B(abble)log - Archives
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Sara Falconer from the Hour.ca and we had a great discussion about promoting your business on the Information Super Highway! We talked about why the Internet is different from any other marketing channel and how to avoid some common mistakes.
And, today, the article is out. Here's an excerpt:
With Oprah and Ashton Kutcher introducing micro-blogging site Twitter to millions of people, there's no excuse for you not to be using online tools to promote yourself or your business... that is, if you can get it right. Too often, social media campaigns and websites are bogged down by lack of clarity and self-indulgence, say web designer Kathryn Presner and content strategist Charlotte Riley.
Read the complete article at the Hour.ca.
Stumble It! |
Save to del.icio.us | 
- Need to sieve signal from noise? Over at Social Media Today, Limyh has put together 8 Excellent Tools to Extract Insights from Twitter Streams. Excellent ideas for market research!
- The social media hotel: You knew it had to happen eventually, didn’t you? Three Minds @ Organic delve into The Pod Hotel, where travelers can plug into the community before and during their stay.
- “Was this review helpful to you?” See how those six words generated billions (!) of dollars of business. Jared M. Spool explains in The Magic Behind Amazon’s 2.7 Billion Dollar Question.
- I once worked in an office where a fellow co-worker would fall asleep on a regular basis. It might not have been so bad if she hadn’t snored up a storm. Why am I telling you this? Because I quite enjoyed 10 Things I Hate About You by Ann Handley.
- On the web, readability is primo. Delve into scannable text, white space and more in 10 Principles for Readable Web Typography from Smashing Magazine.
- Yes! SEOmoz is consistently awesome, and this helpful article for beginners is no exception. Read Rewriting the Beginner's Guide Part IX: Myths, Penalties and Spam.
- In Australia, social networking has quite literally gone to the dogs.
- In Links & Relationships vs. the ‘Social’ Media Monster, the folks at SEOBook.com delve into how Twitter is pulling away blog links. Be sure to read the referenced Brian Solis article as well. Meanwhile Content Here asks “Blogging: Alive or Dead?”
- Worried that your online copy may be a little, er, flat? Here are 12 Ways to Improve Your Online Sales Copy.
- Here’s a valuable video lesson in just 5 minutes by Ian Lurie, Keyword Analytics In Google Analytics.
Friday Fun
Oh what fun we had yesterday, and thanks to @ikepigott, I am able to share the joys of pluralistic clothing.
1. Attention Montreal bloggers, Tourism Montreal, along with AOR Sid Lee, will be hiring bloggers and vloggers as "brand ambassadors" for the city. Lots of people were wondering about transparency and the ethics of paid blogging. Kim Vallee takes a commonsense approach and shares some insights on the topic of Community Managers.
2. That Google just keeps on growing. New this week, it’s launched Social Web Blog.
3. This is so cool!! Eric Brown, a Detroit-area apartment owner is using MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and blogs to reach out his 500 tenants. He uses social media to solve problems, rent apartments and reach out to his Royal Oak community. Learn from his ups and downs.
4. This week Marketing Pilgrim reported that Twitter is gearing up to charge businesses. Brand Republic quoted founder Biz Stone (Isn’t that the best name ever??) as saying 'We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts.' Over at Adland, dabitch raises some good questions on the matter.
5. Gary Vee has some harsh words for CEOs, and tells us all why personality matters.
6. At Mashable, Rick Burns has a great post called “Why Every Company is a Media Company." Inspired reading.
7. Forced Tweeting? Read what Jen Reeves has to say.
8. Want your SEO investment to pay immediate dividends? Not going to happen. Read Mark Jackson’s article Give SEO Time at Search Engine Watch.
9. Have you been tagged in Facebook for the 25 Random Things About Me craze? Of course, who hasn’t?! But Slate Magazine digs deep to find out were it all started.
10. For all you web designers out here, Search Engine Journal reports that the Big Three seach engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) have joined forces to get rid of dupplcate content, often caused by variations of the same URL (www.company.com, company.com, www.company.com/index) Introducing the new <link> HTML tag.
Friday Fun
I leave you this week with these wise words I found via Iain Tait's CrackUnit.
The countdown is on! Twestival Montreal is in two days. Two. So, if you haven't bought tickets, now is the time to do it.
This is "Time Bomb", a promotional video featuring Beck for charity: water. It features well-drilling projects in the Central African Republic. Directed by Simon Willows, it's a really inspiring video.
charity: water promo featuring "Time Bomb" by Beck from charity: water on Vimeo.
1) This week Google rolled out Knol, a Wikipedia-like collaborative online encyclopedia, and Danny Sullivan has very nicely put together an extensive comparison of the two and also comments that a link from Knol might give your page some authority.
2) This next item is technically not from this week, but it’s new to me this week, so I hope that counts. A huge thank you to Twitter pal Tommy Vallier for this astonishing Derren Brown video that turns the tables on two unsuspecting ad men.
3) Hey dotcomrades, don’t tell me you’re info snacking?! Marketing Prof’s Ted Mininni gathers 10 newly coined words compiled by Cramer-Krasselt.
4) In beta release, Google Maps is a great new tool for those of you who get around on foot – walking directions.
5) Who doesn’t love a guy that writes posts like “Sign-Up Forms Must Die”?? Wroblewski picks up the thread and shows how removing registration improves participation.
