Thursday, July 29, 2010

Marketing: Disney, Google and MTV Charge Into Social Games

"On Tuesday, Disney acquired top-three developer Playdom for $563 million plus $200 million in incentives. Google, meanwhile, is reportedly in talks with Playdom, Electronic Arts and Zynga in a social-gaming push. And MTV Networks this month acquired social-game developer Social Express and plans to launch games based on its TV shows later this year."

Marketing: Disney, Google and MTV Charge Into Social Games - Advertising Age - Digital

Cutting Edge Web Design Trends

"As the worlds of web design and SEO merge ever closer, we've been seeing design-specific elements produce a positive impact on SEO for the sites that employ them. It's terrific news for SEOs who love design and are capable of and passionate about making it part of their repertoire. It's also great for designers who find that as they evolved from Flash designs to machine-readable CSS and separated markup from content, they've earned more links and more organic search love."

SEOmoz | 7 Cutting Edge Web Design Trends (that Can Actually Improve SEO)

So-Called "Digital Natives" Not Media Savvy, New Study Shows

"'In Google we trust.' That may very well be the motto of today's young online users, a demographic group often dubbed the 'digital natives' due their apparent tech-savvy. Having been born into a world where personal computers were not a revolution, but merely existed alongside air conditioning, microwaves and other appliances, there has been (a perhaps misguided) perception that the young are more digitally in-tune with the ways of the Web than others."

So-Called "Digital Natives" Not Media Savvy, New Study Shows

Google, US Gov’t Back Same Data Mining Startup

"Their objectives may be different but both Google and the “investment arm of the CIA” are funding the same startup: Recorded Future. According to a piece in Wired both In-Q-Tel (the CIA investment firm) and Google will have a seat on the company’s board.

This is reportedly the first time the government and Google have invested in the same company, though as Wired points out both have done business with the same companies in the past (e.g., Keyhole, which became Google Earth)."


Google, US Gov’t Back Same Data Mining Startup

How gaming became the future of social media

"Farmville. Mafia Wars. Pet Society. With their collective userbases numbering in the hundreds of millions, social gaming is as ubiquitous and mainstream as primetime TV programming."

How gaming became the future of social media - Fortune Tech

Marketers Finally Turn Toward Metrics

"One-third of U.S. companies plan to maintain or increase marketing budgets in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, and a higher percentage will set up guidelines and metrics to prove accountability, according to a study released Wednesday.
The Forbes Insights and software and analytics firm MarketShare Partners reveals marketers and agencies continue to struggle with finding the metrics to justify dollars spent on campaigns. Fifty-eight percent of companies working with budgets up to $1 million admit they will implement tools that measure return on investment (ROI) to measurable outcomes, compared with 40% for those working with higher budgets."

MediaPost Publications Marketers Finally Turn Toward Metrics 07/29/2010

How To: Be Safe On Twitter

"As we know, there are all kinds of people on twitter. If you’ve been on twitter for a while, you must’ve had your share of experiences with spam DMs, weirdos, stalkers etc.

Twitter is growing and it is extremely important to take all measures for your safety. With every tweet, remember that you are revealing something about yourself. Be careful on the internet. I believe it is essential, not just for young teens but also for adults, to think twice (even more than that) before hitting the tweet button."

How To: Be Safe On Twitter | The Nicky Blog

Social SEO Success - 4 Social Media Marketing & Optimization Tips

"The sheer volume of social media marketing and search engine optimization advice posted online can make it difficult for companies to make sense out what direction they should take. There are many models and approaches to leveraging �optimized content for discovery through search and how to develop social networks to engage customers and promote content. �It comes down to fundamentals and I think the following Four pieces of the Social SEO puzzle can help companies of any size get started in a more meaningful way on their journey towards becoming productive on the social web."

Social SEO Success - 4 Social Media Marketing & Optimization Tips - Online Marketing Blog

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Does your brand get Facebook?

A new Altimeter Group report identifies eight success criteria for Facebook page marketing — and points out that brands have a long way to go applying those criteria successfully. I encourage marketers to read it. The report is free, and Altimeter is a leading authority.


Does your brand get Facebook?

Help Employees Talk About Your Brand Online

"For many brand managers, employees’ actions online remain a daunting, untamed frontier. The brand’s consistent, controlled message to consumers melds with internal messaging and individuals’ stories when employees take to the social web.

The cautionary tales of the social web’s early days — stories of indiscretion, mixed signals and poor communication — have led to an increase in strict policies and careful monitoring of employee social media activities in many cases. But lately, a few savvy brands have changed their internal position about employees’ activities on the social web."
HOW TO: Help Employees Talk About Your Brand Online

Is Twitter Irrelevant For Brands?

"A recent study posted in AdAge would have you think so. The study, conducted by an agency called 360i (direct link to the data here) examined 1800 tweets and determined that only 12% of updates posted to Twitter mentioned a brand – and for most of those, the brand was Twitter itself. The implicit conclusion: no one is talking about your brand on Twitter, so brands can direct their attention elsewhere."

Is Twitter Irrelevant For Brands? | BrandSavant

Privacy abuse unlikely in Google Street View flap

"The U.K.'s privacy watchdog has visited Google to look at samples of data collected by the company from unsecured Wi-Fi networks through its Street View program, and says the data was free of 'meaningful personal details.'
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which in May said the data should be deleted as it was unlikely to investigate, said in a statement on Tuesday that it had visited Google premises on July 15 to assess samples of the data."

U.K.: Privacy abuse unlikely in Google Street View flap | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

Social and Location-Based Media Growing, LinkedIn Now Worth $2 Billion

"Location-based marketing has been all the rage lately, yet a recent report from marketing firm Forrester reveals that — although growing — only 4% of online adults use any kind of location-based service in the U.S., and a mere 1% check in using one of these services at least once per week. By contrast, more than 11% of online adults have used Twitter, and an estimated 28% have signed up for Facebook."

Morning Brief: Social and Location-Based Media Growing, LinkedIn Now Worth $2 Billion

Annotations to Promote Your Brand on YouTube

"Whether you’ve been posting videos for a while, or you’re just starting out, YouTube Annotations are another tool that you can use to help your videos stand out from the crowd. And even better, with a little creative planning, annotations can add a dimension of interactivity and entertainment to your videos that audiences will appreciate."

HOW TO: Use Annotations to Promote Your Brand on YouTube

Google Develops a Facebook Rival

"Google Inc. is in talks with several makers of popular online games as it seeks to develop a broader social-networking service that could compete with Facebook Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

Google has been in discussions with top developers to offer their games on a new service it is building, these people said. Those developers include Playdom Inc., Electronic Arts Inc.'s Playfish and Zynga Game Network Inc.—a company in which Google recently took a financial stake, these people said."


