Honda showed a significant decrease. [...]

Geo-locational ads are working on mobile, and it turns out more users are looking for directions as well. ComScore released a report last Friday that shows 14 % of mobile users in the U.S. accessed maps on their devices in April 2010, as the mobile map audience reached 33.5 million users, up 44% from the previous year. The study also found that more mobile users now access maps via application than via browser, demonstrating the success of applications in penetrating the mobile map market.

Today's bites: The World Cup isn't limited to those signs around the pitch for marketing opportunities, social CRM is here for good, and Schick embraces branded content for its new razor.

Premium publishers are emerging as key players in the larger data marketplace, as they make their treasure chests of user data available. But a core debate remains about whether to focus ad buys on those premium sites and their powerful content draw, or to make broader audience buys that deliver scale. Experts weighed in on aspects of the issue during the panel “Buying Content vs. Audience for Advertisers” at today’s DPAC conference.

HP’s MagCloud print-on-demand technology got a big boost this week with the addition of Life Magazine’s special issue print versions. Life.com will make its Special Issue print magazine versions for a selection of the website’s most popular online photo galleries available through the HP MagCloud print-on-demand platform. HP MagCloud has been in beta since July 2008, focused mostly on niche publications such as artsy photo magazine Meridian, and Food Junkie. Life is the biggest title by far for HP’s platform that allows users to order a print magazine version of a participating publication to arrive just days later. [...]

The picture that emerges in DM2PRO.com's most recent State of the Industry Survey with partner Operative is one where the publisher’s ad operations team is increasingly on the front-lines of customer service – perhaps because only they are knowledgeable enough about the inner workings of any given multimedia campaign to be able to keep ad clients in the loop. Publishers so highly revere the in-house ad trafficker that only a fifth would consider outsourcing the function, while more than half of agencies do so regularly. [...]

This is Ernie Cormier’s first summer as the CEO of Nexage but hardly his first in the mobile business. He took the reins in late April, after serving as a senior executive for Lagardère, Nextel Communications, and Virgin Media. He also brings an extensive background in technology, product, and marketing from several mobile startups and now he’s leading one of the leading mobile ad solutions companies. The company’s leading product is Nexage Mediation, a hosted advertising optimization service that enables carriers and media companies to fully control and maximize the monetization of their mobile channels. [...]

Borders Books caught up to the price cuts that radicalized the e-reader market on Monday, choosing to add value to its Kobo eReader rather than cutting the retail price. The company announced that the reader will now be bundled with a $20 Borders gift card, and double Borders Bucks that can be used towards a future Borders purchase. At $149.99 the Kobo will be competitive with Barnes and Noble’s Nook and priced below the Kindle.

Cathleen Ryan, MEA Digital's Chief Results Officer, shared her views on the trials, travails and un-tapped potential for digital ad ops as a precursor to our survey on the subject for DPAC. We'll release our "State of the Industry Survey" results tomorrow, but what we realized in our conversation with Ryan was that sometimes the questions are more interesting than the answers.

Big hitters from the digital publishing content and technology will convene Thursday June 24 at The 2010 Digital Publishing & Advertising Conference (DPAC), created by digital-marketing collective DM2 Events with sponsored workshops from Zinio. It will feature some of the most influential and renowned names in digital publishing and their thoughts on how marketers, publishers, media professionals and technology gurus best can leverage the big ideas and innovations of digital media.

It’s not just teens that are driving while texting. A new Pew Internet Research Project report says adults are just as likely as teens to have texted while driving and are substantially more likely to have talked on the phone while driving. In addition, 49% of adults say they have been passengers in a car when the driver was sending or reading text messages on their cell phone. Overall, 44% of adults say they have been passengers of drivers who used the cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger. [...]

The new capabilities leverage YuMe’s proprietary domain detection technology, which can collect detailed information about the in-page environment of a syndicated or embeddable player when it makes an ad request, even when the player is not associated with a companion banner. This allows YuMe to prevent ads from running in video players that have been embedded on inappropriate websites, and to work with publishers to constantly monitor and improve the list of sites where their syndicated and user-embeddable players are appearing. [...]

More than 123 million Americans visited newspaper sites in May, representing 57 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience, says comScore. The site category ranking, which counts newspaper corporate groups in addition to national newspapers, is the first collective ranking in which all of the individual participants have transitioned to the comScore Media Metrix 360 “Unified Digital Measurement” methodology. Newspapers also draw higher ad rates, with average CPM's hovering around $7.

Magnetic capitalizes on the re-targeting trend by raising $5.25 million in VC funding which it will use to “further build its core search re-targeting technology and expand with new solutions for advertisers and marketers that bring synergy to display media and search data.” The company also unveils a new option for advertisers to buy display media targeted with search data to reach consumers anywhere on the purchase funnel online. Magnetic can now run search re-targeted campaigns for advertisers and agencies. [...]

