Social Networking & Online Marketing

SEO - ethical approach

2009-10-19T06:45:00.001-07:00

in SEO it's best to concentrate on the content prior to SEO. This is what search engines look for, they will always be on the look up for new ways of giving priority to sites with good content than those sites trying to trick with better SEO

in reference to:

"Content first, SEO second: Yes, it sounds trite, but if you focus on your content good rankings will follow. Quite frequently, potential clients contact me and ask them to review their website, believing they have an SEO problem. On the contrary, they have a content or usability problem, and SEO is the last thing they should be paying for. It’s important to not get caught in an SEO tunnel vision mindset. SEO will help good companies be better. SEO will do nothing for sites that have nothing to offer in the first place."
- Long Term SEO Strategy - 6 Tips for Long-Term SEO Success (view on Google Sidewiki)

Why smartphones are not suffering in the recession

2009-10-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

By Tim Weber
Business editor, BBC News website

Nokia's N97 combines a touchscreen and keyboard

Smartphones are not only revolutionising the mobile phone industry. They are also about to change the way we use computers.

The mobile phone industry is in trouble. Network operators are squeezed for margins. Handset makers either suffer sharp losses or fight hard to stay profitable.

Hurting most are the stars of years past, like market leader Nokia and eternal runners-up Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

'Expensive' sells

This new generation of phones have so much power in them, so many activities, they've got so much information on them that it is the defining new category for our industry

Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive

They specialise in so-called feature-rich mobile phones - work horses that deliver good performance but are neither cheap-and-cheerful nor smart-but-expensive.

But with the world still feeling the impact of the global recession, it is this middle market that suffers most.

"When the downturn hit, we went from an annual growth rate of 10% to a 10% decline between the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009," says Anders Runevad, global head of sales for Sony Ericsson.

Samsung has developed its own operating system

It is true across all phone makes. In "the current economic climate" the squeeze on mid-range mobile phones is "accelerating", says Patrick Chomet, who is in charge of terminals (i.e. handset selection) at mobile phone network Vodafone.

In stark contrast the market for high-end phones - like Apple's iPhone - is buoyant. In Europe, smartphone sales are expected to rise 22% in 2009, defying the 21% slump in handset sales predicted by Pyramid Research. In the United States a poll by ChangeWave Research in June suggested that 37% of consumers already own a smartphone, while more than 14% planned to buy one in the next three months.

Microsoft predicts that in a few years smartphones will make up 30% of the volume and more than 50% of the value of the mobile phone market.

Back to the drawing board

For network operators this spells excellent news. With most consumers squeezed they can focus on easy-spending smartphone customers to "keep their margins comparatively stable in the current economy and increase them once the economy improves", says Stela Bokun, an analyst with Pyramid Research.

For companies like Sony Ericsson it means going back to the drawing board.

Sony Ericsson promises rich multi-media capabilities

"We have to regain ground... and revitalise our portfolio," acknowledges Mr Runevad. Having smarter phones is part of the strategy, he says, because once "more normal market dynamics" return, customers "will trade-up" when they get a new phone.

But getting smart is not easy. Back in February, Sony Ericsson announced the Idou. A high-spec phone with touch screen and 12 Megapixel camera, it was well-received. But the buzz fizzled out as Sony Ericsson first rebranded the phone as Satio and then told customers they would not get their hands on it until October at the earliest. And while the hardware appears to be impeccable, a first play with the phone suggests that this will not be Sony Ericsson's most easy-to-use mobile.

Delays like this give rivals plenty of time to leapfrog. Little wonder that Sony Ericsson just got itself a new chief executive, who promises to "improve the product design and development process, and... a different product portfolio to reflect what customers are asking for".

Playing catch-up

Market leader Nokia managed to get faster to market. The Finnish company readily admits that it missed the smartphone boat, although Kai Oistamo, its executive vice-president for mobiles, insists that "we have an aggressive plan now" for catching up.

The smartphone-personal computer boundary will get fuzzy

Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia co-founder

Its first new smartphone out of the door is the N97 - a somewhat bulky slider phone with full qwerty keyboard, billed as a "mobile computer handset".

It is an impressive phone boasting huge amounts of storage. However, the N97 has a "designed by committee" feel about it, and I found it very awkward to use.

HTC puts its own user interface on a Windows phone

Also playing catch-up is Microsoft. "Yes, there certainly has been a gap for the last 12-18 months, we are behind," admits Jean-Philippe Courtois, the president of Microsoft International.

Microsoft hopes version 6.5 of Windows Mobile will help relaunch its fortunes, with software powering phones that can straddle the worlds of corporate and private life.

Rebranded Windows Phone, it drops Microsoft's fiddly "computer desktop" user interface. Large-lettered menus and jaunty iPhone style icons help owners navigate their phones. Great software, except a couple of years late and not quite up there with some rivals.

Secrets of smartphone success

It is Asian companies that make a lot of the running right now. South Korean phone maker Samsung not only launched its new Jet smartphone in June and pushed it into shops just weeks later, but also delivered a phone that was both intuitive to use and had a touchscreen keyboard that did not make me yearn for a real "qwerty" keyboard.

Apple's iPhone is still the benchmark for other smartphones

However, Samsung's new line of smartphones also illustrates that manufacturers need more to make their phones stand out.

Once a phone was all about the hardware, with fickle phone buyers flitting from candybar phones to clamshells to sliders, from chunky to super-slim and back again, from keyboard to touch screen, from megapixel mania to GPS.

And then came Apple.

It is two years since the iPhone was launched, more than a lifetime in mobile phone development. Even now rivals are reluctant to use the "i-word", although they all acknowledge that the iPhone changed what the phone market is all about.

It's a "stand-out" phone, both in terms of user experience and data usage, says Vodafone's Mr Chomet.

Apple needed just two ingredients to be successful: ease of use and a wide range of "apps" - small software applications that allow owners to optimise their phone, whether it is Sudoku puzzles or sugar trackers for diabetes sufferers.

The success of Apple's app store caught out most rival phone makers. The store - with more than 65,000 apps and over two billion downloads - is now making serious money, not just for Apple but for thousands of developers as well.

It is here where rivals like Samsung falter. With few apps to satisfy the whims of owners (Samsung's meagre app store was launched just a few weeks ago) the Jet may well be a gorgeous phone, but can't be an iPhone killer.

Smart and cheap?

The gap is getting closer, though, not least because Apple appears happy to pitch only to the high end of the smartphone market.

Blackberry's Curve is an entry-level smartphone

That leaves room for companies like Research in Motion (RIM). Once stuck in the niche of making Blackberry e-mail phones aimed at business people, the Canadian firm is pushing deep into consumer territory. Business magazine Fortune recently crowned RIM as the world's fastest growing company.

Most successful is the Blackberry Curve, an unabashed entry-level smartphone: it lacks 3G connectivity, making for slow internet access; its camera is at best average. Where the Curve excels, though, is user experience. Most applications on the phone - e-mail, browser, camera, sat nav, plus downloadable apps to find hotels or use Twitter - fit seamlessly together.

The Curve's success underlines the importance of software. "In many ways it's analogous to what happened to the PC industry. The hardware has become increasingly generic and the value of the device is in the software," says Shaun Puckrin, who is in charge of app development at Symbian, maker of the software that powers phones like Nokia's N97.

It is a mantra often repeated by Microsoft executives.

The G-factor

Making the most of it, however, and emerging as the iPhone's most dangerous rival, is a company that until recently had its chief executive sit on Apple's board of directors: Google.

The HTC Hero uses Google's Android operating system

With astonishing speed Google not only developed a smartphone operating system, dubbed Android, but also found many handset makers (LG, Samsung, HTC and Motorola) willing to use the software.

Leading the pack is HTC. Until recently, the Taiwanese firm stuck to using Microsoft's cumbersome Windows Mobile software. Not anymore.

HTC's Android phones - most notably the HTC Hero (also known as T-Mobile G2 Touch) - are the most serious challengers Apple ever had to face.

Following a software upgrade the touchscreen-only Hero is fast and very easy to use. Most owners will never have to consult its two-page "manual". Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, e-mail and SMS are seamlessly integrated, and if you trust your digital life to the Googleverse of Gmail, Google calendar and docs, the boundaries between your computer and mobile phone will blur.

The open-source Android app store, meanwhile, is growing at a furious pace, with currently more than 15,000 apps.

The return of Palm

The Palm Pre has been hailed as a potential iPhone killer

Also in the running is the Lazarus of the mobile world, Palm. Once dominating the market for handheld computers, the company recently launched its Palm Pre phone (which next week is being rolled out across Europe).

The pebble-like Pre - compact, but with a tiny slide-out qwerty keyboard - makes the most of its new webOS operating system that allows multi-tasking and promises to hook into the digital worlds of Google, Apple and Microsoft.

But like most other smartphones, battery life is its Achilles heel, and Palm's app store is in its infancy. Its "developer program" to build apps for the Pre's operating system will launch only in December.

Computer revolution

Promises of smartphone riches are drawing companies into the fray like Taiwanese computer maker Acer, which dominates the laptop market.

True to its PC heritage Acer currently bets on Microsoft's Windows mobile software. One of its first efforts, the Acer M900, is still fairly clunky, but chief executive Gianfranco Lanci has big plans. The real difference, he says, will be the development of a better user interface and especially Acer's own app store.

Some of Acer's ambitious plans do involve Android, and point to the real future of mobile computing.

Acer is set to launch small computers that run both Android and Windows 7, says Mr Lanci; Android will give owners a phone's instant-on experience, while Windows 7 will provide full computing power.

It hints at the start of a revolution in personal computing. Not PCs but mobile phones will be the centre of everybody's social and multimedia experience.

Microsoft calls it the world of "three screens and the cloud", where the location of your data - your contacts, music, pictures and films - does not matter anymore. Whether you use them at the computer, television or mobile phone, they will be tied together by software, and storage in the internet "cloud".

Mobile future

Maybe it is time not to speak of smartphones anymore, says Google boss Eric Schmidt. "The smartphone is really not a smartphone. It's really a GPS device, it's a camera, and a video camera and a place that you can play games and you can browse, and oh by the way, you can make calls. So this new generation of phones have so much power in them, so many activities, they've got so much information on them that it is the defining new category for our industry."

The "smartphone-personal computer boundary will get fuzzy," predicts Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and chief executive of chipmaker Nvidia. "In five or 10 years, your mobile device will be your platform, whether you are on the move or at home." The "mini supercomputer" on your desktop will only be used for "high-end, high-resource computing".

My vision? Your phone will hide an extremely powerful computer and internet access base station. Thin sheets of roll-up electronic paper would replace your computer monitor and phone screens.

When I put this vision to the chief executive of a rapidly growing Asian phone manufacturer, I get a startled look, then a wry smile: "You should visit our labs, you will find that we've got something very interesting there."

Guess Who Is The Top Global Brand Again? You Got It! Google

2009-08-06T08:32:00.003-07:00

Aug 6, 2009 at 9:00am ET by Barry Schwartz

Millward Brown released their top “BrandZ” report for 2009 (PDF) and Google has top the list, once again. The main difference this year is that Google’s “brand value” is up 16%, from $86 billion to $100 billion this year.

Here is a chart of the top ten global brands by Millward Brown:

Microsoft ranks number two, valued at $76 billion (up 8% from last year) and Yahoo ranks 81, valued at $7 billion (a decline of 31% from the previous year).

The top ten online scams - good read

2009-08-06T08:32:00.001-07:00

Amir Orad, the executive vice-president and chief marketing officer of the online security specialist Actimize, is a leading expert on financial crime, cyber security, payments and authentication.

Here, he shares his expertise and describes ten common scams that have cheated people out of millions of pounds worldwide.

“Criminals and fraudsters tend to thrive in financial crises, and from our experience with the largest banks in Europe and the rest of the world, recent activity has simply reinforced this conviction.

“As Actimize provides anti-fraud and financial crime solutions for banks and financial institutions, we have witnessed a wide variety of scams, ranging from the simple and obvious to the complex and astounding.

“Here are the top ten scams that are currently trying to relieve unsuspecting consumers of their hard-earned money. These have been categorised into two groups. The first five are those that try and fool people into sending money directly to the bad guys – pretending to be in trouble, a job offer, a favour etc known as 419 or advance fee fraud.

“The second five detail scams whose purpose is to steal personal credentials and computer data to convince the bank to send money. Here, at least, most banks will return the lost funds to consumers unless the bank can prove they were reckless.”

1. Social Networking scams
Fraudsters hack a social networking account, such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or Bebo, and then contact friends and family of claiming that they are in trouble and need money to be sent immediately to a specified address.

2. Prediction scams
This scam arrives in the form of an e-mail that provides the results of a football game taking place the following day, at no cost. The next day the receiver discovers that the prediction is true. Over the next couple of weeks further e-mails are sent providing results that also turn out to be correct.

Following a number of e-mails, another one is sent offering the recipient the chance to buy the results of future games for a hefty sum. The trick is that most of the people who received e-mails would have had a wrong result and so fallen out of the process. But statistically, a small proportion of all the people involved would have received e-mails with the correct results each time.

3. Economy-related scams
Prying on those in financial trouble, these scams can be performed via internet, telephone or post and include a range of financial help and offers such as loan and debt consolidation, fix-your-credit-rating, repossession assistance, phoney advance loans and mortgage foreclosure rescue schemes.

4. "It’s me" scam
This is a scam that has been prevalent in Asia but is now being seen in the West. The fraudster calls an elderly person declaring that their granddaughter has been in a road accident. Cries for help are screamed down the phone line and the fraudster informs the person that money needs to be sent immediately to cover the medical costs.

5. The "offer you can’t refuse"
This involves the sale of a product for which the fraudster provides an overpayment in the form of a cashier’s cheque, usually stolen, and asks for the excess to be transferred back. This can also occur when targets are offered a job, for example, to earn 20% commission. They receive a £10,000 cheque and are then asked to deposit it and return £8,000. The cheque later bounces, by which time the £8,000 is already in the hands of the bad guys.

6. Unauthorised billing group
Many technologies and industries are exploited by this scam, whereby a fraudulent company or service continues to charge an account without the owner’s consent. This also includes online suggestions for limited trials or “verification only” of cards and then charging more than mentioned at the beginning. Most banks, however, will return the money to the account.

7. "Man-in-the-phone" scams
Man-in-the-phone scams use deception and trickery during a telephone conversation to persuade an individual to divulge information. The fraudster phones someone and informs them that there has been a security risk on their account. The fraudster then conference calls in the real bank, whose representative asks for the secret information. Since it’s the real bank with the real account information, the individual often answers the security questions, then provides all bank details, while the fraudster eavesdrops in the background.

8. E-mails containing Trojans
Another e-mail scam is promotional offers, especially ones for anti-spyware solutions. These can include links or attachments infected with Trojans that record keyboard strokes and attempt to steal sensitive details such as passwords etc.

9. Fake escrow services
This is a scam that is growing more common on eBay and other online auctions. Legitimate escrow services act as a third-party go-between: buyers send money to the escrow company, which holds the funds until the seller delivers the merchandise. However, fraudsters are commonly setting up fake ones to con buyers as well as sellers.

10. Phishing scams
This is probably the most common form of fraud and it is still as common and as successful as when it was introduced. Masquerading as a legitimate organisation, usually in the form of an e-mail announcing a bank account or PayPal security breach, the fraudster attempts to acquire bank details, passwords, or login details, often via a spoof website.

CelebritySitesT, the Online Division of The Celebrity Branding AgencyT, Launches The Social Media MachineT

2009-08-06T07:36:00.001-07:00

Orlando, Fla. - July 23, 2009 – Online marketing experts Lindsay Glass, The Celebrity Agent, and Nick Nanton, Esq., The Celebrity Lawyer are co-founders of Dicks, Nanton & Glass' Celebrity Branding Agency™, an Orlando-based branding and marketing agency, is launching a brand new social media marketing service called The Social Media Machine™.

Lindsay Glass said, "The Social Media Machine™ is a one-stop, 'done-for-you' service that allows your business to get involved in social media marketing, without having to spend the hours and hours it takes to properly employ these marketing strategies, and take advantage of all that these networking sites have to offer"

CelebritySites™, the online division of The Celebrity Branding Agency™, is adding this social media marketing service to its arsenal of online marketing platforms. With The Social Media Machine™, CelebritySites™ walks you through, step by step, how they use social media for themselves and their clients to build their businesses on services such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and YouTube.

More and more businesses are starting to utilize the social media arena to help grow their businesses and clientele. Nanton and Glass have been incorporating social media marketing strategies within their own business for years, and have expanded their services to help other businesses take advantage of this exceptionally fast growing marketing medium.

"If you've ever felt like you're missing out on something big, but were too afraid to ask, because you felt like everyone around you knew what was going on, this service is for you! Don't miss out on the droves of new business that's waiting for you each and every day on social media outlets!" remarked Glass.

To find out more about The Social Media Machine and CelebritySites™ visit http://www.CelebritySites.com

and http://www.CelebrityBrandingAgency.com

The Celebrity Branding Agency™:

The Celebrity Branding Agency™ is a Media, Marketing & PR agency that guarantees results and specializes in Celebrity Branding™ entrepreneurs, authors, speakers and professionals as celebrity experts in their field of business and helps them expand nationwide. JW Dicks, Esq. & Nick Nanton, Esq., attorneys by trade and entrepreneurs by choice, focus on helping their clients build fan bases that can be monetized through their unique blend of Media, Marketing & PR…Guaranteed™. For more information about The Celebrity Branding Agency™ visit http://www.CelebrityBrandingAgency.com

About CelebritySites™:

CelebritySites™, the online division of Dicks Nanton & Glass Celebrity Branding Agency®, is a boutique Internet marketing and media agency specializing in creating Online Celebrity Platforms™ for businesses. Through the use of a proprietary system of tools for marketing, public relations and search engine optimization, they turn websites into sales and marketing systems allowing their clients to leverage online content to create new income streams and maximize revenue. CelebritySites™ will improve your website's exposure and brand recognition and help you profit from your investment by implementing strong search engine optimization techniques.

For more information about CelebritySites™ visit www.CelebritySites.com.

More opportunities in online marketing

2009-08-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 04 Aug 2009 11:52

The group marketing and content director for digital marketing event ad:tech has said he believes there are opportunities to capitalise on increased investment in online advertising.

Christophe Asselin suggested to Mobile Marketing Magazine that UK businesses have been putting more money into online marketing, but marketers must understand commercial needs and avoid industry jargon.

His comments come after research commissioned ahead of ad:tech, which runs in London between September 22nd and 23rd, found that 48 per cent of last year's visitors expect to assign over 30 per cent of their budgets to emarketing in the next 12 months.

This represents an increase of nine per cent year-on-year and the main reason offered for this upturn was that 62 per cent of respondents think online marketing delivers greater ROI than offline advertising facilities.

Mr Asselin said: "We need to understand that discussions about digital marketing need to first and foremost address business goals."

This year's ad:tech will include various seminars on mobile marketing and email campaigns, among other issues.

Interested in having a DirectNews news feed on your website?

iPhone 3GS available on June 19th

2009-06-08T12:10:00.000-07:00

iPhone 3GS available on June 19th. In U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and U.K.. Week later to six more, and in July to more countries, and into August to even more.

Top Ten Myths About Google Analytics

2009-06-05T02:34:00.000-07:00

We've noticed some misconceptions about Google Analytics floating around, and we thought we'd take a shot at correcting the most common ones. Without further ado, here they are, the top ten myths about Google Analytics debunked.

MYTH 1: "You get what you pay for." Google Analytics is free, which means the system is down a lot.

Google Analytics makes use of the same network of secure and reliable data centers used to power Google.com, making downtime an extremely rare occurrence. We have a large team focused exclusively on keeping your data safe and accessible, and benefit from multiple redundancies in our infrastructure around the globe (this makes us fast as well).

We even rely on Google Analytics for our own mission-critical products such as AdWords, which see huge volumes of traffic every day. If you're still having doubts, we'd encourage you to talk to some users and ask them how their experience has been with uptime.

MYTH 2: Google Analytics is basic and doesn't have any "advanced" features or metrics

Ack, this one is a tough one to swallow! A more frequent complaint is actually that Google Analytics has too much data. The product includes over 90 standard reports with more than 125 metrics and dimensions covering everything from visits to internal site search queries.

Custom reports and user-defined variables allow you to create your own metrics and reports where the standard ones don't meet your needs. With Pivoting, Advanced Segmentation, Secondary Dimensions, Event Tracking and the ability to share customizations, Google Analytics reports are more powerful than ever.

Google Analytics may look "basic," on the surface, but it can do a lot more than you think! If you have complex needs try talking to a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant or diving into the documentation on the Google Code Site.

More Info (Feature List, Custom Reports, Advanced Segmentation, Analytics API)

MYTH 3: Google Analytics only supports third-party cookies

False! Google Analytics has always used first-party, not third-party cookies. First-party cookies are important because they allow Google Analytics to track repeat visitors, so you can see which keyword, referring site, etc is responsible for bringing buyers even when it takes multiple visits for them to convert.

MYTH 4: Google Analytics is not really accurate

If you've spent time doing web analytics work, you'll know the sinking feeling that comes when two sets of numbers don't match. If you're experiencing a data discrepancy, don't panic. There are many others in the same boat.

Google Analytics uses JavaScript tags to collect data. This industry-standard method yields reliable trends and a high degree of precision, but it's not perfect. Most of the time, if you are noticing data discrepancies greater than 10%, it's due to an installation issue. Common problems include JavaScript errors, redirects, untagged pages and slow client-side load times.

For tips on how to sensibly approach data reconciliation, check out this post by Avinash Kaushik, Google's Analytics Evangelist, or this whitepaper on accuracy in Google Analytics. You can also talk to an expert.

All web analytics tools face the same technical limitations posed by JavaScript tags, so if another vendor claims their tool is more accurate, ask for some evidence.

More Info (Web Analytics Data Reconciliation Checklist, Whitepaper)

MYTH 5: It's not possible to export your data from Google Analytics

Not true! You have two options for exporting data. Use the "export" button at the top of each report to export the current view in PDF or XML (up to 500 rows). Or, use the new Analytics Export API to extract large amounts of data in any format you like. Also, if you want to share data with a colleague, you can schedule reports to be delivered directly to their email inbox, or even send regular updates to your own email address.

More Info (How to Export your Data, Analytics API)

MYTH 6: With Google Analytics you can't control your data

You have three options for data sharing in Google Analytics. You can change these options at any time from inside your Analytics account.

do not share your data
share your data with Google to improve its products
share your data anonymously for benchmarking

No matter which option you choose, your data is protected by several layers of defense:

Dedicated security and infrastructure teams
Multiple redundancies to prevent data loss
Network redundancies to keep data accessible
Advanced security, firewalling and routing to keep data secure
Restricted access and principle of least privilege for personnel

If you opt-out of data sharing, your data will remain within Google Analytics and will not be shared with other products or services. If you decide to share your data with Google, it will be used to improve those products and services. Lastly, if you decide to share your data anonymously with others, it will be blended with other data to support the Google Analytics benchmarking feature. For more information on these options and what they mean, refer to the Google Analytics data sharing FAQ.

If you're still concerned, Google also offers a software product called Urchin (www.urchin.com) that you can run locally.

More Info (Data Sharing FAQ, Google Privacy Policy)

MYTH 7: There is no professional support for Google Analytics

Contrar! We flipped the model. Instead of providing an expensive analytics product with a one-size-fits-all professional services plan, we provide a free product and let you purchase the professional services that fit your needs.

There are several ways to get support: email support, help forums, the help center, and a network of Authorized Consultants. Authorized Consultants speak your language, accept your currency and often share your timezone. More than 80 companies across the globe provide a full range of installation and analysis support for Google Analytics. Some examples of things they can help you with are:

Validate and troubleshoot your installation
Integrate your analytics data with other data sources or CRM
Optimize your marketing efforts
Train your staff on how to use Analytics
Respond to support tickets, phone calls and provide on-site consulting

To find out more, give one or two of them a call. Our Authorized Consultants are hand-picked and are the best in the business.

More Info (Google Analytics Authorized Consultants)

MYTH 8: Google Analytics does not support A/B or multivariate testing and isn't well-integrated with other tools

Google offers a full range of marketing products including a free testing tool called Google Website Optimizer. You can use it to test different page elements and find out which ones yield the highest conversion rate and ROI. You can also use Google Analytics in conjunction with Website Optimizer to create an optimization plan for your site.

Google Analytics is also integrated with many of Google's other business products including AdWords, AdSense, and AdPlanner. It is also widely supported by third party tools ranging from content management systems, to email suites, to call center applications. In addition, you'll find many products that are complementary to Google Analytics including DoubleClick, TVAds, Webmaster Tools, Google Trends, Insights for Search, Feedburner, and more.

More Info (Google Website Optimizer, GWO Blog)

MYTH 9: You can't segment data in Google Analytics

In the fall of 2008, Google Analytics released three new Enterprise Features: Advanced Segmentation, Custom Reports and Motion Charts. Advanced Segmentation lets you segment visits by dozens of metrics and dimensions such as geographic location, time on site, referral site and much much more. You can create segments on the fly and apply them to virtually all the standard reports in Google Analytics as well as custom reports.

More Info (In Depth Look at Advanced Segments, Video)

MYTH 10: You have to spend a lot of money to get "real" web analytics

Getting a return from your Analytics data does take an investment. The most important investment to start with is making sure you or someone at your organization has the expertise and time to put your data to use. If at that point you still feel you need to pay more for a more complicated tool, that's OK, but remember that every dollar you spend on a tool takes away from money you could be spending on actually getting results, i.e. hiring or contracting a talented analyst (see the 90/10 Rule).

The question sometimes comes up, "if Google Analytics is free, what's in it for Google?" Google benefits from Google Analytics in two ways. First, if webmasters build better sites, it helps us connect searchers with the information they need faster. Second, if advertisers use Google Analytics, they are able to see their advertising ROI, which helps us demonstrate the value of Google AdWords. Both aspects have helped create a strong business case for Google Analytics over the years.

Google Analytics is getting more powerful with each new update, and you may be surprised by what it can do. Find out more by attending an Analytics Seminar for Success or talking to an Authorized Consultant in your area. If you're an AdWords advertiser, you can also speak with your Customer Service Representative.

Google Losing up to $1.65M a Day on YouTube

2009-04-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

Google is spending more than $2 million a day on YouTube -- and it is nowhere near seeing a return on that investment. Indeed, it may be losing up to $1.65 million daily on the video site.

According to financial firm Credit Suisse and Internet measurement provider comScore Inc. , YouTube Inc. is on track to serve 75 billion video streams to 375 million unique visitors in 2009.

That's the good news. The bad? To support those visitors, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) will spend more than $2 million dollars daily -- to be exact, up to $2,064,054 a day, or $753 million annualized, according to Internet Evolution calculations of YouTube's costs derived from a range of sources, including Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. , comScore, Credit Suisse, and Google itself.

