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Scot Wingo blows the roof off! This interview is so full of sizzle and STEAK. Man, I have not heard this much great information and insight anywhere, honestly. This is such a good "exclusive" interview.

Hey, Scot even brought some brand new stats on Amazon CGM, eBay Antique Sellers, Google vs. Bing…Damn I could go on, but why? Just look at the notes and PRESS PLAY!

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Scot Wingo – CEO ChannelAdvisor.com and eBayStrategies.com

2:12 – Amazon vs. eBay Growth
3:05 – What is EGM?
4:10 – Amazon partitions are growing at up to 54%
5:50 – 5 Points – Value, Ease, Merchandising, Trust, Selection
7:12 – 600 Million Shoes … wow
8:03 – Amazon has moved marketing $$$ to free shipping
8:54 – Can eBay subsidize its free shipping model?
10:22 – Is ChannelAdvisor keeping up with eBay changes?
14:24 – How does WalMart.com & Sears.com factor into the eCommerce mix
15:29 – Marketplace Wars
16:34 – Is the Kindle a factor for Amazon’s traffic success?
17:26 – Google Commerce Search Changes
18:15 – Google Search 62% – Bing Seach 35%
19:20 – eCommerce Search is up to 40% of all search
20:12 – eBay Best Match Search
21:14 – eBay Top Rated Seller Program
24:21 – Should eBay Go Retail? (http://ow.ly/ECvi)
26:01 – Some EXCLUSIVE eBay Numbers Data From Wingo!
28:00 – Are Antiques and Collectables suffering on eBay?
29:40 – Will eBay changes squeeze out the SMB’s on eBay?
30:30 – eBay vs. Paypal
33:00 – 45% of Paypal is actually eBay (the Paypal Monopoly)
34:15 – Paypal is holding up to 15% of sellers GMV
36:17 – Social Media – is it a viable channel for selling?
37:01 – eCommerce on Facebook
39:27 – Mobile commerce (red lazer, shopsavvy, deocrab)
42:00 – ChannelAdvisor Catalyst May 3-5 (www.ChannelAdvisor.com/Catalyst)

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On the ColderICE Facebook discussion boards I have asked the simple question; How do you use Social sites to support your business?

There really is NO right or wrong answer here, it is the open question of the week. Do you use it? Should you use it? Should you NOT use it? WHY?

Sure all of the "so-called" savviest in social media experts have a say, LMAO. But it really boils down to the business owners. Is social marketing a tool that you will use? If so how? If not, why not?

Screw the masses, what do YOU think. It is possibly one of the most important topics and it has a vast area of differentiation.

Let me here what you think, simply CLICK HERE and join the discussion.

In September 2009, nearly 27 billion hours were spent on the Internet globally by a record online population of 1.2 billion Internet users age 15 and older. Microsoft Sites accounted for 14.5 percent of total minutes spent online in September, making it the most engaging global property, with Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger representing nearly 70 percent of time spent on the property during the month.

Google Sites captured 9.3 percent of total minutes (2.5 billion hours), with YouTube accounting for nearly half of total time spent (1.2 billion hours) at the property. Yahoo! Sites ranked as the third most engaging Web property at 1.7 billion hours, followed by Facebook.com at 1.4 billion hours. Facebook’s share of attention reached 5.1 percent in September, an increase of 2.9 percentage points from the previous year, as its continued growth in popularity precipitated this surge in share.

  Top Global Properties Based on Total Hours
  September 2009 vs. September 2008
  Total Audience Age 15+ at Home/Work Locations*
  Source: comScore World Metrix
  -----------------------------
                                         Total Hours (MM)
                                         ---------------
                                Sep-2008        Sep-2009      % Change
                                --------        --------      --------
  Total Internet : Total
   Audience                       21,746          26,988            24
  ----------------------          ------          ------           ---
  Microsoft Sites                  2,734           3,920            43
  ---------------                  -----           -----           ---
  Google Sites                     1,703           2,512            48
  ------------                     -----           -----           ---
  Yahoo! Sites                     1,975           1,699           -14
  ------------                     -----           -----           ---
  Facebook.com                       474           1,387           193
  ------------                       ---           -----           ---
  Tencent Inc.                       589             893            52
  ------------                       ---             ---           ---
  AOL LLC                            584             513           -12
  -------                            ---             ---           ---
  eBay                               231             239             3
  ----                               ---             ---           ---
  Fox Interactive Media              361             204           -44
  ---------------------              ---             ---           ---
  Baidu.com Inc.                     175             163            -7
  --------------                     ---             ---           ---
  Lycos Sites                         59             107            81
  -----------                        ---             ---           ---

  *Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or
  access from mobile phones or PDAs.

  Global Regions Exhibit Different Preferences at Top Online Brands

A regional analysis of the top global properties in time spent by their visitors revealed different preferences across global markets. Microsoft Sites held the largest share of time spent among the top worldwide properties in Europe (16.8 percent), Latin America (35.9 percent) and the Middle East – Africa (33.1 percent). Yahoo! Sites captured the largest share of time in North America with 11.2 percent share, while also attracting a notable 7.9-percent share of time spent in the Asia Pacific region. Google Sites commanded a strong share of time spent in Latin America (19.4 percent), Middle East – Africa (9.7 percent), Europe (9.6 percent) and North America (9.1 percent). China’s Tencent Inc. captured the largest share of visitors’ time in Asia Pacific with a 10.7-percent share, but had negligible engagement in other worldwide regions.

