Thursday, September 30, 2010

Chrome Extension - Awesome Screenshot by Diigo

Social Media -- A State of Mind, Not an Age

Guest Blogger David Dalka: Social Media -- A State of Mind, Not an Age - Think customers: The 1to1 Blog: "Social media done poorly is worse than doing nothing at all -- A few years ago a particular computer company with a reputation for effective social media contacted me after a problem with hinges on my laptop. The company did not enable the social media people to solve the problem. The social media team wasted my time and other customers' time, but was not authorized to fix the problems. The effect was frustration and a waste of customer's time without problem resolution, which was worse than being ignored."

Need a Reservation? That Could Depend On How Big You Are on Twitter

Need a Reservation? That Could Depend On How Big You Are on Twitter (Really) - Advertising Age - DigitalNext: "Imagine: You've just walked up to the front desk at the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and given your name. The clerk pulls up your information and right there next to your reservation is a number that will determine what kind of treatment you're going to get. Will you be invited to hang out in the exclusive Hugh Hefner Villa? Maybe. It all depends on that number, your Klout Score -- a ranking that will follow you around, whether you know it or not, and tell the world your worth as a consumer ... and eventually, as a friend."

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

LinkedIn Strategy : Participate In Groups About Your Customers, Not You

"Most companies interested in LinkedIn start a group about their company, then maybe a group about what they do. So if you’re an accounting firm, you start a group about accounting. The problem is that your prospective customers probably don’t go to LinkedIn looking for accountants to hang out with. They go looking for people like them."

Monday, September 27, 2010

Why Marketers Shouldn't Always Blame the Media

"Blaming the messenger, as opposed to the message, has a time-honored history, but perhaps nowhere more than in marketing, where blame or credit for campaign success has focused increasingly on media plans in recent years as marketers used increasingly sophisticated analytics."

Forbes' New Advertising Pitch : Wanna Buy a Blog? - Advertising Age - Digital

"Staff writers were given blogs and, even more striking, outside contributors were invited to start blogging under the Forbes banner in a bid to create what Mr. DVorkin, who'd now become chief product officer of Forbes Media, calls a 'much more scalable content-creation model.'"

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Turning to Twitter to fix restaurant complaints

"CHICAGO — When Tony Bosco saw mostly negative reviews about the restaurant Wow Bao, he Tweeted: 'Going to 'business' dinner (at)Wow Bao. Can any1 tell me if it's going to suck as much reviews suggest.'
And almost immediately he got a response from an unexpected source — BaoMouth, the official Twitter feed of Wow Bao, an upscale fast food place in Chicago. The restaurant offered him a coupon to find out for himself, on the house."


Online media to get uniform data

"THE $2 billion online media market moves a step closer to a standardised measure of internet traffic today as it seeks to give surety to advertisers starved of uniform data.

A single way to measure internet use is expected to be in place in the second half of next year, says the industry body that is calling for expressions of interest from research companies.

Interactive Advertising Bureau chief executive Paul Fisher said the winning bid for the three-year contract would be announced in the first half of next year."

honey... i'm home!! the magic of location based services

"We use them everyday. Well ... Some of us do. Location based services like Gowalla, Foursquare and Facebook Places, have added a layer of network sharing that I feel will dynamically change the way brick and mortar businesses engage their patrons and shape their experiences."

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Iran confirms massive Stuxnet infection of industrial systems

Computerworld - Officials in Iran have confirmed that the Stuxnet worm infected at least 30,000 Windows PCs in the country, multiple Iranian news services reported on Saturday.
Stuxnet, considered by many security researchers to be the most sophisticated malware ever, was first spotted in mid-June by VirusBlokAda, a little-known security firm based in Belarus. A month later Microsoft acknowledged that the worm targeted Windows PCs that managed large-scale industrial-control systems in manufacturing and utility companies.

Iran confirms massive Stuxnet infection of industrial systems

Thursday, September 23, 2010

SEO Automation, Theory and in Practice

"I have explored the theme of Black Hat SEO before. What I haven’t highlighted, is that there are many subdivisions in Blackhat too. Ranging from SERP Spamming to Autogeneration of Content, the field is immense. And there are some serious geniuses in it."

