For the past week, I have been paying close attention to the issues that Instagram has been facing, as well as causing, for its users. On Monday of last week, the company made changes to its privacy policy that would allow for it to share information with its new partner, or rather owner, Facebook. There were some wordings in the new privacy terms and terms of use that caused confusion among users, making them believe that all of their photos and postings were prone to be used for advertising purposes. Upon a completely predictable outrage from Instagram users, changes had to be made to the company’s policies to make the users happy. That happened a few days ago, and Instagram tried to assure its users that their photos would not be used by advertisers, but it appears that the outrage continued.

So, what has Instagram done now to stop all of the chaos circling their company, and to stop all of the traffic that has been leaving their network and relocation to other image posting networks? Well, it seems that the Instagram users have won the battle that they were fighting, because Instagram has made the only decision they could by reverting back to the original terms of service and privacy terms that had been in place since 2010.

Here is what Kyle Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, stated in a blog post Friday:

The concerns we heard about from you the most focused on advertising, and what our changes might mean for you and your photos. There was confusion and real concern about what our possible advertising products could look like and how they would work.

Because of the feedback we have heard from you, we are reverting this advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010. You can see the updated terms here.

Going forward, rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.

So, that settles it I suppose. The changes being made to the Instagram privacy policy that could very well have benefitted marketers quite a bit, are no more. I suppose that in the end, the company and marketers are better off without these changes, for without them, users will stay on Instagram, and it can still be used to some degree for marketing purposes by brands and businesses.

However, it seems that changes to the privacy policies at Instagram are not completely out of the question, but the company needs to do some reflecting and better planning before putting anything in place again. For now, this is the end of Instagram’s PR devastation, and the company has done all it could to restore its good name.

With mobile on the rise, the predictions are high, and sometimes it seems higher than anyone could have expected. There has been constant news regarding mobile lately, purely because of its incredible popularity among marketers today. In order to get a better idea of just where mobile marketing will be taking the advertising world in the near, and distant future, reading an expert forecast can be beneficial. On that note, eMarketer has released their predictions for mobile marketing for the rest of the year, and for years to come as well. According to their predictions, mobile is growing fast, and will soon be bigger than was the original consensus.

By that, I am referring to earlier predictions about mobile growth made by eMarketer. In September of 2012, eMarketer made a prediction stating that mobile would grow to bring in just about $2.61 billion by the end of the year. Now, eMarketer has changed their forecast all together, saying that by the end of 2012, mobile spending will reach all the way up to over $4 billion. If that does occur, then that is a 180% increase from last year, which is an extreme increase from their original prediction of an 80% increase in growth.

Here is how eMarketer breaks down the growth in ad spend over time:

• 2012: $4.06 billion
• 2013: $7.19 billion
• 2014: $11.14 billion
• 2015: $15.82 billion
• 2016: $20.80 billion

In just four years, the company expects mobile to reach upwards of $21 billion in ad spend, showing their confidence that mobile will only grow in the near future, and that more and more interest will be put into the platform. But, why?

The company says that one of the main contributors to this extensive growth are the “native” ad formats that have been appearing on Facebook’s mobile newsfeed and with Twitter’s Promoted items.

“Facebook’s Q3 mobile performance is one major reason for the change. The social networking giant offered no mobile ad opportunities at the beginning of 2012 but grew its mobile business at an astonishing—and unexpected—rate. Before Facebook’s Q3 earnings call, most researchers and analysts expected US mobile ad revenues of roughly $45 to $100 million, according to figures examined by eMarketer. While the company’s total ad revenues were, for the most part, unsurprising, the share of revenues attributed to mobile advertising was far from it.”

The company shows that their prediction for Facebook is that by 2014, their mobile ad revenue will reach up to about $1.22 billion, and Twitter’s mobile ad revenue will be upwards of $382 million. However, it is Google that is expected to bring in the most mobile ad revenues for 2014, with a forecasted number of about $6.33 billion.

Mobile advertising is already, today showing signs of rapid growth. According to most predictions on the subject, that growth will not be ending anytime soon. It is exciting to see that a platform that so many people have shown interest in is doing so well, and interest in mobile will be constantly flourishing.

It seems that all types of digital marketing are being well-incorporated into mobile forms, and now marketers always have to consider desktop and mobile, instead of on or the other. The growth of mobile is consistently proving to be a strong force, and the future of marketing seems more and more clear each day. That said, the proof of mobile’s growth in many fields now comes in the form of a new report from Knotice, a direct digital marketing company. Their report takes a close look at numbers that the company collected during Cyber Week, which is what they have called the week from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving until Cyber Monday.

