I found this article, released today by SEO Consult, that describes the effective ways to utilize keywords to best promote your website. The article discusses factors that you should consider when choosing your keyword, such as seasonality, trends, density, placement, and length of the keyword.

I thought this was an interesting article because when I was reading it I realized that there are a LOT of components involved in effect search engine optimization. This made me realize that having an SEO consultant for your company is actually a highly beneficial member of your team if your website strategy is essential for your publicity.

I also thought this could be useful when working on our projects, so take a peek!

What kind of stuff would you suggest if you were asked to help design a car? What if it was a race car? In this case the car in question is the Rally Fighter by Local Motors. The company browsed a number of internet sources for help, asking the public what they thought. The result? An off-road race car that will get 36 mpg on the street and 30 mpg while racing.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/30/vroom-for-everyone-local-motors-unveiling-crowdsourced-rally-fi/

I was watching a video on TED and it was bout consumerism after the current economic depression. The second half of the video is about companies that are changing their strategies to better connect with consumers, many of the things that companies are doing is based on the internet. It also mentions the trend of consumers getting together to share ideas about products and creating online communities, a shift in consumer behavior called cooperative consumerism. Here are some of the examples of companies that have benefited from this new way of consumer action.

Hulu - the video states that cable subscription is on the decline due to the fact that consumers are now viewing television on line. 63% of Americans have watched a show online but only 23% of them have use Tivo or DVR. It also suggests that consumers are getting rid of their cable bill becuase all shows that they are interested in are posted on hulu.

Gortex - uses this idea of peering to decrease resources in the company. All expense reports are posted online for every employee to see. So everytime the boss goes out to dinner the total is posted. This has significant decreased the amout of unecessary spending using company resources. Holding all employees from entry level up upper managment accountable.

J&J - has recently taped into the blogs dedicaed to mom's created by mom's, a new idea called momversation. This allows mothers to communicate about problems that they are facing and recieve feed back from others who have encounted a similar situtation. Johnson and Johnson has caught onto this movement and now asks moms to blog about products that they have tested and they also use this movment for product generation.

Watch TED video

I know we've talked a lot about this before but i continue to find it interesting on how to reach the baby boomer generation through the internet. these people can be people that will be giving our generation interviews for jobs that can make our future, so i think its better to have a grander understanding on how the work with something that has been so native to us.

i tihnk its interesting the debate that Mac and Windows is having, with - in some cases - is winning over opposing users. Its the big Windows 7 vs Mac Snow leopard debate and how mac is being proactive and beginning to advertise why it is better than windows:

It's going to be interesting for Anroid to compete with the iPhone because of the App Store. The iPhone may be in the lead for now, but from what I see, droid phone is probably going to catch fire quickly and spread rapidly, due to its much greater flexibility. I would choose iPhone because iPhone have everything on the phone that I can think of and it's very effective which a lot of people get it. I have to wait to see if droid by motorola will be effective as the iPhone and it's coming out on November 6th. So I will hear what about people say about the droid phone after they buy it.

Would you buy Droid phone since it's good as iPhone even though Android have near 12,000 apps through Android Market?


http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/10/29/droid-vs-iphone-lets-count-the-apps/

I am really into watching this channel on Youtube. Found another video, it has some overlapping statistics but offers some new great facts too.

Watch here.

I'm just going to sum up some quick facts...

-Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web
-80% of companies are using LinkedIn to hire employees
-Studies show Wikipedia is more accurate than English dictionary Britannica
-There are over 200,000,000 blogs, 54% of bloggers post or tweet daily

Ah there is so much! I reeeeeaaaaally recommend watching this. There is another statistic about 78% of people trusting peers, compared to 14% of people trusting advertisements. I mean, just wow. Something else that really hit me was about the news finding us, no longer us finding the news which is so true. Pretty sure I learned who got elected for President via Facebook statuses since I was in France at the time.

Oh and the Wikipedia fact! Interesting since we as students typically are not allowed to cite Wikipedia. I think it is great to get started using LinkedIn. For some of us, this could take away heat from our Facebooks when it comes to prospective employers. If they have some other means of looking up information on you, that has more appropriate content, it is a win win.

While watching this video, a little ad bubble popped up that said "Privacy of Facebook Video Click here". I clicked, but the video had been removed. Kinda makes you wonder who and why it was deleted.

Again, HIGHLY recommend you watch this!!!

I just happened upon this video again, I know I saw it recently in a class... I cannot remember which class, when, or if the professor or a student shared it haha so sorry if it was this class. Anyway...

It touches upon the internet a lot and some things about social media. It has some pretty scary statistics. Kind of makes you feel like what is the point? I think one scary thing was about India having a higher population of honors kids than the US has kids! Uh oh.

Well in case you don't have enough to worry about in life already, check out this video!

I saw this article and thought it was really intriguing. Facebook announced that they are partnering with Myspace so that users can share content from MySpace on Facebook. I think that this is a good move on Facebooks part, but I still think that MySpace is a dieing social medium. Facebook, which was working on a video and music sharing feature anyway, will benefit the most from this partnership, but this partnership may prolong MySpace's life expectancy. This is definitely a smart move on both parts, but it makes me wonder if there is going to be a total merger in the future.

Read more at....
http://mashable.com/2009/10/26/myspace-facebook-partnership/

Facebook recently announced all of the new features that will be added in the next 6 months. These features include getting rid of notifications in lieu of a focus on the News Feed and Inbox, a new Application dashboard, and the ability to become a fan of any page on the web, not just a Facebook page. I am interested to see how the public will react to all the changes, as the latest changes have not been too widely accepted.

All of the new features are listed here.