At a time when Facebook couldn’t be under more scrutiny for its user policies, traditional news publishers have quietly figured out how to exploit this and other social networks to drive more registrations to their sites. Yesterday, Portland-based identity pioneer Janrain repositioned its RPX third party authentication solution as “Engage,” paired it with an in-the-cloud identity management system called Capture, and announced a slew of new media clients poised to begin understanding how they can use OpenID to turn their most loyal users into recruiters on the social network sites they frequent. [...]

There’s no doubt that e-readers are selling at a good clip. But exactly who the reader customer is and how they relate to other media has been a bit of a mystery. Two recent reports are filling in those blanks. The reports come from reliable sources: MRI and Verso Digital. According to the latest data from GfK MRI's Survey of the American Consumer, 2.8 million American adults own an e-reader, a 34% increase since the company's fall 2009 data were released. The data also show that e-reader owners are far more likely than the average American to visit social networking Web sites. [...]

The economy is uncertain but digital content is not. PricewaterhouseCoopers' annual Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2010-2014 released on Tuesday, predicts that a shaky global economy will limit overall ad spending increases, but digital spending will continue to grow at a healthy pace.

Although he has a reputation for producing tabloid trash and conservative trash talk, Rupert Murdoch is a much more astute businessman when it comes to content. He has always been about owning content platforms and franchises. Yesterday’s investments in Skiff and Journalism Online, while risky and dramatic, are not all that surprising given Murdoch’s track record.

Admittedly, digital media and marketing companies -- and even a few .org's and .gov's -- came to WeMedia's Tabula Rasa event at Gannett HQ looking for a few good tips on how to exploit the next generation of mobile devices. But Dale Peskin and a group of “Digital DaVincis” were more intent on using the iPad as a launch pad for a discussion on how to expand the thinking of digital storytellers’ present on the potential for revolutionizing everything from education to world hunger. All it takes is determination, imagination… and a lot of late nights. [...]

AJ Rhodes, Disney's top mobile strategist, takes fellow marketers behind the scenes to reveal the Magic Kingdom's mobile strategy. How fast is mobile growing? “By 2012, 50 percent of all our eyeballs – all of our engagement – will be on mobile device. And, that’s if we continue to grow at half the rate we’re growing right now.” And, the great thing about reaching a young audience is that they’ll share it with the adults in their lives, he said.

News flash: Facebook and Twitter are not the only viable and rapidly growing social networks. A new class of special interest networks has found engaged users and innovative business models that go beyond their mass market colleagues. One such network, Alliance Health, has combined expert content with engaged audiences and content innovation.

Akamai Technologies is claiming significant traction from its pixel-free technology that allows online retailers and marketers to employ predictive modeling and behavioral targeting for their entire customer base.

Although the panelists were decidedly tech-oriented Wednesday’s DIGIDAY:Target event was notable for its emphasis on consumer experience and branding benefits. From specific case studies presented by Aston Martin and Arm & Hammer to dozens of anecdotes, speakers showed that all forms of targeting were achieving dramatic increases in engagement and revenue for brands and publishers.

While reports earlier this week predicted big percentage increases for overall ad spending, it appears that CPMs will follow suit. The Adify Vertical Gauge (AVG) quarterly report published today by vertical ad network Adify, shows that effective CPMs have increased in seven of the 11 verticals tracked by the have higher average eCPMs in Q1 2010 than in Q1 2009, signaling what the company calls a “strong and consistent rebound.”

More than 600 brand and agency marketers and mobile technology solution providers hit the Mobile Marketing Association’s Mobile Marketing Forum at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City this week to explore how to infuse mobile into the marketing mix. In response, yesterday’s informal poll after a day and a half of intense education revealed that most marketers plan to exert the most effort this year on making mobile Web sites.

The email campaign is going social. Several email providers and digital strategy companies are finding ways to connect emails with social networks. In the process, it is taking one of the most direct methods for customer communication and digital marketing into a new realm.

Local mobile discount program provider Mobile Spinach is blending old school marketing with cutting edge couponing. Last week is launched its “Discount For Life” program on a national scale after testing it in San Francisco. Based on radio show call-in models, the “Discount For Life” is an innovative loyalty model rewarding valuable customers. For example, the first 100 customers that sign up for a local coffee shop mobile program can become life members, receiving a ten cent discount on every purchase for as long as they use their mobile device for the promotions. [...]

