Facebook is planning to roll out it’s expansion. Facebook primarily focuses on College students and is looking to grow their network space. Facebook was once offered 750+ million and turned it down. It seems they are focused on more members and more $$$. They believe that the web is evolving and that evolution can only mean their company is worth much more than 750 Million.  Article……

I couldn’t get the program installed on my machine for some reason probably due to my security settings, but here is a link to a video I found on

www.istartedsomething.com This video spends alot of time on the picture organizing and shareing and only a little on the RSS reader part which only comes up at the end but… The end that focuses on the RSS Reader looks very nice for retail marketing and retailers thinking of being more aggressive with their blog marketing… looks like product descriptions, pictures and order links can all appear instantly via rss feeds within this product in a slick user friendly way…

Link to Video

Blogs are becoming a powerful B2B presence.  In a study done by Knowledgestorm, blogs are becoming even more critical for any website business. In the study, 53% of the respondants claim that content from blogs has an impact on a buying decision.  80% read blogs and 51% read blogs once a week.  More…….

Another search engine that is worth a look is Clusty. It is a meta engine that allows you to search in the same way as a lot of other engines. You can search shopping sites, news, jobs, blogs, Wikipedia and images as well as the web.

The interesting thing about Clusty is after you conduct your search it also displays extra search suggestions or “clusters” based on the content of your original search. Consider it an expanded version of the “also try” button on Yahoo. If you did a search for “grills” you might also receive suggestions for grill parts, cook books, charcoal briquettes, how-to grill guides, outdoor living etc.

One thing that you will increasingly notice about all of these search engines, and the traditional engines too, is the addition of blog search to their offerings. This capability has been added due to the exploding popularity of blogs. Search engines are good indicators of future trends in the market. The trend is towards increased business blogging.

Instant update, instant viewing and Instant Retail Gratification all in one shot…. Retail RSS Marketing we always knew it would be big. Now its getting even bigger.
Just saw a blurb about Microsoft’s New Feed Reader Codename Microsoft Max…All I can think of is all retailer’s products that subscribers are interested in, being updated as soon as they are posted on a Retail Blog… sounds powerful…

I will be installing this later and will have more feed back on this product.

I came across a few new search engines that bear a little investigation. They will not bring in anything close to the kind of traffic as the big engines, but when and if they catch on they may be useful to some etailers looking to expand their internet presence.

Kartoo is a meta engine that displays results in a unique way. Instead of being in a list the relevant websites are displayed graphically.  If you conduct a search for “retail blogging” you will see our website in the first position, along with a description of what we do and other related topics.

Inquisitor is an engine that lets you search multiple sources like Yahoo, Google, UTube, Technorati, A9, Digg, Amazon and Flickr. The impressive thing about this engine is it is very fast, and actually displays results as you type. Not sure as to the usefulness of that function, but it is impressive none the less.

The most interesting one to me was Mr Sapo, an engine that aggregates results from other engines. You can search over 30 search engines, and multiple topics such as images, video audio etc. You can also search for blogs on 16 different blog search engines.

So how do you get your site listed on these engines and use them to boost sales? The same way you get on Google. Build an easy to use website with a lot of good information, then write about what you do to establish yourself as an expert in your field. These things can be accomplished with a blog.

The online space is constantly evolving but one thing that remains constant is competition. As an online retailer you will always have people who are trying to take your customers. Given that most new customers will come through search engines, etailers must do everything they can to maintain their competitive edge. Blog marketing is a competitive edge. Similar to when paid search first came along, blogs are enabling some companies to gain market share and take customers from their competitors. Whether it be from increases on search engines, reaching blog readers or permission marketing through RSS and subscriptions, the company that blogs is the company that grows.

Some clients will tell me that they have great rankings and a great presence online, and that they don’t need to blog. I can’t really understand why not. If you have an edge and have managed to corner the market on certain keyword searches, you must have used some kind of technology that other retailers have not found. You are an early adopter. Why not embrace the blog as a great marketing tool?
Blog marketing will be seen as the greatest boon for websites since the early days of pay per click. Companies who do not blog will not only lose their hard earned competitive edge, they will fall behind as a new wave of early adopters uses blogs to conquer their respective markets.

It has long been the perception that the blogosphere is full of writers with little economic clout and even less appeal to advertisers. There was not much point in marketing to people who still lived with their parents. Not true. According to studies dones by Blogads, the majority of blog readers are pulling in more than $45,000 a year, and are in fact influential writers and trend setters. The demographic is now considered a key component of any advertising campaign.

Blogads delivers advertising to over 1,100 blogs. This is obviously a good way of reaching blog readers, but it is a little like pay per click campaigns, and is fleeting. Companies are just buying a spot for a short period of time. The long term approach should be to have your own blog and become the expert on your own merits. If you talk about your company and show people that you are the authority, then your buyers will have an interest and read what you have to say. With a retail blog that is properly optimized you will also have the added benefit of increasing traffic and sales revenues.

Online Ad spend was up 49% in the first half of 06 compared to the first half of 05.  The Spanish market increased 21.8% during the same period.  It’s apparent that radio and cable tv are not the markets they were once before.  It’s becoming increasingly important to advertising online and grow your business.

Read More: Online Ad Spend