This article talks about a professor at Duke who plans to utilize crowd sourcing in her classroom. She will be allowing all of the students to see each others assignments and do the grading. The professor believes that the students will then know exactly what is expected of them and not have to guess at what she may want out of an assignment. I think this idea is a great way to get students more involved in the classroom and allow them to contribute to assessment.

Movie buffs, get your cell phones ready. Sprint has broadened their "mobile marketing coupon campaign" that delivers discounts to subscribers on food and drinks at more than 500 movie theaters nationwide. In their plan to create the world's largest coupon redemption network by having this coupon redemption at 900 theaters come 2010.

How It Works: Text-message coupons are sent to subscribers, they bring their phones to an interactive touchscreen kiosk and scan the given promotion code, it then prints the physical coupon that can be used at concession stands in the theater.

Sprint's strategy is based on retaining subscribers. "The network will allow us to keep track of what each person buys...mobile coupon information is tied to the person's, but it's an opt-in process, so privacy issues are not a concern." says bCode CEO Michael Mak.

The opt-in process will also allow Sprint to re-target consumers with other discounts even after they have left the theater.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=116303

I thought that this article was interesting, it relates to what we were talking about in class the other day about how companies are now banning Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and also 8 % of all US employers are firing staff for what they say on social media.


read more at...
http://mashable.com/2009/10/06/employers-block-twitter/

I was reading some articles about Internet Marketing and found some interesting reads. In one article I learned about a website called "What the Trend??" This website might be valuable for companies to see what people on Twitter are talking about AND WHY. I think this is a unique tool that can be used for business.

You remember the day Google Anayltics was introduced? Well, today I' going to introduce you to Twitalyzer. It is similar to Google Analytics, actually it is Google Analytics, and it can be used for your Twitter account! How cool is that? Now you can see data about your twitter!

Since the DroidDoes advertisement came out, there have been spoofs popping up on Youtube in retaliation. The ads are made by iPhone users who respond to the Droid ad in the same fashion as the original commercial by saying "iDont Care" and "iDont buy brands who bash other brands." You can read more and see the video by following the link below.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/27/idont-care/

An update for the discussion on the experimental Social Search feature added by Google (and Bing):

According to the Director of Product Management at Google, Tom Stocky, the service is meant to make an individual' s search results increasingly relevant.

One example provided by Stocky is if you are looking for reviews for a movie and one of your friends has written one on that movie, perhaps on his blog, it will then show up on your search results. These results will be show at the bottom of the search page in a separate section labeled "Results from people in your social circle."

Link to an article with an explanatory video by Google -

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=15822&Title=Google_adds_social_media_activity_to_search_results

In addition, the privacy issue has to be addressed. Another interesting article mentions the fact that Bing and Google will have to be very careful about including information in search results from Twitter or Facebook profiles that are locked or private.

Neither of the two search engines have said anything about an opting-out setting for users not wanting the eventual full-scale Social Search, which would be either not contributing to the search index or not seeing the extra search results. However, Bing said that they would only keep tweets and status updates for a week, and then dispose of the information.

What are your views on how these developments will affect online privacy in the future?

Just tonight an article was posted in regard to the new facebook homepage changes-- and people are not happy with these updates! Already, a "Change Facebook Back to Normal" on facebook's website has over a million members. In class today, I remember Professor Murthy mentioning that there were new updates to the news feed and homepage that were just initiated. Well, in such a short period of time, it is already being protested.

I think it is most interesting that facebook users are able to successfully use facebook itself to protest these changes. What an influence social media can have!

Read the article here.

Today an article was posted on Mashable that is based upon survey results showing that the cost of social media use on worker productivity results in $2.25 billion in losses. The article continues, stating that social media is a "productivity black hole". This Mashable article was posted to pose a question that I will now pose to you: "What do you think? Are social networking sites bad for productivity? Are they really costing businesses millions?"

Personally, I think that to an extent, yes social media is a productivity black hole. My room mate for example, is convinced she is most productive on her homework when also listening to music, watching the Bills game,surfing facebook, and IMing friends. After living with her for 2 years, I can vouch that this may be the reason why she is up all night doing homework so often...

Do you to agree with this?



For Article Click Here.

Mashable posted this article about the top ten social media tools for entrepreneurs. Nor surprisingly; twitter, facebook, linkedIn, You Tube, and google applications were on the list however there were a few less well known ones. Some of the ones I found most interesting were Mailchimp, Get Satisfaction, Basecamp and User Voice. The mailchimp tool allows you to easily monitor and track email lists and directories. Get Satisfaction and User Voice are aimed at customer support and how your cutomers perceive your organization. Lastly, Basecamp is an easy to use project management tool for both organizations and customer needs. The link to the article is posted below.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/26/socia-media-entrepreneurs/

The NFL and other professional sports have seen considerable increase in tweeting from their players'. One such player is Chad Ochocinco, a wide receiver for the Cincinatti Bengals. The Ochocinco name itself arose from a publicity stunt and as the popular media criticized him for the seemingly idiotic statement (ochocinco rather then ochenta y cinco) the wide receiver went out and legally changed his name. Recently Ochocinco has partnered with Motorola who will be conveying the receivers messages as breaking news from the NFL. The name of the feed is OCNN and will include information from teams all around the league. The link to the story is listed below.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4590771

I like this product. As a student, I am in need of something that I can listen to music and also be able to get some work done while I'm traveling. I don't have to worry about needing the books on the device so long as its able to read pdf.I need something that I can take notes on and read at the same time even if it is alternating between a notepad and the document. I just need something that takes a lot of notes, emails, word documents, and other on the phone. Since its 10.7 screen, I'm wondering if it will cost a lot of money.

what do you think of that product that suppose to come out after January 2010?

http://theappleblog.com/2009/09/29/rumor-has-it-apple-tablet-arriving-january-19/

This article talks about how the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) wants to implement international domain names that can be written in languages other than English. This non-profit group oversees domain names and is meeting in Seoul to discuss whether to allow, for the first time, Internet addresses to be based on scripts instead of Latin letters. If approved, the first entries will be set sometime in mid 2010. They say they have already started testing and are confident that it is effective. More information in the original source.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/10/26/financial/f025826D93.DTL

I always thought about how companies actually knew if their use of social media was effective or not, and if there was a way to measure it. In this article, Coke's Carol Kruse, vice president of global interactive marketing, talks about Coke's use of social media and how they go about measuring it. She measures in Coke brand value, if the social media is driving brand health and brand love.

