Imagine WWW.KNICKS.BBALL. Might Happen

"Earlier this year more than 1,900 applications were filed for generic top-level domain extensions. Think .food, .auto, .beauty and so on. Now brands are scrambling to figure out what do with all these domains when ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) begins releasing more than 1,400 new extensions in the second half of 2013 and early 2014," writes ClickZ. "One of Wolfe Domain's clients, Scripps Networks Interactive, filed for 13 gTLDs including .food, .diy and .HGTV. Like most brands that filed for gTLDs, Scripps's strategy will evolve over time and only after top-level domains reach their potential audiences. The media company plans to use the new domains to enhance brand equity and develop digital channels to better represent its core brands online." Read more.

U.S. Will Top All Countries on Mobile Internet Adveretising

"Spending on mobile Internet advertising in the US will top all other countries in the world for the first time this year, helping drive mobile ad spending worldwide above $6.43 billion in 2012, according to eMarketer’s first-ever forecast for worldwide mobile advertising spending." That's the post on eMarketers website. "Until this year, Japan was the world’s largest market for mobile advertising, with spending reaching nearly $1.37 billion in 2011, up from $1.01 billion in 2010." Read more.

Hackers Access a Million ID Numbers for Apple Devices/Apple Prevents Marketers from Tracking App Use

The New York Times blog Bits reports that "hackers released a file that they said contained a million identification numbers for Apple mobile devices, claiming that they had obtained it by hacking into the computer of an F.B.I. agent. The F.B.I. said it had no evidence that this was true....Apple’s unique device identifiers — known as U.D.I.D.’s — are 40-character strings of letters and numbers assigned to Apple devices...Apple stopped letting app developers take advantage of device identifiers last year, to make it harder for marketers to track its customers as they moved from app to app." Read more.

Coke's Facebook Site Tops 50 Million Fans

Coca-Cola recently topped 50 million fans on Facebook. The company celebrated by releasing the following statement, as noted by Marketing Pilgrim: “Throughout its history Coca-Cola has always had a role in bringing simple moments of happiness to people around the world every day,” said Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial leadership officer, The Coca-Cola Company. “Today we have an engaged global community more than 50 million strong connected through Facebook. This provides an opportunity to engage our most supportive and enthusiastic fans in a quest to find ways to make the world a happier place.” Read more.

My Data = $$$

"There is a fundamental shift in attitudes towards privacy. Consumers know they are surrendering their data, and are willing to surrender privacy. But they treat it like cash: They want something in return," reports Marketing Vox. "So argues Dimitri Maex, Managing Director of OgilvyOne New York, the digital direct arm of Ogilvy & Mather, in his just-released book Sexy Little Numbers. As OgilvyOne describes Sexy Little Numbers, it 'shows how to grow your business using the data you already have.'" Read more.

Republicans Tweeting from Convention

"On Thursday when Mitt Romney is planned to give his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination here at the Party's convention, the Romney digital team will be aiming for big Twitter buzz. To facilitate that, the Romney camp will enter Twitter ad domain that is usually reserved for big Hollywood flicks or CPG brands: the Promoted Trend," goes the post on ClickZ. "Promoted Trends appear above Twitter's left-hand side list of organic trends, keywords that are getting lots of juice on Twitter at any given moment. Promoted Trends link to a list of tweets using the trend keyword - usually in hashtag form - topped by a Promoted Tweet by the same advertiser." Read more.

Twitter and Facebook Make Marketing Easier

"On August 30 Twitter announced the debut of “interest targeting” to Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, in which brands can send tailored messages to Twitter users based on their interests." That's the word from Direct Marketeing News. "That same day, a rumor dropped that Facebook would enable businesses to target Facebook users based on email, user ID, or phone number—provided that the information had already been given to the business by the Facebook user." Read more.

Lead Generation and Brand Awareness Top Goals

"A report from WebMarketing123 found that 54 percent of B2B marketers consider lead generation the No. 1 digital marketing goal. Brand awareness came in at No. 2, cited by 28 percent. Developing a stronger presence on the web and building reputation among prospects has become more important for these companies in the last year, with more businesses actively marketing on the web," as found on the website Brafton. "According to the study, twice as many respondents named building awareness as a goal in this year's poll compared to last year. Internet marketing priorities are shifting, as just 10 percent of respondents said they consider increased sales their top goal." Read more.