The report focuses mainly on mobile email opens during this time, and compares them year over year. In 2011, the percentage of email opens during Cyber Week that occurred on mobile devices was at about 30.50%. In 2012, the percentage for mobile email opens increased to 44.75%, which is a significant increase for a single year. When comparing these numbers to the desktop open percentages, 69.50% in 2011, and down to 55.25% in 2012, we can see that mobile could be taking a lot of the email activity away from desktops and bringing it to handheld devices.

The report also shows the overall percentage of email opens that took place on each platform in the first half of 2012. When comparing mobile’s Cyber Week percentage of 44.75% to its overall 36.01%, it is hard to see just how much mobile has improved. It seems that when it comes to shopping on the spot, mobile is the go to platform for consumers, as opening marketing emails on mobile shot up during the most popular time for shopping during the year.

As for click activity during Cyber Week, mobile again showed some great improvement year over year. For 2012, smartphones saw a click percentage of 19.40%. In 2011, smartphones saw  a click percentage of 13.03%. Tablets also proved more relevant this year, with  a click percentage of 11.50%. Compared to 2011, when the click percentage was only 5.54%, the increase is quite significant. Although the improvements are obvious, desktop’s numbers for 2012 were still far higher, with a click percentage of 69.10%.

It’s interesting to see the sharp climb in  tablet activity, as well as the sharp drop in desktop email engagement, as reflected in “% Clicks.”  However, even as  email opens and click activity  show steep declines on desktop when compared to the same week in 2011, it’s worth noting that click activity overall is still considerably higher on desktop as compared to mobile devices. Where some predict tablet engagement to soon overtake the traditional desktop devices, the data indicates that desktop is slipping but remains fairly solid  for  now. Marketers need to continue to strive to provide smooth, effective mobile experiences with device-optimized campaigns and clear calls to action. It is indeed time for adopting a “Mobile First” approach, as mentioned in previous reports.

It seems that Twitter and Instagram are still at it, and yesterday Twitter made the most recent move in the break-up. Since Instagram, owned by Facebook, will no longer allow users to share beautifully edited and filtered photos on Twitter, the ever-famous micro blogging network will now be updating their photo options. Twitter has now announced that in order to keep those Instagram-like photos on their network, they will just have to let Twitter users create them themselves.  It seems that Twitter will be becoming a lot more visual these days, which may open some new doors for marketers interested in marketing with the network, or those who already do.

Starting today, you’ll be able to edit and refine your photos, right from Twitter. The latest versions of Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android introduce a few new ways to enhance the images you tweet. We’re grateful to our partner, Aviary, for powering our filters and effects.

Filters. Apply one of eight filters, ranging from black & white to vintage, to add a new look and feel to your photos.

Take a bird’s-eye view. See how each filter would affect your photo in a single grid view, or swipe through looks to compare your options.

Frame the action. Crop and pinch to zoom in order to focus attention.

Auto-enhance. Make your photos pop with balanced light and colors by tapping the wand.

From the Twitter Blog

The feature that Twitter has just released is almost identical to everything that Instagram is and offers to its users.  With this feature, Twitter is assuring that it stays as close to even with Facebook as it possibly can. With Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, Twitter needed something similar to keep them in the race.

Clearly, this new feature is largely because of Instagram’s, rather Facebook’s, removal of all photos from Twitter. However, the problem for marketers is that Twitter is allowing very little sharing to be done now, in terms of sharing across multiple networks.  It puts more work in the hands of marketers, as without much sharing across platforms, marketers have to create different content for each network they are on, instead of simply hitting Share.

Despite that though, if anything good does come of this for marketers, it is that more content options are available on Twitter now. Sure, photos on Twitter have been around for a while, but much like we have seen Instagram create a huge boost in Facebook photo sharing, we will see similar activity on Twitter.

With this feature being created solely for the mobile platform, Twitter is clearly catering to the huge switch to mobile devices by users that has been occurring in recent months. Social networks will always compete with one another, and when an innovation appears in the social world, others have to do whatever they can to keep up, even if that means imitating the entire functionality of Instagram. Twitter’s edge is that it is quite popular among social mobile users, and they are keeping the photo filtering and social activity all in one place.

A video explaining the new feature is available here, on the Twitter Blog.

