GooTube and Social Media Optimization

So Google has purchased YouTube. It's the next in a string of interesting acquisitions that include Rubert Murdock purchasing MySpace and Yahoo! buying up Facebook. Of course what makes it even more interesting is the way that all of these sites are linked together! Check out this article from Media Bulletin where they discuss the "talks" that are now going on between MySpace and Google around the use of YouTube. With all the linking from MySpace to YouTube there's a lot of traffic at stake.

They reference the battle for the youth market. Hmmm...anyone looking at the recent stats on MySpace's demographic? According to eMarketer, MySpace is going GREY!! Ok..I must take offense to that one, given the fact that I am 39 and the numbers show that MySpace is appealing to more 35 year-olds. Gee whiz folks...when did that become GREY?? Over 51% of MySpace visitors were 35 and older in August. Teens dropped from 24% to 11%! Well I do have my own theory on this one. I think it's all the parents checking up on their kids MySpace pages! FINALLY!! They do note that it's not quanity...but quality of the visit that should count and in that the kids are making up for their lower numbers in a lot more time spent! So where are the kids going now? It seems that Xanga.com is reaching that market...Xanga is a blogging space and a networking space and a...dessert topping...a floor wax....

On to other things...very quickly as the time is running out before I turn into a pumpkin. So I'm teaching this Online Visibility Class and already my title is out of date! Although the topic is right on the money it would seem. A look around the web at a series of blogs brought up one that I'll be reading often Influential Internet Marketing. In the blog, Rohit Bhargava, an internet marketing professional with Olgivy PR highlights some of the most cutting edge and exciting innovations in online PR. What I'm calling Online Visibilty he's now calling SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION. Actually makes sense. Wikipedia has a definition. There's even a voting option for it at CHANGE THIS!

Do I buy it? Yep I do. The more I look at how the web is creating a set of networks that allow us to go beyond the typical media channel and actually allow our customers to enage with the brand, how it enables tighter niche marketing and how technology is creating opportunities that we never saw before (check out the whole Second Life thing on Bhargava's blog this week!), the more I'm convinced that the power of PR and Marketing is expanding in ways that many aren't even thinking of.

Now just try being a professor and keeping up with all of that!

Hmmm...Shakespeare is looking very very good to me.