Uploading a useful and well-crafted article on the Net without search engine optimization is like getting ready for your Oscar debut and remaining hidden in the closet. Unless your clients come to your house, peek inside the closet to find you and spread the word, the chances of you being seen are slim. The same [...]
Selected by seocopy
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Level 343 Articles
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Is Your SEO Campaign Missing Something?
5 Feb 2010 | 6:14 am -
Organic SEO and Tracking Your Social Networks
27 Jan 2010 | 7:25 amIt’s well into 2010. By now, we are all aware of what SEO means and what it can do for your business. As a small business, especially if you have less than ten employees, you need to learn the terms, embrace social network sites and learn your market. Just in case you’re not familiar with the [...] -
Grabbing Your Fair Catch of the Social Networking Market
15 Jan 2010 | 4:00 amIn 2010, many of the “Big Boys” will be spending the same or less on their paid placements in the search engine results. Bad News for Google, Yahoo, AOL and Bing, but equally bad news for small business owners who have skipped out on paying for ads from the beginning. Why is it bad news? Because [...] -
The Path to Google’s World Domination Is Covered In Free Applications
1 Jan 2010 | 4:00 amA few weeks ago, we published a blog about some of Google’s newest applications; a few days ago, we published a blog on Google’s Personalized and Real Time Searches. Now, as optimizers, we often pay more attention to things that effect how we do SEO instead of what else is going on. However, we came [...] -
10 Reasons You Should Join Social Networks in 2010
31 Dec 2009 | 4:00 amEveryday around the world, more and more people are joining social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Technorati etc… My question is why? It has been said that if you continue to do what you have always done, you are going to get what you’ve always been getting. In other words, you need to change business strategies and [...]
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SEO Theory Blog
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A real first assessment of Caffeine
5 Feb 2010 | 12:35 pmI have believed for a couple of weeks now that I am really seeing Caffeine in Google’s search results. That’s a hard statement to support since despite all the false reports circulating... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Offering SEO advice to Danny Sullivan
25 Jan 2010 | 3:07 pmSo I disagree with Danny Sullivan’s critique of Bill Gates’ new site. Danny’s very detailed post certainly offers a lot of basic SEO woodworking tips — unfortunately, he... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Why your SEO science lacks credibility
21 Jan 2010 | 3:36 pmI often type in random queries when I’m looking for good topics to write about. Today one of the queries I tested was “seo science”. A few people do search for “seo... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
2010 SEMMY Award Nominations
13 Jan 2010 | 12:52 pmI have been nominated for SEMMY awards in the past, but not on the scale of the nominations I received this year. I have always been somewhat aloof from popularity-based awards (including the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Steve Wiideman owns SEO Standards
4 Jan 2010 | 8:00 amUPDATE: See Steve’s comment below for his response to this article. I have struck out the “false claims” language, as that is no longer current. In a pretty brazen move that... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Neuromarketing
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Cookie Framing
9 Feb 2010 | 5:34 amYears ago, when The Tonight Show ruled late-night TV and when all the guests weren’t celebrities promoting their latest book, movie, or TV show, host Johnny Carson interviewed the Girl Scout who sold the most cookies that year. This young lady, Markita Andrews, set a cookie-sales record that has yet to be broken. [...] CommentsThe title of this post caught my eye immediately when it popped ... by Jon -
Post-Super Bowl Briefing
8 Feb 2010 | 6:36 amVery soon, we will be subjected to a variety of neuromarketing-based opinions on which Super Bowl 2010 ads worked, and which didn’t. While we are awaiting these analyses, I thought I’d point readers at a good article on one kind of neuromarketing study methodology by WIRED writer Alexis Madrigal. It’s accurate, largely devoid [...] CommentsHi Roger- Thanks for the post. You are correct that we are in ... by Ron Wright -
Neuromarketing Foes Use Subliminal Text?
2 Feb 2010 | 5:08 amYesterday I wrote about the latest anti-neuromarketing flap in Guard Your Reptilian Brain! While researching that post, I found an interesting spinoff at another site, Progressives, South Bend. I initially couldn’t find the text “neuromarketing” on that page. When I searched the page text, I found what looked like a short horizontal [...] CommentsGreat catch Roger. As someone very famous once said : Judgment ... by christophe morinhahaha, and I even mentioned subliminals in my comment ... by Sculptor?!?Plus 2 more... -
Guard Your Reptilian Brain!
1 Feb 2010 | 4:28 amEvery year or so, some fuzzy-thinking critic reads an article about neuromarketing, becomes extremely agitated, and tries to raise the alarm about marketers turning consumers into mind-controlled zombies. The latest push of the neuro-panic button began with an article on a site called Truthout (fresh out of truth, perhaps?). Truthout seems to be a [...] CommentsThe writers from Truthout are not fully aware that the ... by CindyLet's be fair. To those who don't understand something, it's ... by Brendon ClarkPlus 7 more... -
WIRED Throwing Biometric Super Bowl Party
29 Jan 2010 | 10:21 amEvery year, there is a burst of neuromarketing-related activity coinciding with the Super Bowl. After all, that game features commercials that people actually watch, and the cost of airing each ad is the highest of any program throughout the entire year. One staple of Super Bowl Sunday is the party – millions will [...] Comments*reposted to my blog* Thanks Roger! by CindyI am a fan of neuroscience and marketing and am glad that there ... by CindyPlus 2 more...