Now, Google does not disclose sales figures by division, so there is no definitive revenue number for YouTube. The range of estimates from financial analysts stretches from a low of $90 million (Bear Stearns) to a high of $240 million (Credit Suisse).

All the numbers are well below the estimated maximum of $753 million Google is spending annually, based on our calculations. So, depending on whose version of revenues you accept, Google is losing anywhere from $513 million to $663 million annually on YouTube, or anywhere from $1.4 million to as much as $1.65 million every day (see chart below).

Let's make it personal: The average visitor to YouTube costs Google more than a dollar ($513 million to $663 million in estimated losses divided by 375 million unique visitors).

In effect, Google is paying you to enjoy YouTube videos. In return, it gets the chance to show you some advertising. But adoption of those big-ticket items (YouTube sells homepage roadblock ads at $175,000 per day and branded channels at $200,000 apiece) has been limited, and Google AdWords image advertising remains the primary revenue source for YouTube.

A YouTube spokesman declined to comment on these figures or any conclusions of this blog.

Meanwhile, to deliver YouTube, Google is bleeding money in the following areas...

Bandwidth: If YouTube will get 375 million unique visitors in 2009 and each user downloads video at 400 kbit/s (based on figures from a range of sources), the cost to Google of YouTube bandwidth is a minimum of $1 million a day. This assumes YouTube is paying a minimum of 50 percent of the lowest market rate for megabit-per-second services.

Content acquisition: YouTube gets lots of user-generated video for free, but it has to pay for name-brand videos from sources like Sony/BMG and CBS. According to Credit Suisse, YouTube could pay up to $260 million -- about $710,000 a day -- to acquire content in 2009. Notably, Google just inked a deal with Disney to get short clips from ESPN and the Disney/ABC Television Group. More publicity for YouTube, more visitors -- but this is an expense, as YouTube pays royalties to Disney.

Revenue share: If you provide videos to Google and join its revenue sharing program, then you get a commission if ads are shown alongside your content. Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube will "share" away $24 million this year -- $66,000 per day.

Hardware, storage, software, collocation, electricity, etc.: Every minute, Google claims that 15 hours' worth of video is uploaded to YouTube -- equivalent to 86,000 new full-length movies weekly. Credit Suisse estimates the average video uploaded is 30 to 40 Mybtes and that YouTube is storing at least 5 petabytes of video. Given market estimates of about $2 per gigabyte, it's possible Google spends roughly $13 million -- $36,000 every day -- to store YouTube's stock in trade.

Other overhead: Add to the costs just mentioned all the overhead it takes to run any business -- sales, marketing, administration, all the elements that comprise cost of revenues. On December 31, 2008, Google spent 38.4 percent of total revenues on these items. Assuming the same percentage for YouTube and factoring high-end estimated revenue of $240 million for YouTube in 2009, the cost of YouTube revenues conceivably amounts to roughly $92 million, or $252,054 daily. If you prefer the low-end revenue estimate of $90 million, the cost of YouTube revenues would be $34.5 million, or $94,520 per day.

Now take this economy, in which advertising revenues are declining while all of YouTube's costs are increasing. The forecast is only that Google will start losing more money per day.

On the lighter side, you have to give Google credit for losing money with class! The first participant in its recent "Call to Action" for nonprofit partners raised over $10,000 in one day from a video. Classy of Google, yes. It might also be a tax write-off against its monstrous losses from YouTube.

On social networks, tweet at your own risk

2009-04-11T06:04:00.001-07:00

When it comes to online social networks such as Twitter, users should be aware that tweets could lead to trouble.

A couple of University of Texas at Austin researchers have developed an algorithm for a “de-anonymization technique” that, by tracking common relationships, identifies the posters on social Web sites such as Flickr and Twitter.

It’s a troubling proposition for business people, who in increasingly larger numbers have been using Twitter, the text message-based social networking tool.

The problem is that Web sites such as Twitter still don’t have a revenue model and operators are free to do what they want with the information they collect. And if UT computer scientists can identify users, then marketers or criminals could, too, said Arvind Narayanan, who is one of the researchers and a doctoral candidate at UT.

“To that extent, it presents a privacy threat,” he said. “Bad guys could do that to harm users in a variety of ways.”

Narayanan and UT computer science professor Vitaly Shmatikov claim a third of verifiable users can be recognized by aggregating the Twitter information with publicly available information.

Mike Lynn, a partner at the Dallas commercial-litigation law firm Lynn Tillotson Pinker & Cox LLP, says companies should monitor their presence on social networking sites, and only selected employees should also be able to update it. There ought to be guidelines about what can and can’t be posted on the site. He also cautions anyone who uses Twitter to be cautious of legal hassles that can result from their online posts.

John Pozadzides is CEO of iFusion Labs LLC, a Frisco company that offers a technology service called Woopra, which tracks visitors to Web sites in real time.

“Communications are taking place right now on Twitter, Facebook, and all the other social networking services behind your back,” he says. “It’s going on, whether you ignore it or not. The wisest course of action is to be informed about what’s being said about you in public forums.”

Companies with brands to protect should immediately get on social networking sites like Twitter and lock up the user ID associated with those brands, he says. “If you don’t get it, somebody else will.”

Millions jump on social networking bandwagon

2009-04-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

HONOLULU (KHNL) - Do you "tweet"? Do you know how to write on someone's wall? If you do, you're one of millions around the world who have jumped on the social networking bandwagon. But if you don't, KHNL/K5 takes us into this growing cyber world.

In a beautiful place like Hawaii, all you have to do is step outside to meet people.

"Hi, how you doing?" I asked a young lady walking down Kalakaua Avenue. "Where are you from?"

"Toronto," she replied.

"Cool," I responded.

Most folks interact face to face.

But if you're under 30 or a tech geek like myself, you talk to your friends in a different way. Welcome to the world of online social networking.

Sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have revolutionized how people stay connected.

So how does it work? These sites combine the best of e-mail, texting, photos and videos into one convenient location. You can find out what your friends are up to, see their pictures and check out stuff they like.

And because of wireless technology, you don't have to be tied down to your desk. Come on.

You can Facebook at the park, on the beach, and even while you're eating lunch.

And it's not just for young people. Even my friends' parents are on Facebook.

The goal of these sites is to help you stay connected with friends and family. So, you can create events and invite people to come.

Like tonight, I have Gonzo's birthday dinner to go to at Ichiriki and that's the beauty of these sites, using the web to connect with real people in real time. I got to go in. They're waiting for me but I'll see you online.

Facebook reached 200 million members this week and Twitter just surpassed 14 million users, growing 76 percent just in one month.

KHNL/K5 and I are on Twitter and Facebook, so feel free to add us. In fact, I have a growing Facebook page, thanks to my "agent" Andrew Lee.

You can find links on this page.

Bank Nixes Use of Social Networking Sites in Hiring Process

2009-04-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

You won't find Amegy Bank of Texas CEO Paul B. Murphy Jr. uploading new profile pictures onto Facebook or linking Twitter feeds to a MySpace page. Murphy, who heads the 87-branch, Houston-based bank, isn't personally involved in the brave new world of social networking Web sites, but he certainly knows what they are. And thanks to his lawyer, his bank is successfully navigating the legal land mines they can contain.

The trouble wasn't that bank employees were participating in these popular sites, which create an online environment where friends can communicate with each other and share personal messages, private information and family photos, says Murphy. Rather, Murphy was concerned about whether the bank's human resources department could -- or even should -- access these sites in the course of the hiring process.

So he and Amegy's senior vice president and human resources director, Alicia A. Blaszak, called in the bank's longtime labor and employment lawyer, Cristina Portela Solomon, for answers.

Together, they developed a policy to be followed by anyone and everyone connected with Amegy when filling the 45 or so positions that open every month in the 2,000-employee company. That policy has not only served the bank well over the past year, but it's the cornerstone of an ongoing evaluation of how to best utilize online resources when it comes to smart staffing strategies.

It all started about a year ago, Solomon recalls, during a conversation she was having with Blaszak. Solomon, a Houston shareholder in the labor and employment practice group at Winstead, has represented Amegy for about 10 years; Blaszak says the bank always has worked closely with her so as to "be proactive about anticipating any potential issues."

When Murphy and Blaszak started hearing more and more about social networking Web sites in a business rather than in a strictly personal context, they deemed it an issue they needed to know more about and called Solomon for guidance.

Could these seemingly harmless social networking Web sites create potential liability for a company in a hiring context? Solomon's short answer: Yes.

The problem lies in the type of information posted there, Solomon explains. Certainly the sites can be a treasure trove of information, including things an employer might not be able to find out anywhere else that could influence the decision of whether to hire a job applicant, she says. For example, someone might use a Web site posting to brag about how he or she took a previous employer's confidential client list and is now earning a million dollars, she explains, or an applicant might post sexually suggestive photos and comments on his or her site.

In both cases, Solomon says, an employer legally can use the information as the basis for a decision not to hire the applicant. "We live in an age where everyone wants information, and the employers really like it because they can get information that they wouldn't think about asking in an interview or the candidate would lie about," she says.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to filter the type of information that's visible on an individual's social networking Web site, she says, which means employers can also get information from those Web sites that they're not legally entitled to ask about or to know, "and you could be called to task to prove that you did not use the information in the hiring decision."

Here's how that can play out in real life, using a mock scenario suggested by Solomon: Jane applies for a teller position at a bank. A company representative punches Jane's name into a popular social networking Web site and easily brings up her personal page, where Jane and her friends have posted a discussion about her upcoming baby shower. Based on this information, the representative makes the illegal decision not to hire Jane -- illegal in that refusing to hire on the basis of pregnancy is prohibited by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which is part of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The teller position is one that can't be done part time, and it can't be done from home, which is why the company representative didn't want to hire someone who was pregnant, Solomon explains.

"If you hired her and you didn't know [about the pregnancy] and then she had attendance issues, you could fire her -- it's a legal reason," Solomon says. "But the fact that you didn't bring them on board to begin with, that would be hard for the employer, once they'd been exposed to illegal information, to be able to demonstrate that it wasn't the fact that she was pregnant, it was something else."

Local real estate agents look to social networking to snag new clients

2009-04-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Union Real Estate agents now taking a series of five classes are optimistic that creating their own blogs and using Twitter and Facebook will give them an edge during this challenging housing market. Jerry Kidd, who is the firm’s Director of Training, is teaching agents in Sonoma how to companion new and exciting social networking tools with tried and true traditional media marketing. The classes will assist agents in communicating with their current clients and enticing new clients.
“The main objective of the classes, which is called Stealth Marketing, is to raise awareness of the new communication methods of social media and social networking,” said Kidd, who is also a licensed real estate broker. “The classes will help agents set up and use the new methods in their practices so that they can better serve the needs of their clients who are using or will soon be using the new methods in their own lives.”
Stealth Marketing’s first two classes happened last month at the Sonoma Community Center. Kidd offered an overview of the brave new world of social networking and how it can be of great help. Armed with their laptops, a Google account, possible names for their blog, and a current photograph and resume, agents will learn much more during future classes. These classes will be smaller, will be more hand-on, and will happen at the branch’s office. The three classes will be scheduled during the coming weeks.
The third class will focus on the blogospehre. Kidd will help agents register their new blog’s domain name, sign up for hosting with Wordpress, and create a customized blog. Their blogs will be optimized for search engines. This new blog will replace an agent’s current web sites. Kidd will help participants create their first posting on the blog and develop a schedule for making future posts. Agents will learn how to access a library of resources to help them proceed with their blogging.
The fourth class will be all about Twitter, which is the very latest in social networking. Agents will set up their own Twitter account and install several tools that will make this an easy and effective way to market. Agents will be taught how to announce new listings, how they can promote open houses, and how to use Twitter’s “tweets” to communicate with their clients. New clients may be found by searching Twitter’s extensive database. Twitter can be integrated with existing blogs.
The fifth and final class will delve into Facebook, which may very well offer the widest use and reach to real estate agents. Kidd will assist agents with: setting up a Facebook account; setting up a business page on that account; and using Facebook without being perceived as being too aggressive. Blogs and Twitter posts can be displayed on a Facebook page and agents will learn how to send all this out to their network. New clients can also be found in Facebook’s user base.
“The whole idea behind the classes is that the Internet has totally changed communications and the way that consumers find the information they need. It has reshaped the business world, including the real estate business,” said Avram Goldman, Pacific Union’s CEO. “We may be the only real estate firm with a full-time trainer as Internet savvy as Jerry Kidd. He is doing an incredible job providing our agents with the tools they can use to assist buyers and sellers.”
“Stealth Marketing is offering agents here in Sonoma new ways to access their market, target that market and thus find their niche,” said Cheryl Berz, who took over the position of Branch Manager in mid-February. “It’s a perfect way to combine more traditional marketing techniques, such as cold-calling, direct mailings, and advertising in newspapers and magazines, to build a vibrant client base.”
Pacific Union Real Estate, which has been serving the Bay Area since 1975, is on the cutting edge of using technology to better serve its agents and its clients. The CNBC Americas Property Awards, in association with The New York Times, recognized Pacific Union Real Estate last year both for being the Best Real Estate Firm in California and for having the Best Real Estate Marketing in the USA. Stealth Marketing is the latest of Pacific Union’s continuing efforts to teach its agents new ways to succeed.
“Pacific Union offers hands-on management, including our CEO Avram Goldman, an excellent information technology department, and a regional marketing director, who all make themselves available to every member of our team,” said Berz, who was previously an agent with Pacific Union in Napa. “It is definitely a buyer’s market. No one can predict if we’ve reached the bottom in this housing market, but here in Sonoma we’ve seen an increase in ratified contracts in the last few weeks.”
Pacific Union Real Estate is located at 640 Broadway, Sonoma; 707.934.2300; Web site: www.pacunion.com.

Drivers embrace social networking, reach out to younger fans

2009-04-11T06:00:00.001-07:00

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

The driver demographic in NASCAR's Sprint Cup garage is younger than ever.

Joey Logano is 18 years old, the youngest driver ever to start a Cup race, when he took the green flag for the Daytona 500 in February. Kyle Busch, David Ragan and Reed Sorenson are 23. Brian Vickers and Aric Almirola are 25. Scott Speed is 26.

It's only natural that younger drivers would attract a younger fan base, and younger fans tend to be more technologically literate than their older counterparts. Accordingly, drivers and their sponsors are tapping into avenues of communication with their fans that would have been unheard of five years ago.

Brian Vickers' fan site "Club V" (www.clubvickers.com) engages fans in live uncensored chats. Candy company Mars is using its motorsports program -- specifically its M&M's sponsorship of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driven by Kyle Busch -- as a laboratory for the company's digital marketing strategy.

Through the racing site of sponsor UPS (http://www.racing.ups.com/blogs/david-ragan/), Ragan provides weekly written and video blogs that give fans more of an insider's view of the sport.

"So much of NASCAR racing is broadcast on TV," said Ragan, who drives the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford. "You can see the racecars, the racing, the qualifying, the practice. But the fans want that little bit of extra about your life. They want that little bit of extra about your routines during the week, what you do away from the racetrack.

"I think it's neat to bring them a little bit closer, and certainly they really do love it. That's why we go to the extra lengths to get that information out to not only No. 6 fans but to NASCAR fans and UPS employees."

In an era where the desire for information is immediate and all but insatiable, fans can follow certain drivers through microblogging via Twitter feeds. Those following "tweets" from Ragan's camp last Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, for example, would have been among the first to know that Ragan's engine was overheating and ultimately failed.

Similarly, you can track Kyle Busch's progress through an entire race in minute detail through tweets provided by one of his PR representatives.

Ragan by nature loves the outdoors, but he's a quick study when it comes to cyberspace.

"I've gotten pretty good education over the last three or four months," he said. "It's fun talking about our race weekends on a Monday, and looking forward to other next weekend -- it's all about more information that the fans can't get on a TV.

"Every single day, whether it's a little bit in the morning or a little bit in the evening, I've got a few websites I always go to. Obviously, my Sprint Blackberry is always vibrating throughout the day with messages and e-mails. So I spend a lot of time searching the web. I read a lot of my news articles and stuff online. I'd say I'm online pretty often every single day."

Lest you get the impression that social networking is the exclusive province of 20-somethings, there are veteran drivers and established organizations that are taking advantage of the immediacy of social networking, too.

Fans got a chance to preview Tony Stewart's new Old Spice commercial on You Tube before it aired nationally. Kevin Harvick Inc. launched Kevin Harvick Fan Central, where fans can post profiles, join forums, blog and chat online. "Infield Parking," a social networking site co-founded by Dale Earnhardt Jr., now has 60,000 members.

NASCAR.com launched an online community in 2007; it now features more than 65,000 members. The sanctioning body itself has an official fan page on Facebook.com that boasts more than 40,000 users. NASCAR also posts its only blog giving its take on the news of the day at http://community.nascar.com/crews/NASCAR_Says.

The current state of social networking in the sport is just the tip of the iceberg. You can expect an explosion of information as young drivers attract new, younger fans and as older fans learn the capabilities of the new technologies.

Local businesses taking advantage of social networking

2009-04-11T05:58:00.000-07:00

Smart business people are participating in social media marketing such as blogging, LinkedIn, Google groups and Twitter, a packed room was told at the Chandler Chamber of Commerce.

"Online networking is the greatest invention ever since sliced bread," said Steve Jaramillo, CEO of Chandler-based Catalyst Computer Technologies, which provides IT services for small businesses.

Speaking Thursday at a Tech Luncheon, he said he blogs to quickly alert his customers about viruses.

With LinkedIn, a job seeker can widely distribute a resume.

Google groups can plug a person in to valuable networks, Jaramillo noted.

Companies need to be on the Web to be found through searches, said Preston Lee of OpenRain, a Mesa-based Web software development company.

"The Yellow Pages-style directories, people are taking them from their doorways and putting them in the recycle bin," he said.

Customers are now expecting to interact with companies online, Lee said.

"If you're a bakery, can people order cupcakes online?" he asked.

Even though a bakery doesn't ship to China, he said, it's important to have a global presence online because, for example, the Washington Post or the BBC could pick up a recipe.

"That builds credibility," he said. "There's a lot of value in realizing your audience is everywhere."

At the same time, he cautioned that social media marketing need not replace radio, TV, newspapers or direct mail if that is working.

He urged companies to get a competitive edge by offering services such as providing invoices online.

Allowing customers to provide feedback on the Web is helpful as well.

"You can take testimonials and put them on your Web site or on a flier," Lee said.

Trinity Church uses Twitter to tell Passion of Christ

2009-04-11T05:56:00.000-07:00

Not everything people see on Twitter is gospel - but some of it is.

In an effort to spread its message in the world of social networking, Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church married microblogging and social networking with the Gospel Friday when it told the Passion of Christ, the story of the crucifixion, in posts of 140 characters or fewer.

From noon to 3 p.m., a church worker posted 18 tweets adapted from the Gospel of Mark. The story was largely told through the eyes of six characters: Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Peter, a serving girl and Pontius Pilate.

One tweet read, "ServingGirl: is so tired. Caiaphas and the priests have been up all night questioning a man who claims to be the Messiah. And I wait on them."
That was soon followed by one from Jesus: "Let the scriptures be fulfilled. It is as the prophets wrote. I am who you say I am."

"What we are trying to do at Trinity Wall Street is to communicate the story of Christ in as many ways as we can," said Linda Hanick, Trinity's vice president of communication and marketing.

While it may be new to Twitter, Trinity, founded in the 17th century, is not new to the Web. The parish near the World Trade Center site has been streaming events, services and concerts on the Internet since the late 1990s, and last year joined Facebook.

Twitter "was kind of the next evolution in communicating the Gospel message," Hanick said.

Twitter makes sense for congregations to spread their word, said the Rev. Charles Henderson, a Presbyterian minister and founder of the First Church of Cyberspace, GodWeb.org. Twitter has 10 million users, according to ComScore, an Internet market research firm.

Trinity's tweets are the first time Henderson has heard of the Passion Play on Twitter, "but it strikes me immediately as a great idea," Henderson said. "The distinguishing factor of Twitter is that it is instantaneous. And if you can reach out to your congregations, no matter if you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu, this is exactly what you are trying to do, facilitate a community."

Two hours before the tweeting began, the Passion Play had roughly 100 followers. By the end, the number had grown to more than 1,700.

LeAnnThomas thanked the church "4 this beautiful version of the passion scriptures."

Social Networking Enters Mainstream B2B / B2C Marketing

2009-04-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

Implications

Companies seeking to take personalized, 1x1 marketing efforts to the next level are harnessing the power of "engagement marketing" to build a personalized rapport with their customers. With enhanced metrics and reporting on campaign results, more firms will include Social Media in their branding efforts. The result may be a redefinition of online marketing and advertising.

Analysis

Social networking is no longer the sole domain of Tweeters and Facebookers sharing their views on the hottest new club, what their children did in school today, or what they are having for dinner. Since 2007, a growing number of leading firms in multiple industries has experimented with the inclusion of Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs to create a more intimate and culturally attenuated branding voice with their customers.

This article highlights how tech-savvy marketers are now using Social Media platforms to project a broad footprint into the online world through combining content-rich sites like Facebook with short-burst microblogging communication on Twitter. The results indicate a growing receptivity of consumers to the language of online engagement marketing.

Companies to watch leading the way: Dell, Apple, Jetblue, Coca Cola (brand marketers) and Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook (Social Media Platforms).

NIRI Silicon Valley Announces Use of Social Networking Sites as Proven Vehicles to Communicate With Its Members

2009-04-11T05:54:00.000-07:00

SAN JOSE, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 04/09/09 -- The Silicon Valley Chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) today announced that it has begun utilizing social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to communicate updates, discuss issues, and distribute event notices to its members.

"Social media is becoming more and more pervasive, and the use of social networking sites is growing twice as fast as any other online activity," said Tom Rathjen, President of the NIRI Silicon Valley Chapter. "As an organization, we believe it is important to adapt and utilize communications tools that allow us to reach our members more quickly, visually, and powerfully, no matter where they are in the world."

NIRI Silicon Valley Chapter's Facebook group is called "NIRI Silicon Valley," and highlights topics related to the investor relations and communications fields and also features the local chapter's social events, upcoming educational meetings, and professional development opportunities. The group is open to all NIRI members as well as investor relations practitioners and consultants. Chapter updates and best practices discussions can also be followed on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com under Groups by selecting "NIRI Silicon Valley." The social networking sites can also be accessed from NIRI Silicon Valley's website, www.nirisv.org, under "Member Benefits."

Added Tom Rathjen, "Inside of these social networks, investor relations professionals can form a community that we believe will lead to knowledge-sharing and a collective best practices database. One of our chapter's goals is to continuously advance the discipline of investor relations practices, and we believe this is a dynamic means of achieving that goal."

About NIRI Silicon Valley

The Silicon Valley Chapter is one of the largest chapters of NIRI, comprising of more than 200 investor relations practitioners, corporate officers, consultants, and partners responsible for the advancement and discipline of investor relations practices within the local community. To become a member of the NIRI Silicon Valley chapter, please contact Hunter Landers at hlanders@csg-design.com or to learn more about the organization, please visit www.nirisv.org.

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Virtual Executive 'Intern' Program: What IS Social Networking?

2009-04-11T05:47:00.002-07:00

Here you’ll learn about social networks (the 101 version)

Are you as confused as we were about Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the whole notion of social networking in general? Here’s a place to start learning. As social networking is a major part of the wowOwow Virtural Executive "Intern" Program, and increasingly an important tool in any kind of business, it’s important that you learn about, sign up for and take advantage of all of the free social networking tools that are available on the Internet. Watch, click and read below … and then click at the bottom of the page to find the first wowOwow Virtual Executive "Interning" project:

A. WATCH:
Social Networking in Plain English

First, take a look at this quick video that uses simple drawings that even we understand to describe the basics of social networks. It’s produced by Lee LeFever of the Common Craft Show.

B: CLICK TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT FACEBOOK:

Then, take a look at the power of one of the most famous social networks of all, Facebook, in their new video, What 200 Million Looks Like.

Facebook, one of the most popular social networks, just gained its 200-millionth user. The fastest growing part of their audience? Women 55+. The second-fastest growing part of their audience? Men 55+. Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism’s Professor and Dean of Student Affairs (and online guru) Sree Sreenivasan calls Facebook the most fundamental building block of social networking. Click on the Facebook picture, and see how this powerful tool is being used all over the world.

C. LOOK IN ON THE POWER OF LINKEDIN

The LA Times’s Dan Fost relates how today’s Job Seekers are Turning to Online Social Networks. Read it here.

Dan Fost’s recent article is a real eye-opener on how online social networks in general and LinkedIn in particular can help job seekers as well as those interested in pursuing new careers and contacts.

D. WHAT ABOUT TWITTER?

Clearly, the most important new social networking tool to explode across cyberspace is Twitter, which has become so ubiquitous that even Google is interested in buying them. With Twitter, individuals send out tweets (we kid you not) of only 140 characters to tell the world about anything that interests them. And then, the fun begins. Here’s Lee LeFever again of Common Craft, who explains it.

E: RELATE: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO ME AND MY LIFE AND WORK?

Ooookaaaay, you’re probably thinking … this is interesting, but does it have real-world application for wowOwow and for me? Yes, take a look at how companies, maybe even the one that you are interested in working for — or inventing — are using social networks.

Business 2.0: Using Social Networking Tools
The author of this overview of social networks, Daniel Burns, says, “Innovative companies are beginning to embrace Web 2.0 as a way to enhance communication, information sharing and collaboration, thereby allowing them to work smarter rather than harder. The business use of Web 2.0 represents a new trend called “Business 2.0.” He also mentions some other social networks such as DIGG. Don’t worry, we’ll talk about them in the future. Click to read more.

Monkeying around with chi.mp

2009-04-11T05:47:00.001-07:00

What it is: Like many social networks, a chi.mp account gives you your own "Web space", letting you post status updates and photos, and link to other social networks or Web feeds. Chi.mp gives users a unique domain name (mine is http://keithshaw.mp, for example), an OpenID and Web site. The chi.mp service also has a contact aggregator, pulling in contacts or "friends" from all of your other networks and contact databases, creating an "ultimate black book" for users.

Finally, the service lets you create multiple "persona" profiles that are displayed to designated contacts. For example, users can create a public site, a professional site that you display to colleagues, and a friends/family site. For instance, family and friends can see photos of your kids, while professionals and the public see nothing. And truly special friends can see your spring break photos, while mom and dad (and the HR department) see nothing.

Why it's cool: The growth of social networking in the business world has created the problem of "Who am I?" for many users. For example, do the posts on my Facebook or Twitter page represent my thoughts as a Network World employee or my thoughts as Keith Shaw, the brand? My friends from high school and college have no interest in my thoughts on the latest gadget (I know, shocker!), but I'm also sure that Network World "friends" don't want to see photos of me from my college days (trust me, they don't). Allowing for separate personalities makes chi.mp an intriguing option.