Google Develops a Facebook Rival - WSJ.com

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

New Message Center notifications for detecting an increase in Crawl Errors

"When Googlebot crawls your site, it’s expected that most URLs will return a 200 response code, some a 404 response, some will be disallowed by robots.txt, etc. Whenever we’re unable to reach your content, we show this information in the Crawl errors section of Webmaster Tools (even though it might be intentional and not actually an error). Continuing with our effort to provide useful and actionable information to webmasters, we're now sending SiteNotice messages when we detect a significant increase in the number of crawl errors impacting a specific site"
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: New Message Center notifications for detecting an increase in Crawl Errors

Study Says Most Marketers Should Forgo Foursquare - WRONG

"Marketers, hold off on Foursquare -- for now. That's the verdict of Forrester Research on location-based start-ups, which, despite their reputation as the hot new media, are still too small for major marketers. The research firm finds that these heavily-hyped apps currently make sense mainly for brands seeking male influencers.

In a study out today, Forrester finds that only 4% of U.S. online adults have ever used location-based mobile apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt. Only 1% update these services more than once per week. What's more, 84% of respondents said they are not familiar with such apps, leaving the vast majority of Americans online still in the dark about location-based apps, which have had the marketing world obsessing over them in recent months."

Digital: Study Says Most Marketers Should Forgo Foursquare - Advertising Age - Digital

- most Americans are not on twitter either.

Accept Everything We Do Is Social

"In the world of computer programming, an application (or 'app') is a bit of computer code that sits on top of a larger platform and helps you perform a specific task. Well ... actually that's not entirely accurate. It used to be the case that each app had its own native platform. Internet Explorer was on Windows. Farmville was on Facebook. Then the great migration happened. As an industry we are witnessing a historic trend: apps that were once dependent on one platform, like Facebook or the iPhone, are now moving to multiple platforms. In some cases they're even moving directly to the Web itself."

MediaPost Publications Accept Everything We Do Is Social (And 'Like' It) 07/27/2010

An Even Better Way to Find Places Nearby - Google Places

"With six updates in six months, Google Maps for Android has been getting plenty of new features, both big and small. A continued focus with each update has been on giving you better ways to find places nearby. In the most recent updates, Maps has gotten features like swiping between search results and info like photos, reviews, and more helpful content on the result pages. With today’s launch of Google Maps for mobile 4.4, we’re introducing an even easier way to find places around you: a dedicated Places icon that lets you quickly look up nearby places and pick a place to go using updated Place Pages, just like on your computer."


An Even Better Way to Find Places Nearby - Official Google Mobile Blog

Monday, July 26, 2010

What Is SEO - Search Engine Optimization

"SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads."

What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?

What is the deal with #SEODJWed anyway?

"In a nutshell, #SEODJWed is a group of SEOs from around the world with a wide range of musical tastes, each sending out links to music they enjoy, or have been asked to play… and it happens on Wednesday.� It’s been dubbed “Social DJing”, I just call it fun.� It’s the way radio ought to be, great music, an occasional interesting story and no commercials.� It’s defiantly NOT your parents’ radio."

What is the deal with #SEODJWed anyway? | SEO | SEM | Internet Marketing | Jack Leblond

Advertising - Sesame Street - Mad Men

Is ‘Write What You Know’ Bad Advice?

"When you write what you know, you’re also able to give better advice, since you have experience or a broad knowledge base. Relying on other websites for research about a topic can be your downfall, since not every writer out there is accurate, honest, or complete. This week, we’re featuring the medblogging community, and I’m sure you’ve all seen health-related blogs that were clearly not written by doctors. For someone without much experience using the Internet for research, those blogs are actually dangerous, since they give poor advice that will be followed without the supervision of a doctor."

Is ‘Write What You Know’ Bad Advice? | Blog World Expo Blog

Segmenting question queries for fun and profit.

"n dealing with larger websites, there’s often little snippets of useful data hidden away in your analytics software. �When analysing the keywords which send traffic to a site, �it makes sense to segment that data to help make it easier to process, and understand. On a recent project of my own, I found that technique particularly useful when looking for question queries , and making sure that the website was providing the information necessary to answer the question, and either convert – or prevent a bounce."

Segmenting question queries for fun and profit.

Facebook and Twitter Integration Most Popular with E-Mail Campaigns While Mobile Lags

"Although it comes as no surprise to most, the integration of e-mail campaigns and social media outlets is becoming more popular. Leading the charge are Facebook and Twitter which is probably no surprise either. What is a little surprising is just how quickly the numbers dive with regard to other options for social media integration."


Facebook and Twitter Integration Most Popular with E-Mail Campaigns While Mobile Lags

Search University 2 - Matt Cutts - Google 2010 SEO update

How Much Old Spice Body Wash Has the Old Spice Guy Sold?

"Isaiah Mustafa, aka 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,' has clearly broken through all previous viral-video records and achieved pop-icon status. The question is: How much Old Spice body wash has he sold? And the answer is a bit of a mystery."
How Much Old Spice Body Wash Has the Old Spice Guy Sold? - Advertising Age - News

Friday, July 23, 2010

Social media raises federal record-keeping, privacy concerns

"Social media tools enable the government to engage with citizens and carry out their missions, but federal officials are pushing for additional guidance to ensure records are preserved properly.

Officials from several agencies told the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives on Thursday that the growing use of Web 2.0 technologies across government presents challenges for official record-keeping. Communications via blogs, wikis and social networks in many cases are considered federal records and must be managed as such, they said."

Social media raises federal record-keeping, privacy concerns - Nextgov

Search Optimization in the Mobile Age

"Is your business trying to reach potential customers who search for information online? Of course it is.

But be sure not to neglect those who use mobile phones -- used by more than 90 percent of U.S. households today, according to CTIA, the wireless industry association. That compares to home Internet usage estimated at about 74 percent, according to Nielsen Online."

Search Optimization in the Mobile Age

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Google Researchers Speak Out on Disclosure Policies

"A group of security researchers at Google has written a vague proposal for how to handle vulnerability disclosures.

The debate over vulnerability disclosure policies is one of the oldest in computer security, but it's obvious that this particular paper has a more recent instigation: Just last month one of the Google researchers, Tavis Ormandy, disclosed a vulnerability in Windows that he discovered less than 5 days after reporting it to Microsoft, complete with proof of concept code, because he didn't like Microsoft's response"

Google Researchers Speak Out on Disclosure Policies - Security Watch

Facebook’s 500 Million Members

"Facebook reached its 500 million member milestone yesterday and celebrated the event with the launch of Facebook Stories. The monumental moment also played a role in the ABC World News report featuring a candid interview between Diane Sawyer and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

To commemorate the achievement, the team at Facebakers.com put together the comprehensive infographic included below (click to enlarge). The illustration breaks down the demographics of Facebook’s burgeoning population (according to their own data on the service), and explores the international makeup of the site."