Google CEO Eric Schmidt On Using Facebook's Data

Google CEO Eric Schmidt On Google's Secret Ranking Algorithm

Google CEO Schmidt On Importance Of Android To Google

20 Social Media Stats from #Commentz

"Facebook customer satisfaction is in the bottom 5% of all private sector along w/ IRS tax e-filing, airlines and cable companies.� (Source)
More than 60% of moms said they would provide info about themselves to a trusted brand if it meant more personalized content. (Source)
The 5 “most valuable” types of online influencers are: Megaphone, Open Book, Social Butterfly, Business First, and Enthusiast. (Source)
According to Morgan Stanley, within 5 years global internet consumption on mobile devices will surpass the same activity on PCs."

50 Social Media Stats from #Commentz (Part 2)

"Online media at fashion week has grown 20 percent in the past six months, and now accounts for about 40 percent of the 3,600 members of the press covering the event. �(Source)
35 percent of the companies hurt by social-media malware suffered financial losses, with more than a third losing in excess of $5,000.� Further, a quarter of the businesses said they lost sensitive data due to employees who violated company policy by revealing certain information via a social network. �(Source)
78% of companies said they use Facebook, Twitter, and other sites to conduct research, improve customer service, push marketing and PR initiatives, and ultimately boost sales. �(Source)"

Stuxnet malware is 'weapon'

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle begins when uranium is ...Image via Wikipedia
The Stuxnet malware has infiltrated industrial computer systems worldwide. Now, cyber security sleuths say it's a search-and-destroy weapon meant to hit a single target. One expert suggests it may be after Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Stuxnet malware is 'weapon' out to destroy ... Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant? - CSMonitor.com
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Twitter Should Not be a Last Resort for Your Customer Service Department

"Twitter is becoming a mainstream platform both for professionals, helped by the LinkedIn Twitter integration of almost a year ago, and Customer Service organizations. �Late last year more than half of Fortune 100 brands had set up shop on Twitter, including famous Customer Support organizations from big brands such as @ComcastCares and @MicrosoftHelps. �Those companies that don’t support customers via Twitter may fear the potential realtime demands of customers who tweet. �This may not necessarily be the case, though."

Whitehat SEO linkbait

Can my blogroll affect my blog's reputation in Google?

How do meta geo tags influence the search results?

Will a link to a disallowed page transfer PageRank?

Uncrawled URLs in search results - ROBOTS.txt

Google Just Killed Your Online Business

"Google has been making a lot of changes�to the SERPs, and it seems they are pushing a lot of well known brands to the top of the listings.
One of their recent updates which I will coin as “Google Brand Links” can have a negative impact on online businesses.
Online traffic visitors will generally search for keywords (not brands) to find a product online, and online businesses rely heavily on these ‘unbranded keywords’."

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Net population to hit 5 billion by 2025

"In 2025, the world's Internet population will hit 5 billion users with a market worth US$3 trillion, according to a new report, where its author calls for governments and businesses to start planning over the next five years to ensure success for this future.

Conducted by Cisco Systems and the Monitor Group's Global Business Network, the report sets out scenarios and premises to examine the driving forces and uncertainties that will shape the path of the Internet over the next 15 years."

Why Social Supports Email in the Interactive Marketing Hub

: "Social media marketing is all about potential audience. If someone signs up to follow your company on Twitter, when you tweet will that person see it? That depends upon how many other people/brands they are following, and how often they check Twitter. In general, however, the chances any one Twitter follower sees any specific update from you is minimal. The average consumer receives 44 emails per day, which is far fewer than the number of tweets to which the average person is potentially subjected. Further, I suspect most people check email more frequently than they check Twitter throughout the day."

Google Transparency Report : Traffic

"This tool provides information about traffic to our services around the world. Each graph shows historic traffic patterns for a given country/region and service. You may select a country/region and then choose a service to view each respective graph. Graphs are updated as data are collected, normalized, and scaled in units of 0 to 100. By showing outages, this tool visualizes disruptions in the free flow of information, whether it's a government blocking information or a cable being cut."

Why Mobile Social Media Matters - Statistics, Trends, Technologies

MSM = Mobile Social Media - LBS = Location Based Services - how about Social Media on Mobile Devices

Are links in footers treated differently than paragraph links?

Does Google value its own links for PageRank?

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Why are links used in ranking when they all have the nofollow attribute?

Are there any SEO certification programs you are aware of?

Is it OK to sell links as long as we use the nofollow attribute?

Which character in Dilbert do you mostly identify with, and why?

How can a site rank for keywords that aren't anywhere on its pages?

How precise is the number of results in a site: query?

Behavioral Retargeting Code of Conduct

"The IAB's Affiliate Marketing Council (AMC) has unveiled a new code of conduct for dealing with behavioral retargeting technology. If you are responsible for anything Internet-marketing related, it is an important development and one you should be aware of as retargeting presents an exciting Web promotional opportunity. The AMC hopes to create a 'fair and equitable' code to ensure that all parties can continue using the technology with confidence (and, of course, profit). Let's hope it works."

