Despite its runaway growth in apps, ads, and overall consumer usage, some retailers still have a surprisingly stubborn “wait and see” attitude regarding mobile commerce. According to a new Forbes Insight survey attitude 73% of the more than 300 U.S. retailers surveyed for the report say they have some type of mobile initiative in place, while 20% are in the process of evaluating the mobile channel, the study finds. All retailers in the poll had multiple locations and annual revenues of $100 million or more. [...]

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.

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.

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.

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.

Legislators and regulators mulling online privacy restrictions may be basing their decisions on bad data that bears no resemblance to the world actual content producers occupy. That’s just one of the implications of a new PreferenceCentral study of more than 1,000 consumers and their attitudes towards both targeted advertising and the exchange of a little information about their personal preferences for free content.

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. [...]

Not all emails are created equally. And it’s better that they’re not, according to a new report from Experian. The company today announced new research from its email marketing technology, Experian CheetahMail, indicating that almost half (47%) of transactions and three-quarters of opens and clicks occur within one day of the email receipt. That means customer response time varies widely by industry and offer. It also shows a volatility in customer preferences and instantaneous nature of the email channel today. [...]

As brands continue to push toward assigning metrics to social media, two major players entered the measurement arena this week: ForeSee Results and Nielsen. Foresee is well known for applying the University of Michigan customer satisfaction index to more specific brand metrics. Wednesday it announced that it has added a Social Media Value Calculation to its core product offering. The company says it will allow clients to understand the impact of their social media marketing efforts on revenue.

Better picture quality and ubiquitous access are fueling on and offline video into hyperspeed. The latest Three Screen Report from Nielsen shows that high definition television, digital video recorders and the Internet are creating higher quality and more convenient experiences for consumers, and as a result, the amount of video Americans consume continues to rise at a rapid rate.

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.”

Ground Truth says “primetime” has come to mobile media, since 32 percent of page views occur in this sacred slot for television viewership. “Clearly, the Mobile Internet is becoming part of primetime television whether advertisers and media companies are ready for it or not,” observed Evan Neufeld, Ground Truth VP marketing. His suggestions: advertisers should extend their campaigns to mobile while viewers are simultaneously engaged with their favorite programs and mobile devices, and broadcasters should integrate mobile into their viewers’ experience, “increasing advertising inventory while keeping viewers tuned in. [...]

Online video has reached critical mass. A new Pew Research report shows that seven in ten adult internet users (69%)—or roughly half (52%) of all U.S. adults—have used the internet to watch or download video. Young adult internet users, 18-29 year-olds, continue to be the heaviest consumers of online video.

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.

As the economy officially heads into summer this weekend, the digital content and marketing business continues to be awash in the mobile tidal wave. The week ended with several significant new research reports from IDC, Millennial Media and even retailer Price Grabber.

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.

According to today’s Millennial Media SMART report, ad requests grew 77% from March to April month over month. Since January, Android has grown 282% on the Millennial network, which according to the company has more than seven billion US ad requests per month.

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.

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.

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.

“Data is the new black,” Kirk McDonald, president of Digital at Time Inc., told publishers at the 2010 Audience Targeting Summit last week, hosted by AudienceScience. He urged his colleagues, “We have to get on top of this” – meaning the mound of data that can drown advertisers who are trying to make sense of it all. On one level, it’s simple, he explained; “You just have to understand your mindset or frame of reference when you come to [audience] data.”

Location-based mobile ads received a large amount of data support this past week as both Millennial Media and the Mobile Marketing Association showed that consumers are viewing and acting on this latest targeting tactic. The MMA says nearly half of all users surveyed took some kind of action when presented with a location-based targeted ad.

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. [...]

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. [...]

A new report from Ground Truth shows that the larger population is using mobile phones to access social networks. “The mobile Internet may be just as reliant on social networks as it is on the mobile data network itself,” says the report from the mobile measurement firm. It says that social networking activity comprises more than half of the time spent on the mobile Internet.

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.

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.

DM2PRO.com joined with Tremor Media to survey digital media and marketing pros on their practices and attitudes towards online video advertising as a way of discerning where this market is going. From the more than 500 responses we received in our first State of the Industry Survey on Online Video Advertising, it looks like 2010 will be a break-out year for the medium. Nearly all – just over 94 percent of advertisers and agencies who currenly use online video advertising – say that their spending will increase. [...]