Facebook’s 500 Million Members [INFOGRAPHIC]

Optimizing Yourself For The Yahoo! Microsoft Search Alliance

"With the Yahoo/Microsoft Search Alliance in full swing, the accompanying transitions of both paid and organic search are imminent. As such, search publishers and search marketers alike have some work to do. I’m going to walk you through this as best I can from the perspective of a large advertiser within Yahoo. I will endeavor to provide tips and information that will enable both large and small advertisers, publishers, and webmasters to navigate the process smoothly. I’ll progress from the simplest of issues to the more complex, starting with a guide to resources."

Optimizing Yourself For The Yahoo! Microsoft Search Alliance

Facebook App Adoption of the Top 100 brands

"Facebook apps are popular tools for modern marketers. They allow brands to create engaging experiences for their Facebook fans such as polls, coupons, video channels, and more. Because we talk with a lot of companies about using our Facebook Analytics to track the success of their Facebook Apps, we are often asked for benchmarks about app adoption. Brands are asking because they want to see how they stack up to other brands. So we decided to do a little research. Here’s what we found:"

Facebook App Adoption of the Top 100 brands � Official Webtrends Company Blog

The Quiet Social Networks

"When we talk about social networks, we are talking about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Myspace. Usually in that order. Let’s take a look at their number of users. Facebook is obviously the Goliath in the room.

These big four social networks are the most social, most active, most feature rich communities. Or are they? They certainly are the full featured social networks in the traditional sense. But there are many quiet communities out there that are building very significant numbers.

Should we be giving more thought to these quiet social networks?"

The Quiet Social Networks

Searching For the Perfect Purchase Process in Social Media, Real-Time Search

"A 'considered purchase' is one that follows this process. Roughly, a considered purchase is for an item that I'll get in trouble with my spouse over, if I turn up at home having purchased one and not checked with her.

Reference search (Google & Bing, for example) has been the tool of choice for finding information on the web in the considered purchase process. But with the expanding set of tools more grounded in social media, it's increasingly clear that we have other search and search-like tools that should be able to help in evaluating purchase alternatives."

Searching For the Perfect Purchase Process in Social Media, Real-Time Search - Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Coca-Cola forced to pull Facebook promotion after porn references | Media | The Guardian

"The Coca-Cola company has pulled an internet promotion campaign, after parents accused it of targeting children by using references to a notorious pornographic movie.

The company had been running a promotion for its Dr Pepper brand, in which users allowed their Facebook status box to be taken over by the company.

As part of the promotion, supposedly embarrassing messages would be posted under the user's name, which could be seen by friends entitled to view their Facebook profile."
Coca-Cola forced to pull Facebook promotion after porn references | Media | The Guardian

What Is Google Editions

"Someday soon—later this summer perhaps—there will be a major new development in the evolution of e-books: the launch of Google Editions. The initial success of Amazon's Kindle, Apple's iPad, and the e-book runners-up like Barnes & Noble's Nook and the Sony Reader has established that consumers are reading books on screens in ever-greater numbers and with considerable satisfaction. While the revenues are still a relatively small part of the overall book market—somewhat less than 10 percent—the figure is growing very fast. The prediction that e-books will be 20 to 25 percent of the total in the next ten years now seems reasonable.

So what does Google Editions add to the mix? The answer, based on conversations with Google representatives and bookseller—particularly among the independent stores—is that Google will be adding millions of digital titles for sale on any device with Internet access: smart phones, tablets, netbooks, desktops, and every digital reading device except Kindle, which for now at least continues to operate on a closed proprietary system. But Google and Amazon are continuing discussions, so that may yet change."


What Is Google Editions? - Culture - The Atlantic

Paul Frank and Element Tap Loopt for Location-Based Incentive Programs

"Location-based social network Loopt has just added two new rewards to its Loopt Star app, this time from brands Paul Frank and Element.

Loopt Star, which is basically like a digital loyalty card for your iPhone, lets you earn discounts or other rewards when you check in to certain shops. The program is slightly different from some of the other incentive programs that other location networks use because the retailer or business has more granular control over when discounts can be offered and what conditions need to be met."

Paul Frank and Element Tap Loopt for Location-Based Incentive Programs

Five ways to integrate social media into your overall marketing mix

"Social media marketing does occupy a useful place, but it is still best used in conjunction with other marketing, rather than as a single magical cure-all that exists in isolation.

One important reason for this is that the audience engaging with you over social media channels is likely to be smaller than the one exposed to your brand through more traditional channels such as advertising, in-store or via word-of-mouth. While things may develop to the point where social media users reach critical mass (especially for very niche products with a young demographic, for example), for most businesses this is not the case yet, and so it’s wiser to spread your bets."

Five ways to integrate social media into your overall marketing mix | memeburn

The Web Means the End of Forgetting

"our years ago, Stacy Snyder, then a 25-year-old teacher in training at Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster, Pa., posted a photo on her MySpace page that showed her at a party wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup, with the caption “Drunken Pirate.” After discovering the page, her supervisor at the high school told her the photo was “unprofessional,” and the dean of Millersville University School of Education, where Snyder was enrolled, said she was promoting drinking in virtual view of her under-age students. As a result, days before Snyder’s scheduled graduation, the university denied her a teaching degree."
The Web Means the End of Forgetting - NYTimes.com

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

How can a photographer's image-focused site gain PageRank?

A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Social Media

"Five years ago, YouTube was just getting started, MySpace was the most popular website in the U.S., and Facebook was still limited to college and high school students. Mobile was mostly an after-thought, as we were still more than a year away from the introduction of the iPhone and the idea of an app store. And “widgets” were just starting to emerge as a way to integrate third-party apps on a website (Newsweek would declare 2007 to be “year of the widget” in a late 2006 article)."

A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Social Media

Why QR Codes Are Poised to Hit the Mainstream

: "The QR code, or quick response code, is simply a two-dimensional bar code that came into being in 1994 and found a large audience in Japan. Stateside, however, QR codes — while clever for tying real-world objects to online content — have always remained on the outskirts of public awareness.

Nonetheless, we’ve seen QR codes employed for creative purposes. The Detroit Red Wings interactive programs and the giant QR codes in Times Square come to mind. Each of these serves as prime examples of how QR codes could be on the verge of their breakout moment."