Other social networks are like the equivalent of a country club -- when you see my Facebook page, it's like we're in the lobby of the Facebook Club. When you're visiting my chi.mp page, it's like you're in visiting my home or office -- you see what I want you to see, based on your relationship with me. Furthermore, friends can hang with me in the living room, but only family members can use the upstairs bathroom.

Users can customize their sites with different themes, backgrounds and avatar choices, as well as link to a number of different social networks (it will import feeds from Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and any RSS feed). In this regard, the service is a lot like FriendFeed.

Social media gurus and individuals who are creating their own social brand should love this site, as it gives them a central location and an easy Web address to give out to all their contacts.

Some caveats: Managing the different persona pages, choosing which of your friends goes with which persona, and which feeds or photos you put on each page, can quickly get daunting. Do I designate that work friend as a "work" contact or as a "friend?" With hundreds of contacts or more, doing the work of choosing designations could end up being like trying to weed down a wedding invitation list.

Also, the early version of the service seems to be geared towards users of multiple social networks and the advanced types. I don't see my longtime college friend who loves Facebook migrating to chi.mp, even with their multiple redesign issues.

Bottom line: If you're juggling a lot of different social networks, contacts and are starting to feel that you really have multiple personalities, head to http://chi.mp and create your own social hub to manage them all.

Social Networks Popular Among Programmers

2009-04-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

Three-quarters of all software developers belong to at least one social network and two-thirds belong to two or more networks, according to the results of a survey released Wednesday.

Evans Data's Developer Relations Program annual survey of more than 400 software developers examined the dynamics of Web sites aimed at software developers.

"This latest research shows that developers are like most active Internet users in terms of having a very healthy interest in social networks," John Andrews, president and CEO of Evans Data, said in a statement. "Consistent with this, the primary motivations for joining a social network are the desire to locate old friends and the need for general communications."

Developers who responded to the survey said that the top three things they look for in social networking sites are the profiles, active community engagement, and quality content. They said that the least important factors are tagging and access from mobile phones.

The survey found that more than 90% of developers check blogs and 70% see blogs as credible sources of information. Developers chose community-moderated forums over sites that are moderated by vendors, with 88% of those responding saying that community moderators are key to social networking sites.

Developers ranked Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) first for having the best Web site for programmers, with 27.4% of those polled saying they favored the site. Sun Microsystems (NSDQ: JAVA) ranked second, with 12% of developers saying they preferred Sun's site to others. IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Google tied for third place, with less than 10% of developers choosing those sites.

Marketers Sharpen Pencils and Focus in '09; Budgets Holding Up but Performance, Efficiency and Insight Are Key Mandates

2009-03-18T10:05:00.002-07:00

PALO ALTO, CA - Customer anxiety and cutbacks are the biggest factors influencing marketing budget allocation in 2009, reports the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council in its annual Marketing Outlook study. Despite a restrained economy, however, marketers see budgets holding up fairly well with dollars being stringently controlled and directed against growing and retaining market share.

The CMO Council audit of over 650 marketers across all regions of the world indicated a disconnect between management mandates for '09 and marketing's limited plans to invest in automation, collaboration and process improvement. More surprising, senior marketers expressed limited aspirations to elevate their positions and forge tighter links with line-of-business executives, finance, the CIO, and IT groups. This year's report was sponsored by the sales and marketing practice of Deloitte Consulting LLC, the Jigsaw business community, and Ad-ology.

Half of the marketers responding to the survey report they're either holding firm on budgets or anticipating increases. Nearly one third plan at least a small budget increase, with 8.2 percent planning a bump of more than 10 percent. However, almost half say they will decrease spending at least somewhat, with 18.8 percent anticipating cuts of more than 15 percent. While there are some signs of retrenchment, marketers are committed to their personnel, which represent 42 percent of budgets, and plan to invest in retraining employees for the digital age, rather than replacing them with new talent. Their efforts to harvest greater efficiency from current operations emphasize sharpening internal processes and alignments within their organization instead of instituting broad restructuring plans or cutting ties with current agency partners.

Publishers Clearinghouse Online Network Partners With Prospectiv to Host Lead Generation Deals and Optimize Online Offers

2009-03-18T10:05:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK, NY - The Publishers Clearinghouse Online Network (PCH) (http://www.pch.com), the Web destination for Publishers Clearing House, a leading multi-channel direct marketer of value-based consumer products and magazines, today announced a partnership with Prospectiv (http://www.prospectiv.com), a pioneer in online marketing with an expertise in helping consumer brands and publishers reach and engage the right audience. Prospectiv's strong base of advertiser relationships and its proprietary PrismPro back-end technology help PCH engage its visitors with targeted offers in various custom placements across its Web sites.

"Our partnership with Prospectiv brings together two highly respected direct-marketing companies to help deliver targeted advertising opportunities to our growing base of more than five million monthly visitors," said Alex Betancur, vice president and general manager at the PCH Online Network. "Couple that with our sweepstakes and daily winning opportunities and you have a successful equation."

Prospectiv's technology is unique in that it is intelligent and has the ability to behaviorally optimize the offers that are presented to site visitors. Buying patterns and other key characteristics are taken into consideration when purchasing opportunities and valuable lead generation offers are provided to PCH customers.

Local Businesses Spend Billions Online?Mostly On Non-Advertiser Marketing: Report

2009-03-18T10:04:00.002-07:00

Local U.S. businesses spent about $6.7 billion last year for online marketing efforts, with only a fraction going to online advertising, according to a report by local media researcher Borrell Associates. The report, Main Street Goes Interactive (sub req.), advances the case that Borrell has made before: local advertising, the kind that has traditionally spent small individual amounts on newspaper classifieds and Yellow Pages is up for grabs. Unfortunately, content publishers have a tough time prying their marketing dollars for more general advertising purposes.

?Keeping the money within: Small-to-medium sized businesses (or "SMBs") are expected to increase their total interactive ad spend 24 percent during the next five years ? from $7.4 billion to more than $9 billion. As the chart after the jump shows, most of that spending will go towards "non-ad marketing efforts" like site design?when asked in which online media they planned to spend most on, two-thirds said marketing dollars would be devoted to their own sites?search engine optimization and building customer data bases. While display currently commands 54 percent of their online budgets, that number is expected to decline significantly over the next year.

?Prying SMB ad dollars: Apart from the economy and a general reluctance to spend a lot of money on outside advertising, publishers tend to have a flawed approach about prying away their ad dollars. In general, Borrell says that ad sellers have treated these companies like any other marketer. Instead, Borrell advises focusing on how large a company is?based on the size of their staff?and relating that to a particular business category. That way, companies can better gauge how much they might spend and ultimately be more receptive to parting with some of the marketing budget for a more traditional online ad campaign. View the chart after the jump.

Online Marketing - Bringing Prospective Buyers to You

2009-03-18T10:04:00.001-07:00

RISMEDIA, March 18, 2009-Instead of another article about how bad things are and how agents are scared, this is a short analysis of how a broker in a town where the bottom literally fell out of the market is prospering and thriving by adapting and by using the Internet to bring buyers, sellers and investors to them. That’s just what Rick and Joyce Tietz continue to do, and with 15 transactions in escrow in the first quarter of this year plus a record year last year, they obviously are doing it correctly. Ninety-percent of Realtor websites fail to produce sales because agents and brokers don’t know exactly how to make them work.

Adapting your site to address the market

Rick and Joyce are RE/MAX agents in Antioch, California-a place with 900 homes for sale consisting of REO, lender owned short sales, or seller-owned homes. The Tietz’ strategy of going after these buyers is established right from their homepage (www.tietzhomes.com), where they include a call to action: “Ask Us about Antioch Foreclosures, Short Sales & REOs! It’s Our Specialty!” It may seem obvious to use such a simple call to action, but it works and the Tietz Team receives leads from it daily. However, their efforts to reach out to a targeted group of prospective buyers does not stop there. They also include an option for site viewers to: “Click here to receive reports on Foreclosures, Short Sales and REOs directly to your inbox with no obligation!”

Giving the online visitor value that makes you stand apart from others

When the visitor clicks on the invitation to receive information, they are presented with a special “Foreclosures and REO” page that offers facts about the local market and a choice of useful information packets that are available to the visitor, free of charge. The visitor may choose from booklets or reports titled “Short Sales are looking more attractive,” “FACT SHEET: FHA to provide additional mortgage assistance to struggling homeowners,” “Understanding REO’s,” “Mortgage Rates,” and “What is the HOPE for Homeowners program?” In this way, Rick and Joyce practice what they preach, namely that It is essential for the buyer or seller to be aware of all aspects of the real estate market before making a major decision.”

By putting together these informational reports, they both incent their visitor to receive them and they inform the visitor of the reality of each topic. That is value and information combined, the two things consumers want most in a website.

Giving the consumer that value is a big part of the reason that Rick and Joyce have experienced no less than 3,500 page views monthly since January, up from as few as two per day when they first began online marketing in earnest. It also explains why they receive so many registrations: people want the information.

A simple template site with a layout the consumer can operate

Rick and Joyce use a Point2 Professional site that they have customized to favor their specialty and the site is easy to navigate. It’s not a custom site with a fancy design and it isn’t in the running for “Most beautiful website of the Year.” All this site does is make money for Rick and Joyce.

Likewise, it’s not hard to find their site online, either. Just type in “Antioch CA Real Estate” on Google and there they are at number four on page one. Or, type in “Antioch CA Short Sales” and you’ll find them at number six on page one of Google.

The fact is that Rick and Joyce have been found on 500 different first page searches by over 6,000 people in the past 12 months and more than 30 of those searchers bought a property from the Tietz Team. Rick and Joyce don’t get the majority of their leads from Google: about 60% of the search engine traffic they get is from Yahoo.

“Our subscription to CompassSearch doesn’t limit us to just one search engine,” Rick says. “We get leads from all of them. To say that Compass has been fabulous doesn’t begin to measure the great benefit they’ve brought to our business. We’re found on all major search engines, we get great coaching and guidance on how to make our site stickier, and we get almost 100% of our leads from our search subscription.”

How can you succeed online?

The first and least involved way is to understand what you need to be able to do to manage your online marketing: request ‘REAL SEO^TM Explained’-a 12 page PDF. After you read the booklet, you can take the second step and request a review of your website to learn if it is SEO and user-friendly, and what you can do to help make it that way. If you’re still unsure of what this is about, you can even take a third step and dial in and listen to how the Tietz Team’s online marketing services partner, CompassSearch, helps agents sell homes, live, in a typical morning “Welcome to Compass” webinar. All these things are free of charge, so if you want to start becoming an Internet Realtor and sharing the kind of success Rick and Joyce Tietz enjoy, you have many ways to learn how to do so. In three to six months, you could be signing up seven clients in a weekend and enjoying the same success that Rick and Joyce have found.

REO’s can be better than Short Sales and Foreclosures

REO (Real Estate Owned) refers to a property taken back by a bank or other lender. Usually, the properties have been restored to decent condition by the lender in order to spruce them up for sale. As all liens against the property are removed once it becomes REO for sale and as all taxes are brought current, there’s a lot less to impede a successful conclusion to a sale in an REO property than in, say, a short sale. That’s made clear to the visitor to Tietz Team’s site in the simple write-up: ‘Understanding REO,’ a simple page put out by Rick and Joyce that finds favor with their visitors who want to know how to participate positively in the housing market as it is now. There are lots of great investments out there today, and if you can bring visitors to your site that explains to them why those properties are great investments, you’ll prosper.

Mike Parker (mparker@theblackwatercg.com) specializes in online marketing services for Realtors® and real estate professionals. Obtain a free copy of his booklet “REAL SEO Explained” by writing to realseo@compassinternetsystems.com. It will be sent to you free and no one will call you. To request a free review of your website to determine if it can be found by Internet buyers and if it is search engine friendly, click here and it will be evaluated free.

Tiffany taps into social-networking scene

2009-03-18T10:01:00.002-07:00

New York--Iconic jewelry company Tiffany and Co. has entered a new era in its 172-year history: the age of social networking.

An e-mail from a company spokesman to National Jeweler confirmed that the iconic New York jeweler now has its own Facebook page, which can be viewed here.

The page, created in February as a "Fan Page" on the popular social-networking site, had attracted more than 124,000 fans as of Wednesday morning.

Tiffany snd Co. dedicates the center of the page to the display of different designs, allowing its fans to give feedback on the pieces.

As of Wednesday morning, an entry displaying the work of Tiffany designer Paloma Picasso had attracted 115 positive responses, while another 88 expressed their approval for Tiffany's latest designs.

"We like the new range from Tiffany and Co.," one user wrote.

The Tiffany Facebook entry also includes a link to a page explaining Tiffany's environmentally friendly philosophies, another link to a page featuring celebrities and a discussion board on Tiffany-related topics, such as fans' first-ever or favorite piece.

As of Wednesday morning, nine people from countries including Australia and Bulgaria had joined the discussion detailing their first-ever gift or purchase from Tiffany.

Answers ranged from wedding bands to a heart-shaped pendant and showed the emotion people attach to jewelry purchases.

A user from Australia wrote: "I saw a Tiffany ad in a bridal magazine while I was at the gym and I loved the expression on the girl's face. It stayed with me for ages. The way she looked at the guy with shock and hopefulness...I can't describe it. And a few months later, my boyfriend bought me a silver 'Return to Tiffany' heart bracelet for my 21st birthday and I had the same expression on my face."

Rapid Growth in Social Networking Worldwide

2009-03-18T10:01:00.001-07:00

Two-thirds of the world's Internet population visit social networking sites eacmonth accounting for almost 10% of all internet time, according to a new Nielsen report “Global Faces and Networked Places“. In the UK social networking accounts for about 18% of online time and in Brazil its 25%. Across all territories, the growth shows no sign of slowing. The rise in social networking cuts across all age groups. Using Facebook as an example:

MOBILE GROWTH
Mobile social networking is showing some of the biggest growth. 2 million or 23% of UK mobile web users visit a social network through their handset compared to 19% in the US (10.6M). That's an increase over last year of 249% in the UK and 156% in the US. Download the full report here.

Report: Google Doesn't Care About Social Networking

2009-03-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK Google doesn’t care about social networking. But perhaps it should, since social-networking platforms are gradually making search less relevant.

Those are just two of the more pointed conclusions found in a report issued today by Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield, who examined MySpace’s business and its long-term ad relationship with Google. In the report, Greenfield reiterated a contention he made last July that the underperformance of search ads in MySpace is not simply a product of the non-responsive nature of these sites’ users. Rather, according to Greenfield, Google’s algorithm isn’t well-suited to social-networking sites -- and that’s something Google isn’t necessarily concerned with.

“Nine months have gone by since our note, with MySpace now having just over a year left on its search deal with Google...and Google has done nothing to improve its social search algorithms,” wrote Greenfield. “Increasingly it appears as though Google simply does not care about social search.”

The reason the company doesn’t care, said Greenfield, is that the basic functionality of social platforms like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter is "diminishing the importance of search.” He points to users’ growing inclination to search for specific information by tapping into friends’ and colleague's knowledge through platforms like Twitter’s own search product, as well Facebook’s status update tool.

As for Fox Interactive Media (FIM), which encompasses MySpace, IGN, FoxSports.com and other properties, Greenfield predicts major layoffs and possibly a new leader being installed sometime this year. He believes that while the search ad deal with Google now accounts for roughly 35 percent of FIM's annual revenue ($300 million per year), and since Google is perceived to have seriously overpaid, any new search deal signed in 2010 will result in at least a 50 percent drop in fees.

To boost revenue, Greenfield recommends that MySpace continue to expand its portal-like ad strategy, which has proven successful in attracting major advertisers to its home page and music channels.

However, FIM’s bigger problem is that while revenue is dipping slightly due to the current downturn, profitability has suffered to a greater degree because of expenses. “We believe FIM has little choice but to start reducing headcount more significantly,” Greenfield wrote. He also expects that News Corp. will move to better closely align its other digital properties, like IGN, possibly under the leadership of a single executive. “A new digital 'guru' would not be a surprise,” he said.

eMarketer: Social Net Ad Spend Slows

2009-03-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK On a worldwide basis, marketers will spend an estimated $2.3 billion on social network advertising in 2009, eMarketer forecasts. In 2013, spending will reach an estimated $3.5 billion.

Social network ad spending is taking a hit from the worldwide economic crisis and the ongoing challenge to develop effective ad models. Though a double-digit increase during a recession is still a good sign, eMarketer's previous growth-rate projection has been cut in half.

Key themes for 2009 include the rapid rise of social networking as a consumer activity around the globe; the potential for Facebook to become the dominant network in multiple markets worldwide; and the urgent need for sites to develop alternate revenue streams beyond advertising.

Study finds organizations still feeling their way with social networking

2009-03-18T09:57:00.002-07:00

A study released this week by the Burton Group and authored by Mike Gotta, has found that while most organizations believe they are behind the curve when it comes to internal social networking tools, the fact is that many organizations are still trying to sort out all of the details before starting a social networking initiative.

This is interesting news because we who follow this industry tend to think that everyone's as absorbed as we are and Gotta makes this point in his report. There is a perception due to press coverage around social networking that it is more widespread than it is. That said, chances are even if there is no formal internal social networking and collaboration tool set in many of the companies that Gotta looked at, that employees are still using social networking tools on the web such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Companies who are looking to take advantage of the same types of collaboration, relationship building and information sharing that goes on, on the open web really need to start implementing solutions in-house where you can manage this content. It is prudent to make these moves carefully and not simply rush ahead because it's the popular thing to do, but these tools have huge potential in the enterprise and companies need to start moving to understand how these tools can work inside the firewall too.

It's Easy Being Green: Social Networking: A New Frontier in Climate Change Research

2009-03-18T09:57:00.001-07:00

Are you plugged in to the Internet? Are you an amateur hiker? Photographer? Gardener? Birdwatcher? Frog aficionado? Nature lover? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," then with the click of a button you can also make a serious contribution to the study of climate change.

Online social networking is no longer just about tagging a picture of your dog on Facebook or announcing to the world what you’re having for dinner on Twitter. Scientific institutions worldwide are beginning to harness the power of online social networking for scientific research. Online communities are an ideal vehicle for matching professional scientists with armies of enthusiastic amateurs. This corps of citizen scientists has the capacity to capture far more data over a vastly expanded geographical spectrum than professional scientists can on their own.

The USA National Phenology Network is one organization that is reaching out to citizen scientists via the Internet. People have used phenology, the study of the timing of lifecycle events of plants and animals, to detect the signs of spring since the early 18th century. The rising threat posed by global warming has spurred scientists to put phenology to another use: to detect the signs of climate change.

Plants and animals are very sensitive to even the smallest changes in their climates. Shifts in the timing of their lifecycle events can therefore be an important indicator in the study of climate change and its effects. Slight changes can have huge repercussions; mutual relationships between species and even entire systems can begin to fall apart.

USA-NPN is asking people across the country to record the phenology of their local flora and then report it online. Amateur hikers and photographers can also participate in NPN’s Project Budburst. They are asked to identify the phenological stage of the flowers and plants they see using information provided by the project’s website. The participants record the location, longitude, and latitude of what they observe. Eventually, Project Budburst will use this information to include real-time mapping with Google maps.

Relying on anonymous volunteers to collect data that will be entered into important scientific databases certainly raises questions about the reliability of the information gathered. Yet it turns out that most of the data is remarkably accurate, and researchers do perform checks on anomalous data. What’s more, the large pool of samples collected by a large group of volunteers diminishes the impact of any faulty data.

This creative new use for social networking also answers critics’ accusations about the frivolity of Facebook, Twitter, and other sites with proof that online networking has the potential to mobilize users to actively participate in innovative programs. Jack Weltzin, executive director of NPN, has said that in the future NPN hopes to make it possible for people to submit their findings via Twitter. NPN, a nonprofit organization, also hopes that iPhone and Facebook applications might be created to more easily facilitate volunteer participation.

Climate change scientists are not the only members of the scientific profession to tap into the potential of these online communities. In addition to tracking climate change, the information participants collect can help scientists predict wildfires and pollen production and monitor droughts as well as detect and control invasive species. Other online projects, such as "The Great World Wide Star Count," rely on volunteer participation to gauge the level of light pollution across the globe. Several websites are also dedicated to tracking the migratory and breeding patterns of animals such as birds, frogs, and butterflies. All of these observations will augment the databases available to scientists attempting to understand annual fluctuations.

Imagine what the near future will bring—a world where you wake up, look out your window, and notice the first lilac blossom of spring. As you drink your coffee, you report your floral spotting on Twitter. Presto! You’ve made a contribution to the study of climate change before you’ve even had your eggs.

So the next time you head outside, grab your camera and snap a picture of the flowers that are starting to bloom in your neighbor’s yard. Then plot your location on your Google maps and give scientists the help they need to understand global warming and its consequences.

Business professionals learn how to benefit from social networking

2009-03-18T09:55:00.002-07:00

On a large screen in front of more than 60 people Tuesday, she logged in to her business account she created, navigated her way around the site and explained what features can be used to improve a business.

"If you think Twitter is talking about what you ate for breakfast, wait until you see Facebook," Delay said to business owners and employees.

Facebook was the last Web site she gave a quick lesson on, after the audience had been informed how to set up accounts and use twitter.com and linkedin.com at a Web Marketing Seminar at the Zanesville-Muskingum County Welcome Center. The seminar was designed to provide basics of web marketing skills to business professionals.

"It helps your business and career-building customers," she said.

Facebook is a social networking site, LinkedIn is a site for professionals to exchange information, ideas and opportunities and Twitter is a service for friends, family and co-workers to communicate through short answers to the question 'What are you doing,' as many or as little times in a day as they'd like.

She explained how the three sites can be used for getting the word out about a business, products and events relating to a business.

"It was really helpful, very informative," said Betsy Skrobot, owner of Sweet Dolce Desserts and Pastries.

Minerva Cheese Factory secretary/treasurer Venae Banner and sales representative Jackie Evans traveled from Minerva to attend.

She said the company has a Web site, www.cheesehere.com, but the company has never utilized any of the Web sites introduced at the seminar to promote their business.

"We came to figure out how to promote it (the Web site)," Banner said.

She said she's familiar with Facebook and has heard people talk about Twitter, but has never used the site.

"There were a lot of good ideas," she said.

The seminar, hosted by Muskingum College's Master of Information Strategy, Systems and Technology (MISST) program.

The MISST program is a two-year program offered at the college.

"It's designed to prepare leaders to build the bridges between business strategy and technology," said Mary Kaufmann, assistant professor of informatics and MISST faculty at Muskingum.

She was pleased so many business-oriented individuals were interested in learning more about how to use the Web to promote their business.

She said it's not uncommon for the majority of business owners to not only not understand how to use these Web site, but often times they've never heard of them and aren't aware of how helpful they can be.

"This has provided them a connection to the tools and services that can walk them through the process," she said.

Burton Group Uncovers the Realities of Social Networking in the Enterprise

2009-03-18T09:55:00.001-07:00

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - Burton Group, a research and consulting firm focused on in-depth analysis of enterprise information technologies, has conducted a detailed field study analyzing social networking within the enterprise.

Almost universally, organizations participating in the study felt they were behind their competitors -- or the market in general -- when it came to internal social networking initiatives. Based on the results of this study, Burton Group concludes that such perceptions are unfounded. Many organizations are yet to make an enterprise-wide decision on social networking tools. Even in those organizations that have set a direction, many of those projects are in proof-of-concept or early stages of deployment.

In a recently published report by Principal Analyst Mike Gotta, who conducted the study, Burton Group also concludes that organizations are struggling primarily with non-technology issues such as business case, metrics, policies and controls, governance, employee engagement, and cultural dynamics. Burton Group initiated a field study to determine the real state of enterprise social networking and help decision-makers understand the business and technical factors to consider when formulating related strategies.

A Social Networking Site With a Difference

2009-03-18T09:54:00.001-07:00

A brand new social networking site www.cooltribe.com dedicated to the environment, social justice amongst other ethical issues is started to make a difference to people's lives around the world.

(PRWEB) March 18, 2009 -- How many social networking site rally behind their members and enable them to fulfill their dreams? Not too many it appears, too busy to monetise on a big and unknown userbase.

Cooltribe.com is the exception that makes the rule. After just a few days of beta release, one of their members Samuel Ochanji, a Kenyan student who is interested in climate change issues, joined cooltribe and shared with the young community his dream of learning German at the Goethe Institute in Nairobi. Samuel needed 100 votes to get approval on givemeaning.com. In the space of a few days, Samuel had all his votes.

"That was the face value of cooltribe.The inner strength was revealed to me when I created a page for my givemeaning project, projectgoethe ,on cooltribe!The cooltribe users made the dream breath and come to life. Your response accomplished something and I am very grateful to you all!" Says Samuel

The power of social networking is immense and cooltribe young management team wants to genuinely make a difference and bridge the gap between people from different countries, organizations, businesses and governments.

Cooltribe is growing and has exciting plans in the pipeline that will make a difference to the environment and to people's lives across the world.

Visit www.cooltribe.com NOW

M.A.D. Partners Releases MyWingMan for Apple's iPhone: The Mobile, Social Networking Party is Just Getting Started

2009-03-18T09:53:00.001-07:00

MyWingMan from M.A.D. Partners is free software available for download in the Apple iTunes Application Store and allows users to broadcast their profile and proximity to each other so they can meet a new friend or that someone special.
M.A.D.'s focus is making high quality, innovative mobile applications and MyWingMan is no exception
With the launch of MyWingMan coming on the heels of our gaming application for iPhone (Super Word Find), which has entertained over one hundred thousand users since its launch in January, we feel we are solidifying M.A.D. Partners as a trusted brand for mobile applications.

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) March 18, 2009 -- MAD Partners just launched its MyWingMan for iPhone application in the iTunes Application Store. MyWingMan is a GPS enabled, digital co-pilot for location-based, social networking and dating. Subscribers can use the "flyover" feature to get more details about people around them, then use the built in "flutter" chat feature to make contact. MyWingMan makes meeting new people safe, fun and convenient.

"M.A.D.'s focus is making high quality, innovative mobile applications and MyWingMan is no exception," says Chief Executive Officer Robert Smith. "With the launch of MyWingMan coming on the heels of our gaming application for iPhone (Super Word Find), which has entertained over one hundred thousand users since its launch in January, we feel we are solidifying M.A.D. Partners as a trusted brand for mobile applications."

Mobile technology is shaping social networking and dating trends
The percentage of mobile phone users who said they accessed social networks from their handset jumped 182 percent from September 2007 to October 2008, according to a study conducted by The Kelsey Group and ConStat. Research firm eMarketer forecasts that the mobile social networking market will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to more than 800 million worldwide by 2012. Furthermore, Juniper Research predicts that the value of the mobile dating market will grow to nearly $1.4 billion by 2013.