Kruse says brand measurement is important, but she also states, “You have to be careful how you go about the measurement because you might undo all the goodwill you have built.” You have to be able to measure without disrupting the consumer experience. 


http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007345

Farmville Article Here

If you follow the above link, you will see an article about how FarmVille, the facebook app, is becoming a huge powerhouse in the social media application realm.

"When it launched June 19, FarmVille picked up 25,000 users in its first day, according to Mark Skaggs, head of the game's development team. Its cute, G-rated content now draws 21 million users daily and 60 million monthly worldwide."

I came across this article and while at first I laughed, then I actually started to take it seriously and the implications began to set in. I mean if the CIA now has its own facebook page...well what more incentive do they need to "watch" you? I mean one friend request and they've got a pre-made profile on you and your interests and activitied that YOU made for them. Social media privacy topics, anyone? I mean cinema entertainment with the government being everywhere and in everyone's business is one thing, but then something like this happens and it makes you wonder...

Check it out here.

These are good results and it proves that even in a challenging economy people are willing to pay for what they perceive to be high quality product and a good value product. I think it's great number for any economy and It just shows the strength of Apple.

What you think of apple sold 7.4 millions of iphone in their best quarter?


Read at
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/apple-sells-7-4m-iphones-best-quarter-ever/2009-10-19

This article basically explains how twitter is growing by using certain techniques and programming certain things towards the most common user. Also they are finding that gearing certain things towards teens, more specifically girls, helps the growth rate, such as making a Twilight twitter account.

"Oh Lord" was the five billionth Tweet posted on Twitter, sent on Oct. 19, at 11 p.m.

With the total number of Tweets at 1.6 billion recorded last April, 3.4 billion Tweets have been sent over the past six months, suggesting a "massive growth in the use of the site."

Because Twitter has changed its numbering system on more than one occasion, they cannot be sure that this Tweet was really the five billionth one. But what they do know, is that the five billion mark has been passed and looks like nothing is going to slow it down.

To read more, follow the link below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/6387449/Twitters-five-billionth-tweet---the-pentagigatweet---sent.html

This is an interesting article about how many people use twitter and other social media sites. It gives quantitative data about what percent of people use sites such as Twitter.

uSocial has offered the people that run Twitter $500,000 to run a single banner ad on Twitter for only 24 hours. They believe that even though it looks like a huge sum of money for so little time to be exposed to the world, that their investment will be rewarded. Evan Williams, the founder of Twitter still believes that the focus of Twitter should still be the improvement of the program rather than turning to revenue yet.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/6408536/Twitter-offered-500000-to-run-advert.html

What would you do if you had to pay for the internet by the byte? Well providers are arguing that this is unavoidable and the only thing holding it back now is the government. This is a really great article, and it mentions Rochester quite a bit as well. Did you know?:

"When Time Warner announced last March it would expand its metered-pricing approach to other cities, including Austin and Rochester, protests erupted. Rep. Joe Messa of Rochester introduced a bill in Congress banning tiered Internet pricing plans, arguing the plan would put his city at a disadvantage for corporate investment."

It talks about what kind of plans will likely be available as well. It will be pricey if you want space and speed.

How do you feel about this new push toward paying for your internet by usage, and what plan would you choose if/when it come to this? Also, what effect do you think this could have on companies that base their business on the ability to sell downloadable items online, such as iTunes?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703816204574483674228258540.html?mod=wsj_share_digg

Two deals on Wednesday suggest Twitter might start making a revenue. The term of the deals were not disclosed but they involved Google and Microsoft's Bing. Two companies that would supposedly make the steady stream of "tweets" available on their search engines. Ads would then appear when users search for tweets, bringing a unknown amount of revenue for Twitter.

Twitter's CEO Evan Williams did mention that revenue was not "the focus of the deals."

Article

This article by Time magazine is about how Skype is changing how businesses conduct job interviews. Skype is being used to reduce the cost of having a PR worker or potential employees to travel around the country to do interviews. Also, if you ever do get an interview via Skype, there are tips on how to present yourself and set the camera. =)

Buddy Media Article

I found this article tonight and I thought it was pretty interesting. A company called Buddy Media is according to CEO Mike Lazerow, "likened the platform to a "WordPress or TypePad" for brand pages". From reading the article, whose link is above, I basically found out that Buddy Media is trying to be an assistant by which agencies ad brands can develop cheap, easy to maintain, optimizable social media platforms for themselves.

Perhaps as this gets to be a bigger initiative, Buddy Media may be able to help streamline some of the social media strategies of companies. And, maybe this is useful for suggestions to our clients?

For my research paper, I researched how businesses are adapting to incorporate social media marketing methods into their existing traditional media. I found the following article to be extremely relevant to my topic, as well as what we cover in class. It has an interesting layout, as it was written with the idea of being a blog.

One highlight for me that I found interesting was the story about the Google employee. I cannot believe she was actually fired!