The report finds that 54% of the 237 million monthly exposures to persons 18+ were displayed to male audiences, with 46% exposed to females. An estimated 50% of all the monthly exposures were displayed to men and women in the key 18-34 demographic.

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 survey finds that smartphone owners are extremely active downloading apps during the first three months after purchase, but almost half are opting for free content. Data Innovation surveyed 499 smart phone users conducted between November 2009 and January 2010, and found 98% of respondents reported downloading an application for their mobile device in the past three months.

Dynamic Logic SiteImpact studies showed that microsites have a substantial impact on awareness and perceptions of a brand. In fact, microsite visitation leads to significant increases in all standard brand metrics. On average, microsites impact 7.8% of site visitors with respect to conveying key brand messages.

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.

Good content equals a good customer experience. A good customer experience equals good customer service. Good customer service will result in some ching in the online checkout process. Ask Zappos. Ask Diapers.com. Both of those companies were among the “elite” customer service award winners from a new company called StellaService. Stella wants to put its seal, Good Housekeeping-style, on exceptional ecommerce customer service companies.

While pharma advertisers spent more in total, on a share basis the amount the industry allocated to TV decreased from 64 cents on the dollar to 60 cents. Magazines held steady. The one channel showing some growth in 2009 was Internet advertising, whose share of budget rose from 3% in 2008 to 6% in 2009.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations modified its definition of a digital magazine to accommodate new reading devices such as the iPad today stating that “a replica digital edition must include a print edition's full editorial content and advertising, but it no longer needs to be presented in a layout identical to the print version. Replica digital editions will continue to be included in a magazine's circulation guarantee, or rate base.”

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.

A new comScore study shows that 30.8 percent of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010, up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago. Access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112 percent in the past year, while Twitter experienced a 347-percent jump.

The Custom Publishing Council says total spending on branded content was over $1.8 million per company in 2009, with 51% spent on print publications, 27% on Internet media and 22% on categories such as video or audio, which were measured for the first time this year. Even allowing for the addition of new categories, 2009 spending was double that of 2008 and the highest amount since the CPC began conducting the survey in 2003.

Digital media is expected to take a major share of business from traditional media as it recovers from 2009. Just don't expect this year to mean much according to BIA/Kelsey’s U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast.

No Google won't make us stupid and it the Internet is not the end of the world as we know it. That is the resounding conclusion of Pew Internet's survey of 900 intellectual influencers and heavy-hitters.

Content searches can be early indicators of economic activity. That's the track record shown by Blue Kai, which released a report today based on its user data. It is very good news for the staggered travel industry.

If Joe Zawadski, CEO od MediaMath has his way, media buyers are going to say 'Bye-Bye' to the black box. Instead, his company is offering a dashboard data approach that is winning awards and clients and providing all the transparency buyers care to see. Watch our exclusive interview in the upper right-hand viewer on the digidaydaily.com site and read on to find out why you care.

Despite what the lasting impression of yesterday's news and today's news is making, there are other companies in the digital content and marketing business, and some of them are even doing very well thank you very much. One of them is Bunchball, a marketing technology company that helps brands measure and drive consumer engagement leveraging game mechanics, which announced a 4.4-fold increase in 2009 revenues (compared to 2008) and a five-fold increase in its customer base, which includes NBC Universal, USA Network, Meredith, Hearst, Resource Interactive, Syfy, Comcast and many others. [...]

According to Nielsen, global consumers spent more than five and half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82% increase from the same time last year when users were spending just over three hours on social networking sites. Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent in December, followed by online games and instant messaging. With 206.9 million unique visitors, Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination in December 2009 and 67% of global social media users visited the site during the month. [...]

Last week Apple's app store reached a milestone worth celebrating: in the 18 months it's been open for business, some 3 billion apps were downloaded. The 3 billion mark came and passed with surprisingly little fanfare. With nearly 130,000 apps available for purchase, and downloads increasingly exponentially, consumers' thirst for apps-- and developers’ interest in meeting that desire-- would seem nearly unquenchable. And device-specific apps, once a playground for only the truly geeky developer, have found their way into mainstream culture. [...]

