How do you find or track websites, content and information?

For many people, it’s Google all the way. Some people even find typing in a website into Google easier than remembering an exact URL in the address bar. It’s certainly a testament to the simplicity and power of their user interface.

Having said that, people are going beyond Google.  Nearly 50% of my total blog traffic now comes from search engines. Here’s a list of search engines in order of traffic volume to this site:

1. Google
2. Google Images
3. Windows Live
4. Yahoo!
5. Digg
6. Alexa
7. del.icio.us
8. Stumbleupon
9. AOL
10. Ask
11. Earth Link
12. MSN Search
13. Comet toolbar search
14. Icerocket

Although Google still clearly rules my reference traffic - does it rule yours too?

More importantly for marketers, does your search engine marketing (SEM) and optimization (SEO) strategy include most or all of the above?

It should be noted that rates for SEM in Canada are still relatively cheap when compared to the U.S. and other mature search markets.

Combined with a good SEO strategy, you can virtually own a category in a very short period of time

The future of search? It’s social and it’s mobile. But I already referenced that here.

I’ve recently installed the Weather Network blackberry widget on my Blackberry 8800. One of the advantages of creating a device specific widget is that you can enrich the user experience beyond a typical mobile website.

The Weather Network is no exception - taking full advantage of the blackberry Java platform to delivery an intuitive and easy to manage widget.

Once you’ve downloaded the widget, you can select your city of choice for weather updates. Coming soon - the ability to add up to 5 more cities - although I believe there should be an unlimited city option like there is on the iphone weather widget by Yahoo.

The neat thing is that once your choice city has been selected, you can get the current temperature by just scrolling over the icon on your blackberry desktop. Clicking on the icon will give you a detailed forecast for that day. Using the options button, you can switch to short and long term forecasts too.

Want to try it out? Point your blackberry mobile web browser to: http://weyebb.pelmorex.com

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The Globe and Mail reported today that Microsoft is again talking to Yahoo. Get the full article here.

Seen largely as a way to counter any potential Google and Yahoo advertising partnership, a new Microsoft relationship would bolster their rating and access to the market while giving Yahoo shareholder value without raising too many regulatory eyebrows around anti-trust.

The long term play

Although still relatively small compared to the desktop web market, partnering with Yahoo now means Microsoft can also get access to their leading mobile platform.

Within two years mobile advertising in Canada will include inventory for marketers that will reach beyond Carrier on-deck portals. Already we are seeing early versions of mobile search (with proximity capabilities), mobile video, and mobile social networking sites with built-in ad-serving abilities. This market is going to be massive.

It also sets up the possibility of another takeover attempt in the not so distant future.

The annual CMA national convention starts today and there is lots of content to choose from. Marketers working in the Interactive and mobile space (or plan to), should plan on attending the following keynotes and sessions: 

1. Seth Godin keynote. His blog is one of the most popular in the industry - even though there is some discussion over the fact his blog doesn’t allow comemnts
2. Keeping Customers Hooked: Integrating E-mail with Mobile Technologies to Increase Customer Retention. Led by Chris Carder - co-founder and CEO of thindata
3. Mastering Paid Search.  Led by Andrew Goodman - Principle, Page Zero Media
4. Mobile Marketing…More than Just Marketing. Led by Michael Carter - President and CEO, Mythum Interactive
5. The Human Web - led by Douglas Walker
6. Finding Waldo: The Highly Selective Art of Behavioural Ad Targeting. Led by Hunter Madsen
   Marketing Director, Yahoo! Canada
7. Marketing Lessons from Second Life’s Fashion Designers. Led by Kate Trgovac - President and Chief Catalyst, LintBucket Media 

As rumoured since 2006 and reported this morning by Engadget, Microsoft formally made an offer to buy Yahoo today. There is a long way to go from making an offer to actually acquiring & integrating Yahoo into Microsoft, but the concept of the two Web 1.0 companies getting together to battle the new world online order is intriguing.

The fact that Yahoo’s shares have also dropped around 15% year to date also means Microsoft probably saved around 5 billion by making an offer now.

Acquiring Yahoo is clearly a strategic play to counter the growing dominance of Google on the interweb which now includes an impressive lineup of “office” like applications available for free.  

Given Yahoo’s relative success in the mobile space and Microsoft’s investment in facebook last year, it looks like they have armed themselves for a good fight… but the question is, are they too late? 

Will the new Micro-hoo really be Micro-who before long? 

A few months ago I blogged about the impact of facebook on traditional print media. 

Many promoters had stopped printing flyers and started leveraging the power of the social graph available through facebook in order to reach and promote their events.

As reported by Yahoo last week, Yahoo is poised for hundreds of layoffs this week as advertising revenue has dropped significantly. 

Social Media sites have become everything Yahoo used to be - but simpler.  And easier. And more open.

Marketers have followed consumers to popular social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace. It would appear that facebook has moved on from eating the print shop’s lunch to eating the lunch of Web 1.0 sites.