MyWingMan: digital co-pilot for making human connections
Creating a MyWingMan profile is easy and allows the user to set specific preferences on the type of person he wants to meet. MyWingMan displays his profile to others, and shows him users who match (by percentage) his preferences, and how close they are. If someone near him is worth meeting, he initiates contact using "flyover" and "flutter."

MyWingMan is available free of charge in the iTunes Application Store in the social networking category.

About MAD Partners, Ltd.
Mobile Application Development (MAD) Partners, Ltd. is a software development company headquartered in London, England with offices in Germany and the U.S. M.A.D. Partner's mission is to create innovative and high quality mobile applications including entertainment, security, and social networking applications. www.madpartnersltd.com www.getmywingman.com

Hi5's Glittering Gold

2009-03-18T09:49:00.002-07:00

They say not all that glitters is gold. Hi5, the world's third-largest social network behind Facebook and MySpace, hopes to prove otherwise.

The San Francisco-based company is creating an online "glitter economy" involving digital doo-dads that can be swapped and traded by its 70 million registered users. Hi5 hopes glitter will answer everyone's question about social networks: They're popular, but can they make money?

In the U.S., Hi5 gets little of the ink of its two much bigger competitors, Facebook and MySpace. But in some parts of the world--Mexico and Latin America, for instance--Hi5 is la más popular; Spanish-speakers made up 40% of the site's 59.6 million January visitors. (Overall, Hi5 gets about a quarter of Facebook's traffic and a little less than half of MySpace's, according to comScore.)

Hi5 was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi, 34, and Akash Garg, 31, both computer science graduates and second-generation Indian-Americans who grew up in the Midwest. As a garden-variety social networking site, Hi5 was in the black within a year of its launch, the founders say.

But since the company has raised more than $20 million in two rounds of venture capital, Yalamanchi and Garg knew investors would be looking for IPO-caliber returns. Until recently, conventional wisdom held that advertising would provide that route for well-trafficked Web sites. But last year's economic melt-down and the accompanying plummet in online ad prices, have raised profound questions about that strategy, even for behemoths like Facebook.

Enter glitter. Hi5 provides an entire mall full of digital gifts--kisses, roses, bottles of beer and more--that users can send each other, in a manner somewhat like e-mail attachments. Most cost less than a dollar and are perfect for impulse purchases, the phenomenon that made ringtones a billon-dollar business.

Users can also spend money to get a special design, or skin, for their home page; a Valentine's Day skin might cost 80 "coins" (the site's virtual currency) and last the entire holiday. Hi5 is planning to let programmers design games for the site, which could one day be on a cost-per-play basis. It has other ideas, too, like allowing users to attend "virtual concerts" with their friends, sitting together in the same chat room.

Does location-based networking need some direction?

2009-03-18T09:49:00.001-07:00

AUSTIN, Texas--There's Loopt, Brightkite, Whrrl, FourSquare, Rummble, uLocate, Google Latitude, Yahoo Fire Eagle, and goodness knows which other ones we haven't heard of yet. The location-based mobile networking space has been front and center at this year's South by Southwest Interactive Festival as hundreds of tech enthusiasts from around the country have been eager to find their friends and learn what's happening.

Perhaps it's fitting that in one of the festival's last panels on Tuesday afternoon, a handful of executives and high-level developers from the location-awareness space got together for a discussion called "Using GPS and Location to Enhance Social Networking." The big question: Do all these disparate services have to get interoperable?

Moderator Tom Marchioro, the location-based services architect at GPS navigation company Garmin, brought up an analogy to text messaging and Web-based IM, two early social-media technolgoies that took very different routes.

After years of carrier restriction, text messages "came up with a standard, and last year there were 1.9 trillion text messages sent worldwide, and it's a total cash cow," Marchioro said. "Internet messaging, 10 to 15 years after it was invented...is a bunch of independent networks and there's no monetization model. So that would argue that if we're going to have a bunch of location-based social networks, they might want to interoperate."

One panelist, Bryan Jones of Mobile Blast, brought up the OSLO Accord, a project raised at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which hopes to bring an OpenID-like standard to location sharing.

Not all the panelists seemed to be on board.

"We would love to be able to work with the other social networks out there, (but) some of the challenge with that is that your social graphs tend to be very different across different social networks," said Martin May, founder of Brightkite.

John Adams, from Twitter's operations team and who hinted that the microblogging service "hopes to have more services that are location-based in the future," said that it could be technically difficult as well. "Different services have different methods for identifying, storing, and locating different privacy data," he said. "With Brightkite, they have a much higher level of granularity around your location data...and it's very different to translate that between both systems."

There's really not a clear answer. And the entrance of two huge tech players into the space--Google's Latitude and Yahoo's Fire Eagle--has given location-based networking some validation. It's also possible that one of them will be the company to come up with the standard that will help level the playing field and allow different services to coexist much like cell carriers in the text-messaging space. Or, perhaps location-based networking will better mirror microblogging: a few years ago, there were several competing services like Pownce and Jaiku in addition to Twitter that are now either defunct or effectively afterthoughts.

One more thing on a slightly unrelated note: Adams did touch upon the "How is Twitter going to make money?" question. "We are looking at commercial accounts. We see a lot of potential in adding that service that (lets) you know you're talking to Shaq or that you know you're talking to a certain celebrity, and to weed out impersonation," he said, "without imposing fees on existing free services."

Breaking: Twitter to start selling "I'm Famous For Real" badges! Money problem solved!

Facing up to Facebook

2009-03-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

By Ray Williams, FP Careers Blog

This issue of social networking in the workplace is becoming a hot topic, particularly Facebook. These days, it's hard for anyone in Human Resources to avoid the hype by employees about social networking, particularly its use at work. Employers around the world increasingly find that social networking is indeed affecting working relationships and wondering what policy should be enacted.

Some employers have moved to ban the use of Facebook at work, believing that allowing access to it may encourage staff to waste time, or more specifically, work time at the employer's expense. These employers may also argue that use of the IT equipment that employees use is the prerogative of the employer. Other employers allow employees to use Facebook at will at work, seeing it does no harm.

Other issues arise. People have only one identity, and that often covers them for both their personal life and work. When everything in their life and work is written down online in Fa

cebook, who owns that information? What about privacy? What about commercial confidentiality? Damaging an employer's reputation? How is Facebook being used for recruitment of employees and privacy issues associated with that? And finally, what prevents someone from fraudulently claiming to work for a company or representing it on their Facebook site?

All important questions that HR executives now face.

So is Facebook just another way to organize information, not different than email or surfing the web for information? Should there be a specific Facebook or even social networking HR policy? If so, what would be reasonable limitations, if there should be any? Finally, if the use of Facebook in the workplace is a good thing, how might employers take advantage of this for productivity and business results?

Ray Williams is a contributor to FP Careers Blog. He is co-founder, Success IQ University and can be reached at rwilliams@successiqu.com

WebsiteBiz to Provide Interactive Marketing for Kellswater

2009-03-17T10:42:00.001-07:00

Interactive marketing agency WebsiteBiz (www.websitebiz.com) has been selected to develop a targeted online marketing strategy and lead generation campaign for Kellswater Bridge, located at Rogers Lake Road and Kannapolis Parkway. The development team for Kellswater Bridge is Kellswater Bridge Development, Merrifield Partners and Crosland.

“WebsiteBiz is delighted to help Kellswater redesign their site to more effectively reach their audience and promote this unique development,” says company president Eric Dudley. “We are looking forward to partnering with Kellswater to help them maximize their online channel.”

The scope of this mixed-use development in Kannapolis has grown in an effort to stay ahead of the expected residential growth resulting from the growth in the Charlotte Region and the North Carolina Research Campus. Which is all the more reason to work with WebsiteBiz, explains George Kiser, managing partner of Kellswater Bridge.

“We were seeking an online marketing firm that could deliver results. We chose WebsiteBiz because of their outstanding track record of developing and executing strategic marketing campaigns,” says Kiser.
Kellswater Bridge is named for the area in Ulster, Ireland. Located about 3.5 miles from Interstate 85 Exit 54 and encompassing approximately 400 acres, Kellswater Bridge is designed as a village community with sidewalks, rear-entry alleyways, parks and walking trails. The community will include single family and multi-family homes, plus office, medical and commercial space. Visit www.kellswater.com for more information. About WebsiteBiz

WebsiteBiz was launched in 1997 and has grown to become one of the top online marketing agencies in the U.S. Core competencies include developing results-driven Internet strategies, search engine optimization, paid search marketing, online media buying, permission-based email marketing, social media marketing, Web effectiveness, and Web analytics.

WebsiteBiz is ranked 52nd fastest growing private Advertising and Marketing company nationally and the 688th fastest growing private company nationally by Inc. magazine. Additionally, WebsiteBiz is the only exclusive online marketing agency ranked as one of the Top 25 Advertising and Marketing Agencies by the Charlotte Business Journal.

Call 888-901-7434 or visit www.WebsiteBiz.com for more information or join the conversation at www.MarketerInsight.com.

Internet Marketing Goes for Youth Vote

2009-03-17T10:38:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK — In a very short time, online marketing has gone from an experimental endeavor to become the focus of many companies’ strategic plans, especially for firms that cater to younger audiences.

Footwear firms are evolving their messages beyond simple banner ads on Websites to working with blogs to offer special deals to readers, engaging in social networking sites and creating viral video campaigns.

“Digital devices, that’s where the youth market is — that’s where they spend all their time,” said Thomas Spicer, managing director for Studiocom Boston, the agency that is handling online branding for KangaRoos.

For KangaRoos, reaching that younger audience was particularly important, since it hoped to reintroduce itself to a new generation. “Here was a brand that was popular in the 1980s, and the challenge was for them to relaunch in the next century. We took the view that online is the only way to reach the audience they needed to connect with — the teen group,” Spicer said.

The first step was to build a strong site presence that delivered the brand’s tone and provided detailed information to consumers and retailers, Spicer said. Then Roos took the campaign on the road, doing blogger outreach around the Superbowl through its relationship with the family of former brand ambassador and NFL great Walter Peyton, and by hosting events on Facebook.com.

“What we’re finding is that the old strategy, that as a brand you need to bring everyone to your site, isn’t enough,” Spicer said. “Now, you go where the fish are. If your audience is on Facebook, you spend the time and money to build a presence there.”

That idea, what Spicer calls a “distributed brand presence,” is rapidly catching on among shoe companies. Already, many brands actively participate on Facebook or Myspace, from sneaker labels Nike, Adidas and Puma to outdoor players Merrell and Keen and teen favorites Steve Madden, Vans and Pastry. Retailers, including H&M, Zara, Journeys, Gap and many others, also are using social networking to increase their exposure online.

The distributed method seems to be gaining some traction. Angela and Vanessa Simmons, the designers and faces of Pastry Shoes, which launched in March 2007, have more than 30,000 fans on their Myspace page, thanks, in part, to their celebrity from the MTV reality-TV show “Run’s House.”

And for the larger brands, those numbers increase. Converse, Nike and Adidas each have more than 1 million fans on their Facebook pages, where they post traffic-driving news, photos and videos, including a “shoot-out” between Adidas athletes Kevin Garnett and David Beckham that has netted almost 870,000 views on YouTube.

Another growing social destination is Twitter, a micro-blogging site that allows users to write and share updates (also called “tweats”). Among the industry players who are active there are Zappos.com’s Tony Hsieh, Iconix’s Neil Cole, Christian Louboutin, Shane and Shawn Ward of Detny and Ben Finklea from END Footwear.

“As a startup brand, social media strategy becomes even more important to educate and build awareness,” said Paul Curran, a spokesman for END. “Social networking is a spider web of connections that provides countless people the opportunity to expose the END story to friends, family and contacts.”

Curran said END is making a full push at sites including Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and YouTube in hopes of reaching its target audience: the twentysomething influencers.

Other companies are courting blog audiences. Last fall, Nine West established a branded boutique on Shoetube.tv, an online video channel. Lovely People is teaming up with InStyle.com for the launch of its e-commerce site next month. And Schwartz & Benjamin’s Daniblack brand works with fashion blogs including Stylecaster and Running with Heels.

“The Internet continues to be a vital tool to help Daniblack reach new consumers,” said Steve Shapiro, president of Schwartz & Benjamin. “We’re excited to be able to focus our marketing strategy on this channel of media and increase our exposure.”

For Keen though, dabbling in other Websites just wasn’t enough. This month, the outdoor shoe company is debuting its own social networking site that will be a greatest hits version of Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. Guests can create profiles, upload photos, blog about their activities and connect with other Keen enthusiasts online.

While the site, which was developed with Austin, Texas-based Wright Strategies, was a big investment time-wise, the cost of the entire build-out was comparable to a single national print campaign, said Gillian Kennedy, Keen’s web marketing manager.

“The nice thing about this is that it ties in with everything else we’re doing [in our marketing efforts],” she said. “It gives us a strong call to action at events. And it’s a nice way to build a home for the Keen community.”

All Web Leads Transforming Insurance Marketplace with Innovative Approach to Online Lead Generation

2009-03-17T10:35:00.002-07:00

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Austin-based All Web Leads, an online sales lead provider for the US insurance industry, is changing the insurance marketplace with a unique approach to lead generation that helps agents take advantage of the Internet to grow their business. The company’s service and technology platform connects insurance agents, brokers and carriers with prospective customers who are researching insurance plans online, while they are still at their computers. Additionally, All Web Leads is excited to announce the availability of its first Quarterly Online Insurance Index – a report describing online consumer shopping trends for auto, health and life insurance.

All Web Leads does not sell insurance, but offers a service that connects consumers who are searching for insurance products online with licensed insurance agents who can provide quotes for those products. Consumers opt-in to the process and are made aware that insurance agents will be contacting them once basic information has been submitted.

“All Web Leads brings the power of online marketing to the insurance industry in an effort to deliver the highest level of service and satisfaction to both consumers and insurance agents,” said Jim Waltrip, All Web Leads CEO. “The Quarterly Online Insurance Index takes our service one step further by providing insight into the motivating factors that drive consumer purchasing behavior as a way to help insurance agents better understand their customers and grow their businesses.”

The Quarterly Online Insurance Index is the first report of its kind and is based on data from approximately 3 million consumers (just over one percent of the total US population above the age of 18) who were searching online for insurance from July 2007 through year-end 2008. The Index provides basic, foundational data about consumers and what they are looking for when shopping for insurance online and serves to be a resource guide for how insurance agents can better market to potential customers.

Key findings from the Index show that consumers are becoming increasingly more comfortable shopping for insurance online and that economic conditions are having an impact on insurance purchasing behavior.

* On a quarter-over-quarter basis, between Q4 2007 and Q4 2008, shoppers looking for insurance via the Web grew by 71%, with the biggest gains in life insurance.
* Taking into account state populations, on a per-capita basis the largest percentage of consumers searching for insurance were from smaller and more rural states, demonstrating the Internet’s ability to provide important and valuable services that might otherwise be unavailable locally.
* In Q4-2007, 59% of consumers looking online for health insurance were uninsured. At the end of Q3-2008, the percentage of online consumers looking for health insurance who lacked insurance increased significantly to 86%.

Chuck Taggart sells MEGA Life & Health insurance products in Massachusetts and set a new sales record in 2008, with over $3 million in new policies written. Chuck has been an All Web Leads customer since 2006.

Chuck believes selling health insurance in a competitive market like Massachusetts requires a good source of high-quality sales leads. That's why Chuck uses All Web Leads. The contacts he makes will be with people who are actively searching for the types of products he sells. Thanks to All Web Leads, Chuck has accelerated his business and improved his daily productivity.

Since 2005, All Web Leads has been revolutionizing the insurance industry by offering a new approach for insurance prospecting. In an industry that has in the past relied on traditional means of lead generation such as networking and direct mail, All Web Leads is helping insurance agents leverage the Internet for more effective selling and real-time lead generation. The company has provided more than five million leads to its network of insurance agents and saw 300% percent year over year growth from 2007-2008.

Most recently, All Web Leads sponsored the second annual LeadsCon conference in Las Vegas earlier this month and was a supporting sponsor of this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Web Awards, a competition that uncovers the best new websites and celebrates those who are building tomorrow's online trends. A ceremony honoring this year’s Web Award winners took place last night during the SXSW Interactive Festival, a five day event that brings together the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology.

About All Web Leads

Founded in 2005, All Web Leads (www.allwebleads.com) is a leading online sales lead provider for the US insurance industry. The company delivers real-time, targeted, high-quality sales leads to top insurance producers. All Web Lead’s technology-driven approach to online marketing helps bring together agents with qualified customers who are actively searching online for insurance products. The company is headquartered in Austin, TX.

The importance of social media in online marketing

2009-03-17T10:35:00.001-07:00

16 March 2009

Social media has been around for a while, yet not many companies in South Africa have realised its potential. Leading online marketing company, AlterSage educate savvy marketers on why social media is the next big thing to watch.

"Social media is a powerful platform and can create great awareness, but in order to achieve maximum exposure, it is important to utilise a multi-channel approach," says Christine da Silva, Founder and Chief Strategist of AlterSage. This means not only using online channels but also offline channels to create a through-the-line approach.

Social media is defined by Wikipedia as "primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings." Social media comprises not only social networks like Facebook and MySpace, but also forums, blogs and podcasts, to name a few.

One of the best social media marketing campaigns ever seen was created by Barack Obama's marketing team. His election campaign proved that online marketing is not a trend, but here to stay. In South Africa, there are a few examples of social media campaigns that have been successful, with the latest one from Perdeberg Winery impeccably integrating online and offline media to create awareness for its products.

How can online marketing benefit you? Say for example you own a Cape Town-based company that specialises in high-end office furniture. Your promotional campaign consists of radio advertisements, print advertisements and flyers. A potential client might hear your advert on the radio or see the printed version in a magazine in passing, but when they want to contact you they can't remember the name of your company. What do consumers do these days? They turn to Google. They remember the ad mentioned "high-end office furniture" and this is what they type into the search bar on Google. "If your website does not rank on at least the first two pages of Google's search results, you don't exist in the mind of the consumer," says Da Silva.

Social media is one of the elements that can create a buzz for your brand online. What are the other elements? Social media works well in conjunction with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which forms the foundation of a successful online marketing campaign. Therefore, if you're running ads on radio, television or in print, it's important to ensure that the keywords mentioned in these advertisements are relevant to your website. "What people remember from an ad is what they are going to use when searching for you online," says Da Silva.

To create a more comprehensive campaign, Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) can be included. PPC can complement an SEO campaign very nicely, especially in the early stages of an SEO campaign when the website in question is not yet ranking favourably in search engines. PPC is an excellent tool to get immediate exposure on the search engines results pages and across content networks.

It is important to remember to close the loop. All promotional activities and materials, be they online or offline, should tie in and complement each other. With the world's current economic situation it is important to use channels that yield return on investment (ROI). Online marketing enables you to measure and track exactly who visit your website, how long they stayed on a page, which pages they were most interested in and so forth.

If you are interested in an online marketing campaign but don't know where to start, contact us for a complimentary Lite Website Audit which will highlight areas that can be improved upon in order to increase ROI from your website.

Online Video Ads A Healthy Choice for Small Businesses

2009-03-17T10:34:00.001-07:00

Savvy health and wellness service providers are using online video advertising from Jivox to build their brands, promote their services and attract new clients

San Mateo, CA (PRWEB) March 16, 2009 -- The recent recession has been tough for service businesses, but some savvy health and wellness companies have found a creative and cost-effective way to attract new clients: online video ads from Jivox. Jivox, the online video advertising service that helps local businesses reach customers online, is being used by many health and wellness companies to create high-impact online video ad campaigns that build awareness for their services and bring new clients in the door.

Jivox Logo
Jivox Logo

Businesses such as Vitality Chiropractic Center, massage therapy studio Osetra Wellness, and fast-growing biotech firm diaDexus are joining satisfied advertisers nationwide that have already achieved marketing success with Jivox video advertising. Jivox offers free ad creation and an extensive network of local TV and radio stations, newspapers, weather and other specialty websites, allowing smaller and local advertisers to create, target, deliver and measure online video ad campaigns.

Vitality Chiropractic Center:
"We've tried everything from advertising in local newspapers, to paying for enhanced listings on local directory services like Yelp, to buying keywords on Google Adwords; but until we started using Jivox, we hadn't had much success reaching new patients with local advertising," said Dr. Lisa Walsh, director of Vitality Chiropractic Center in San Mateo, California. "With Jivox, we created and launched an online video campaign for under $300 - and I immediately started getting in-bound calls and quickly signed up several new patients as a result of the ad."

Vitality used Jivox to create different versions of its video ad campaign targeted at specific segments, such as people who'd injured their backs or people new to chiropractic. Using Jivox's easy-to-use online video creation tools, Vitality also added clickable coupons and various stock footage, images, and music to each ad. Jivox also allowed Vitality to measure the effectiveness of each campaign by tracking views, clicks, coupon downloads, site visits, and calls to its offices. What's more, with the Jivox "Video Engagement Score," Vitality was able to see a quantitative value of its ads relative to the performance of all the ads in the Jivox Publisher Network.

"Unlike the 'black hole' of most local ad spending, with Jivox, I am able to track each click, coupon download, and phone call that comes from the campaign using Jivox's measurement system, so I know which version of my ads are the most effective," added Dr. Walsh.

Osetra Wellness:
Osetra Wellness is a full-service massage therapy studio in San Mateo run by licensed practitioner Sophia Barnes. After moving to a new studio location in October 2008, Osetra wanted to attract new customers to try out its full range of innovative massage therapy services. Osetra, which first tried print ads but did not receive one single new referral from them, turned to Jivox to create an online video ad offering a special promotion for new clients.

"I'm a total rookie when it comes to online video, but I was able to very simply make a series of ads, changing the content, promotions, and calls-to-action on the fly - and the success of our Jivox video campaigns has been even better than we expected," said Kay Harris, a graphic designer and marketing consultant who created Osetra's Jivox ad campaigns. "In the first month the campaign ran, it received nearly 12,000 views, 65 clicks, and 23 coupons were downloaded. We've already received one confirmed booking directly from the ad and expect to get more soon."

diaDexus:
diaDexus is a biotech firm located in South San Francisco that has developed the PLAC® Test, the only blood test cleared by the FDA to aid in assessing risk for both coronary heart disease and ischemic stroke associated with atherosclerosis. The company wanted to spread the word about the PLAC Test to physicians and consumers in select markets, but had never tried online marketing. The company turned to Jivox to launch two online video campaigns to raise awareness of its flagship product in its target markets.

"Jivox helped diaDexus raise awareness of the PLAC Test on the web. The Jivox creative team helped us create two separate video ads that clearly showed the value of our product in a concise way - one aimed at doctors and one aimed at patients," said Sarah Schiltz, Director of Marketing and Sales at diaDexus. "The campaigns were extremely successful; we put a call-to-action to visit our site in the ad, and our site traffic surged during the campaign."

"The health and wellness industry has been impacted by the recent recession as consumers and businesses hesitate before spending on services, but smart businesses in the sector are turning to effective video advertising solutions to build their clientele even in this downturn," said Diaz Nesamoney, CEO of Jivox. "For just a few hundred dollars a month, businesses can be up and running with video advertising - attracting new clients and building their brand reputation via engaging video content."

About Jivox:
Jivox helps small businesses reach customers with online video advertising. Jivox provides advertisers with an online, self-service tool to create high-impact video ads using stock footage, images, music or their existing video assets. Jivox ensures high-quality placement of customer ads through the Jivox Publisher Network, a locally focused network of premium publishers that includes hundreds of local TV and radio stations, newspapers, weather and other specialty websites, and offers geographic ad targeting at the city level as well as demographic and contextual targeting. Jivox is a privately held company based in San Mateo, Calif. For more information about Jivox, please visit www.jivox.com.

At Austin Meeting, Seeking Exposure for New Tech Products

2009-03-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

AUSTIN, Tex. — Benjamin Satterfield, a 33-year-old Internet entrepreneur, knows how fickle the Web’s tastemakers can be.

Last year he unveiled an online collaboration tool called Twiddla at the annual South by Southwest Interactive conference here, which attracts thousands of influential Webheads. Twiddla won praise and even a prize at the conference’s Interactive Web Awards. But the spotlight quickly faded.

“We had millions of hits to the site,” Mr. Satterfield said. “Then it died off. I was in a trough of despair.”

This year, he tried to build something that would be used long after the conference buzz died down. He created Gigotron, a free Web and iPhone application that rounds up listings of nearby concerts.

The service is already running in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, and Mr. Satterfield is about to take the wraps off a version tailored for the Austin music scene. “You know you’re going to get traction at South by Southwest,” he said.

Mr. Satterfield is one of many entrepreneurs who flock to the conference in the hope of capturing the attention of attendees and elevating their product or service out of obscurity.

Twitter, the chatty Web service that is quickly entering the mainstream, first hit it big during the 2007 conference because of giant screens installed around the convention center displaying Twitter messages from the crowd. Shawn O’Keefe, who has been helping organize the tech-oriented portion of South by Southwest for nearly a decade, said that in the early days the conference also helped give a lift to the makers of the blogging tools Blogger and Movable Type.

But wooing the technorati is a tricky business. Start-up companies are aware that in-your-face marketing is a good way to scare off the kinds of people who go to South by Southwest.

JagTag, a company based in Princeton, N.J., that incorporates barcodes into marketing campaigns for the benefit of camera-phone users, decided not to attend the conference. Instead, the company sent a single employee loaded with several thousand promotional postcards bearing barcodes. “We didn’t want to do a hard sell,” said Dudley Fitzpatrick, the chief executive. “We just wanted to show it to them.”

“I’ve just been dropping them off at tables where people were taking a break,” said Scott Falconer, the JagTag employee assigned to promote the company. Attendees who snapped a photo of the barcode and sent it to JagTag were rewarded with listings of parties and events around Austin.

To some, though, handing out pieces of paper seemed a little primitive and, well, uncool. Rohan Walder and Mark Sando, who traveled from London to represent Rawrip, the music discovery site they work for, were not impressed by the fliers in the free swag bag that attendees received.

“When we first got our gift bags, we went through and threw away every bit of paper,” Mr. Sando said. “You would think that at a digital conference, they’d think of more intelligent ways” to promote a company.

The team behind PeopleBrowsr, an online dashboard that tracks updates across social networking Web sites like Flickr and Twitter, elected not to overtly market their Web application at all. “If we had a booth, I would be slashing my wrists,” said Jodee Rich, the chief executive.

Instead, they decided to release a special version of their service for South by Southwest attendees that lets users track events here. They got a few write-ups from tech blogs before the conference, and they plan to spend their time in Austin gathering feedback on the tool.

“We’re not pushing to the community anymore. We’re no longer hiring girls to pass out cards,” Mr. Rich said. “The community either loves it or they don’t.”