Apparently the marketing blitz surrounding youth-comedy Youth In Revolt is translating to social media. Fizziolo.gy, a new company measuring the positive and negative social buzz around entertainment products, has found that buzz for Youth in Revolt has grown more rapidly over the past week. Volume of chatter for Youth in Revolt increased by 41% this week over last week versus only 12% week-over-week growth for the " takes over the world movie" Daybreakers. Positive sentiment for Youth in Revolt has grown over the past few weeks. [...]

Cell phone ownership among children has increased 68% in the past five years, according to MRI’s recently-released American Kids Study. Twenty percent of U.S. children ages 6-11 currently own a cell phone, up from 11.9% of children in 2005. The most dramatic increase has been among 10-11 year-olds (80.5%). Boys have led the increase, checking in at 47.6% since 2007, compared with a 17.2% increase among girls. And yes, they are texting. Most use their cells for basic communication tasks, such as calling their parents (88. [...]

The summary is 96 pages. That will give you some idea of the scale of the Morgan Stanley report on the mobile market. Only a few websites have received and ventured into the 900 page plus monster, and we give props to ArcticStartup who ventured a manageable summary. 1. Worldwide only 260 million of 4 billion mobile subscribers are on 3G in 2009. The 20-25% inflection point for 3G penetration in emerging markets will depend on falling equipment prices. Asia and Africa is better positioned than Eastern Europe & Middle East due to subscriber growth. [...]

Here's what we talk about when we talk about mobile. The line between phone handsets and other mobile devices such as netbooks is about to blur. ABI Research reports that mobile device shipments will grow from 1.2 billion in 2009 to 2.25 billion in 2014. For mobile marketers, says ABI, the trend indicates that mobile marketing opportunities as more than just those designed for smartphones and other mobile handsets. “The next five years we will see a shift in the breakdown between types of mobile devices shipped,” said ABI analyst Michael Morgan in a statement. [...]

In what could signal a new wave of Internet technology and content acquisitions, Limelight Networks today announced it will acquire rich media solutions provider EyeWonder. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2010. “Today, two best-in-class companies are combining to capitalize on the clear opportunity created by a macro shift of content consumption and advertising spend away from legacy channels and towards the growing world of Internet-connected devices. Limelight and EyeWonder bring together deep technical and operational skills for creating a brilliant online experience anywhere, on any device, and the ability to help advertisers and publishers monetize that experience,” said Jeff Lunsford, chairman and chief executive officer, Limelight Networks, Inc. [...]

Engagement and targeting metrics continued to show impressive month-to-month gains for consumer mobile usage. The November installment of Millennial Media’s SMART report showed that average monthly page views per user increased from 106 to 113 in November and average user session time increased from 4:46 to 5:02. The use of custom landing pages increased 8% in November - a potential indicator that advertisers were focusing on campaign specific microsites to promote end of year specials and promotions on products and services. [...]

Mobile ad agency and research stalwart Millenial Media published its 2010 predictions today, and decided that this upcoming year was not going to be the “year of mobile.” The year in questions I currently drawing to a close it says The proverbial “Year of Mobile” came and went. There was no “cataclysmic tipping point that shocked industry-watchers into acknowledging mobile as a highly effective and efficient advertising medium” it says, but the agency’s report does take some bold stabs (ten of them) at the look of maturity for mobile. [...]

As co-CEO of Innovation Interactive, Netmining’s Will Margiloff is part of an $8 billion universe. That’s how much Innovation's three properties (agency 360i, search optimization provider SearchIgnite, and behavioral targeting platform Netmining) have at stake in terms of internet transactions. His company has been able to tap into and observe a mass of data that taken together can show an effective snapshot of how Internet users are behaving. More importantly for his clients, the Netmining software can show the real-time behavior of its customers as they enter, explore, and exit their websites. [...]

Like the economy itself, that longed-for comeback keeps getting held up. According to Nielsen, spending on overall advertising fell 11.5 percent in the first three quarters of 2009, compared to the same time period in 2008. Preliminary figures show that expenditures fell $10.9 billion to a total spend of $83.4 billion in the first nine months of the year. In other news: Internet ads, expected by many analysts to show an appreciable increase, fell .5 percent. Increases were led by Cable TV (+ 9. [...]

