Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

Beth Higbee, senior vice president, Scripps Networks Interactive, recently said in a statement "While many media companies talk about convergence, at Scripps we make a concerted effort to encourage our audiences to participate in our programming both on-air and online, as a result we are building loyal audiences in whatever media they choose to access. Each offers different benefits, so more and more of our audiences are migrating back and forth between on-air and online, where we can capture them for advertisers."

Her thoughts give an excellent look into what is happening in the converging online and offline worlds at this time. Even Google has been growing its offline advertising business quietly behind the scenes, almost repeating the words mentioned by Higbee above.

My thoughts are that with all of the devices and options out there in the online and offline worlds, online marketers need to stick to what is working well, while taking one new strategy at a time, learning it, implementing it and then working with it until it is operating well.

According to CNET, Google (GOOG) has introduced a new referral program for its AdSense publishers. This is probably a reaction to their perceived trespassing of Yahoo (YHOO) onto its playing field.

For every small publisher or blogger that an AdSense publisher refers, they will receive a $100 reward. The pay out will be made for new participants after the first $100 of ad revenue is generated. Along with this Google will also pay Adsense publishers $1 to every referral that is made for the Google Firefox toolbar download.

This is something that seems very good as it offers everyone in AdSense another stream of income with not too much more effort. Competition sure brings out good things to the end-users.

In a move toward placing strategic advertisements into more of the activities people do online, Microsoft (MSFT) is buying the leader in the field, Massive Inc. which incorporates ads into online gaming and looking at other areas like shopping and social networking.

Currently, online ads that are incorporated into quizzes and games, comprise almost 10 percent of the online ad revenue for last year, coming in at over a billion dollars of the $12.5 billion total spent and is expected to grow in the years ahead. This is according to a report released last week by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Massive Inc. specializes in embedding advertisements into online video games interactively, which has some great potential with its core demographic.

Some people are starting to treat autoresponder's as an 'old' technology as compared to the new so-called Web 2.0 stuff. Don't you be one of them. These are still great tools to be used for multiple purposes.

Of course there are endless uses for autoresponders, to the point where they can be used for any type of business. Some online marketers use them to answer frequently asked questions about products or services. Others can use them to provide product prices and information.

Autoresponders also give you a great way to welcome new members to a group or website and also thank people for visiting.

Nielsen Interactive Entertainment's managing director for Europe, Henry Piney, responding to the results of a recent survey they conducted said: "The study provides continued evidence that in-game advertising is a medium which brand managers across categories should be exploring, particularly if they want to reach the highly valuable 18-34 year old male audience."

Paul Loughrey, writing for GamesIndustry.biz, concurs reporting that "in-game advertising yields significant results in product awareness and purchasing decisions, showing that in-game advertising generates a 60 percent improvement in new product awareness, and that 3D advertising creates nearly twice that of static 2D billboard advertising."

He adds one caveat though saying that the study "was designed to validate the different formats available through Double Fusion's own in-game advertising technology."