Motorola is the most popular mobile phone handset manufacturer in the U.S. with a 22.9 percent market share, according to comScore data on average mobile phone usage between October 2009 and January 2010.

LG ranked second with a 21.7 percent share, followed by Samsung (21.1 percent share), Nokia (9.1 percent share) and RIM (7.8 percent share).

Research by comScore indicates that social network gamers are happy to embrace marketing offers in order to earn points or other forms of virtual currency, rather than pay for virtual currency with cold, hard cash.

According to the comScore survey of 799 comScore panelists conducted in early February 2010, 53.3 percent of social gamers are “very likely” to complete a marketing action such as filling out a survey, watching a video, shopping at online retailers, or signing up for a subscription in order to get points for the games they play on leading social networks.

A new report from the United States based Tax Foundation indicates that more U.S. states are considering enacting ‘Amazon tax’ laws to force online retailers to collect sales taxes. Currently New York, Rhode Island, North Carolina and Colorado have enacted such laws.

While such states may be motivated by the promise of more tax revenues they can use to combat various budget problems, any cash windfalls are likely to be short-lived and, in the long run, taxing online sales will likely do more harm than good. Online retailers have already shown their propensity to pull their affiliate programs out of states that introduce Amazon tax laws (see LINK) and this only ends up hurting affiliate marketers in those states and ultimately the states themselves.

The Tax Foundation’s tax counsel, Joseph Henchman has aptly titled the Tax Foundation’s report “‘Amazon Taxes’ Will Worsen Budget Problems, Deter Business”. ‘Amazon tax’ laws force online retailers – the most renowned being Amazon – to collect tax sales on sales made by affiliates who reside in the state in question. The rationale behind the laws is that offline or ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers operating in a given state would normally collect sales tax on the sales they make so why shouldn’t online retailers whose affiliates are located in a given state?

Firstly, the state legislatures are simply not comparing apples to apples. There is a vast difference between an offline retailer operating in one state, and an online retailer with hundreds or thousands of affiliates operating in many states and, indeed, countries. While an offline retailer may be quite capable of assessing, collecting and paying sales tax on its sales (an administrative burden in itself), an online retailer with affiliates in numerous states must have systems capable of calculating the various different sales tax bases and rates that apply in the different states. And, of course, imposing new sales taxes will also force online retailers to raise their prices.

So what, you might say. Companies such as Amazon can afford to implement such systems and forcing them to charge higher prices will put them on a ‘fairer’ footing with their offline competitors. Well, not when companies like Amazon spit the dummy and simply pull their affiliate programs out of the states that introduce such laws!

Guess who really suffers? YOU!

Yes, you the affiliate marketer who happens to live in a state that has implemented, or plans to implement an Amazon tax law.

Who else suffers? How about the states who introduce these laws. More importantly, the residents of those states.

Not only are some of these state governments freely spending tax payers’ money to defend lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of their laws, but, according to Joseph Henchman, there are signs the laws aren’t even brining in the hoped-for cash injections! Rhode Island, it seems, has actually seen a DROP in income tax collection due to the introduction of its Amazon tax law.

Let’s hope some of the states considering enacting an Amazon tax law see sense and drop such plans… and it’s not too late for New York, Rhode Island, North Carolina and Colorado to abandon their laws too.

Source: Joseph Henchman, “‘Amazon Tax’ Laws Signal Business Unfriendliness And Will Worsen Short-Term Budget Problems More States Considering Affiliate Nexus Tax Despite Failures in Other States,” Tax Foundation Special Report No. 176

Last week Techmeme introduced ‘Mediagazer.’ Just as Techmeme aggregates the latest technology news headlines, Mediagazer will aggregate the latest news headlines from topics around the content production and distribution business, including journalism, blogging, video production, e-books, and digital distribution.

Source: Gabe Rivera, “Mediagazer is to Media as Techmeme is to Tech,” Techmeme, March 8, 2010

While the worldwide market for smartphone applications is expected to grow from 102 million consumers in 2009 to 974 million in 2013, a report from research2guidance indicates that only 10 percent of Fortune 2000 companies are targeting their customers with a smartphone application.

Of those corporations that have published applications, the vast majority (91 percent) have created applications to give access to their core products or for promotional purposes. Only 9 percent have created applications as stand-alone products.

Despite the B.S. advice from certain Internet marketing ‘experts’ that ‘Twitter doesn’t work’, the reality is that some companies are directly translating tweets into leads, sales and profits. No less a company than Dell has turned Twitter into a marketing channel in its own right – one that is responsible for an estimated $3 million in annual sales.

Dell is not the only one, either.

Deutsche Card Services’ ‘E-Retail Report 2009′ shows that women account for 60 percent of online retail purchases in Europe, but tend to spend less per purchase than men.

While women spend on average EUR 78.09, men spend an average of EUR 111.50 per purchase.

SES Toronto, Canada will take place June 9-11, 2010. The event promises to give marketers and professionals involved in search engine marketing (SEM), including search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, the opportunity to learn and network with other industry leaders. Sessions will cover such topics as PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, usability and more. For more details go here.

Internet Marketing Events Calendar »

According to Inside Facebook – the unauthorized blog on all things Facebook – the social network made around $635 million in revenues in 2009 (up from the estimated $280-300 million in 2008) and could make $1-1.1 billion in 2010.

Indeed, Inside Facebook expects Facebook’s tendency to double sales each year will continue over the next few years.

Where is the money coming from? According to Inside Facebook, Facebook’s 2009 revenues break down as follows:

The sixth annual Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition will take place in Chicago and promises to provide an exceptional opportunity for those involved in online retailing to learn from, meet and network with some of the 5,000 estimated attendees. The event will take place on June 8-11, 2010. For more information go here.

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