It’s a mad marketing world— how’s a marketer to wade through the insanity and find quality placement—and the right audience? How do brands find the right mix online, allowing their creative to run where its best placed but where brand integrity can be maintained? In this confusing setting is it every brand for itself? Who’s really protecting the brand? The Brand Protectors addressed this and more when they assembled at the W at Union Square this morning to hash out brand safety. And who better to discuss the theme than Louis Giagrande, Senior Manager of Online Marketing at Samsung Electronics America and Griff Long, Senior Director of Global Carsharing at Connect by Hertz? Joining Hertz and Samsung were technologists Helene Monat, President of AdSafe Media and Kirby Winfield, Chief Revenue Officer, Mpire and Andrew Marc Goldman, SVP of Strategy and Integration at agency RAPP. [...]

Nearly one in four email marketing messages were not delivered to recipients’ inboxes on Cyber Monday, according to new deliverability data released today by Pivotal Veracity, an email deliverability and optimization solution company. Celebrated as the busiest day of the year for e-commerce transactions, this past Monday saw inbox delivery rates plummet to a 7-day low of just 76.2%. Global web traffic peaked at more than 7.9 million visitors per minute to retail sites on Monday, according to Akamai Technologies, and the National Retail Federation said web visitation was up 8 percent compared to last year. [...]

Apparently some e-commerce payers aren't feeling the need for speed when it comes to mobile marketing. In fact some are four seconds longer than others. This was the finding of a new benchmark published today by Gomez, the Web performance division of Compuware Corporation that compares and ranks the mobile Web performance of the nation's top retailers. Between November 1 and November 15, Gomez monitored the mobile Web performance of the home pages of 14 top retailers, testing from different geographies and mobile carriers to measure their response times and availability when accessed from a popular cell phone. [...]

Social media is going from "friend me" to "see me." Time spent viewing video on social networking sites increased 98 percent this year, from 503.8 million minutes in October 2008 to 999.4 million minutes in October 2009, according to Nielsen. In conjunction, the number of online video streams viewed on social networking and blog sites increased 45 percent year-over-year, from 240.8 million streams in October 2008 to 349.5 million in October 2009. “During the past year, online video viewing has become central to the Web experience. [...]

Maybe the newspaper bleeding is stopping. New data from Scarborough Research (a joint partnership with The Nielsen Company and Arbitron, Inc.) finds nearly three in four adults, nearly 171 million, in the U.S. read a printed newspaper -- either online or in print -- on a weekly basis. “While our data does show that print newspaper readership is slowly declining, it also illustrates that reports about the pending death of the newspaper industry are greatly exaggerated,” said Gary Meo, Scarborough’s Senior Vice President of Print and Digital Media Services. [...]

Nielsen has seen the mobile future and the future is smartphones. It's new report out today shows that in Q3 2009, historically the slowest phone sales quarter, more than 25% of all phones sold were smartphones. It expects Q4 to have more than 40% of all new phones to be smart devices. "This is important to watch as smartphones are on track to be the majority of phones in the U.S. by 2011," the report states. "Projecting Nielsen data out through 2010, we see smartphones crossing 50% of the market by the middle of 2011, roughly equal to 150 million users. [...]

More detailed analytics about what different customer segments do with social media are being released today. A new study from Q Interactive and Social Media World Forum of more than 2,000 women finds them actively engaging with brands as they dabble in favorites like Farmville and Causes. Furthermore, women are passionate and competitive about (Lil) Green Patches and Happy Aquariums, stocking up on "virtual currency" perhaps more often than they hit the ATM. One of the most dramatics metrics found in theb study is that 85 percent of those surveyed use five or less games and/or social media apps regularly, indicating an inclination to be loyal to a handful of favorites. [...]

As a digidayDAILY reader, you are entitled to a copy of an exclusive whitepaper, data packed with insights from the leading research companies about what actually is going on in the online display sector. Compete, comScore, DynamicLogic, The IAB, InsightExpress, Microsoft Advertising and The Nielsen Company have all contributed to this bigger picture of trends in spend, measurement and usage plus an update on ad networks and exchanges. * Marketers and Agency execs will get ad spend info and an update on how to improve the efficiency of their buys and the impact of their creative. [...]