According to a new report from brand safety platform AdSafe, the use of ad exchanges, real-time-bidding and demand side platforms is growing. The company’s quarterly report shows that of the traffic observed by AdSafe in Q1 2010, 47% was served by exchanges, real-time-bidding platforms and demand side platforms. 34% was served by ad networks and 19% was served by direct publisher sales. This share of exchange/RTB/DSP served traffic trended upwards significantly from last quarter, indicating that premium brand advertisers have begun to more aggressively shift media dollars to these channels. [...]

AdGenesis is betting online video can merge with interactive TV. The company launched a new video advertising platform last week that allows customers to exchange buying information for relevant ads and rewards. AdGenesis functions across multiple media including mobile, online and eventually ITV.

Using verbiage normally reserved for oil producing nations or organized crime syndicates, BanxCorp, operator of the BanxQuote website, sued a slew of media biggest players yesterday accusing them of forming a “cartel” to sell information on bank interest rates online.

Two weeks ago Kantar launched a new initiative called Kantar Video, extending the company’s range of multi-channel data, analysis, and audience measurement services. The company has developed a proprietary syndication, tracking and optimization platform, Kantar Videolytics, and according to CEO William Lederer it marks the beginning of an aggressive second half of 2010.

NetBase’s flagship product, ConsumerBase, gives marketers the ability to measure the consumer passion expressed on social media networks, general Internet content, and internal company reports. It already counts among its customers five of the top 10 CPG brands and in the last month of limited release, has added numerous brand-name customers, including several more Top 50 consumer brands. Last week it launched a product called the Brand Passion Index, which takes that data and measures the intensity of consumer passion for brands expressed in social media using a proprietary semantic analysis tool. [...]

Mentos has had one of the more diverse and quirky digital brand marketing histories. After starting with kitschy TV commercials in the 80s that people loved or hated but definitely talked about, it stormed the gates of viral marketing in the aughts with its exploding soda bottle videos. Now it’s back with its "Fresh Goes Better" campaign.

It might seem from the business press and even consumer momentum like everyone has a smartphone these days. But it’s not even owned by a quarter of the population. And it may seem like Apple is completely dominating the app market, but that’s not true either. In fact Nielsen’s new ‘App Playbook,’ busts open a few myths.

The pharmaceutical industry, hamstrung online by an unstable regulatory climate, needs to be more aggressive. That’s the conclusion of a report released by luxury marketing think tank L2. Its report urges pharma companies to develop what it calls a “digital aptitude” that will be separates winners from losers in social networking and other online marketing.

Despite the appearance Wednesday that privacy groups were encouraged by Facebook’s moves to simplify it’s privacy controls for users, a gaggle of privacy advocates gathered a conference call Thursday to blast the moves as window dressing. Jeffrey Chester, founder and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said, “What Facebook has done is consciously create an architecture to encourage the transmission of user data so it can be mined for advertising purposes without the user understanding the process. [...]

Charlene Li talks about her new book, Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead, which launched Monday and instantly rocketed to #5 on the Amazon business books best-seller list. What's the future of Facebook? How do you measure social ROI? Who's her pick as top transformational leader in marketing? Read on.

More than 80 percent of news that’s shared in the blogosphere and on social sites derives from a handful of news sites – the BBC, CNN, NYTimes.com and the Washington Post – reports Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism annual tracking study. In fact, more than 99 percent of news-related stories linked from blogs came from “legacy outlets such as newspapers and broadcast networks.” While the bragging rights aren't chopped liver, we're left to wonder what such traffic is truly worth. [...]

The most socially networked teens aren’t spending their weekends in front of the screen. A survey by myYearbook and Ketchum of teen social media users showed that the most active online influencers are more likely than the average teen to participate in social media activities, such as updating their status at least once per day or sending 3,000 texts per month, but they also spend more time socializing and influencing their peers offline.

Twitter rolled out its long-awaited business model -- "promoted" tweets that show up in search results -- just a month ago. But dozens of startups had already figured out how to make money by inserting various kinds of ads into and around the tweet stream. No more. The company issued a manifesto outlining how and why it plans to build out its own ad network today -- including forbidding third-party developers from plugging ads directly into tweets.

Nielsen is predicting a “paradigm switch” for mobile phone payment options that could open new customer segments. Instead of buying mobile services first by picking their voice option, then by choosing between prepaid and postpaid paid voice plans the order will change. No longer will voice calling be “the anchor service.”

What makes some of the top execs at leading digital marketing and publishing companies tick? Want to learn from their past successes (and sometimes failures)? Then dig in to our Five Questions column. This week, we chat with Michael Becker, the Mobile Marketing Association's managing director, North America.

