• Ben Edwards, VP, Digital Strategy & Development, IBM
• Noah Elkin, Senior Analyst, eMarketer
• James Gross, Vice President, Federated Media
• Marc-Henri Magdelenat, Director, Microsoft Mobile Media

All of the panelists had really interesting perspectives and insight on mobile marketing. Some of the key takeaways:

• The mobile web will be more pervasive than desktop computing by 2015.
• The panelists all agreed that while we have been hearing that this year is the year of mobile marketing for the past ten years, this year is really the year—and here’s why—the audience is there now. We have reached the tipping point due to critical mass of active users. Marketers are always looking to reach audiences where they are; and their mobile now.
• How people interact with their mobile devices is different than any other platform. It’s a more personal experience; their interactions are based on personal preference. This creates a more fragmented audience and as a result, mobile campaigns must be more targeted.
• In the next year there will be a significant increase in mobile commerce, along with a much richer browser experience due to innovations included in HTML5.

The net-net of this discussion is that if you’re not integrating mobile into your marketing campaigns by now, you’re missing the boat. What do you think? Do you see the value in creating mobile marketing campaigns? Are you integrating mobile components into overall communications plans?

I can’t remember reading one positive article on Windows Vista since its launch. Of the deluge of negative press I’ve come across, it’s my impression that Vista failed not because Microsoft didn’t communicate its worth properly, but because it was an inherently bad OS. So I approached Reisinger’s article with skepticism — sure, sure, blame the PR folks.

However, are you aware that Microsoft has already sold 140 million units of Vista? That it is more secure than Windows XP? And that most, if not all, of its incompatibility issues with XP hardware has been fixed? Maybe there is something to the idea that Microsoft hasn’t been touting its successes.

A CEO wildly veering off of product message points certainly doesn’t help:

Microsoft needs to stop talking about XP and Windows 7 and focus all of its efforts on reassuring customers that Vista is the only operating system they should care about.

In the past few months alone, Microsoft has championed the release of Service Pack 3 and Bill Gates has gone on record discussing how much better Windows 7 will be than Vista. By doing that, Microsoft has made customers forget about Vista and start thinking that it’s nothing more than a bridge between a known quantity in XP and a more efficient product in Windows 7.

I can imagine the horror the Vista marketing people felt at that moment. Windows 7 will be better?! Ouch.

Is anyone out there in blogland using Vista? Is this a PR problem or not? I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.

Last Monday, I trekked over to Advanced Focus after work to participate in a focus group that, based on the nature of my screening calls, I figured had something to do with Microsoft and search marketing.

I attended a Microsoft adCenter focus group about a year ago. Ultimately, the people behind the mirror wanted to know why we had deactivated our campaigns. It crossed my mind that I had been invited back to be asked the same question again: “You’re all here because you still haven’t reactivated your campaigns.” Uncomfortable pause.

I readied myself for the guilt. How would I explain to Steve Ballmer that his search traffic just doesn’t generate enough volume to make an impact? That his high-profile wooing of Yahoo read like an acknowledgment of this shortcoming? “Steve…you’re a really nice guy…you’re smart, well-dressed…the problem is…well…it’s not you, Steve…”

Cut to my rude awakening: Microsoft wasn’t interested in parsing my decision to pause my adCenter campaigns. No, they wanted to show me, and the three other members of my focus group, advertising creative, in order to gauge which campaign would be most likely to convince me to return.

I never signed a focus group NDA, not that I can remember. And my goal here is not to embarrass Microsoft by skewering their design team. But a foot massage, an egg timer, a packet of instant oatmeal and — wait for it — a wallet with money inside are all equally unlikely to convince me to flip the switch.

At the end of the day, what compels marketing folks to use search engine marketing as part of their online advertising mix is that it works. In my clients’ cases, that typically means that SEM must drive sales. But it doesn’t stop there. Even if adCenter gives us terrific ROI, if it’s not generating real revenue, it’s not worth it. The opportunity cost of managing a campaign that only leads to a few hundred dollars in revenue a day, or a week, outweighs the “literal” ROI.

I’m fairly certain none of my clients will ever have advertising budgets large enough to focus group their creatives. How do you measure the ROI of a focus group, anyway? Here’s an idea, Steve: take a tip from Ian Ayres, the guy who let Google Adwords data determine the title of his book. If you want to know how to market your search marketing product, why not use search marketing to find out?

The paper’s Technology home page is usually where I start my day at the office. From there, I usually get hooked into a Blogrunner headline or head into the Bits blog.

Today, Saul Hansell posted two really thought-provoking posts on the merger in Bits: An Offer Yahoo Can’t Refuse, and the follow-up, Microsoft is Building a Spaceship out of Spare parts. The latter features one of the best geeky similes I’ve read in a long time:

For Microsoft, trying to build a new Internet portal-search engine-advertising network-cloud computing company will be trying to make a new interplanetary spaceship out of an old Soyuz capsule and Skylab while hurtling through the cosmos. The parts are temperamental; the systems are delicate; and the risk of catastrophic failure is ever-present.

Another New York Times blog, Dealbook, describes How Microsoft Could Go Hostile. They also have a good rundown of previous high-profile tech acquisitions in The Biggest Tech Deal Ever, Sort Of.

I’m really interested to see how this shakes out — and, more importantly, how that benefits (or hurts) both marketers and Microsoft/Yahoo end users. Bits and Dealbook are resources I’ll continue to refer to as the story progresses.