Under Secretary Jon Dudas discussed illegal downloading and software piracy with Utah schoolkids recently.

Editor’s Note: In today’s issue, Steve takes a look at a new phenomenon in advertising called “tagvertising”. For example, many web users employ this form of bookmarking to keep track of items of interest, essentially, tags become online bookmarks.

Microsoft’s legal department announced the filing of 8 lawsuits in 7 different states against PC developers and resellers for the alleged distribution of counterfeit, illicit and unlicensed Microsoft software and the components accompanying them.

With the promise of offering a “Lifeline to Clients Locked in by EMC,” Network Appliance and IBM have agreed to a partnership, which see IBM offering storage solutions based on the Network Appliance attached storage architecture, including the related software.

A variant of the Cabir mobile virus, called Mabir, has been targeting mobile phones using the Symbian Series 60 operating system. Mabir is capable of spreading via Bluetooth or by a phone’s messaging service.

MSN Search will reportedly fold behavioral targeting into the mix of its new sponsored listings program, based on personal information provided by, for example, users of Hotmail.

New Scientist is reporting on patents filed by Amazon on March 8th that will (do?) allow the online retail giant to extract keywords …

In what is being termed as a “potential epidemic,” virus writers are planning on targeting attacks at mobile communication devices.

Even though the end of the holiday shopping season is coming to a fast finish, there’s still time to optimize your site or PPC campaign for holiday shoppers. While it’s true that time is of the essence, during the Christmas season there will always be late shoppers. When you consider some of the shipping options offered, last minute shopping is becoming more and more possible on the WWW.

During conversations with web business professionals about pay-per-click search engines, “traffic volume” is always a hot topic. Over the last year or so, Google Adwords has emerged as the pay-per-click (PPC) search engine most enamored for driving “traffic volume”.

Fresh off Ad Week and hearing the buzz about behavioral targeting, it seemed to make sense to put that term into perspective.

The theory that I’m presenting in this article is based on a variation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Kiersey Temperament Sorters.

With most of the major search engines embracing the geographic targeting, through local search engines or by organic search using regional information, users now have more options with which to optimize for. Be it organic listings or PPC listings, there are a number of things that users can do to improve their performance within each area.

Keeping with the Kanoodle/24/7 Real Media merger theme, BURST Media has announced a partnership with Tacoda for behavioral targeting purposes. The agreement sees BURST making use of Tacoda’s Audience Management System to track its audience.

A study by comScore found that Canadians web users performed many more searches than their American counterparts. According to comScore’s test, “approximately 85 percent of the Canadian Internet population conducted at least one search at the top engines each month, compared to 73 percent of the U.S. population.”

A few years back we were marketing a specific type of packaged creative service through our dm consultancy. The service had wide ranging benefits for all industries. As a testing exercise we decided to hone in on one industry and see what happened.

Someone asked me recently to name the most critical element of any search engine optimization campaign. I didn’t hesitate to respond “keyword selection”.

When trying to find your target audience for your product or service, use a technique called mind-mapping. It will help you think outside the box.

A few days back a client was sitting with me when I connected to the Internet and launched my browser. He was precariously surprised to see that the default page of the browser was not my web site, but a general purpose portal.

Teenagers are the generation that marketing execs would and do spend millions a year to try to understand. Every product directed towards the teen crowd goes through hundreds of changes and focus groups to determine whether or not that particular ad will work. This generation has so many variations to it that to say that you are going to target “all teens” is virtually impossible. We must focus on a common factor that most teens share and can be drawn upon to create attachment to our product.