Twitter Official Response : All about the "onMouseOver" incident

"The short story: This morning at 2:54 am PDT Twitter was notified of a security exploit that surfaced about a half hour before that, and we immediately went to work on fixing it. By 7:00 am PDT, the primary issue was solved. And, by 9:15 am PDT, a more minor but related issue tied to hovercards was also fixed.

The longer story: The security exploit that caused problems this morning Pacific time was caused by cross-site scripting (XSS). Cross-site scripting is the practice of placing code from an untrusted website into another one. In this case, users submitted javascript code as plain text into a Tweet that could be executed in the browser of another user."

Ad Folks Rank High for Social Engagement

"People in advertising/marketing jobs are nothing if not social. A new report from NetProspex ranks industries by the degree to which their employees are involved in using social media, and 'advertising & marketing' ranked second only to 'search engines/online portals.'

Filling out the top 10 in the standings of most social of the 50 industries measured were 'banking,' 'traditional media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines),' 'toys & games,' 'human resources & recruiting,' 'information technology,' 'software,' 'consumer electronics' and 'retail apparel.'"

Monday, September 20, 2010

Enriched Google online experience now available in every new BMW

"Google is working with the automotive industry to bring Google innovations and services into cars, and to give our users access to relevant information while driving. BMW has always been a pioneer in this area, and well known for its Internet-connected cars and ConnectedDrive product."

Public Relations : Should your company bring it in-house?

"As we move closer to 2011 budget planning, marketing decision-makers are asking themselves how to create more bang for their buck. Even if a company is not slashing its spending it certainly is trying to determine how it can get more results for its investment. And, in the specific case of public relations, this has created an ongoing question of “should I take my PR in-house?”"

Are Twitter Followers Better Than Facebook Fans?

"Marketers looking to push out the most effective messages to opt-in recipients must understand how audiences differ across channels and what causes them to connect with brands. Marketing venues that seem similar may differ strongly if their users have different needs and motivations."

OMG Guy Clickjacking Attack Spreads Virally on Facebook [WARNING]

"A new Facebook clickjacking attack is on the loose today, affecting thousands of users and spreading like wildfire through their status updates.

The attack spreads through a status update containing a link saying “OMG This GUY Went A Little To Far WITH His Revenge On His EX Girlfriend.”

As with all similar scams, after you click on the link, you’re asked to go through a fake captcha-style mechanism to be able to actually see any content."

Yahoo’s Chicken Coop-Inspired Green Data Center: Cleantech News

"Design inspiration can come from unusual places — for Yahoo and its data center design team it was chicken coops, which utilize outside air and can reduce cooling power and costs. On Monday Yahoo announced that the first data center to mimic this fine-feathered design has been built, commissioned and is up and running in Lockport, New York."

Social Media Marketing - Is Your Business Ready?

"Even though a company sees the value of social media, it doesn’t mean the organization or its members are ready for it. Have you started something you really weren’t ready for? Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn’t."

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Schmidt: We'll pull Facebook's data by hook or by crook

"'We're trying to take Google's core products and add a social component. �If you think about it, it's obvious. With your permission, knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations. Search quality can get better.'"

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Twitter Permissions & Security

"Currently Twitter application developers are given 2 choices when registering their apps – they can either request “read-only access” or “read & write” access. For Twitter “read & write” means being able to do anything through the API on a user’s behalf. These course-grained levels push most apps to choose “read & write”, in case they want to tweet on the user’s behalf, or make it simple to follow a Twitter account. Anecdotally, of the 130 apps & Twitter-integrated websites I’ve approved 91% have full read & write access to my Twitter account, with the other 9% having read-only access. (I probably use more apps than most, but hey, it’s my job.)"


Google Me coming this Fall?

"Eric Schmidt has confirmed that we could be getting “Google Me” sometime this Fall. This Google Me service will introduce what Google calls “a social layer” into online search, video and Google Maps.

The Wall Street Journal and Reuters quote Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying the company will integrate social networking elements to its services."

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Why Small Businesses Should Care About Mobile Payments

"Mobile payments are the logical extension of online shopping, a way for customers to buy what you have while they're on the go. But the technology has some added perks that make it a powerful purchasing tool for small businesses."

Bing to Get a Major HTML5 Makeover

"At the Internet Explorer 9 Beta launch event, Bing debuted an array of new HTML5 features, including moving backgrounds, hovering windows and search results that move with you as you scroll.

