These are my links for December 29th through December 30th:
LEAKED: New Details and the Price of Google’s Nexus One – The Nexus One, also known as the Google Phone, has been causing a stir this month after details began to emerge about the project. Earlier today, we learned that the phone will likely be revealed on January 5 at a Google press conference (which we will be covering).
The Complete National Geographic Collection on a Hard Drive – National Geographic, the legendary yellow magazine that’s been an important part of many a young nerd’s childhood, has been around since 1888. Even if you have a very large room dedicated to storing the magazine, that’s a lot of issues.
Facebook to Seppukoo: Die! – Remember Seppukoo, that nifty little service that lets you kill your Facebook identity? Well, Facebook doesn’t appreciate the idea.
Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Journalists – Navigating the journalistic seas this past year has been a particularly challenging/exciting task. As many a publication foundered in the economic benthos, others rode the wave of new technology into previously uncharted waters.
Comedy Duo Hopes Social Media Power Will Secure Slot on Showtime – Undoubtedly, social media is a powerful force. It can be used as a way to spread breaking news, organize political protests or energize campaigns, and, of course, to promote various brands and individuals. But can social media help a TV pilot ascend from reject bin to series pickup? Jessica Chaffin and Jamie Denbo — the stars and creators of Ronna and Beverly — sure hope so.
LinkedIn’s New iPhone App: The 3 Worst Things About It – Business social network LinkedIn made a major upgrade to its iPhone app tonight but coming from a service with such incredible potential, there remain some major disappointments.
Twitter 2.0: API Rate Change Could Lead to a World of New Apps & Features – One of the best things about Twitter is its wildly creative ecosystem of applications built by people outside the company. Those apps have been constrained, though, by technical limits imposed on retrieving data from Twitter. Those limits are just about to be raised much higher and developers tell us that a whole new world of applications and features may become possible.
Google’s 2009: A Glimpse of the Web’s Next Decade – In 2009 the web as we knew it changed dramatically. Twitter graduated to become a media darling and a mainstream communication staple. Facebook became the most significant social network of this day and age. And Google changed the way we search.
10 Things to Do Before the New Year – Whether you work for someone or yourself, things tend to slow down for many of us in the final two weeks of the old year. What better time to do a little business sprucing? Here are ten things to do before the New Year to feel invigorated and ready to whatever comes your way.
These are my links for December 25th through December 27th:
2009 As Seen Through Twitter Hashtags – You may have seen Twitter’s recently announced most discussed topics of ‘09. The list really highlights the gravity of this important year: A new US President was sworn into office, celebrities died and celebrities were born, there were revolutions, there were pandemics, and technology continued its rapid advance.
The Top Ten IPO Candidates For 2010 – Below is our list of the top ten IPO candidates for 2010 in the technology industry (and, no, it doesn’t include Twitter).
64% Prefer Old Twitter Retweets to New Style – We mixed up our weekly Web Faceoff series a bit this time, with a novel head-to-head battle between Twitter’s old and new style of retweets. In the previous 3-way matchup we saw Digg beat out Reddit and StumbleUpon for social news supremacy, and this week we saw another heated battle come to a close with perhaps a surprising winner.
Drunk Drivers in Texas to Be Named on Twitter – Drunk driving in Montgomery County, Texas, this holiday season? Expect to see your name in Tweets, as the local district attorney’s office has vowed to name and shame drunk drivers on Twitter.
Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Location-Based Throwdown – Just when you thought you had enough social networks in your life, two hot new ones are vying for your attention. Combine the benefits of sites like Yelp, Twitter, and Google Latitude, add in social gaming and some privacy measures, and you have the recipe that Foursquare, the app that’s been called “next year’s Twitter,” by Mashable’s own Pete Cashmore, and its chief competitor, Gowalla, are cooking. Each has attracted a rapidly growing user base in 2009, and each is rushing madly to beat the other to your smartphone in 2010.
This is the Link Report for November 8th through November 12th:
Please feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section below
To see all of our links please visit our Delicious page at What the duck? Aflac gets quackin’ on Facebook | Social Business | ZDNet.com – Whether or not you are an Aflac customer, you’ve at least once tried to mimic the Aflac duck’s quacking of “Aflac” at the end of its commercials. After its commercial success, Aflac has taken to Facebook with a two-fold approach: increase its brand awareness through a fan page for the famous Aflac Duck and through a presence in the “Causes” application on Facebook for the Aflac Cancer Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, the same city in which the company is headquartered.
The Do’s And Don’ts Of Creating Original Video | paidContent – Just a few years ago, web video was the great unknown. Media and tech companies agreed that it was the next big thing, but no one knew what kind of content actually worked on the web. Early adopters watched music videos online, but the average consumer wasn’t ready to reach for the computer instead of the TV remote. Content owners and creators, meanwhile, either clung for dear life to traditional development and distribution models, or threw ideas against a wall to see what would stick.