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst with Forrester Research who specializes in social media, put it succinctly: “Heavy marketing doesn’t work with the cool kids.” Those “cool kids” are the prominent bloggers or influential Twitterers whose endorsement could be valuable.

For Mr. Satterfield, even the best-laid plans were not a sure thing. Throughout the conference, cellphone coverage suffered as the influx of smartphone users overwhelmed networks. That could cut into the number of people trying out the new version of Gigotron during the music portion of the conference.

“I’m definitely worried,” Mr. Satterfield said, as the cellular network overload is “only going to get worse.” But he made arrangements to set up his own Wi-Fi router. That way, he said, “at least we’ll have a decent shot at getting some people to try it out.”

Four Cheap or Free CRM Tools for Marketers

2009-03-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

While most of us work on (or talk about!) generating leads for our businesses or clients, few of us seem to know a heck of a lot about what to do with them once we get them. This is especially true of small to mid-sized businesses, nonprofits, and schools that seem to jump into online marketing with a "build it and they will come" mentality and then have no idea what to do with "them" once they get there.

Customer resource management (CRM) software has been around for a long time, but for the most part it's out of the price range of organizations without big bucks to throw around -- which these days is pretty much everybody. And having a CRM system to track leads that come in through your site or your online marketing activities is vital if you're looking to convert those leads into customers, members, or students. But for companies on a tight budget, there don't seem to be too many alternatives to the expensive packages. Or are there?

Over the past several years, Salesforce.com has blossomed because it costs less than $100 per month per user, making it affordable for many companies. And the fact that it's a hosted solution -- rather than software you have to install -- means it's quick to set up and get working. But I started wondering: are there even cheaper solutions out there?

Happily, it turns out there are.

I used a few specific criteria that seemed important to the kinds of organizations I've mentioned above.

* Does the solution integrate with online marketing/SEM (define) campaigns?

* Can it handle e-mail? That's vital if you're going to follow up with your leads.

* Does it provide reporting? Justifying ROI (define) is especially important in a tough economy.

* Can it easily import and export data? If it can't, you're going to be limited with what you can do with your leads.

* Is it relatively easy to set up, easy to use, and (perhaps most importantly) cheaper than the paid version of SalesForce.com?

Four packages met my criteria and all seem like great solutions for lead-tracking on a budget.

FreeCRM

While FreeCRM is loaded with gobs of nifty features, it doesn't seem to have the capability to easily integrate with paid SEM or major ad reporting software. It's on my list mainly because of all the other features it offers (for free!).

It's an attractive alternative if you have a reasonably-competent coder who could import contacts generated by your marketing into FreeCRM using its Outlook/POP account/CSV and other importing functions. Once you do, you'll be able to take advantage of its extremely robust e-mail creation and tracking functions to follow up with your leads.

You can even use its group calendar and team-based tools to distribute access and contacts to your customer service and marketing teams. There's even an integrated survey tool and form builder for gathering customer information.

As a Web-based tool it's easy to use: just log in and create an account. A free version runs banner ads, provides no support, and limits your storage to 10MB, but for only $14.95 per month per user, you can eliminate these restrictions.

CiviCRM

CiviCRM has caused a bit of a stir in the nonprofit world lately by providing many features previously only found in high-end (and fairly expensive) non-profit CRM systems for free in an open-source format. Its four modules allow you to take donations online, plan and manage events, generate and manage e-mail campaigns, and manage/track membership programs.

Cool, huh? But being open source and not provided as a hosted solution, you're going to need a tech-savy PHP (developer to install it on your servers and mold it into a solution that fits your exact needs. This is also a great benefit: you aren't locked into a hosted solution that makes you change the way your organization works.

Better yet, its open-source nature makes it extremely flexible for integrating it into your CMS. It also reportedly plays well with the popular Joomla and Drupal open-source CMS solutions.

As for features, it doesn't have features that directly integrate with SEM or ad tracking software. But the coder you get to install and configure CiviCRM could probably easily link it to your existing SQL databases that capture leads. If you can get by that hurdle, CiviCRM has great e-mail handling capabilities, sophisticated reporting, and can input data from a variety of formats. Oh, and all those other nifty non-profit CRM tools like membership management, donations, and event planning.

As for cost: how's "free" grab you?

Salesforce.com Free Edition

Yeah, I know: this might be cheating to mention Salesforce.com's free edition after seeming to put it off the list at the beginning of this column. But for a small business (or freelance business) that wants to tap into the power of customer relationship management for free, even the limited functionality of the "free" edition still makes it something to consider.

As a Google partner, Salesforce.com integrates fantastically well with SEM campaigns. However it's a bit hard to tell how well this works with the free version. Ditto for ad campaign management and tracking. While the free version will import contacts, it won't export them.

Even so, it's incredibly easy to log in, create an account, and get started. And it's free. For small businesses or solo operators looking to dip their toes into CRM, it's a good place to start.

ZohoCRM

Out of this list of free or cheap CRM solutions, Zoho looks like the winner if you want to integrate with your ad campaigns. It works with AdWords/paid SEM; it integrates with major ad reporting software; and it appears to have darn good reporting capabilities (that also integrate with Web analytics packages). Data can be imported and exported via XML or CSV for easy import and export into other programs you might be using to manage your campaigns (such as snailmail mailmerge software). And considering that it's free for three or fewer users, it's an incredible bargain.

The free version's limitations are few: the free version doesn't have auto-responders for e-mail, has no workflow or roles-based security, and lacks many e-mail functions. Even so, if you want to step up to the Paid or Enterprise versions, they're only going to set you back either $12 or $25 per month for up to four users. That's still cheaper than the full-blown Salesforce.com offering. It's an alternative worth checking out.

Join us for Search Engine Strategies New York March 23-27 at the Hilton New York. The only major search marketing conference and expo on the East Coast, SES New York will be packed with more than 70 sessions, including a ClickZ track, plus more than 150 exhibitors, networking events, parties, and training days.

Cashing Out: Week of March 8th -14th, 2009 in Online Marketing News

2009-03-17T10:29:00.000-07:00

Google Starts Behavioral Ad Targeting

It was only a matter of time but Google has officially stepped into the realm of behavioral ad targeting. Google says the purpose behind this move is to make ads more interesting and relevant to users and “create value for everyone”. The twist, compared to other behavioral models, is that Google will allow users to modify their preferences for ad types. Otherwise the ads will be weighted based on how often a user with a Google cookie visits particular type of site. How well this works and whether there is a privacy backlash by users who are feeling stalked will depend on how well Google refines its algorithm.

Retail Therapy Courtesy of Zappos and Magnify

Two of the smartest companies online have joined forces together to build a retail video community. Zappos and Magnify announced their new initiative BoxBreak. The idea is that customers are encouraged to capture their experience through taking video when they open a Zappos purchase. Videos are then uploaded to the BoxBreak site, hosted by Magnify, where other users can vote on their favorite videos. Prizes like $100 gift certificates going to the most popular will provide the incentive. A fun idea.

SocialMedia.com Tries Out Social Ads

Dubbing their new effort Word of Mouth Impressions, SocialMedia.com has launched IAB compliant ad units based on social recommendations. The value pitch to advertisers is that ads based on social recommendations will cut through the noisy in social media. Will be interesting to see what the ROAS is right for advertisers and whether consumers will participate.

- - - - - -

Oh yeah and a small little event called SXSW has everyone online buzzing about Austin. Just take a look on Twitter.

Search Marketing World Conference & Expo Returns for 2009

2009-03-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

Interactive Return, one of Ireland's leading online marketing companies, is delighted to announce that it will host Search Marketing World 2009 on Wednesday, 1st April in the Crown Plaza Hotel, Dublin. The conference, now in its third year, is aimed at anyone interested in improving the online visibility of their website and is particularly relevant to those working within the marketing space. Topics discussed include search engine marketing, social media marketing, display advertising integration, online reputation management, and many other elements of online marketing.

Dublin, Ireland (PRWEB) March 15, 2009 -- Interactive Return, one of Ireland's leading online marketing companies, is delighted to announce that it will host Search Marketing World 2009 (http://www.searchmarketingworld2009.com) on Wednesday, 1st April in the Crown Plaza Hotel, Dublin. The conference, now in its third year, is aimed at anyone interested in improving the online visibility of their website and is particularly relevant to those working within the marketing space. Topics discussed include search engine marketing, social media marketing, display advertising integration, online reputation management, and many other elements of online marketing.

The event boasts top Irish and international experts in the fields of search and online marketing and caters for people at all levels from complete beginners to those at an advanced level. Speakers (http://www.searchmarketingworld2009.com/search-marketing-world-speakers.htm) include world renowned Chris Sherman of Search Engine Land, Aodhan Cullen founder of Stat Counter and winner of Golden Spiders Internet Hero award as well as speakers from Google, Microsoft, Irish International, Outrider and Travel Affiliate to name just a few.

The conference will give delegates the opportunity to choose from 18 up to the minute sessions as well as walk in clinics with the speakers. The sessions will pay particular attention to the role of search and online marketing in the current economic climate. Other sessions will include 'Social Media Marketing: Re-defining the Customer', 'Search Advertising Fundamentals,' 'Take Back the Web: Brand & Reputation Management' and 'The Ad Industry and Online Marketing.'

'We are delighted to be running the conference again this year at a time when online marketing is really going to prove value for money,' commented Martin Murray, Chief Executive Interactive Return. 'The conference is particularly relevant to marketing and advertising professionals but would be beneficial for people in every profession,' he continued.

A place on this day course will cost €395 and any attendee at the conference new to Google AdWords can benefit from €50 FREE Google advertising. For more information or to book a place please log on to www.searchmarketingworld2009.com

Online info can be used against you

2009-03-17T09:56:00.002-07:00

LEE COUNTY: More than 250 million people worldwide use sites like MySpace and Facebook, but beware friends aren't the only ones using the sites. Law enforcement and attorneys are using the websites to investigate potential witnesses and jurors.

Social networking websites are all the rage. It's a way to keep up with your friends and coworkers, share pictures, post videos – you name it.

Their use is so prevalent, prosecutors and defense attorneys are now using sites like Facebook and MySpace to research their cases.

Loudcrowd Blends Gaming, Music, and Social Networking

2009-03-17T09:56:00.001-07:00

Loudcrowd - Front Page

There are social networks for music lovers and social networks for gamers, and in both cases, they run the gamut from innovative to useless. None of them have yet truly made the jump to mobile platforms, blending gaming, music, and on-the-go networking, though--something that Conduit Labs' new network Loudcrowd hopes to fix.

Launched at the SXSW conference in Austin this week, Loudcrowd aims to create a unique blend of new and interesting music, Web-based rhythm and music games, and other incentives such as contests and prizes. The service hopes to convince music lovers to sign up and use the network to discover new music as well as customize their avatars and make new friends. The idea behind Loudcrowd isn't particularly new; it's what the service plans to do that's interesting.

The service sounds a lot like TheSixtyOne, where there's an interactive and engaging element to traditional social networking around a user's favorite tunes. In Loudcrowd's case, the network will feature a number of games that members can play with one another and use to discover each other's music preferences.

Loudcrowd - Spin

At its heart, Loudcrowd is a social network about music, and the service allows members to sign up and hear new songs from such bands as Van She, Santigold, Ladyron, and more. The service has partnered with labels XL Recordings, 4AD Records, Domino, DFZ, and Modular to assemble a music catalog of over 50 artists and 250 tracks that new members can explore on day one. You can browse featured playlists and editor-suggested tracks, or you can sit back and let the Loudcrowd digital DJ play music the service thinks you'd enjoy. If you're still hungry for new music, the service posts new tracks daily on the Loudcrowd playlist and features mixes by guest DJs.

Loudcrowd's developers have also included features where members can be the DJ and play the songs they like, or play Web-based rhythm games featuring the songs of bands like Kid Sister and Cut Copy to pass the time or discover new music. In either case, you can share your favorite tunes or play a game with other Loudcrowd members and make new friends. Additionally, you can play the games to open up new songs, or to win prizes you can redeem on the site.

Loudcrowd - Dance

To add a personal touch to the site's social network, you can also play games for points or enter contests to win prizes that you can redeem to spice up your profile. Among some of the prizes are stamps and badges for your profile, clothes or outfits for your avatar, or the ability to DJ specifically for other users. In the end, the goal is to give all of the service's users the feeling of being at a party together, where they can listen to the same tunes, interact with one another in real-time, and play games together.

The "virtual goods" and avatar customization should sound familiar to anyone who has experience with online games like Neopets and Gaia Online; in both cases the services supplement their networks with an addictive model wherein the more you use the service, the more you win, and the more you win, the more status you can obtain in the game.

Whether the model will successfully extend to music remains to be seen, but it appears that Loudcrowd's target audience is about the same age and demographic at those games and less targeted to audiophiles, serious music lovers, or artists looking to share or promote their own music. If Loudcrowd takes off, it could be a premier destination for young music lovers looking to hear their favorite artists. The addition of interactive games and the ability to connect with other members and build a network are just more incentive to keep coming back.

Ad projections cut for social networks

2009-03-17T09:55:00.001-07:00

With the economy taking a toll on even social-networking sites, eMarketer reduced its global forecast for advertising in the sector this year to $2.3 billion, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Social networks, on a worldwide basis, are expected to post advertising growth of 17 percent this year, compared with eMarketer's earlier projections of a 32 percent growth rate, the Journal noted.

The revised forecast follows a cut eMarketer made in December, when it reduced its U.S. projections for social-network advertising spending in 2009 to $1.3 billion.

That 2009 revision translated into a U.S. growth rate of 10.2 percent for social networks, compared with its earlier forecast of a 53 percent growth rate.

In some regards, the revised global forecast comes as no surprise, given that the United States accounts for a little more than half of the total advertising spending on social networks worldwide.

Social-Networking Sites to See Slower Ad Growth

2009-03-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

By Emily Steel

Advertising-spending growth on social networks is going to take a major hit amid the recession and the sites’ continued struggle to develop effective ad models, according to a new report from research firm eMarketer.

The firm plans to release on Wednesday its revised projections for global ad spending on social networks. It forecasts an increase this year of 17%, to an estimated $2.3 billion. While any growth in the otherwise dismal ad market is a bright spot, the projection is just over half the 32% growth rate the research firm previously projected. In the U.S., ad spending on social networks is expected to increase 10.2%, reaching $1.3 billion this year.

Rivals MySpace and Facebook, the two largest social-networking sites by visitors, continue to dominate. The two companies will account for two-thirds of total U.S. social-network ad spending and will hold a smaller share outside the U.S., attracting 40% of world-wide spending in 2009, eMarketer says.

For the past few years, social networks have furiously experimented with new ad formats to translate their massive popularity among consumers to ad dollars. Marketers continue to show interest in tapping into social networks to reach consumers but increasingly are looking outside buying ads. Instead, they are creating new programs, such as building fan communities on the sites.

Advertising might not be the way for social-networking sites to find a revenue stream, eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson says in the report. She highlights the success of subscriber-based revenue streams on sites such as Mixi in Japan and Cyworld in Korea. “Social network sites must have multiple revenue streams to stay viable in the global economic crisis,” she says.

Can Social Networks Foster Security?

2009-03-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's a departure from the stance that most people are taking these days when it comes to issues of social networking and security, but some industry players are pitching the idea that the ever-more-popular communications applications could someday replace more traditional messaging platforms based on their ability to be more centrally protected from attacks.

Adam O'Donnell, senior research scientist at messaging security specialist Cloudmark, points to his company's recently announced agreement to protect users of the massive MySpace networking site from spam, malware and other threats as proof that such hosted messaging systems could prove useful in addressing the landslide of unwanted content and attacks that have overrun traditional e-mail, IM and publishing systems.

Cloudmark, which has been filtering all user-generated content on the 130 million-member strong MySpace network for attacks for over a year, claims that it can stop threats from emerging both by examining the materials for malicious behavior as they are posted, and via the use of real-time feedback aggregated from the application's users.

O'Donnell admits that it may not be tomorrow that enterprises start chucking their e-mail servers for MySpace accounts, but many different variations of today's social networking platforms will emerge over time, and one of their primary advantages over today's messaging architectures will be their ability to be managed centrally by a single, integrated security provider, the expert contends.

"The best proof of what we've been able to do was the fact that not long after we started working with MySpace, spam went from being a big concern to an afterthought, people just stopped talking about it, and there had been a lot of complaints before that," O'Donnell said. "I think that we'll see something closer to these social networks replacing what we think of today as messaging, in part because with this model for security you can have an integrated technology that pushes the feature set faster and does a better job of keeping up with attackers."

O'Donnell points out that many sales and marketing teams are already using systems like Facebook and LinkedIn for tasks that were traditionally carried out in e-mail client applications, in part because there's less spam and unwanted noise aimed at users of the sites compared to established e-mail platforms. Combined with the success of hosted business applications such as Salesforce.com, it will simply make more sense for enterprise messaging tools to be parceled together with other online communications systems, especially from the standpoint of security, he said.

The success of SaaS tools like Salesforce also illustrate that businesses are willing to offload their applications management and sensitive company information to third party service providers, claims the security researcher, though he recognizes that it will take time for some companies to part with their existing systems, in some cases related to concerns over security. However, for every organization that sees hosted messaging infrastructure and security management as a potential point of risk, there will be others who see the advantages of letting specialists handle many of their problems.

Cloudmark has yet to ink additional social networks to filtering deals, but it is pursuing the business opportunity aggressively along with continuing to offer filtering capabilities to individual organizations. The company has at the very least established talks with all the other major networks, however, and interest in its services is growing, O'Donnell said.

"I think the entire security industry needs to look at where a lot of these applications are going driven by consumer technologies including social networking, it's not going to be about protecting the desktop or the in-box anymore, and those vendors who remain focused merely on protecting traditional assets won't have the reach necessary to keep up with their customers," he said.

Matt Hines has been following the IT industry for over a decade as a reporter and blogger, and has been specifically focused on the security space since 2003, including a previous stint writing for eWeek and contributing to the Security Watch blog. Hines is currently employed as marketing communications manager at Core Security Technologies, a Boston-based maker of security testing software. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Core Security, and neither the company, nor its products and services will be actively discussed in the blog. Please send news, research or tips to SecurityWatchBlog@gmail.com.

How Google adwords work - Basics

2009-03-13T03:05:00.000-07:00

Following is a simple demonstration by the google Chief Economist, Hal Varian to show you how Adwords work. Rather than talking about Advanced features on google Adwords, this talks about the very basics and above all how to minimuize what you pay for ads.

Amazon ships Kindle 2 day earlier than planned

2009-03-08T09:47:00.002-07:00

SEATTLE -- Amazon.com Inc. says it is shipping the new version of its Kindle electronic reading device a day earlier than it initially planned.

The Seattle-based online retailer said it began shipping the $359 Kindle 2 on Monday to make sure it is going out to customers by Tuesday, which was the date it gave when Amazon announced the updated device on Feb. 9.

The new Kindle keeps the same price as the first version of the e-reader, but is thinner and includes upgraded features. It can store more 1,500 books -- instead of 200 in the previous version -- and can read text aloud from two small speakers on its back.

TechFest
REDMOND, Wash. -- When Microsoft Corp. researchers think about the consumer technologies of the future, some of the physical touchstones of today, like sticky notes and souvenirs, take on digital form.
Researchers from all over the world converged on Microsoft's main campus Tuesday to show off their latest projects in a hall set up like a school science fair. All the programs and gadgets on display were works in progress, and only some will make it into real-world technology.
But even as the software maker tightens its belt to survive the economic downturn, it has pledged to continue spending money on research that doesn't neatly translate into profits.
Researchers from Cambridge, England, traveled to the annual meeting, dubbed TechFest, with a series of prototypes meant for the home.
digital equivalent of stuffing memorabilia and photographs haphazardly into a box and tossing it in the basement.
David Kirk, one of the Cambridge researchers, plugged a thumb drive into the device, which looks like a portable kitchen cart with an embedded touch screen. Digital pictures splashed onto the screen, and Kirk could spin and zoom by dragging his fingers across the surface -- much like how Microsoft's touch-screen Surface table is operated.
The program lets people create virtual boxes to stash photos, and eventually, videos. It can also take a photo of an object placed on the surface and stash that, too. Kirk said prototypes have been placed in three families' living rooms, with surprising results, including the digital capture of at least one live kitten.
The Cambridge group also showed off a program to help archive digital ephemera, from photos to Twitter messages, along a timeline, and one that "hand-delivers" saved messages and reminders when people with linked Bluetooth phones stand in close proximity.
Researchers from the U.S. and Asia demonstrated projects that fall into a category they call "augmented reality," or adding a layer of digital information to the physical world. Michael Cohen, a Redmond-based researcher, pointed a cell phone camera at a building facade. On the phone screen, labels popped up, and Cohen described a scenario in which clicking on one would bring up the restaurant's menu. The underlying program matched the shapes and shades in what the camera "saw" to a stored image and its labels.
When Darren Edge, a Beijing-based researcher, turned a handheld Webcam toward his own laptop, his screen switched into a mode that showed what his Webcam saw -- the computer, his desk -- plus a chaotic layer of dozens of virtual sticky notes scattered on the screen.
The idea, he said, is to let the computer user store bits of information, photos and Web bookmarks in a way that's more like the physical world. (He did not say whether he thought masses of sticky notes should be a computer user's organizational paradigm.)
One of the researchers who brought Surface and its spherical cousin to TechFest was back, this time standing inside a handmade cardboard dome. Instead of swiping his hands across a screen, he waved them above a camera-and-projector combination. Each gesture zoomed or twirled Wilson and the reporters standing inside the dome through different types of three-dimensional data -- a planetarium-style display of the universe, or a visual web-like representation of someone's Facebook social network.
Another set of projects moved the touch-sensitive area to the back of hand-held devices, making it easier to navigate without blocking the content on small screens with big fingers.
Redmond researchers also continue to come up with ideas for tasks that should be doable from the car. Michael Seltzer climbed into a mock-up of a driver's seat. An "earcon" -- the audio equivalent of an icon -- prompted him to listen to a computerized voice reading his text message, and he spoke back to the machine to send a quick text reply.
Other projects centered on saving power in data centers, improving Web search and social networking and making better use of computers in schools in emerging markets.
The program lets people create virtual boxes to stash photos, and eventually, videos. It can also take a photo of an object placed on the surface and stash that, too. Kirk said prototypes have been placed in three families' living rooms, with surprising results, including the digital capture of at least one live kitten.
The Cambridge group also showed off a program to help archive digital ephemera, from photos to Twitter messages, along a timeline, and one that "hand-delivers" saved messages and reminders when people with linked Bluetooth phones stand in close proximity.
Researchers from the U.S. and Asia demonstrated projects that fall into a category they call "augmented reality," or adding a layer of digital information to the physical world. Michael Cohen, a Redmond-based researcher, pointed a cell phone camera at a building facade. On the phone screen, labels popped up, and Cohen described a scenario in which clicking on one would bring up the restaurant's menu. The underlying program matched the shapes and shades in what the camera "saw" to a stored image and its labels.
When Darren Edge, a Beijing-based researcher, turned a handheld Webcam toward his own laptop, his screen switched into a mode that showed what his Webcam saw -- the computer, his desk -- plus a chaotic layer of dozens of virtual sticky notes scattered on the screen.
The idea, he said, is to let the computer user store bits of information, photos and Web bookmarks in a way that's more like the physical world. (He did not say whether he thought masses of sticky notes should be a computer user's organizational paradigm.)
One of the researchers who brought Surface and its spherical cousin to TechFest was back, this time standing inside a handmade cardboard dome. Instead of swiping his hands across a screen, he waved them above a camera-and-projector combination. Each gesture zoomed or twirled Wilson and the reporters standing inside the dome through different types of three-dimensional data -- a planetarium-style display of the universe, or a visual web-like representation of someone's Facebook social network.
Another set of projects moved the touch-sensitive area to the back of hand-held devices, making it easier to navigate without blocking the content on small screens with big fingers.
Redmond researchers also continue to come up with ideas for tasks that should be doable from the car. Michael Seltzer climbed into a mock-up of a driver's seat. An "earcon" -- the audio equivalent of an icon -- prompted him to listen to a computerized voice reading his text message, and he spoke back to the machine to send a quick text reply.
Other projects centered on saving power in data centers, improving Web search and social networking and making better use of computers in schools in emerging markets.

Youths make room for Mom, Dad on Facebook

2009-03-08T09:47:00.001-07:00

MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social-networking sites are being flooded by a new wave of doddering, culturally clueless users. In other words, people older than 18.

What's the harm? It's all Internet fun and games until Mom becomes your Facebook “friend.” After prowling around your page, she posts a “humorous” parental zinger.

“I'm not sure I should be your friend!” Rebecca Heyl, 48, wrote after a brief exposure to the uninhibited and unchaperoned byplay on her son's page. “Love, Mom.”

This virtual spanking was delivered on Erick Heyl's page, which could be read by his 150 nonmothering friends.

“It was embarrassing,” said Erick, 18, a senior at Poway High. “It's kind of honestly taken away from the privacy of it.”

For the Heyls, this encounter became a lesson in Internet etiquette. Erick adjusted Facebook's privacy settings to block Mom from certain parts of his page. Then, “we had a very grown-up conversation,” Rebecca said. “He made me understand that some things” – scolding your kid online, say – “just aren't appropriate.”

Social-network sites are still ruled by teens: Sixty-five percent of adolescents maintain online profiles. But oldsters are following the youngsters' lead. In 2005, only 8 percent of adult Americans had online profiles. In January, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that the figure had swollen to 35 percent.

The newcomers have a lot to learn. Many are unclear on how these sites work, or why anyone would use them.

“Is this social networking or social pressure?” wondered Cindy Stankowski, 52, director of the San Diego Archaeological Center. She worried that Facebook would introduce another distraction into her busy life.

“I already have a huge social network,” Stankowski said. “Most of the time, I'm trying to shut that door.”

In fact, critics complain that Facebook is a time swamp, where productive hours go to die. Each user's page contains a constantly replenished queue of other users, under the headline “People You May Know.” There's a name, often a photograph and the suggestion, “Add as Friend.” Click on that link and you end up with more “friends” – and, critics say, less time for real life.

Jason Calacanis, an online entrepreneur whom Forbes magazine ranked among the “Top 10 Web Celebrities,” announced his “Facebook bankruptcy” in 2007. The 30 minutes the site consumed each day could be put to better use, he argued then.

“I haven't dropped out completely,” Calacanis, 38, confessed during a recent e-mail exchange. “I log in once a week or so, but I'm constantly faced with the fact that there isn't much there for me. I think when you've got a job and you're married, you've lost the two main reasons to be there.”

Facebook abuse can be a problem for the unattached and unemployed. Would-be employers have scoured applicants' pages, looking for questionable or unsavory activity. Crooks could nab personal information posted online and then obtain driver's licenses, passports and credit cards in someone else's name.

