Social networks, in essence, are platforms for people to share and disseminate information. This sadly includes a number of things I could care less about, amateur food porn included. For those who don’t know, Wikipedia states that food porn is “a glamorized spectacular visual presentation of cooking or eating in advertisements, infomercials, cooking shows or other visual media.”

What is this?

This is one of the many activities that needs to be stopped across all social media. Another pet peeve of mine is overusing Foursquare. Now, I have nothing against Foursquare. After all, I used to be an avid user. But there was one thing I never did: share my location when it wasn’t cool. To be honest, I’ve deleted friends from Facebook and Twitter because 50 percent of their posts were Foursquare check-ins. There’s literally nothing I care less about than when you’re at Target. What value does this bring to my Facebook or Twitter feed? None. Now, if you’re somewhere awesome, like a museum, sports game, hole-in-the-wall bar or a concert, then by all means, check in. I want to know when you’re at a cool place. But please, stop telling me every time you go to the drug store.

I know this seems like an over-the-top rant–and it is–but things need to change. Food porn and Foursquare usage aren’t the only things that need to be reevaluated, either. The thing that concerns me the most is the status update (or tweet).

Everyone’s guilty of posting mundane, valueless statuses (myself included), but they’re getting a little out of hand. I think Jesse Eisenberg’s character in “Zombieland” summed it up best: “The best thing about Z-land … no Facebook status updates. You know, ‘Rob Curtis is gearing up for Friday.’ Who cares?” Exactly! Who cares? No one … well, not me at least.

I know it’s completely unrealistic for every status, tweet, check-in, etc. to contain meaningful content. There are things I’ll post that’ll violate my own rules from time to time, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive towards a future that has smarter social media.

Aside from sheer annoyance, there are actual real-world implications poor social content can have. We’ve discussed it a few times already, but Google has completely revamped how their search service works. Search, plus Your World has completely changed the game with social content (Google+) showing up in search results, which makes this even more important. If you’re a Google+ user, for the sake of everyone in your Circles, keep an eye on what you’re posting.

When I post something to a social network, I usually ask myself, “Would I want to read this?” If the answer’s “no”, then I don’t post it. You should do the same.

We want to know what annoys you in social media! Tell us in the comments.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, it’s that social media is just as important, if not more important than all other forms of advertisement. With this in mind, I took it upon myself a few years ago to get into the political game. No, I didn’t run for office, no I didn’t publicly endorse any one candidate. What I did was tweet. And that experiment is one of several topics TM  Social Media Manager Michael L. Hoffman, PR and Communications Expert Dario Chiarini and myself discuss in this week’s TM podcast.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

In 2009, after former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick left office in disgrace, there was an election for a new mayor and I decided to do my part. I registered several Twitter accounts for the candidates, on my own volition, such as Dave Bing, Ken Cockrel Jr. and Freeman Hendrix. But the one that took off was Dave Bings (@davebing). Within the course of just a few months, the @davebing account had gathered more than 10,000 followers, all of which thought I was Dave Bing. In fact, this @davebing account was quoted as saying, “We just need new leadership. The city of Detroit had a lot of oysters but no pearls for a long time,” in a May 17, 2009 Detroit Free Press article entitled, “Social site become political tool.”

When I decided to take up the task of operating a Twitter account under the guise of Mayor Bing’s persona, I did so without malice. But this still leads us to proper reputation management. Bing’s team did nothing, literally nothing, to obtain ownership of the @davebing account. And in December 2009, after several attempts to contact his team, I wrote the mayor a letter, which read:

The reason I am contacting you today is because I would like to consult and manage – free of charge – web marketing and social media for you through your term.  My motivation is to raise the profile of small, entrepreneurial companies such as mine that are working to diversify the economy in Southeast Michigan and create new jobs. Being a native Detroiter and DAC member I was happy to finally see a qualified, honest individual step up to turn our city around.

Detroit Free Press: May 17, 2009

Still, I never heard anything back from the Bing camp. No phone call, no email or no letter. But around Christmas of 2009, the @davebing account had been closed and a new one had been registered, which actually has less followers than mine did.  But what should we take away from this? Was it right to operate a Twitter account as another person? Probably not. But it shows how important it is for you, as a company, brand or public figure, to monitor  your online reputation. I could have done a lot of damage has @davebing, which shows how easily it is to get duped online, and why it’s crucial that your image is protected on the Web.

Listen to the podcast below for more on our @davebing experiment as well as Google’s new privacy policy. Do you think what we did was wrong?

Google’s new privacy policy is a culmination of over 70 previously-individual policies. This single, omnipotent policy will cover all of Google’s services and create a customized Google for each individual user. They elaborated on this in their blog post about the new policy, stating, “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

This comes only a few weeks after the release of Search, plus Your World, which integrates personal and organic search results into one stream. It is clear that Google is making a push to not only be a company more focused on social, but also on personalization. Mashable’s Kate Freeman points out several features of Google’s new policy that could make users’ experiences better overall. She writes, “Not searching for a gym membership in January? Google will remove those ads from your search. Email a friend about adopting a puppy? You might see ads for animal shelters in your area. Your friend Jon doesn’t have an ‘h’ in his name? Google Docs will remember this, too. By syncing your Google products, the ads you see and your search results will be customized.”

The search giant, however, stressed that it will not be giving users’ personal information to advertisers. Instead, Google uses your information to target you with ads they have already purchased. It’s also important to note that users cannot opt out of this policy. The only way to do that would be to opt out of Google completely, and really, who wants to do that?

What do you think of Google’s new privacy update? Do you think it’s going to enhance your experience as a Google user or is it integrating social and search too much? Let us know in the comments.

In McCarty’s case, Google asked him, “Want to ask your friends about groin rashes? Ask on Google+,” and he’s not too happy about it. In his article, he writes, “I understand that your goal is to get everybody using Google+ and I know your reasons behind it. But I’m pretty put off by being asked on EVERY SINGLE SEARCH QUERY whether or not I’d like to ask my friends about something. It’s like the Facebook share button on a porn site. There are things that I don’t ever want to talk to my friends about, even if they’re not embarrassing, so please stop asking me.”

Sullivan echoed his sentiment and stated, “However, there’s no particular intelligence going on behind this prompt. It shows up for every search, which means you can have lots of fun with it.” He then gives the following example:

Clearly, Sullivan and McCarty are right. There is no need for this to be offered for every search query. It’s another way for Google to integrate their own social network, Google+, into search results. And while we have discussed the possible impacts of Search, plus Your World before, this feels like a bit more of an intrusion. It’s well-known that users tend to head to their social networks when a search query doesn’t give them the results they want, and because of this, the “Ask on Google+” link feels a bit pushy. No one likes someone who is constantly giving you unsolicited advice, and this is what that link feels like.

It’s clear that Google+ is here to stay, and Search, plus Your World is a solid integration of search and social, search should remain Google’s primary service. What do you think? Do you find the “Ask on Google+” link as annoying as McCarty and Sullivan do? Let us know in the comments!

We discussed the blackout in detail in a previous blog post, but its importance and effectiveness cannot be understated. The protest of SOPA and PIPA was spearheaded by social news site Reddit and online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The goal was to illustrate what the internet would look like if SOPA and PIPA made it through Congress. The effects of the protest were palpable in Washington as several supporters and co-sponsors of the bills dropped their support, and eventually, both bills were tabled indefinitely.

But perhaps the most interesting week’s most interesting news regarding online piracy was the federal take down of MegaUpload. MegaUpload was a file-sharing website that the US government shut down on Jan. 19, the day after the blackout. In response to MegaUpload’s take down, hacker organization Anonymous, attacked the Department of Justice, Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America websites, as well as UniversalMusic.com. This isn’t the only issue we discuss in the podcast though, we also discuss more changes from Google.

The search giant announced this week that it will be penalizing websites that have too many ads “above the fold,” which is the part of the website you can see before scrolling down.  As Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan points out, Google “heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.” This, however, isn’t the only big change Google has made recently.

We revisit the topic of Google’s new search format–Search, plus Your World–and how it makes ranking reports nearly obsolete. The reason being is because search results are now different for everyone. If I search “credit cards” here in Michigan, and Michael searches it in Florida and Dario searches it in California, we will all get different results based on location and personalized results. This means that one website could rank much higher in one area than another, thus making SEO much harder in the future. It further emphasizes how important it is for companies and brands to be engaged socially.

We want to know what you think of these issues, let us know in the comments or contact us! For more on these topics, listen to the podcast below:

Many websites, including Reddit, Wikipedia and Mozilla, blacked out their sites to protest SOPA and PIPA and @herpderpedia kept us all in the loop with Tweeters’ frustrations. Most of the rage on Twitter was directed at Wikipedia for being down. Some people voiced their confusion, “What’s up with this Wikipedia blackout bullsh*t? #confused” but others were a little more intense. This tweet, “OMG WIKIPEDIA YOUR KILLING ME YOU COMMUNIST F*CKS!!!!!!!!” is a good example of how most people seemed to feel.

But what many people didn’t realize is that their sights should have been pointed their senator or congressperson, not the online encyclopedia. What Wikipedia and other sites were doing were voicing their opposition against these bills, which according to Reddit, “Introduce regulation and enforce censorship on what should be a free and open internet.” They wanted to bring awareness to two proposed bills that have the potential to censor much of the internet.

The New York Daily News published an article explaining why Wikipedia and other sites went black on Jan. 18:

Simply put, they would give copyright holders new ways to punish websites that host pirated content.

That means that users within the U.S. would essentially see an error message when they try to visit that website, though users in other countries would still be able to visit it. This provision has been removed from SOPA pending “further examination,” though it’s still included in PIPA.

SOPA also requires search engines to delete links to offending websites from their search results, while PIPA does not.

Both bills require advertisers and payment services not to do business with sites accused of piracy. They also allow internet service providers to pre-emptively block websites they believe are dedicated to piracy.

It seems that the online protest against these bills has been effective. According to Mashable several co-sponsors and supporters of both SOPA and PIPA abandoned the bills after Wednesday. Those who revoked their support were PIPA co-sponsor  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and SOPA co-sponsor Rep. Ben Quayle (R-AZ). This, along with the White House’s opposition to the bills, is a big hit to the legislation. But, as Mashable notes, it’s not over. The tech blog states, “Even though co-sponsors of SOPA and PIPA pulled their support for the bills on Wednesday, SOPA’s lead backer says he’s not backing down and “expects to move forward” with the bill next month.”

If you didn’t contact your US Representative or Senator, it’s imperative that you still do so. The bills, while struggling, are not completely dead. You can contact your representative or Senators here.

What do you think the greater ramifications of SOPA and PIPA are? Let us know in the comments. And if you need some background info, check out this video to learn why SOPA and PIPA are bad for the internet:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

UPDATE Friday Jan. 20, 2:05 p.m.

SOPA and PIPA are both effectively dead in the water. Re. Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced that he has pulled the bill off the table and earlier today Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the vote for PIPA has been postponed.

Rep. Smith told Reuters, ”I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy. It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

He also said that Congress will be working with “copyright owners, Internet companies, financial institutions to develop proposals that combat online piracy and protect America’s intellectual property.”

And while this is a huge victory for freedom of speech on the Web, this won’t be the last we hear of bills like this. Stay tuned to this space for more information as it comes.

There were several big news stories in the past week that we discuss in this week’s podcast. Some of the topics we touch on include Google’s “Search, plus Your World,” protecting children on Facebook and the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Perhaps the biggest news this week is the roll out of Google’s new search format, Search, plus Your World. This new format is an integration of social and public search that is unprecedented. Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan discusses the new search format in detail saying, “The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems.”

What we wonder here at TM is what implications this will have on SEO. If personal results are getting shown before organic results, it will force more companies to get social and engage. We also note that this could really push the competition between Google+ and Facebook to a new level because of Facebook’s search deal with Bing.

One issue that has been gaining traction over the past few months is protecting children on Facebook. According to the New York Times, many parents are actively lying to let their children on Facebook under the age of 13, Facebook’s minimum age requirement. This is a multifaceted problem, and needs to be handled on many levels. First, parents need to stop letting children on Facebook under the age of 13. This is a direct violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and it also compromises their children’s privacy. One of the things we think needs to happen is either a) an update to COPPA or b) a completely new law that is more relevant to today’s Web. What do you think needs to happen to help solve this problem? It’s something that needs to be tackled, but it’s still unclear what way is best.

Another issue that has been getting a lot of attention online, but not in the mainstream media, is SOPA and the PROTECT IP Act. For months there has been opposition on the Web to these bills, but until now there hasn’t been a lot of action taken against them. That’s all going to change Wednesday Jan. 18 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. when Reddit and the entire Cheezburger Network go dark in protest of the bills. But will this be enough to sway the US Congress or will more sites like Google and Facebook have to go down too?

We want to know what you think of all of this, so let us know in the comments below or contact us to tell us your thoughts!

The first thing you as a Facebook user need to know is if you want to permanently delete your profile or merely deactivate it. Permanently deleting a profile is exactly what it sounds like–permanent deletion. The account is closed forever and you’ll no longer have access to the information contained within your Facebook profile. Deactivating it, on the other hand, is kind of like cryogenically freezing your profile. It will stay stuck in one spot in time until you decide you want to thaw it out. When you deactivate your Facebook, it makes your profile inaccessible by your now former friends, but if you log back in, everything is just like it was.

Now that you’ve decided whether you want to terminate or freeze your profile, let’s get started. We’ll begin with Facebook Deactivation.

How to Deactivate Your Facebook Profile:

1. Go to your profile’s Account Settings. When you arrive at the Account Settings page, select the Security page to the left of the screen.
2. Once you are at the Security page, click the “Deactivate your account” link.
3. At this stage of the game, you will have to fill out a brief form explaining why you want to deactivate your Facebook profile. After filling out the form, you will select the “Confirm” button, which will prompt you to enter your password, then you will have to fill out a captcha to make sure you’re a human being and not a robot.
4. You are then automatically logged out and your Facebook is deactivated.
5. To reactivate your profile, just log back in like you would any other time.

It’s literally that easy. Now, if you’re one of the people who want to permanently rid yourself of Facebook, follow the steps below.

How to Permanently Delete Your Facebook Profile:

1. To access the Facebook Account Deletion page, go to the Facebook Help Center by clicking the “Help” link at the bottom of the screen.
2. When you arrive at the Help Center, type “How do I permanently delete my account” into the search bar.
3. That will bring you the “Account Settings and Deletion” help page, click “submit your request here” at the bottom of the third paragraph to access the Facebook Account Deletion page.
4. When you are at the Facebook Account Deletion page, click “Submit.”
5. After you click “Submit”, you will be prompted to enter your password and fill out a captcha (to verify that you’re a human).
6. Once you fill out the necessary information, click “Okay.” You will then be sent an email from Facebook that says your Facebook will be permanently deleted in 14 days (two weeks).
7. This may seem simpler than deactivating your account, but it comes with a caveat: You cannot log into your Facebook at all during that 14 day period or it’ll cancel the deletion and you’ll have to repeat the whole process over again. This includes using Facebook Connect, Liking or Sharing things on external sites (websites outside of Facebook).
8. After 14 days, your Facebook profile will be no more and you’ll be living a Facebook-free life.

One important thing to remember is if in your two-week period before your account is officially deleted that you decide you don’t want it deleted after all, just log in. When you log back, in everything will appear as it was before you preemptively decided to delete it.

Do you have any questions or comments about deactivating or permanently deleting a Facebook account? Let me know in the comments or contact us!

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan discusses the new search format in detail saying, “The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems.”

This could prove to be the biggest change in Google’s search results, but as Sullivan points out, the company will surely come under scrutiny for promoting its own content over that of its competitors. And what sets this change apart from others that have been implemented is that it will be combining social search results with public search results into one big stream, as opposed to two separate ones. This could be useful for users because they would be able to see both results at once, but it could also confuse others for the same reason.

Sullivan notes that the singular list of search results could create privacy concerns for Google because people may think those are public listings. But don’t worry, they’re not. They only appear to you because they have been shared with you. Unless someone has had that information shared with them personally on one of their social networks, they won’t be able to see private content.

In Sullivan’s article, Google’s Amit Singhal said, “The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.”

It’s important to note that Google has not integrated Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or any other social networks aside from Google+. But that is not Google’s fault according to Singhal who said, “Facebook and Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things. Google+ is the only [network] that provides such a persistent service. Of course, going forward, if others were willing to change, we’d look at designing things to see how it would work.”

But aside from the social aspect of Search Plus Your World, the new search format could also have big SEO implications. Now that Googlers will be seeing more personalized search results based on what has been shared with them, it could prove a challenge for websites trying to to rank highly on the first page.

Only time will tell exactly what the effects of Search Plus Your World will be, what do you think of the new search format? Is it an improvement of Google’s services or a hindrance?

The new cloud, announced by PC and tablet manufacturer Acer at CES 2012, will allow users to share documents and photos across Acer devices and Android smartphones, but in a limited capacity. But unlike its iCloud and Dropbox counterparts, AcerCloud isn’t about online storage, it’s about sharing. Documents and photos are only stored for 30 days in AcerCloud, and the files are ultimately stored on your PC, not in AcerCloud.

Here’s an example of how the service works: if you take a photo with your smartphone, AcerCloud will automatically upload that photo to a service called PicStream, which will store your photos for the 30-day limit. PicStream is more of a pit stop for your photos than a parking spot, though. You can then push your photos from PicStream back to your PC or another Android device for permanent storage.

Saving documents to AcerCloud works similarly to photos, in that they are stored in the cloud for 30 days before expiring. But there is one thing AcerCloud may have on the competition. Acer says that files stored on the “Main PC” are accessible at any time via AcerCloud, even if the computer is in sleep mode. This could prove useful for people who want to extract data from their home computers without having to spend time uploading it to another cloud service.

Are you an Acer user? If you are, would you use AcerCloud? We want to know.

Featured photo © HYTHEM.

In this week’s podcast we discuss a variety of topics including innovative RFID use, Google’s surprising mistake, Rick Santorum’s Google problem and the importance of SEO and content.

It’s not everyday Google messes up, but when it paid bloggers to link to the Chrome browser’s download page, they did just that. In fact, the search giant violated its own terms of service and because of that is penalizing itself. For at least 60 days  Chrome will be lowered in search results due to the violation. What do you think, did Google slap its wrist hard enough?

Great Wolf Resorts is taking RFID technology to the next level. The resort chain’s guests are already using RFID-enabled bracelets as a charge card, room key and guest identification bracelet. But that’s not all. The bracelet can now be used it as a social media tool. Guests can link the wristband to their personal Facebook accounts to upload photos to Facebook throughout their stay. All they have to do is go to one of the park’s “Paw Posts” get their picture taken and the photo is automatically uploaded to their Facebook. This four-in-one wristband not only makes life easier for guests, but allows them to stay connected without their smartphone.

Do you want to know more about these topics? Listen to the podcast below and let us know what you think in the comments! If you have anymore questions, don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

Kravitz is a former writer who worked for PhoneDog Media, and when he was hired, he was told to create the account @Phonedog_Noah and use that for professional purposes. In the eight months of his employment, Kravitz amassed a Twitter following of more than 17,000 people and is now being sued for $340,000 by PhoneDog Media for changing the name of his account to @NoahKravitz post-departure.

Where does the number $340,000 come from? That’s $2.50 per follower multiplied by the number of followers he collected (17,000), multiplied by the amount of time he used the account for PhoneDog Media (eight months). According to this suit, each Twitter follower is worth $2.50. But that isn’t the most important issue. Rather, the most important issue is who owns the Twitter account @NoahKravitz (formerly @Phonedog_Noah)?

One of the biggest issues with this case, however, is the fact that Kravitz and his former employer don’t even agree on whether he was an employee or a contractor. Depending on which he was, it could have an impact on how the courts determine this case. If he was a contractor, he was essentially working as a freelancer. Whereas if he was an employee, he was working directly for PhoneDog Media. There’s also a question of whether or not the company had a social media policy covering the use of accounts created for work.