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2008/db20080219_908252.htm

Posted just tonight is an article on searchenginewatch.com, that describes 4 basic and easy steps to successfully use social marketing to reach customers. I really, really like the diagram that is used on the first page of the article because it is so simple to follow and understand. It may even be helpful for in our group papers (wink wink).

To read about theses 4 easy steps for success, go here:

4 Steps for Social Marketing Success

The following article describes the tactics used by the top companies who are utilizing social media marketing tools to better connect with their customers. These top companies are:
1. Starbucks
2. Dell
3. Ebay
4. Google
5. Microsoft

If you want to read more about why these are the top 5 and some cool tactics they are using, go here.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/181721.asp

This article talked about how online communities have a more influential impact on debating issues in comparison to traditional media outlets. Specifically, the House of Commons had raised a controversial question that they didn't want spreading. However, because of Twitter, "the question itself had possibly become the most reprinted and widest spread question ever raised in the British Parliament." It just shows that people are less afraid to express their opinions on social communities such as Twitter. More after the link.

http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2009/10/twitter-vs-the-british-press-the-cases-of-carter-ruck-and-jan-moir/

This article was very interesting....

Facebook is on the target to bring a revenue of $500 million for this year.

Do you think they'll get that number before end of this year?

Read more at....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33343262/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

I found an articles talking about marketers using paper to attract consumers to their business via mailing catalogues. They say that using catalogues generates a higher percentage of interaction with consumers and businesses with more visits to their websites and revenue. In the end of the article they also comment about "iCatalog" idea in the making, which targets the digital world and using less paper without hurting their business. Check out the article! It's a good read, especially if we're always reading about just the internet marketing aspect. Sometimes it's good to know about traditional marketing to compare the two.

Further proof of what we discussed in class. $1.6 billion dollars, now that is clear proof that search engine marketing is where most of the online marketing dollars will end up. The analysts seem to think that this will be sustainable, my impression is that this is going to keep growing.

Read more at


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8309920.stm

This is a promotion campaign that was clearly designed to go viral instantaneously. Pepsi makes an iPhone app called "AmpUp Before You Score" which offers men tips on how to chat up "24 different kinds of ladies." Then it invites them to announce their latest conquests to all of their bros on Social Media.

Read more at .

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/tech/Pepsi-Wants-to-Help-You-Score.html

I wonder how much certain brands are depending on technology to raise popularity for their own companies? Ralph Lauren took a photo of one of their models and photoshopped it to the point that her hips were half the size of her head (picture in article). It was released, thinking that that is what our society has come from. Are people using technology trying to really look like this? Is this kind of advertising, manipulated by technology, working?

Read ahead:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/33307721/ns/today-today_fashion_and_beauty/?GT1=43001

This article is very interesting. It suggests that the social networks we use are influenced by our social class. "A recent study by market research firm Nielsen Claritas found that people in more affluent demographics are 25 percent more likely to be found friending on Facebook, while the less affluent are 37 percent more likely to connect on MySpace." It also says that people in even higher social classes are more likely to use networking sites Twitter and LinkedIn. The research done in this articles discovered that 38% of members on LinkedIn have an income around $100,000.

To read more check out the actual article:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/10/13/social.networking.class/index.html

Update: NBC News article posted today online shows that social media is used quite often after sexual activity, or as they called it, a phenomenon of "post-coital tweeting".

As stated in the article:

"It's not clear from the report exactly what the post-coital tweeters are microblogging about (though the finding that men are twice as likely as women to use social media after a passionate interlude might offer a clue). There are other signs, though, that social media is being employed to report on bedroom exploits."

For more information go to : Sex and Social Media Article

I thought this was an interesting article, and would make this blog more fun for us college kids. Enjoy!

I am a part of Student Government at RIT and Barry Culhane gave us a presentation on ImagineRIT last Friday at Senate. I just wanted to share with you all that Dr. Culhane stated that he was going to be utilizing predominantly social media to create interest in ImagineRIT this year, NOT print media.

I thought this was cool because it shows how RIT too is excited about innovative use of technology and that RIT too understands the importance and evolution of social media in this day and age.

At this website, you can check out the social media options ImagineRIT will be operating on this year: http://www.rit.edu/imagine/social_media.html

I know that for instance, Barry Culhane and Andreww Quagliata are documenting clips of projects they liked from last year and posting videos on them on YouTube, so check it out!

I just thought this was interesting since we've been talking about ads in class. For those of you who use Digg, they have been trying to have ads that match the stories on the homepage. For example, if there was a story on a new game on the main page, you may see an advertisement on the side telling you to click to buy the game. Although this hasn't been officially released yet, I thought it was interesting how they can actually do that.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/08/digg-content-ads/

Mashable.com is taking a vote to see which social media platform people prefer between Facebook and Twitter. According to the article, Facebook is the world’s largest social network, while Twitter is considered by most the hottest.

Mashable is taking a vote via a poll on the link below. The poll lasts until Noon EST on Friday, October 16 (this Friday)... so cast your vote! It might be interesting to post your vote and maybe a little reason why you picked it.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/12/faceoff-twitter-facebook/

I already voted, and I had to go with Twitter for the reason mentioned above: it's hot. Twitter is new and it's the talk of the social media world right now. I see the power of it for businesses and think the potential of a company using Twitter is huge. I would love a job that incorporated social media in the job description... from setting a company up with social media to maintaining and advancing a company in the social media world. Because of the newness and the excitement of Twitter (and the fact that I've been on Facebook for four years now), I had to choose Twitter on the poll. But to be fair, I currently have three tabs open on my browser... one is obviously Blogger and the other two are Facebook and Twitter.

