In maybe one of the lamest press releases I've ever read, Verizon announced their stores would be open all day today. Did they really need a press release to tell us that? I know it was just an attempt to take away some PR from the iPhone but did they seriously think that was going to work?

The iPhone has been everywhere today and its not even on sale yet. I saw it on the today show as Meredith Veira was struggling to do just about anything on the iPhone. ESPN was talking about it, every news outlet was covering it with excess and Verizon's reaction was this press release? Lame.

Apple and AT&T have so frustrated the other telecos that every quote you read from them is a feeble attempt to dismiss the iPhone as anything other than a gimmick to stay competitive with their success. Case in point, Verizon's VP's letter to employees shows how unprepared they were for the iPhones' success. A prepared marketing department would have had a slightly better plan to counter-buzz the iPhone than a half-hearted press release.

Apple Marketing Dept. 1
Verizon Marketing Dept. 0

Respected consulting firm Gartner (no relation, although I'm asked often) says the iPhone is not secure, stable, or flexible enough for use in a business environment, according to News.com.

The litany of reasons not to use the iPhone for work includes a lack of security software, higher ownership costs, no removable battery, and being locked into one service provider (AT&T).

These may all be legitimate reasons for execs not to buy an iPhone, but that won't stop the thousands of folks who will be using the company card and/or writing off the elite mobile device as a business expense. I can't imagine accounting departments stopping a mid to upper level manager from buying an iPhone. While the iPhone is marketed as a consumer device, businesses will have to deal with it, for better or for worse.

According to the latest data from comScore, Yahoo and Idearc Media (which runs the Superpages.com sites) dominate the online yellow pages category, while Yellow Book is the fastest growing.

Yahoo and Idearc both have more than 20 percent market share for all yellow page searches, while the YellowPages Network is third with just over 10 percent share. YellowBook, while representing less than 3 percent of all searches, grew the fastest over the last year, adding 805 percent more searches.

While managing my wife's local business, I've learned that getting good rankings on these sites is crucial to gaining customers. We are listed within the top five results on the six biggest yellow pages sites, and this generates 90 percent of our business even though we have spent two-thirds of our advertising dollars in print. This took a combination of free and pay-for online ads plus some search engine optimization for our website. It has been hard work, but we are now seeing a great return on our online marketing dollars.

Our local business directory has generated nearly all of our offline leads, while our Superpages print ad has been a disastrous waste of money. Many of these services offer free listings, which is a good place to start. Also, CitySearch isn't considered a yellow pages site, but it is directly competitive and has also been a great driver of business for us.

Source: Center for Media Research.

Correction, this story was corrected.

Ah the free market system. Craigslist has a series of ads for people who will stand in line in order to purchase iPhones for others, according to Information Week.

Controlling supply to build this hype and get the media to cover the long lines waiting for the iPhone (just as has been done for the Xbox, Wii and other game consoles) is a great marketing strategy. Apple has mastered the art of making its brand a status symbol, and consumers are only too willing to literally kill for the right to buy something (as happened with the consoles) before others.

People have been manipulated to believe that this want has become a need, when everyone paying through the nose already has a working cell phone.

This is capitalism at its best, and avariciousness at its worst. It amazes me that people feel compelled to spend significant sums and hours just to be one of the first thousands to buy something that will be readily available in the weeks to come. Clever marketing preys on this weakness.

Noted web design/brand expert Erin Ferree has published a book that gives small businesses insider info that usually requires hiring a search engine optimization firm.

Raise Your Ranking provides tips on how to get your company within the top 10 results. Ferree, who founded Elf Design, has authored other books and her design work has received awards and been published in other brand books.

SEO experts understandably like to get paid for their insight and keep their techniques private (like the magicians code), but since Ferree doesn't do SEO to butter her bread, she went the book route. I haven't read the book as yet, but her thoughts on optimization and keyword buying strategies seem on target.

Yes, another iPhone post, you'll live! So I was talking to a buddy of mine, Thomas, and I asked him when he was getting his iPhone. I was being facetious because he works for Billy G & Co. He promptly said 'not anytime soon, and for the typical reasons:

1. Its $500 price tag
2. It is only on AT&T

And while we are both satisfied Verizon/LG customers the sheer innovation of the product had me considering making the switch, even if only for a brief minute. Don't get me wrong, I still want it, because as a big kid, I love shiny new toys but that alone is not enough to get me to my nearest Apple Store Friday to even look at it. Can you say Zoo?

Thomas and I continued our conversation which encompassed the suckitivity of the AT&T EDGE network especially with the way the iPhone will handle the web (as images) but a more important point was; Do you want to be THAT connected? The iPhone is an MP3 player and a phone (among other things) but so is my LG VX8300 and I never use the music capabilities on it. Why? Think about the times when you are likely to use your MP3 player, working out, on an airplane, or at your desk for example. How often do you want to be riding your bike through some wicked trails listening to some Zeppelin and be interrupted by the lady-friend asking you to pick up some milk or an email coming in asking you to write a post for some marketing blog that day? Not very often if you ask most people. Who wants to be that connected all the time?

