Google Map Maker
enlists casual cartographers

Agencies and Marketing Execs:

• Days after the last one quit, Microsoft announced Michael Delman will be VP of global marketing, Interactive Entertainment.
• Charter Digital Media made Bill McKissock its SVP, Sales & Marketing.
• MPG North America opted to go with Radian6 for monitoring social media conversations and research.
• Social media marketing shop Vitrue acquired UGENMedia, another firm that operates in the same space.

Campaigns of Note:

• Jaguar launched its first mobile campaign with help from Yahoo. The effort let people download digital swag and locate dealerships.

Cross Media:

• TiVo and TRA will partner on audience research and reporting to determine how viewer interaction impacts consumer purchasing behavior.

Mobile:

• As agencies expand into mobile, they're finding it difficult to hire the appropriate level of candidate.
• This Advertising Age video explains how mobile phones threaten wristwatch marketers.

New and Improved:

• CNBC will send real-time stock quotes from the New York Stock Exchange to both its website and the CNBC Mobile, a month after availing NASDAQ quotes to users.
• The addition of streaming movies, and the ability to create avatars for a virtual world, are part of Disney's planned overhaul of Disney.com.
• Q Interactive's new additions to its TrueLeads lead generation product enables marketers to put video elements in their branding efforts.
• Time.com expanding its video offerings and has hired an established video journalist, Craig Duff, to oversee that effort.

Pearls of Wisdom:

• Jeffery Cole of USC thinks the Internet is posing less of a threat to TV in terms of audience distraction because broadband connections mean people can access what they want more quickly.
• Mediaedge:cia CEO Lee Doyle says the makers of consumer that don't lend themselves to needing tons of online research (like paper towels) need to figure out how to effectively utilize the web in their marketing efforts.

Publishing:

• Dennis Publishing launched iMotor, a title for car junkies that is all-digital, no print component.

Tools and Software:

• Google introduced Map Maker, a tool that lets people fill in gaps on Google Maps with their knowledge of roads and other features.

User Experience:

• Members of The Free Press and other groups banded together to form a group to lobby for universal — and net-neutral — broadband access in the US.
• Chrysler announced it will include Internet access in some of its 2009 models under a subscription plan.

Image credit: Likeness of cartographer Claudia Rodriguez by Donato Giancola.