Okay, so with everyone living in Rochester, who DOESNT want an automatic car starter? but..being college kids, who really has the money for a bigger controller on your key ring too? well,  your still paying the money, but now you can start your car with your phone! Apple has joined with the Viper smartstart system and created an app for an automatic car starter. Oh, what we do to get through the winter.

Social Media is definitely playing a major role in politics and the involvement of the general public.  Obama is now pushing for new technologies to bring people closer to the way that things are handled. All in this article:

This is an article that encompasses the integration of Social Media into a business. It discusses how to integrate several different types of social media, how to use social media to create a brand image, integration of offline endeavors and how local searches can benefit small businesses. I believe that this is what several of the groups clients will be looking for...

http://mashable.com/2009/09/30/small-business-strategies/

Adobe's new Flash Professional CS 5 will allow users to convert their Flash software into iPhone apps.  If Apple approves these apps, they will be available for purchase in the iPhone store. The article goes on to discuss the possibility of providing the Flash programmer community with a business model to distribute their products, which they were otherwise lacking. If an app ranks high in the app store, it is sure to produce a lot of revenue. Though it isn't common, one app developer in Indonesia was said to purchase a house with the money he made from a very successful app.

I Blame Twitter for the Fact That I Totally Hate Kittens

I found this article to be really interesting because it states what everyone already knows or bring it to your own attention. Basically it says that everyone is so excited about posting blogs and putting there two cents in that no one reads the whole story about what they are going to post about, so instead of getting the full picture they only get half and then make up arguments that are not even legit. The truth is that most people do not read the whole of what they write about and then their story is flawed, but gets passed around the internet like popcorn at a movie theater. So now instead of everyone else checking up on the first post they just put their two cents on what the first guy wrote...
I thought this was kind of interesting.. It doesn't really have anything to do with kittens though.

read more at...
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=139550

I know a lot of users go to myspace to check out the artists’ music on their page like I always do because I'm a music person but facebook will have music service on it. If you look at the radiohead Facebook vs Myspace fans, 962,631 Facebook fans vs 199,240 Myspace friends that mean more users will go to facebook to check out the new music from the artist or new artists than going to Myspace. As you can see, Facebook have a lot of application than myspace to pull more Facebook users. Some users have their reason why they chose Myspace over Facebook or Facebook over Myspace.

I'm curious, if you are member of Facebook and Myspace and once the music service add on the Facebook, will you go to Facebook more often than Myspace for music or it won't make any difference?


Read at:
http://marketingplaylistpower.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/music-service-coming-soon-to-facebook/

Want better service Complain on Twitter.

The power of social media and YOU. No more waiting for hours on the phones, better yet complain about phone hold times on twitter.

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/10/09/want-better-service-just-complain-on-twitter/

This article referred back to an interview Danny Sullivan had with one of Google's co-founders, Sergey Brin, about poor search results from Google's search engine. One example includes searching for "search engine" on Google, and the top results being Dogpile and AltaVista. Sullivan also talked about poor experiences with local results, such as incorrect hospital and police phone numbers.


http://searchengineland.com/reviewing-some-bad-google-search-results-with-sergey-brin-27397

Friday marked the third anniversary of Google's purchasing of YouTube for $1.64 billion. Though this past Tuesday Google head Eric Schmidt admitted he overpaid for Google by around $1 billion (^1). The question remains, for a company with very little revenue why did Google pay that much for it? Schmidt's attorney, Stuart Jay Baskin, said "they (YouTube) had indicated to us that they would be sold, and we believed that there would be a competing offer."(^2) Basically if Google didn't, someone else would have.

(^1) http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=114946&passFuseAction=PublicationsSearch.showSearchReslts&art_searched=&page_number=0

(^2) http://mashable.com/2009/10/06/google-youtube-1-billion/

I just found out that if you download Ping from iPhone app cost money and it's not free unlike regular blackberry messenger that have ping is free. It's cool to have one on iPhone and you don't have to worry about using SMS text message or Instant Message. Some people think it is annoying to use and don't really need it since it's cost money. Also they think it would be to wait until they had more users before making the decision to charge.

I'm wondering if anybody have iPhone that come with Ping app. If you do have one, what so special about having ping on the iPhone. If you don't want to download ping on the iPhone application, wondering you won't get one?


read at:
http://mashable.com/2009/10/08/ping-free-iphone-to-iphone-text-messaging/#disqus_thread

Earlier this week the U.S. Federal Trade Commission released revised guidelines that involve bloggers that get product endorsements.

Okay, so this doesn't have all that much to do with Internet Marketing on the surface, but Mr. Anton Abraham's post about the military working with social media made this news article seem relevant. I mean the Patriot Act being extended along with the military's sudden interest in Social Media usage? That seems to say a lot in just a few words. I mean we've already said in class and even seen that stuff on the internet lasts forever, and worse it creates profiles of you and your internet activities for companies to work marketing strategies around. But instead of companies out to make money, now we've got the government enjoying easy access to the fact that I buy an awful lot of American History books on Amazon. The Patriot Act extending forward AND governmental social media networks are being established...seems like a rather dark combination.

Read about the Patriot Act Approval process here.

This article is interesting. Pentagon is allowing soldiers to use military computers to use social networking. It look like there will be balance the benefits of allowing the use of social networking on recruiting, public affairs and troop morale, against the potential security risks. I think it would be good experience to use the social networking on computer since they are at the war a lot. Do you think it's good thing for miltary troops to use computer for social networking?