“Facebook by its nature makes you feel like you are talking to friends in an intimate environment,” said Linda Foley, founder of the San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center. “But it's not an intimate environment. It's a public forum.”

The echoes from this forum may be audible for decades. Your online actions – the words you write, the photos you post – are “persistent,” said Drew Harry, 25, a Ph.D. student at MIT's Media Lab. “You can have a conversation with someone, face to face, and you can be pretty sure it won't be repeated back to you in 15 years. That's not true online.”

Still, Harry insisted that social-networking sites are valuable, as long as people use common sense, don't share too much and behave in a professional manner.

“I'm super-positive about these things,” he said.

But many Americans older than Harry, who's a year younger than the median age of Facebook users, are apprehensive about virtual communities.

Take, for instance, Stankowski. She's no stranger to new technologies. Her archaeological center Twitters, sending brief text updates to supporters'computers and cell phones. And last year, she signed up on the dating Web site eHarmony.

That last experience, though, wasn't a happy one. The men sent her way, in great numbers and apparently at random, made Stankowski question eHarmony's vaunted screening methods. “I felt a little bit invaded,” she said.

So when guys asked if Stankowski had a Facebook page, she recoiled.

“I think it's a pickup line, isn't it? It's a way of saying, 'I want to find out more about you, to see if you are worth my efforts.' I didn't appreciate the pre-screening.”

Paul Segura, the brewmaster for Karl Strauss, had a different set of concerns before joining Facebook late last year.

“I thought it was kind of childish, weird,” he said. “I thought, 'If there is anybody I want to talk to, I'll get them on the phone.' But then I got on there.”

Within days, Segura was exchanging notes with old high school and brewing pals, people he hadn't communicated with in years. “There's just something cool about knowing that people you once knew and cared for are out there and doing well,” he said.

On Monday, Stankowski stifled her reservations and finally joined Facebook. By Wednesday morning, she had her first “friend” – an actual friend and colleague, Doug Wescott. By Wednesday afternoon, more prospective friends awaited in the “People You May Know” queue. One woman's profile included a note on her hatred of cats.

“Animals in general are disgusting. I am not a fan,” the woman wrote.

“This person needs help,” Stankowski said. “I don't want to talk to this woman.”

Not to worry. There are 175 million people on Facebook, and the line of folks clamoring for Stankowski's virtual friendship has just begun to form.

Connection more trick than tweet

2009-03-08T09:46:00.001-07:00

Twitter is the latest networking phenomenon, but don't bet on it enthralling you in the hands of politicians, writes Annabel Crabb.

Malcolm Turnbull was booked to speak on Thursday at a technology conference in Parliament House's under-used theatre. Waiting in the wings, he was already Twittering. That is to say, he was using his Blackberry to fire off bite-sized messages to his 5274 followers on Twitter, the newest social-networking phenomenon.

At 3.33pm his dispatch read: "Lindsay Tanner has been talking about open govt and debate! Had to remind him his boss demanded parlt ok $42b of spend in 48 hrs."

The Opposition Leader wasn't alone. Also in the theatre was Stephen Conroy - not the real one, the Communications Minister, but Fake Stephen Conroy, a louche Twitterland Conroy impersonator who has gathered a sizeable following in the online community. "I'm bored," Fake Stephen yawn-Twittered at 4.45pm. "Someone blog me up a cup of coffee and a Sudoku."

What is Twitter? It is a social networking site in which participants establish a page and use their spare moments to post messages not longer than 140 characters, describing what they are doing.

If you sign up to "follow" Kevin Rudd on Twitter, for instance, his updates will appear on your page. If he signs up to "follow" you - and such reciprocity is viewed as basic politeness in the emerging world of Twitter etiquette - your updates will reach him.

But don't get too excited. Rudd's updates won't give you sneaky details about what's for breakfast at the Lodge. His stuff is much more predictable. From early last month comes this taste: "We must act decisively to support jobs, families and the Australian economy in these difficult global financial times."

Some Twitterers judge that the PM's Twitters are so tedious that the man himself is not behind them.

"Kevin Rudd clearly has lackeys on the job on his social media accounts," concluded Jason Wilson, a digital communications lecturer at the University of Wollongong, in a recent article for New Matilda.

But sources more familiar with Rudd's proclivities advise that such conclusions singularly misunderstand the nature of the man. "Have you ever heard him speak? That's Kevin all right," says one colleague.

Rudd's Twitter site is operated out of the ALP's national office, but it is understood the Prime Minister authors some of the direct updates.

Gordon Brown, too, is a Twitterer. His efforts well match his public persona.

Australian politicians, some of whom lurched onto sites such as YouTube and Facebook before the 2007 election, are still a rare presence on Twitter. Turnbull has a longstanding fascination with the internet and a burgeoning Blackberry addiction. He has been Twittering since last October; Rudd is a more recent arrival.

Tapping the Portable Social Graphs

2009-03-08T09:44:00.001-07:00

Imagine watching Kobe Bryant smash the record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden on your 60-inch HDTV and, during a replay of Bryant's last shot, a message from your buddy Steve pops up at the bottom of the screen: "Kobe is the man and you owe me $50!"

Or you're shopping for a digital camera on Amazon.com. Instead of combing through strangers' reviews, you have access to a list of recommendations from your friends.

Just a short time ago, this kind of innovation would have seemed lofty, but now it's conceivable that soon all media will be social. Perhaps nothing made this more apparent than the recent CNN/Facebook partnership, which showcased the potential of social networks to a mass audience. CNN.com broadcast the presidential inauguration live, while Facebook, using its new platform Facebook Connect, simultaneously allowed viewers to discuss the event with their friend networks through an instant-status feed displayed on CNN's site.

Experiencing this historical moment in real time with friends online provided a glimpse into the greater value that social networks will serve in our lives. Social media is in an evolution phase and Facebook Connect, along with Myspace Data Availability, Google Friend Connect, OpenId and OAuth are playing a central role in what it will become. These frameworks are working to automatically allow the transfer of data from one site to another, providing both instant access to our friend networks and a singular personal identity anywhere we go on the internet.

Essentially, they serve as portable social graphs, creating a unified "plumbing system" that allows access to our social networks beyond the walls of an individual website, mobile application or IPTV extension. No more painful registrations. No more starting from scratch with each new social networking site or branded social experience.

This opens up a new world of interesting possibilities for brands. It also creates yet another drastic drop in the technical barriers to creating social activity around particular brands or services. In many cases, it alleviates the need for brands to create their own social networks from scratch. Brand loyalists and advocates can simply extend a virtual bridge to a website or experience and invite friends to cross it. However, before brands jump on the social-media bandwagon, there are many considerations that should be weighed. The real question to ask is: How can a brand use social-media tools to provide increased value to its customers?

For instance, creating a presence on Twitter might be a good first step, but what does your brand have to offer that is worth Tweeting? Can you save people money or help someone find a job? Can you make people laugh? Jumping into social media without a clear strategy often devolves into a collection of quick tactics that may not be right for the brand or, more importantly, the consumer.

Instead, marketers should listen and look for opportunities to solve problems. Zappos, an often used example of exceptional customer service, is known to proactively identify and support their customers via Twitter. Consider what sorts of social activity customers would engage in if the barrier to entry was low enough. Experiment and learn. Earn the ear of customers. Then, give them something worth listening to.

Facebook Connect and its ilk put us further on the path to "social media" being embedded in all media. In the meantime, I believe we will see a contraction in the number of new social platforms. Marketers should use this window of opportunity to truly understand not just the tools, but how to evolve and shape their connection to customers.

No social networking and SMS on Lent. Do we really have to give them up?

2009-03-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

Here in the Philippines, the observation of Lent has already started. Most of the devotees goes to Church more often than usual to remember the gift of our Lord God to mankind - He gave His only begotten Son to be in a form of man to shed His blood for our Sins.

The message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for Lent 2009 is he wishes to focus his reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting, taking the scripture account of the Lord Jesus’ 40 days’ fast before his temptation in the desert.

Fasting is about abstaining from certain foods and activities so a person could deny himself in his physical being so he might concentrate on coming into closer fellowship with God.

In this new age, the word food can constitute a different meaning. Food does not only mean the food we eat - food represents knowledge.

And since it's a highly tech world out there, Roman Catholic bishops in Italy are urging people to switch off their iPods, abstaining from surfing the web, and avoid sending SMS until Easter. It's what we call a high-tech fasting.

Can you not send SMS for 40 days? Can you not visit your Facebook and Myspace page for 40 days? Can you not watch YouTube videos for 40 days? Can you not watch your favorite TV programs for 40 days?

All these I think was brought about by various studies that too much Internet drives to loneliness which can result to diseases. There are other studies that contradicts the previous statement - that social networking sites are actually antidotes to loneliness.

Mine is simple, everything in moderation. Anything that is excessive is bad. It does not have to be internet time or technolgy related activities.

I want to make it clear that I respect everyone's custom and traditions. I only have one question, what will happen after the lenten season? Will abstinence in technology really bring us closer to God? Will it help us accept God? Will it help us realize that God is our Savior?

This is not about religion, this is about having a relationship with our God. A genuine relationship and love for our Lord Jesus Christ. Lent or not we need to have that relationship. I don't want a superficial sacrifice. I want a real and genuine sacrifice. A love and passion to serve our Lord with all our hearts.

If I will have it my way, I would even encourage the younger generation to log on to YouTube and watch the lent message of Pope Benedict XVI. Create a site that would tell people how to observe lent and what lent is all about, or even send SMS messages to people about how much the Lord love us. I believe technology if use properly, will be a strong weapon to teach people how to love our Lord Jesus Christ.

To God be the glory. God Bless us all!

Women’s Own: Lynne Barrett-Lee

2009-03-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a social network of some sort, even if they can only count it on the fingers of a Disney character.But social networking is just wrong. Wrong and horrible

TELL me, have you done any twittering today? No? Not even going to? Then I salute you. Look, I know it’s curmudgeonly to be pedantic about stuff, but as this is about words and words are what I love, I’ve decided I really can’t help it. Twitter, you see, is the latest must-join addition to the explosion of trendy social networking sites. You know, your Bebo, your Facebook, your MySpace and so on.

I hate everything about the concept of social networking which, if recent developments are to be believed, makes me about as relevant to Generation 2.0 (I know, it makes me gag too) as bread and dripping, whalebone corsets, and boil washing. But you know what? On this issue, I don’t care.

And that’s because I think the words “social” and “networking” should never be seen together out in public. As with “pop” and “sock”, certain things just mustn’t BE.

Network, by all means. Most professionals do. Work a room, spin a line, make a mark.

Use Facebook, even. I do. To sell books. The term “social network” is also fine. Everyone has a social network of some sort, even if they can only count it on the fingers of a Disney character.

But social networking is just wrong. Wrong and horrible. It implies that your social life is inextricably bound up with your professional one. It suggests the only reason you socialise is a) to ingratiate yourself with people who might be useful and b) to self-select details and so create a more impressive you, to make people think you’re cleverer and more attractive than you are.

Don’t misunderstand me, I know lots of aspects of proper friendship work like that too. We rush to make friends at the school gates or workplace not just because we wish to share Welsh cake recipes but also, if we’re lucky, to stockpile a bunch of people we can telephone and say “arrrgh, crisis! Can you take Tom to rugby for me?”

Similarly, what else are proper friendships for, if not to nurture and develop our best selves?

But the act of social networking, as in amassing virtual friendships and virtual communities, seems, when reduced to the sound-bite driven Twitter, the most bizarre manifestation of the concept yet devised.

Because while I can sort of understand that there are people who really do want to know if Britney Spears has been to Walmart or Stephen Fry has had his walk yet, I fail to understand the apparently growing preoccupation that has ordinary people obsessed with the idea of recording all the minutiae of their ordinary lives, via the time-consuming medium of editing their thoughts down to the designated maximum “tweet” size – a dozen or so oh-so-carefully chosen words.

Why on earth would a sane person want to DO that?

At least, that’s what I thought until approximately two and a half seconds ago.

It was about then, you see, that I stopped typing to check my word count, in order to be sure I hadn’t exceeded the amount my esteemed editor (and, believe me, it kills me to type this) usually allows me to twitter on for...

Job hunters get help from social networks

2009-03-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

Veteran high-tech project manager Perrine V. Crampton was told last October that her services, along with those of 199 of her fellow employees at Symantec Corp., would no longer be required. Crampton’s last day was in mid-January, and now the San Jose woman is banking on a relatively new set of tools in the old job-hunting arsenal to help her land back on her feet.

She is hooked up with LinkedIn, tweeting on Twitter and showing her face on Facebook. Crampton is posting links to articles about landing jobs in the new economy, talking about the job hunt, putting herself out there and building a vast social network of people through a variety of channels — and one of those people might have just the right job to offer.

The process is “oddly freeing,” she said.

“When I first heard about Twitter, I thought it was silly. It seemed odd for 140 characters to be the limit because what can you do with that?” Crampton asked. Now, she said, “I think it’s critical to a job search in today’s market.”

Time management means not getting distracted by social networking

2009-03-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting at the Starbucks in the REI Flagship store, and I have a to-do list that transcends BaseCamp, is untenable with Remember the Milk, and usually ends up being transfered from Post-It Note to Post-It Note.

But the list itself isn't the problem. The problem is, between checking Facebook, watching the updates on Tweetdeck, monitoring six email addresses (both web-based and in Mail), receiving texts, calls and messages on my iPhone, and becoming distracted by the guys one table over talking about subcutaneous screwdrivers (which will become either a) the name of the band I someday play in or b) the title of my next short story/novel), I find it very difficult to stick to a task for very long.

Madison Police to host social networking discussion

2009-03-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

MADISON (WKOW) -- As the world of social networking explodes, the Madison Police department hopes to better educate residents about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the ever-changing electronic age.

Next Tuesday night, Sgt. June Groehler will lead a community discussion about Facebook, MySpace, text messaging, cell phones, and the internet. The meeting will be held at the Madison East District at 809 South Thompson Road, at 7:00 p.m.

Earlier that day, MPD officers will meet with Lafollette High School staff about the same topics.

"This is an effort to build collaborative partnerships between our educators, parents, and the community about the benefits and problems with social networking, the Internet, and cell phones," said Sgt. Groehler. In addition, she said, "We hope to develop problem solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues regarding the rapid growth of new technology and electronic social interactions."

If the program is well received, the MPD will look to replicate it at other public meetings to be held in other police districts.

When job seekers invade Facebook

2009-03-06T14:33:00.000-08:00

The increasing popularity of online social networking is changing not only the way people manage their careers but social networking itself.

MARCH 2009 • Soumitra Dutta and Matthew Fraser

This short essay is a Conversation Starter, one in a series of invited opinions on topical issues. Read what the authors have to say, then let us know what you think.

As the downturn continues, millions of corporate managers—gripped by the job jitters—are rushing to join online social networks in a scramble to build their social capital. The popularity of sites such as LinkedIn is soaring: less than a year ago the site had little brand profile and was seen mostly as a venue for corporate suits trolling for professional contacts while plotting their next career move. Facebook, by contrast, has largely attracted individuals seeking a compelling site for fun social networking.

Today LinkedIn’s year-on-year growth is up nearly 200 percent in the United States and it now has more than 35 million members—many of whom were formerly employed within the hard-hit financial sector. And it’s just one of the many sites to which recession-struck managers are flocking: Xing (based in Germany), with its 7 million members and special Lehman Brothers alumni section, and Meet the Boss (based in the United Kingdom), which restricts membership to C-level financial types, are also experiencing burgeoning membership levels.

This surging popularity of online...

Lenten sacrifice: Six weeks without Facebook, Twitter

2009-03-06T14:25:00.001-08:00

By Kelly Heyboer, Religion News Service

Most days you can find college sophomore Adan Farrah on his laptop checking in with his classmates, looking at photos and updating his personal page on Facebook.

For the 19-year-old and many of his friends, the social networking site is something close to an obsession.

"I'm on there a total of three hours a day ... four hours on weekends," said Farrah, a native of Monroe, N.J., and now a student at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania.

But on Ash Wednesday, Farrah decided to quit Facebook cold turkey. No more status updates. No more commenting on photos posted by classmates. No more connecting with high school friends.

In a new twist on an old religious tradition, a growing number of Christian technophiles are swearing off Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other technology for Lent. Thousands of Facebook users have joined "Giving up Facebook for Lent" groups on the site, replacing the photos on their profiles with boxes announcing they will be gone for the next six weeks.

Facebook Moves To Secure Users From Twitter Switching

2009-03-06T14:24:00.000-08:00

Facebook will soon launch its new home page which will offer new functions to help secure users from switching to Twitter. The move will benefit members with new publishing and broadcast messages.

Facebook Inc has announced it will offer new Twitter functions in an effort to secure users from switching to the other social networking site. The move will offer members a new publishing status which photos and notes can be added into a new broadcast message. The company will also add member pages to News Feeds and its popular stream service.

"Shared content can be brief messages or may include photos and videos and will soon appear in News Feed, Facebook’s popular service that streams what people you care about are doing, thinking, saying, watching, photographing and reading right now," Facebook said in a statement.

The social networking site also said it has partnered with several renowned individuals and organizations including President Obama, The Oprah Winfrey Show, U2, CNN, Stanford University, NBA star athletes, and LIVESTRONG. There is no word on why ABC, NBC, or Fox News was not participating in this new partnership. However, other news organizations, including Fox, are sending their audiences to Twitter.

Moreover, Fox also sends people to Facebook during their midday newscasts, which is quite confusing since their parent company owns MySpace. This could be the very beginning of a social networking market which competes for network television participation among the news organizations. Social sites, including Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are rapidly growing.

Facebook has a lot of celebrities, including Britney Spears and U2, who use the social networking site to connect with fans.

Facebook celebrities are also a growing trend. Just recently, Britney Spears was found online, although some of the writings on her page don't make a lot of sense. Spears said the social networking site allows her to connect with fans when she's on the road.

"Facebook is such a cool and easy way for me to connect with my fans while I'm on the road," said Britney Spears. “I love that I can update my status, blog and post videos and photos all in one place.”

I never quite understood the Twitter fascination from the very beginning. It seems that while Twitter is a growing trend, sending 160 character messages to update your status could be done easily with other services. In fact, some critics believe that Twitter could be on its way out since Facebook and MySpace already dominate the tweet-site with other benefits and services.

Even so, people still use Facebook and Twitter, but some analysts believe MySpace could be the one hurting by Facebook, not Twitter. We are a fast paced society with a desire and need to tell others what we are doing, and where we are, at any given moment.

Sample Social Networking Policy

2009-03-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

The following is the company’s social media and social networking policy. The absence of, or lack of explicit reference to a specific site does not limit the extent of the application of this policy. Where no policy or guideline exist, employees should use their professional judgment and take the most prudent action possible. Consult with your manager or supervisor if you are uncertain.

Personal blogs should have clear disclaimers that the views expressed by the author in the blog is the author’s alone and do not represent the views of the company. Be clear and write in first person. Make your writing clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of the company.
Information published on your blog(s) should comply with the company’s confidentiality and disclosure of proprietary data policies. This also applies to comments posted on other blogs, forums, and social networking sites.
Be respectful to the company, other employees, customers, partners, and competitors.
Social media activities should not interfere with work commitments. Refer to IT resource usage policies.
Your online presence reflects the company. Be aware that your actions captured via images, posts, or comments can reflect that of our company.
Do not reference or site company clients, partners, or customers without their express consent. In all cases, do not publish any information regarding a client during the engagement.
Respect copyright laws, and reference or cite sources appropriately. Plagiarism applies online as well.
Company logos and trademarks may not be used without written consent.

Remember that this is only a sample and framework for social media policies. In developing policies and procedures for your company, you should tailor the language to reflect the culture and the company environment. Depending on the usage of social media, policies should be more or less explicit, particularly in defining terms.

Citi and social networking site MySpace offer a credit card as part of Generation Forward campaign

2009-03-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

BY Catey Hill
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, March 6th 2009, 11:06 AM

Citi

There are airline credit cards, gas credit cards, and hundreds more co-branded cards. But a MySpace credit card? That was a new one - until Friday.

Social networking site MySpace is announcing that it is partnering with Citi to introduce a co-branded credit card, Switched.com reports.

The offering is part of a "Generation Forward" campaign, which is focused on making responsible choices like recycling and donating to charity.

The card is billed as "a credit card that rewards you for doing the right thing," according to the MySpace CitiForward Web site.

Instead of rewarding users with points for spending like mad, the MySpace Citi card rewards users when they make "responsible choices" like pay their bills on time.

But it's a credit card nonetheless. According to the company's Web site, once the promotional period ends: "standard variable APR for purchases is 14.24%; standard variable APR for cash advances is 21.99%."

Check it out at:
http://www.myspace.com/citiforward

So, you’re on LinkedIn ... what do you do now?

2009-03-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

Career experts are pointing job hunters to social networking as the digital way to make contacts, research employers and impress others with their smarts and expertise.
LinkedIn is touted as the network for professionals, but contacts on Facebook can be equally helpful, says Jason Alba, who wrote the book on job hunting and social networking — literally. He’s author of “I’m on Facebook . . . Now What???” and “I’m on LinkedIn . . . Now What???,” both designed to help online networking newbies.

Facebook is used more for making social and personal announcements, and what’s more personal than sharing with your network that you’re in the job market and looking for leads, says Alba, who blogs at Jibberjobber.com. You can make a group announcement -- keep from sounding whiney or victimized -- asking for specific leads and information. He also suggests targeting individual contacts with person-to-person messages -- people in a position to be especially helpful.

You can do the same on LinkedIn, and go a step further by demonstrating your professional knowledge. Ask and answer questions in the “Answers” section once a month at the very least -- preferably more often. And, be sure to include an e-mail signature, such as “your name, project manager, looking for opportunities in XYZ.” This is all about keeping your personal brand in the forefront, he said.

You can hear more of these strategies, as he’ll be speaking at least twice next week at SobelMedia sessions, Monday at noon in Melville and Friday morning in Manhattan.

WPP Helped By Social Networking

2009-03-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Advertising giant gets a boost from firms turn to alternative sources like Facebook and Twitter.

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Cash-strapped firms are seeking new alternatives to traditional advertising to get their message across, with social media Facebook or Twitter now fair game. The latest preliminary results from the world's second largest media firm, WPP, suggested that the pace of that shift is now accelerating.

WPP said Friday that revenues from its public affairs and public relations divisions grew by 6.9%, beating the 4.4% growth in the advertising sector during 2008.

The division benefited from demand for the use of social networking sites by companies. "New technologies and new media have, once again, demonstrated the power of editorial publicity through fast-growing new application such as MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia," the firm said on Friday. Martin Sorrell's WPP owns a number of public relations firms, including Hill & Knowlton, Burson-Marsteller, Ogilvy PR World Wide, and Clarion.

Overall, WPP's annual results for 2008 topped analyst forecasts, with its unaudited net profit rising 18.5%, to 723.1 million pounds ($1.0 billion).

The firm said that overall the year 2008 had been one of "two contrasting halves," with 5.0% organic revenue growth in the first six months being followed by a tougher second half as the impact of the global financial crisis took hold. Overall, even though the year saw a large number of major events, including the UEFA soccer championships, the Beijing Olympics, and the U.S. Presidential elections, worldwide advertising and expenditure by companies saw only moderate growth. Emerging markets had the strongest performance, with revenues rising 16.9%, compared to just 4.6% growth in North America.

Overall, the strongest performance during the year came from the firm's information, insight and consultancy subsidiaries such as Millward Brown, which help firms with their branding strategies or in making existing marketing strategies more efficient.

30 Thousand Members and Counting! BiggerPockets.com Reaches Social Networking Milestone.

2009-03-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

BiggerPockets has reached yet another exciting milestone in its continued development as the nation’s premier real estate social networking website, 30,000 Members!

With a limited amount of time in the day and attention spans shrinking, it is becoming harder and harder to join every social network out there. As such, only the best thrive! We’ve seen MySpace eclipsed by Facebook, LinkedIn taking over business networking, Twitter ruling micro-blogging, and now, BiggerPockets is proving that it is the site of choice for real estate professionals, investors, and other aficionados of real estate.

We want to thank all of our members for signing up and all those people who have contributed to our success!

If you’re not a member already, Sign Up Today!

There’s much more to come at BiggerPockets - We’ll see You at 50,000 Members Soon . . .

SpinSix secures $750K in funding, plans expansion in Scottsdale

2009-03-06T14:15:00.000-08:00

SpinSix Strategic Marketing Design LLC has received $750,000 in financing even as the company continues to grow.

The Scottsdale-based company specializes in online marketing and design, and it is seeing growth in the industry even as the economy sours.

Mike Horne, the company’s chief operating officer, said SpinSix brings its clients “a combination of tactics and technology” to track their business.

With 26 employees and a recently expanded Scottsdale operation, company officials said they were pleased with their first major cash infusion, though they wouldn’t release the investors’ names.

“We saw an opportunity in this current environment to accelerate our expansion efforts, despite prevailing market attitudes,” said founding partner Ken Reaser.

The company’s owners have been in business together since 1995, starting as Square 1 Design before it was bought in 2000 by Raymond James Financial Corp. They reacquired the company in 2002 and changed it into SpinSix.

The company’s marketing tools include its Lead Initiation, Nurture and Conversion System, or LINCS, which tracks customers visiting a Web site regardless of whether they buy anything. The information can be funneled into a customer-relations program to help businesses market to customers.

“It allows you to keep them warm, to keep them in that nurturing cycle until they are ready to buy,” Horne said.

Partner Anthony Helmstetter said the company’s time within the Raymond James organization made it come to rely on data as a friend -- and in a time when businesses are looking for a return on investment, the data is key.

Michael Thorell, president and CEO of Pinnacle Bank in Scottsdale, said he has used the company for several years and its tracking tools allow his company to see how its Web advertising is working.

“To have a firm saying, ‘Here’s how many people saw this, where they came from and how long they stay,’ it can be completely different from what you expected,” he said.

Financial firms choosing online marketing tools

2009-03-06T14:12:00.001-08:00

News Article Published: Friday, 06 March 2009
Category: Financial Services

An increasing number of companies are choosing to use online methods of marketing to boost their fortunes, experts have claimed.

The Internet Advertising Bureau has suggested that firms including financial businesses are looking to the internet to boost their marketing drives, with increasingly sophisticated techniques driving this change.

There was a 21 per cent increase in the overall amount of internet advertising between January and June last year, with financial services marketing featuring prominently in the £1.7 billion spent on this method in total.

Jack Wallington, chair of the IAB Search Council, said that marketers are following the rules of advertising by moving with the times.

"They will be reaching out for them online and online is more accountable. So yes, there will be more migration, but at the same time it is all about different mediums working together. It is not about one or the other it is about a mixture," he commented.