You will notice that, as of yesterday, I have stopped using APA and restored to the more common use of links. If you click the name of the website quoted or the phrase "Read more," you will find the full article. For your reports in the class, you don't quote the blog. You quote the source, the article from which the blog quotation comes from.

Most-Liked Advertisers on Facebook

"When General Motors announced it was no longer buying ads on Facebook back in May 2012, it didn’t pull out of Facebook entirely. It still maintains a number of pages for its various brands with hundreds of thousands of “likes” each: its GM page: 403,000 likes; Chevrolet: 1.3 million likes; GMC Trucks: 703,000 likes; Corvette: 969,000 likes; and the Chevy Volt with 188,000 likes. Meanwhile, Facebook has GM back at the negotiating table, promising to give it and all its advertisers more data on how their ads turn into revenue," according to Say Daily. "The Ford Motor Company, meanwhile, has continued advertising on Facebook despite GM’s departure. How has that affected its likability? The Ford Motor Co Facebook page has 1.6 million likes (300,000 more than Chevy’s); Ford Trucks 651,000 likes (52,000 fewer than GMC); Ford Mustang 4.2 million likes (3.3 million more than Corvette); Ford Fusion Hybrid: 175,000 likes (13,000 fewer than the Volt).So, do ad dollars translate into likes? The answer is 'sometimes.'" Read more.

XBox Live Turns to Advertising

"Microsoft Corp has announced the general release of its NUads on Xbox LIVE," according to Media Buyer Planner. "Among the first buyers are Toyota, Unilever and Samsung Mobile USA, which are developing NUads campaigns to stream on Xbox LIVE this fall. NUads advertisements transform standard 30-second TV spots into actionable experiences using the power of voice and gesture controls of Kinect for Xbox 360." Read more.

Survey Says, Social Media Works

"Marketers dedicating more resources to social media marketing this year should be pleased to learn that new data suggests they’ll be seeing returns on their social investments. According to WebMarketing123‘s State of Digital Marketing report, B2C [business to consumer] and B2B [business to business] companies are winning leads and sales across social networks" (Survey: social marketing, 2012, Aug. 31).

Works Cited

Survey: social marketing drives sales, experts enhance success (2012, Aug. 31). Brafton.com. Retrieved from <http://www.brafton.com/news/survey-social-marketing-drives-sales-experts-enhance-success>.

Facebook's Ad Revenue Not as High as Expected

"eMarketer estimates that, while robust growth rates will continue for the foreseeable future, advertising revenues at Facebook will not fly as high this year as earlier predicted.
Ad revenues at the social networking giant will continue to rise this year, though at a significantly lower rate than in the past. Revenues will reach $4.23 billion, up 34.1% over 2011, and eMarketer predicts revenue increases in the double digits to continue through 2014, when Facebook’s worldwide ad revenues will reach $6.81 billion" (Reduced estimate, 2012, Aug. 31).

Works Cited

Reduce estimate for Facebook revenue (2012, Aug. 31). eMarketer.com. Retrieved from <http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009314&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4#8rpdYDodbQEC8atM.99>.

Facebook Goes after Voters

"The Facebook Exchange is open for political business. Two digital ad firms that offer voter file-driven ad targeting are now part of the social giant's growing group of third-party partners. This week, Intermarkets and CampaignGrid said they are part of Facebook's real-time exchange, which opens Facebook Marketplace display ad inventory - the ads that sit on the right rail of the page - to advertisers buying through those outside ad firms" (Kaye, 2012, Aug. 30).

Works Cited

Kaye, Kate (2012, Aug. 30). Voter file data comes to Facebook. ClickZ.com. Retrieved from <http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2201998/voter-file-data-comes-to-facebook-ads>.

The Year of Mobile

"According to IBM and many other industry observers, 2012 is shaping up to be the year of mobile. As brands roll out new apps and optimize email and websites for customers using mobile devices, one particularly rich area for growth has been mobile search. But while marketers invest more and more in engaging customers who are seeking products or services through smartphones, many believe mobile search engine marketing (SEM) has much further to go. In areas such as tracking, geolocation and ease-of-use, mobile search appears poised for significant growth" (Palmer, Deluna, 2012, July 1).