Why QR Codes Are Poised to Hit the Mainstream

How To Run a Twitter Chat & 8 Marketing & PR Twitter Chats to Follow

"There are many tactics companies can implement as part of a smart Twitter Marketing strategy. Growing the initial following is important as is providing the budding community you’re building with something of value to keep coming back and to spread the good word to their networks. One such tactic that offers value and brings people together is the Twitter chat. �I’ve been involved with about 5 or 6 different Twitter chats as a guest and they are a unique experience. In this post I’ll share my observations about what seems to work, some logistics and a few examples of some well-run Twitter chats for the marketing and PR verticals."

How To Run a Twitter Chat & 8 Marketing & PR Twitter Chats to Follow - Online Marketing Blog

Monday, July 19, 2010

Why Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore Baby Boomers

"Born between the years 1946-1964, the oldest of the Boomers are beginning to retire. But today’s middle aged and older consumers are different than their predecessors. The conventional wisdom that they spend little, resist technology and are slow to adopt new products needs to be re-assessed. Boomers are an affluent group who adopt technology with enthusiasm (think about the number of parents or grandparents who regularly send e-mails or upload photos to Facebook and other sites). They have also shown a willingness to try new brands and products."

Why Marketers Can’t Afford to Ignore Baby Boomers | Nielsen Wire

What is the benefit of using the change of address tool in Google Webmas...

Google Local Search Experiment Will Give IYPs & SMBs Heartburn

"Earlier this month, Google began experimenting with some new local search results formats, according to a post by Linda Buquet on Mike Blumenthal’s Understanding Google Maps & Local Search blog. The new layout essentially replaces some regular keyword search listings with what were 7-pack listings, and moves the map to the right side of the page. The design appears to be good for consumers but devastating for the SEO of online business directories as well as for some small-to-medium businesses"

Google Local Search Experiment Will Give IYPs & SMBs Heartburn:

Friday, July 16, 2010

Google Video Sitemaps



Deeper understanding with Metaweb

"Over time we’ve improved search by deepening our understanding of queries and web pages. The web isn’t merely words—it’s information about things in the real world, and understanding the relationships between real-world entities can help us deliver relevant information more quickly. Today, we’ve acquired Metaweb, a company that maintains an open database of things in the world. Working together we want to improve search and make the web richer and more meaningful for everyone.

With efforts like rich snippets and the search answers feature, we’re just beginning to apply our understanding of the web to make search better. Type [barack obama birthday] in the search box and see the answer right at the top of the page. Or search for [events in San Jose] and see a list of specific events and dates. We can offer this kind of experience because we understand facts about real people and real events out in the world. But what about [colleges on the west coast with tuition under $30,000] or [actors over 40 who have won at least one oscar]? These are hard questions, and we’ve acquired Metaweb because we believe working together we’ll be able to provide better answers."

Official Google Blog: Deeper understanding with Metaweb

Site Navigation & Information Architecture Fundamentals For SEOs

"One of the most confusing skills to teach someone who practices organic search engine optimization is called “information architecture” (aka “IA”). I’ve given several talks on the topic in an effort to chip away at some popular misconceptions. Each time the audience has people who refer to themselves as an SEO, IA or usability professional. Typically we’re allotted anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to discuss “successful information architecture.” Since IA is not the same for SEO and Usability (closely related however), conveying the nuances of how, why, when, where and what information architecture is to each profession feels like a disaster."

Site Navigation & Information Architecture Fundamentals For SEOs

10 Tips for Corporate Blogging

"In a world where small businesses with corporate blogs receive 55 percent more traffic than small businesses that don't blog, companies should be taking note on how to improve their blog, attract more readers and get more results.

But still, a lot of companies with corporate blogs seem to be bogged down in uniformed policies and simply aren't thinking outside the box.�"

10 Tips for Corporate Blogging : Technology :: American Express OPEN Forum

Google’s Secret Pay-Per-Click Tax

"So, what could be simpler than Google pay-per-click advertisements? People search for stuff, you craft a 95-character advertisement with a URL based on that search, you make a bid telling Google how much that searcher is worth to you, searchers click on your ad and go to its URL, and only then does Google get paid. That’s simple!

It’s so simple and powerful that it’s addictive.

Making things simple is hard work. Nobody does a better job of that than Google. That’s why in 2010, Google will sell well over $20 billion in PPC (define) advertisements."

Simplicity: Google’s Secret Pay-Per-Click Tax

The New York Times Algorithm

"The New York Times is the number one newspaper web site. Analysts reckon it ranks first in reach among US opinion leaders. When the New York Times editorial staff tweaks its supersecret algorithm behind what to cover and exactly how to cover a story — as it does hundreds of times a day — it can break a business that is pushed down in coverage or not covered at all.

When the New York Times was a pure newspaper, it was easy to appear agnostic about its editorial coverage, with no reason to play favorites with one business or another. But as the New York Times has branched out, making investments in external companies, it has acquired pecuniary [that means financial, by the way] incentives to favor those over rivals."

The New York Times Algorithm & Why It Needs Government Regulation

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Dallas Home Staging - Outstanding Women in Business Honored

DALLAS - Thousands of women gathered Thursday to recognize Dallas' outstanding female business leaders. Some also shared the secrets to their success. (see Clip of http://byMichelleLynne.com at beginning)

Outstanding Women in Business Honored

Barbie Joins Foursquare

"Barbie, the beloved doll of girls (and boys) everywhere, has taken a new career as a video maker and starlet — and joined Foursquare to celebrate her new Video Girl ambition.

Barbie, as a celebrity Foursquare user, will be using the service to fashion location-based scavenger hunts as she travels across the U.S to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York on her summer vacay. She’ll also be using Twitter to tweet out text, photo and video clues."


Barbie Joins Foursquare

10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Page Owner Should Know

"Facebook Pages are increasingly becoming a “second home page” for businesses online. And while more and more Page owners are learning how to become expert Facebook marketers, Facebook has recently created many new opportunities for Pages to get more traffic through the tried and true methods of – you guessed it – search engine optimization (SEO)."


10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Page Owner Should Know


6 Social Media Metrics You Should Be Tracking | Social Media Today

"When thinking about your social media strategy, you should be planning for 6 important metrics. What are the six? There are 3 different levels of social media participation and 2 different types of metrics. Put them in a 3 x 2 metrics, and you get six.

Here’s the rundown on the 3 social media engagement aspects to measure:

Activity - Any metrics relating to actions your organization is taking on social media: blogging, tweeting, posting, promoting, etc.
Interaction - This category’s metrics focus on how your audience is engaging with your social media presence: followers, comments, likes, sharing, user created content, etc.
Returns - This group accounts for where your social media activities directly or indirectly support measures driving successful organizations: revenue creation (and the activities that lead up to it), cost minimization (along with activities to help achieve it), and other critical financial performance metrics."


