By all accounts, I would say that Charlie Sheen is winning.  He is getting an amazing amount of exposure from his recent online rants, tweets, and talk show/guest appearances.

And to keep the feeding frenzy alive, major media outlets have been there to report every detail and to discuss what makes Charlie tick…. Or at least offer a warning that he is a ticking time bomb that might explode any minute.  No such thing as bad press…

The recent numbers show just how much people are embracing the internet and using e-commerce to buy goods and services.*  The  online shopping halo effect of all those smart phones and smart tablets purchased since Christmas that augment “traditional cyber sales”, (desktop, laptop), are starting to show an up-tick in consumer use.  As Marketers and merchants continue to make the online shopping experience better and easier, more consumes will undoubtedly switch to this mobile environment.  -jdognet

400 million internet users in China! Surely this number will increase and therefore be an almost certain marketing segment for US and other advanced online marketers to try and tap. But do those Chinese internet users get to really experience the “world wide web” as most other “open societies” do?  According to the latest BusinessWeek article on this subject, they do not.

Having the trading clout China currently possesses, this is certainly a dilemma that will pose a problem for US companies such as Facebook and Twitter when their plans to add more members is blocked by the “Great Fire Wall of China”.

The problem I see is again a double standard… US companies are not allowed to compete for potential customers in China and other closed  markets because those governments censor internet content while they allow their own similar online companies to flourish with no competition from Western Markets.  Just because we are not exporting Rice or other durable goods to these markets doesn’t mean that a Facebook account that is content rich shouldn’t be afforded the same trade status.

A double standard that has vast implications on how a social network is created….

I hope that China’s Wall Street supported social network companies  being created with Government sponsorship, (read Communistic overtones),  behind the Great Fire Wall will not be unleashed on the rest of the world without a clear understanding of what agenda these companies have…     -jdognet

From it’s creation in 2006 as a social texting phenomenon where users can follow the lives,  exploits and opinions of others, to a now viable advertising channel for small and mid-size advertisers,  Twitter is now getting the attention of Wall Street and the investment community.

As with any advertising, it only makes sense to look at your audience to determine if there is a way to place effective ads.  With 200 million twitter users worldwide,  it is apparent that a form of advertising would eventually be created here.

In the US alone there has been a steady growth of Twitter users.  Put that together with  the fact that the increased use of smartphones and even “semi-smart” phones, (those phones that have Twitter access via their wireless carriers proprietary setup),  will get more “consumer eyeballs”  on Twitters portal, and you definitely have a  good platform for niche advertising.  -jdognet

As has been predicted, Facebook is making gains on display ad revenue.*    As Facebook flexes it’s muscle with their unique brand of “social advertising” within their pages, the other PPC  competition, Yahoo/Bing and Google, will certainly have to figure out a different strategy.

As businesses try and determine where the best place for their ad spending is, a compelling argument to advertise in  Facebook now exists.  Putting your ad where the most relevant ”consumer eyeballs” are is always the best practice.  -jdognet