Online video is being served more and opened more by consumers. But the open issue is still monetization. Fresh off a big win at Comcast Digital, Auditude’s helps content owners and publishers unlock significant revenue from their digital video. It does that by leveraging its ad serving platform to simplify the process of monetizing content owners’ video inventory. In particular, it provides partners the ability to monetize across sites, sales teams, platforms and devices all with the targeting, forecasting, reporting and ad product capabilities needed to drive yield and streamline complex workflows. [...]

While its largest practitioner deals with mass exodus due to privacy issues, new research launched today shows that consumers believe social networks provide a higher value experience compared with other forms of entertainment. Edelman's fourth annual Trust in the Entertainment Industry survey also reveals that the Internet, as a source of entertainment, is second only to television.

Massify combines a workshop concept and a project incubator into one network. More than 65,000 people have joined, filling out profiles with their entertainment experiences and their hopes to gain more. Jobs for casting and crew are posted on the site. Members can share film concepts for input from other members and submit their short films for ratings. Film companies can dip into the Massify community for talent, and that’s where it gets interesting for digital marketing. Massify wants to be a branded content talent source. [...]

Social gamer Playdom has inked a two-year deal with ESPN to develop, promote and distribute ESPN-branded sports games across multiple social networks. ESPN has had plenty of success in the console and casual games space, but this first real foray into social gaming highlights just how quickly these kinds of games -- and companies -- are transforming media consumption and monetization overall.

Ford is launching its new Ford Fiesta with a return to a competitive advantage in the auto space: social media. In addition to a big budget TV and radio campaign with a healthy does of multicultural flavor, the new campaign returns to the “Fiesta Movement.” That initiative, which introduced the car to consumers through “socially vibrant agents” is being amped up this year.

LucidMedia announced the launch of a self-service version of its formerly managed service software yesterday, hoping to enable agencies and their clients to gain full-control over their targeted digital campaigns. Ajay Sravanapudi, LucidMedia Founder and CEO, says the self-service switch will give agencies accessing an in-house, “white labeled” solution with a proprietary base of more than 14,000 targeted categories, page-level transparency, and multiple layers of filtering to protect branded advertisers from inappropriate content. [...]

The Christian Science Monitor is taking the high-end of paid subscription business models, using online video as the wedge. Today it announced a new partnership with FORA.tv to debut online videos of the weekly Monitor Breakfast, a 44-year-old tradition that brings Washington newsmakers together with top journalists. Full-length videos of each Breakfast can be viewed for $14.95 monthly or $99.95 annually. The company will sell ad units within the videos.

A new University of Michigan study says Internet marketers may not know as much about consumers as they think do. In a study appearing in a forthcoming issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, U-M researchers find that people have an aversion to being predicted or labeled.

As online video progresses toward critical scale, ad platforms and networks are making it easier to integrate the necessary technology. Case in point: this week online video technology platform YuMe announced that its ACE video advertising platform will support Open Source Media Framework (OSMF).

While it substantially trails rivals in display ad revenue, Facebook pulled ahead of Yahoo’s ad delivery rate for the first time in Q1. According to comScore Inc. as reported in The Wall Street Journal, Facebook delivered 176.3 billion display ads on its website over the first three months of 2010, more banner ads than any other Web publisher in the period. The growth also reflects increased demand from both small and large advertisers, comScore Chief Marketing Officer Linda Abraham told WSJ.

Attitudinal targeting company Resonate has launched an ad targeting solution designed to identify and recruit potential volunteers, activists, and donors online for political and advocacy campaigns. With today’s launch, the company now enables its clients to target and measure the success of their campaigns through three distinct targeting strategies: reach, clicks, or conversions into volunteers and activists.

PQ Media says cash-sponsored conversations are driving social media growth with spending rising 37.3% in 2009 to $10.3 million, driven by brand requirements to reach specific “influentials” such as young females and working mothers.

Digital consumers are hungry for food content. That’s the conclusion drawn from Deloitte’s new 2010 Consumer Food Safety Survey. The survey found that one-third (33%) of respondents subscribed to receive emails, recipes, or coupons directly from food manufacturers, a six %age point increase from the 2008 survey.

It describes itself as "a company of thinkers. Of what-iffers. Of straight-shooters.” So far that world has been very successful. T3 has worked with MSN for over a year and a half among other clients such as Chase, UPS, Ford, and Intel. It has used a marriage of content and imaging to produce an authentic brand voice, advanced analytics, and customized campaigns based on customer segmentation.

Year-over-year revenue from Scripps newspapers fell 7.6 percent to $113 million. Advertising revenue was down 12 percent to $75.2 million. Yet, both figures reflect an improvement in the rate of decline from the fourth quarter of 2009, when total year-over-year revenues declined 15 percent, and ad revenues were down 20 percent.