I know some are going to say "but Evan, you can turn off the phone part and just listen to music." Sure you can, but will you? Maybe I'm weak on willpower but I'd be too tempted to leave it on to make sure I didnt miss any TXTs from my friends or a hot lady that I met last night.

I'm attached to my laptop enough as it is. I don't want to feel like I'm working 24/7 anymore than I already do. As a man, there are just some places where a cell phone just shouldn't be had: Barber Shop, golf course, fishing, under a hood, or on a mancation with your boys, to name a few.

Whose with me?!

Here are some tidbits about the iPhone service offered by AT&T, which you might want to read before you start standing in line like a Star Wars groupie, as a Marketing Shift intern will be doing.

Businesses can't get a corporate discount on iPhone service -- it's for consumers only.

If you are trading up from another AT&T/Cingular phone and want to text message or receive videos for your iPhone, the data service starts at $20 per month. This fee will be on your regular phone bill, but you'll pay the iTunes store for any content that you purchase.

Even if you just bought a new AT&T phone (silly you) you can upgrade to an iPhone without penalty, other than having to dispose of or sell a perfectly good phone.

If you aren't wowed by the iPhone, you can return it, but it has to be at the store where you purchased it, and within two weeks. If you opened the box there's a 10 percent restocking fee.

Web 2.0 and the social web have remade the way news is collected, produced and displayed. From the venerable New York Times to upstart Huffington Post to the revitalized AOL News, the art of magazines and newspapers telling stories through conventional articles is gone for good.

Publishers have been newly humbled, realizing that the audience wants to be involved in discussions about the content, that they want to submit their own photos and videos, and they want their voices heard through polls and by rating content.

These are all lessons that marketers should take to heart in their communications with customers. Corporate blogs are now common place, but the other tools for engaging audiences through a two-way conversation have yet to be taken to heart. I'm not saying every company should create it's own MySpace, but making websites more personal and asking as much as telling can get customers involved and bring them closer to an organization and its products and services.

Keep this in mind when setting up email campaigns, redesigning the website, or designing direct mail. People will listen more when they feel they are also being listened to.

The iPhone might be the first platform to truly make mobile advertising popular with consumers. The Apple touch in making videos available and enjoyable to view could make mobile advertising mainstream, depending on how aggressive Apple pursues advertising, and how successful the iPhone is.

The iPhone should enhance the mobile video experience by playing YouTube videos and the quality of the videos, encoded using the H.264 standard.

Advertisers will flock to the iCrowd, a demographic of people willing to spend more for technology and to live on the bleeding edge. The question is how quickly will Apple and AT&T incorporate video ads? Advertisers could offer iTunes content for free in exchange for watching some ads, but Apple has traditionally focused on paid rather than ad-supported content. It could be a whole new iBallgame.

Casual game startups can greatly expand their exposure by applying for a contest that will select the brightest idea for a new game. The Casual Games Association is asking companies to submit videos of their game ideas through Vator.tv, and the winner will get free admission and travel to casual game events in Seattle and Amsterdam (so they better like rain!). Also Pequot Ventures will meet with the company to consider funding the game development.

For better or for worse, more companies will be looking to video to tell their story and gain exposure. Videos will replace static ads on websites, starting with startups and local businesses.

Vator.tv believes that video is the best way for startups to tell their story and connect with investors, and is building a library of interviews with companies on the rise. Could Bambi Francisco become the video version of Michael Arrington, covering the world of tech startups?

RealNetworks will use Blinkx to power the video browsing and search component of a new RealPlayer. Blinkx, which is fresh off a successful IPO, also launched the rumored video ad network that can match ads with the words spoken during a video.

RealNetworks hasn't made much noise in the multimedia world and faces the threat of much higher fees for playing music online thanks to the recent copyright ruling. Teaming with blinkx and its massive video library will make the RealPlayer a much more valuable tool for consuming media.

Blinkx has lofty ambitions for the AdHoc video ad network, aspiring to be the AdSense of video advertising. While video will never be as big as text advertising, it is a huge market without a clear leader, and Blinkx is as technically capable as any company of rising to the challenge.

Adding video upload and photo album sharing is becoming a requirement for publishers looking to grow their traffic. Multimedia search engine optimization could be one of the next big arenas as people increasingly search for multimedia content.

While today Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, MySpace and their ilk are the most popular destinations for finding multimedia, netizens increasingly expect social multimedia sharing to be part of the experience. Rather than building or licensing multimedia technology, these services are making access to their libraries available as plug-ins so that users can stay within your environment.

Photobucket has added search as part of the upgrade to its Media Plug-in 2.0. Publishers can embed image galleries or offer video uploading to their websites and have Photobucket take care of the hosting and technology back end.

Using widgets that connect to existing multimedia sharing sites makes sense because it saves time, and exposing consumers to a large library of content will increase the stickiness of your site.

The unanswered question is how can you optimize these widgets to enhance your search engine rankings in image/video search engines? Multimedia SEO could be a great opportunity going forward.