6 Social Media Metrics You Should Be Tracking | Social Media Today

5 Tips for Managing Your Company's Brand on the Web

"Brand management in the current era means not just keeping an ever-present eye on the social web, but also engaging in meaningful ways with brand advocates and detractors. Professionals in the field have come to accept social media as crucial to their jobs, but most know that managing a company’s brand on the web is so much more than setting up shop on social sites like Twitter and Facebook."

5 Tips for Managing Your Company's Brand on the Web

Old Spice -The Archetype Of a Successful Social Media Campaign

"Although they had quite a different purpose from the homicidal “John Doe” character from David Fincher’s thriller “Seven,” this is probably what the folks from advertising agency Wieden Kennedy, the one behind Old Spice’s latest marketing campaign, must be thinking right now.

The social media onslaught, in which the Old Spice guy – as actor Isaiah Mustafa, which starred in most of Old Spice’s recent commercials, has come to be known on the Internet – has ended today. In his final tweet and video, Mustafa says that “like all great things this too must end.”"

Old Spice: The Archetype Of a Successful Social Media Campaign

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made

"How do you take the social web by storm in a day, winning over even the coldest of hearts and gaining international aclaim - with commercials?"

How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made


Microsoft: 25,000 PCs attacked with latest Windows zero day

"The Windows Help and Support Center vulnerability that was patched with yesterday’s�MS10-042 bulletin was under active attack by malware miscreants, especially in Europe where Microsoft tracked about 25,000 attempts to exploit the vulnerability.


According to Microsoft’s Holly Stewart, the attacks escalated significantly when the company announced the issue would be fixed in this month’s Patch Tuesday."

Microsoft: 25,000 PCs attacked with latest Windows zero day | ZDNet

What is the best way to check your own site for keyword rankings?



Can a purchased domain's history affect its trust in Google?



Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Optimize Your Mobile Site Across Multiple Platforms

"One of the most difficult aspects of designing for the mobile web is making your site compatible and accessible across different devices. A mobile-optimized site might look great on your iPhone or Android device, but utterly fall apart on Symbian or BlackBerry handsets. Likewise, a simple WAP-enabled site might be fine for feature phones, but fall short of expectations when it comes to newer and more advanced devices.

We’ve covered some of the ways to streamline the process of creating your mobile-optimized site in the past. Today, we want to take a look at some specific tips and tricks for testing and adding compatibility for different types of devices."

HOW TO: Optimize Your Mobile Site Across Multiple Platforms

Involver Simplifies Social Media Management for Brands with AMP

"Social marketing platform Involver has just launched its Audience Management Platform (AMP), a social media dashboard for users, brands and agencies to manage, monitor and schedule their appearances on Facebook, Twitter and the broader social web.

Last year, Involver launched its Facebook Page management system and since then, the company has been building and rolling out other types of apps for its clients, including the Get Satisfaction Facebook app. With AMP, all of Involver’s tools can be accessed from one dashboard, and agencies or larger brands also have the advantage of being able to manage many sites all from a single interface."


Involver Simplifies Social Media Management for Brands with AMP

The Real Life Social Network v2

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Monday, July 12, 2010

What's your take on "addon domains"?



How can a website compete using only white hat techniques?



Social Media Use in the Workplace

"A new study from Trend Micro shows that more workers around the globe are using social networks while in the office and on the clock.

The survey took a look at the habits of 1,600 Internet users from the U.S., UK, Germany and Japan and found that over the past two years alone, social web use in the workplace has risen from 19% to 24%. In Germany specifically, social media use at work saw a 10% increase."

Social Media Use in the Workplace on the Rise [STATS]

10 Useful Website Analytics Tools

"When you start a website, no matter if you have chosen a top business hosting package or a cheap website hosting package, you will find various website analysis tools in your web hosting admin panel. Website analysis tools, such as Awstats, are typically included in both business hosting and cheap website hosting packages and these tools are indeed good. However, if you want options when it comes to website analytics tools, here are some suggestions."


10 Useful Website Analytics Tools | Tools

Facebook Gets "Panic Button"

"Facebook now has a so-called 'panic button' available on its site whose intended purpose is to allow users to report cyberbullying, hacking attempts, harmful content, unwanted sexual advances and other forms of abuse to the U.K.'s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), the organization behind the button's launch.

According to the BBC news, the launch is a victory that came about after months of negotiation between CEOP and the social networking site. Says Jim Gamble, CEOP's chief executive. 'Today...is a good day for child protection.'"

Facebook Gets "Panic Button" (But it's Just an App)


Report: Google Working On New “Interactive Video Ads”

"The Wall Street Journal reports on new ad formats being developed by Google (and others) that would “outperform” or are intended to succeed traditional online ad formats. New “interactive video” units were briefly and vaguely discussed at the Allen & Co media confab in Sun Valley Idaho:

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt championed “interactive video ads,” which he said are on the way. Such ads, which could appear anywhere on a Web page, not just inside a video, would be like mini-Web pages. That means they could allow Web users to watch a video, leave a comment and see real-time updates within the ads that are more customized to their interests."


Report: Google Working On New “Interactive Video Ads”

Madden NFL 11: The Ad Game

"When Madden NFL 11 is released Aug. 10, it'll be greeted like a long-awaited summer blockbuster, with retailers staying open late and fevered players lining up to buy it at midnight.

Since 1989, when the series was first developed by Electronic Arts (made for the now antediluvian Apple II, Commodore 64 and DOS systems), it has sold approximately 85 million units worldwide and generated more than $3 billion in revenue, according to EA Sports. The NFL-sanctioned chartbuster is also the No. 1 selling football video game."


Madden NFL 11: The Ad Game

Friday, July 09, 2010

Do we have Facebook fatigue

"Have we reached the Facebook saturation point?
That's one possibility suggested by monthly growth data from Inside Facebook, which reports that Facebook gained only 320,000 new U.S. users in June after a blockbuster gain in May of more than 7.8 million."

By the numbers: Do we have Facebook fatigue? - CNN.com


Foursquare Means Businesses

"Are you playing FourSquare? Are you “going out” with Gowalla? Are you looped in with Loopt?
Location-based services are once again changing the face of social networking. Where relationships were once at the center of user experience, in the Golden Triangle of mobile, social, and real-time interaction, “places” take center stage and corresponding� activities and rewards become the cast and crew of the production."


Foursquare Means Businesses: Have you checked-in yet?

You Don't Own Social Media. They do.