  Share of Time Spent at Top 5 Global Properties Based on Total Minutes
  September 2009
  Total Audience Age 15+ at Home/Work Locations*
  Source: comScore World Metrix
  -----------------------------

                     Share (%) of Total Time Spent Online in Region
                     ----------------------------------------------
                                                                    Middle
                              North              Asia      Latin    East -
                 Worldwide   America   Europe   Pacific   America   Africa
                 ---------   -------   ------   -------   -------   ------
  Microsoft Sites  14.5%       8.6%     16.8%     6.4%      35.9%    33.1%
  ---------------  ----        ---      ----      ---       ----     ----
  Google Sites      9.3%       9.1%      9.6%     6.4%      19.4%     9.7%
  ------------      ---        ---       ---      ---       ----      ---
  Yahoo! Sites      6.3%      11.2%      2.0%     7.9%       2.1%     4.9%
  ------------      ---       ----       ---      ---        ---      ---
  Facebook.com      5.1%       6.0%      6.6%     2.4%       5.0%     8.0%
  ------------      ---        ---       ---      ---        ---      ---
  Tencent Inc.      3.3%       0.0%      0.0%    10.7%       0.0%     0.0%
  ------------      ---        ---       ---     ----        ---      ---

  *Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or
  access from mobile phones or PDAs.

"The Internet continues to be a dynamic and growing environment around the world with the global online population climbing more than 20 percent in the last year," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. "With the U.S. economy only now emerging from a recession, many multinational corporations have shifted the focus of their growth strategies towards developing markets and the Internet represents an important aspect of those strategies. Understanding the global Internet landscape is the first step towards executing effective marketing strategies in these growing markets."

Hard to believe that just 15 years ago AOL ruled the world of the internet huh? Nope, there was no rumors of this Google thingy and Yahoo was just a bunch of links. However AOL was the place where you went to market to users, on AOL internet marketing ruled.

You wanted to get your brand on the internet, then you simply HAD to have a www.AOL.com/MyWidget address back in the day. You wanted to tap into the gigantic user base of AOL registrants? You would create an app using their proprietary platform…sound familiar?

Want more similarity? OK…My Mom, who is now over 70 years old now, got her first taste of computing by using AOL. For her, AOL was the INTERNET. She would say. "I saw thus-and-so on the internet", not understanding that what she was in was the AOL universe. She would NEVER click a link that brought up the standard warning message "You are about to be taken off of AOL to an unknown link" that would stop her dead in her browsing tracks.

Fast forward to 2009 and I am seeing the same thing. My family and friends who are FAR from technophiles are now using Facebook and for them, that "IS" the internet. This is their walled protective environment, but this time around the prison has a few windows to see out by linking to good stuff.

But what I find, by looking at their profiles, is that for the most part, they stay pretty much in the walled red zone. Almost NONE of them have links to stories outside of the safe domain of Facebook. The are simply not net savvy and Facebook is about the only place they desire to explore.

So John, what are you saying? …. Nothing, just contemplating the similarity….for now (stay tuned).

Who would have thunk it? 300 million users are now registered on Facebook, holy cow! Now these are not just any old users, but they are actual UNIQUE users for the most part. See you got eBay who reports an estimated 338.2 million users (according to the June 2009 eBay Quarterly Report) which is very inflated due to inactivity or duplication. That is a whole different ballgame.

Facebook users report repeated uses daily and accounts on Facebook have been pretty restrictive to having a real person behind most of its accounts. This new number of 300 million for Facebook is really a pretty huge chunk of Americans interacting via social networking and Facebook is way ahead of the pack.

Also today Facebook says they are now "cash-flow positive". So the world biggest social network has beat the goal of hitting that in 2010. That is another big milestone Mark Zukerberg, who said today on his Facebook blog:

We’re also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I’m pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.

Over time, Facebook will continue to be as strong as all of the connections you make. We’ll continue building new and better things to make connecting with the people you care about as easy and rewarding as possible. We thank all of you for helping us reach the point where we are connecting 300 million people, and we hope to serve you and many more people in increasingly deep and innovative ways in the months and years ahead.

WTF is going on? I get up this morning to check in on my favorite social site, Twitter, and poof, it is gone!

Yep, this morning Twitter has acknowledge on its status blog that the site is DOWN.

So OK, then I decide to go for the backup site, Facebook.com and I can not get it to LOAD either. But Facebook is not completely down, but it too is having some issues.

So what the hell is going on? Does this have something to do with Paula Abdul leaving American Idol?!  Stay tuned…

The theory created by the author (John of ColderICE.com) that we have a new term of “Thinship” to describe social relationships. A more defining term for the existence of these types of relationships in social networks.

This evening I was sent this link and it got me to really thinking. You can use YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, FriendFeed, Facebook or what ever to promote your stuff. But in order to use it effectively you MUST GIVE ME SOMETHING.

I need to be informed, entertained, educated or at least leave me laughing. If you can do all of them in 1 video? Even better. So then people ask me to give them an example? So watch this as the BEST example ever, and DO NOT MISS the ending song….