Works Cited

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Palmer, Alex, and DeLuna, JoAnn (2012, July 1). Pinpointing mobile search. DMNews.com. Retrieved from <http://www.dmnews.com/pinpointing-mobile-search/article/246825/>

Marketing Tweet Sent to Republicans during the Convention

"The Chesapeake Energy Corporation rarely gets buy-in to spend the bulk of its media budget on digital, but it got just that for its efforts around the Republican National Convention [in Tampa, FL].
The firm and its CNG [compressed natural gas] Now initiative are ...promoting the benefits of using natural gas...It's targeting convention-goers who search for popular terms related to the event - like #RNC - with ads on Twitter. Some push its energy message, but others are more direct" (Kaye, 2012).

Works Cited

Kaye, Kate. (2012, Aug. 28). Natural gas group targets RNC-goers on Twitter. ClickZ.com. Retrieved from: <http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2201303/natural-gas-group-targets-rncgoers-on-twitter>.

Silverpop Helps with Marketing Automation

"Silverpop (a digital marketing technology providing unified marketing automation, email, mobile and social campaigning) is claiming a 40% increase in closed new business and more than 100% gain in Professional Services contracts compared to the first half of 2011; also, that it now manages the marketing campaigns of more than 5,000 brands.

"Never heard of them? You have probably heard of those brands, which include Arby's, Carfax, RSPCA, Aquent and Dairy Queen (among dozens of others). A Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Silverpop in the first half of 2012 indicated that 8 of 10 marketers surveyed feel that marketing automation will increase the efficiency of their marketing processes and more than half plan to increase their number of automated campaigns over the next 12 months" (Silverpop tops, 2012, Aug. 27). Read more.

Works Cited

Silveropop tops 5,000 brands. (2012, Aug. 27). MarketingVox.com. Retrieved from: <http://www.marketingvox.com/silverpop-tops-5000-brands-051452/?utm_campaign=rssfeed&utm_source=mv&utm_medium=textlink>.

Instagram Beccoming Important Social Media Site for Marketing

"Market research firm comScore recently reported that Instagram was the top gaining website for July, adding 38 percent more traffic from June. While the strong month was not enough to propel Instagram into the top 50 web properties, its growth demonstrates the value of making Instagram a part of social media marketing campaigns.

"According to the study, Instagram also saw its unique traffic grow from 16.5 million visitors to more than 22.7 million. While the photo-sharing platform recently reported more than 80 million people use its mobile apps, most don't actually navigate to Instagram.com. Still, its consistent improvements in website traffic are a sign that more people are using the site and researching the service for personal or marketing use" (Instagram: July's top 2012, Aug. 27). Read more.

Works Cited 

Instagram: July's top gaining site, visual content growing (2012, Aug. 27). Brafton.com. Retrieved from: <http://www.brafton.com/news/instagram-julys-top-gaining-site-visual-content-growing>.

Welcome to English 202

Welcome to English 202.

Various individuals have given English 202 different names. The school calls it advanced exposition. I call it business writing. I should rename it "Reading and Thinking."  The name probably sounds odd or too elemental. Not so. Most individuals do too little of both--in the world of school and the world of business. As you will hear me say, probably more than once, "We think we think more than we think."

To perform at an average level in this class, you will need to read all the assignments and more about Internet marketing.You will read to have information that your imaginations will re-formulate into unique concepts. When you do that, writing becomes easier, and you will hold the attention of a reader--a person with blood in his/her veins, who gets bored, who wants information, who does not give a darn about you or me because in the end reading is an egocentric act.

To achieve above-average work, you must think--not merely parrot (repeat) the ideas you will have read and those you hear about in class. In other words, you must learn how to integrate new ideas with old ones in order to create a different perspective for the reader. Otherwise you are wasting the reader's time.