The fall of the Berlin wall in digital media | Media | guardian.co.uk – Digital media are playing an important role in today's celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall. It is interesting that much of the mainstream press have left their historical medium behind for their online coverage, as each have chosen the format which is best for a story. For example, the Guardian has put some impressive films online in which Berliners describe how the city was divided while, readers of the New York Times submitted magnificent photos and memories of the wall and the BBC has displayed in a map how far pieces of the former wall have spread around the globe. In addition to an interactive mainstream coverage, there are several social media projects worth looking at.
LinkedIn and Twitter link up | Technology | Reuters – LinkedIn and Twitter have linked up. Starting immediately, users of LinkedIn and Twitter can cross-file to each other's services, by checking a box on either Twitter or LinkedIn.
The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave – Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that's notoriously difficult to understand. This guide will help. Here you'll learn how to use Google Wave to get things done with your group. Because Wave is such a new product that's evolving quickly, this guidebook is a work in progress that will update in concert with Wave as it grows and changes. Read more about The Complete Guide to Google Wave.
This is the Link Report for September 30th through October 29th:
Please feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section below
To see all of our links please visit our Delicious page at Facebook Revamps its Privacy Policy – Earlier this year, Facebook was hammered for changes it made to its Terms of Service. The result was an uproar that eventually led to the Facebook Democracy, an initiative by Facebook to let users vote and comment on its governing documents.
Rand Fishkin: SEO, Mentors & What Pisses Him Off » aimClear Search Marketing Blog – Rand Fishkin is a singular personality and, to those in the SEO industry, needs little introduction. Having “started playing” with Microsoft FrontPage WYSIWYG web page software in 1993 as a high school student, he’s grown his company SEOmoz to take its place amongst the most recognized brands in search.
iMedia Connection: How to be a good social media listener – At this point, most digital marketers understand why they need to monitor the conversations that are happening on the social web. But in doing so, are they really listening? It's one thing to know what is being said about your brand on social networks. But it's quite another to draw actionable insights around which future campaigns and communications can be crafted.
Mobile And Social Platforms Want To Be The King Of Local Search – The study shows that the web generally, but in particular mobile and social network search, are increasingly factors fueling growth in the overall search market. This grew to 21.9 billion total US searches in June 2009, a year-on-year increase of 31%.
10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips – Begin by outlining clear goals for your social media marketing efforts and figuring out how you’ll measure success. Once you’ve outlined your goals, let’s look at 10 great ways you can begin to leverage social media for your marketing efforts.
How to Earn Respect in Social Media – Search Engine Watch (SEW) – Just because you sell a product or a service that is the top selling or highest rated in the industry doesn't mean people will listen to you when you arrive. Announcing your arrival doesn't gain you immediate respect. You won't suddenly have a band of followers once you strike up a conversation or answer a question or two on a topic.
Facebook’s ‘Reconnect’ Strategy is Brilliant – Recently, in addition to giving you suggestions to which friends you might add to your profile, Facebook also started enticing users to reconnect and engage less active users. The campaign has partly backfired, as some of the recommendations were dead people and ex-lovers, but I still think it’s brilliant, and a good sign that Facebook has a clear strategy laid out for the future.
Initially rolled out for select images only, the capability is now being rolled out for what seems to be the majority of images in Google image search. This is particularly useful when search terms include homonyms, we think; and we applaud Google for removing a major pain point in our searches for pics of Tesla the band as opposed to Tesla the scientist or Tesla the automotive brand.
BuddyPress.org – BuddyPress is a suite of WordPress plugins and themes, each adding a distinct new feature. BuddyPress contains all the features you’d expect from WordPress but aims to let members socially interact.
My Favorite Link Building Lie – While it is pointless to seek links (via email or any other method) for crappy content from other sites with equally crappy content, link building via email does in fact work perfectly – but only under one perfectly obvious and sadly overlooked circumstance: when the link seeker represents meritorious content and the link granter is looking for that type of meritorious content to link to. It’s so painfully obvious to me, that I fight the urge to laugh out loud when I read quotes like the one above.
Amazon Adds A Virtual Private Cloud – ReadWriteEnterprise – Amazon has created a hybrid cloud that can work securely for the enterprise, balancing the need for encryption with the low cost and scaling power that the cloud provides.
The Twitter Exploit That Could Have Stolen Your Info and Much, Much More – Found by David Naylor, the vulnerability exploits an issue with a recently added an HTML tag to all of their links (rel=nofollow, which tells GoogleGoogleGoogle that links on Twitter shouldn’t count in its algorithm). The result is that David was able to change the links in such a way that it generates a huge cross-site scripting vulnerability.
