Internet Marketing
Marketing With Out The Fluff

Facebook took in an estimated $1.86 billion in advertising revenue last year, according to eMarketer , and AdvertisingAge says that the top two advertisers were AT&T and Match.com. Google was number five.  It is the third-largest advertiser on Facebook, however, that has raised a few eyebrows, including those of Google’s Matt Cutts. The advertiser is something called make-my-baby.com – not a well-known brand that you’d expect to see in the top three. Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team, said the following in a Google Buzz update early this morning (via Marshall Kirkpatrick, who has an interesting write-up of the situation): Visiting make-my-baby.com instantly prompts you to install a browser plugin. The "terms and conditions" link takes you to http://mmb.bingstart.com/terms/ which has phrases like "If Chrome ("CR") is installed on your PC we may change the default setting of your home page on CR to Bingstart.com."  I also noticed this phrase in the Zugo toolbar section: "To uninstall the Toolbar, please visit the Toolbar FAQ ( http://www.zugo.com/toolbar/faq/ )." Sadly, that url is a broken link. It looks like a few people have had trouble uninstalling the Bing/Zugo toolbar, according to pages like http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/746034 or http://mymountain.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-to-remove-bingzugo-toolbar-hijack.html If make-my-baby.com is Facebook’s 3rd biggest advertiser, I wonder how many people are installing this software without reading the fine print that says "Installing the toolbar includes managing the browser default search settings and setting your homepage to bing.com" ? After some discussion about the find, Cutts also says, "It’s entirely possible, even likely, that FB and MSFT didn’t realize this was going on. I wouldn’t assume they were aware of what was going on." One has to wonder how much of Bing’s growth can be attributed to practices like this. It might not be a substantial amount, but on the other hand…third largest advertiser on Facebook? And this is just one example of a site like this. It didn’t take Cutts long to find several more with a quick search. There’s no telling how many site like this are actually out there.  "It’s pretty remarkable that even at the top of this giant success story of Facebook advertising, and perhaps near the top of the story of Bing’s steady rise as a search engine, is a Web 1.0-style pulling the wool over the eyes of gullible internet users," says Kirkpatrick.  It’s worth noting, as mentioned by a commenter in the Buzz conversation, that Cutts broke this story using Google Buzz, which goes to show – it doesn’t matter if the site is called Twitter, Quora, or Google Buzz – if there is interesting content there, it’s got to have some value. Webspam in a growing problem. Watch our exclusive interview with Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta , who talks about the trend. 

Google loses share, while Bing remains relatively flat.

Average cost-per-click rates in January for Auto, Finance, Retail, and Travel categories.

I would like to be able to work at home to be with my children. I live in a very rural area and the cost of gas compared to local wages is not worth the trip into town.

I’d love to work at home but there are alot of scams out there or you have to pay like $29.95 or so.

I am looking for quality customer service or any work-at-home jobs. I do not want to pay to get the information. Why should you pay for a job? I do not want any gimmicks or frauds. I know I am asking a lot. Yet, there must be good companies looking for employees to do customer [...]

I’m trying to find some data entry work to do at home, on the side. I work for a professional office but nothing to bring home. I have heard of companies years ago that would send you work, or you pick it up, and do the input for them in the evening, UPS the work [...]

I know there are alot of work at home business that are fraud. I was wondering if anyone out there is doing an at home business doing typing that really works. I’m looking to make some money while I’m home and my son is at school.. I would greatly appreciate any advice or ideas.

Can you tell me a legit data entry work at home? How to do it at home?