Sometimes even the most high-tech digital design applications are rooted in the basic principles. Here's an experiment (including an exclusive download) that can illustrate what it takes to create meaningful design for even the most sophisticated brands.

Sports Illustrated is taking a mutli-platform approach to its 2010 football fantasy league and will include a social media presence. The brand’s digital group has partnered with Watercooler to launch an SI-branded fantasy football game on the Facebook platform that will also live on SI.com and SI mobile.

According to ABI last year consumers downloaded more than 2.4 billion applications from app stores, dominated by Apple. That download growth rate will accelerate over the next few years until in 2013 when downloads are expected to peak at just below seven billion. Apple’s app store will continue to lead the field. In the years that follow, says ABI, download rates from app stores will start a slow decline although the total market will continue to grow.

AudienceScience raised $20 million late last year, and since then the behavioral targeter has made new hires and opened up international offices. But it saved the big money for an acquisition: Buying out Hispanic ad targeter Consorte Media and staking its claim to a huge digital marketing demographic in the process.

Clyde Bentley, an associate professor of convergence journalism at the school and a Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow, is urging newspapers adapt to the changing technology before they are left behind. He is basing this thesis partly on a Gartner prediction that by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide.

Must be butter because online video is still on a roll. On Tuesday alone, three major companies announced changes to their business model to accommodate the measurement, presentation, and purchase of online video. Nielsen led the way with a major acquisition.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World -- but not all of them are worth your time or money. So how do you cut through the clutter? Every Tuesday, digiday:DAILY gives you the rundown on the app that should be on your radar. This week's app: NFL Mobile

Forget Mother's Day. A new survey shows 69 percent of brand marketers see teens as their most important customer segments, dominated by social media strategies.

Arbitron/Edison Research revealed that 87% of Americans are now aware of Twitter, up from 24% in 2009 and just 5% when the question was first asked, in 2008. But in looking at how many Americans are active users of Twitter -- defined as using the service at least once a month -- that figure came in at 7%, or about 17 million people, up from 2% in 2009.

An innovative twist on audience targeting launched earlier this months from a London-based company called Audience Analytics. Instead of doing the math, Audience Analytics is doing the faces. VisualDNA, says the service is used by the likes of MSN, PepsiCo International, Hotels.com, Lastminute, Vodafone while the company has already profiled more than 20 million people.

At AudienceScience's 2010 Targeting Summit in Las Vegas April 28, Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy and innovation officer for VivaKi rues the fact that brands have forgotten how to market. He outlines the changing face of marketing using the seven notes of the keyboard today's pied pipers must use to draw consumers: Audience, Brand, Content, Data, Enterprise and the yin-yang perspectives of Facebook and Google.

The new Millward Brown report says that the definitive indicator of social media’s impact can be seen in traditionally TV oriented companies such as banks, CPG icons, and auto makers. “Brands in certain categories, like apparel, aggressively adopted social media because it fits with their youth orientation,” the report says. “But as new BrandZ data indicate, social media are not just the domain of young fashionable brands. In fact the more people have a strong attitudinal bond with a brand the more likely that are to engage with it online. [...]

As CEO and co-founder of AdSafe, Kent Wakeford is a watchdog for brand safety online. AdSafe fills a unique role because it has to encourage Internet advertising yet it has to warn brands that it believes some environments are unsafe. In his opinion brands risk erosion if they don’t exercise caution.

Healthline will use the capital to expand “research and development, engineering, sales and network services to meet the growing demand from a broad spectrum of consumer-focused media and healthcare businesses looking to improve the way consumers find, understand and manage health-related information. The company will also work to expand its advertising platform and services.”

Consumers are responding to insurer's push for online rate comparisons and policy purchases, according to a report released today by comScore. Based on behavioral data from its one million person U.S. panel and a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. Internet users the report found that U.S. consumers submitted requests for 38.8 million online quotes in 2009 and purchased a record 2.8 million policies online during the year, each representing an increase of more than 20 percent versus the previous year, as consumers sought ways to save on auto insurance during the recession. [...]

Barnes & Noble has come to life quickly with the Nook. On Friday the biggest offline bookseller announced new software applications for the Nook including a Read In Store app to browse complete eBooks in Barnes & Noble stores at no cost, as well as games. The first Android applications available on the device will come via an enhanced Wi-Fi connectivity and a basic Web browser. The new features, along with page turns and an enhanced home screen, are also part of the new Nook v1.3 software.

Video advertising network Bright Roll released the results of its second annual Online Video Advertising Report, showing that advertisers are becoming increasingly reliant on online video as a proven means to reach targeted audiences at scale.

Forget click-thrus. What did the EEG measurement look like? That's what Millward Brown wants clients to ask as they launch a new division to develop neuroscience and neuromarketing.