6) Mmmm...cookies. OK, maybe not the edible kind. Avinash Kaushik has a great primer on understanding visitor tracking cookies through your analytics.
7) B.L. Ochman asks "Typography? What's That? Aesthetics? Who Cares? Graphic Designers? Who Needs Em!" For those who love type, check out the very funny "Font Conference" video.
8) Does the home page still matter? Chief Marketer offers an updated perspective on the content in your site.
9) South Carolina is not so gay, or so a Republican Senator would have you believe. Elaine Fogel at Marketing Profs has the details on how a tourism campaign is coming under scrutiny.
10) Twitter friend Dave Fleet's blog celebrates its first anniversary this week. To commemorate the occasion, he's sharing 13 tips that he learned from his first year of blogging.
Friday Fun
The legendary, astonishing Grace Jones is a one-woman force of performance art. See the new Corporate Cannibal video that wowed everyone at Massive Attack’s Meltdown Festival. Thanks to Dabitch at Adland for the tip.
Thanks to medium & the message for the heads-up on Wordle. Wordle is an online tool that allows you to submit any text or blog feed and get a word cloud that provides greater prominence to words that are used more frequently.
This is from the B(abble)log feed. What a fun way to start the week!
The online folks are going ga-ga for Plurk. Getting over my aversion to the name itself (Doesn’t it sound like it is an onomatopoeic word for something perfectly dreadful??!) I dove in.
This is how it looks:
While the cool factor is definitely there, I have a hard time following the horizontal timeline – especially one that shows the newer events on the left and older on the right. But I think I might be in the minority there, as there are plenty of folks who love the side-to-side timeline. However, if you followed more than a handful of people the visual clutter of the “plurks” (shudder) would pile up immensely. It would be too cluttered, not a good feature on any social media platform.
A lot of people are saying that Plurk is the new Twitter, but Chris Thomson has put together a wonderful compare & contrast of Plurk and Twitter to prove they are different animals indeed, complete with a lovely chart of features.
The signup process is painless (nice!) but after that, it’s easy to flounder around trying to find people. Everyone seems to agree – a search tool would be a very nice addition and the ability to import Twitter pals would be appreciated.
Leslie Poston wrote a great article at Profy.com called Too Much Wurk to Plurk that outlines some of her issues with the new, shiny social network du jour. She notes:
Without a clear direction for using the site, no easy way to add people to your friends list, no way to determine how it might be useful to you, and issues like usability, Plurk is already getting negative feedback on Twitter and even on its own site.
So, I went to register my own name and goof around with it for a bit. Will I go back? Hmmm, I’ll probably experiment with Plurk, but as Twitter pal @GeekMommy pointed out, no doubt the novelty will wear off soon.
Are you using Plurk? What do you think? Love it? Hate it?
I’m currently at the Mesh Conference in Toronto, so if you are here too, please hunt me down and say hello! I’m doing my best to “live Tweet” various comments and remarks from speakers as well as audience members.
Yesterday, there were two opening keynotes. The first was delivered by the ever-engaging Ethan Kaplan who talked about changes in the music industry. And the second by Dr. Michael Geist discussing the use of social media for policy advocacy.
Throughout the day I attended Does Location Matter hosted by Nora Young with Bill Buxton, the renown computer scientist. It was a fascinating discussion of how to address social conventions through technology, and how to build the “trustification” between user and interface.
A later session, The New Front Page, was my personal favourite. Daniel Burka (Digg), Pema Hegan (GigPark) and Candice Faktor (OurFaves) outlined how traditionally the worth of information was decided by its position on the front page, and now with the fire hose of information being fed to us on a daily basis – e-newspapers, blogs, RSS feeds, etc. – there is no filter. A flurry of “recommendation engines” has emerged, suggesting stories and information that friends have recommended. (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc., etc.) Now, the new front page is word-of-mouth.
For me the biggest take-away was the comment that this democratization of voices brings information down to a niche level. Because online communities do not reflect real communities due to the fact that online communities form around special interests, there is the chance of a narrowing of interests. A kind of echo-chamber, as the same viewpoints are passed around with little or no balance, opposing opinions or real discussion of the matter. It was agreed that people need a diversity of sources. But in reality, with so much information being filtered through friend-trusted suggestions and recommendations, I'm not sure this is happening.
The last session of the day for me was Private vs. Public, a discussion of privacy issues in public forums (both on- and off-line) with Nancy Baym, Mark Kingwell, and Ken Anderson. Kingwell pointed out that it is in the public realm where we define ourselves as individuals, while Nancy Baym commented that too often individuals think that the messages they are sending out are limited to their cosy group of friends, but in fact are being broadcast, either through their own means, search engines or friends and other individuals rebroadcasting information. She noted there was a disconnect between what people think they are doing online and the public ramifications of what is actually happening online. Something to think about!
SEO Resources
B(abble)log
Art & Life
Search!
Stuff
Categories
Advertising
Art
Blogging
Branding
Copywriting
Creativity
Email
Five Questions
Fun Stuff
Make the Frames Stop
Marketing
Online Content
Personal
Photography
Random Thoughts
Search
Selling
SEO
Tips
Usability
Visual Things
Web 2.0
Words
Archives
August 2010
July 2010
March 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
September 2009
August 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
Meta
Web Site Design | Search Engine Optimization | Portfolio | Etc.| Contact