The search engine took the stage in order to demonstrate IE9’s new HTML5 capabilities, but also announced that Bing will start integrating deep HTML5 features next month in the form of a preview."

Google Instant : What it Means for You and SEO

"Since Google began rolling out Google Instant a week ago, the web has been dancing with all sorts of personalities coming out of the woodwork to claim everything from “the death of SEO” to “no impact on SEO whatsoever.” The truth is more on the side of the latter, but we’ll delve into that in a minute."

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Google Instant Instantly Makes Waves Around the Web

"Last Tuesday, the Internet was a-flutter over Google’s funky new logo– those crazy colorful dots moved wherever your mouse moved, resulting in wonder-struck smiles, bleary eyes and many a scratched head.�Rumors as to the meaning behind the madness spawned and spread faster than retweets from a link posted by Alyssa Milano. Were the bugged-out balls�Google’s way of celebrating its 12th birthday? Or �just another entertaining hack? An attempt to one-up Bing? Hat-tip to HTML 5 or CSS3?"

read more at:

What’s More Important: Twitter Followers or RSS Subscribers?

"As an enthusiastic blogger, it was nearly impossible not to check out a link on Twitter with the tempting title – 10 Ways To Dramatically Increase Your RSS Feed Subscribers.

After all, what blogger doesn’t want more RSS subscribers given the more subscribers you, the more popular and well-read your blog.

But then it struck me about whether RSS still has the same kind of appeal and importance as it once had. For many bloggers, Twitter has become an important way to promote and distribute their posts."

The Future of Social Media in Journalism

"The future of social media in journalism will see the death of “social media.” That is, all media as we know it today will become social, and feature a social component to one extent or another. After all, much of the web experience, particularly in the way we consume content, is becoming social and personalized."

Think Gamers are still kids with no money? Think again.

40% of gamers are Female...
Average Age of Gamer? 34 years.

Video Game Industry Statistics
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Google Code now a general open source repository

"When corporate repositories like CodePlex and Google Code first emerged, they were mainly sandboxes for projects associated with the parent companies."

Monday, September 13, 2010

How Google Instantly Made the Long Tail More Important for SEOs

"The long tail is about to become super-important for your search engine optimization efforts. Why? Because, despite our concerns that Google Instant is headache inducing, I think Google knows better. Google knows that using Google Instant–for the average searcher, not you or me–will be a whole lot of fun."

Microsoft responds to new Google Instant feature

"Microsoft has officially responded to the new feature Google introduced last week. It’s less of a “Yeah, we’re doing that too”, and more of a “We’re working on solving the same root problems”. This is a refreshing response — and shows that Bing’s primary goal isn’t to duplicate everything Google does, but to give people great solutions to real problems they are having."

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Gaping hole found in Twitter OAuth authentication process

"authentication, which is intended to be more secure, but Ryan Paul at Ars Technica believes OAuth is inherently flawed and that Twitter has done a botched job at implementing it, making it an even greater security threat.

In a strongly worded diatribe Paul said the OAuth standard “has many significant weaknesses and limitations”, calling it “an inelegant hack that lacks maturity and fails to provide clear guidance on many critical issues that are essential to building a robust authentication system.”"

Gaping hole found in Twitter OAuth authentication process - Mending one hole, making another | TechEye

Eliminate Spam from Search

"Google may be working to make search faster and more predictive with Google Instant, but do those elements actually make search better? Of course, that depends on how you define “better.” One underground startup, Blekko, believes it can radically change how we search for the better, where “better” means search with fewer garbage results."

Google Instant - 10 Things Marketing Teams Need to Know

"Google Instant took flight yesterday from the ashes of some mysterious logos and via a live transmission on Google's Official Youtube Channel. What was announced was arguably the biggest change in the user interface (UI) of search engine results pages since search engines were invented and one of the most sophisticated engineering projects for Google since Caffeine."

How and Why Facebook Users Interact with Brands

"While much of finding what works for your business on social media sites is a process of trial and error, recent stats from email marketing firm ExactTarget (which recently acquired social CRM platform CoTweet) shed some light on how the Facebook population uses the site and how it interacts with brands."

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

SEO Lives On Despite Google Instant and @steverubel

"Google Instant launched today and it’s very cool and I find it really quite amazing that Google can return results that fast. However, is it the death of SEO like Steve Rubel suggests? Absolutely not.

I have just a few thoughts about Google Instant I wanted to share with you today."