Read at: http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/military-web-policy-20/?scp=10&sq=social%20media&st=cse

I thought this article was interesting because it really shows us how vulnerable we are on the Internet. In one case one program infiltrated the French military computer system as well as surgical ward in England.
Basically what they are suggesting is that instead of trying to fix the current Internet, we should start raising funds to start over. According to the article this would be the only way to make the Internet safer in terms of viruses and other Internet based infections of computers.
They referred to what could happen with the Internet we have now as waiting for a "digital Pearl Harbor".

Read more at...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15markoff.html

Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, has just written an article that details 10 ways in which the average website owner can massively increase the amount of people that visit their website. Kevin Rose is a highly successful internet entrepreneur as is shown by his biggest website, Digg. Digg is currently ranked as the 45th most visited website in the US by Alexa.com. As of May 2008, Digg was valued at $200 million by Google and that value has only increased.

http://highscalability.com/blog/2009/10/6/10-ways-to-take-your-site-from-one-to-one-million-users-by-k.html

I came across to this article and would like to share it with you.

It's about the two giant online companies are in the competition to provide an
online translation service for the people around the world.

I'm wondering who will be the winner for this game?

Check it out.....
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/07/language.facebook.google/index.html

Just read an interesting article on how a brands relationship with its customers differs through social media and paid search advertising.

"GroupM Search and comScore Tuesday released the results of a study that examines the relationship between social media exposure and search behaviors. The study, 'The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption,' reveals the correlation between the discovery of brands through social media and search behavior."

The research explores the correlation between social media exposure and search behavior. Consumers were broken into three segments: "Consumers exposed only to a brand's paid search, consumers exposed to social media that was relevant to a brand's category, and consumers influenced by social media that was specific to a brand."

"The study found that consumers exposed to a brand's influenced social media and paid search programs are 2.8 times more likely to search for that brand's products, compared to users who only saw paid search."

To read more, follow the link below.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=114922

In the month of September, Microsoft's search engine, Bing, has stopped growing. Bing currently holds an 8.96% share of the search engine market while Yahoo stands steady at second with 16.38% and Google holds a dominating lead on the market with a share of 71.08%. Microsoft has poured lots and lots of money into Bing in hopes of consuming a large percentage of Google users with its promises of a "decision" engine but has largely failed. If Microsoft and Yahoo go through with their deal of a Microsoft purchase of Yahoo, Microsoft would eventually raise their stake to 25%.

Dilbert has found out the best use for Twitter.
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-10-04/


Jeff!

I thought this site was interesting, so i found this article as well. And we had just recently spoken about search engines in class. It is explaining how now a days it isnt becoming so much about the search engine itself, but rather the searching on social media sites that is becoming popular. This also makes the experience more personalized for a consumer because they are already specifically looking for what they want.
Read more at:

http://taylorcuster.com/2007/10/03/the-future-of-seo-it%e2%80%99s-about-search-not-the-search-engine/

There is apparently a growing increase in people that want to put viral videos out there for products or other types of services. This way, it doesn't look so much like an advertisement and more like a personal video. even presidents are taking advantage of it! If you were interested in getting involved too here are a few things to remember.

http://taylorcuster.com/2008/03/26/the-3-most-important-rules-of-viral-videos/

I thought this was interesting - someone related to some of the things Socrates has said to social media. They are basically some tips on how to behave in the social media community and how to let it help you in life. Although some of the suggestions he gives seem like he's just trying really hard to relate Socrates and Social Media, there are still some good tips including ones we've heard in class before.

http://jessenewhart.com/social-media/what-socrates-can-teach-you-about-social-media/

I found this list of basically the most annoying internet trends (mostly popular in the 90's) to hit the web. They are all pretty obviously taboo now, but it is interesting to look back on them and remember how popular these styles once were - I know I used at least six of these trends on my first site. Some of these design trends are still popular today (especially the image of shaking hands), but most web designers know to stay away from them if they want to keep their visitors.

Take a look at the list. Which designs do you still see today? If these were the fads of the 90's, which trends of today do you think will be abandoned as fads?

Personally, I think auto-play video on a website (especially in ads) is a trend long past its welcome, and will soon be taboo for any website trying to project a professional image, just as the trends on this list are.

http://webdesignledger.com/tips/most-used-and-abused-web-design-trends-of-all-time

When I was co-oping over the summer, some employees have gotten complaints for being on their Blackberrys during work. Even though it's during our lunch break, we were not allowed to use them and I always wondered what the big deal was. Which is why I was excited when I found this study:

The study done in Australia about how people that take short breaks to browse YouTube or Twitter are more likely to get more work done. It lets us relax and then when we're ready, we can focus on work again. So I guess there's no harm in watching a video or tweeting at work anymore!

http://www.switched.com/2009/04/03/be-more-productive-tweet-and-watch-youtube/

RIT is hosting an Entrepreneurs Conference with a few key-note speakers including Elan Lee- a 1998 RIT grad. Lee has been extremely succesful in the Video Game industry particularly in the field of immersive gaming. The conference includes a number of panels discussing various topics. One of the topics is opportunities in Social Medias. Elan Lee will be one of the panelists for this session, along with, Ana Rosa-Castro the Founder and CEO of Premier Social Media. Registration is required but is free for students with a valid RIT ID. A link to the registration site is below.


https://www.rit.edu/cob/entconf/2009/register.php

This is interesting, because I have had many a conversation about this topic. I always see my friends playing with their iPhones or iPod touches and wondered if programs such as Skype would work. I wondered it more so for the touch, because it is not a phone, but has the internet. Then you could get away with just going online from your phone, using Skype, and not needing a phone plan or anything. It would make things more complicated, but cheaper. The article does not really touch on that though, which is unfortunate.

It is good to see that consumers advocated for this to happen, and in the end they got their way. No doubt the use of social media to come together for a common cause played a role.