Who’s next?

Over the past few weeks I’ve spent some time mapping out my conference schedule for the year. If you are interested in learning more about mobile marketing or the industry in general, I’ve listed my top 10 most important mobile conferences for 2008:

1.  Mobile Web USA. January 22-23, San Francisco. Although specific to the U.S. market, the speaker list is impressive with representation from facebook, yahoo, amazon, new york times, AOL and others. This is a great conference to go to if you want to get a jump on the mobile web.
2.  Mobile World Congress. February 11-14, Barecelona, Spain. The industry is shaped by players, if you’re not at the congress you are merely a spectator. This is the premier mobile event of the year featuring 690 GSM mobile operators across 214 territories and countries of the world.
3. Gartner Wireless & Mobile Summit. March 3-5, Chicago. Looking for the latest research, case studies and actionable recommendations? This is the conference for you.
4. CTIA Wireless. April 1-3, Las Vegas. CTIA’s spring trade show is the premier North American venue for all things wireless! This trade show has the distinction of being the largest and most comprehensive in the industry. 
5. Global Messaging Congress. May 8-9, Cannes, France. Everything mobile messaging including Ip-based, Mobile IM, SMS, and MMS and focus on advertising, enterprise messaging, conversion techniques and banking / m-payments.
6. MMA - June 10-12, New York. Agenda for this year’s event is to be posted - but it’s a great short event if you are interested in seeing what other agencies and brands are doing with Mobile Marketing. Case studies, best practices and often a platform for major announcements.
7. Canadian Telecom Summit, June 16-18, Toronto. The Canadian Telecom Summit is Canada’s pre-eminent gathering of the telecommunications industry and those with vested interests in its welfare.
8. CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment. Sept 10-12, location TBD. CTIA’s fall show is a follow-up to the spring show…but with an emphasis on content
9. Mobile Web USA, November. Location TBD. Follow-up to Winter event
10. Mobile Mondays - first monday of each month, Toronto. Small gathering of locals and out of town guests covering a variety of topics around Mobile. Not in Toronto? Check out their global site for a chapter near you.

You can easily make going to these events your full-time job - or at least you’ll need one to pay for them all! I’m hoping to get to the World Congress in February and a few others during the year. Last year I made it to the World Congress, CTIA and the MMA event in New York. I’ve also really enjoyed attending most Mobile Monday events in Toronto.

Am I missing a good one? Please comment, SMS, or email me your suggestions and I’ll add them to this list.

In the past few months we’ve been watching as Google, AOL, Yahoo, and Nokia have been making moves to extend or enter the mobile advertisting space.

Microsoft has decided to also join the party and has started placing ads on their U.S. MSN mobile page to follow efforts already made in Belgium, France, Spain, Japan, and the U.K.

The Bank of America will be one of the primary buyers of ad space - supporting their innovative mobile banking website and experience at bankofamerica.mobi. Paramount Pictures and Jaguar are the other two primary buyers.

Microsoft also plans to bring new features such as astrology, movie tickets through movietickes.com, ringtones, wallpaper, games and video clips on MSN Mobile via an agreement Microsoft has with Thumbplay.

Although Microsoft is late to the game, the mobile advertising space is still young and relatively small.  This is not like the nineties when Microsoft had to catch and kill Netscape who already dominated the browser market.  

Today the federal government of Canada announced that they are opening up the wireless communications industry in May of 2008 by making spectrum available specifically for newcomers to break up the Oligopoly of Bell, Telus, and Rogers in Canada.

As reported by the Toronto Star today, the move is expected to increase competition in Canada to create better pricing, more options and better service. Canadians are already paying as much as 33% more for similar data plans in the U.S. for average users and up to 56% more for heavy users.  Mobile usage in Canada is among the lowest in the developed world at around 58% - compared to some European countries that are close to 100%. A fourth major carrier is bound to drive down prices and drive up adoption in Canada.

This is great news for consumers. This is also great news for marketers.  Better pricing means marketers can boldly go beyond SMS campaigns and leverage the full potential of the mobile web and mobile applications which rely on the mobile web for data to create a rich experience on mobile devices. Yahoo for example has a great downloadable mobile product called Yahoo! Go which provides a rich mobile internet experience…but can result in an outrageous bill from your carrier if you don’t already have a hefty data plan. Cheap and / or fixed data rates means consumers will be able to enjoy products like Yahoo! Go without fear of having to re-mortgage the house after binging on data.

Since my last post on Bell’s introduction of fixed rates in Canada, Telus has started offering $15 fixed data plans as a retention strategy for existing customers. With both Bell and Telus dropping their data rates as a pre-emptive strike against the pending introduction of the iphone in Canada, we can only expect universal fixed data plans are on their way.  Adding a fourth carrier can only help.

Mobile as a mass medium may no longer be restricted to countries not named Canada.  Pretty cool, eh?