Over 80% of Americans Use Social Media Monthly – The demographic data follows the trend we see overall—younger people are more heavily involved, but over-35s and over-55s are becoming more and more active in social networking. While 10% or less of online adults aged 18-34 are “socially inactive,” the older age ranges are showing high growth. Among adults 35-54, participation grew 60% over last year:
Top 5 Current Email Scams You Should Know About – There are numerous ways to be scammed nowadays. Pyramid schemes, ‘too good to be true’ investments and of course the good old internet. There are literally millions of websites that will gladly take your money, personal info, bank details and a host of other things from you and then skedaddle.
So you’re getting into Social Media for both business and personal use. You’ve heard the hype about how you can not only build your brand using services such as Facebook and Twitter, actually sell products and now you’re ready to get started. But wait there are a few things you need to realize before you start spamming the social media services. These are the Six Rules of Social Media and are rules to live by.
First rule of Social Media… DON’T SPAM THE SYSTEMS – people hate this and it won’t help your cause. If anything it will not get you any business and will hurt your brand
Second rule of Social Media… Remember it’s all about the relationship – most people forget this, if you build a quality feed or a quality profile where good information is shared then people will come. I know I sound like Google’s Matt Cutts when I say this, but it’s true, CONTENT IS KING.
Third rule of Social Media… Remember to listen as much if not more than your broadcast. Unlike traditional media, Social Media is about the conversation and in any good conversation there needs to be listening and participating.
Fourth rule of Social Media… Respond to naysayers and people who are unhappy with you or your brand. Following how you message is perceived in the Social Media space is crucial. Responding quickly and appropriately will look good for your company’s brand as well as turn someone who is unhappy into a loyal customer.
Fifth rule of Social Media… have fun with it. Yes Social Media is a great way to get the message out about your product and brand. But remember to actually enjoy communicating with people. If you don’t people will sense that you’re all business and will be turned off
Finally, the Sixth rule of Social Media… DON’T SELL. I know it’s hard not to push your latest product out there for the world to see, but I’m not telling you not to do that. What I’m telling you to avoid is the overly used car salesman approach of berating people to try your new product. Introduce your product on a one-on-one basis with people, bring it up in conversation and try and make it seem natural.
If you follow these six simple rules of social media you’re on your way to getting the full benefits out of social media. You will not only generate conversations and be active in the online communities, but you will even grow your business and your brand.
2009 Facebook and Twitter Growth by Age Group | Ignite Social Media – The following chart by Nielsen shows that audiences above 25 have experienced a whopping 84% growth in Twitter adoption over the past 6 months. Also interesting is the 20% growth happening within the 55+ age range, compared to the 16% increase in 2-24 year olds. This slight discrepancy in growth doesn’t mean that younger audiences aren’t interested in Twitter, but suggests that they have already adopted it. (Also, after seeing the age ranges listed on this chart, I now want to see what a two-year old would tweet.)
Facebook Acquires FriendFeed (Updated) – Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, weve learned. Were gathering details now.At this point details on the acquisition are still very sparse, but its clearly a good match. Over the last year or so, Facebook has borrowed quite a few of features that FriendFeed popularized, including the Like feature and an emphasis on real-time news updates.
6 Twitter Directories To Add Yourself To – Everyone is always looking for new ways to get more Twitter followers. Well, one of the best ways to do this is by getting discovered through Twitter directories. There are many out there to choose from and its very quick and easy to add yourself to them. So, here are a few to get you started. Feel free to share your favorite (whether listed or not) in the comments.
What is a Natural Link Growth Profile? | SEO Book.com – 3 Common Link Building Strategies1. spiky. if the spikes are associated with news and viral marketing then that is not a big problem, but if they are sorta bought links, low quality links, etc. then this is sorta the worst way to do it.
2. linear. not as bad as spiky…but not as good as geometric. this is where a webmaster tries to build the same number of links each month.
3. geometric. this is where link building starts off slow, but then keeps getting better each month.
Company Boasts it Sold Twitter Followers to Michael Jackson – With the increasing popularity of social media sites and the power of marketing on them, more and more people have been investing in services which can increase their rankings faster than they could do on their own.One such service is the highly-controversial paid Twitter follower service which has been offered by web promotions company uSocial.net for several months now. Now theyre claiming theyve had the attention of some of the worlds largest names, including one interesting one in particular.
Reporting SERP Spam: Know How to Report & Reclaim Your Rankings – Below is a guide about spam results, how to detect them, and finally where to report them. If you want all the links to submit a spammy site, theyre at the bottom (but if you skip all the interesting info you might not know what to look for!).