Anyone think they'll use Skype for their iPhone?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125486091615268647.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

That is surely 54% of companies I would NOT like to work for! I completely understand the logic between not allowing it in the workplace (lower productivity, inappropriate content, possible viruses?), but still not a company I'd like to be a part of. According to the article, only 10% of the companies surveyed allow full access to social networking websites.

Some more interesting statistics, 77% of workers with Facebook admit to using it at work, and of that, 87% admit to having no real need for it during business hours. I'll admit it, I am a Facebook addict, and perhaps I will have no real need for it in my future workplace, but I want to work at a laidback company, that doesn't place so many restrictions and encourages self-expression. Sometimes, we all need a mental break and Facebook can be that distraction, no?

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139020/Study_54_of_companies_ban_Facebook_Twitter_at_work

The FTC is implementing new policies that will be changing the way people blog and connect online about products and services. Everyone in the class should check out this article, espeically if you are an avid social media user.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/06/news/companies/ftc_blogger_advertising_rules/index.htm?postversion=2009100609

This article provides a great example of how analytics can be used. In 2009, it was determined that searches for coupons on Ask.com shot up 50%. That is a huge increase and would not have been detectable without analytics. This also provides an example of search engines, and how searches are beginning to be more and more targeted and specialized to better satisfy customer needs. I will definitely be looking into this!

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/10/05/daily28.html

France seems to be one of the first to take a stand on illegal internet downloading by establishing a three-tear warning system for violators. Repeat offenders are given less leniency with punishments of up to a year of cut internet, two years in prison, or a €300,000 fine.

I was shocked that whoever put down the question "Should Obama be killed" on the facebook. I understand that it's freedom of speech but it's wrong to put it on the facebook and trying to get our attention to see if it's threat or not. Facebook should have some kind of proection that they won't put a "threat" question or poll on it. We'll see what facebook will do in the future. I do have respect for Obama and it makes me upset to hear couple negativity concerning him. Wondering if we can give him the support and working together to make United States better.

Do you think it's alright to use that poll that was create by minor on the facebook?


Read more at: http://mashable.com/2009/10/01/kill-obama-poll/

I found a list of free analytics tools that can be useful if the client for any group's project does not have a huge budget. The list ignores the huge analytics sites, such as Google and Crazyegg, and offers lesser known alternatives, such as Yahoo! Web Analytics, Woopra, and MochiBot.

A study done by Chitika, an online advertising network, recently showed that users who are referred to pages by social media sites have the most loyalty and return visits to the page. Facebook and Digg proved to be the most valuable source of traffic for websites. I found it very interesting that in comparing search engines, Yahoo provided more loyal users than Google.

The article can be found here.

Just like Microsoft developed the Zune in order to remain competitive with Apple, they are now releasing a mobile phone, and consequently an app store, in order to compete with the iPhone. Do you think Microsoft will experience success?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10368174-94.html

This is a small article about a new bus stop SF is planning to install in the city in the future. It's solar powered, uses less energy, and has wi-fi built in....so you can post class blogs while riding the bus to class...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4328049.html?nav=RSS20

http://mashable.com/2009/10/05/lastfm-discovers/

So the topic of Internet Marketing always seems to be how companies look for ways to utilize social media and the personal information available to gain insight on the habits of internet users. Today we even went a step further and talked about web crawlers and their jobs indexing and cataloging information for search engines who're trying to segment millions of web searches.

However web crawlers can be used in other ways as well. Indexing text to search for key terms is one thing, but web crawlers also can collect entire websites and all of their content, long after the sites themselves have been disbanded and deleted.

Check out this link here and type in any website you're familiar with, and then sit back and be amazed at the many different years of the many versions that have come and gone, even perhaps those that are no longer there. It'll surprise you...

Google announced that it has developed a new feature for AdSense. The feature allowed mobile publishers to run special Google text ads when the site is visited by a smartphone. The advantage of this new features allows the ads to have more sophisticated design and some images, instead of the pure text ads that run on regular cell phones.

I read an article about twitter today and I thought it was interesting. As we all know, Twitter is in its beginning stage and is growing. The co-founder of Twitter spoke with CBS about the upcoming new features. A big feature is the credibility and how you will be able to locate the tweeter.

Mashable produced an article warning bloggers about not disclosing their connections with a given product. Bloggers who fail to disclose their connection with companies, specifically on product reviews. The link details that consumer's have a right to know blogger-to-company ties especially when money is exchanged. Although each instance is determined on a case-by-case basis the penalty is stiff- $11,000 per post.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/05/ftc-blogger-endorsements/

I just thought this was kind of amusing and thought I would share with the class... apparently Drew Carey decided that he was sick of his name on Twitter, @DrewFromTV, and put a bid of $100,000 for @Drew. The original @Drew is auctioning his name on twitter which he calls "prime real estate" for cancer research.

Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/drew-carey-bids-100k-for_n_309743.html

The article posted below is an interesting method for small businesses to utilize the wiki trend. Small businesses can utilize wiki tools to benchmark past successes and failures as well as other crucial information to avoid potential overlap or re-work. These tools are invaluable since small businesses are inherently limited to the number of employees they hire and their general overhead costs. Wiki tools are a great way to 'level the playing field' against large competitors.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/04/business-wikis-guide/

Mashable recently posted some interesting stats for Twitters current value. In recent events Twitter received additional funding speculated at 100 million dollars. The article goes into detail about the unprecedented growth of Twitter in it's relatively short history. Although Twitter has yet to announce a formal business model the potential for future growth is clearly visible. The most noticeable statistic is the growth in single share price growing from a fraction of a cent to nearly $16 per share.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/04/twitter-stats/

I've recently been hearing quite a bit about Google Wave but haven't really understood what it's all about. I just stumbled upon this article that has a video that quickly summarizes the Wave's capabilities. I think it is amazing that email can become so much more effective. It will be interesting to see if Google can successfully change the way people communicate via email.

http://mashable.com/2009/10/02/video-google-wave-gets-explained/

I was on facebook today, and have lately been paying more close attention to the advertisements on my profile as they are targeted toward me. Today there was one called Twitter Adder--making more revenue from Twitter; so I clicked on it. The page that popped up is a whole site for Tweet adder, a networking software that supposedly helps you to automate your twitter promotion and marketing and up your followers to the amount that people such as Oprah and Ashton Kutcher have. And there is a free downloadable demo-- so check it out!