Personally, I operate two separate Twitter accounts; I have my personal Twitter account and my professional Twitter account, @MikeTMProd. I set up @MikeTMProd a few weeks ago so I would have space that would primarily be for professional use. But I was never told to set this account up by TM. I did it on my own volition. It still begs the question, since I am representing TM with not only the content, but the name as well, do I really own that account? I like to think so, but this lawsuit could determine who the real owner is.

I am a firm believer that it’s important to keep your personal and professional lives separate in social media. How many stories have we read about people not getting a job or losing a job because of something an employer saw on Facebook?

Not a week goes by where we don’t see a new story about how controversial social media can actually become. Kravtiz’s battle with PhoneDog Media is just the beginning of where things could go. What do you think? Does PhoneDog Media own Kravitz’s account or does he?

(Photo credit: cbhdesign)

We’ve discussed in a previous blog post why it’s important to have an online presence that’s both well-established and engaging , but one thing we didn’t cover is why your fans’ and followers’ recommendations are so important. The reason is simple–trust.

If there’s one thing that links people together through social media, it’s trust. Most people don’t add friends on Facebook or follow someone on Twitter if they don’t trust them and/or value their opinion. Just like you wouldn’t befriend someone you didn’t trust in the real world. This trust is what can make or break a brand, company or business in social media. People don’t usually share mediocre experiences with their friends online, but if you can provide your online community with an extraordinary experience, they’ll more than likely tell their friends about it.

This type of sharing is what can really help a business grow, especially a smaller, local business. If a few people are gushing about the hottest new place or product, their friends and followers will be more influenced to try it out for themselves, whether it’s a restaurant, automobile maintenance garage or boutique. This is why it’s imperative that your customers trust you as a company and a business. If they don’t, they’ll tell the world. But if they do, they’ll do the same and the results will be clear.

We want to know if you can tell us of any instance when you tried out a new product or business because of a friend’s recommendation online. What do you think? Is trust as important as we believe?

Aside from preparing for the apparent apocalypse in December by building an underground bunker with all the proper amenities–toilet paper, NERF launchers, coffee, peanut butter cups, etc, the TM Team is very much looking forward to the new year. In 2012, we aim to continue to provide the best in web design and development, social media management, SEO consulting, e-commerce website building and other online services in metro Detroit.

If you’re new to us, we are a leading web agency in metro Detroit, based in the suburb of Royal Oak. Our team of experts work day in and day out to create the best websites in the business and it’s our goal to continue to do so in the coming year.

Our web development and design team is anxious to continue creating top-of-the-line websites that exceed our clients’ expectations. Our developers are skilled in all the necessary means of website creation. They will ensure that your website not only looks and feels professional, but that it has valid code so it’s properly accessible by all of the most common internet browsers

But in addition to just the standard build, our developers are equipped with all of the tools to build you an expandable content management system and if you need it, an e-commerce site so that you can sell your products online. Check out our client portfolio for some examples of websites we’ve designed in the past.

Does your company lack a social presence on the web? We can help you with that as well! Our social media management team is here to not only help your company grow on the social internet, but also promote meaningful interaction between you and your followers/fans, which is nothing but positive for your company’s image (including opening the doors to potential leads).

Have you Googled your company lately? Is your website appearing on the first page? If not, it should be, and we can make that happen for you. Our SEO consultants can optimize your website to gain better search results. Search is the most common way potential customers find websites and improving your search engine results will lead to more sales, and better brand awareness. Everybody wins.

So if you’re looking for the best in the business, you’ve found it. Contact us today to find out how TM and its team can improve your company’s online presence!

At Trademark Productions, we offer social media management services and were blown away at just how important this tool is in understanding the quality of your brand’s Page.  We’re all about having information at our fingertips here and it seems like most social media services don’t want you knowing what they do, or don’t want to make it readily accessible.  Not so in this case.

Facebook states Insights is for “… Facebook Page owners with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners and Platform developers are better equipped to improve their business and create better experiences on Facebook.”

This tool is very similar to Google Analytics, except it’s solely dedicated to analyzing Facebook data. All data is updated on a daily basis and is available 24 hours after it’s analyzed. Insights provides Page owners with two kinds of basic information: User Insights and Interaction Insights.

User Insights will show you the number of fans, or Likes your page has, Like sources, new Likes and Unlikes, page views and unique page views, tab views, demographics, media consumption, and external referrers.

This information will allow you to see exactly how your Page is doing. It’s a great way to test out different social media strategies and see what works best. If you launch a social media campaign about your product and your Page views and Likes increase, then you know you’re doing something right. The opposite applies if Page views decrease and you are Unliked by users. Social media campaigns are often a trial-and-error system and these metrics will help you better refine your techniques.

User Insights

An the other hand, Interaction Insights show you daily story feedback (post Likes or comments) and your Page’s daily activity, such as discussions, mentions, wall posts, video posts, and reviews.

All of these Insights are excellent ways to determine how your individual posts are doing. It’s similar to User Insights in that it will help you better understand what posts work and what posts don’t. Interaction Insights also give you a look into how many people are directly interacting with your Page, a vital resource in determining how successful your Page is.

Interactions Insights

One of the best features of Insights, however, is the fact that the data provided can be exported, so you can keep a log of how your page is doing and track any progress on your own.

Whether you’re a big-market brand or a small mom-and-pop store trying to get your feet wet in social media, Facebook Insights are a vital tool for you to understand the health of your Facebook Page.

Don’t hesitate to contact us with questions about how we can help to improve your social media strategy; we’d love to hear from you! And as always, the coffee’s on us.

Yes, the network is barely six months old, but author Chris Brogan has told Mashable he believes it’s a game changer.

When asked why he thought this, Brogan said, “It’s pretty easy to explain. Google+ posts sent to ‘public’ rank fairly well in Google search results. You can’t get that with Facebook or Twitter these days. If almost 70 percent of people start their online trek to your website via search, then that’s fairly self-explanatory.”

In essence, the importance of Google+ brand pages boils down to one thing: search. People are using search engines more than ever to find company websites or information about a company. This is the main reason Google+ is so important for businesses, small or large, to invest time into.

Cultivating an online community is a challenging task that we discussed in a previous blog post, but with Google+, it’s not about the size of the community, but the quality. Google+ offers your brand things that simply aren’t available on Twitter or Facebook. One, as mentioned before, is the ability to have posts rank in search engines. The second is that Google+ Brand Pages are not passive networks like Twitter.

When something is shared on Twitter, it’s just thrown out into cyberspace. There is no guarantee that someone will send a @mention in return or retweet the post. And while those things are not guaranteed on Google+, there’s more room for encouragement. Brogan said, “… the visual appeal of Google+ pages encourages more clicking. Brands can host hangouts and have deeper interaction than on Twitter. Because Google’s search features are far more robust than Facebook, the opportunity to prospect and find more potential community members is much better.” This deeper interaction is why your company needs to invest in Google+.

Facebook and Twitter should not be discounted, though, since they are still the dominant social networks and should be treated as such. But Google+ offers your company a chance to do something different and it would behoove you to take advantage of that.

One of the things Brogan suggests companies do is host a Hangout, Google+’s group video-chat system. Hangouts are an asset that Facebook and Twitter don’t have. They could be used in a multitude of ways, such as giving your community advice or tips about your product. And this is just one of the many ways you can use Google+ to help your company gain better social exposure.

Do you have questions about how Google+ can help your business? Give us a call or shoot us an email! We’d love to discuss how we can help improve your company’s web presence with the use of  this and other social networks.

It seems pretty awesome, right? To have a tool to tell you how important you and your tweets are? I just signed up for Klout to check my Twitter influence and I have a Klout score of 51. But what does this mean?

For Twitter, what Klout does is use an algorithm to determine your influence by looking at your follower/following count and ratio, how many @mentions you have received, and retweets. Essentially, it looks at how many people you influence, how you influence them, and how influential they are. My personal Klout page is a great hub of information, but it’s still unclear what my score of 51 actually means.

Over the past several months, there have been countless articles written about the usefulness or uselessness of Klout. In one article, ReadWriteWeb writer Robert MacManus writes that yes, Klout is flawed because its “main issue right now is that nobody can figure it out. It’s at best opaque, at worst gibberish.” But MacManus also writes that people should use Klout because it can be useful to measure raw social data.

Not everyone is saying that Klout isn’t reputable, however. For instance, Jay Baer believes Klout critics are being too harsh and ignoring what Klout doesn’t measure, like real-life interaction. He writes that critics’ “slam on Klout is typically rooted in the fact that Klout doesn’t account for people’s offline influence (or even digital influence that isn’t expressed in social media).” In my eyes, offline influence is more important in the end. You can influence thousands of people on Twitter, Facebook, etc., but if you can’t influence people in the real world, then you are falling short.

I believe that Klout is, at best, an interesting measuring tool, but is not the end-all-be-all social data measuring tool some think it is. Now that I’ve signed up for Klout, I’ll still check back regularly. I think it contains useful data, but at the same time I am not going to be putting all of my efforts into raising my Klout score.

Using social networks has one purpose: sharing information with your followers/friends. And if you supply them with interesting content, you will influence them regardless of what your Klout score says.

What do you think of Klout? Do you use it?

(Featured photo © greensimagery)

Go Daddy continued, “It’s a welcome step in the right direction, and we at GoDaddy.com applaud the leadership in the House Judiciary Committee, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet and the Senate Judiciary Committee, for taking decisive, bicameral and bipartisan action.”

The bill was crafted to protect intellectual property on the Web and to combat online piracy, but the overreaching power this bill could extend would allow government censorship of many websites that are doing perfectly legal activity. For instance, if this bill is passed social networks will be responsible for the content on their sites. This means if people are sharing copyrighted material on Facebook, Facebook is responsible for the spread of that content. And while this is an extreme example, it illustrates the potential impact if it is put into action.

In response to SOPA critics claiming that the bill can be compared to online censorship, the company said, “This bill cannot reasonably be equated with censorship … Not only is there no First Amendment concern, but the notion that we should turn a blind eye to criminal conduct because other countries may take oppressive steps in response is an affront to the very fabric of this nation.”

But as ReadWriteWeb wrote, “SOPA critics aren’t buying” Go Daddy’s logic. One such critic, Cheezeburger CEO Ben Huh went to Twitter to air his grievances against the domain registrar. He tweeted, “We will move our 1,000 domains off @godaddy unless you drop support of SOPA. We love you guys, but #SOPA-is-cancer to the Free Web.”

The amount of companies that support SOPA is astounding. Gizmodo has a list of SOPA-supporting companies here.

What do you think of SOPA? Is it as overreaching as many say it is or is it appropriate legislation?

Something about you has been bothering me for awhile now and I don’t know if this relationship is working out for me anymore.  I’m not talking about our relationship, because I do in fact love you.  But you have some quirks that I need you to work on.

I’m talking about the relationship that you have going on with Royal Oak, a city that I have grown to love over the last decade of my life.  It seems that you have been cheating on Royal Oak for quite some time now.  You’re even calling Royal Oak the other municipality’s name from time to time which further strains your relationship.

So that there are no more embarrassing situations for you in 2012, I wanted to be a friend and give you some advice.

I live and work in a city called Royal Oak, Michigan.  I take my family to places in this city and I recommend to others that they hang out here.  It’s a great little town full of restaurants, boutiques, bars and culture.  The city is also full of tech start-ups, small mom & pop businesses and a very diverse middle to upper middle class population.

To the south of us, in a much different part of metro Detroit, is a small township called Royal Oak Charter Township.  Between Royal Oak (city) and Royal Oak Charter Township, are several other small cities. I’ve used my favorite map service to show you the difference in the location of their city/township halls.

The Royal Oak Charter Township, while I’m sure its a very lovely place, has an entirely different vibe, culture and population. You see, it’s not just geography and distance that separates us.

So, what I’m trying to figure out, Google, is this: in all of your vast experience, knowledge and greatness, why is it that every time I try to check-in with G+ to somewhere in Royal Oak (city) and often when I try to give directions to someone … you say Royal Oak Charter Township?

My home, agency and life are not located between 8 Mile and 9 Mile. I assume that people in Royal Oak Charter Township are equally confused as theirs is not located between 10 Mile and 14 Mile.

Your issues seem to only be in a couple of services still.  Google Maps seems to have gotten better, but still has the occasional glitch.  G+ is definitely broken.

Look, Google.  I know that you have a lot of relationships and data to figure out, but this can’t continue.  The people of Royal Oak and Royal Oak Charter Township deserve better from you.  You don’t want to be known for screaming out the wrong name, do you? This cheating has to stop.  Let’s see if you can get your relationship issues fixed soon.

Love and Best Wishes from a faithful follower and minion,

DDJ

Dwight

In 2012, I am looking forward to enjoying more time with friends and family, especially my wife and two children.  This upcoming year will also find me turning my gaze inward and embracing my inner self in a warm hug of peace and tranquility.  I’ve been reading about sweat lodges out west and the cleansing rituals that purify the mind and body while providing direction in life with fewer of the trappings society imposes. The new Dwight that emerges will be less reactionary, more nurturing and wholly loving of nature and all people around me.  I will also have sage advice to share that will literally reshape the face of the planet and how we do business.  It may even be called the School of Dwightenology.

May your glass always be half full and your spiritual deity guarding you from the insensitive pandering of lesser humankind.

Happy holidays.

Dean

In 2012, I am looking forward to the continued growth of our business, pursuing new directions and opportunities for our company and the adventures that it will all bring.  On a personal note, I’m looking forward to my two week trip to India in February.  It’s my first vacation out of North America and is certain to be an epic trip. Beyond that, I’ve been considering investing in an adult novelty store and putting any profits from that into the Trademark Cabo Office where Dwight will shortly thereafter take up residence.

Meredith

2011 was pretty great.  Sure, the economy is still in the crapper, and there are so many morons out there to infuriate a fair-minded gal that at times I thought my head might explode.  But truly, 2011 was still pretty fun.  So much to see and do….

So, I guess what I’m looking most forward to in 2012, is doing it all again.  Taking part in all the fun activities this city has to offer, and with any luck trying at least 20 new places, and taking part in 20 new activities that I have yet to discover; keeping it open to new adventures.

Happy New Year!
Xo
Mere

Tyler

What I’m looking forward to most in 2012 is a clean slate with a brand new opportunity for growth and experience. It’s so easy to get sucked into the same thing, the same routine over and over as the years go by. I think it’s time to mix it up, have some fun, and really reach out to do some things that have been on the back-burner for way too long. This may or may not include attending Lilith Fair, The Vagina Monologues and the Motorhead/Megadeath concert with Dwight in February.

Super excited to start the year off on the right foot, and never take anything for granted.

Seth

I’m looking forward to whatever happens in 2012 and I’ll make the most of it. Since I am not a fortune-teller despite being annoyingly omnipotent–which my co-workers always seem to forget–I can’t quite exactly say what will happen, but I will look forward to it, whether it be new progressions with the Web, the latest and greatest technology, good fortune for my family or starting my own family since I really, really want at least a dozen children.  I also really, really want to be more like Mike when I grow up!

Michael

What am I looking for in 2012? Less finger smashing for starters.  I think I’d also like to find out Jeff’s super secret weakness so he’ll pretend to start liking me. Sure, it’ll be out of fear, but fear is better than nothing, especially when you’re dealing with Jeff. I plan on traveling more in 2012, keeping up with my friends, continuing to improve my social media and writing skills and start a family–that last one is, of course, in my mind ONLY since it’s the only way I’ll be able to pay for 8 kids to go to college.  I’d also like to individually win the Stanley Cup. All joking aside, I really, really want to be more like Seth when I grow up!

Jennifer
In 2012, I’m looking forward to enjoying the simple things in life–having dinner with my friends on a Friday night, or a movie with that special someone on a cold January day. I’d also love to take more vacations and perhaps enjoy the sand in between my toes, little scorpions running up and down my legs, tickling me, and sea snakes!  I’m also a huge reptile person. Spiders, too. I love spiders! On a professional note, my goal is to gain a better understanding into the development world and use my organizational skills to further refine and perfect the project management system here at Trademark.

Jeff

In 2012, I’m looking forward the most to finishing my courses at Macomb Community College so I can end the cursed homework and truly focus on my chosen career.  I’m also looking forward to my son getting coordinated enough to play video games with me!  Lastly, I can’t wait for Google to take over the world like they’re supposed to and I can welcome them as my search-based overlord (more than I already have…).

Anthony

What am I looking forward to in 2012?

When asked this question, a few things come to mind.  Is the end of the world really going to happen on December 21, 2012?  I remember back when Y2K was going to mark an extreme change in the world.  That all electronic devices using a 6 digit date system were going to seize operation and cripple the infrastructure  or most, if not all, businesses utilizing “technology”.  I remember the news reports of people stockpiling anything they could buy in bulk to prepare for what is sure to be the end of civilization.  On December 31, 1999, as we all counted down to the New Year, global breath-holding took place in each time zone.  Nothing happened.  We all survived and are now 12 years removed.

But what if the Mayans are right?  What if our governments aren’t telling us something?  They would never withhold crucial information from us would they?  Stand on your own soapbox and find that one.

I’m not one to try and predict the future.  I’ve been a firm believer that I can control my own destiny with the exception of an occasional traffic light not turning green when I want it to.  I am a father.  I’ve learned that as a father, you look forward to that fine line of your children being self-sufficient enough in more areas of their lives and when they need you.  To me, there isn’t a more satisfying moment when I can teach my children something they haven’t learned in school or from a video game or, God forbid, the Disney Network.

In 2012, I am looking forward to more stories like Tim Tebow (love him or hate him) and how his faith in a higher power is overcoming his statistical production on the football field.  His team is 7-1 since he became the starting quarterback, and most of the wins have been come-from-behind victories that would take an act of God for them to have won.

The human race is fascinating.  Give me more iPhones and iPads and smart cars and electric cars and Brita water filters.  Give me Tom Toms and Garmins so that none of us waste time being lost (unless you want to be).  Give me the things that make us great.  Don’t give me this crap about our existence being wiped away.  We have so much more potential than that.

Happy Holidays.

Kris

My needs are simple.  He-Who-Walks-Behind-The-Blu-Ray Racks tells us to have faith in His wisdom and also look forward to more 3D releases in 2012, but I’m all about the quality time with people…by having them join me in watching these 3D home video releases.  Because sharing is fun.

Aside from that, I will continue to be there for my father as he enters the next stage of Alzheimer’s while offering relief to my mother, who is with him 24/7.  There’s also a chance to renew a long-absent family tie and I’m hopeful that it goes well.  I look forward to continuing writing, exploring new places, revisiting places I’ve already been, getting married and verbally/mentally torturing a few specific co-workers who desperately deserve it.

Cheers!

Eric

Being 30. I will be 30 four days into 2012. It seems like almost forever ago I thought people who were 30+ years old should be in wheelchairs or sitting around playing bridge in a nursing home. Now here I am, about to be 30 years of age myself, and I’m looking back on my youthful self thinking “This isn’t so bad, right? Why on earth did I think that 30+ year olds were all geriatrics?” Perhaps I’m just trying to convince myself that I’m not getting older than dirt. Or perhaps I’m just coming to terms with the fact that I’m 3 decades old, and that’s just A-OK with me. Of course, there’s also the possibility that the old adage “With age comes wisdom” is actually true, and now I realize I’m just that much closer to being more wise than my elders, and should be ready for world domination any day now.

Ryan

Since everyone is driving flying cars by 2015 (Right, Doc Brown?), I’m looking forward to seeing the first real signs of consumer flight-capable automobiles in 2012.  We’ve already seen the Nike MAG in 2011, so the time for hovercars is nigh. I also look forward to the day when I can listen to my Norwegian thrash metal with Eric and literally watch horrible, horrible horror movies non-stop with Jennifer.

