The global mobile phone market grew 21.7 percent in the first quarter of 2010, a strong rebound over the first quarter of 2009, according to the latest report from IDC. Vendors shipped 294.9 million units in the first quarter of 2010 compared to 242.4 million units a year earlier. Smartphones and a recovering traditional mobile phone category helped the market avoid a repeat of Q109, when the market dove 16.6 percent during the recession.

Rather than just announce some partnerships, or even parade a few unfinished prototypes across a stage, Google may share some rather important information regarding its TV software with developers at Google I/O. Enough info for developers to start making apps, perhaps. Jessica E. Vascellaro and Don Clark reported this morning, "Google Inc. is planning to introduce Android-based television software to developers at an event in May, according to people familiar with the matter.

Maybe Im drinking too much (of my own koolaid that is). But I strongly believe that Windows Phone 7 is going to make an impressive splash in the mobile market. Having seen several demos , Im just convinced we are on the right path. If Im right, and youre a marketer that is using mobile applications to support your business, get your developers to download the free Windows Phone developer tools now!

With less than a week to go, some commentators on the UK Election 2010 are asking, " This was meant to be the internet election. So what happened? " Click to read the rest of this post.

Opera announced today it has acquired web-based email provider FastMail.fm . Opera's offered its own email client since 2000, and now it will use FastMail to expand its own messaging product across various devices from mobile to TVs and gaming consoles. "The newest generation of Web users will discover the Web through a mobile device," says Rolf Assev, Chief Strategy Officer, Opera Software.

MarketingProfs B2B Forum is coming up quickly next week and I will be presenting about an hour of essential search engine optimization tips and insight specifically for B2B web sites along with Vocus Product Manager of PRWeb, Jiyan Wei . There's a tremendous opportunity for B2B marketers to leverage SEO to increase prospect acquisition and to facilitate after the sale support and upgrades.

Lately we've witnessed a backlash in the SEO industry regarding SEO advertorials . In other words some SEO practitioners have attacked a British newspaper publisher for contacting them to sell so called "SEO advertorials" . I was a bit surprised because I consider SEO advertorials a legitimate technique of search engine optimization. The issue here seems to be the way these SEO advertorials were devised, not SEO advertorials generally.

A lawsuit filed by language software firm Rosetta Stone against Google for copyright infringement has been dismissed by a federal judge. In its lawsuit, filed in July 2009 , Rosetta Stone alleged that Google allowed third parties including individuals involved in software piracy to purchase the right to use Rosetta Stone trademarks or other terms confusingly similar in Google's Adwords advertising program.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz may have a tough job, but this morning, it's a rare person who's arguing that she isn't well paid for it. A regulatory filing has revealed that Bartz received $47.2 million in compensation for 2009. A number of different figures contributed to that final sum. As you can see below, Bartz collected around $1 million by way of a base salary, $1.5 million in nonequity incentives, and then a whopping $42.1 million in terms of stock and options awards.

Last week Google changed the Local Business Center to Google Places, and along with that change came some new features for local businesses. We looked at those here . Among those changes was the addition of Google's tag advertising. For $25 a month, businesses (in certain cities) can use Tags to highlight their listings on Google.com and Google Maps. These are yellow markers that let you promote important aspects of your business. They can be used for things like coupons,