In his keynote at DPAC4 today, Jim Taylor of Harrison Group challenged digital marketers to adjust our outreach to embrace the self sufficiency of American consumers.

Barnes & Noble unveiled its new Nook digital reader yesterday, giving the public a peek at the new device. At first glance, Nook looks a lot like Amazon’s Kindle. So what’s special, new, or different about Nook? For one, it does have a cool color navigation screen below its main, black and white e-ink display. It sports WiFi connectivity, nice for on-the run downloads; Nook's wireless is from AT&T thanks to Barnes & Noble's deal with the telecom giant. But of course, Amazon has its own wireless deal with Sprint for its Kindle units. [...]

A new study released today by King Fish Media has quantified a “structural change” in the world of media. The study says marketers are rethinking the business of reaching customers and prospects with custom content at the center. The King Fish Media 2009 Survey on Marketing, Media and Measurement, conducted in partnership with HubSpot, Junta42 and the Upshot Institute, reveals that companies are abandoning other's media platforms in favor of creating their own original channels and content. "Marketers have been aware of the effectiveness of building relationships and trust with content since long before the Internet," said Gordon Plutsky, Director of Marketing and Research, King Fish. [...]

Publishers have a new tool for managing the data that leads to monetizing content. Online data targeting solution provider eXelate announced today that they have launched teXi:DM, which it calls the “first toolset that empowers publishers to take back control of their audience data management and monetization efforts.” teXi:DM enables publishers to manage third-party data cookies in the same manner they would manage their media. Publishers can use the tool to create and price "data campaigns," traffic the data pixels and report on delivery in a simple to use interface. [...]

Social media is the hottest trend in digital marketing at the moment and brands are quickly recognizing that they need a presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to better interact with consumers. However, most are struggling with how to measure and communicate the impact of programs on these social networking platforms. What's the value of a tweet by someone with 100,000 followers? Does your brand's 45,000 Facebook friends translate into anything meaningful? How many of the people watching a promotional YouTube video will actually purchase the product? [...]

Facebook was expected unveil a new ad product today at Advertising Week in New York, and unveil it did. Just days after shuttering its controversial Beacon ad program, COO Sheryl Sandberg keynoted at Advertising Week and publicly introduced the social net's newest ad product. The effort includes a multi-year collaboration with Nielsen, “aimed," as Paid Content’s Tameka Kee notes, "at shedding light on how campaigns running across the network impact metrics like purchase intent and brand affinity. [...]

We are awash in social marketing data. So why is measurement so hard?! Here are Digiday SOCIAL only about a third of the audience say they are actually measuring their social programs.

You quit work for the day, kick back, shake a martini, check in with the kids, and check in with Facebook. Social media is apparently part of a trend of using the Internet as a diversion like music or TV, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The center created what it calls a segment of online economic users. This represents 88 of the entire Internet user population who use the Internet to keep up with news about the economic recession or their own personal finances. [...]

Can Time.com monetize its social media popularity? Engineering firm Siemens is banking on it. Siemens is running a co-branded campaign on Time’s social properties. With Time.com’s Twitter page boasting over 1.4 million followers and its Facebook page numbering 72,000 fans, it makes sense why Siemens might be interested. But how are those campaign being integrated into Time's social profiles? Paid Content’s David Kaplan explains, “On Twitter, the words “Sponsored by Siemens” are integrated all over the background on Time. [...]

Hit “print” on the insertion orders. That seemed to be the operative advice for companies that want their mobile applications to rise above inert levels in the cluttered consumer marketplace. Attendees at Wednesday’s digiday:APPS conference were told that paid advertising and promotion were the keys to bringing content to the mobile audience. “We have pushed a couple of hundred apps successfully into the marketplace,” said AdMob sales VP Tony Nethercutt. “We need for more mobile apps to be advertised on our network not just because we don’t see it happening fast enough for us, but because it’s the best way for apps to get distributed. [...]

A recent survey of several hundred digital media and marketing professionals by our sister publication DM2PRO.com reveals some angst among those who haven’t tried social applications, but growing enthusiasm among those who have.