Ciao! (not chow)

This past weekend we saw Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Commodore provide us with both an example of how not to act on Twitter and then how to make up for a mistake. He received a tweet from a fan that took a jab at his lack of playing time and took offence to it. He retweeted the tweet (pictured at left), but preceded the post with a type of response that a public figure should never do.

This begs the question: What is an appropriate way for public figures to respond to criticism in social media? Clearly, the way Commodore responded is not the correct way. Throwing profanity in the direction of a fan is not a good way to boost his public image. (The tweet has since been deleted.) What he should have done was taken the tweet in stride and either a) not said anything to the fan at all, or b) not included the F-word in his response.

Personally, I have no problem with a public figure responding to criticisms or negative comments. In fact, I welcome it. But the manner in which Commodore responded was completely inappropriate. But wait…there is something positive that comes from all of this.

The day after his original response, Commodore apologized to the fan he responded to by tweeting, “I do have a sense of humor. Although u deserved it I will apologize for my language. My bad. I take it back. #Inappropriate.” He then followed it up with, “… Caught me at a weak moment …”

And while it is admirable that he took the high road and apologized, there are two things that should have never happened in the first place, a) dropping the F-bomb to a fan, and b) deleting his original tweet. We all know what was said anyway.

In short, we can take a few things away from this incident. First, public figures should be careful how they interact with their fans and followers to prevent a situation like this from occurring. It’s bad PR when something like this happens. And perhaps the most important lesson, is when something unfortunate like this happens, public figures should handle it like Commodore did and take the high road and apologize.

Tell us what do you think, was Commodore wrong to react the way he did?

Update 5:24p.m.: Commodore sent two tweets to TM in response to our blog post saying, “Read ur article. Pretty good. I disagree with the part about deleting the tweet being a bad thing though….reason I deleted…” and, “it was I didn’t want any kids to stumble upon it. That was the only reason. wasn’t trying to cover my tracks at all.”

This is a very classy move by Commodore. It shows that when people make mistakes online, sometimes all it takes to fix it is a little professionalism.

The bill states that districts must enact an anti-bullying policy that informs parents of both parties involved when bullying takes place. But there is a critical flaw in the legislation–there is zero mention of cyberbullying.

When I was a kid, the Internet was not as socially developed as it is now, making cyberbullying a non-issue. But now, with the advent of Facebook and other social networks, bullying has moved from school halls and lunchrooms into cyberspace. This makes it much easier for bullies to prey on their victims because they no longer need to be face-to-face.

According to BullyingStatistics.com, “About half of young people have experienced some form of cyberbullying, and 10 to 20 percent experience it regularly.” As this statistic shows, cyberbullying is a growing problem that needs to be tackled. The new Michigan anti-bullying law is a good first step, but the legislature has dropped the ball on protecting children online.

One of the best ways to combat cyberbullying is to educate young people about its consequences. And the consequences are very real. PureSight.com states that eight percent of middle-school students have considered taking their own life because of cyberbullying.

The internet is a wide-open place with an infinite amount of ways to communicate with other people. But what people, especially young people, need to do is treat online interactions as if they are taking place in-person. Everyone has heard the saying “treat others how you would like to be treated” before, and online interactions aren’t an exception to the rule.

Our goal should be to make the Web as safe as possible for children; fighting cyberbullying is one of the ways we can do that.

Do you know anyone that’s been cyberbullied? What are some ways we can fight against it?

(© photo: Boom Boom! Revolution)

What YouTube has done is announce YouTube for Schools, which ReadWriteWeb says, “will enable educators to open up classrooms to the wide world of educational content on YouTube without all the junk.”

This is an excellent idea for a few reasons. First, keeping the Web open on school networks is challenging because of the wealth of content inappropriate for that environment. One thing schools often do is block sites containing adult content or overtly offensive material, and that’s OK. There are things that students shouldn’t have access to on a school network (websites promoting gambling or bullying, for instance). But when it comes to sites like YouTube, it’s tough to limit what students can and cannot see.

YouTube can be a great way to do research on a specific topic, but it also contains a lot of videos that are too distracting or inappropriate for a school setting. For instance, if a high school student is doing a report on big cats such as tigers, lions, and the like, and searches YouTube hoping for “Planet Earth”-type videos, he or she will find many videos with the phrase “funny big cats” in the title. I know, I searched it. While he or she may find some informational videos, seeing a tiger maul a pumpkin has little-to-no educational value and is just a waste of school bandwidth.

YouTube for Schools is a great way to cut the “funny big cats” out of students’ searches and will help them better use the site for educational purposes.

What do you think? Is YouTube for Schools a good way to enhance students’ learning?

In this week’s podcast I am joined by Dario Chiarini (PR and Communications expert) to discuss tips to help your business overall in the new year. Some of the topics we discussed were SEO tips for 2012, how to improve your content, why social engagement is important, and continuity in your company’s message online and offline.

One of the simplest things you can do to help improve your business’s site is to produce original content on a regular basis. Even if you don’t have the most comprehensive understanding of technical SEO, publishing original content regularly is one of the best ways to bring people to your site. It’s also crucial to spread the word about that content across your social media accounts to further expand your readership.

We also discuss how important it is to interact with people on your social networks, especially if they say something directly to you. One rule of thumb I believe in is to do your best to respond to your followers’ comments within an hour if possible.

Another topic we discuss are the updates to Google Analytics, which we addressed in a previous blog post as well.

Dario primarily focused on keeping your company’s message consistent, both internally and externally, to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that it’s uniform throughout all channels.

Listen to the podcast below – there is a lot of great information in there for SEO & Social Media improvement. We want your feedback and other suggestions as well, so don’t hesitate to contact us!

According to Google, “Google Analytics anonymously tracks how visitors interact with a website, including where they came from, what they did on a site, and whether they completed any of the site’s conversion goals. Analytics also keeps track of your e-commerce data, and combines this with campaign and conversion information to provide insight into the performance of your advertising campaigns.”

Some of the most important changes made to Google Analytics include enhanced dashboards, the addition of the keyword cloud, integration of Google Webmaster Tools, and the added ability to track social engagement. Let’s take a look at these things individually to better understand their importance.

First, the new dashboards in Google Analytics have been simplified to make them easier to use. One of the new features of the new dashboards is that users can now create up to 20 separate dashboards to fit their needs. This gives users the option of setting up unique dashboards for things like visits or source/medium and many others to create a customized experience within Google Analytics.

Because search is so important for getting traffic to your website,  one of the best improvements to the Web tool was the addition of the keyword cloud. Before this, users had to analyze keyword lists to spot trends, which wasn’t always the easiest thing to do. The cloud, though, allows you to visually analyze what the top keywords based on criteria from users like bounce rates, visits, and pages per visit are. Understanding keyword trends is essential to developing a search engine-friendly website and the keyword cloud makes this that much easier.

Another improvement to Google Analytics is the integration of Google Webmaster Tools. Though the statistics from Google Webmaster Tools are not 100 percent accurate, it is a great way to spot trends regarding where your site’s visitors are coming from within Google. And while this integration is extremely useful, it is still limited within the Google Analytics platform; but knowing Google, they will probably update it in the future to improve it.

One of the most useful components to the new platform is the ability of being able to track social engagement. Social engagement is becoming just as important as search for bring traffic to a website and being able to track where visitors are coming from is extraordinarily helpful. Being able to track this engagement is essential for understanding how your social media strategy is working and where you’ll need to improve.

Google Analytics continues to be one of the most important tools used on the Web for analyzing site traffic data. The TM Team has the skills to not only analyze your site’s data, but also help you improve your site’s SEO. Contact us to learn more about how we can help your business!

Controversy has surrounded .xxx since its inception. The basic idea behind the domain is to make the internet safer for children by making the sites less easy to stumble upon and easier for parents to block. CNN published an article outlining some of the pros and cons of the .xxx domain. One of the biggest pros is that those that apply for .xxx sites will be subject to regulation because the promise of online pornography is often just a front for viruses or Malware.

CNN states, “By applying for a .xxx site, webmasters, adult performers, studios and others become part of a ‘sponsored community,’ agreeing to operate legally and within agreed-upon business standards.” Each site with a .xxx domain will be scanned by McAfee tools which the ICM Registry claims will make them some of the safest destinations on the Web.

But there are cons to the .xxx sites as well. In the same article, Morality in Media CEO Patrick Trueman said, ”The establishment of a .xxx domain would increase, not decrease, the spread of pornography on the Internet, causing even more harm to children, families and communities.”

David Jesse of the Detroit Free Press points out that many Michigan universities are buying up .xxx domain names to protect their schools from adult websites. Jesse reports that the University of Michigan reserved 14 names for 10 years while Central Michigan University reserved three names. This is one of the primary concerns with the .xxx domain–will companies and organizations be able to protect their reputation?

It’s definitely something to consider.

What do you think of the .xxx domain? Is it a good idea or something that has the potential to do more harm than good?

For those unfamiliar with Spotify, it’s a free service that allows users to create their own playlists, listen to specific artists, and share what they’re listening to with their friends across different social networks. But what makes Spotify so great is that it combats music piracy unlike anything before.

There are literally millions of tracks from thousands of artists to choose from. You can find everything from Beethoven to Britney Spears to indie bands like The xx or rappers like Jay-Z. Plus like on the radio, these artists get paid royalties every time their song is played. So even though you’re listening for free, the artists get paid.

Since Spotify’s US debut over the summer, they’ve been planning on enhancing their service with applications, and last week those plans were announced. What Spotify has done is partner up with several well-known music publications and services like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone Magazine and Last.fm to allow them to have applications integrated within Spotify itself. The Pitchfork app, for example, will allow users to listen to albums they are reading about all within the Spotify client.

ReadWriteWeb published an article that gives a hands-on explanation of how these applications will work. From the looks of it, Spotify seems as if it’s about to take a leap forward in a big way.

We know that we’ll be using these applications once they’re released to all Spotify users, but will you?

That is until Google changed the game with its own Web browser, Chrome.

Today, ReadWriteWeb asked a very important question, “Is Firefox Doomed?” And the answer is, probably.

In the article, RWW discusses a 2008 agreement between Firefox and Google that made Google Firefox’s default search engine. This worked out greatly for Firefox because it made a lot of money from Google’s search results as well as helping them compete against the stubborn IE.

But now, with that agreement coming to an end, the future of the partnership between these two companies is murky at best. In 2011, Chrome became the new No. 2 browser, overtaking Firefox, putting it at a disadvantage. But even more importantly, Google has captured the mobile Web much better than Firefox has. TM has discussed the importance of the mobile internet and Google has taken advantage of this while Firefox hasn’t.

Currently, Google not only has well-made apps for BlackBerry and the iPhone, but their own mobile operating system, Android. Firefox has yet to make the investments in mobile technology that Google has and is now suffering because of it.

Firefox, while still a solid browser, might in fact be “doomed” because it always seems to be one step behind Google, and that’s never a good place to be.

To briefly recap: Trevor Eckhart, a security researcher, discovered software on the Android smartphones that logs the activities carried out by the user. Carrier IQ logs text messages and phone numbers typed into the phone as well as Google searches. The company claims that the software was designed without malicious intent and is used to gather information to help improve the user experience at a later date.

But in the last 24 hours, the weight seems to have shifted against Carrier IQ. U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) has called for an explanation from the company on what kinds of data it records. In a statement the senator said, “Consumers need to know that their safety and privacy are being protected by the companies they trust with their sensitive information. The revelation that the locations and other sensitive data of millions of Americans are being secretly recorded and possibly transmitted is deeply troubling.”.

It’s estimated that Carrier IQ software is on at least 150 million mobile phones in the U.S. and Gizmodo.com has created a list of phones it’s “pretty sure” doesn’t carry the software.

It’s unsettling to us that a third-party company is logging our activities on certain devices, but how do you feel about it?

In an article published on November 30th, the online newspaper states that security researcher Trevor Eckhart has proven that there is software out there, logging every text message, Google search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smartphones. This is a frightening realization to many who thought that what they did on their phone was private.

The software, Carrier IQ, raises many privacy concerns because it is something that is included in most products customers are using daily.  Eckhart refers to Carrier IQ as a “rootkit” which is a security term for software that runs in the background of an operating system without the user’s knowledge.

Carrier IQ told Wired.com that it’s software does not have malicious intent, but instead is for “gathering information off the handset to understand the mobile-user experience, where phone calls are dropped, where signal quality is poor, why applications crash and battery life.”.

If it was gathering information for these purposes, why is it saving Google searches and text messages?

What do you think? Is Carrier IQ a breach of privacy?

Social media is all around us. Everywhere you go (in person and online) there are Facebook or Twitter icons showing you that a company is online and social. The primary reason social media can get pushed aside and sometimes forgotten is simple: it’s time consuming. Cultivating an online presence is challenging and isn’t as simple as creating a profile and posting into the void. You have to be interactive and constantly evaluate what’s getting the best results.

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks used by companies to interact with their customers. But, like anything else, there are good and bad ways to use Twitter.

One of the worst ways to use Twitter is to send generic tweets that don’t have any substance. Case and point: the “Good Morning, Twitter” tweet. First, sending a good morning message across Twitter is the same as if one of us stood in the middle of Royal Oak and yelled, “Good Morning, Royal Oak!” at the top of our lungs. Sure, a few people may look, and a few people may even reciprocate our morning greeting, but most people will either a) not notice or b) look at us and go on with their morning. See what we mean? It doesn’t do anything for your company. Why waste the time and energy on something that has zero benefit to your business?

Another example of how not to use Twitter is to copy people’s or users’ tweets. One of the most commonly seen social media posts is the “Inspirational Quote” post, which are similar to the mundane “Good Morning” tweets. The reason being is that when you’re tweeting for your company, you want the content to be a) engaging and b) original. Copied content tends to be neither. Sharing others’ content is acceptable when it is relevant to your industry, but not when it’s a JFK or Shakespeare quote.

Re-tweeting content that has already (literally) been seen by thousands of people is another example of this; try to find content that is unique and under-shared. Helping out those who are lesser-known is good online karma, and usually comes back around. Part of the reason companies should use social media is to help build an online brand and community of followers. This community of followers will do wonders for your company once they are engaged. They will share your content and share content with you that they find relevant. That is one of the most important aspects of social media.

And finally, one of the most important tips for using Twitter is not to flood it with your blog posts. If your company has a new blog, you should definitely promote it, but no more than once or twice a day. There is no need to send countless tweets about it. Simply let people know it’s there and interact with them, the rest will take care of itself.

Over the last several years, we’ve seen social media’s importance rise exponentially, but many of us are still learning the ins and outs. That’s why the TM Team is here. Contact us with your questions regarding the best social media practices. We’d love to hear from you!

More than ever, people are accessing the Web from devices like smartphones and tablets, and there are few things more frustrating than a website that just refuses to load on a mobile device. According to Google, the internet will be accessed more by mobile phones than personal computers starting in 2013. That’s barely a year away. And while this doesn’t diminish the importance of a top-of-the-line desktop website, the need for a mobile-friendly site is on the rise.

But aside from more people using the internet, why are mobile sites so important? Let’s take a look:

User Expectations

As with any product or service, there are always expectations and the mobile Web is no different. For example, 60 percent of smartphone users expect sites to load in less than three seconds. If a site is loading slow or doesn’t load at all, 78 percent of people won’t try to refresh the site more than two times. This means if your company’s site isn’t functioning properly on the mobile internet, you might lose a potential customer. Mobile sites should be growing your customer base, not decreasing it.

User Experiences

More than 50 percent of consumers will not recommend a business if they have a bad experience with its mobile site. And even worse, 40 percent of people have chosen to shop at a competitor’s site because it’s easier to use. But if your site is user-friendly, not only will you gain more customers, you will also improve the overall experience of your website.

Connecting Locally 

With the advent of location-based apps like Yelp and Google Places, more people are looking for businesses closer to them. In fact, Google stated that 95 percent of smartphone users have searched for local businesses, and out of those people, more than 55 percent of them either call or visit the business location. This makes having a properly built and optimized mobile site more important than ever.

Apps vs. Mobile Sites

But what about mobile applications? Google has stated that more than 80 percent of consumers prefer mobile sites to applications for researching product prices. It also stated that over 60 percent of consumers prefer mobile sites for actually purchasing a product, which makes investing in your mobile website one of the best ways for potential customers to not only find you, but do businesses with you as well.

Mobile sites are not only as important as desktop websites, but will become more important as time goes on.

If you have questions, we have the answers. Contact us today and let us tell you what a mobile website can do for your business!

Social Media Marketing and Management are both still relatively new, which makes creating a social media strategy all the more difficult. But, as previously stated, it’s important not to load all your resources into one network and neglect the others, or vice versa. The first thing you must decide is what your company’s purpose is going to be on social networks. Is it just promotion, or do you want to engage with followers to facilitate a large group of supporters? Or both? Once you have decided on your company’s purpose, you must then decide what social networks you’re going to be dedicating your company’s efforts too. Facebook and Twitter are the biggest, but you can’t discount Google+ either.

One of the best ways to not only build followers, but to also get your audience to engage with your company is to hold a social media-only promotion. Offer a coupon that can only be obtained via Facebook or Twitter. Or have a contest. This can not only attract new followers, but also keep your current followers interested in your brand. Simply put, both adding new followers while keeping the current ones invested in your company’s social media are crucial to a successful social media strategy.

Each social network functions differently than the other. For instance, Twitter is only comprised of posts that are less than 140 characters. Every Tweet has a set character limit, meaning that your company must choose its words wisely. You can’t be too wordy or too brief; you must find that 140-character sweet spot. Facebook and Google+, however, have similar functions. Each network allows users to comment under/share each post. Commenting on posts is where most of the interaction between brands and followers occur, unlike Twitter where most replies are sent to one or two people individually. Knowing how to use these different social networks can make or break your company’s social Web presence.

Social media etiquette is also crucial. There are no set rules on how much is too much or how little is too little on the social Web, but there are guidelines. First, you don’t want to flood your followers’ streams with constant updates. Unless you are directly interacting with followers, it’s a good idea to keep your posts spread out throughout the day. No one wants to see 10 to 15 posts per hour from a company; it can get noisy and you will lose followers. Finding that aforementioned sweet spot is imperative. Every audience wants to see different things, and catering to your audience is also crucial. Also, it’s very important to respond to your followers as much as possible, even if what they are saying is negative. It’s important for your company to be able to respond to negative feedback in a constructive manner. Interaction is what makes the social Web so effective. Utilize this and you will not only gain followers, but influence on the social Web as well.

The Trademark Team would love to discuss how using social media can help your company gain more exposure online, leading to more business. Contact Us to make an appointment today, the coffee’s on us!

When the World Wide Web first came into existence, it was standard practice to create all sites using a text-base format. And while most of these types are gone, they were once the industry standard.

This is what Yahoo! looked like in the fall of 1996.

From there, Web development started to move forward faster and faster giving the user a more visually appealing interface. Web developers and designers took a step away from text-based sites and moved toward sites made of tables which separated the site’s content from its sidebar navigation, making websites easier to use and understand. This is also around the same time when GIFs, scrolling text, and other animations started to be used as Web development and design elements.

Let’s go back to the year 1996 for a moment when the world of design changed! Macromedia introduced Flash and changed how the internet would be designed and feel by enabling more advanced animations to be used. Although, it’s been 15 years since its inception, Flash is still being used today as a way to add animations to sites, especially by advertisers.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) also changed the world of design with its ability to completely separate the design from content. This brought design, not just content to the forefront. Companies could now make websites that were visually attractive on a level not seen before, but also have all the necessary content.

From text-based sites to Flash to CSS to HTML5, the Web is a consistently advancing landscape. But the TM Team is not only skilled in the methods and techniques of modern Web design, but also on top of all the latest Web development and design trends.