The internet is the second most consumed medium in the UK, knocking radio out of second place, with only TV ahead of it.

Better usability on rail websites 'could boost online marketing'

2009-03-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

Companies in the rail industry could find that their internet marketing efforts are boosted by improved website usability.

According to the results of a study by responsibletravel.com, 33 per cent of the journeys its volunteers tried to book through rail websites were successful.

This compares to a success rate of 98 per cent for airline bookings and suggests that rail companies must boost the usability of their websites, said responsibletravel.com in a blog post.

Justin Francis, managing director of the online portal, said: "Our poll has shown that it currently takes little more than five minutes to book a flight online to anywhere in Europe, yet to book a train ticket to the same destination can be very challenging indeed."

Writing on the Microsoft adCenter Blog recently, Simone Schuurer, a retail search media analyst at the software giant, said consumers will often give up and leave a website if they are unable to find the information they are looking for.

This means the efforts of internet marketing teams trying to promote their company's offerings on the web could be undermined by poor website usability.

News brought to you by ClickThrough - a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.

Click Consult Launch New Clicktelligence System for Search Marketing Clients

2009-03-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

CHESHIRE, ENGLAND -- (Marketwire) -- 03/06/09 -- Editors Note: There is a photo associated with this Press Release.

Click Consult, a leading UK search marketing agency, has launched a new version of their client reporting suite, Clicktelligence v2.0. Clicktelligence v2.0 went live on March 6, 2009, and can be viewed at www.clickconsult.co.uk.

The Clicktelligence v2.0 suite enables existing clients to log in and view detailed reports relating to all aspects of their internet marketing services with Click Consult. It provides clients with a comprehensive overview of their online marketing, as all PPC, SEO, affiliate marketing, e-mail marketing and online PR reports can be viewed in one place. The all new Clicktelligence v2.0 includes an improved user interface to allow clients greater ease of use and delivers more complete reporting of all services. Clients can review reports on every aspect of their Click Consult services including regular website ranking updates, web traffic information, keyword performance data, link reports, press release coverage achieved and full reports on pay per click, affiliate and email marketing campaigns, shopping feeds and both on page and off page search engine optimisation reports. With off page SEO reports including details of social bookmarking campaigns and article and directory submissions too, Clicktelligence v2.0 is an all-encompassing tool to ensure clients are fully informed about their Click Consult services at all time.

"At Click Consult we are always looking for ways in which to improve our services," Matt Bullas, Managing Director of Click Consult, commented: "Clicktelligence v2.0 allows clients to see exactly what is happening and when, with every aspect of their internet marketing campaign. This increased transparency of service benefits the client as they can see where their investment is going and exactly how their search marketing campaign is progressing."

For more details about Click Consult, please visit our website www.clickconsult.co.uk or call 0845 205 0292.

About Click Consult:-

Established in 2003, Click Consult is a leading provider of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) solutions, including Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns, Content and Banner Advertising, Search Engine Optimisation, Affiliate Marketing, Shopping Feeds, Website Design and Development, E-Mail Marketing and Online PR. With over 35 Staff in Cheshire and London, Click Consult has over 200 PPC and SEO clients in every major industry. Click Consult is fully certified by Google AdWords, Microsoft adExcellence, the Internet Advertising Bureau, SEOCertification.org and TopSEOs.com.

To view the photo associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20090306-CC8000306.jpg.

HRchitect a Finalist in the Onrec.com 2009 Online Recruitment Awards

2009-03-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

HRchitect, the leader in HR systems strategic consulting and the premier Human Capital Management (HCM) and Talent Management systems consulting firm, is proud to announce that it is a finalist for the “Innovative Online Marketing Award” in the 5th Annual Onrec.com awards.

Frisco, TX (PRWEB) March 6, 2009 -- HRchitect, the leader in HR systems strategic consulting and the premier Human Capital Management (HCM) and Talent Management systems consulting firm, is proud to announce that it is a finalist for the “Innovative Online Marketing Award” in the 5th Annual Onrec.com awards.

The 5th Annual Onrec.com Awards are designed to acknowledge the hard work of companies and individuals in the online recruitment industry. On March 25, 2009, Onrec.com will host an online recruitment trade conference, and the Awards will follow in the evening. The awards aim is to recognize the impressive efforts made by companies to promote and market themselves.

Our Beauty Pageant series of webinars has become the buzz of the HR industry
The Beauty Pageants are a very unique concept in online marketing which not only highlights HRchitect’s expertise in HR technology but also gives multiple vendors an outlet to show off their goods in a fun and informative format.
We have a lot of fun with these Beauty Pageant webinars and some of the vendors get very creative with their presentations
The HRchitect Beauty Pageants being recognized as a finalist for this marketing award is a great honor. We put a lot of hard work into these Pageant events and are happy to bring innovative and unique marketing initiatives to the HR community and will continue to look for ways to educate HR professionals on the puzzling world of HR technology.

“Our Beauty Pageant series of webinars has become the buzz of the HR industry,” stated Matt Lafata, Vice-President of Sales & Marketing with HRchitect. “The Beauty Pageants are a very unique concept in online marketing which not only highlights HRchitect’s expertise in HR technology but also gives multiple vendors an outlet to show off their goods in a fun and informative format.”

Each 90-minute beauty pageant features up to six vendors who give a presentation following a beauty pageant guideline:

* Evening gown - To start off each portion, the vendor comes out in their best ‘outfit’ – corporate overview, history, specific identity, financial viability, marquee clients, leadership team, etc. The grand entrance.
* Swimsuit - Here the vendors will show some skin in this portion – usability, configurability, etc.
* Talent - This portion will cover functionality, technology/integration, global ability, etc)
* Interview - This is the Q & A section from the audience.

The winner is then voted on by the audience and there is a crowning ceremony. The Beauty Pageant series started in November 2008 and seven successful pageants have taken place to date. A complete schedule can be found on www.HRchitect.com

“We have a lot of fun with these Beauty Pageant webinars and some of the vendors get very creative with their presentations,” added Tiffany Appleby , Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications for HRchitect. “The HRchitect Beauty Pageants being recognized as a finalist for this marketing award is a great honor. We put a lot of hard work into these Pageant events and are happy to bring innovative and unique marketing initiatives to the HR community and will continue to look for ways to educate HR professionals on the puzzling world of HR technology.”

Onrec.com, the leading supplier of global online recruitment news and comment is proud to host this annual ceremony. Celebrating the success, growth, innovation, talent and achievements within the Online Recruitment Industry, the Awards are now in their fifth year. Other finalists in the Innovative Online Marketing category besides HRchitect include KPMG International, DSTL, Mouchel, and SHL Group, Ltd.

Visit HRchitect.com to learn about the services we provide and how we can help your organization get the most from its current HR systems as well as assist with any new HR technology related projects. Our web site will also show you where HRchitect can be found in 2009 as well as schedules of upcoming Beauty Pageants, WebMingles, and other educational events.

About HRchitect
HRchitect is the leader in HR systems strategic consulting. As the premier Human Capital Management (HCM) and Talent Management Systems consulting firm, our services include the selection, implementation, and integration of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), Talent Management Suites (TMS), Performance Management, Succession Management, Compensation Management, Learning Management, Competency Management, Talent Acquisition Systems, Workforce Planning and Time & Attendance software.

HRchitect has participated in the successful evaluation and implementation of HR technology systems for leading high-tech, high-growth leaders such as Perot Systems, WebMD, and Symantec; manufacturing companies such as 3M, Texas Instruments, and Raytheon; retail leaders including Best Buy, Domino’s Pizza, PepsiAmericas, J.C. Penney, and Target; healthcare/bio-tech organizations such as Alcon Labs, The Mayo Clinic, and Tenet Healthcare; financial organizations including: Barclay’s Global Investors, Countrywide Financial, and VISA; energy leaders such as Baker Hughes, ConocoPhillips, and Lyondell Chemical; transportation leaders such as APL, FedEx, and Southwest Airlines; telecommunication leaders AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon; as well as leading hospitality companies such as Hyatt, Marriott, and Starwood.

Based in Dallas with consultants nationwide, HRchitect has completed over 600 successful client engagements over the past twelve years. HRchitect’s client list consists of companies of all sizes from all industries and includes more than 1 in 5 companies on the Fortune 100 list.

To find out how HRchitect’s HR software expertise can benefit your company, visit our website at www.HRchitect.com or call 214-619-0888.

This press release was distributed through eMediawire by Human Resources Marketer (HR Marketer: www.HRmarketer.com) on behalf of the company listed above.

Cost Effective YouTube Channel Marketing Strategies to Boost your Online Marketing Results

2009-03-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

If you have launched a branded YouTube channel but are uncertain of what to do next, this article will outline the steps that you should take and ultimately save you time. Learn how to maximize the effectiveness of your channel and tap into the YouTube user base.

by Ellen Ambrose
March 06, 2009

Nielson Net Ratings reported in 2008 that YouTube has over 68 million unique visitors per month and has the 6th largest visitor audience in the U.S. (ahead of eBay, Amazon and Wikipedia). More than 2/3 of the U.S. population over the age of 25 has watched a YouTube video and 91% of users have purchased something online. YouTube represents a very powerful marketing channel and opportunity for exposure on the net.

There are ways to tap into this immense audience with big ad spend, however I will focus on more cost effective “organic” tactics. These require time but not a direct cash outlay. For the purposes of this article, I will assume that you have already created a branded YouTube channel and are now looking for ways to leverage your channel, broaden your reach and increase your subscriber base. (If you are new to YouTube and have not yet built your channel, the YouTube help center is a great place to start.)

The first step in maximizing the effectiveness of your YouTube channel is to take a step back and examine your purpose for marketing on YouTube. Is it traffic, distribution, brand? Once you have established a firm purpose, you can begin to put together a targeted plan of attack. Your channel design should reflect your purpose and it is necessary to regularly to take a look at your layout, logo, images and profile information. Make sure your design adequately reflects your brand and message. Think of your YouTube channel as an extension of your website; therefore, it should closely resemble the look and feel of your website and other business materials.

Include information in your profile that describes the type of content that can be found in your channel and website. Further, make sure that you link to your website and include your contact information outside of YouTube. Further, make it known in your profile that you would like users to add comments, rate, share, add video responses and to subscribe to your channel.

When adding video content to your channel, make sure that each video has a clear message and is not obscure and confusing. Keep your content fresh and upload a steady supply of 1 to 2 new videos per week on the same schedule so your subscribers know when to expect new content. Further, update the featured videos frequently. You have the opportunity to feature nine videos on your channel and can control the order and placement of your featured videos. Further, use the playlist feature as a way to organize your videos. Building out playlists by subject matter will help users and subscribers find videos that they are looking for as well as expose them to content that they might not otherwise see.

Also, pay attention to the quality of your videos. YouTube has the capability of displaying videos at a higher quality level. The quality of the uploaded video combined with the individual viewers’ bandwidth will determine if the video is displayed at higher quality. Higher quality video means improved sharpness and visual clarity. The difference is especially noticeable in videos that contain text or fast movement and in full-screen mode. When uploading a video make sure your video resolution is 480 x360 or higher and a frame rate of 24fps (frames per second) or higher.

Each time that you upload a new video, pay specific attention to the types of videos that have done well in the past as well as VSEO (video search engine optimization). Copy the format and subject of videos that have a lot of views, comments and ratings to try to re-create the success. Include specific keywords in the title that people will be searching for in YouTube as well as external search engines. Further, make sure that your description is keyword rich, clear,specific and give credit to participants who appear in the video (same applies to location). This way people who do not know the title of your video can search by the participant’s name or location and your video will come up in the search results. I would also recommend placing your video in the proper, relevant category (contrary to the belief that you can manipulate views by placing your video in a different category). If you are trying to drive traffic from YouTube to your website, include the link to your website at the top of your video description so the link will appear directly below your video title.

Another effective tactic that you can use when uploading new videos to your channel is to use the video annotation feature. Video annotations are a new way that you can add interactive commentary to your videos. You control what the annotations say, where they appear on the video, and when they appear and disappear. The annotations appear like pop up word balloons (text boxes) as well as onscreen overlays. You can even link from an annotation to another YouTube video, channel, or search result. Annotations are effective in keeping users engaged by linking to your other videos and channels so that they stay focused on your content.

After you have tweaked your channel design, message, organization, video frequency, video SEO and site links, you are ready to increase your subscriber base. The key to successful marketing in YouTube is a large subscriber base. Subscribers will serve as evangelists for your content and they validate your purpose. They increase your view count, rate your videos, comment, add you to their favorites, share with their friends and ultimately increase traffic and exposure to your website/brand. In addition, content submitted by a channel with higher subscriber and friend counts is given more weight when it comes to video rank and popularity.

YouTube has built their engine in a way so that subscribers have to be earned. In order to ask someone to subscribe to your channel, you first have to invite them to become a friend. Once they have accepted your friend invitation, then you can invite them to subscribe to your channel. The key is to invite as many people as possible to become friends. To find these potential friends, stick to the popular channels; these people tend to be the most active on YouTube.

Further, participating in the groups feature is another great way to find friends and increase exposure. Joining groups is an effective way to get in front of people who are interested in certain subjects and ideas, which ultimately can lead to more friends and subscribers. It is also very easy to create a new group in YouTube to attract like-minded users. If you create a new group, make sure it is open and an invitation is not required to subscribe.

Now that you have added as many friends as possible, you can begin to use the share feature. The share feature allows you to notify subscribers and friends each time a new video is uploaded. This share functionality is very handy because it allows you to target specific groups (think marketing silos). For example, you can share with subscribers, friends and people who have received a friend invitation but have not yet accepted or subscribed.

Another feature that is useful once you build your friend base is the bulletin feature. Bulletins are used to broadcast messages and once posted, messages are sent out to all channel contacts. Your contact list includes other users on the site to whom you're linked through friend invitations as well as the emails of friends which whom you've shared videos. You can also create special contact lists by using a label to describe the common theme of that list. You can then place specific contacts into different contact lists and send messages to multiple friends at once.

Because of YouTube‘s relevance in the online video space, friends and subscribers should be communicated to on a regular basis. Whether it is through a bulletin, sharing new videos or direct communication, treat these contacts like they are an important part of your business. Remember to respect their privacy and treat them in a similar fashion to your opt-in email list. Remember people who subscribe to your channel are interested in your videos but not your spam so walk a fine line.

If you are using YouTube as a way to drive traffic to your website to increase sales volume, think about the extra steps that you might need to implement on your site to convert YouTube visitors to sales. Whether it is landing pages, a customized message, pricing or any other strategy that will help convert visitors to paying customers, it is worthwhile to test, test, and test until you get it right.

Next I will outline specific tactics that you can implement to increase activity within your channel and your videos. Being an active participant in the YouTube community will go a long way. Networking can make all the difference in the world when it comes to being relevant or not. Earlier I mentioned participating in groups and this definitely falls into the networking category. Here are some additional networking tactics that are worthwhile to implement:

* Search for popular videos that are relevant to your area of expertise and post video responses. Video responses are not widely used and there is a strong possibility that your video response will end up high in the results. The key to remember is that your video can only be used as a response once.

* You can also post video responses to your own videos.

* Watch other people’s videos and comment on them. Keep your comments brief, respectful and on topic.

* You can also comment on your own videos to get the conversation going.

* Mark other user videos as your favorites. This will more than likely get their attention and show that you are participating in the YouTube community.

* Take part in the contests that are running on YouTube. This is another great way to get your content and channel noticed.

* Add your most popular YouTube videos to video search engines and video distribution sites.

* Promote your YouTube channel on your other online outlets such as your blog, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

YouTube is a factor to be reckoned with; the statistic most telling is the fact that 10 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. If you implement all or some of the above outlined strategies, you will most definitely see an uptick in your YouTube channel results. Like any other organically grown marketing strategy, it takes time and patience before you see measurable results. Hang in there and know that this is a process that is worthwhile and will pay off in the long run.

Online Marketing Growth Company Red Ventures to Present at Invitation-Only Montgomery Technology Conference

2009-03-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

High-growth online customer acquisition marketer continues to expand despite recession; CEO to share formula for success with 750 technology and investment leaders

Charlotte, North Carolina (PRWEB) March 6, 2009 -- Red Ventures, a high-growth provider of online customer acquisition services, has been invited to present to an audience of leading technology and investment executives at the 2009 Montgomery Technology Conference.

Red Ventures CEO Ric Elias

CEO and co-founder Ric Elias will present Red Ventures' unique business model and formula for success. Despite a deep economic recession, the company has continued to grow rapidly and hire new online marketing and technology staff. The firm applies online marketing and sales generation capabilities to acquire new customers for leading brands in verticals ranging from home and business services to automotive and financial services.

"By recruiting star talent, building high-volume and unique marketing channels, and leveraging technology to provide real-time tracking, we've been able to dominate online sales generation in every vertical we enter," said Elias. "As a company, we've reached not only critical mass, but critical depth. New businesses, whether organically grown or acquired, are able to leverage our existing platform to generate immediate results, creating a multiplier effect on new opportunities."

The Montgomery Technology Conference will be held March 10-11 in Santa Monica, CA. The invitation-only audience consists of more than 750 senior-level private equity, venture capital and public institutional investors, as well as technology industry executives. The conference will feature presentations from some of the top privately-held and public technology companies as well as panel discussions led by speakers from well-known investment firms and publications.

Red Ventures was recently named the 17th fastest growing private firm in the U.S. by Inc. magazine in its 2008 Inc. 500 rankings. It was second among marketing companies on the list. It was also ranked one of the three best large companies to work for in Charlotte, according to the Charlotte Business Journal. And the North Carolina Technology Association named Red Ventures Growth Company of the Year in 2008.

Because of growth, the company is currently hiring for more than 30 open positions in online marketing, PHP web development, sales, and general management/business leadership.

About Red Ventures
Red Ventures is an online marketing company that develops and manages large-scale, multi-channel customer acquisition programs for leading brands in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. Over 500 employees serve vertical markets including home services, consumer services, financial services, business services, and automotive. The company is based in Charlotte, North Carolina and was founded in 2000. For inquiries about online marketing jobs and other career opportunities, visit the company's website.

Microsoft dips a toe into social networking app space

2009-03-06T02:45:00.000-08:00

by Stephen Withers

Is Microsoft starting to get worried about social networking? A couple of MSN games are now available on Facebook and MySpace.

Online casual gaming. If you were alone but wanted to play checkers against a real person, you could always get a matchup on the MSN site.

Assuming you were running Internet Explorer and Windows, that is.

But successes like Scrabulous (now Lexulous) reflected the growing place of social networking in people's online lives.

Even though MSN Games still hosts millions of users each month, Microsoft's playing catch-up by launching a pair of casual games on Facebook and MySpace.

Hexic (a puzzle game involving the rearrangement of coloured tiles) and Chess have been ported to the two social networking platforms.

"We're excited to bring two of our most popular games to the Facebook and MySpace communities," said Megan Hodel, marketing manager for MSN Games at Microsoft.

"These networks reach more than 200 million people around the world, and the MSN Games applications will make it easier and more fun for Facebook and MySpace users to play some of their favorite casual games," she added.

Virus Creators, ID Thieves, Spam Senders Hit Social Networks

2009-03-06T02:40:00.000-08:00

BY BRIAN DEAGON

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

"This video of you is outrageous. Check it out," said the e-mail sent to Kurt Daradics, a tech consultant in Los Angeles, from a friend on Facebook.

Daradics felt it was safe to take a look. He clicked the link, which brought up a Web page, and then clicked the "Install" button to see the clip.

Within seconds the program rifled through his hard drive, installed malicious software and sent the same e-mail to all of Daradics' friends on his Facebook profile.

On this December day, Daradics became a victim of a computer virus called Koobface.

"I was locked out of Facebook intermittently for over six weeks," Daradics said. "It was a total pain."

Security experts last week warned that a new strain of the Koobface virus is hitting Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites. It looks for links and passwords to other social networking sites.

Social networking site owners work actively to put a lid on nefarious activity. On Tuesday, a federal judge in northern California issued a temporary restraining order against three people accused of widespread spamming and phishing attacks on Facebook. It comes three months after Facebook won a suit that prevents another group of spammers from using or accessing Facebook data and applications.

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Virus creators are increasingly targeting social networking sites and other Web 2.0 technologies such as the micro-blogging site Twitter and instant messaging services from Google, (GOOG) AOL and others. Virus writers are also creating fake profiles of celebrities, real friends or business associates hoping people will link with them. Users can be tricked into linking to the fake profile, which can be loaded with various forms of malicious software.

Phishing At Gmail

Last month, users of the Google Talk chat application received a message, "Check out this video." Those that clicked the link were directed to a site that asked them to enter their Gmail user name and password, on a Web page that looked identical to the one Google uses. It's called a phishing attack, and could enable an intruder to view addresses and correspondence. Similar attempts were made on Twitter and the instant messaging systems of Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft. (MSFT) Social networking site LinkedIn has also been hit by phishing attacks.

The methods are effective because, in many cases, people think it's from a friend. And the large communities of social networks are one big fish for virus writers.

Viruses might propagate spam, make the computer inoperable or install software that will log keystrokes that can be monitored halfway around the world. Malicious software code can be spread in other ways, such as inside PDF files.

"Ultimately they're after your personal data and passwords to your accounts," said Craig Schmugar, a threat researcher at McAfee Avert Labs, a unit of software security firm McAfee. (MFE) It often leads to identity theft and fraud.

Tony Greenberg, chairman of technology outsourcing firm Ramp-Rate, was such a victim. One of his assistant's computers was infiltrated with keystroke logging software. Over several weeks, Greenberg believes, the hackers patiently lurked in the background and gradually collected passwords to various business and credit accounts. They stole "a substantial amount of money" from his credit cards and through his Paypal and Western Union accounts. The hackers almost got to his firm's main corporate accounts. Most of the money has since been credited back, he said.

"I have multiple business signatures and they took their time before making the move," he said. "It was orchestrated to perfection. They were architects."

More than 1.2 million people filed a complaint of fraud, identity theft or a related act to law enforcement or regulatory agencies in 2008, up 16% from a year ago, according to the Consumer Sentinel Network, a branch of the Federal Trade Commission. Financial losses came to $1.8 billion, or about $3,400 per victim reporting a financial loss. Losses of $1 million or more were reported by 257 people.

Identity theft was the top complaint, named by 26% of the complainants. Credit card fraud was the most common form of identity theft, at 20%. Most fraud victims said the initial contact with the crooks came through e-mail or Web site visits.

$48 Billion In Losses

Despite these numbers, security experts note that many victims don't report the crime, perhaps because they're embarrassed.

"It's underreported, especially in the business world," Schmugar said. "They don't want to talk about it."

According to research firm Javelin Strategy & Security, in 2008 about 9.9 million U.S. adults were victims of identity fraud, up 22% from the year before. It pegs the total loss at $48 billion. Most incidents were the result of lost or stolen wallets, checkbooks and credit cards, but online access accounted for 11% of the total.

And the threat is rising. Message Labs, a unit of security software firm Symantec, (SYMC) said attacks targeting social networking sites became widespread in 2008. Crooks are having more success stealing private data, security experts say, partly because of the comfort and trust people have had putting all manner of information about themselves on social networking sites.

"People are leaving digital footprints on a daily basis," said Steven Domenikos, chief executive of IdentityTruth, a provider of fraud and security protection. "It's become in vogue to divulge this information online."

And more is at stake than someone billing your credit card, he said. It's possible to access someone else's birth certificate by requesting it over the phone without the provider verifying the person's true identification, he says. With that, crooks can get a driver's license. Also, millions of social security numbers are acquired illegally and sold online. Using information obtained online, thieves have filed and claimed tax rebates owed to someone else.

"All kinds of things can happen if someone assumes your identity," Domenikos said.

The most-reported type of fraud on the Internet is auction fraud at sites such as eBay. (EBAY) These accounted for 35% of the total offenses reported in the Internet Crime Report in 2007, compiled annually by the National White Collar Crime Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The 2008 report is expected to come out this month.

Nondelivery of goods was second, at 25%. Various forms of finance-related fraud and identity theft accounted for most of the rest.

"Some scams are so incredibly sophisticated and appear incredibly legitimate," said Craig Butterworth, spokesman for the National White Collar Crime Center.

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Local social media sites log growth

2009-03-04T04:08:00.000-08:00

Social networking giant Facebook, with a user base of more than 150 million people, is bigger than Russia. GameSnake Inc., however, still is slightly smaller than its hometown, Akron.

Nonetheless, GameSnake and a few other Northeast Ohio companies have big plans to capitalize on the popularity of social media technologies, which help people connect and share information.

Though it's been five years since GameSnake launched its social network that helps athletes connect to schedule pick-up games, the growing popularity of social media sites such as Facebook, used mainly for personal networking, and LinkedIn, for professional networking, has “definitely helped” the company gain more attention from potential partners, said GameSnake president Andrew Holland.

Most of the social media companies in Northeast Ohio have only a few employees. The exception is Within3 Inc. in Cleveland, which has developed a networking tool for doctors and other health care professionals. The company has a staff of 20, up from 12 in September, when it launched a new version of its site.

So far, about a dozen hospitals and other health care organizations have paid Within3 to create communities customized for their constituencies. Individuals don't pay to access the site, which contains no advertising.

Within3 conducts background checks to ensure that only health care professionals can access the site, which helps build trust that information passed between users is reliable, said Kathy Ruggeri, director of marketing. “It's not just a LinkedIn for doctors,” she said.

GameSnake lets users select the sports they want to play and how far they are willing to drive. The site then notifies them of games other users in their area are organizing.

GameSnake's user base has grown to nearly 200,000 athletes nationwide from about 100,000 in 2006, which should help GameSnake attract advertisers such as athletic drink companies and sporting goods manufacturers, Mr. Holland said.

Another local company, CorkShare, is developing a tool meant to help groups of people share and comment on various digital content, such as photos, videos, text documents and spreadsheets. The software, designed to look like a virtual corkboard, is aimed at giving people more flexibility than other sites when it comes to what they can share and with whom, said Jim England, one of three Case Western Reserve University students starting the company.

Zolio LLC of University Heights is commercializing a tool that allows people to combine their digital text résumés with work samples and other documents. The résumés, called Zolios, can be searched online at zolio.com, but the company also wants people to link their Zolios to their profiles on sites such as LinkedIn, said chief marketing officer Andria Trivisonno.

Cleveland's rapidly growing Social Media Club chapter is in the process of applying for state money to fund an incubator and a venture capital fund focused on such companies.

Brad Nellis, president of the Northeast Ohio Software Association, agreed that opportunity still exists in the space. Challenges include figuring out how to make money from social media tools, which has plagued even the most popular technologies, and getting past a growing number of competitors, he said.

“It's getting to be a pretty crowded space,” Mr. Nellis said.

