According to a recent survey by Prospero Technologies, nearly 9 in 10 marketers already using social media said they plan to “increase” or “increase significantly” their spending.

Marketers were asked.

Prospero’s 2007 Social Media Survey found 30 percent of online marketers who use social media plan to “spend significantly more on social-media applications in 2008″, while an additional 58 percent also plan to “increase” spending, though not “significantly.”

Some 59 percent of respondents reported that social media performance in 2007 met or exceeded their marketing objectives. Survey participants included major brands from a variety of industries, including Media, Education, Financial Services and Health.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 20/80 Rule, is an interesting phenonenum that has many implications for those practicing search and social media. The concept is losely defined as; for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Its a truism so to speak, though its the rough concept that is important and not the absolute numbers. Some real life examples of this concept in action are:
a) in general, 80% of a hockey teams goals, will come from 20% of the players
b) often 80% of a company’s revenues will come from 20% of its clients
c) 80% of a country’s wealth will be held by 20% of the population
d) 80% of the postings on Spinn/Digg, etc. will be by 20% of the total number of posters
e) 80% of most tasks can be completed in 20% of the time

According to a new study from the media advisory firm, Heernet Ventures, the US print and online yellow pages market should reach revenues of US$18.2 billion by 2012, . The study forecasts market growth from an estimated US$16.95 billion in 2007 to US$ 18.21 billion in 2012. While the local print market will decline by -1.5%, online yellow pages revenues will grow by 26.7%, and that doesn’t account for mobile search revenues.

BBC, Jan. 25, 2006: “Google censors itself for China”

Official Google Blog, Jan. 27, 2006: “[…] creating a local presence, and this week we did so, by launching Google.cn, our website for the People’s Republic of China. In order to do so, we have agreed to remove certain sensitive information from our search results. […]

Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely. Whether our critics agree with our decision or not, due to the severe quality problems faced by users trying to access Google.com from within China, this is precisely the choice we believe we faced. By launching Google.cn and making a major ongoing investment in people and infrastructure within China, we intend to change that.”

Whether it’s watching someones misfortune, individual rants, old music videos, my favorite teams past sporting glories, lost TV episodes or political debates, I just can’t seem to get enough of YouTube. It’s become a personal entertainment option and, from an SEO standpoint, as videos are beginning to rank, I enjoy the challenge of defining my clients video content strategies.

This week I’m exploring YouTube, by the numbers:

* YouTube was created in mid February 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, three former PayPal employees.

* The domain name “YouTube.com” was activated on February 15, 2005

Estimate your site’s health by reading the wrong metrics and you get the wrong impression.

It’s as simple as that.

Whether it is for setting a price for on-site advertising or establishing some kind of baseline when negotiating SEO or SEM services, traffic measured in absolutes such as Page Views, Visitors and Unique Visitors has a hold on The Market it really doesn’t deserve.

Technology has surpassed most of these metrics.

Think about it.

You might be reading this in your feed reader. Are you a Unique Visitor? Does the Page View get increased somewhere? Or maybe you’re subscribed by email: same questions apply.

The use of the Internet keeps growing in China. The country now has more than 160 million Internet users and at least 1.3 million websites. But the promise of free expression and information has been nixed by the Chinese government’s online censorship and surveillance system.

According to Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Chinese Internet expert working in IT industry has produced an exclusive study on the key mechanism of the Chinese official system of online censorship, surveillance and propaganda.

Business Blogging 101

The inclusion of business blogs are slowly but surely emerging as a growing trend across the spectrum of SMB, mid-size, and large corporations. No matter what the size of your firm, taking the steps to implement a few blogging best practices can help you test the waters, and be prepared for the future with a scaleable solution should you plan to promote your corporate blog heavily.

Hot off the heels of Google offering free Mobile Adwords until mid November and The Kelsey Group boldly predicting mobile search to generate more than $1.4 billion in ad revenue by 2012, comes a new survey from Nielsen/NetRatings and WebVisible, which shows a whopping 92% of 2000 U.S. Internet users surveyed, felt that receiving local business ads on their cell phones would be “irritating.”

This doesn’t bode well for mobile marketers and SEO’s who are hoping to cash in on the mobile hysteria, particularly when the same survey revealed that nearly 75% of U.S. Internet users believe they are overexposed to advertising.

I was tagged recently by Shana Albert (author of a great post recently on Social Media being the New BAD Boy … its a fun read) at AllWorkAtHomeIdeas for a Blog Improvement Meme. Personally, I’m a fan of anything that forces my hand. If it takes a blog improvement meme for get me to finally make some much needed improvements to our blog, then so be it. I’ll take that task to hand … well maybe next week.