Conducted in mid-March, a new MMA new survey found that that 26% of mobile phone users have used a "map, navigation or some other mobile phone service that automatically determines your current location." That number skyrockets for Apple products.

A new report from Pew Research shows the typical American teen sends or receives 50 or more text messages a day, or 1,500 per month. That's up in the past 18 months from 38% of teens texting friends daily in February of 2008, to 54% of teens texting daily in September 2009. 31% of teens send and receive more than 100 messages per day or more than 3,000 messages a month and 15% of teens who are texters send more than 200 texts a day, or more than 6,000 texts a month.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World -- but not all of them are worth your time or money. So how do you cut through the clutter? Every Tuesday, digiday:DAILY gives you the rundown on the app that should be on your radar. This week's app: Twitter for BlackBerry.

Facebook and Nielsen came out of the gate fast with the results of their first joint research project. Case number on took on no less than the holy grail of sales lift as a result of social media. Key findings from Nielsen BrandLift studies conclude that socially-charged ads increase campaign effectiveness by two- to three-fold.

OfferMobi, which bills itself as the first mobile performance marketing network launched today at ad:tech San Francisco. It launched with a partnership for tracking pay-per-call services offered through technology provider RingRevenue and will allow advertisers to compensate for leads and conversion.

You down with RPC? A Scarborough Research study concludes that Readers-Per-Copy (RPC) rates increased over the past three years by an average of 7.5 percent. In 2007, an average of 3.07 adults in the study read a copy of a printed daily newspaper, versus 3.30 adults in 2009. Higher rates of pass-along readership indicate that an average unit of newspaper circulation is generating more readers.

A new white paper claims that two critical threats are inhibiting the impact of “what otherwise have been significant advances in the ways that online display ads are designed, bought and deployed across publisher Web sites.” Those two threats are transparency and brand safety.

This week the web community was recovering from the Streamy Awards, and reviews of the actual show were mixed, with many leaning towards the negative. While we won’t be offering up a review here, in the wake of these still-young and increasingly relevant web awards, it’s worth revisiting the content on top.

Digital intelligence and analytics provider Compete is expanding its relationship with Fox Audience Network in a new measurement methodology partnership. Compete’s XL audience metrics will now incorporates Fox Audience Network's reach of more than 150 million consumers , integrating new data that describes consumer lifestyles, passions and purchasing behaviors.

Media companies looking to generate revenue through long-form online video are leaving money on the table by not including more ads or charging for more of its programming.

According to media business tracking company MediaFinder.com, only 22 magazines folded in the first quarter of 2010 compared with 95 last year, while seven magazines, compared to 16 last year, ceased their print editions and publish online-only magazines.

New spins on the audience targeting model continue to generate new internet consumer information. Attitudinal targeting company Resonate, which is expanding beyond the political base of clients it solidified in 2009, has published a new report which is says shows the difference in attitudinal and “traditional” targeting.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World -- but not all of them are worth your time or money. So how do you cut through the clutter? Every Tuesday, digiday:DAILY gives you the rundown on the app that should be on your radar. This week's app: Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The topic of business models dominated yesterday’s digiday:Video Upfront panel on syndication. And while the path to monetization for content providers is not clearly defined, a few viable ones exist. But at least one panelist thought the space was too complicated for advertisers.

It is a natural condition of the advertising business: Agencies think prices are too high and content owners think they’re too low. But even the most jaded observer would be surprised at how early the battle lines over online video are being drawn.

Online video innovator Innovid is riding a big win from the Budweiser brand and is starting this week of the Video Upfront conference by announcing a new partnership with with Sympatico.ca. It will be exclusive provider of its iRoll technology for one of Canada's largest portals.

Lowly SMS can get lost in the shuffle of shiny new iPhone apps, but the Mobile Marketing Association reports that text messaging was the second most common way people chose to donate to Haitian relief efforts. Subway, a DPAC award winner for digital marketing innovation, is also using Shorthand Mobile's SMS platform to speed sandwich buyers to the head of the line. So, from missionary zeal to foraging for fast food, SMS still shows promise.

A new company called Arkayne has just released its new software that was designed at least in part to help companies own their content and commerce. The Arkayne Plugin is an automated Software as a Service application that funnels Web site visitors to each business’ desired conversion.

The company launched an upgrade of its service that merges BtoB and BtoC marketing under one platform. Silverpop says a recent survey of more than 1,800 marketers found that B2C and B2B marketers share many of the same goals. When asked what their top challenges are in the coming year, both groups said finding more prospective customers, up-selling or cross-selling to the customer base, improving analytics to strengthen campaigns and better leveraging new marketing channels are problems they face. [...]