Social networking is good for you - UK report

2009-03-04T04:06:00.000-08:00

Internet | 02 Mar 2009 : Recent claims about the potential risks of social networking have ignored evidence that getting online has positive benefits for older people, says Age Concern.

"Our research shows that over two thirds of ‘silver surfers' say using the Internet has improved their lives. Whether it's using Facebook to stay in contact with friends, Skype for international calls to family abroad or using blogs to just have their say, social networking empowers previously isolated older people to stay connected and engaged" says Leonie Vlachos, Manager of Digital Inclusion.

Age Concern regularly runs IT events throughout the UK to encourage older people to get online and learn basic computer skills. Two thirds of new IT users aged over 55 agree the Internet had a positive impact on their lives.

"Social Networking lets me stay in contact with my family abroad and also my friends locally. I've even made some new friends online! I encourage any older people who are feeling isolated or lonely to try social networking" commented Doreen, a 70 year-old user.

Next stop: Social network users moving next to Twitterverse

2009-03-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

Although Facebook took a few years to grow from adolescent chat site to its current broader appeal (no doubt to the displeasure of the college kids), Twitter has leapt into the public consciousness in a much shorter time.

About a year ago, the free micro-blogging service was getting about 100 mentions in all media in a given week. Maybe a dozen or so of those were in major newspapers and magazines. Last week, for comparison, Twitter was mentioned more than 1,000 times in all media and more than 200 times in major publications.

Twitter users are overwhelmingly young, but unlike most of the other social networks, Twitter is not dominated by the youngest of young adults, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The median age of a Twitter user is 31, compared with 27 for MySpace and 26 for Facebook. (The business-networking tool LinkedIn skews much more heavily to an older audience. Median age: 40.7.)

“What we don’t see with Twitter ... that we do see in (social network service) use, is a decline in use in the 25-to-34 age group,” Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist for Pew in Washington, wrote in an e-mail. “I think that’s one of the more surprising findings.”

Twitter epitomizes how new media improve as more people find new and different ways to use them. The earliest Twitter users, in 2006, basically shot each other tweets about what they were up to at the moment. Knowing that a friend was “eating a sandwich” or “out shopping” might be useful to know now and then, but Twitter wouldn’t have gained many users or attracted major venture capital if its utility ended there.

It’s estimated that 6 million people use Twitter.com, up maybe sixfold from a year ago. Because the company doesn’t release numbers, measuring the Twitterverse is an educated guess.

Like any communications tool beyond cup and string, it gets more useful as more people use it. And as people and companies find new ways to put out information, the service keeps getting more interesting.

Useful applications

As with Facebook and the iPhone, the creative applications — the “apps” — various people have developed for Twitter improve it all the time.

The Museum of Modern Betas, an online “museum” of Web sites being tested, recently ranked the 100 most popular Twitter apps. Below are six of them, not the top six but a representative sampling of the amusing apps that Twitter users — not the inventors of the service — have been cooking up. Their ability to come up with words derived from “Twitter” or “tweet” is almost as impressive as their apps’ ingenuity:

• Twitterholic.com — With the tagline “Don’t your thumbs hurt yet?,” it ranks the leading Twitterers based on the total of their “followers” (although, remember, never judge your self-worth by that). The top 10 include very familiar names and some not-so-familiar: Barack Obama, CNN Breaking News, the English actor and comedian Stephen Fry, Twitter, tech innovator Kevin Rose, Britney Spears, The New York Times, Lance Armstrong, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Al Gore.

• Twellow.com — You can search all the Twittering on a given subject, everything from aerospace to cooking or motorsports.

• Twitturly.com — Tracks the Web sites that receive the most Twitter links that day — a snapshot of the subjects transfixing the world at the moment (or at least transfixing the people using Twitter).

• Twitscoop.com — Extracts the words mentioned often in hundreds of tweets a minute and turns them into “tag clouds,” visual depictions of what people are tweeting about. Theoretically, the cloud could alert you to something major going on slightly before the main news channels are attuned to it.

• Twitbin.com — Lets you scroll tweets down the side of your browser so you can follow them while you do actual work on your computer.

• Twitxr.com — You can send pictures from your mobile phone to Twitter.

Huddle to partner with more social networks

2009-03-04T04:01:00.000-08:00

Huddle said its "network profile" appeals to social network providers.

UK collaboration firm Huddle will partner with two more social networking sites in the upcoming months, following the success of its partnership with professional networking site LinkedIn, launched in October 2008.

Huddle has provided LinkedIn members with online collaboration tools to share ideas, information and files through its Workspaces application. The application is designed as a lightweight add-on to the main Huddle.net site so LinkedIn members can add the functionality to their profile straight away.

Huddle chief executive, Alastair Mitchell, said the firm’s two new social network partners, that he could not name yet, will integrate a similar type of application.

He said LinkedIn had brought Huddle a significant number of new customers but because of the terms of the partnership, he could not divulge the exact increase in numbers Huddle had seen in the last six months.

Mitchell said social networking sites were partnering with Huddle rather than other collaboration application providers because it offers a “network profile” feature, where people can invite their contacts to join the site. “This appeals to social networking providers that work in the same way,” he said.

Mitchell also promised that from March, Huddle users will have access to free teleconferencing and web conferencing solutions that they can use within their workspaces. “Live collaboration is the next big thing!” he said.

Finally, Mitchell said Huddle is adding new collaboration with Microsoft Live Office and will support a large number of additional languages.

As well as gaining new users from social networking partnerships for its add-on tool, Huddle is keen to drive growth in its flagship application. On the Huddle blog yesterday, co-founder and director Andy McLoughlin, explained how users can easily access the full Huddle system from within their Workspaces application by clicking on a Get More icon.

IAS creates own social network

2009-03-04T03:59:00.000-08:00

IAS B2B Marketing has joined the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world by creating its very own social networking platform, Total Immersion 09.

IAS gets Immersed

However, before all you fickle followers of the next big thing ditch your Facebook groups and silence your Twitters in anticipation of getting ‘Immersed’, we should add that the network is only available on the company’s intranet.

So why bother? We hear you ask… here’s MD Rob Morrice to explain.

“We wanted to find a way for the whole agency to fully immerse itself in the online world because it is such an integral part of b2b communications,” he commented.

“Developing our own social network that makes knowledge sharing and learning more engaging in the workplace was the most obvious way to do it, particularly as we have the capability in-house to create one.

“It enables staff to look at digital communication tools in a completely new way and experience how the latest innovations in the online world can be integrated into our multi-channel marketing campaigns.

“Essentially, Total Immersion makes us the most digitally advanced outfit around because we aren’t just talking about the latest tools, we’re using them.”

In-house users of the virtual network can now develop their own online identity and get involved in discussion forums, blogs and create user profiles.

DisFriends.com Launches Social Network for Disney Fans

2009-03-01T06:46:00.000-08:00

Hold on to your mouse ears because the world's first social network for Disney enthusiasts has launched at DisFriends.com. The website gives Disney fans worldwide a central meeting place to mix and mingle. Members can create their own customized profile page, share photos and journals, and correspond through special interest groups, discussion forums and real-time chat.

"DisFriends is a place where fans of all things Mickey can express themselves, get to know each other, and share their Disney favorites," says Trent Schwartz, DisFriends founder. "It's quickly becoming the town square of the online Disney world."

Unlike mega networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, DisFriends.com is part of a trend towards "niche" social networking. It's a growing phenomenon that sees web users choosing to connect with people who share common interests or hobbies. And for millions of people around the world, Disney is more than a hobby, it's an obsession. The site caters to every fan whether their passion be watching Disney movies, playing Disney games, taking a Disney vacation or simply everything about the Mouse.

Schwartz, who also founded Disney music site MagicMusic.net in 1997, launched DisFriends after recognizing an unfilled need in the online community. He realized that most fan forums engage users on specific topics but don't necessarily encourage participants to get to know each other on a personal level.

"I wanted to create a special place where people who appreciate the magic of Disney are able to come together to have fun and inspire one another," says Schwartz. "What makes DisFriends unique is that we encourage fans to share about both Disney and everyday life - whether that is their next Walt Disney World vacation or what they did on the weekend."

Share the Magic Contest:
To celebrate the launch, DisFriends is hosting a contest inviting fans to share a favorite Disneyland or Walt Disney World vacation tip. A randomly selected winner will win $100 Disney Dollars and will get to "share the magic" by randomly selecting one of their friends on the site to receive an additional $50 Disney Dollars. Visit DisFriends.com for complete entry details and contest rules.

Twitter: Efficiency engine or workplace distraction?

2009-03-01T02:14:00.000-08:00

TAVIA GRANT

Globe and Mail Update

February 28, 2009 at 6:00 AM EST

taviag: Am tweeting while at work. Which, coincidentally, is what I'm writing about: time waster or career builder? 11:57 AM from web.

nejsnave@taviag : i think the correct answer is ‘both'. ;) about 24 hours ago from web

It used to be whistle while you work. Now, it's tweet.

That, for the uninitiated, is how you post on Twitter, the coolest kid on the social networking block.

Twitter is a microblogging tool that lets users send and read updates – or tweets – of up to 140 characters. People post random thoughts, a new Web link or business updates. In just a sentence or two.

In the past year, Twitter has caught on like wildfire. There are now about 4.5 million users over all, 70 per cent of whom joined in 2008, estimates market tracking firm HubSpot Inc. It calculates that 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts are being opened every day.

No wonder Twitter has become one of the fastest-growing social networking sites, according to Nielsen Online.

Canadians are in on the act: Toronto has become the world's sixth-most twittery city, HubSpot says.

And Twitter is infiltrating workplaces.

As growing numbers sit at their desk reading updates about a plane crash in Amsterdam, checking whether Barack Obama has posted his first tweet since becoming U.S. President – he has attracted more than 300,000 followers – or finding cool people to follow (hello, Stephen Colbert), it's a wonder any work gets done these days.

The debate over Twitter, as with all social networking sites, is whether it's a productivity enhancer or a workplace distraction.

Twitter 101 Here's how it works.

People who have signed up to track your postings (“followers”) receive your updates; conversely, you can receive musings from people you have chosen to follow – ranging from your company chief executive officer (Sun Microsystems CEI Jonathan Schwartz tweets) to basketball great Shaquille O'Neal.

Companies are learning how to put Twitter to work. Employees at Sony BMG Music Canada Inc. have been posting concert and album release dates, and WestJet Airlines Ltd. employees have given updates on seat sales and flight delays.

The proponents

Jen Evans, president of Toronto-based Sequentia Communications, has 1,649 followers and tracks the musings of 1,283 others. She is a huge Twitter fan – for herself and her staff of 16.

Her business involves connecting businesses with clients, and she's found Twitter invaluable for recruiting, drumming up business and building her brand.

Having staff on Twitter can be a “visibility enhancer,” she says.

Larger companies, too, are jumping on board.

Telus Corp. allows Twitter time at work. “You have to trust employees,” says spokesman Shawn Hall, who personally uses it “all the time” to stay connected to journalists, public relations groups and the telecommunications community.

The opponents

Employers are still wrestling with policies on Facebook and other more established social networking sites, never mind Twitter. But some, including several government departments, such as those for the City of Toronto, ban personal use at work.

Murray Key, operations manager of a steel warehousing company in Edmonton, can't stand to see staff whittle away their work hours on any kind of social networking.

“There is a time and place to be a social butterfly, to play inane games and to waste personal time, but for the vast majority of us, that place is not at work,” he says.

Experiment with it

Experts who have studied social media are landing on the side of permissiveness.

“The impression I have is that Canadian companies still don't get the value of these tools,” says Don Tapscott, chairman of business strategy think tank nGenera Insight and author of Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing your World.

Twitter has emerged as a “powerful tool that can speed up the metabolism of an organization, keep everyone better informed and enable greater agility and responsiveness to changing conditions.”

He encourages people to experiment with it. Managers should try it out – at least to understand how it works – and give employees a chance “to self-organize and collaborate using these tools,” he says.

Twitter can be a key marketing and networking tool, says productivity expert Steve Prentice, president of consulting firm Bristall Morgan in Toronto. He suggests companies start trying it out on an internal basis – starting from the top, with CEOs, to boost communication with staff. And companies should have a policy in place so workers understand perimeters.

Given the growing desire to share information, in real time on the Web, employers take note: The tweeting will only get louder.

Have ideas on any innovative trends in the workplace? Send a tweet to @TaviaG.

Why it's good that Facebook makes us infantile

2009-02-28T15:51:00.000-08:00

You will, along with many millions of others, likely make an emergency appointment with your psychologist this week.

After all, the words of Lady Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College in Oxford, England, have probably slapped their syllables against your very core. Social-networking sites, she said, like Facebook (it's interesting how Facebook seems to have come to symbolize all social networking), are infantilizing the human mind.

The definition of infantile behavior appears to span such horrific traits as sensationalism, short attention spans, and a need to urinate in the middle of shopping malls. (Perhaps I inadvertently slipped that last one in.)

However, Lady Greenfield's worries are clearly weighing upon her mind. She told the Daily Mail, for example: "My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children, who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span, and who live for the moment."

And she was quoted in the Guardian as telling the United Kingdom's House of Lords (old people in strange costumes who love a heavy lunch and a massage for dessert) that the experiences children have on social-networking sites "are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance."

These two must have been socially networking since the age of 3, right?

(Credit: CC Strikeael)

My 4-year-old mind is seized with this response: how does she know that these experiences have no long-term significance? Is her mind so developed, adult, and able to focus for days on end on one subject that she can see into the future and declare all hope lost? Isn't it conceivable that those who network socially come to be more active socially in the real world too?

Well, not according to Lady Greenfield. "Real conversation in real time," she declared, "may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning, and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf.

Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability, and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction."

And perhaps they will get to know each other better before they waste each other's time in the deeply meaningful live social chit-chat so beloved by attendees of cocktail parties at the British Embassy. ("Looks like rain today." "Oh, yes. My begonias really need it. Don't yours?")

At the heart of Lady Greenfield's depressing, sensationalist, and stunningly self-centered analysis is this theory: My (adult) way of life is good. Your (childish) way of life is bad.

So why is it that adults so often venerate the honesty of children? Why is it that they delight in children's ability to express their emotions fully, clearly, and without holding a grudge? Why is it that they remind children that their childhood days will be the happiest of their lives?

What, in short, is so screamingly wrong about being infantile?

It's not children who start wars, destroy financial systems, struggle for power, create Ponzi schemes, and release their recently ingested vodka and Coors Light on the sidewalk.

And it certainly isn't children who have created a world of such uncertainty that living for the moment is, quite often, the only philosophy that keeps one from taking a running leap at the nearest cathedral wall and banging one's head as hard as possible against it.

Perhaps Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter and their other brand buddies will, indeed, change the human brain.

But can we really only imagine they will change it for the worse?

Corporations Need Security For Social Networking Apps

2009-02-28T05:10:00.000-08:00

By Scott Campbell, ChannelWeb
2:45 PM EST Fri. Feb. 27, 2009

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was on "The Today Show" Friday defending the social networking platform's user policies for its 200 million members.

While Facebook has come under fire for its reported claim to own members' information in perpetuity, it hasn't stopped rampant growth of the company founded in 2004. Zuckerberg told "Today Show" host Matt Lauer that a million members a week are added in the United States alone.

What he didn't say is that it's likely that some of them are malicious, and that corporations and individuals need to take steps to ensure their security.

Some companies try to limit their employees' social networking at work while other businesses encourage it as part of the business process. But to date, there hasn't been enough communication or policies drafted to ensure confidential information remains that way, according to Ian Amit, director of security research at Aladdin Knowledge Systems, an Arlington Heights, Ill.-based security applications vendor.

"It's already prevalent in most midsize to large organizations. Most large organizations acknowledge they can't block social networking. Everyone they hire now expects accessibility to social networking. If an organization is trying to bring in new people, they can't enforce a policy that says they don't allow it."

The range of security threats around social networking sites, including LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook and others, ranges greatly, Amit said.

Much of Web 2.0 is unmonitored, with unsupervised content being generated by everyone. Attacks can come from malware or malicious code that entices users to click on the links, which could allow a hacker to gain information about you or your company, he said.

"Another threat that is more relevant to businesses is personality hijacking. You can create a profile for people who are not on social networking, and with enough public information it looks like that profile is the person's real profile," Amit said.

Eventually, the fake profile can be used for slander or defamation to business espionage or financial fraud, he said.

"In the news, we've seen some recent examples for some activity. One example is a Facebook user who had their password stolen. The [hacker] started telling this person's friends that they were stuck on a business trip and that someone stole their wallet and can they help him out. They tried to social engineer the friend to send some money over," he said.

Another example is a soccer player in Italy, Alessandro Del Piero, who was victimized by a fake Facebook profile created in his name. Over time, the fake profile gained a legion of fans as friends. The creator started adding racial remarks and references to Nazi Web sites, Amit said.

"It caused a lot of turmoil in Italy and he [Del Piero] is suing Facebook," Amit said.

Closer to home, Amit said it's possible for someone to create a profile of a senior corporate executive that over time might be used to access information he or she might not otherwise be able to obtain.

"That's really easy to do. At the Black Hat conference in [Washington], D.C., a few days ago, a researcher had a great lecture about how you could create a fake profile for some company's employee, based on aggregate information from other profiles, like an alumni group. You start with office politics and friendships and you can infiltrate that space, create a fake resume, send messages. You can manage to get a lot of info [pertaining] to that business that was unknown to the public."

So what's a company to do? Education for employees is important. You can enforce some procedures such as no chatting via Facebook or sharing information with LinkedIn's Huddle Workspaces, Amit said.

"We did run into a few cases where [business] customers were impacted. They found out inadvertently that someone inside their business had linked to a fake profile. Someone noticed they had a LinkedIn profile that they didn't create. The guy lectured a couple of times so people had his bio," Amit said.

Social networking security breaches also can occur to people who belong in groups, such as those organized by graduating classes.

"In anticipation of the new year, [fake profilers] signed up for that group. Whoever opens that group is planting the seeds for all of those spammable mailing lists of university graduates," he said. "Can you imagine having the MBA list of Harvard? That's priceless."

In most cases, the perpetrators take great pains to ensure they don't get caught, he said.

"This is not Sarah Palin's e-mail getting hacked into by a guy using his own PC," he said.

By using an anonymous proxy on the Web, someone can impersonate whomever he or she wants to with little chance of being traced, Amit said.

"There are so many moving elements. You have to go through the ISP, the application provider, a potential proxy provider and hope they provide all the details. Knowing the volume of transactions, it's literally looking for a needle in a haystack," he said.

Aladdin recently started providing security functionality adapted for social networking and there also are reputation-tracking services and brand-recognition tracking services that can help spot fake profiles early on, Amit said. "They categorize [results] by new sites, social networking tools, analyst sites, to give you a view of how your brand is doing on the Web," he said.

working from home scam

2009-02-28T04:21:00.000-08:00

I've recently received questions about how much one an trust on the the thousands of sites offering the option of working from home. So I decided to a research on my own and some finding.

99% of them are scams, don't register.
Be utterly careful about entering your card details and best is never to do this
Don't be disguised by the success stories, if they are true we cannot be having unemployment problems like we have currently
Always look at a land line number which you can call and find out company details
Most of the time what you are going to get is the leads to do some part time work, whih means you are better off spend some time to look for part time jobs
Most of the success stories ate too good to be true and in fact they are true good to be true.
Don't be disguised by the reviews as well. Because of the anonymity of the internet you cannot verify the reviews.

Oracle's Social Networking Plans?

2009-02-28T04:09:00.000-08:00

There has been some buzz about Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL) working on a new social networking and blogging platform called Social Suite. It's true, but only sort of.

An Oracle spokesman says Social Suite is just a research project, and that it has "no plan to take the project beyond advanced development." However, as of October, according to documents that have been deleted from Oracle's Website (though cached for now here and here), Oracle was recruiting proof-of-concept customers and is asking interested companies to contact the software's product manager "for more information on how Oracle Social Suite can assist your enterprise."

Currently used as an internal tool, Social Suite includes blogging, single sign-on capability, search, social bookmarking, RSS and tagging and a way to add plug-ins and customize the suite -- including the use of OpenSocial APIs. One of the documents notes Social Suite uses Six Apart's Movable Type as its blogging platform, which a Six Apart spokeswoman confirmed.

Social Suite also includes a social networking feature called Oracle Semantic Communities. In addition to traditional social networking features, Oracle Semantic Communities will allow users to find friends or content based on the users' interests and has the ability to draw social graphs of relationships between people, content, and tags.

The Social Suite began life in 2007 as an internal tool called "Shiji" at its Asia Research and Development Center (OARDC), according to the documents. OARDC has offices throughout Asia and in the United States, and needed a way to securely share information and communicate goals. According to the documents, employees had already made thousands of posts on the platform by last summer.

It's unclear why Oracle removed the documents about Oracle Social Suite from its Web site. The company has spoken about Social Suite in public before, in a little-noticed address by Oracle Asia Research and Development Center VP Pascal Sero at the ZDNet Japan Social Technology Conference in October, as well as at an Oracle event in Japan in December.

Certainly, it wouldn't be surprising if Oracle was preparing such a product. The company released its Beehive collaboration suite (IM, e-mail, shared workspaces) last year, and collaboration was a huge topic at Oracle OpenWorld. Oracle's Social CRM applications share sales information via social networking.

Posted by J. Nicholas Hoover

Multiply: The next social-networking wave?

2009-02-28T04:07:00.000-08:00

Anyone who follows social-networking companies is well aware of the cautionary business tales that accompany the soaring successes. Friendster, then MySpace, were kings of the proverbial hill for a few years before they were eclipsed by someone else.

Now it's Facebook turn in the spotlight. But for how long? In a nod to gripes about its policies, Facebook on Thursday said it is giving its 175 million users a voice in helping dictate its future governing direction.

Such are the vagaries of a quickly shifting market where millions of potential members and billions of dollars in advertising are at stake.

That gives hope to Peter Pezaris, CEO of Multiply, a social-networking environment that sells itself on strict privacy controls, a six-degrees-of-separation approach to networking and high-resolution photos.

"We like to think we will be the next wave, but we want to be permanent," Pezaris says.

The 6-year-old company, with 12.5 million members, is banking on gaining -- and keeping -- consumers who are experiencing social-networking fatigue. Many have grown weary of maintaining a roster of friends that include family, co-workers and, at times, complete strangers. A family photo may not resonate -- or be appropriate -- to share with a boss and business associates.

Multiply's service is "family centric for Joe Sixpacks and soccer moms who want to share content with people they actually know," Pezaris says.

Mobile online marketing stats show increased usage

2009-02-26T11:49:00.000-08:00

Online marketing potential via mobile internet may be more lucrative than ever after it was revealed usage went up in 2008 by 14 per cent.

According to a study by ABI Research, seven in ten respondents used a search engine to surf the web on their handset last year, representing a year-on-year increase for this trend.

Jeff Orr is a senior analyst at the company and said not only were numbers up, but the rise in people using mobile searches was almost double that of the increase in people generally accessing sites on mobiles.

He explained this is because mobile search gives users a utility to find any type of information at any time - a fact that may be vitally important for internet marketing campaigns.

"With a few keywords, one can quickly identify movie times, the discography of a musical artist, recommendations for a local eatery and so much more," Mr Orr added, going on to say that phones have become crucial for more than just making calls.

ABI Research's report follows statistics published earlier this week from The Nielsen Company, which said viewing video content on mobile devices and the internet had "reached new heights".

Earning Employee Trust

2009-02-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

It’s no secret that being trusted by team members is critical to any leader’s success. And that fact leads to an all important question: How can you earn your people’s trust … what can you do protect and maintain that most important leadership characteristic? The answer: By exhibiting the following four behaviors …

Keep your promises. You don’t have to promise things just to make employees feel good. They’re more interested in being able to depend on what you promise than in feeling good. Just keep the promises you do make and your team will trust what you say.
Speak out for what you think is important. Employees can’t read your mind. They don’t know how you feel. If they have to guess about what’s important to you, they may guess wrong. Save them the trouble. Tell them how you feel and why. They’ll respect you so much more.
Err on the side of fairness. Be fair to everyone. Employees really do know that things are not always clearly right or wrong. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions that affect many people. Sometimes those decisions include having to dismiss team members. All your team can really ask for is that you be fair at all times – regardless of the type of decision you have to make.
Do what you say you are going to do. Just let your “yes” be yes and your “no” mean no. When you tell people you are going to do something, they should be able to “consider it done.”

Top Neuroscientist’s warning to parents – social websites harm children’s brain

2009-02-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centered. These are some of the claims by neuroscientist Susan Greenfield that will make disturbed reading for the millions of people world over whose social lives depend upon logging on to their favorite websites each day. These sites are extremely popular and profitable but a growing number of psychologists and neuroscientists believe they may be doing more harm than good. Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University neuroscientist believes repeated exposure could rewire the brain.

It was also noted that autistic people who find it hard to communicate, were particularly comfortable using computers. Psychologists also argue that digital technology is changing the way we think. They point out that students no longer needed to plan essays before starting to write – thanks to word processors that edit as they go along. Satellite navigation systems have negated the need to decipher maps. Educational psychologist Jane Healy believes that children should be kept away from video or computer games until they are seven. Most games only trigger the ‘flight or fight’ region of the brain rather than the vital areas of reasoning. The argument is not against technology and computers. All the scientist say that before social networking one should learn to make real relationships with people. In a way, that is so true! How many real friends do we and how many virtually!

[Dailymail]

Too much time on social networking could give you cancer.

2009-02-25T22:13:00.000-08:00

No, not because of the rays beaming from the screen into your brain. And Sigman doesn't explicitly say social networking causes cancer. His idea is that screen time is taking the place of face time, keeping us from enjoying the proven health benefits that come when we hang out with people we trust -- including elevated levels of oxytocin.
Read on

Windows vista continue to be hilarious

2009-02-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

Well, image says it all isn't it?
We cannot find lots of Vista lovers these days and I wonder we will ever have.
46368 days? you got to be kidding Vista? I wont even live that long

This is rather a common problem in Windows and the so called industry leader was not able to come up with a good solution for copying and pasting files

Recognize others

2009-02-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

Though I am tempted to write more on online marketing or technical side of things, being a project manage also makes me things on managerial aspects of things as well. One thing we all like is the recognition. Recognition will make people loyal to you in a good way. recognition will motivate people. Recognition will make people like their job... I can go on and on. But what are the easy ways of recognizing people? Most of the times it's just miss-communication than not recognizing.
Hears some easy ways of recognizing people
1. Listen
Listening to others will easily convey the message of recognizing. Take time to listen to your manager, peers, subordinates (or even your wife, parents, child). This is very important, if you do actually care, do listen.
2. Label their findings
Label someones finding as it's his thing. This will make everyone including him know that it's his work and its being used for the good will. Everyone else will understand that his work was useful. This is an easy way to recognize.