IDG News Service

Coming up on WTU this week sending cash via Gmail and more at Google IO, BBM coming to iOS and Android and Windows Blue to restore some missed features.

Our increasingly social world is raising concerns over the safety of our personal data. So what do the professionals working with data privacy legislation think? Aiming to address how the two professions feel about the current state of US data privacy law, IDG Connect presents exclusive insight into whether there is a conflict between the personal views and professional experiences of marketers and legal professionals with privacy laws, and the disparity between US and EU privacy law.

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Fortune

A look at the chips, devices, and software that will change the way people will live in the decades to come.

#1 Google Glass

For a product that’s not widely available yet, Google Glass has generated an incredible amount of buzz. It’s not hard to see why. The augmented reality eyeglasses, which project images onto a lense, represent a major step forward in computing, much in the same way the iPad made tablets a common household item. When it arrives later this year, users will be able to snap photos, record video, and otherwise enhance their surroundings, from offering on-the-fly directions superimposed onto the road or reviews for a restaurant someone is looking at.

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MediaPost

According to an industry analysis by Adobe Digital Index, mobile devices have changed the way consumers interact with businesses, making an understanding of the trends, strengths, and weaknesses of both tablets and smartphones important in serving mobile customers. Another perspective in the ongoing and growing interest in mobile marketing and advertising. In just three years, says the report, tablets have overtaken smartphones in the amount of traffic they drive.

Tablet versus smartphone growth

•           Globally, websites are getting more traffic from tablets  than smartphones

•           Internet users view 70% more pages per visit when  browsing on a tablet vs. a smartphone

•           While tablet and smartphone consumers are both mobile users tablet users actually behave more like PC users in the way they  browse and engage

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HubSpot

In response to a tweeted question from Rand Fishkin I decided to take a quick look at the relationship between exclamation points in tweets and retweets and clicks.

I used a dataset of more than 2 million link-containing tweets sent by accounts with at least 1,000 followers and found something interesting. Tweets with exclamation points got more retweets-per-follower, but fewer clicks-per-follower.

Search Engine Watch

Which social network is the best for B2B marketing? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube each offer B2B marketers value. Let’s review these top sites from a B2B social marketing perspective so we can crown an undisputed champion.

The Keys to Social B2B Victory

When it comes to using social media as a marketing tool for B2B organizations, which have an end goal of qualified lead generation, the underlying key to success is to drive thought-leadership and credibility around a desired market position that will yield target engagement. To do so, a B2B organization must first have a solid social media plan that defines the market position and a review of the online competition.

The online brand that will be delivered in social must align with a B2B organization’s brand promise, mission, and value proposition. Choosing the appropriate channel(s) depends on a number of factors including:

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MediaBistro

Did you know that almost three-quarters (71 percent) of internet users are more likely to purchase from a brand that they are following on a social networking site such as Twitter or Facebook?

Indeed, social media now accounts for almost one-quarter (22.5 percent) of all time that U.S. citizens spend online, and this weight of activity transcends down to all levels – an incredible 91 percent of searchers say that they use Facebook to find local businesses online.

These, and other amazing social media statistics, can be seen in the infographic below.

IDG Global Solutions

To be a successful btob company, you need to combine marketing, sales, and mobile tools. That’s Digitas Senior VP/BtoB Global Practice Lead Dennis Reilly’s opinion as he explained to IDG Global Solutions Director Howard Sholkin. During a BtoB Digital conference in March 2013, O’Reilly was asked to describe what the best companies are doing…..

IDG Global Solutions

How do you put content in front of the right audience, at the right time, in the right context?  Dennis Reilly from Digitas provided answers in an interview with IDG Global Solutions Director Howard Sholkin at a BtoB Digital conference in March 2013. Reilly also discussed key marketer issues around digital, content distribution, mobile, and social…

Forbes

There¹s an awful lot of excitement in the digital publishing world around native advertising and a lot of new marketing dollars being spent on ads that blend seamlessly with or mimic the forms of content. What there¹s not an awful lot of is proof that native ads actually do what they¹re supposed to do, or even consensus on exactly what that is. A new study by Sharethrough and the IPG Media Lab provides some of the former while raising new questions about the latter.

The study surveyed 4,770 consumers on their responses to native ad formats, with 200 of the participants agreeing to have their eye movements tracked as they looked at different arrangements of ads and content. The results overwhelmingly backed up the central contention of companies like Sharethrough, which helps publishers push their native ads across different platforms: that readers are more likely to pay attention to marketing messages that resemble the content around them.

³As far as we could tell from all the things we measured, it was pretty much an equivalent level of engagement for content and native ads,² says Chris Schreiber, VP of marketing and communications at Sharethrough.

To quantify that, study subjects were 25% more likely to look at a native ad than they were at a banner, and they looked at them 53% more frequently, checking them out 4.1 times per session on average, versus 2.7% for banners.

The only metric in which banners significantly outperformed native ads was in brand recall, where they enjoyed a 38% to 25% advantage. Schreiber says the study authors weren¹t surprised ³because, if you think about it, a banner ad is just a big logo, typically.²

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