They are basically promoting this software as the "Ferrari" of Twitter Friend Adding, haha. The article is pretty interesting so take a peek:

http://tweetadder.com/

My mother just sent me a hard-copy newspaper article last week. It was about a full-time college guy at University of Iowa, got flunked out from that school. It was because he spent every minute playing the video game called, World of Warcraft which is part of a social media today, and was seeking for a help to break this habit. He eventually found the first resident treatment center for Internet addiction in the U.S.

I found the exactly same article from online and would like to share it with you.

Check this out……
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/mobile/story.asp?ID=304340

I am on Digg frequently, and recently, ads have been inserted to the main page.
This allows companies to post what they want on the front page, while letting Digg users still vote on if the ad should be Dugg or Buried. It is an interesting concept that provides marketers with feedback of what users want to see because they can still vote for it or against it.

http://chasnote.com/2009/10/01/digg-ads-it%E2%80%99s-just-the-beginning/

BNO news have breaking and developing stories on iphone app. I think it's good to have one on the iphone so you'll know what happening in the world and you won't be fall behind the news. However, I don't know if people are willing to buy 99 cents per month to have BNO application on the iphone to read the breaking news, with one month included as part of the application’s initial $1.99 purchase price. I mean people can read the news over internet for free and they can find out what going on in the world. So we'll see how it goes for the next couple months.

what you guys think of having BNO application on the iPhone? Click on the link bottom if you interesting to read more about it.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/01/bno-news-updates-its-great-iphone-app-lets-you-harness-stream-of-push-notifications/

For those of you who think the stuff we are learning about it pretty cool and are potentially interested in it for a future career, there are sites like Mashable's that have information on how to get a job in social media. I found an article by them that is basically a guide to getting a job in social media and what jobs may be available. As a marketing major, I never really thought of this as a possible career choice, but it sounds really unique and fun!

Click for Mashable's Guide to Jobs in Social Media

Also interesting, made me laugh actually. Over the summer, aUK theme park banned the use of PDA's in the park because they want to have an environment that solely promotes family fun time.

I thought this was interesting because I can not count on my fingers alone how many parents of my friends I have seen bicker at them for using their cell phones too much and "ignoring them".

Do you guys think this is true-- that we are ignoring the outside world? Are we just evolving into better multitaskers?

Here is the article:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2008/05/theme-park-pda-ban-says-time-and-a-place-for-everything.ars

When I saw Justin's post about banning basketball players and those involved with the game from using their social media devices before, during, and after games, I was interested to see what else I could find. I found an article about how Walt Disney has banned all PDA's except for Mickey Mouse's Blackberry and Donald Duck's Ipaq. It appears they will not be supporting any other type of PDA (Palm Pilot, etc).

I think that is interesting as I am not really sure if this is due to a social media problem or Walt Disney having problems with other companies in general. It's a mystery!

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1009933/walt-disney-bans-every-pda-but-two

This is an interesting research article talks about targeted advertising. Turns out that most U.S. residents do not want to receive Web advertising tailored to their interests. Statistics is a funny thing, and as the often cited example goes, it can correlate ice cream sales and crime rates. Yet another time to remember that correlation is not equal to causation.

Read more at
http://www.itworld.com/government/79438/survey-us-residents-dont-want-targeted

Compare this with the results of another survey.
http://www.truste.com/about_TRUSTe/press-room/news_truste_behavioral_targeting_survey.html

No Tweeting during basketball? Evidently tweeting is becoming a problem in the NBA. New current restrictions ban social media before, during, and after games.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4520907

In an article titled "Google's YouTube Finds Money In Analytics" Laurie Sullivan of MediaPost.com writes about how Google can give copyright holders a tool to "track viewer sentiment to determine the best distribution and marketing strategy for music, video and other content clips that are generated and uploaded by the community." Think Google Analytics for YouTube...

YouTube accounts for 99% of all videos watched on Google sites, representing over 40% of all videos that are viewed online. Combining their content management feature with YouTube Insights, a free analytics tool that lets media companies mine information, could help copyright holders generate revenue from the data and in return boost profits for YouTube.

"It allows content owners -- such as music labels, movie studios and advertisers -- to compare audience demographics between "claimed videos" and "official versions." It also provides data and insight into Web sites or search terms that drive the most traffic to versions of the content uploaded by YouTube members. "

- If you want to read more, follow this link to the article on MediaPost.com

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=114409

We had discussed in class the alternative Web Browsers that most people have been using to activate the site. It included a few varieties, but what about the people that are not really up to date? This site talks about the security of web browsers, and how some are automatically updating themselves without your knowledge anymore, and whether that could be detrimental to your internet experience.

http://mashable.com/2009/05/06/browser-innocence/

 We talked about the Naked Pizza billboard as an example of using Social Media along with traditional marketing methods and here are several more interesting examples. I anticipate that this practice will become more and more common and even end up on product packaging soon.

Read more at
http://www.urlesque.com/2009/09/29/social-media-ads-go-offline-whats-old-is-new-again/