Good news to everyone in the online marketing arena according to statistics published on USA Today (Stats acquired from PQ Media). We can expect a sharp increase in ‘New Media’ spending in the next 4 years despite all the economic worries.
“…companies will spend more than $160.8 billion in 2012 — up 82% from 2008 — [...]

Here is a list of acquisitions made by Google I found on wikipedia today. The majority of the companies acquired by Google are actually based in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States (silicon valley).
A total of 51 companies have been acquired as of March 2008.
Click the image below to see the full [...]

A recent New York assemblyman called Richard L. Brodsky has put together a bill that if passed will make it punishable or even illegal to collect personal information about internet user and the clicks they make on advertisements.
He assemblyman stated:
“Should these companies be able to sell or use what’s essentially private data without permission? The [...]

I cam accross a very nice presentation called: The Future of Marketing + Advertising
It was composed by Paul Isakson and tries to present ideas on where we are heading to with modern marketing.
You can watch the presentation here:
http://www.slideshare.net/paulisakson/whats-next-in-marketing-advertising-318143
Basically, the take home message is: Modern Marketing = Make Peoples’ Lives Better

Nick Carr, the author of The Big Switch made an opening keynote at SES New York this week. Nick Carr discussed how computer systems and software algorithms are at the center of business today, and the implications for privacy.
Nick gives a recap on his New York SES keynote talk about Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo, [...]

Despite the obvious problems facing the US economy, market research firms are predicting that, US online advertising will continue to grow through 2008. Online ad spending will rise by 23% in 2008!
Search will account for the largest portion of online ad spending in 2008, at 40%. (great news for SEO companies!)
Rich media and video advertising [...]

Apple announced today that over 100,000 iPhone developers have already downloaded the iPhone beta Software Development Kit (SDK) in the first four days since its launch on March 6.  iPhone SDK gives developers the chance to access the rich API tools (Application Programming Interfaces) that Apple uses to create its applications for the iPhone and [...]

This is something I have been giving considerable thought to the past few months. I did not get around to sharing some of my 2008 SEO and online marketing predictions yet but since it is march already and there is about to be a big shift in the seo and online marketing industry this year [...]