"When I see people really think about social media and business, they always ask the question, “Who owns social media?” �This question has a lot of answers. �Some people argue marketing. �Other people argue PR. �I’ve even seen it be argued that HR owns social media. �At the end of the day, most people agree that no single department in a company owns social media, and it’s up to the everyone to use it correctly to promote and serve the busineses purposes.

That’s positive, wonderful and unfortunately idealistic thinking. When I look at the question, I tend to turn it around on itself. I think about who really owns social media, and when I boil it down, the answer is always a corporation."
You Don't Own Social Media. They do. | Social Media Today

The 5 Internet Personality Types

"How do you use the Web? Do you mainly go online to watch the latest Funny or Die video and check out some scores? Or do you do use it to read business news, book and buy travel, and maybe even do a little investing? And does it even matter?

It turns out it does matter, a lot."


The 5 Internet Personality Types : Technology :: American Express OPEN Forum


Who Spends Most Time on Facebook

"The Nielsen Company reported in June that, on average, the global consumer spends about 1 in every 4.5 minutes online on blogs or social networking sites. According to a report by market researcher Morpace, among US Facebook users time on Facebook rises to 1 in 3 minutes spent online.

Unsurprisingly, despite Facebook’s growing appeal to older users, 18- to 34-year-olds spend the most time on the site per week, at 8.5 hours out of 22.4 spent online. Weekly Facebook time drops to 4.6 hours among users ages 55 and older, representing a lower proportion of that group’s average of 21.5 hours per week on the internet."


Who Spends Most Time on Facebook? - eMarketer

Where Is Search Going - Google’s Johanna Wright

"comScore has indicated that more and more search is happening outside the typical search portals like Google. In fact, Google itself reminds us that YouTube is the number two search engine. Most of these searches are launched as part of a larger overlying goal, ie getting information and doing something with it. Can Google keep delivering a useful search experience from a one-size-fits-all portal? Will search functionality splinter over multiple destinations and applications?"


Where Is Search Going: Google’s Johanna Wright

55% of Online Video Viewers OK with Web Ads

"As content providers look to monetize online video, they have a few basic options: ad support, fees or a combination of the two. While services like Hulu Plus add a pay wall to an already ad-supported service, research suggests more ads might not turn off users.

A Frank N. Magid Associates survey sponsored by video site Metacafe found the majority of online video viewers think online video ads are at least as acceptable as television commercials. Fewer than a quarter of respondents thought online ads were more annoying."

55% of Online Video Viewers OK with Web Ads - eMarketer

Android Gains Market Share On All Other Smartphone Platforms

"According to comScore’s latest analysis of the U.S. mobile market, Android has grown significantly in the period from February to May 2010, while all other major operating systems experienced a drop in their market share.

In this period, RIM was still the leading mobile smartphone platform, dropping from 42.1% to 41.7% market share. It was followed by Apple which somewhat surprisingly dropped from 25.4% to 24.4% and Microsoft which dropped from 15.1% to 13.2%. Android was fourth on the list, but it rose from 9% to 13% market share in this same period. It was followed by Palm which dropped from 5.4% to 4.8% market share."


Android Gains Market Share On All Other Smartphone Platforms [REPORT]

Thursday, July 08, 2010

EU court rules that Adwords do not infringe trademark laws

"A ruling Thursday in Europe’s Court of Justice could have wide-reaching implications for online advertising.

Judges confirmed that companies using competitors’ names as Internet advertising keywords are not infringing European trademark laws. This news will be a major boost to Google’s revenue-generating Adwords service"


EU court rules that Adwords do not infringe trademark laws�( - Legal - Internet )

“Tik Tok” Soldiers Ordered to Make Anti-Dancing Video

The Israeli soldiers who were admonished this week forperforming a dance routine to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” in the streets on Hebron have finally received their punishment: They are to create an educational video instructing their compatriots not to dance.

The video, which became a viral sensation this week — even after if was taken down by the original uploader and then uploaded again — received mixed reactions from bloggers and press. Some found the image of the six soldiers decked out in IDF uniforms and military gear hilarious, others, disrespectful. The IDF, however, was less nebulous about its feelings.




“Tik Tok” Soldiers Ordered to Make Anti-Dancing Video

Designing A Facebook Fan Page

"Despite its privacy issues, Facebook clearly has a key role in global Internet activity. It has become a kind of universal social network, being used for both personal and business needs. For many individuals, companies and organizations, Facebook has become an integral part of their branding strategy and promotional campaigns.

Facebook provides many tools for maximizing the effect of your presence on the social network, most of all by means of business pages, also known as fan pages. Using a variety of applications and Facebook API tools, one can get creative not only with the page content, but with the design, too."


For Those Facebook Left Behind

"Last month, the standards editor at The New York Times wrote a memo that shocked — shocked! — bloggers everywhere. He asked Times writers to avoid using the word “tweet” (as in, “to say something on Twitter”)."

12 Critical Keywords Every Company Should Monitor

"There are many reasons why companies outgrow Google Alerts. One of the biggest is that you realize you need to monitor more than just your company name. When you start compiling the list of keywords you should monitor on a regular basis, you quickly see why you need a social media monitoring tool like Trackur.

Not compiled your list yet? Here are the twelve to put at the top of it!"
12 Critical Keywords Every Company Should Monitor in Social Media | Trackur

Is Social Media Failing to Produce Business Leads?

"LeadForce1, an online marketing automation service provider, studied website visitor data for 218 companies with a social media presence from February through April of this year. The results overwhelmingly showed that visitors who arrived at corporate websites via Twitter and Facebook engaged mostly with content – specifically a company’s blog – as opposed to exploring products or submitting a contact us form."

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

40 Essential Social Business Resources

"Business and social media are becoming more and more inseparable. Most businesses, from big brands to startups, are expected to have an efficient, developed social media presence.

The good news is that you don’t have to go it alone. We’ve collected a list of Mashable resources, published over the past months, that can help you start, manage, or grow your social networks.

Whether you need an app on the go, are looking for real-world examples, or want to expand your marketing online, this list of resources can help your business needs."

YouTube Mobile gets a kick start

"It’s well known that the mobile Internet is huge and growing fast; what’s surprising is exactly how fast. According to a recent report, within five years more users will connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs. YouTube consumption on mobile devices has also grown considerably: playbacks were up 160% in 2009 over the previous year. And we’re excited to announce that YouTube Mobile now receives more than 100 million video playbacks a day. This is roughly the number of daily playbacks that YouTube.com was streaming when we joined forces with Google in 2006."


