eConsultancy along with Experian Marketing Services has released their Marketing Budgets 2012 report and as we have seen in the recent past, most companies continue to or intend to continue to increase spending on the digital channel. That's good news in that there is recognition that the digital channel is an effective use of marketing dollars which can often be harder to find in the current economic climate. Here are some quick data points from the study.

The following post comes from our Inbound Marketing Channel sponsor HubSpot. The FBI recently posted a Request for Information )RFI( for a "social media application." But, it was really a request for a social media monitoring application. Why? Because the FBI recognizes what many inbound marketers already know and many others are discovering: There's gold in them thar social media data.

I am a Seinfeld fan. A fan of the show that is. His standup? Not so much. So, I got a little nervous when I heard he was doing a Super Bowl commercial because we know how these things can go. Well, this one wasn't too bad. Oh and the folks at Acura? Smart move promoting the ad now rather than waiting to "premiere" it during the game. You'll get more attention now. Very smart. Of course, being a New York Giants fan,

At the All Things D's, D: Dive Into Media event , Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo was interviewed by Peter Kafka. He touches on Google, China, political ads, IPO's and more. Of course, he has to say that 2012 is going to be the year of a Twitter election. Not too arrogant but hey who am I to argue? Oh and shockingly, Kara Swisher gets involved. All kidding aside, thanks to AllThingsD for getting Mr.

Google must be getting paranoid by now. I bet Larry Page can't fart without getting a letter from Congress these days. The latest Congressional attention of course comes from the latest privacy scandal to hit the Internet. Oh, I'm sorry, I must have channeled my inner sensationalistic blogger for that last line. The only thing that has really happened, at least as Google says it of course, is the consolidation of privacy policies.

This post comes from our SEO channel sponsor Link Assistant . The mobile Web has been gaining HUGE momentum in the past few years. Different statistics pertaining to the mobile Internet paint a vivid picture of the latter growing bigger each day: 76 percent of the world population )5.3 billion people( use mobile devices, of which over 1 billion are smartphones.

This post was written by our Social Media channel sponsor Full Sail University. "Alright, you primitive screwheads, listen up!" For those familiar with the work of movie director Sam Raimi, "Army of Darkness" is, no doubt, a perennial favorite. For those as yet indoctrinated, I'd encourage you to check out the film. It's one of my favorites! In addition to being funny and imaginative, the chief protagonist, Ash Williams, would make a great Internet marketer.

This post was created by our Reputation Channel sponsor Webimax. Numbers reflecting user participation on social sites were issued recently, stirring the interest of marketers and brands leveraging popular sites like Facebook and Twitter. Out of 2,000 U.S. web users asked, an astounding 85% had Facebook accounts. About three-quarters of the population use the social platform daily, and over half of those asked have at least a hundred friends. Wow,

If you were asked what it would take to get Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Aol and other to come together, agree on something and work together to accomplish something that would benefit most of the online world, what would it be? That is a pretty short list of option for sure but one thing has worked: a push to eliminate phishing scams in the e-mail space. According to Wired On Monday, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!,

The past few years have been one of severe upheaval in the marketing world. As we continue to shift from the traditional world of marketing to a mix between the ways of marketing from the past 20 or so years and the digital / social media environment the landscape shifts regularly. One area of social media that carries a wide array of opinions regarding its use is blogging.

In what seems like a rare moment these days, analysts are saying that they actually underestimated something rather than hyping it beyond recognition. Maybe there is hope after all . This time it is about mobile ad spending in the US. eMarketer writes The US mobile advertising market is growing far faster than expected, driven by the rapid ascension of Google's mobile search advertising business,

Interested in building that killer app that will be your grand slam home run of your career? Convinced that you are absolutely certain that there are AT LEAST 5 million people out there that would give up $.99 in a heartbeat for your "awesome" app or mindless game? Well, that is great copy for someone trying to recruit developers but the reality of the app world plays out a bit differently. That's not to say that paid apps are dead.

While it may seem like a big deal that the most powerful sports league in the US )and maybe the planet(, the NFL, is letting it's players tweet during a game but let's not run around ringing in the new era of social media and sports. It's pretty fascinating to consider, right? A player comes off the field after an incredible catch or incredible hit and immediately tells his followers how he feels.

Google continues to make changes in different areas of their business. Apparently, how that business is defined is causing pains for Wall Street types which is rather amusing, but I digress. The latest adjustment comes in how average search position is calculate. From the Google Webmaster Central blog we get an example of just how this is being done. Let's say Nick searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 3, 6, and 12.

If you can step back for enough time to see some of the other things that Google does you would maybe see less of the evil, greedy Google that seems to be the popular point of view these days and see places where they actually help people. They do this even without taking your data and "forcing" you to use their Google+ service which is simply their front for world domination. Take the new Public Alerts feature in Google Maps. It's pretty cool and it makes good sense.

Ok, it may be that I took a liberty or two with the headline. However, when you read what the EU )European Union( is "allowing" itself to do if a company violates their first update to their data protection laws in 17 years and then look at the state of THEIR union its not a very far jump to get to my conclusion. From Bloomberg Companies face fines as high as 2 percent of yearly global sales for losing personal data under an overhaul of European Union privacy rules.

We all want more clicks. We all want a magic formula to get clicks. We also all know )at least those who are firmly planted in reality( that there is no such beast. There is, however, research that is being done all the time to help give some guidance regarding how to best navigate the emerging social media marketing landscape. One person who does a lot of this research, especially around Twitter, is HubSpot's Dan Zarrella .

Google must have had a meeting at the end of 2011 that possibly went something like this. Larry Page: We are going to do so much stuff at the start of 2012 that it will get the Internet industry types' knickers in such a twist that they won't know what hit them. Staff: Will our bonus be tied to it? Page: Yes. Staff: We're all in. The latest update is regarding Google's privacy policies. In short,

If you have avoided creating a Timeline in Facebook or you simply didn't know how to do it, over the few weeks or so it won't matter anymore. Facebook is officially rolling the feature out to all Facebook accounts so get ready. Oh and don't forget the 7 day "grace period" to clean up your online mess of life so others might be entertained.

Have you ever wondered how you can get a bit closer to the CMO of your company? Are you looking for a way to network your way up the corporate marketing ladder? Well, according to a study released by Forrester Research and Heidrick & Struggles you may want to pass along some of your tech knowledge to gain their favor. The study called "The Evolved CMO 2012″ shows that the highest levels of the marketing environment knows it could use a little help with technical knowledge.