Twitter Co-Founder: Attacks Continue to Change in Nature and Intensity – Apparently, were not out of the woods just yet. While Twitter itself has been working reliably for most of the day, some third-party applications remain impacted by measures the company has taken to defend against DDoS attacks.
This is a hotly debated topic. Does your employer have the right to tell you what you can do on social media in your free time? One way to look at this is ask yourself how does your actions on social media not only effect you but your company.
So in January, Ms. Herrscher began thinking about ways to apply the principles of Twitter to her site. She wanted something where her readers wouldnt have to dig through the millions of people on Twitter to find moms, or moms in their area or moms with their common interests, she said. Its a smaller, manageable community.
So here’s the thing, all of these Twitter spin offs, Laconi.ca installations etc., are great. Yet they are missing two things, in my opinion, the community and the interconnectivity. The majority of people are on Twitter. Yes there is a following for spin off sites like Identi.ca and the TWIT Army (both of which I belong to), but the fact that Twitter has almost everyone on it and the developmental chops via the API makes it seem so much more powerful than it’s clones.
Though Rachael Herrscher might be on to something, I just feel that we’re dealing with an overload of social media sites. On a daily basis many of us are checking at least three if not more programs to follow people and get our news.
Personally these are the services that I use on a regular basis:
Google Reader (for Twitter search term feeds and blog updates)
GMail (for my email)
Delicious (to share sites that I find on a daily basis with the world)
Now that’s just on a daily basis and thankfully I’m still able to get my work done. Granted my business is closely tied to social media and the Internet so I’m able to suppliment my life with these services. But when is adding services causing more harm than good or even not contributing anything.
I’m also on theses sites (and I’m missing tons):
Identi.ca ( a twitter clone network. Find me as GoldsteinMedia)
Army.Twit.Tv (another Laconi.ca opensource Twitter clone run by Tech guru Leo Laporte of This Week In Tech and TechTV fame)
The solution, in my opinion, is not to stop innovating or making new services. The solution is to make all these clones and networks talk to each other (easily). That way people can interact on a broader scale without major time-consuming social media burnout.
I’m interested in what you think. Post your comments below.
There is an interesting term circulating on the Web lately. The term is Social Media Marketing and it has become the newest hip thing to offer clients. Many marketers are touting the skill. Is this wrong? No. Is it wrong to boast a skill that you really don’t have? Yes. That’s exactly the problem. Many are saying they offer it but don’t have a clue how to leverage it for business purposes.
I know that when I decided to offer “Social Media Marketing” as a service to my clients, I decided I needed to know as much about the inner workings of these social media sites as possible so that I could explain them to my clients in simple terms that they could understand. I immediately went to Amazon and bought as many books on services like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter as well as books on the philosophy behind social media and how use it to grow your business. After all this reading was I ready to offer the service to my clients? No. I still had to test it out on my own brand first to make sure I was able to do it. Have I found success? Yes and no. Social Media Marketing isn’t an overnight task. Like Search Engine Optimization, it takes time to grow a community around yourself and your brand and gain their trust.
A good example of how I’ve slowly built up my brand and myself in social media is on Twitter. I’ve been a member of the microblogging service since September 2007. When I first signed up, it was merely to see what it was all about. I didn’t quite understand the power of it. Honestly, most didn’t at that time. Slowly I began to gain friends on the service and build relationships. About a year and a few months later I have 550+ followers and I’m slowly seeing the effects of my hardwork.
I’ve started to do some social media work for my clients and before I start I always tell them that it takes time. They won’t see results overnight and they need to be patient and actively participate in the discussions and discourse on these services. Honestly, if any “social media marketing guru” tells a client that they can do it overnight, show them the door.
I think “Social Media Marketing” is becoming a buzz term that is popular because it has a good ring to it. What bugs me is those Twitter users or Facebook users that say they’re social media gurus but have no website with examples of how they’ve applied it to their own company. Why would you hire someone to grow your company if they haven’t even tried to do it for themselves first.
The best test-subject is yourself. Before you go to market with a product try it out on yourself first. Iron out the bugs and figure out how you can apply it to other people. Only then do you market it to others. Not before.
Even with the growth of this new industry, people are going to continue to claim skills that they don’t really have. It’s up to the customers to find the ones that really are the real deal.
I want to hear your views on this. Please post your comments below!
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So you’re getting into Social Media for both business and personal use. You’ve heard the hype about how you can not only build your brand using services such as Facebook and Twitter, actually sell products and now you’re ready to get started. But wait there are a few things you need to realize before you start spamming the social media services. These are the Six Rules of Social Media and are rules to live by.
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