No, You Can’t Automate Social Media

"Over the past two years or so, social media’s increased popularity has really done something for those assuming that it’s all a “get rich quick” opportunity. The widespread adoption of social media has caused for hordes of “experts” to suddenly come into town assuming that they can totally own this niche. These new “Internet Marketers” take Twitter by storm, using automated Twitter tools in abundance that give them the true appearance of expertise. They are no-name people who all of the sudden have 22,000 followers while following 23,000, but that doesn’t matter because a newbie trying to market his business sees this 5 digit number and gets excited about the opportunities to reach so many people so quickly."

Facebook’s June 2010 US Traffic by Age and Sex

"Facebook’s growth slowed down in the United States in June, following a burst of activity through April and May. The country picked up only 320,800 new monthly active users in June, compared to the outstanding 7.8 million it gathered in May.

It’s not uncommon to see a saturated country like the US take a breather after a spurt of growth. However, some unusually interesting demographic trends took place for the country in June that add nuance to the overall growth number."

How the Google Chrome OS Works

"The Internet has become a central part of the computer experience. Before the Web caught fire in the late 1990s, home computing was largely a singular experience. Computer users created documents on a PC and saved those files to a hard or floppy disk, and maybe worked within a local area network at the office. File sharing usually meant walking a disk to another machine."


Social Media Content – a Practical Approach

"In social media, community isn’t just created it forms around your brand’s good content.� And, what constitutes “good” content is defined by the community, rather than the brand.� But, how can a brand know what the community will respond well to, what does a good response look like, and what content will the community find good enough to share?� The answers to these questions means the difference between effective communities and wasted resources and frustration."

7 Types of SEO Evidence

"All science rests on a fundamental assumption, long before any hypothesis is proposed or tested. The fundamental assumption is that the universe is orderly and follows rules, and that through observation and experimentation we can determine those rules. Without an orderly universe, science would be impossible (as would existence, most likely). A related assumption is that these rules are relatively static – if they change, they change very slowly. Our view of the universe may change dramatically, resulting in paradigm shifts, but the underlying rules remain roughly the same.

The advantage we have as SEOs is that we know, for an absolute fact, that our universe is orderly. Like Neo, we have seen The Matrix. The Algorithm consists of lines of code written by humans and running on servers.

The disadvantage for SEO science is that the rules governing our universe are NOT static. The algorithm changes constantly – as often as 400 times per year. This means that any observation, any data, and even any controlled experiment could turn out to be irrelevant. The facts we built our SEO practices on 5 or 10 years ago are not always valid today."


Local Search, Social Networking Grow On Smartphones

"Local search via mobile is gaining steam as a way to find nearby retailers, according to the latest Smartphone Intelligence survey from online research firm Compete. Almost one in three smartphone owners has called or stopped into a local business after finding it through a local search application during the first quarter.

About a third of Android and iPhone users learned of at least two new businesses they were not aware of after turning to local search applications. 'Making it easy for consumers to discover businesses via their devices opens local companies up to a whole new customer demographic, and savvy businesses should make sure they're maximizing this opportunity,' said Danielle Nohe, director, technology and entertainment for Compete."
MediaPost Publications Local Search, Social Networking Grow On Smartphones 07/07/2010

5 Things to Consider When Designing Your Mobile App

"Thanks to the slogan “There’s an App For That” and the surging iOS, Android and BlackBerry markets, it seems like practically every company has a mobile app. In fact, in many ways, the mobile app today is what the website was ten years ago — one of those tools that has transferred from being a luxury into a necessity for businesses of all sizes."

FourSquare User Data Application

"foursquare Perspectives is a new, groundbreaking free tool from Awareness, Inc. that provides enterprise brands with valuable and useful insights about how foursquare users are interacting with their physical venues."

The Philosophy Behind Google’s “Facebook Killer”

"Yesterday a presentation from the research lead for Google’s social team, Paul Adams, began spreading around the web. The presentation provides deeper insight into Google’s existing concept of “social” and could help us further understand what the company believes is weaknesses in Facebook’s armor as they prepared to launch a “Facebook killer“. There were a number of themes that were consistent throughout the presentation, all of which we’ve included below."

THE Single Critical Factor For Successful Advertising On Facebook

"Since I first wrote about techniques for Facebook advertising and getting more fans, I’ve had a flood of requests for assistance. The reality is that it’s really easy to tell if a company is going to be wildly successful or suffer an exercise of futility.

Let’s first mention some of the minor factors that hurt your success—trying to re-use your Google PPC ads on Facebook, not testing with hundreds of creatives, casting a broad net instead of micro-targeting, not having an engaging landing page, sending traffic to your website instead of your Facebook page, not having robust analytics, not integrating your Facebook page with your website, not regularly interacting with fans—ok, you get the idea…."

How To Use Social Media Monitoring Tools To Gauge Offline Marketing Efforts

"It often seems like a rare occasion when offline marketing efforts blend with social media. One of the best ways to use social media to aid offline efforts is to gauge the public’s perception with social media monitoring tools. By using monitoring tools, companies can monitor public opinion about a specific offline campaign.

Probably one of the most publicized efforts to gauge offline marketing with social media monitoring was Brand Bowl 2010. Here we saw Mullen and monitoring powerhouse Radian6 teamed up to monitor the public’s response to Super Bowl ads in real time. While this example was done more as a publicity stunt in its own right, its not far off from how you might want to run your monitoring campaigns internally."


Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Searching For Facebook's Future In Ad Targeting

"Facebook has long debated with reporters and bloggers, contending that the social network does not match or track search keywords and search terms to advertisements on the site. Nor does it target ads based on behavior, it says. In recent years I've kept an eye on anything that remotely resembles technology that would allow the site to serve up and match ads based on search terms, but those who support Facebook media relations insist the site's algorithms do not make the match. Well, maybe not today, anyway."


Google Playing With Local SERP’s

"Sometimes in search you are alerted to something that is a bit dramatic in its presentation. Google has been experimenting with their positioning of the most critical elements of a local search SERP and it makes for some interesting “What if?” questions.

This new look SERP was brought to my attention from Mike Blumenthal’s blog. If you want to be on top of local search information Mike will certainly help you do that (or one of his readers in this case). I was able to replicate the result so here it is"

LeBron James Joins Twitter

: "Yesterday LeBron James was a sponsored trending topic on Twitter –- today, the King himself has joined the microblogging service, setting up shop at @KingJames.

The account is not yet verified by Twitter, but fellow NBA star Chris Paul says its him and CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell has confirmed the news with a publicist for James."


Loopt Now Lets You Download Your Location History

"Geolocation service Loopt has just launched a feature that lets you access the last 30 days of your location history as a downloadable KML file.

KML, which was developed for Google Earth, is a file that includes data associated with your location that can then be used when creating more interactive maps or trip logs. The feature is especially useful if you have background location, a new feature of Loopt 3.0 for iOS 4 [iTunes link]."