But what specifically can TM do to enhance your company’s website? A lot.

We offer several different services ranging from Web development and design and site rebuilding to SEO content writing and management. Whatever your company’s sites needs are, we aim to exceed your expectations. Let’s take a look at your site together and talk about how we can improve your site…the coffee is on us.

Link bait is content on the Web that generates links. It can be a photo, blog, news story, video, or anything else for that matter. But link bait is online content that gathers attention by being linked to by users. For example, if you read or see something that you find interesting and you share it on your social networks, you make that content link bait.

Link bait is one of the biggest motivators in social media activity. It’s what makes people want to share interesting online tidbits with their friends, family, coworkers and other online connections. But the deal with link bait is that there are two different kinds: Good link bait and Bad link bait.

First, let’s talk about Good link bait. Good link bait is original content that the creator can not only be proud of, but willing to share with others. This is work that cannot be found anywhere else on the internet, unless plagiarized. An example of good link bait would be a concert review. That article is about a specific event that is specific to a time and place. And if it gains a lot of attention by people linking to it from various platforms, it is link bait … the right kind of link bait … the good kind.

Good link bait is usually helped by a steady following. Content like this may be uniquely creative, but without a following, it might not go anywhere. Developing an online following is a great step in ensuring that users link back to specific content.

Now, let’s discuss Bad link bait. This is where things get a little foggy because sometimes it’s hard to tell what bad link bait is but we’re here to help! Bad link bait is when someone creates something or does something intentionally to get a community to link back to them. This can be something as simple as someone posting a comment in a Reddit thread that not only is attempting to anger the thread’s readers, but also linking back to the writer’s own personal blog. In short, bad link bait links attention by doing something negative to get those results.

A specific example of bad link bait would be if someone wrote, published, and promoted a blatantly libelous blog about a celebrity just to get their site more hits. This is the worst way to market yourself.

Caution: There is also good link bait that looks like bad link bait. Take the Reddit thread example again, but instead of someone deliberately angering the thread’s readers, a user with a point of view contrary to the rest of the thread posts a link back to his blog. This might look like bad link bait, but it’s not and can be controversial to readers.

It’s important to make sure that you are not using negative link baiting to gain traffic. Not only does this only result in short-term gains, but it can be damaging to your reputation. And a damaged reputation is a lot harder to fix than it is to uphold an already solid, trustworthy one. So, let’s be careful out there when we’re creating online persona.

It wasn’t long ago that in order to comment on a website’s articles, users had to become a member of said website. They would have to create a login name, password, give out their email address, select an avatar; the list goes on. Many of us had countless log-in names for news sites, social networking sites, blogs, etc. We had to. There was no other option. But with the advent of social networking in the last five years or so, things are starting to change. Now people can log into a website, like Salon or Mashable, with their Facebook or Twitter credentials. Seems awesome, right? Seems simple, too? And frankly, it is. This concept’s simplicity is what makes it so useful. But it also has a downside.

This downside is the fact that when you log into a website with your Facebook credentials, you are allowing that site to have access to your personal information such as, email address, friends, wall, etc. But even more nefarious, you even grant these websites the ability to post stories to your feed. I bet you didn’t know that. I know I didn’t until recently. This raises an all too important question: Who Really Owns Your Internet Identity?

Do you own it or do the social networks own it … or does some third party own it? This is where things get complicated. Many people believe that the information they distribute on Facebook is theirs and that they have all the control over it, this is not the case. In fact, because we don’t pay for Facebook, Facebook owns all our stuff. That thing you posted on your friend’s wall about using a watermelon helmet, Facebook owns that. Your Notes, Facebook owns those too. It owns it all. But, what happens when you give third-party sites access to all that information? Do they get a cut of your Web identity too?

In essence, they do. When you as the user give this information to a third-party site, you are trusting them with an awful lot of information. You are allowing them to run through your profile’s information with a fine-tooth comb and then some. This is yet another reason to be cautious with what you share online. If you liked an article on CNN using your Facebook credentials, but don’t want the news network to know about last weekend’s escapades, then don’t post about them. The social Web is a dangerously open place, perpetuated by Facebook and its open-graph system.

This is why we must ask ourselves as internet users:  Do we want this to be seen by everyone? And everyone includes every site you log into with your social media credentials. Be wary, internet friends. Your identity isn’t as secure as you think.

The basic idea for the service is to set up a series of tasks and recipes that can carry out functions for you once there is a trigger. It wants to help users spend less time doing things themselves and let ifttt do the work for them. The combinations of tasks and recipes are nearly endless. Users can set up tasks as simple as being notified by email if they are tagged in a photo on Facebook or to alert them via text message if they get an email from a specific person. Things like this is what makes ifttt so beneficial.

I wasn’t sure what to think it when I first heard about the service. At first, I thought it was a cool idea, but it was also another site that required me to sign up, adding yet another username and login for me to remember. But after signing up and exploring the site and its features, I realized ifttt really has a lot to offer internet users.

The very first task I set up was a simple one–I set it up so that every time I take a photo on the photo-sharing application Instagram, it would then drop a copy of that photo into a folder in my Dropbox account. This creates a “physical” copy of the photo outside of Instagram itself, allowing me to share it with people who may not be using the application.

One of the most important tasks I set up is one my landlord will be thankful for. I set up a task that will send me a text message the day my rent is due, making it that much easier to remember important dates on my personal calender. The internet is complicated and often sites don’t always cooperate with one another, but ifttt is doing its best to ease the online tension  and, in my opinion, is doing an excellent job. The start-up is young and new to the Web scene, but if this is a preview of what’s to come, I am excited and you should be, too.  To check out ifttt yourself check out its website!

It probably helps to start at the beginning. First, what is “The Cloud”? Essentially, The Cloud is technology that is accessed via the Web and is hosted by the third party. For instance, when you use Google Docs to create, compose, edit and save a document, you are using a form of Cloud technology. What makes The Cloud so efficient and effective is the fact that users are not using their own personal, physical hard-drive space, freeing up space to be used for running applications and allowing the computer to use less resources. Also, it allows users to access all their Cloud-stored files from any computer with an internet connection.

The most popular and efficient online-storage service right now is Dropbox, which according to Mashable, raised $250 million and sports over 45 million users. I’ve been using Dropbox for months and it’s made my online life a lot easier. I use it as my proverbial thumb drive, which is good because I always seem to lose mine. But I can’t lose the internet! It’s always there, which is why Dropbox and other services like it are so much more efficient than the standard thumb drive.

Dropbox is not the lone Cloud service out there, though. There are also Google Docs, Box.net and Apple’s new iCloud service just to name a few. All of them have the same basic premise, but Dropbox is the one I prefer most. It makes sharing and transporting files extremely easy. If I’m working on a project for work and there are other contributing to it,  I can create a folder and share it with people via email, allowing them to download the folder’s contents as well as upload to it. Best of all, I can use it to back up all my important documents so that if I ever need to access them immediately–there they are. Also, unlike iCloud, I can upload any files I wish. ICloud has a policy that the video and music stored on Apple’s servers must have been purchased from iTunes, so if you discover an old CD from 1998 you want to save to iCloud–you’re out of luck.

Another thing that sets Dropbox apart from its competitors are its smartphone applications. Dropbox offers apps for both the iPhone’s App Store and the Android Market, and both are sleek, easy to use and self explanatory. And when you join, you get two gigabytes of storage free and can purchase more if needed.  Or, if you get people to sign up for DropBox via a referral, you can earn more storage space that way, too. So if you’re looking for a Cloud-based storage system, Dropbox is your best choice.

Seth getting ready to roll.

The two-team, two-game tournament left one team standing tall and the other in the gutter. TM Administrator Kris was picked last, but did not let that hinder his or his team’s performance. His team (Team One) consisted of himself (Kage) Anthony (T-Bizzle), Tyler (Tae-Bo), Seth (Sailing) Jennifer (J-Dubs) and Dean (Deano) while their competition (Team Two) was Dwight (Dizzy), Eric (Easy G), Meredith (Mere), Jeff (Rhymin J) and Ryan (Rype).

Team One left the lanes on top, beating Team Two both games regardless of a hefty handicap in both games. Dwight, or Dizzy, was left dazed after only scoring 97 and 107-point games and rolling a grand total of 14 gutter balls; something that tickled the opposing teammates to no end. The winners were promised donuts the following day, but were left hungry, instead having to forage for their own food here in downtown Royal Oak. There are rumors that bagels might appear, but who knows?

The TM team waiting to bowl!

Here is a rundown of how the games went: The night’s top performer through both games was Ryan scoring a combined total of 250 points while Jennifer nipped at his heels scoring 226 points while the bottom two players who played two games were the men in charge, Dean and Dwight with 199 and 204 points, respectively.

Click here to see Tyler roll a big strike for Team One and here to see Meredith miss two spins to botch a spare.

Here are the scores for both games:

Team One

T-Bizzle: 110 points (he did not bowl the second game).

Tae-Bo: 123 and 121, for 244 points.

Kage: 101 and 119, for 220 points.

Sailing: 132 and 83, for 215 points.

Waiting to bowl!

J-Dubs: 130 and 96 for 226 points.

Deano: 115 and 84, for 199 points.

Team Two:

Dizzy: 97 and 107, for 204 points.

Eazy G: 84 points (He only bowled one game).

Mere: 95 and 83, for 178 points.

Rhymin J: 116 and 72, for 188 points.

Rype: 92 and 98, for 190 points.

We are a small, busy and dedicated team who love what we do! We’re not new; we’re small on purpose. We believe in establishing a close rapport with our clients and enjoy giving them our personal attention while helping them succeed online.

We are a full service web development and online marketing firm.  We do it all and we’re good at it! We like to play, live and work with winners…people who want to succeed and always want to be better. We’re not a “corporate” environment–we have fun here–but we get dirty when it’s time to get dirty.

We are looking for people who:

• Take responsibility for their tasks
• Pay attention to details
• Work well with a team or independently
• Love what they do
• Are good at what they do
• Love a challenge
• Work with minimal instruction, but can take direction, advice, constructive criticism and instructions, too
• Are able to follow our processes and help improve them if there is an opportunity

If you’re a web genius and are looking for a career–not just a paycheck–then you should send us your info for consideration.

We currently have openings for highly qualified individuals in the following positions:

• PHP Web/Software Developer
• Front-End Developer & Designer
• Copywriter/Social Media Coordinator

In case you’ve been under a rock for the last twelve weeks, Google began beta testing their new social media platform, called Google+, about three months ago in an effort to continue to be awesome and relevant on the web.  Google+ is a feature-packed social media platform that allows users to add the people they know to “circles”, like family or friends.  You can also do an on-air hangout via a group video chat with any of those circles and pull in streams of articles on things that interest you.  These are just a few of the features that Google released on Google+ and that they’re continuing to improve.  In fact, over the last three months, Google has released 100 new features to its platform.

The 100th feature?  They’re open to the public!  Google announced yesterday that the proverbial flood gates are open and anyone can “join the project and connect with the people they care about”.  All you have to do to join is visit google.com/+ and sign up your account.

Out of the 100 features that Google+ has released over the last three months, Facebook is doing their absolute best to steal…erm…”copy” every single one of them, and to be fair, come out with several of their own new features.

Not to be outdone, Facebook announced yesterday that it is doing a complete redesign of their profiles and will be formally announcing it later this week at its f8 developer conference.  There aren’t many indications about what exactly will be changed on the new, updated profiles, but inside sources are saying that the changes are going to be “major”.

It’s expected that Facebook’s new updated profiles will be incorporating its new media platform, which is also going to announced at f8 this week.  This component is expected to keep track of what users are actually watching or listening to on a service such as spotify and then posting it on their profiles for their friends to watch or listen to.  This is a little too Big Brother for me. :/

There is also talk of making content on Facebook profiles more “sticky”, which would make people stay on their Facebook profiles longer.  Because we all need to spend more time on Facebook?!?

Other suggestions are that they will be getting more into social ecommerce, using special Facebook credits and that there may also be some moves in preparation for the new HTML5 mobile platform called Project Spartan, which is supposed to be launching soon.

With everything going on in the social media war between Google+ and Facebook, one thing is certain; this is a divisive battle of heavyweight proportions.   A social media civil war if you will.  As time goes on, you’ll see more people jumping off of the Facebook ship and moving to Google+.  Is there enough room for both to exist?  Will people use just one of them?  Are Facebook fiends going to have another addiction to feed?

What’s going to happen next?  Look out for Facebook’s big announcement and release of the new profile format tomorrow.  I’m interested to see what happens and how Google responds.

If you have ever used or seen Google Analytics or another analytics program, you know that there is a tremendous amount of data available and reading and understanding it all can be difficult for some.  You could literally spend days looking at every possible “this means this” and “that means that” scenario from that data for a single website.   To make things easier for you, I want to explain a couple of simple and basic Key Performance Indicators that will help you out the most.

Percentage of New Visitors

By looking at how many of your website’s visitors are new visitors, you’ll be able to tell whether your recent SEO or marketing campaigns have been successful in generating new traffic to your website.

If you find that your percentage of new visitors is steadily increasing month after month, you must be doing something right.  If you find that your percentage of new visitors is declining or is pretty standard across the board, you may want to take a look at your online efforts and what you could be doing more of or be better at.

Also take into consideration big events that your business or website has seen this month that might cause a spike.  Or, if you’re a seasonal business such as a golf range or furnace company, you can expect to see seasonal deviations.

Visitors per Lead or Visitors per Sale

This Key Performance Indicator could be very simply explained as “How many visits does it take for my website to achieve its goal?”  Whether your goal is to sell something, generate a sales lead or get someone to join your membership, you need to know “Out of every 1,000 visitors, ‘x’ convert into a lead.”

This KPI is a great way to determine whether your website is accomplishing its goals.  If you’re seeing thousands of visitors and only a couple of sales or leads, you probably have a problem.  What is it?  Are the prices too high?  Are shipping costs too high?  Site too slow to load?  Is the contact form hard to find or broken?  The list goes on and on, but this KPI is a good place to start.

Cost per Lead

Once you know your Visitors per Lead or Visitors per Sale, take a look at the next Key Performance Indicator which is your Cost per Lead KPI.  If you’re spending $5,000 per month in pay-per-click advertising and another $5,000 in SEO services, and combined they’re generating 22,000 visitors and 7% of them are buying or contacting you once they get to your site….what is your cost per lead?

7% of 22,000 is 1,540.  So essentially, you received 1,540 leads or sales at a cost of $10,000.  10,000 divided by 1540 is roughly $6.49 per lead in this case.

Obviously the next step is to calculate out how much profit each of those leads makes you.  If you’re only making $5.00 in profit for each of these leads and they’re costing you an acquisition fee of $6.49…you’re losing money and you’ve got a problem (sometimes…maybe you don’t care if your goal is to create brand awareness)!

But, if you’re making $20 or $1,000 in profit on average for each lead, you’re still turning a positive ROI.

Stickiness

The last basic Key Performance Indicator that we’ll cover for right now is “stickiness”, which is an indicator of how much of your website visitors are viewing during their visits.

By looking at the level of involvement your visitors have with your website, how long they’re spending on each page, etc. you can determine a number of factors about the value of your content.

If they really like your content in a particular section of your site (like your blog), they’re likely to spend more time in that part of your website.  This is a good indicator or content that’s working!  You should create more links to this content throughout your website and also analyze whether this “style” of writing should be used in worse performing sections.

If visitors used to spend a lot of time in a section of your site and don’t anymore, it probably means that it’s time to update your content.  If you find that they aren’t finding particular pages of your website, you may have issues with linking or navigation that you should look into.

Are they finding a high value page and quickly leaving it? Why?

KPIs at a Glance

There are many other Key Performance Indicators for you to consider, but knowing the basics of these four KPIs can do wonders for your online performance.  More importantly, they can help you make educated decisions about your web presence and keep track of whether what you’re doing is working.

As always, we’re happy to help if you need help with understanding these Key Performance Indicators, learning about other KPIs you should know about or if you don’t even have analytics installed.  Feel free to contact us at anytime to chat!

I’m not going to mention his name or link to the posts about him because doing those things is part of the problem. Let me explain:

A very large website that gets a lot of traffic “reported” on this man’s death, except their manner of reporting was lazy and weak, and neglected some important details, such as the fact that the death was an apparent suicide (they later updated their post to reflect this rather important bit of information). The reason this was news at all? This man was a “social media celebrity”. Yes, there are such things.

Social media celebrities are people who have reach a critical mass of Twitter followers (usually around the 100,000 mark) after which large groups of other people (Usually social media wannabes and others who fancy themselves future social media rock stars) hang on their every word and rabidly click the RT button and link to every blog post they write.

This site knew that this man was a social media celebrity and threw up a keyword-rich blog post as quickly as possible (which, again, they later had to fix—not that it mattered; they were there first). Since all the social media sycophants follow this site very closely, the news got tweeted and linked and retweeted, ad infinitum, into the Great Social Media Echo Chamber. They all talked about how sad, how tragic, and wrote blog posts and comments and tweets about how this made them think and how it inspired them to get to know one another better.

Each of those people, of course, got the Retweets and blog comments that they so crave, thus furthering the cycle. Nobody wanted to appear callous. Nobody wanted to admit that they had no idea who this guy was other than “they followed him on Twitter and read his blog posts once in a while.” Now they’re in tears and talking about how inspiring he was and how his death is a poignant reminder to hug the ones we love and are we sure we really know people, and so on.

It reminds me of being in eighth grade, when the horribly unpopular girl got into a car accident and died. Nobody knew her name (or if they did, it was to make fun of her) until she became a martyr. After her tragic death, every popular kid in school went out of their way to cry and show how much they cared about her and how fondly they remembered her and it was oh so sad. Signs, memorials, and speeches went on for about a week or two until they all forgot about her… again.

Well here we are again, in eighth grade. This time, it’s not an unlucky nerdy girl. It’s an unhappy nerdy adult. The popular kids are not cheerleaders and class presidents. They are social media experts and marketers.

I feel sorry for the family and (actual) friends of this poor man. I didn’t know him before his death, and I don’t know him now, so I won’t pretend that I’m horrified and saddened by his suicide. However, his death has become a social media circus, and his friends and family don’t deserve that. Social media experts, you should be ashamed.

Let’s lay it out in layman’s terms: If AT&T is allowed to acquire T-Mobile, all of T-Mobile’s customers will be absorbed into a company that has continually proved itself to be lowest in customer service ratings, not great on pricing, and willing to punish customers with arbitrary bandwidth caps. With a new, bigger AT&T, that leaves Verizon and Sprint as alternatives. Sprint will be the odd-man-out in this scenario, and they will very likely be absorbed (possibly by Verizon or Comcast). That will leave consumers with less competition, which is never good for us.

Let’s hope the Justice Department stands firm and fights this every step of the way; you may or may not like T-Mobile, but you should at least respect that you need the role they fill.

Onto the last Google news: We wrote an article this week about why Google Places is important for SEO. On the topic of Places, Facebook killed Facebook Check-ins this week (quietly, though) and last but not least we talk about over-saturation of the “deals” and reviews marketplace for small business owners. With a flood of choices (now that Angie’s List is offering premiere profiles to businesses) such as LivingSocial, Groupon, Yelp, and so on… are small business owners lashing out and experiencing “Deal fatigue”?

Lastly Dwight talks about the recent NYT article on Cornell University researches creating a new algorithm to “out fake reviews” that are paid for, well, bullshit reviews.

Join Dwight Zahringer and Brian Ambrozy as they wax poetic about this week’s SEO, social media, and weather news.

The new layer is a weather layer; by turning it on you can see current weather conditions anywhere in the world, as well as cloud cover. Go take a look at it right now; you can see the hurricane about to hit the Florida coast.

