Ad News and Views from Around the Web

World record traffic for World Cup; Cannes-do’s and don’ts; Mac lovers make the best Mac lovers, and more

World Cup traffic Goooooal!!!
World Cup is still only in its second week but it has already broken all records in terms of online traffic and tweets, according to GigaOm, averaging more than 3,000 tweets per second and making up 27% of Web traffic during working hours. Now get back to work.

Tweeting the heck out of Cannes
If you’re not following our intrepid reporter, Jeff Sweat, at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival on Twitter, you should be. He’s doing the lion’s share of work there. To follow the full monty from Cannes on Twitter, use the hashtag, #canneslions.

Cannes-tempt
Speaking of Cannes, even at a love-fest as loving at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, bad hullabaloo cannot be avoided. So says AdAge, which notes a note of controversy in the winner of Nokia’s “Critic’s Choice Award” contest. Some are saying the winning entry, a Forrest Gump-inspired video was lifted from a previous campaign of a similar nature. Ain’t none of our business. We just report the news, which is kind of like a box of chocolates.

And, sorry, as long as we’re on the subject of Cannes, we just can’t help reposting this lame joke.

Mac people vs. PC people in dating
Anyone who has ever been on an online-arranged date will tell you horror stories. This one was just out of prison. That one was 50-pounds lighter in the profile photo. What about—gasp!—my prospect was a PC user?! Yes, it’s true. People really do get that bent over operating systems and hardware. Luckily, for Mac-only types, there’s now an online dating site just for you, named Cupidtino, after Apple’s home town, Cupertino, Calif. Now everyone say, “awe!”

Just how much is a Facebook fan worth?
Not as much as touted, says BNET’s Jim Edwards. “Consumers don’t become fans of brands and then, having been persuaded by the charm of the advertiser’s Facebook page, go out and start buying more burgers or soda,” he sasy. “They become fans after they’ve already developed their brand loyalty.” Citing several studies, Edwards comes to the conclusion that the average value of each FB user is about $3 per year.

Think you got paid search covered? Think again
While in-house paid search programs are on the rise (81% percent this year over 78% last year, according to a report by Econsultancy and SEMPO), Michael Flanagan, former CEO of TMP Directional Marketing, isn’t so sure that handling paid search in-house is such a bright idea. Most companies, he says, just aren’t equipped to do their own SEM.

— Michael Mattis