Recently, Yahoo & Clear Channel Malls (a division of Clear Channel Outdoors) partnered up to make the futuristic video billboards that we’ve all seen in science fiction movies over the years a reality. You can find these 4″x16″ screens suspended from ceilings in several malls throughout New York & Los Angeles carrying news, sports, entertainment and financial content from Yahoo. The company plans to roll out the network to 200 malls in the top 20 markets over the next two to three years.

With more and more forward thinking ideas like this becoming a reality every day it’s getting even more important than ever to take an aggressive approach to exposing your company through a variety of means.

The number of African-Americans that spend time online is increasing according to eMarketer report. Internet use among African-Americans has risen from just 34 percent of the adult population in 2000, to 57 percent in 2005 compared to the some 70 percent of the white U.S. population that uses the internet. The 18.4 million African-American internet users make up 10.5 percent of the U.S. online population, nearly as many as U.S. teens online.

In an effort to regain the market share that they’ve lost to search giant Google, Yahoo has been releasing new tools at an astonishing rate such as their site explorer. Their most recent tool is Mindset which helps tailor your search results based on the type of information you are looking for (shopping or researching).

As many of you may already know, Microsoft has been developing a new version of their operating system called Windows Vista (formerly code named “Longhorn”) but you may not know how one of it’s new features will affect you, your company and your marketing.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication has been incorporated into Internet Explorer 7 ( Longhorn RSS ) allowing users to display feeds right in their browser. This may not seem like a big deal, but it really is. Here’s why:

1. In the simplest terms, RSS opens up an entirely new channel for you to market your company through that most of your competitors, if any, will not be utilizing.

2. It allows you to provide information in a timely manner without any of the hassles associated with other methods such as email newsletters. RSS is never filtered out as spam because it is virtually impossible to use it for spamming.

3. Users will see your message every time they open their browser window. This gives you the ability to stay fresh in their minds.

4. The investment required to utilize RSS in your marketing is minimal and if you are already actively blogging then the investment is non-existant - yes, free!

So there you have it. Windows Vista + RSS allows you to use a marketing channel that most of your competitors don’t even know about, has no drawbacks and can be free! Too bad everything can’t be this easy.

Most of us don’t have the time to sit and read all of our industry’s trade publications. Even if we did, much of the information would be outdated by the time we saw it. There is a way to stay on top of quite a bit of the most current information in your industry without spending a lot of time reading, and better yet, for free!

Both Google & Yahoo have news alert systems where you provide them with a certain amount of personal information and then they email you alerts related to any keywords you choose as they happen . Google simply requires an email address while Yahoo is a bit more detailed. Either one (or both if you’re a bit obsessive) will keep you up to date on pretty much anything you want. You can use them to stay up to speed on your industry, your competition or anything else you can think of - you’re only limited by your imagination.

Google news alerts
Yahoo news alerts