Microsoft’s Bing is steaming up slowly—gaining an extra percent of search market share in July. Significantly, it took much of that gain from the competition it aims to beat: Google. Web analytics outfit StatCounter shared the numbers, saying: “Bing again slightly increased the Microsoft share of the US search market in July to 9.41% from 8.23% in June.” Google’s shares dipped to 77.54% from 78.48%. StatCounter CEO and founder Aodhan Cullen said of the findings, "Bing continues to make slow but steady progress but the combined Yahoo! Figures suggests that the deal announced last week will have to demonstrate major future synergies if it is to make any dent in Google`s dominance. [...]

The media’s infatuation with Twitter helped catapult it from niche microblogging service to overnight sensation. Just how much was that free buzz worth? News monitoring firm VMS put a price on it, and estimates it was worth $48 million. That’s just for the last month’s worth of free exposure-- and last month was not one of the particularly crazy months when Ashton Kutcher took on CNN for followers or Oprah interviewed Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on her show. Ad Age’s Abbey Klaassen shared her take on the VMS data. [...]

This week eMarketer unveiled a special report addressing the challenge of online measurement. The title says it all: “Online Brand Measurement: Connecting the Dots.” EMarketer’s independent report closely examines the demand and need for better online measurement-- and identifies the challenges in getting there. It takes a deep dive into the issue of metrics, offering statistics and data pulled from a wide array of sources. It also includes links to video interviews with industry insiders—from brands, advertising agencies, and measurement solutions vendors like comScore, Nielsen and Datran Media. [...]

As the value of data insights continue to grow, audience measurement firm Quantcast is also seeking to expand its reach. To that end, Quantcast is on the hunt for around $50 million in additional venture funding—peHub reveals it had raised around $25 million previously. Adotas’ Edward Barrera also explains, “the San Francisco-based provider of online audience analytics is looking to raise around $50 million at a $300 million pre-money valuation.” Word is the company has already received multiple term sheets, however names of investors and details on terms have not yet emerged. [...]

by Sarah Schoenfelder- OPA, the Online Publishers Association, hopes we'll replace the click-through as the pinnacle of online measurement and find a more holistic way of evaluating reach. The OPA has released a report called "The Silent Click: Building Brands Online," which aims will educate marketers to the inefficacy of using the "click-through" as the final measure of user engagement—and ultimately, online advertising success. Business Insider’s Nicholas Carlson explains why OPA's timing is perfect. [...]

Like the death of Mark Twain, the rumors of Twitter's death seem to be greatly exaggerated

Over the last few years we have witnessed juxtaposing ideas that have created an interesting paradox in the world of media strategy. On one hand, targeting has allowed media strategists to get very granular with their creative messaging, and on the other hand, the veritable glut of media inventory has commoditized certain segments of the media marketplace-- resulting in the same type of one-size-fits-all creative that has always existed. As top-tier creative media strategies roll out left and right, there remains a significant amount of untouched inventory that is on the market for pennies on the dollar. [...]

Adam Broitman, Founder and Ringleader, circ.us served as moderator to panelists Bant Breen, President Initiative Worldwide President; Paran Johar, JumpTap CMO; Andy Monfried, Lotame CEO, Rob Gorrie, Adcentricity President, and Chris Riggs, Imirus CEO.

by Sarah Schoenfelder- Apple launched its app store in 2008 as a way to build community around the iPhone and hustle more devices—not necessarily as a business in itself. The strategy paid off, driving sales of both iPhone and iPod Touch through the roof; the company reported selling 14 million iPhones in 2008 alone. But just how much did Apple make from its much-hyped billion downloaded apps? According to Jeremy Liew from venture firm Lightspeed Venture, the app store made Apple between $20 and $45 million. [...]

by Noah Elkin, PhD,Senior Analyst eMarketer- That was the broad conclusion reached by a panel of all-stars that assembled for the afternoon session at DPAC III to discuss what the future of content and content platforms will bring. When asked by moderator Jason Heller of The Laredo Group whether consumers still value quality content, all of the panelists, representing agency, publisher and advertiser perspectives, responded a resounding "yes." Jeanniey Mullen, Global CMO of Zinio, said that "good content will ultimately win. [...]

"Membership" sites are on the rise -- up 40 percent this year, according to the leading software hosting solutions for this category. To provide better metrics for this burgeoning group of publishers, Holland Ventures launches a survey.