New data from content download platform Myxer shows that while iPhone and Android are grabbing the headlines, RIM and Blackberry are still showing impressive growth. Its latest monthly report, BoomBox , measures smartphone usage across its 33 million users. According to the study, RIM continues to far outpace Windows, Palm, webOS, Android, iPhone and Symbian based on mobile visits, growing from a 58% market share in March 2009 to a 63% share in March 2010.

A new dashboard technology will allow Netmining advertisers to see their site visitor data which is gathered by the same tag that powers their display advertising campaigns. Armed with this data, advertisers and their agencies can gain an enhanced knowledge of customer behavior on their website to help inform conversion strategies and marketing programs.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World -- but not all of them are worth your time or money. So how do you cut through the clutter? Every Tuesday, digiday:DAILY gives you the rundown on the app that should be on your radar. This week's app: Gamefly's GameCenter

Domino's Pizza is taking its branding efforts to several different online vehicles lately, now launching a new campaign for its hand-tossed pizza. Following the “Oh Yes We Did” campaign - where actual Domino's Pizza employees faced consumer criticism in reinventing the company's core hand-tossed recipe - the new campaign journeys to find the last pizza "holdouts."

Movie studios and TV networks are creating social experiences that help them discover who their biggest fans are, as well as how they can get them into the theater or piled up in the living room. From Facebook pages and Twitter acccounts run by characters, to apps that give fans behind-the-scenes video clips, these experiences are a way for content creators and marketers to get people engaged enough that they'll invite others along for the ride. The following movie moguls explored their plans for entertainment on various social networks, and how they fit into long-term marketing efforts. [...]

The company's digital SVP says it's a great time to be in digital publishing and he's spreading the brand's content to 400 million people each month worldwide through calculated moves to make content available on the website and now through other digital platforms.

Along with partner Jolt Online Gaming it has announced the launch of its first free-to-play program involving the Legends of Zork online game and a companion consumer sweepstakes offering one year of free video games as the grand prize. The Legends of Zork promotion is the first consumer initiative launched by GameStop and Jolt Online Gaming.

After running a lead gen company for ten years, Jay Habegger is now three years into leading a company that has developed new business models for reaching customers that are researching purchases or have recently made them. Rather than relying on more general algorithms, OwnerIQ has developed a methodology called ownership targeting.

With rumors rife about Apple possibly announcing a new “iAd” creative platform for the iPad, Greystripe is taking matters into its own hands. The rich media mobile advertising network today announced its latest iFlash ad units will launch in May. a Greystripe spokesperson says the new creative platform conforms to all current iPad specs.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World, and not all of them are worth your time or money. So each week we'll dig into a different app -- be it a productivity tool created by an indie developer, a best-selling game, or a publisher's mobile magazine -- to help you cut through the clutter. This week's app: GetFugu Mobile Search

What makes some of the top execs at leading digital marketing and publishing companies tick? Want to learn from their past successes (and sometimes failures)? Then dig in to our Five Questions column. This week, we ask David Reis, CEO of DEI Worldwide, about how the process of working with Kraft on social media efforts has evolved over the past three years.

A company called RiseSmart sees an opportunity to remedy lame job searches. The company’s new Transition Concierge 3.0 outplacement solution combines online tools with one-on-one human support to reduce time to placement through the power of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks to help laid-off employees find new, relevant jobs faster.

A study from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization and eConsultancy says search engine marketing will reach $16.6 billion this year in North America, up nearly 14% from $14.6 billion for 2009. More than 49% of 1,500 marketers and agencies surveyed in January and February plan to shift money to search engine marketing from print advertising.

Four leading brand marketers joined FOCi Group during the Brand Innovators Panel at digiday:SOCIAL in LA. Execs from The Dial Corporation, Mattel, POM Wonderful and Publishers Clearing House were candid about their strategies, challenges and successes in utilizing social media within their marketing mix. We plan to recap the panel of highlights in a series of four columns. Today's insight: How The Dial Corporation Quantifies Its Social Initiatives

A new ISPOS study has found It found that four in ten (43%) say that they have opened an email that they suspected was spam, though fewer have taken more risky behaviors such as clicking on a link (11%), opening an attachment (8%),replying to (4%) or forwarding (4%) an email they suspected was spam. These riskier behaviors are more common among men and email users under 35 – the same demographic groups who are more likely to consider themselves experienced when it comes to Internet security threats. [...]

A recent study from Boston-based Chadwick Martin and Bailey is still echoing after it initial publication last week. The study showed clear evidence that consumers who are Facebook fans and Twitter followers of a brand are more likely to not only recommend, but they are also more likely to buy from those brands than they were before becoming fans/followers.