When you write to another individual, you ask him/her to surrender her time to read your ideas. Why should the reader trouble herself with your ideas? Are you offering the reader [teacher, classmate, business associate] a "new" way of seeing a problem? Are you proposing a concept that will make the reader's life easier? Are you advancing knowledge--whether the subject is particle physics or the latest cosmetic disaster for a pop diva? Are you offering your ideas clearly and logically--based on standard American English? In other words, the average reader (not your friends reading a tweet) wants to know what she is getting out of reading your work.

You,therefore, earn a reader's respect by offering her a new perspective or new idea in a format that makes it easier for the reader (not the writer) to understand. If you cannot achieve that, you fail--in business and in this classroom.

How do you come up with new ideas or perspectives? Reading. And you do not merely repeat what you have read. In that case, you only rehash information that a reader already could access. You read to pick up facts and ideas from experts in the field. You then take that information and integrate it into how you think. Eventually an original idea or perspective (original for you) will come out.

For this class, you will need a computer with Internet access. Use your own, a friend's, or one of the many in the school's library. Will I tolerate the excuse my computer crashed and I lost all my work. No. Save your material on a thumb drive, portable hard drive, or to a storage system on the Internet, such as Google's G-Drive (it's free if you have a Google account, which is also free).  and a office suite product. Use your own, a friend's, or one of many in the school's library.


You will need an office suite, such as Microsoft Office. (Microsoft Works will not work in this class.) You can get free office suites: OpenOffice, Libre Office, and IBM's Symphony. I use OpenOffice and Libre Office. They are excellent products that are compatible with Microsoft Office. The three have word processors (like Word), presentation software (like PowerPoint), and spreadsheet software (like Excel). OpenOffice and Libre Office also have graphics and data base management software. All three products have been around for more than a decade. They are reliable. If you have a broadband Internet connection, downloading will take about three minutes and installation about 20. OpenOffice and Libre Office work on PCs and Macs.

You will not need to buy a text. I provide you your reading material through links on the syllabus. You can access the syllabus from the class web page: http://www1bpt.bridgeport.edu/~jconlin/. Here are the links that you need for now.

Syllabus: <http://www.bridgeport.edu/~jconlin/Fall2012English202.pdf>
Course Description: <http://www1bpt.bridgeport.edu/~jconlin/CourseDescription.pdf>
Class Webpage: <http://www1bpt.bridgeport.edu/~jconlin/>
Class Blog: <http://dana238.blogspot.com/>

Start the semester right. Read the syllabus.

Finally, you will use APA citation formats for everything that you write this semester. Most students already have learned, and maybe mastered MLA. APA is not that different. Scroll down two posts and you will find the format for APA. Why am I making you use APA? Because UB's Business School has designated APA as its citation method of choice and the citation method that its MBA students must use. You can see examples of APA citation (intext and works cited listing) in the previous two posts.

See you tomorrow.

Facebook Releases Sponsored Search Results

"Facebook has fully rolled out sponsored search results, which allow marketers to target users searching for content or pages within their industry on the social network. As with other sponsored search efforts, companies can pay for placement atop suggested search results within Facebook to drive traffic to their brand Pages on the social network" (Facebook rolls, 2012)

"Facebook rolls out sponsored search results for marketers (2012, Aug. 24). Brafton.com. Retrieved from: <http://www.brafton.com/news/facebook-rolls-out-sponsored-search-results-for-marketers>.

Consumers Behave Differently on Social Web Sites

"The social-media world is often criticized for introducing new metrics [a way of measuring the demographics of a media] to marketers who want to better understand the social space and the effects it can have on a product or service. Why introduce new metrics, skeptics say, when the data landscape is already complex and confusing? Do we really need this, given the tried and true metrics of digital-media buying in use for the past decade? Let's take a step back. What is a metric? It's a standard of measurement. In advertising it is designed to define a specific type of consumer behavior, be it attention-centric (clicks, impressions, etc.) or more direct response-oriented (sales, conversions, etc.).There would be no use for new metrics if consumers on social platforms behaved as they do when on any other website. But consumers do behave differently when using social platforms and there are some key reasons why" (Sethi, 2012)

Sethi, Nikhil (2012, Aug. 22). "Do we need new metrics for social media. Yes, and here's why." AdAge.com. Retrieved from: <http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/metrics-social/236810/>