While we can’t see live, “Storm of Doom Descending Upon Us” animations like you can on Weather.com yet, it’s still another feature that brings us more into the Google ecosystem for our daily internet needs. It makes sense; Google’s mission of making the world’s information accessible marches on, and weather is definitely information.

Of course, this feature rolls out just three days after I return from a wild cross-country road trip, during which I saw a tornado forming. Thanks Google; could have avoided that one!

The weather layer is not yet available on the mobile version of Maps as of this writing, but I’m sure it will roll out soon.

I pulled up the client’s listing on Google Maps and then their Places page. Lo and behold; they weren’t even listed as a Widget company. They were listed as a doohickey company. That’s probably a large part of the problem; now we had a strategy to begin optimizing geo-local search results for the client.

Take a look at your Google Places page. If you don’t know how to find it, just search for your business address on Google Maps. Click on the pin for your location, and then on your name. This will take you to your Places page:

What you see on the Places page is what Google sees your business as. Is your information correct? Are you categorized correctly? Does the Places page link to your website?

Look up in the right corner, above the map. If you see something incorrect, you can propose an edit to Google. However, to go one better and actually take control of the information on this page, you need to claim the listing. Next to the words “Edit this place” you’ll see “Business Owner?” (which is a really vague and poor interface choice, but hey, Google has never been known for their user experience wizardry). Click that to begin the claim process, which involves getting a postcard in the mail with a code number on it. The process isn’t difficult, but it does take some time.

It’s very important that you claim your business page so that you can control the accuracy of information on your places page. Google is and always has been first and foremost an information provider: The more (and more accurate) data you can give them, the better it is for you. Make sure you add photos, videos, and as much relevant information as possible, including your hours (if you’re a restaurant owner, PLEASE put your hours in… it seems like so many restaurants don’t list their hours!)

All of this information is going to do one thing: Help people find your business. Google may seem to be a know-it-all, but they only have the data that they can find. It’s not always accurate. You know your business better than they ever will. Make sure you help them help you.

Just a bit of news for your Monday.

This week, Google announced an update to the aesthetics of Sitelinks. While at first it may seem like a minor change, we have a few opinions on some of the deeper meaning behind this. Here’s what the new Sitelinks look like:

As you can see, the new Sitelinks are much bigger and more in-your-face than the old, and will take up a significantly higher portion of your screen real estate in search results. Also, as you can see, my name is the only one that appears on our personal Sitelinks results, which means I’m a pretty big deal.

This is going to affect eyeballs and how they scan a page, and present more information on top search results than ever before. So, what’s the point? Is it simply a user experience choice? Or is there a deeper meaning? Join Dwight and Brian as they discuss this change.

Other topics we discuss: HP’s declaration that WebOS and TouchPad are dead, and they may even be considering spinning off their entire PC business. We also talk about Klout’s continuing quest to add even more social networks to their metrics.

Oh, and one last thing—poor Eric had to compete with Ryan and he ALSO downed a Lockhart’s Quadruple Bypass. Video forthcoming. These crazy kids.

The participants were Tom Nixon from Identity PR, Pam Perry from Social Media PR Solutions, Melih Oztalay from SmartFinds Internet Marketing, and myself.

As social media took the marketing world by storm in the last couple of years, PR companies have had to learn to quickly adjust to their clients’ needs and wants. Clients are becoming increasingly more educated on the latest tools and trends as the promise of social media fulfills itself: people are spreading news to more people, more rapidly than ever before. If a traditional PR agency can’t stay on top of it, their clients will go elsewhere.

We have seen a pattern over the years, as we’ve kept up on the trends; however, our focus has and always will be tangible results from any outreach efforts. We’re working hard to increase page views, increase search traffic, and get new business for our clients. Right now, social media tools are one of the methods we’re implementing to get this done. Social media can be a powerful force for SEO and we’re making that a part of our client strategy.

At the end of the day, social media is just another tool in the toolbox. The fundamentals have remained constant: a rock-solid code base as a foundation, semantically correct markup, and excellent content. These will continue to win the day, no matter how the message is spread. Regardless, whatever comes next, we’ll be on top of that, too.

Today I fired up Klout only to see a little YouTube icon at the top. That means Klout is adding yet another service to their overall social media metric. Again, Klout’s algorithm is a secret, but it’s a good bet that a high number of YouTube page views, friends, comments, and likes are all pretty good for your Klout score.

Klout is adding new services fairly quickly. It was only three weeks ago that they added Foursquare. Of course, the big question is how long it will take them to add Google+ to their metrics (once Google releases an API for it, obviously).

It’s exciting to see Klout becoming more and more relevant. I’d love to see them add as many services as possible. Gowalla? SCVNGR? Blog metrics from Postrank? Absolutely. They all provide a big picture of how influential you are.

It feels like this is the future for rich web content. With its clean, standards-compliant code, this combination is essentially the end of proprietary web formats. Let’s spell is out: The writing is on the wall for Flash, Adobe knows it, and this is their attempt to get a head start on it.

The preview version of Adobe Edge is similar to older versions of Flash. You can drag assets into the timeline, keyline them, animate shapes, and create transitions. When you “collect for output”, all the assets are put into an /images/ folder on your server and the appropriate code is packaged and uploaded with it.

Adobe Edge will most likely come out with Adobe CS 6, but that’s just an educated guess on our part.

Code hippopotami, code chickens, code deer, code horses, yes… Code monkeys? Never. Won’t do it.

Writing good code is not a job for monkeys. Hippopotami are fierce, hard-working animals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Horses are highly intelligent and loyal. Deer are agile, move quickly, and are amazingly perceptive. Chickens? Well… You can’t win them all.

When we’re not creating amazing websites or helping increase our clients’ traffic, revenue, and search engine rankings, we engage in the gentlemanly sport of “paw wrestling”, also known as arm wrestling in seedier parts of town. Here we have Code Hippo versus Code Horse while the menagerie cheers them on:

We’re here every day in beautiful downtown Royal Oak, Michigan. Stop by and say hi, we’ll give you an ice-cold Vitaminwater or Smartwater, and perhaps you can challenge Code Hippo to a paw wrestling match.

I downloaded Adobe Edge preview today and decided to give it a spin. Here’s a quick look at the interface when you open a new, blank project: (Click to enlarge any of these screenshots)

The interface is quite similar to Flash and Premiere and should be relatively comfortable to anyone who has worked in CS5 or 5.5. The “stage” is your first <div> and as you add objects to your set, the elements panel adds them hierarchically:

There’s a timeline at the bottom which acts exactly as you would expect; as time moves forward you can drag and drop different elements into play, keyline them, and act upon them:

The preview doesn’t have many content creation tools yet; the basic shapes are available with some rudimentary drawing tools (rectangles, lines, etc.) but you can import assets created outside of Edge. I didn’t see any sort of code view or in-line editing tool, but it’s safe to assume there will be some sort of advanced tools like this in the release version.

The question is: What is Adobe’s end-game here? Is Edge a tacit admission that Flash is doomed? Edge should be fully standards compliant; the content created with it should work fluidly on any platform, rather unlike Adobe’s embattled Flash.

It’s a smart move on Adobe’s part; by taking the neutral high ground and saying “Hey, we’ll give content creators the tools to make compelling and rich content, regardless of their platform choice”, they avoid the holy war that rages on about standards. Perhaps they’re getting back to their roots as a purveyor of the world’s best design tools.

We’ll do our best to stay on top of Edge development. Stay tuned!

We also bring you our thoughts on the news that Foursquare has just partnered with Groupon. And last, but not least, we bring you breaking news from the world of SCIENCE that INTERNET EXPLORER users are DUMB. Or something like that.

Give a listen, leave a comment, and hey—have a great weekend.

Internet Explorer was, until recently, exceptionally non-compliant with modern web coding standards. When a web application developer such as us had to create applications for clients, we often had to take extraordinary and special measures to make sure the sites we created would even work properly in Internet Explorer. More recent versions (the latest is Internet Explorer 9) are more compliant with web standards, but the adoption of the latest versions has been slow as people have migrated away to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome as well as Safari on Mac computers.

Any web developer will tell you horror stories about coding for IE6. While we’re happy that those days are over, this news still confirms some basic suspicions we’ve had about users of Internet Explorer…

It all makes sense now.

Anyways, if you want to be a Smart Kid™ too, change your browser. You can download Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera and join the club. Let us know how many IQ points you gain.

Google has always claimed that their mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Anything they do has to be filtered through that mission statement, as they have shown time and again that this is their core value. How does creating a social network make the world’s information universally accessible and useful? “Useful” is the key word, here.

Google realizes that the value of Twitter and other social networks is in personal recommendations and connections. While they do have access to Twitter’s “firehose” of information, they don’t own it. Better to have their own network of social signals. They knew that if they built a good social product (and they’ve tried and failed in the past), they would start having excellent and useful data to enhance their core product: Search.

The fact that Google was persistent in attempting to break into social shows how important it is to them. Finally, Google+ is the one that just might make it. According to some reports, they are rapidly approaching the 20 million user mark. That’s certainly enough data to help make search results more useful. There are many people criticizing the “geekiness” of Google+, saying it’s not a thing their mom or dad would use; if Google is trying to get tech-savvy geeks to link to things and share relevant data on Google+, though, that’s not a problem for them at all.

In order for Google+ to truly become a “Facebook killer” it will have to become an ingrained habit—part of a daily normal lifestyle; with Android, Google has a shot at this. However, even if they don’t ever achieve Facebook Huge status, they can still mine the incredibly relevant and useful patterns and data from their techie userbase to influence their most precious product: search.

Things I learned on this trip:

• The Fiat 500 is a fun little car to drive
• Parking the Fiat 500 is a joy
• The Fiat 500 can turn on a dime
• When you drive a Fiat 500, you will get a lot of attention from others
• Driving a Fiat 500 is extremely economical
• The Fiat 500 interior is roomier than I had thought
• Fiat enthusiasts are more like family than any other group of car enthusiasts I’ve ever met
• Community is a fundamental part of a brand’s success

That’s one thing I couldn’t shake—the sense of family with these enthusiasts and Fiat owners. Even though these guys and gals see each other online and in person at these events, every time they get together and talk about their cars, the love of the brand just shines through.

Fiat has done well to foster that sense of community. Fiat owners are fiercely proud of their dedication to the brand, and now that it has made a reappearance in the US market, they can say “we were there.” Well, the waiting has paid off. The Fiat community is sure to get a giant boost of new blood, excited new enthusiasts, and lifelong fans.

If you missed any of my posts about my day-to-day experience, you can catch up here:

Nashville bound in a Fiat 500

Detroit to Cincinnati

Cincinnati to Nashville (with call-in podcast)

Here is the slideshow of all the pictures I took (Lots of Fiat porn!)

Proudly proclaiming my affiliation with Fiat

I checked out of the hotel and went out to the car, and there was a new sign on it, proudly proclaiming that it was a part of the Detroit to Nashville Fiat Freakout roadtrip. That was sure to get even more eyeballs than I already had.

My hair was a shaggy mess, so I decided to stop and get a haircut before I left Cincinnati; I wasn’t on any super-tight schedule, so why not? I did what any modern, connected person would do in that situation: Turn to Google and Yelp to find the best barber in Cincinnati. They didn’t let me down; Russ was a character and I got a good haircut for a good price.

It was interesting talking to him because he was excited and bewildered at all the business the internet brought him. Through a combination of SEO (a solid code foundation on his website), social media (Yelp and Myspace, in his case), and excellent follow-through (very good haircuts, and excellent customer service) he achieved success.

Crossing into Tennessee

After the haircut, I got on the road and drove almost straight through to Nashville. When I arrived at the Music City Sheraton, it was like Fiat heaven. They were everywhere.

Here’s the interesting thing about the Fiat Freakout event: It has been going on for almost thirty years. Every year, a small group of Fiat owners and enthusiasts would meet somewhere to trade stories, show off their cars, and celebrate their like-minded community. Now that Chrysler has partnered with Fiat to bring the brand back to the US, the size of the group is sure to explode, as a new generation of American car enthusiasts becomes part of this community.

In the lobby of the hotel, a full-sized Fiat 500 was retrofitted to become what I call the “world’s most elaborate video game controller”. The (real) Fiat is hooked up to a giant screen which displays a driving game. The goal is to not race to the finish and get the fastest time possible; rather it is to get to the goal with the best fuel economy. The game is designed to show off the Fiat 500′s Eco:drive technology. I came in 26th place; clearly I need to work on my efficient driving.

Let’s talk about Eco:drive. It’s insanely cool technology. You download the application, and insert any USB stick into your computer, where the application copies some code to your stick. You then take the USB stick and plug it into the Fiat’s dashboard USB port. As you drive, the car records data and send it to the stick. When you’re done, you take the USB stick and plug it back into your computer. The Eco:drive application then downloads your driving data and goes into great detail about how you can improve your efficiency with smarter shifting and other tips. It’s truly fascinating.

The Fiat Freakout event itself begins today and goes through the weekend. On Monday, I’ll have my thoughts, impressions, and overall experience up on the Trademark blog. Ciao!

Update: Here are photos from the trip!

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Alas, it was not rain, just insane heat and humidity.

I really wish it wasn’t so abysmally hot today—I wanted to drive with the windows down and the sunroof open. It wasn’t meant to be, however. The weatherman issued severe heat warnings, telling people to stay inside. Time to crank up that air conditioning to max.

My 2011 Fiat 500 to test drive. Mine...mine...mine...mine...

Driving in early morning rush hour traffic wasn’t very much fun. I was excited when I finally got outside of Detroit and really had the chance to open up and cruise in 5th gear. I found the climate controls, the cruise control, and the radio all very intuitive, and relaxed and settled in for a few hours’ drive. The Fiat that I got has a particularly swank Bose sound system, with a subwoofer and Sirius/XM tuner. There are buttons for voice commands and Bluetooth, but I didn’t mess around with those. I tuned Sirius to Alt Nation and let loose.

Interior of the 2011 Fiat 500

It’s been a long time since I sat in an awesome car by myself with wind in my hair (albeit, A/C in this case) and too-loud music. The car just called for it, though. It was liberating and made me feel like a kid again. As I drove down the freeway, I got points, stares, and even someone taking a picture of the car. It’s new, unique, and very charismatic. People are drawn to it.

I stopped at the Ohio border to visit a homemade jerky store that I’m fond of. I don’t get down that way too often, and it’s unique enough to be worth a stop. It was about 9:30am and two locals were sitting outside a barber shop. The town, Luna Pier, has a very small-town feel. As soon as I parked, the two men got up and started walking towards me. They were older, so I figured maybe they’d say something negative about foreign cars.

To the contrary, they were both as excited as kids. “Oh wow, I heard of these, but I’ve never seen one!” “Look at the painted calipers” “That is a sharp logo!” “Chrysler is doing well to bring these here!”. They asked about the performance, the engine, they looked at the interior, and were far more enthusiastic about the car than I had assumed they would be.

It was a neat experience, and it told me one thing: Americans are ready for smaller cars. We got into a conversation about the size and efficiency. He said he was thinking a small car like this might be nice for his wife.

I got back on the road and stopped for gas outside of Dayton, where a man came up to me and asked if I was driving a Ferrari. I guess the new Fiat looks like it could be a Ferrari? I got a laugh out of it.

The Cincinnati Fiat Dealership

I finally arrived in Cincinnati, checked into my hotel and then headed over to the brand-spanking new Fiat Studio (Kings Fiat). They call their dealerships “Studios” and there’s a good reason for it—when you go in to buy a car, you pretty much get to design it custom to the way you want it. The first thing I noticed was how many color options were available. Then, I noticed that every single Fiat on the lot (and there were quite a few) was totally unique; either it had unique interior color combinations, or custom pinstriping in a variety of ways, or an Italian flag decal on the front quarter panel, or something that made it different from every car on the lot. The manager told me that there are so many possible combinations that it’s a pretty good chance there are no two Fiats on the road that are the same.

No two 2011 Fiat 500s on the road may be the same.

I’m beginning to wrap my head around the Fiat culture. The people who walk in the door to a Fiat studio are far more than just people who are looking for a car. They are already part of a community. They are fans, enthusiasts, family members. They walk in knowing more about the cars than the sales team. They want to be part of a lifestyle. The sense of community is overwhelming with these cars. You’re not buying a vehicle; you’re buying a passport into this enthusiastic group.

I have a feeling that by the end of this journey, I will be a part of the community too. Even if I never own a Fiat.

Update: Here is the photostream from the trip:

The reason I’m doing this is because Fiat reached out to me and asked if I’d like to give my impressions of this tiny car while I check out the Fiat owners’ community at the Fiat Freakout event. Why they chose me isn’t perfectly clear, but it might have something to do with my experience with Chevy earlier this year when I was chosen as part of the Chevy SXSW Road Trip Challenge. Maybe it has something to do with my work on Icrontic, and the story I wrote there about Mopar. Perhaps it was my involvement with Tweetea, where I met Chrysler’s social media guru Mike Driehorst.

The point of that “Feather-in-my-cap” stuff wasn’t to brag. It’s to show that social networking works. Fiat wants me to be in this car because I will be honest, genuine, and tell them my thoughts. Have blog, will travel. They get exposure out of it, I get a neat experience where I’ll probably make some new friends, and have some neat memories to put into my scrapbook. Plus, I’ll have the confidence of being able to say, “Hey, Fiat chose me to write about their cars.” That stuff snowballs and turns into more opportunity. If I can share that success with our social media clients here at Trademark, then all the better.

I went to pick up the Fiat in Auburn Hills, MI (which, coincidentally is the home of Chrysler Group, LLC.) The car I get to drive is a dark silver, sporty little thing, with black checker graphics and a snazzy leather interior.

It’s a 5-speed manual; here’s where I embarrassingly reveal that I haven’t driven a manual since 2001 or so, when I had a 1985 Jeep CJ-7 that was built like a tank. It was like shifting a cement truck. I think I actually grew toned biceps from driving that truck for a half a year. So here, I have to get into this little sports car and pretend like I can remember how to drive a stick.

I stalled immediately upon backing up, which was no big deal except for the two people that worked at the facility who were annoyed with me in the parking lot. No worries! I’ve got this! I restarted it and lurched forward to the security gate and nonchalantly pretended like everything was A-OK while the guard filled out paperwork to release the car to me. Yep, I got this.

I got out of the parking lot and down the road, but I stalled again at the first red light. Now, here’s where I remember to tell you that I had my 13- and 12-year old sons with me. They were terrified. “Dad…” my oldest said dubiously. “You… uh.. you sure you know how to drive this…?” He was not at all confident. My younger son was silent as a ghost in the back.

The car behind me was irked, but I got ol’ bessie going again and realized that the next step was I-75, a major freeway. Did I mention it was rush hour?

Well, I’ll spare the details except to say that by the time I got home (40 miles later), I re-mastered the manual transmission, became a hero to my sons (very important), and didn’t damage the car in any way. Success!

Now that I’ve found my legs again, I’m ready to get this baby on the open road. The Fiat is tiny, zippy, and a ton of fun to drive. It’s very strange to get used to the “borders” of the car, since they’re so close to you, but it doesn’t feel strange now that I’ve spent a couple of hours in it.

I’ll update the TM blog, make sure to take lots of pictures and video, and try my best to share this fun experience with everyone. Wish me luck!

Update: Here is the photostream from the trip:

Well, not really, but their car was parked right outside our back door today, so we went out and snapped a few pics for geek porn purposes. Obviously, Google has their work cut out for them in terms of mapping every single road, alley, street, circle, route, and frontage in the world, so there’s a good chance this is not a very rare sighting, but at least it got us excited.