There has been a lot of questioning about who is really the King in the battle between Apple and Android as of right now. Both companies have been given the title this year, but how can we be sure which one is really on top. To add a new piece to the puzzle that everyone is trying to figure out, Google’s Chairman, Eric Schmidt has given an interview to Bloomberg in which he claims that Google is leading the way. He says that Google Android is growing in mobile software at a similar rate to the growth of Microsoft in the desktop software industry in the 1990s.

Here is a bit of the proof that Eric Schmidt provided to Bloomberg:

Android snared 72 percent of the market in the third quarter, while Apple had 14 percent, according to Gartner Inc. Customers are activating more than 1.3 million Android devices a day.

The chairman of Google states his confidence in Google’s winning of the war in mobile software. He also remarks that allowing other companies like Samsung to benefit from Google’s Android, the reach to mobile users is larger, and taking the sacrifice is well worth it.

The core strategy is to make a bigger pie. We will end up with a not perfectly controlled and not perfectly managed bigger pie by virtue of open systems.

Recent mistakes from Apple regarding its Apple Maps application have shifted popularity in Google’s favor indeed, especially since the leading competitor in maps is of course, Google. In another interview with Bloomberg, Apple’s Chief Executive, Tim Cook, stated:

We set out to give the customer something to provide a better experience. And the truth is it didn’t live up to our expectations. We screwed up.

As Apple is experiencing some bad reputation, it still seems like almost everybody we see walking down the sidewalk is texting, talking, playing, or listening to music on their iPhones. So, this makes it hard to understand how Google is still maintaining its reputation of being King in smartphones. The numbers that Schmidt provided show that it is clearly true, but the question I have is this; Why aren’t I seeing the millions of Android smartphones that are being sold, but iPhones are all over the place?

Of course, Android phones are all over the place, but what I am saying is that iPhones still seem quite popular, and they may not be as far away from Google in the race as the numbers make it seem. It does not matter as much how many phones the operating system providers sell, but rather what kinds of things these users are doing with their smartphones.

Google is selling the most smartphones, and that is all well and good. However, what is important to marketers, the race for the most engagement from mobile users between Android and Apple is much closer than are the respective market shares.

In order to create a better marketing experience back in April 2010, Twitter released the first version of Promoted Tweets within their search function, as sort of a way to test them out. Since then, even though Promoted Tweets do not function primarily in the search function of Twitter, the search function itself has become a tool that Twitter users are using much more often. It is because of the increased use by the everyday Twitter users that marketers are beginning to present much more interest in the tool themselves, and need a better way to market through it. Today, that need has been fulfilled, with Twitter’s announcement of some improvements to the marketing functionality of their search tool.

Twitter has just announced in their blog that they have made a number of improvements to their targeting options for Promoted Tweets in search results.

Marketers can now select from three different matching options when entering keywords: exact match, phrase match, and basic keyword match. We’ve now launched negative keyword targeting if you want to restrict your Promoted Tweets from showing up when users search for certain keywords. For instance, if you sell bacon, you can now keep your campaigns more than six degrees apart from Kevin Bacon by using “Kevin” as a negative keyword.

The new features are easily accessible as well, as Twitter has simply added to the current keyword options that already exist on the page. According to their explanation, the company has added a bulk import tool which can be found by simply clicking on the “import multiple keywords” button in the search targeting tool. This new tool allows marketers to use and import keyword lists from other search advertising platforms or even just copy and paste keywords that they want to use.

Also, a new matching option that is applied by default to new campaigns has been thrown into the mix.

But even more exciting to us is the new option to automatically match your Promoted Tweets in search to relevant and related trending topics. Trends can rise and fall quickly with world events, TV shows and sporting matches, or memes like #OneOfMyFavoriteMovies. If you use this new matching option (which is enabled by default for new campaigns), we use relevance signals about your Promoted Tweets and the Trend itself to help increase your campaign’s coverage automatically.

All of this combined brings quite a useful search marketing tool to Twitter’s advertising resources. Current Twitter advertisers are likely to see a great improvement upon using these new tools in current or upcoming marketing campaigns. It may even start to bring more marketers to the platform, as targeting has become a huge commodity in social marketing today.

Twitter has released these new tools today, and they are available for marketers worldwide. Twitter expects that the new functionality to their search options will bring in greater ROI for those that have been focusing their efforts into Twitter campaigns and for those who plan to in the near future.

