Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Let's open on a random fact that may disgust you:

"29 percent of internet users have purchased goods from spam emails," reports internet security firm Marshal.

29%!!! Look around the room, that means 1 in 3 people you are looking at has purchased something from spam. And with sex, drugs, and software topping the list of purchased items, we are talking about "buy viagra"-style spammy spam. Really?? Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way...

What's Been Happening This Week...

What's Up, What's Down, + What's On It's Way
The much anticipated Microsoft Photosynth came out of beta this week to "surprising" enthusiasm. Well, it was up until it went down under the server strain. Yahoo! Buzz, possible competitor to Digg, finally opened its submissions to the public. Previously, you needed a partnership with Yahoo! to get onto Buzz.

As for what's down, unfortunately popular playlist sharing site Muxtape is due to an ongoing battle with the RIAA. And it looks as though Pandora might be next due to the hike in web radio royalty fees. While many mourn, others feel that something this sad has to happen before the whole system can be reworked.

There is a lot of stuff upcoming. Yahoo! wants to bring the internet to your living room with the launch of a widget channel. Garmin gets social by partnering up with uLocate to bring BuddyBeacon to their devices, which shares a user's location with their friends. And more is in the pipeline for Microsoft, including launching a social bookmarking competitor to Delicious and some initial applications for Microsoft Surface.

But we can't get through the newsweek without our obligatory Facebook and Twitter news:

Alright Already! What's Up With Facebook + Twitter?
Well, Facebook is getting ready to launch "engagement ads", which will allow brands to create more widget-y advertisements. Then, there was the announcement that traffic is approaching that of MySpace, slowly but surely. Take a turn for the strange, there was a rumor floating around this week that they were going to get bought out by the Mormons.

Let's talk about Oregon's favorite microblogging tool, Twitter. Things didn't start off so well as CNN's tweet pissed off a whole bunch of people by announcing the Michael Phelp's 8th gold medal before it had aired in the primetime. Even though Twitter is become friend to journalists and PR professionals alike, maybe sometimes real-time is a little too real-time.

Marta Strickland