What are teenagers doing on their mobile phones? According to ChaCha, they’re texting. On its service 83 percent of the 400 million questions its been asked in the free, ad-supported Q&A service were from 13 to 24-year-olds. See the Transformers2 campaign from Paramount and here what ChaCha CEO Scott Jones has to say about the power of SMS to engage teens in today’s free video from digiday:MOBILE LA in the upper right.

While the bidding and auction concept is not new for advertising or even commerce, it is new for content. But DigitalScirocco founder and CEO Bruce D’Ambrosio believes it will be a healthy break for companies that have learned to live with static content.

Massachusetts-based LiveWire Mobile is betting that some mobile users will make the ringback an ad platform. The company announced a new premium advertising service called RingSpot that will provide wireless carriers a way to generate revenue and increase customer loyalty. Here’s how it works: Customers opt-in to replace their ringback with a marketing message of their choosing delivered by national advertisers, non-profits and local merchants.

Magnetic is headed by by CEO Josh Shatkin-Margolis who was the principal architect at DoubleClick responsible for all banner ad serving technologies. As Director of Engineering for Yahoo!, he was the responsible for data processing for Yahoo!’s advertising division. The company comes out of stealth mode with ad buying partnerships with 40 ad networks and agencies, helping serve more than 1 billion impressions monthly.

Mobile text pioneer ChaCha, is launching a new service called ChaCha Me. Any member can ask a question of another member who has a profile, whether it’s a person or business. The owner of the page can decide whether to answer the question which will then be seen by all. It could become an interview format that is as intriguing for individuals as it is for well-known celebrities, according to ChaCha founder Scott Jones.

Built on Facebook, the new “Moments to Share” will enable parents to record their child’s milestones and special moments in a dynamic timeline created with digital photos, videos, dates, captions and stories.

The game-leveraging company has hired Hongpei Zhang, as Senior Vice President of Data and Analytics following seven years of senior roles in running sales and marketing insights for Yahoo. Zhang is looking forward to “connecting the dots” what consumers do and what those actions means to different kinds of content owners.

A new Millennial Media report shows that recent disasters have showcased the power of mobile technology and trends among different age demographics in a new-found advertising vertical, Mobile Cause Marketing.

According to an independent report commissioned by GetJar, the global apps economy is set to be worth $17.5 billion by 2012, Mobile app downloads across all types of handset are also expected to increase from over 7 billion downloads in 2009 to almost 50 billion in 2012 – a year on year growth rate of 92%.

Plenty of ads are viewed, but not many are chosen to be passed along. New research from Millward Brown quantifies that pass-along factor, finding that fewer than one in six video ads achieve high viral viewing. The research analyzed 102 ads to help marketers predict viral success prior to launching an ad or video.

More bandwidth. More people. Ten years to get it done. The FCC plan delivered yesterday was ambitious but its up to the networks to see if it's change we can believe in.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World -- but not all of them are worth your time or money. So how do you cut through the clutter? Every Tuesday, digiday:DAILY gives you the rundown on the app that should be on your radar. This week's app: ESPN 2010 World Cup

The partnership makes puts online and premium branded offline data directly in one marketplace. Media agencies and advertisers can integrate Nielsen's household segmentation systems with anonymous online captured interest and purchase intent activity on more than 150M U.S. monthly unique visitors.

A new report from Juniper Research claims that one-to-one marketing allied to the rapid proliferation of smartphones will be among the key drivers of a mobile retail market which is anticipated to exceed $12 billion by 2014.

What makes some of the top execs at leading digital marketing and publishing companies tick? Want to learn from their past successes (and sometimes failures)? Then dig in to our Five Questions column. This week, we ask Neil Salvage, EVP of advertising at IAC-owned Citysearch about why the company decided to invest in an SEO firm, and how he really feels about competition from Yelp.

From a techy point of view the new features are called “integration with FBML exporting, conditional content and expandable ad functionality.” Sprout is hoping that its connection from display to Facebook page breathes new life into displays ads and rich media.

It's not a popularity contest. Social-media marketers need to define the value of a user beyond simply the number of friends or fans in order to measure value and estimate marketing budgets. The message came from executives with Facebook, Razorfish and Forrester Research at digiday:Social LA.

The company says its new system will be a personalized advertising recommendation engine offering content creators, brands and agencies a cost-effective way to tap into StumbleUpon's community of over 10 million users.

Video viewers at YouTube.com watched 93 videos on average during the month, representing an increase of 50% versus a year ago. Hulu ranked second with the rest of the content owners seeing increases in users but chasing market share.

After earning its place on various social networks with virtual hugs, birthday cards and the like, with the launch of a new platform gives developers an opportunity to monetize up to 25 percent of their social gamers and increase average revenue per user (ARPU) by up to 20 percent.