- you may or may not follow @oilman on Twitter.. he is one of the most respected people in my industry.. yes respect from me as well - so read what he wrote please

SEO Lives On Despite Google Instant | Positiontech Blog
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Google Instant increases AdWords impressions

"Although Google Instant won't change the way ads are served, ads and search results will now be shown for a new 'predicted query.' For example, if someone types 'flow' into Google, an algorithm predicts that the user is searching for 'flowers' (the predicted query) and therefore displays search listings and ads for flowers. Those results will continue to show unless the next letters that the user types lead to a different predicted query."

Transition to the new infrastructure for Google Apps accounts

"Back in May we shared details about a big change so Google Apps accounts can start accessing dozens of Google services beyond the core suite of messaging and collaboration apps. This change will let users access many new services such as Blogger, Reader, Google Voice and calling-in-Gmail (US only), Picasa Web Albums, AdWords and iGoogle from their Google Apps accounts. This big improvement addresses 9 of the top 20 requests from customers in one fell swoop, so we’re thrilled that the new infrastructure is now open for early adopters! After accounts are transitioned to the new infrastructure, these customers will be able to tap into much more innovation happening all across Google, helping people be even more productive with a broader range of tools in the cloud."

Google Instant Search

"Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type."

Hammer on Analytics

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

How to Market on Facebook

The biggest social media platform on the planet boasts a wide array of communication tools businesses use to find and engage their target communities. These digital features have been employed to hold contests and other public relations campaigns, increase email, RSS and other forms of subscription to web properties, communicate Facebook promotions to boost sales, and many other ways to help businesses meet their objectives.

Read more: http://www.flowtown.com/blog/how-to-market-on-facebook#ixzz0ysQYqc2w

How to Market on Facebook / Flowtown (@flowtown)

SEO Email Newsletter

"The SEO Geeks newsletter aims to be one of the top sources for search optimization information, for the seriously obsessed. With this newsletter, you'll receive everything you need to know in order to be successful in the world of search engine optimization. It is jam packed with information that webmasters and SEO pros can both use to stay on the cutting edge. You simply cannot afford to be left behind – Sign up today!"

Google Experimenting With 20 Search Results Per Page?

"You have always (well for as long as I can remember) been able to select the number of search results shown by Google.

The default is 10
Then they add in various other things like news, video, images, local results etc.

Those additions are generally known as universal search

Then you might have results included from your social circle – I have quite a large social circle because I follow lots of people on different social networks, so I almost always see them in the search results."

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Texas inquires on our approach to competition

"Occasionally, we’re asked about the “fairness” of our search engine -- why do some websites get higher rankings than others? The important thing to remember is that we built Google to provide the most useful, relevant search results and ads for users. In other words, our focus is on users, not websites. Given that not every website can be at the top of the results, or even appear on the first page of our results, it’s unsurprising that some less relevant, lower quality websites will be unhappy with their ranking."

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Apple should leave social to Facebook, Twitter

"One of the announcements out of Apple’s event this morning focused around Ping, a Facebook-and-Twitter-meets-iTunes kind of social network.

It was a nice effort, I suppose. After all, if you have 160 million members - with credit card numbers on file, no less - it’s probably a nice way to jump start into the social networking game. But will users really go to iTunes to be social?"

Ping: Apple should leave social to Facebook, Twitter | ZDNet

Are nofollow links irrelevant?

Why are links used in ranking when they all have the nofollow attribute?

Google Maps “Sponsored Map Icons” Test Comes To U.S.

"Google Maps is now testing “sponsored map icons” in the United States. This was first tested back in March in the Australian version of Google Maps. The sponsored map icons are basically company logo enhanced points of interest icons.

For example, instead of seeing a generic ATM machine icon on Google Maps, you may see a HSBC Bank logo. Instead of seeing a generic retail shop icon, you may see a Target logo. These are not the same as Google local ads where you are paying for search query driven ads to show up in Google Maps. The logos are replacing some of the point-of-interest icons and the point-of-interest icons are not shown based on the query you plug into Google Maps."

Google Maps “Sponsored Map Icons” Test Comes To U.S.

Facebook Places : Here's What Your Small Business Needs to Know

"Facebook recently launched a new feature called Facebook Places, which lets Facebook members tell each other where they are, what they're doing, and who they're with.

The impact for local merchants and small businesses is that you're now more likely to be included in the conversation among Facebook users, because they'll be able to automatically tell each other where they are, not just what they're doing."

Facebook Places: Here's What Your Small Business Needs to Know : Technology :: American Express OPEN Forum