Last week, The Detroit Zoo (which is just down the road from us) got the nod as the first theme park in the nation to get mapped out by the StreetView team. This makes it the first pedestrian StreetView destination in the US. They’re using the StreetView Trike to make that happen, not this car, but still—we love geek porn just as much as you do. Enjoy!
Video:

Pics:

So while we’re sitting around twiddling our thumbs, not being able to really use anything on Google Plus via the mobile app on Safari, we wait patiently. Alternatively, we fire up our desktops or laptops and use it normally, which I’m sure is what the great majority of us iPhone users have had to do. Personally, I use my laptop or desktop as little as possible. I bought an iPhone because I liked the fact that I could browse the web and use many services with it. Therein lies the rub—while the Google team have done a fantastic job of developing their mobile version of Google Plus, it lacks in some key features like being able to edit your profile, being able to manage albums, or even upload a photo to an album. The full desktop version of Google Plus on Safari in iOS4x is almost impossible to use to update your profile or…really use at all, as there are far too many UI issues with it to even bother to use it over the mobile version.

So that’s the bridge I’m hoping to help some people cross today (though I can’t help much with not being able to edit your profile). I’ve found a neat way to work around having absolutely no way to upload photos via mobile. It seems the Google Plus team figured it’d be a great idea to sync your Picasa albums automatically to your Google Plus albums. Great! It also just so happens, there are many already-approved iPhone apps available in the app store to manage and upload your photos to Picasa.

I was never a user of Picasa, so I had to create an account using my existing Google account, but that was really no big deal. The app I’m using in this example is “MyPics – Picasa Web Albums Manager”, and is available for $2.99. I assume there are other free apps that do the same thing, but this is the one that I got, so this is the one that I know how to work with!

It’s really quite easy. When you’re out on the go, and want to share a picture you just took, you just use MyPics to create a new album (or use an existing one), add a photo from your phone’s camera roll, and add it to the upload queue. When you’re done adding images to the upload queue, you can just simply tap the upload button in the app, and it will automatically add these photos to your Picasa albums, and thereby adding them to your Google Plus albums as well!

The app also allows you to add captions to photos quite easily, and manages to save all of the EXIF data along with each image. There is even a way to manage the image’s Google Plus privacy settings, however it is not as intuitive as Google Plus itself. Basically each image (or an entire album) can be set to public or private. There is no way to manage which circles can see it and which can’t, because obviously this is a Picasa album manager—but it just so happens that Google Plus automatically pulls these albums for you.

So there you have it, it’s all quite simple really, and right now it’s basically all we have available to us if we want to add photos to our Google Plus accounts while on the go. Now I will politely and patiently keep twiddling my thumbs waiting for Apple to stop being such meanies and approve the G+ app!

Now that we’ve got a few years of social media as an entrenched lifestyle, and technology platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus with millions of daily users on them, business owners are finally at a point where they can make actionable sales via social media channels. Tools like Klout and Groupon have demonstrated that with the right data, it’s possible to connect products and services with engaged and interested buyers, using nothing more than social media platforms.

We’d love it if you joined us in this latest topical discussion about social media. Also, be sure to join us next week as I call in from the road; I’ll be travelling from Detroit to Nashville in a Fiat 500 for the Fiat Freakout event.

Now, for those poll questions: Brian says three months before Klout adds Google Plus to their metrics. Dwight says six (or maybe never). Who’s right?

This is good news for me, personally, because I’ve been called a “Foursquare whore” (and worse).

Still, it’s good to see that Klout is continually adding services to track. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn aren’t the end-all, be-all of social media engagement. Klout’s self-stated mission is to measure one’s influence. You can certainly be influential and not be active on, say, Facebook or LinkedIn. The more services get added to Klout, the more accurate the measurement will be.

There’s no information yet on how Foursquare activity will influence one’s Klout score, but it can be assumed that longevity of account, whether or not you’re a Superuser, number of check-ins, number of tips you created that other people have done, and badges may all come into play.

Foursquare is the first location-based social media metric to be introduced into Klout, which is interesting. Will we see situations in which a person will have more Klout in certain geographic regions? Foursquare certainly makes it a possibility that we may begin to be able to identify influencers by region. For example, I don’t think anybody would listen to a restaurant recommendation that I make for Los Angeles… but Detroit? Sure.

Of course, the big “buzz” in the social media world (get it? har.) is Google+. Since day one, those in the social media business were speculating about when Klout would be adding G+ metrics to their measurement. Obviously, that’s going to take time, and it may not happen while G+ is in beta, but the fact that Klout continues to add social media networks at a fairly regular pace bodes well for our hopes that it will come eventually.

If this past week has shown anything, it is that social media is an ever-shifting field. Two weeks ago, nobody would have considered Google to be a serious contender in the social space, yet today people are using it with fervor, making posts about how doomed Facebook is and how much better G+ is than anything else before it. Next year, who knows what the hot social network will be.  Whatever it is, there’s a good chance Klout will be on top of it.

That’s kind of what happened to us recently. Because of a past relationship at events and through mutual friends, I happened to know this cool fella named Josh Bartlett. He handles SmartWater and VitaminWater marketing for this region. So when I started here at Trademark, I gave him a call.

“Hey, I’d love to have you come down and check out this new place I’m working. It’s cool, it’s got a good feel, you’ll like it.” He said, “Okay!” and we made a date.

Boom. A few days later and we have this:

Score! A cooler full of goodies for guests and clients

Now when guests or clients visit, we can offer them delicious hydration in the form of VitaminWater or (huge, 1.5L!) bottles of SmartWater—which is good for this rash of beautiful but hot weather we’ve been having.

We’ve got lots of cool ideas on how to help promote SmartWater and VitaminWater locally. Dwight, our CEO, even had the idea of throwing bottles down from our second-story window to hot and thirsty passers-by on Main Street. We’re still working out the details on that one…

So hey, next time you’re in downtown Royal Oak and you want to talk about web development, SEO, social media, or what we can do for your web presence, stop in. We’ll hook you up with a bottle of VitaminWater or SmartWater and you can enjoy our awesome conference room that overlooks Main street. Maybe, if you’re really lucky, you can throw a bottle out the window… (Note: you can’t throw a bottle out the window.)

We cover circles, circles, and Google’s new instant upload for Android users. We also talk about circles. We then come around full circle and talk about whether or not Google-as-a-platform on Android is a potential threat to iPhone. Circles.

So hang out with Dwight and I as we discuss the new social network that everyone’s buzzing about (lol get it?). Are you signed in to Google+ yet? What do you think about it?

Edit for Monday morning: Check out AllTop’s Facebook / G+ Infographic

Oh, the poll questions:

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It’s interesting to note, too, that the Zuck took a few stabs at Google today during the unveiling.  One can’t wonder if Google will return the favor since between these two titans, one seems intent on taking over the world and the other on selling your private information to the world.  Will they ever just get along?

Naturally, this announcement comes on the heels of Google introducing Google+ along with its own video chat feature.  Could Facebook be starting to show its age with the competition picking up in innovation where it left off?  I smell a From Zuck To Zero article coming in the not-too-distant future.

There is another interesting point worth bringing up.  Some companies have blocked sites like Facebook (including Facebook itself), yet allow Skype since they utilize the service.  They’ve always been good together, but strictly as separate entities, so how will they interact–if at all–now in the business world?

In the meantime, this could be a nice boost to Skype since its 145 million regular users stands to grow.  And, who knows?  Maybe Skype will be what takes Google and Facebook over when the social media bubble bursts!

A compromised Twitter account is not big news. This is, however, a good opportunity to remind everyone that they should have a really good Twitter password; major media outlets should be even more conscientious of their password policy.

If you have been using the same Twitter password for years, you should consider changing it once in a while. Also, make sure you don’t use the same password for all of your accounts—a compromise on any of the accounts means you have to remember all the sites you shared that password with. A good password should be at least 8-10 characters long, and should contain at least one number and one special character. A password made up of a series of words is not a good password. Mypasswordislong would not make a good password. MyP@ssw0Rd1sL0NG! would be MUCH better.

So, in sum: Welcome back from the holiday weekend, President Obama isn’t dead, and make sure you have great passwords. The end.

It’s hard to remember that web sites are applications, though. The days of web sites just showing information on screen are mostly over—at least if you want to do business on the web.

If you’re getting a web site developed, it would behoove you to come into the process with some security knowledge on your side. Trust me, the look on your developer’s face when you ask if your site is secure from SQL injections will be priceless…

A list of the top 25 most common software security errors was released two days ago by the CWE. The CWE, or “Common Weakness Enumeration”, is a list that is curated annually by leading software and security experts. The goal is to provide a checklist of things for developers to be aware of, and to provide an extra layer of accountability for those who are having applications developed.

This list got passed around our Royal Oak office today, and it’s something that our web developers are keenly aware of. After all, if we build a website for a client and it gets hacked by a 14-year-old, that reflects pretty poorly on our skills. Taking the extra step to be on top of common security vulnerabilities is one of the perks you get when dealing with a professional web design company.

Our lead developer trimmed down the list into the items that are relevant to our clients, and sent it to everyone in the office, even non-developers like me. That just goes to show that every step of the way, from the account managers to the CEO, we’re at least aware that these things are critical parts of the development process. We develop all manner of sites for our Michigan-based clients and beyond; from basic informational web sites all the way up to custom workflow software, web-based applications, and full e-commerce solutions. No matter what we’re building, we take security very seriously.

In case you’re wondering, here are the things we look for in the sites we develop:

• Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’)
• Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation (‘Cross-site Scripting’)
• Missing Authentication for Critical Function (e.g. ability to call an include directly)
• Missing Authorization (permission check)
• Use of Hard-coded Credentials
• Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data
• Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
• Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision
• Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
• Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory (‘Path Traversal’)
• Incorrect Authorization (e.g. storing permission in cookie)
• Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm
• Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts
• URL Redirection to Untrusted Site (‘Open Redirect’)
• Uncontrolled Format String
• Use of a One-Way Hash without a Salt

So with that heavy brainful, have a great holiday weekend!

Let’s face it: under most circumstances, forwarding an email is a bad idea. It’s the lazy way out. Somebody sent you some funny or interesting content, and you like it enough to share with your friends. What’s easier than clicking one button and going about your business?

Well, as time has shown us all, that wasn’t such a good plan. Forwarding emails is now considered bad etiquette; something the non-savvy and elderly do. It’s now associated with “mom and dad using the computer again”. Mostly, this is because the quality of the content is awful. How many times have you seen an email with a subject line that goes something like “FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD…”?

Enter the Twitter

Well here we are now, firmly ensconced in the golden era of the social media age. Twitter’s been around long enough to have a field of experts, its own culture, etiquette, and protocol. However, one aspect of Twitter feels sort of like a black sheep. It’s the retweet function.

“ReTweeting” is not something Twitter invented. Rather, it came from the same basic human behavior that created the “FWD:FWD:FWD:” phenomenon—sheer laziness. You see something you like, whether it be a funny Tweet that a friend posted or a link or a motivational quote. People would simply copy and paste it with the letters “RT” in front of it and the person’s Twitter handle behind it, like so:

“RT @primesuspect I’m fat, let’s party.”

The nice part about this is that the RT can provide context for your own commentary:

“Hahaha this guy is a riot to hang out with. RT @primesuspect I’m fat, let’s party.”

Back in 2009, there were some disagreements about protocol, over things like whether or not to put the word “via” in there, or to put the attribution at the front of or back of the Tweet, and so on.

Well, the RT became such a commonplace piece of Twitter behavior, that it became an actual Twitter feature—which solved that issue. In August of 2009, Twitter announced a native RT feature, which is what most of us use today. Some still use the manual cut-and-paste method, and tools like Tweetdeck allow you to choose which style of Retweet you want. Many people prefer the old style because it allows you to add commentary.

It’s been almost two years since the native RT went into effect, so what’s the consensus?

Back to the lazy board

Well, anecdotally, I’ll say that the RT function is something of a failure; the times I see it used are when people just want a one-click way to spread content. It’s the most low-effort form of “engagement” there is; your audience gets content (albeit, someone else’s), the person you RT’ed sometimes thanks you, and you look like a hero, right? The curator, indeed.

But there is no real engagement. There are people who do nothing but RT. Chances are, the thing being RTed is just something “funny” or cute, or a picture or a link to an event. It kind of goes against the very fundamental of Twitter, which asks “What’s Happening?” (and before that, it was “What are you doing?”). It doesn’t create conversation; rather, it essentially advertises.

The problem is: social media scoring services such as Klout and PeerIndex weigh RTs quite heavily when factoring one’s online influence. If you can get a bunch of people to RT your content, well that must mean you’re an interesting person, right?

Not really. Take a gander at some of the worst offenders. There are Twitter clickfarms that do nothing but have a pool of user accounts that RT each other and then RT specific Tweets for paid clients. They can sell that: “Look, we got 3,000 people to retweet a link to your website!” But, all those clicks are worthless: They’re sometimes not even real people.

The question, as most things with Twitter, comes back to one of engagement. If a person RTs something, does that actually create any value for you? Does that sell your product or get a customer in the door? RTs show up as messages from people you don’t know and don’t follow on Twitter. Therefore, one is much more likely to ignore the message—most of the time it just looks like clutter in your timeline.

I think time will tell the story on this one: RTs will go the way of the Forward; they’ll be seen as an occasionally useful feature that is for older or non-savvy users. I only hope that scoring services don’t continue to focus on RTs as a heavy metric.

Sarah Kessler on Mashable mentions a study by Microsoft in 2009 that states almost 80% of hiring managers in the United States look for mentions of candidates online and 70% of those same hiring managers rejected a client because of what they found.  The odds aren’t in your favor if there’s something damaging out there to be found.  Stay practical for a moment, though.

Let’s say you tell us you’re really immersed in social media and share links to your Facebook, Twitter or blog page.  So, one of us looks you up on Facebook only to discover a tirade of personal details between you and friends that should never be for a potential employer’s eyes.  What were you thinking?  Or perhaps we see tweets of a sexual or demeaning nature towards someone else.  Do you think we’re going to think highly of that?  And if we read through your blog posts only to find a mishmash of poor language skills, creative spelling and the same kinds of things we found in your Facebook posts and Twitter tweets?  Again, not looking so good for you.

Know what you’ve put out there and also what’s out there with your name attached to it that’s being said about you.  A little reputation management of your own can go a long way.  If you’ve burned a few bridges at previous jobs, it’s important to note that while executives at the company can’t say anything about you, other folks can, might and sometimes do.  Have you ever gone off on a rant about someone before?  Chances are they can do the same to you, too.  For everything out there that’s bad about you, it might be time to spread a little of the good, especially if you’re trying to land a higher profile job.

Here’s something else you might not know.  As often as a potential customer will look Trademark Productions up in the search engines, we look them up, too.  Why?  Maybe this customer has a history of hiring a digital boutique like ours only to stop paying them halfway through a project.  Perhaps the business isn’t presenting themselves in an entirely accurate light.  There’s a myriad of possibilities out there and the internet makes it possible for folks to proceed a bit more cautiously than before.  We’re looked up.  We look you up.

Have you Googled yourself or your business today to discover what’s being said?

Yes, instead of doing things the old-fashioned way and trying to generate genuine interest from folks who might like your brand and follow your Twitter account, companies have decided to take the easy way out and pay for an advertisement that, given the right search criteria that you type in, will come up at the top of your results.  Honestly, does this excite you the way it excites these companies?  Is it going to get you to try their coffee, buy their brand of clothing or shop in their store for items you wouldn’t have given a second thought about?

These promoted tweets are already being labeled by some as no better than e-mail SPAM and I’m prone to agree.  Are they even necessary when social media has allowed businesses to create pages or accounts, gain a following and interact with their fans?  What’s worse is that older promoted tweets will be hanging around the top of your screen, too.  Oh, joy.  Oh, rapture.  See enough of them and you’re liable to start avoiding those companies altogether…or mentioning them in a poor light in blog posts or your own tweets.

Twitter already tried this with the iPhone and their Quick Bar, shortly thereafter dubbed the Dick Bar in humorous-yet-biting honor of COO Dick Costolo and his grandiose plans to raise the company’s profit margin.  Users hated it, told Twitter exactly what they thought about the promoted trends and it was eventually removed.  If you’d like one person’s view of why they found it offensive, you might check out Why the Quick Bar is still so offensive.

What is it about ads ads ads these days?  Where’s the innovation?  Where’s the unobtrusiveness?  Where’s the real progress being made that doesn’t drown or choke us?  I can’t help but wonder what an ad-free internet would look like…

Lockhart's Quadruple Bypass!

You see, resident I-will-never-be-outdone COO Dean tried a sandwich last week from Lockhart’s called the Quadruple Bypass and only made it 66% through before throwing in the towel.  He not only had to finish a side-item, but he then had to make his way through a 1 pound combination of pulled pork, smoked bacon, smoked sausage, smoked ham and, topping it off, smoked cheddar served on a grease-soaked bun.  As an added bonus, there’s a Ding-Dong included for dessert.

Ryan Perry thinking "Bottoms up!"

Ryan decided to take on Dean’s record of 66% and show him up.  The results, while spectacular and a bit dicey at times, were truly terrifying.  Ryan managed his feat, but only because of the surrounding co-workers cheering and jeering him on!

Ryan Perry enjoying the fruits of his labor.

Did we get to try the Chocolate Dr. Pepper Cake?  No.  The Berry or Peach Cobbler?  No.  The Pecan Pie?  No.  Yet it was still a tremendous riot to see Ryan stomp the living daylights out of Dean’s record and set the bar for maintaining a healthy heart.

Ryan Perry kinda sorta mostly done showing Dean Duncan Jones up.

Congratulations, Ryan!  You’re an inspiration to us all.

And be sure to check out Lockhart’s in Royal Oak!  We’re sure Dean will be heading there one work day soon to outdo Ryan.

True or False?

Oddly enough, true.  We’ve gone from checking in to going through the check out at places like H&M, Sports Authority, Union Square Cafe and Blue Smoke.  Those last two are in NYC, so perhaps you’ll want to look for future discounts at the airlines if you plan on saving some money in a New York eatery.  Now, what kinds of discounts will be offered?  How does a $10 credit for spending $75 at H&M sound?  Even better, how about a $20 reward for spending $50 at Sports Authority?  Even I have to admit that the last one isn’t a bad deal at all.

This could just be the beginning of a beautiful friendship depending on how many people participate in the new endeavor.  It may also give Foursquare an additional nudge, keeping them safe from the other Internet big boys who’d like to see them gone or absorbed into their own entities.

First, we’re still being targeted by a process known as “behavior targeting.” Facebook probably has one of the best ways to describe this.  Ever look at those ads on the sides of your screen?  The ones that have a tendency to change when you look something up or become a fan of something?  I became a fan of a Sci-Fi page and I suddenly found myself inundated by ads for Star Trek and Babylon 5 merchandise.  And my music tastes?  They’re trying to send products my way for that, too.  The difference–and I may be one of the few who does this–is to do nothing.  I won’t click on them.  I won’t give them the time of day.  If I could make them go away, I would.

This sort of thing is what happens to folks while surfing the internet, too.  Web-publisher clients have been known to regularly send out information up to (and certainly not limited to) 75 third party services when you land on their home page.  And the ones who don’t use it for advertising purposes sell the information to publishers.  That’s quite a bit of your information circulating out there.  We don’t want it available and the companies collecting it do because…  I’m sure I could come up with some caustic reason, but suffice to say that it involves money.  Their reaction to the Do Not Track bill is to say that, in its current form, it’ll destroy the internet economy.

If we take their word for it, then all internet sales will be expected to stop.  People will no longer buy anything, no products will have a chance to be sold and E-commerce will die a sad death due to a lack of advertising.  <blank stare>  Really?

A company called Disconnect is in the process of developing a series of buttons that will clearly demonstrate the tracking policies of a site.  One of those buttons will also act as a Do Not Track button for the site, which will be present on sites that choose to use them.  Cue the eye-roll here.  The simpler solution is the one that they don’t want; treat Do Not Track like the Do Not Call list.  Let NO site track you unless (and here’s what they REALLY won’t like) you opt in to let that site share information.  And even then, you should be able to choose what information they share.  That would be fair…for us, that is.