Epic (fka Azoogle aka TrafficMarketplace aka Kinetic Social) is the gift that keeps on giving for some of the most interesting, albeit somewhat depressing news. If you haven’t been following the story, Epic Media Group, despite months of claiming financial stability, left all of its publisher hung out to dry without paying them, while at the same time transferring assets to another company in order to protect their money.  After numerous reports from this publication about this issue, they decided to offer all their publishers a payment plan in which they would get a small part of their money owed, over time. This payment plan which called only for 1% payments initially, and then sometime in the near future *cough* a larger amount was highly derided not only by myself, but most of hte industry as a ruse to prevent creditors from suing the company and its new entity, Kinetic Social.

So what’s happened now? Well, as I predicted, Epic Media Group and Kinetic Social have refused to pay even the small amount they agreed on. Why? Their claim is that they don’t have the money, that their funds are dry and they can’t even do the additional 1% that they are owed. Whatever the excuse is, this was most likely their plan: get a bunch of people to agree on a payment plan, waive their legal rights and they screw them harder than before. I’m oblivious on how they expect to get away with this — but somehow most of the creditors aren’t doing much and even providing extra lube.

Seriously, can you believe the letter below?

Dear Creditors,

My client has asked me to send the communication below to you all regarding the plan payments and events forward. I understand everyone’s frustration and Accord is doing everything it can to express your concerns:

One of Epic Media Group’s (EMG) assets that was expected to generate a return in the 4th quarter of 2012 has failed to pay on time. As a result, EMG will be unable to make a current payment in accordance with the plan which was offered as settlement in its debt to creditors (“plan”). The board is engaging in best efforts to resolve this situation, and is hopeful that it will return to being in a position to make payments in early Q1, 2013.

Thank you for your considered faith in resolving this through alternative means. EMG remains hopeful that a good outcome will result in this matter. We will advise if anything material changes and as soon as we are able to recommence payments under the plan.

Epic Media Group
From my discussions with management, they will do everything they can to catch up the scheduled payments in January. Fortunately, the longer term view for the March payout at this point is still looking confident.

Los Angeles—December 11, 2012– Engage:BDR, a leading digital advertising and marketing agency, announced today a partnership with ad management system Jetpack. Engage: BDR will be the first to provide Jetpack’s technology exclusively to direct response advertisers.

The direct marketing industry will utilize the ability to create high performing ad units, maximizing ad buys and revenue for its clients.  Jetpack offers full-service development of custom creative ideas into standard or non-standard ad slots across a network of sites.

“Engage:BDR is providing performance marketers high-quality marketing tools that have only been available to top publishers and brand advertisers until now,” said Ted Dhanik, president, engage:BDR.  “As a result, performance marketers will be able to increase their engagement rates to unprecedented levels while ultimately raising revenue opportunities.”

Jetpack also analyzes impressions and detailed interactions, offering full reporting to show the success of custom campaigns. Utilizing Amazon Web Services and an S3 infrastructure allows Jetpack to deliver to the highest traffic sites on the Web.

“Jetpack’s platform and suite of high impact advertising products are a natural fit for the performance marketing community and no company understands that market’s needs better than engage:BDR,” said Chris Tragos, co-founder, Jetpack.  “Through the engage:BDR network, direct advertisers will now be able to leverage their investment in high quality video with Jetpack’s cinematic ad units to create a super-premium context for their offerings.”

Engage:BDR is the premier advertising network for performance and one of the highest click-through rates for any network.  Engage: BDR, founded in 2007, represents premium inventories of a select group of international publishers within the comScore Top 1000. Engage: BDR’s proprietary ad serving technology provides unparalleled performance with advanced audience targeting based on census data and IP data, allowing engage:BDR to reach the exact audience that marketers are looking to grasp efficiently.

About Jetpack
The Jetpack platform offers publishers rapid development of network-ready custom advertising products. Jetpack assembles custom units from an evolving library of media and engagement modules into the required component configuration.. Jetpack dynamically injects the custom units on any site, hosts and serves all media, and provides tracking and reporting for all delivery and engagement metrics.

About engage: BDR
With a monthly global reach of 192 million monthly unique users, engage:BDR offer advertisers cutting-edge marketing solutions, advanced technology and custom programming by integrating display, video, and  branded entertainment into a single network. Whether it’s driving qualified traffic and leads or building awareness and engagement, engage:BDR is committed to providing innovative solutions to reach consumers and deliver the highest quality results to their partners.

Check out engage:BDR