How Social Media Has Radically Altered Advertising

"Social Media started out as a bit of a novelty — a playground for the “geekerati.” But it has taken hold as a game changing force that will reshape advertising at its very core.

It’s time to move past debates about traditional media co-existing with social media. Madison Avenue should see social media as a wonderful, if not disruptive, gift. It should run hard to catch up with the consumer, let go of legacy business models and build something better."

Most Companies Use Social Media For Recruiting

"A large majority of companies are moving away from job boards and toward social media as their primary recruiting tool, according to annual survey results released by social recruitment software company Jobvite.

The report, entitled Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey 2010, was based on an online survey taken by 600 participants between May and June."


Foursquare Launches Location Layers

"Looking at life through rose-colored glasses? How about walking through your town and seeing it as the Huffington Post or the Independent Film Channel sees it? IFC announced a new campaign this morning with leading location-based social network Foursquare that will allow you to do just that. The Huffington Post launched a Foursquare layer today as well."

Search Engines turn their ears to music

"Internet search engines pride themselves as being neutral providers of information.

But as competition mounts to own the connection between fans and online content, tech behemoths like Microsoft and Google increasingly are turning to their search engines to help drive their entertainment content strategies.

In June, Microsoft launched a new entertainment vertical to its Bing search engine, which among other things aggregates full-track streaming from Zune, details on upcoming tours and buy links within the results for any artist, album or song search."

Ways B2B Search Marketing Differs from B2C

"In the consumer world, billions of branding dollars are spent to create a sense of familiarity not just with a product but also with a brand. Even if we’ve never bought a product before, there’s a good chance that we have some idea of the competitive landscape within the product category. If we were looking to make a purchase for ourselves, I would venture to say there are very few things we would consider buying where we wouldn’t even know the name of the product. Yet, this is an every day occurrence in the B2B world. Often, we’re asked to make informed purchase decisions about products and services that we never even heard of yesterday."


7 FBML examples to rock your Facebook fan page

"Facebook markup language or FBML for short is used in a variety of places within the social network. Anyone who has written any Facebook applications will already be pretty familiar with its tags, and will probably have used it to write data to walls, or share postings with others programmatically. If however you haven’t yet dipped your toe in the water of the Facebook API, or indeed haven’t actually needed to – there are some snippets of FBML which prove to be mighty useful when creating custom Facebook Fan Pages, and can easily and quickly out of the box be used with the FBML widget, which adds an extra much needed layer of customisation to an existing Facebook fan page. The static FBML widget can be added multiple times, and in multiple places (sidebar and tabs) to facilitate this. Once you’ve added it to your page, simply go to “edit page”, then under Applications click “edit” under Static FBML. This will give you the options you need to paste in your code."


How Social Media is Saving Old Media

"Social Media Augments Old Media

Let’s face it – old media is irreplaceable. For example, consider a business that wants to launch a press release about its latest innovative product. While social media offers some fantastic ways of promoting the press release on the internet, it cannot replace the old school way of issuing press releases.

Social media has transformed the way PR agencies operate in today’s modern age of Web 2.0. Communication happens at lightning speeds over the internet and offers an unparallel reach to massive audiences. You create a press release, publish it online and then spread the word about it through leading social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

While old media had a limited audience, social media has taken it to an altogether unprecedented reach."

The Open Graph Protocol

The Open Graph Protocol: "The Open Graph protocol enables any web page to become a rich object in a social graph. For instance, this is used on Facebook to enable any web page to have the same functionality as a Facebook Page.

While many different technologies and schemas exist and could be combined together, there isn't a single technology which provides enough information to richly represent any web page within the social graph. The Open Graph protocol builds on these existing technologies and gives developers one thing to implement. Developer simplicity is a key goal of the Open Graph protocol which has informed many of the technical design decisions."

5 Ways to Clean Up Your Social Media Identity

"There’s an implicit pressure on social media enthusiasts to be connected in more than one way. It’s not enough to have a Facebook page, you need a Twitter account as well. What do you mean you’re not on LinkedIn? Well, at least you have a blog on Wordpress or Tumblr, right?

There is no requirement to spread your digital self thin, but many of us are still juggling more than one online profile (I’m currently balancing at least five). Each of these profiles offers us a chance to connect with new communities in different ways, but each network needs to be managed and updated. With so many online profiles, questions are bound to arise. Is your bio page the same across all platforms? Should it be?"


Facebook Launches New Analytics for "Like" Data

"Facebook has released a refreshed Insights dashboard that provides deeper analytics on user demographics, “Likes,” shares and reshares. The dashboard is designed for page owners, publishers using the new social plugins and application developers.

The aggregate data covered in the new dashboard essentially highlights Facebook users’ sharing behavior related to both content on and off the site with better data, graphs and charts."


New twist in ATM skimmer scams can empty your account

"Thieves are using high-tech skimmers to steal account information at automatic teller machines — and victims don't know they have a problem until they see their statements.
Cyber security expert Brian Krebs tracks ATM scams on his blog and he says new technology is helping scammers steal even more of your information at ATMs.

'If it's done correctly you would not notice that anything looks amiss,' Krebs says."


Yahoo Upshot Blog To Create Search-Driven News Content

"As it transitions to becoming a content provider from a pure search approach, Yahoo is innovating and moving boldly into unchartered territory as it launches today its UpShot blog that will carry search-driven news content. Yes. That's news content that will be produced on the basis of search results. Read on.

From Search To Content
There have been many signals of Yahoo's transition into content provision rather than pure search, including its $100 million acquisition of Associated Content; its contents deal with Facebook and Nokia; as well as its recent management shuffle, with the head and advocate of search, Larry Cornett, leaving."

6 Ways to Reduce Your Bounce Rate

"Google Analytics defines bounce rate as “the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.” You use bounce rate to measure the quality of visits. If your bounce rate is high (a lot of people are leaving your website as soon as they land), it’s an indication that your entrance pages aren’t relevant to what the visitors are looking for. In short, you aren’t delivering the goods to them.

What can you do to lower your bounce rate and get more conversions?"

How to Build a Kick Ass Social Media Marketing Plan

"B2B, B2C…B2 anything, every marketing department would love to somehow crack the social media code. Be it by content marketing, participation in Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, etc… invariably, the conversation turns to the same question: “What are we going to do and who’s going to actually execute on this every day at the office?”

Then comes the obligatory: “How are we going to measure it?” and, “When will we set business goals?” or, “Are we just doing this for the hell of it ‘cause everybody else does?” All are reasonable questions. This post offers time-tried blueprints for building out a social media marketing plan, while empowering data-driven, KPI-oriented community managers."