If you’d rather not wait for legislation to go through, you can always update your browser to Firefox 5.  It not only allows you additional control over how your browsing is tracked, but it also allows you to opt out of the behavior tracking process when and where possible.

The world didn’t end after Do Not Call was introduced.  In fact, my nights are much happier for it, though I still get a local cleaning company who leaves very lengthy messages on my answering machine trying to get me to use their services.  I’ve turned them in twice.  Hell hath no fury than someone forced to listen to that crap.  The world won’t end with Do Not Track either.  It might even generate some new jobs since companies may have to go back to doing things the old-fashioned way of gathering information.

Your thoughts?

Honestly, I shudder to think of the kind of media monster Susan Stark might have become if we’d have had Facebook or Twitter back then.  She could be a little on the insulting side, only not in a remotely fun way.  And as much as I wasn’t fond of her, the downside now is that there are so few film critics left in the newspapers.  It used to be that I looked forward to opening up the movie section each Friday to read all the reviews.  Good luck finding more than one or two nowadays, though.  And the few big names who are left?  They’re finding a way to be as contentious as ever on Facebook and Twitter.

Look what happened to Roger Ebert on Monday.  He wrote a Facebook post chastising folks for coming down on an Olympic hopeful caught setting fires in Vancouver.  Folks complained and his page was taken down, then restored on Tuesday.  Ironically, no better reasons were offered to him for the removal than any of us would have received.  Ebert followed it up with a tweet on Tuesday and made a less-than-well-thought-out comment regarding the death of Ryan Dunn from Jackass fame.  People were less than thrilled.

This brings up an equally contentious question; if you’re a film critic and you have a Facebook fan page–and even public Twitter account based on your celebrity status–shouldn’t you use it for being a critic and keep your personal thoughts to a personal page?  You have some say, then, as to who you are friends with and who will have access to the private content you publish.  Not that anything on Facebook is private and if they think it is, they’ll most likely attempt to find a way to make it less private in an effort to sell it to someone.

See how easy that was to go off-topic?  It didn’t make it any less true, but it probably wouldn’t be appreciated by some folks.  In the case of Ebert, nothing specific other than speed has been attributed to the death of Dunn, only there was a picture on the man’s page that showed him drinking prior to the accident.  This is what Ebert latched on to when he suggested that “Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive.” Cautionary tweet?  Sure.  In good taste?  Probably not.  Even worse because it may not be true?  Tragically so.

But, again, was it something that should have been tweeted out or left to a private twitter and/or Facebook account?  What do you think?

So, yes, the group given the authority to oversee how the internet is developed has decided to loosen the shackles a bit and allow for some flexibility in domain names.  In their eyes, it’s a way to usher in another age of the internet that will spawn creativity and inspiration.  Okay, it’s a bit of blah blah blah, I think, and here’s why.

If you’re fortunate enough to own a business and it’s done well over the years, chances are you’ve had a website built.  Fair to say, right?  So when you hired someone to build that site or you’ve taken a hand in it yourself, you’ve looked at and purchased domain names so that nobody else can use your name.  For instance, if your business is called My Daddy Magnet, then you most likely bought MyDaddyMagnet.com and MyDaddyMagnet.net for starters.  You might even have purchased MyMagnetDaddy.com just in case somebody got it backwards.  Then, with a simple 301 redirect, they would be pointed to your site anyway.  And perhaps you also bought another 5 versions of the name that might be typed in just so that people will still find you.

Now, let’s say your business developed the nickname MDM over the years.  Now comes along the opportunity for people to petition for new domains and MDM would be one you could apply for.  MyDaddyMagnet.MDM…only because the floodgates have been opened and maybe you waited a month or two before applying, someone went in and purchased that domain.  You would theoretically have to buy back a domain that should be yours.  Could you fight it?  Of course.  Is it worth the court costs?  It really depends.  Is it right that people out there will do that to you in the first place?  Nope, not at all, but it happens every day.

Now, will these folks go after companies like Pepsi where a domain could become Generation.Pepsi?  They could, but they’ll lose.  There’s some give and take with that because while they’ll lose against the bigger companies, they will set their sights on yours.  There’s money to be made in this sort of thing and it will be.  We’ve see it happen with potential clients here at Trademark.

So keep your eyes peeled, consider whether or not you want to register for a new domain extension and be sure to purchase those domains early!  If you don’t, chances are someone else will and it’ll be a mad free-for-all.

Rather than continue to go after books in the US–since folks here put up a fight–Google has turned its attention to the UK.  US…UK…it still has a U in it, so it’s got to be making them feel like they’re winning half the battle.  They are now in the process of scanning in 250,000 novels, pamphlets and periodicals between the years 1700 and 1870.  Humanitarian cause?  Desire to look like the good guy by assisting in the preservation of works?  Or a stepping stone towards an all out assault on published works, copyrighted or not?  Considering that Google has partnered with 40 libraries on the same kind of venture, I’m going to go with the third option.  It’s getting their foot in the door to further do as they please.

Nobody tells Google “no.” It’s really only a matter of time before they get what they want with Facebook, too.  And Bing will surely suffer the consequences in some way for ever having challenged the search engine giant.  Sure, it may sound a little paranoid, but it doesn’t mean I’m not right.  Remember, Google did offer to curb scanning in books that were copyrighted during the previous lawsuit.  Er…no, actually they didn’t.  They were going to scan them in anyway and leave it to authors to police their system for them.  Because that’s how it should work.

On an interesting note, Google is paying to digitize these books and make them available.  This can go one of a couple of ways here.  Does it make sense to invest money scanning books in and make them available for free?  I’m trying to see the upside for the company here, especially since it’s a substantial investment.  Or, will they eventually start looking for a way to charge for some of the books in order to make back on their investment?  And, if so, will they then have captured a huge percentage of the world’s literary catalog, thereby allowing them to control it however they like?

Lots of questions here and no forthcoming answers.  As a reader, I’m intrigued to be able to explore some of these works if they are indeed kept free for us to read.  As a writer, I’m terrified at what could come and how much control an entity like Google could potentially amount compared to what they’ve already achieved.

It’s also an amazing way to get more business. Therefore, we owe it to ourselves to take it seriously. This is not a fad.

There is a bit of a cancer in this industry though, in the form of self-titled “Social Media Experts” who have demonstrated success in some niche or another—whether it be in a single industry or on their own personal blogs—and figure they have what it takes to sell the snake oil to others. It’s the .com boom all over again (PS: The bust is coming, but that’s another blog post for another day).

How, then, does a company who wants to engage in this space and get their message out to more people using these new tools know who to turn to for advice?

Nerds vs Jocks?

I’ve found that there is a line in the sand in the social media world. On one side you have people who come from traditional PR or marketing backgrounds, and who know how to write well, talk to people, form a message, and get the word out. On the other, you have the technologists—people who know the tools in and out, know the ebb and flow of the internet’s whims and cultures, and who are always on top of the trends.

One would think that true success can be found somewhere in the middle, then. That’s partially true, but the thing we have to take into consideration is the fact that social media exists on the cutting edge of technology. Not the cutting edge of marketing, PR, or writing. Therefore, I believe that true success can only be achieved by being a techie.

I have a lot of friends with traditional PR/Marketing backgrounds, and I know this is going to irk them, so please allow me to explain.

A person who doesn’t have technical skills is always running into frustrations and roadblocks that they have to call in outside help for—whether it be IT or the support line for a software product or going to Google to search for “how do I…” This takes a lot of time and saps efficiency; an especially poignant point when you consider how fast this world moves and how real-time social media can be.

Let me give a real world example that happened here at Trademark:

I noticed a glaring problem with our blog; our commenting system isn’t that great. You can’t reply to an individual comment and commenters are not notified when someone else posts. That makes conversation basically impossible, and encourages a “come once, post, and leave” mentality. I wanted to fix that.

I saw a great commenting system on SpinSucks the other day. I posted a comment and was enamored with the richness of the conversation. 173 comments, people arguing and discussing, and just a great deal of activity. It’s called Livefyre, and I wanted it immediately. I’m convinced that the commenting system was partially responsible for the great conversation (yeah, and the great content didn’t hurt either…)

Always bet on the nerds

See, now here’s why I’m lucky: I work at a web development company, which means that it’s full of techies. Everybody here is extremely skilled in a variety of tech disciplines. That enables us to implement technology to get things done in a very quick fashion. We’ll very likely have Livefyre up in a day or two. This will be a massive improvement in our blog system, it will empower conversations, and it will be good for business.

Now, I can recall working at other places in the past, where implementing platform changes was an onerous and foot-dragging process. First, I would have to make a case for the tool. I’d have to write a proposal explaining why I think it would be helpful. Then I would have to explain how it would fit in to our sites. Then I’d have to get approval. Then I’d have to start a conversation with our contract, off-site IT person. Then … you get the idea.

So many steps, and any one of them would put a standstill to the project if something broke down; and you know how these things go—something always breaks down.

Of course, this is not just a tech thing, it’s a culture thing. But still, having the tech equation “out of the way” means that I don’t have to explain this tool and why it’s a good thing to everyone. They spent the same five minutes I did looking at it, checking out the demo, and immediately understanding why this would be helpful—because we’re all techies. We just know how this stuff works.

Having developers in your pocket is pure gold, of course; you need a change implemented and they can make it happen without having to bring in anyone.

Ya kinda gotta be a nerd

When people think of “social media” they usually assume “Oh, that means you use Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and stuff to spread your message and talk to people.” What they never seem to remember is that you need a solid infrastructure to make those things work for you—you need lots of technology to create video, lots of technology to have a solid blog that works well, and so on.

Even using the basic tools becomes more efficient if you’re a techie. Crashes, speed issues, bugs, and other things can make non-techies throw their hands up in the air and say “Ugh, why won’t this just work?”. Techies know how to fix things, and if they don’t, they know where to go to find out how.

If you’re doing social media and you don’t have a strong tech background, it’s time to embrace your inner geek. Shrug off the last vestiges of your reluctance, get a book on the TCP/IP stack, learn how to say “Hello World” in Ruby or Python, learn how to hack a WordPress plugin with PHP. These are not bonus skills in today’s social media world. I believe that when the bust happens, those of us who have the tech skills will be the ones to survive it.

True or False?

TRUE. One client who I won’t name came in a few months ago and after I was introduced, calmly told me “I want you to write about the business, but not say anything about the business.” I believe my eyebrow automatically rose in a Spock-like arch, only he kept speaking before I could express the first of many thoughts of dismay. “I also want you to write about me, but I don’t want you to say anything about me.”

My lip quivered, my eyes narrowed and some very colorful metaphors interspersed within questions started to escape. That’s when Dwight—who was sitting next to me—muttered “DON’T say it!” I wanted to say it. I pretty much did say it, only after the client left.

Write about the company and the owner, but don’t say anything about either? Really? It made sense to the client and it was expected that I should have found it to make an equal amount of sense, only it really didn’t. Developers are used to working with things that make sense and when they don’t, it’s because there’s a very logical reason. Writers are used to working with somewhat illogical things that make very logical sense by the time we’re done with. Completely illogical things rarely make sense.

So, please, if you’re a potential client, come prepared to speak about your content in terms that actually make sense. Content writers aren’t mind readers. We just want you to think we are because we produce brilliant results! At least we think they’re brilliant.

However, he fat-fingered his phone or something, and the Tweet went out on the @ChryslerAutos main corporate account. Ouch.

No big deal, right? It was an accident, we’re all human, it happens.

But in the world of social media, the news spread quickly. NMS was fired by Chrysler and it got talked about for weeks afterwards. In the Detroit social media scene, it was the topic of a special gathering of local social media businesspeople, and Chrysler had reps on hand to discuss it. It was, for lack of a better term, a Big Deal™. No matter what side of the debate you fall on, the end result was: NMS lost a client because of a simple mistake on Twitter.

Well friends, it has happened again, but the details are slightly different.

A few days ago, a major video game release came out. Called “Duke Nukem Forever”, the game had a lot of history (the story is long and interesting, but a summary is that it was supposed to have come out ten years ago and it’s been an amazingly fractious development process. There is a lot of emotion involved). The game was published by a company called 2K Games and represented on the PR side by a one-man PR firm called The Redner Group.

As reviews for the game started pouring in, they were almost universally bad. After ten years of development, one of the most hotly anticipated video games of all time was getting torn to shreds in reviews. Jim Redner didn’t like that. He was invested in this title, 2K Games was his biggest client, and his big game was getting panned. He got pissed, and unfortunately for him, he took it to Twitter.

He said a bunch of things, but the thing that got him into trouble was this: He said that based on the bad reviews, he would be re-evaluating who gets review copies of games in the future. In the gaming PR industry, this is called “blacklisting”, and it’s not supposed to happen (though it does).

2K Games, Redner’s client, did not like that. At all. They fired him almost immediately.

Now we’re left with the discussion and debate amongst PR, Social Media, and game media. Was Redner fired fairly? Did he screw up that bad? Should he be strung up? The opinions are all over the map.

Just like the Chrysler F-bomb: Regardless of where you stand, the end result is that a man lost a big client yesterday. Hit him directly in the pocketbook. If he hadn’t Tweeted what he did, he may still have a job today.

Right or wrong, keep that in mind when you Tweet on behalf of a business.

Photo Credit: Anthony Kelly on Flickr

This is a horrible thing to admit, but I prefer to order my pizza over the internet so that I don’t have to talk to someone on the phone. This way, if something gets screwed up, I have proof in my hand in the form of a printed out order that they didn’t read it correctly. See? I’m a horrible person for it. But Domino’s Pizza has gone one step further and created an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. With it, users can access the company’s menu, find a location and track the stages of their order from the time it goes into the oven until it arrives at their doorstep. That’s a little too much information even for me, but they’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty with this app and given their competition something to think about.

On a state-wide front, a group calling themselves the Mobile Technology Association of Michigan is promoting a mobile apps section of their website focusing on Made in Michigan. It allows Michigan developers to showcase their work in an effort to gain some national attention. Many Michigan businesses, both big—like Domino’s—and small, have been making huge strides in the app area, but haven’t always been able to get much of a spotlight on them because so many of them are independent.

Personally, I like the idea that someone is promoting Michigan companies or technology advancements considering the current economic climate here. And while I’m not a huge app person myself—I believe phones should be used for making calls, not checking e-mail or looking something up on the internet—if it helps the rest of the nation see we have something to offer, fantastic! It may also be a new area of Trademark Productions we didn’t anticipate so much interest in.

Do you use apps? Any favorites? Or are you old and stodgy like myself and not bother with them?

The rationale for Twitter follower counts goes something like this: “If I can get 10,000 followers on Twitter, that means my message can be seen by 10,000 eyeballs when I tweet.”

That sounds really excellent; free advertising to 10,000 eyeballs? There are newspapers that don’t get that much circulation, right?

The fallacy is: The majority of the time, those 10,000 followers are not eyeballs. Many of them are very likely not even people. Twitter is rife with spam accounts (ironically, most of the spam accounts exist because of shady social media ‘experts’ who have pools of fake Twitter accounts they can sell to customers).

Facebook is slightly different because Facebook is a bit harder on spam accounts (but not much). The problem with Facebook “Likes” is that while you may be able to get people to “Like” you on Facebook, they tend to hide company Facebook profiles from their feeds—meaning they’ll never see your messages. The reason many people “Like” on Facebook is to get something (Like us and get a coupon, etc.). They engage once (when they “Like”) and then tend to not come back. Think of the way you personally engage with companies on Facebook. You probably don’t visit a company Facebook page on a daily basis, even if you’re a big fan.

Despite all this, there is definitely value in having Twitter followers and Facebook fans. The question becomes: How do we sort through them all and separate the good from the bad?

It can be frustrating, to be sure. That’s where companies like Klout and PeerIndex fit in.

What's your Klout?

Social Credit Score

Klout and PeerIndex are services that attempt to assign a digestible, easily communicable score to a person. Think of it as a social media credit score—they take a variety of factors into account and summarize it with a single number.

While neither company makes their algorithm public, we can assume a few things: They’ll look at your followers, attempt to discern how legitimate they are, look at the way you engage (Do you do nothing but post links to your own site? Do you ever retweet anyone? Do you “talk” or simply sell?). They’ll also look at things like how much history you’ve had on the network, how many people talk to you, and how you use the service’s other features such as lists.

They aggregate your presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (Klout just started including LinkedIn yesterday, actually). and come up with a score as well as attempt to categorize you in a variety of ways. By this method, people who check your score can find out how genuine you are and what topics you are an influencer in.

The method is not perfect; not by a longshot—it can be gamed. However, if you are savvy enough to game your score, you have influence and expertise in your own sort of way and the question becomes: do you even need to game it or is that genuine influence? I digress.

However, despite its imperfections, these types of social aggregates are currently the most useful method of discerning the effectiveness and influence of a particular person.

What is Klout good for?

So what good is it knowing that someone has a higher Klout or PeerIndex than another? Klout is using this information in very creative ways. They can connect brands with top influencers in particular categories. For example: a company like HP may want to connect with tech influencers and offer them review products in exchange for blog posts. How does HP find those people? Klout can easily hand them that information. Klout has started handing out “perks” which allow brands to reward influencers in a fair and transparent manner.

This is good for influencers in that they get rewards (of course, most of the time it is implied that these rewards are in exchange for good content), and it’s good for brands who can get their products and messages into the hands of people who will spread their message appropriately.

That’s fine for bloggers, but if you’re a business owner, how does having a good Klout score get customers to walk through the front door?

If you have a high Klout or PeerIndex, people will notice you. When they notice you, they’ll talk about you. When they talk about you, people walk in. Therefore, seeking out ways to genuinely increase your Klout and PeerIndex scores is a valid social media strategy.

As social media evolves, there will continue to be an evolution of ways to measure effectiveness and influence. Klout and PeerIndex are on the cutting edge of that world, and it’s important to at least be familiar with them.

Apparently, a 29-year-old woman has been going through a rough divorce, so she created a fake Facebook profile of a 17-year-old girl named “Jessica Studebaker.” The woman intentionally created the profile to try and find some dirty little secrets from her soon-to-be ex-husband.

Angela Voelkert disguised herself as “Jessica” and started to interact with her 38-year-old husband, David. Turns out, Angela may have stopped her own murder from happening!

According to various reports, David was messaging “Jessica” and asking the fake girl to run away with him and then he told her he had already installed a GPS tracking system within his wife’s vehicle. He later to go on and tell “Jessica” that it would be much easier if his wife “was out of the picture.”

Voelkert started to show these messages to the proper authorities and she believed she provided them with enough information to put her husband in prison for a very long time. Unfortunately for her, David was able to convince prosecutors that he knew the “Jessica” account was a fake the whole time. In the end, the charges on David were all dropped.

Below are a few examples of the Facebook messages, which were included in the court’s documents:

“Once she is gone, I don’t have to hide with my kids…I can do what I want and not have to worry about not seeing my family anymore. You should find someone at your school. There should be some gang-bangers there that would put a cap in her ass for $10,000. I am done with her crap!”

“Will you be ready to go with me on the 10th? Let me know, baby!”

To close, the main thing you need to take from this blog post is that if you are in the middle of a divorce, stay away from using social media…obviously only bad things can come from it.

Startup Health is an effort in which Levin will be one of the leading chairs of the organization. This movement plans to partner with another organization, which Case serves on as a chair as well, called Startup America. Startup Health has full support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and they hosted the organizations launch announcement last Thursday.

According to a spokesperson of Startup Health, the plan is to begin by tackling their first goal of creating conversations around innovative ideas for healthcare startups. The organization plans to begin a series of brainstorming sessions with investors, entrepreneurs and related organizations on July 13.

CEO of OrganizedWisdom, Steven Krein plans to help by opening their API to health entrepreneurs internally and externally outside of the program. “It’s about getting developers and investors to start putting their talent and money into this space in ways that will help us live healthier lives,” says Krein.

What do you think about two very successful former CEO’s working together to try and improve the well-being of people’s health? Do you think this initiative will be successful or will it fall to the wayside? What type of innovative healthcare ideas would you recommend to Startup Health?

Give Away a Gift

Everyone loves to receive free stuff; I mean who complains about receiving free gifts? Many organizations will give away something small like a cupcake, a gift card for 10% off a product, gas cards, etc. Other organizations try very creative tactics by assembling scavenger hunts, trivia questions and various other means. Basically, give your followers an incentive to become one of your followers. Just like the old clichè goes, you need to spend money to make money.

Feed Them Knowledge

Now, I will personally admit I am a trivia junkie. Yes…I have a problem. I DVR Jeopardy and I usually go out for trivia night once a week at a local watering hole. When it comes to Twitter, trivia and product knowledge can be a great way to generate positive engagement amongst your audience.

Trivia is fun, but it can’t become receptive or some people may start to find it somewhat annoying. Instead, mix it up a little bit. Every once in a while throw a trivia question out there about your products/brand. Also, offer product knowledge and information pertaining to your organization and the industry which you work in. We do this very often here at the TM Office, with our Twitter and Facebook pages, and they have been proven to spark conversations with our audience.

Put a Smile on Their Face

We can’t be all serious every waking minute of the day; we need to laugh every now and again. Some organizations steer away from this tactic because of the professional nature of their business. This is completely understandable, but you don’t won’t to come off as an uptight and unapproachable individual. For example, let’s say you are a lawyer who uses a Twitter page to find prospective clients and inform the world about your practice. Now think about a major news story that is currently flooding the papers. How about Rep Anthony Weiner, you could say something along the lines of “I’m not going to lie, but I couldn’t even help Weiner get out of the hole he’s in.” I understand that post is a little bit racy, but people will find it funny and that could just spark people spreading word about your practice through word of mouth.

In the end, use your Twitter pages to actively engage in conversations with your audience. The more you keep them involved in the Twitter world, the more likely they’ll purchase your products as a loyal customer. They are your followers, but they want to be known as your friends. If you treat them as you treat your friends, only good things will come.

Glenn Beck is most commonly known for his television program on the FOX News channel, which he vibrantly expresses his personal political opinions. Back in April, Beck announced that he would be leaving FOX. This could have been connected to the fact that Beck’s viewership fell from 3 million viewers in January 2010 to 1.6 million viewers in the beginning of 2011. Or maybe he decided to leave the network because more than 100 marketers dropped their advertisements from his show. Whatever the reason, it hasn’t stopped Beck from creating his very own online network called GBTV.

TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE: Whether you love him, or you hate him, Glenn Beck is not going to disappear anytime soon. GBTV went live this past Tuesday, and starting on September 12, Beck plans to start airing a daily two-hour program.

“The confines of traditional media no longer apply. GBTV is getting active in the community, participating in stores, and finding new ways to deliver news, information and entertainment directly to the audience,” said Beck.

GBTV will not be a free service either. The Internet TV channel will charge customers $4.95 a month to receive access to Beck’s two-hour program. People can also upgrade to GBTV plus, which will give customers access to everything on the GBTV website.

According to Beck, there will be entertainment available for people from all walks of life, even for the people who can’t stand Beck.

So what do you think about Glenn Beck’s decision to start his own Internet TV station? Do you like Glenn Beck or are you annoyed that he won’t go away? Let us know, we’d love to hear how you feel about this particular matter.

HP is doing things a little untraditional with their philanthropy efforts. HP isn’t satisfied with just writing a check and sending it off to an organization/cause in need. No, instead HP wants to make a huge difference on an international scale. They plan to do this by working to improve the infrastructure of many non-profit organizations and to increase the reach of certain non-profits.

HP’s most recent campaigns involve a major focus on detecting malaria and fake drugs in Africa. According to an article written by Zachary Sniderman of Mashable.com, “HP partnered with Ping to equip workers in Botswana with smartphones to collect malaria data, notify the Ministry of Health about outbreaks, and tag data and disease surveillance with a GPS coordinate.”

If HP’s campaign turns out to be successful, the information received will create a geographical map of how the disease is being transmitted, so the appropriate country will be able to speed up the time to work on ridding out malaria outbreaks.

HP has also worked with a non-profit organization out of Ghana called mPedigree to try to rid Africa of counterfeit drugs. HP used their own technology to develop scratch-off codes to be put on the labels of medication. Once the code is scratched off, buyers can text the code and find out within 10 seconds if the medication is real or fake.

The last “social good campaign” HP is developing is a health monitoring system in Singapore. HP developed a system in which 100 patients within Singapore hospitals will wear wristbands for eight weeks. These wristbands have the technology to transmit data wirelessly back to the hospital with information regarding such things as blood pressure and heart readings.

HP has come up with an innovative idea, which will do a vast amount of good for people in need. What do you think of HP’s philanthropic advancements? Do you think other major tech organizations will throw their hats in these “social good campaigns?” Let us know your thoughts; we always love to hear your input.

Well, if you did…we were both wrong! Soccer/Football was the number one Twitter topic for May 2011. I honestly don’t get it. I understand that soccer is the most popular international sport and I also understand the soccer playoffs must have contributed to the increase in Twitter traffic. But I still can’t believe that Twitter conversations about soccer are more important than the death of Bin Laden!

Apparently…I was wrong. According to statistics from Mashable.com, soccer/football was not the only topic more popular than the death of bin Laden. Justin Bieber was an even more popular topic!

Are you kidding me? The world’s most dangerous, evil and craziest terrorist is finally dead after spending 10 years trying to find him, but more people are interested in the way Bieber styled his hair on a given day? Again, I don’t get it, but at the same time, I’m not a Bieber fan and I don’t have Bieber Fever, so that could be a good reason why I don’t get it.

Please look below at a complete list of the top 10 Twitter topics for May 2011:

1. Soccer/Football
2. Justin Bieber
3. Osama bin Laden
4. May21st/The Rapture
5. Lady Gaga
6. Mother’s Day
7. NBA Playoffs
8. Jonas Brothers
9. Super Junior
10. The Vampire Diaries

Leave us some comments on your opinion of the top 10 Twitter topics for May 2011. What topics do you think should have been on the list, but didn’t make the cut?

This brings us to the latest Twitter controversy involving Democrat New York Rep. Anthony Weiner. If you haven’t been paying attention to the news in the last week or two, then you probably haven’t heard about Weiner’s wiener. Here’s the scoop. Earlier last week, a young female college student received a tweet from Weiner containing a picture of a man’s waist in his underwear…showing off a massive bulge. Needless to say, the media has been having a riot with this story.

Weiner completely denies sending the picture through his Twitter account and claims that it must have been a hacker who sent out the photo.

“This is a circumstance where someone committed a prank on the Internet…I didn’t send [that] picture out,” said Weiner.

The thing about this story, which is still pretty fishy to me, is the fact he isn’t denying that the picture is a picture of…um…well…the outline of his manhood! He constantly states he didn’t post or send the picture out, but according to Weiner himself, he “can’t say with certitude” that the waist-down picture showing off a male’s private member is his or not.

Later, Weiner was asked by a reporter for a reason why he didn’t notify Capitol Police to investigate the alleged hacking. Weiner said “I’m not sure I want to put national, federal resources into trying to figure out who posted a picture on Weiner’s website, uh, whatever. I’m not really sure it rises, no pun intended, to that level.”

People continued to blast Weiner with his questionable activity of not hiring someone to investigate the alleged scandal. So, Weiner finally decided to hire a private security firm to investigate. When asked why Weiner didn’t request a police probe he said “if it turns out there’s something larger here, we’ll take the requisite steps.”

So what do you think? Do you think he sent out the picture to the young college female student or do you think this was all a hoax put together by a devious hacker? Do you think Weiner has been handling the press properly or is his ways of including humor into his responses only hurting him in the long run? Let us know what you think; this is definitely a funny story we would love to chat with you about!

————————–

At the time I first wrote this, Weiner hadn’t admitted to anything yet and the blog post went live this morning.  However he admitted sending the pictures out.  So, in light of this, do we believe the sincerity of his apology? And do we believe like Jon Stewart does that it’s really Weiner’s wiener?  My bologna has a first name…it’s A-N-T-H-O-N-Y…

First, you want to make sure you manage your time properly so you don’t fall behind in your daily tasks. Friends and family respect your work schedule when you work out of an office, but once you start working from home, you’ll start to notice the 1:00 p.m. phone call from friends starts to become more popular. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t answer the phone or even wait around the house for the plumber to show up. You just need to make sure you manage this time properly so you can get all the work done that is expected from you on a given day.

Next, try to assign yourself some strict deadlines. Many people work better under strict timelines and most people associate this productivity to working well under pressure. Other professionals believe this phenomenon is related to Parkinson’s Law, which basically means people will have to expand tasks to fill the time which the individual is provided. So take this idea and integrate it into your own style of deadline setting.

For people at home, Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only things that gets people distracted from their work. Believe it or not, IMs and emails being exchanged from colleagues throughout the workday contributes to a huge chunk of wasted time. So try to dedicate a couple of hours to turn-off your phone, log out of your Facebook and IM accounts and focus on work. Trust me, the messages and posts will be there when you log back in.

Another good thing is to try and separate your at-home workspace from everything else within the house. Ideally, you should try and get a room with a door to block out all the noise and distractions. This will help you to become a more productive employee and manage your chances of becoming distracted.

If you find yourself burnt out on a particular task, change your work environment. Head to a coffee shop, brainstorm at a local park or go to a place where you can feel calm and relaxed. You’ll be surprised at how productive you’ll be once you change your scenery.

Finally, make sure your breaks are spent well. We all know breaks are important throughout the workday, but for people working at home, try to not always spend your break time being lazy on the couch watching TV. This will not recharge your brain, which is the primary reason to take a break in the first place. Instead, try and take the dog for a walk, go out for an actual lunch or meet a friend for a coffee. Not only will you find yourself in a better mood, you’ll also start to notice that your work itself is improving.

For everyone that works from home, did this mini guide help you? Let us know what types of things you do to make sure you are working productively from home?

TRUE OR FALSE?

TRUE: Earlier this week, Twitter launched its brand new Follow button. This button gives Internet users the ability to subscribe to organizations and people’s Twitter feed by just a single click of the mouse.

Originally, when you would click the “follow” button for Twitter, the webmaster would have you redirected to the appropriate account on Twitter itself. This new Follow feature is sure to spark the word “incentive” within the minds of website publishers. This is primarily because the new button won’t redirect a user away from their website. Great move by Twitter to get the webmasters of the world on their side if I do say so myself!

If any of our friends out there wish to add the new button to their website, just click this link.

Just as they did in John Carpenter’s They Live, spammers have come to mimic everybody else. They look like your hot next door neighbor—not mine…mine are…well, ick—and they interact with people. Well, sort of. One thing I’m seeing in terms of spammers starts with their direct messages to me. They either thank me for following them and direct me to a site—which I don’t click on—direct message me and act like they’re picking up on a conversation that hasn’t taken place while directing me to a site—which I don’t click on—or use a hash tag in a tweet with my name that makes me think we’ve interacted while also directing me to a site. And I don’t click on it. Either way, I don’t click on it and while I’m prone to wanting to simply ignore those kinds of messages, I’ll actually get curious and click on their profile for a closer look.

Their profile is usually decently written and their picture legitimate looking, so the proof in the pudding is actually in their tweets. It looks like there’s interaction because of all the hash tags, but it’s not. Not really. Nobody is responding to them and if they are, it’s typically another spammer’s computer. The messages are also all business and very little personality. Any profile I see with a tweet history like that is automatically unfollowed and blacklisted—yes, I keep a list.

Some of them are advancing even beyond this. I received a reply to a tweet I sent out and the response seemed genuine, so I responded back. The next response had nothing to do, really, with mine, so I questioned it. “What does that have to do with my reply?” The message that came back suggested confusion at what I’d said and asked if I could rephrase it so that it was more easily understood. Yes, I was talking to a computer that was sending out random responses meant to engage people, only if it didn’t understand something, it queried the person. Buggars!

There’s no real easy way to rid yourself of this kind of garbage, but I do have a few suggestions. I take 5-10 minutes a day and just read (at random times) tweets and if I see this kind of “do you want more followers?,” “want more money?” or, my favorite, “want to please her more?”—pal, know your audience here because it’s never going to happen—I unfollow them and don’t feel the least bit bad about it. Then, during the weekend, I’ll go through my latest followers, click on their profiles and see if anything is amiss. If it is? Sayonara!

How do you tame these temptresses of the Twitter tweets?

There is no reason why a site like that shouldn’t exist and Stampede.it is the first digital-products-focused group buying website (wow, that was a mouthful). The site was launched late last week and the plan for Stampede.it is to offer one deal every two to three days in the beginning of their launch. Their first deal is a $20 credit for the game tournament website SkillAddiction.com. If 15 people purchase the deal, then the credit will cost $15. If 50-100 people purchase the deal, then the credit will cost only $10

This has promise of being successful, primarily because there is an incentive being offered to a large audience. This model has been proven to be successful in the past and present. Groupon is a great example of successful online incentive programs, because they offer a $10 credit for every user who refers a new user to Groupon. The other big thing Stampede.it has going for themselves is the fact that they are the first website launching this idea…innovation always has the possibility of changing the way people live their lives, especially pertaining to purchasing habits.

What do you think? Do you think Stampede.it will be successful or crash to bits? Do you think the idea behind the site is creative? Let us know how you feel about this site, we love everyone’s opinion!

A new start-up called Social Flights is helping their members to join and book flights on private jets at affordable prices!

What the members of Social Flights need to do is organize with other members—who have the same interests—in groups called Travel Tribes. Then members can use the service to coordinate around destinations and also request and book private charter flights together.

These flights can be designed for a long trip, but they are even better for quick flights. According to the Social Flights website, short flights can run as low as $150 for a fully-booked jet (depending on the location).

This is a great opportunity to save a little bit of money, but still treat yourself like a celebrity. According to Social Flights website “you park in front of the private facility, walk onto your aircraft, fly directly to your destination with people you know, sign for your rental car and get on your way. No stress. No hassle.”

This is a pretty new company, which just launched this past February. So far, Social Flights has helped their members’ charter 15 flights. The organization currently has roughly about 4,000 members, with 1,000 of those members being a part of a Travel Tribe.

What do you think about Social Flights? Is this something you could see yourself participating in?

TRUE or FALSE?

FALSE: Launched on May 17, 2011 Zaarly is a brand new app that gives people an innovative platform to find and post odd jobs. The request could be something as simple as “bring me a bag of chips” or something more detailed like “I need someone to install my hardwood flooring.” People who download the free app can post the jobs they need done and also how much they are willing to pay to have the job done.

“We have a shot to foster a behavior people have always wanted to do,” said Zaarly co-founder Bo Fishback. Fishback raised more than $1 million to launch the Zaarly service.

There is some criticism to the app, which Fishback admits may scare people a little bit. Basically this service arranges for people to meet in-person, ironically without revealing their identities. This service has no usernames or profile photos, but the two parties can call, text and even pay each other through the Zaarly platform. Zaarly does take certain precautions to make sure they filter and block unreasonable requests and they track all users’ task completion history.

So what do you think about the new Zaarly app? Is this an app you think you’ll end up downloading, or do you think you’ll stick to the traditional ways of getting odd jobs done?

First, you as an individual need to make an effort to get a better understanding of your daily consumption habits and how they effect the world around you. If you were supporting eco-friendly practices, this is the time when you make sure to start purchasing more eco-friendly products and become more of a socially responsible shopper. This is a good time to use tools like the Internet to research products and organizations and their tendencies as they relate to a cause you are working to support.

Next, you should start to engage in conversations with organizations/causes through their social media pages. Join causes and non-profit groups which will keep you involved with the specific cause/movement you are trying to promote. This will help you to learn about organizations that make practice actions of a cause you are working to promote.

Now, normally you’ll start to promote the positive things about the brand, cause, etc. that you are trying to become affiliated with. You will start to find yourself commenting and badmouthing organizations which don’t follow the standards of the cause you are working to support. This is also the same time you’ll normally spread positive word-of-mouth comments about the cause to your friends and through social networks.

Then, you will start to push specific brands/organizations a lot more through social media pages. You may start to film videos or write blogs about specific brands/organizations that are sympathetic to the cause you are supporting and actively try to spread the word about. You will also start to “Like” or “Recommend” certain articles, brands, products, etc., through social media pages. This is the stage when you have started to establish yourself as a loud voice for a specific cause.

Now, you’re becoming somewhat of an expert on the cause and you begin to provide people with statistics and your opinions. You may decide to share this in a variety of ways. Possibly through interviews, webinars, books, blogs and tweets.

On the next level, you are calling out to the public for supporters. This is the time when you try to organize with other people to establish a community with the same ideals working towards the same goal.

In the final stage of this process, you need to start working with other organizations and coordinate events collectively. This will help you to disseminate large amounts of information to multiple audiences with the same interests.

In the end, you are trying to establish a large community with a collective message to be used under a single plan which will have a big effect on making a change.

Beginning

In the beginning of your social media campaign don’t think about advertising efforts and ROI. This is not necessarily the time to start messaging an audience or a time to start positioning your social media audience. This is the time for users to establish what type of social media page you’ll create for your audience. Customers are always going to come back to something they are interested in.

Facebook started by simply giving people a place to share information with friends. This model has remained the same for Facebook, but has evolved greatly since the beginning and now you can even do your shopping through Facebook. You need to think like Facebook and give your audience something simple to expand on.

Community

Most social media communities, like Facebook, are extensions of what happens in our everyday life. Your online community relationships should imitate the positive interactions you’ve formed through your organization. If a number of your connections are established at trade expos, then start to construct conversations and questions you would generally hear at a trade expo.

Keep it Short and Sweet

Facebook’s News Feed does a great job of disseminating information to its users. You need to remember, people just glance through the News Feed until they find something they are interested in. If your posts are long and detailed, more times than not, they’ll just skim past your posting.

These are just three principles to always keep in mind. Many organizations come right out of the gate running and fail soon thereafter. If you follow these three examples, you’ll be on the right path to social media engagement success.

Late last week, Google announced that it would release its controversial Social Search feature in more than 15 different languages this week. Google’s Social Search was originally launched in October of 2009. This is somewhat like the social search engine Bing has just integrated through Facebook. What Google’s Social Search does is mix regular search results with publicly available results created by your “friends’” social media tendencies.

Why is Google’s Social Search so controversial and Bing’s isn’t, you ask? Well, let’s take a look at how Google actually defines “friends” as it pertains to you, the user. According to Google, your Google Talk friends list, your Google contacts, people following you on Google Reader and buzz and other numerous networks you have linked to your Google account are all qualified as “friends.” Then it starts to get even worse. Not only does Google have a loose definition of your “friends,” but it also has the ability to find your friends on public networks like Facebook and Twitter. This is where we get to the part when Google has made another enemy, and this time it’s with Facebook.

Facebook is absolutely livid with Google’s Social Search feature. Facebook states that what Google is doing right now raises “serious privacy concerns.” Facebook can’t believe that it is OK for Google to access any data from Facebook without direct permission from Facebook itself. Stay tuned to this battle, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Facebook and Google in the courtroom sometime in the near future.

Google was very quiet about this issue, up until a recent blog post from late last week. Within the blog post, Twitter is mentioned more than once and Facebook is not mentioned at all.

Social Search should be available now or sometime later this week. The upgrade will be available in 19 different languages.

So how do you think this fight is going to end? It seems almost as if Google has attacked Facebook more than they have attacked Bing. What are your thoughts on this issue? Stay tuned as we will continue to bring you the latest developments of this web battle.