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Social Media Marketing Strategy, Tactics, and Tools
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How Comcast Approaches Social CRM
9 Feb 2010 | 12:28 amSince I’m speaking on the topic of Social CRM at the New Comm Forum in April, I decided to reach out to a few folks to get their ideas and impressions on what’s going on in the space. One of the people I reached out to was Frank Eliason from Comcast (many of you may know him on twitter as @comcastcares) to find out how they were approaching Social CRM. I chatted with Frank for over an hour and here’s what he had to say. Comcast monitors pretty much every social media channel that is relevant to them. In other words, they exist where their customer and conversations… -
Forrester to Analysts That Have Their Own Blogs: Umm, No
6 Feb 2010 | 3:23 pmAccording to Sage Circle, Forrester is telling all of their analysts that have their own personally branded research blogs that they must either take them down or re-direct them to the Forrester site. Apparently Forrester feels like they can provide more value to their clients if they aggregate all of the content into one space, that place of course being Forrester’s site. My favorite comment on this issue came from Dave McClure who said: “What is the downside for Forrester? Likely not much unless there is a big stink in the blogosphere…” Seriously, do you think that’s the… -
The Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0 Experience Continuum
4 Feb 2010 | 1:53 pmI’m a big fan of the work that Esteban Kolsky has been doing with Social CRM and he recently stated that he is going to be branching over towards the Enterprise 2.0 space. Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0 efforts need to work in conjunction with one another and that’s what this whole post is about. Dion Hinchliffe recently wrote an article stating that Social CRM is Ground Zero for Enterprise 2.0 and I couldn’t agree more. This is why I have been working with Esteban Kolsky on thinking through some of these ideas and developing frameworks around them. Esteban and I are… -
Introducing Social Business One
3 Feb 2010 | 12:50 amTowards the end of last year I was approached by Bob Thompson from Customer Think and Axel Schultze from the Social Media Academy to be a part of a new type of community that just debuted a few days ago called SocialBusinessOne. SBO was designed to be a home base for everything from Enterprise 2.0 to Social CRM (anything social business related). There are plenty of other sites such as The Social Customer, The Customer Collective, and Social Media Today that all aggregate content and build a community around their specific topics. However, none of the other sites have as strong of a… -
Don’t Forget About the Enterprise
2 Feb 2010 | 10:28 amYesterday I had the pleasure of writing another post for Marketing Profs which I hope will get more people to think about social media and collaboration WITHIN the enterprise. Here’s an excerpt from the article: “Oftentimes when we refer to social media we refer to how a brand can engage with customers or prospects to build relationships. These relationships are external facing; meaning brand to consumer, and are used for functions such as product development, customer service, increasing sales, and marketing. Through social media companies seek to understand and do things…
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SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog
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30 SEO Bookmarklets to Save You Time
8 Feb 2010 | 4:06 pmPosted by randfishWe all work hard at the SEO process - analyzing sites, gathering data, researching potential problems and identifying the solutions. Today's post is on how to work smarter and faster using bookmarklets for SEO. No matter your browser, these plug-and-play links will let you get your job done faster and easier, and look like a pro in front of bosses and clients. The list isn't completely comprehensive, but it covers 95%+ of the SEO data points I retrieve on a monthly basis and a few extras I don't personally use that may be valuable to others. It also has a section at the end… -
Personalization of Google Results Creates a Huge Advertising Opportunity
7 Feb 2010 | 4:55 pmPosted by randfishLike 150 million or so other folks, I spent today watching the Superbowl. As a marketer, it's hard not to pay close attention to the advertisements, and this year featured a heavy focus on sending viewers to the web. However, I was a bit surprised that we didn't see anything like 2007's Pontiac advertisement: At the end of the ad, Pontiac invites viewers to "Google" their brand to learn more. This seemed a bit odd in 2007, but today, it would have been a brilliant marketing move. Here's why: Personalized search is now on by default. This means that every… -
The Elements of an HTML Link
7 Feb 2010 | 1:02 pmPosted by RobOusbeyLinks. We often talk about why we want them and how to get them, but today I'd like to go back to basics and look at the constituent parts of the HTML code behind them. This is definitely a post for the new SEO, or web-developer looking to expand their experience, but even experienced search marketers may want to comment the nuances of some parts of the humble anchor tag's attributes. Here's a couple of example links; the first is a link to the White House's website, the other is to Distilled's new US website. Both links follow the same structure: an opening <a> tag… -
Testing How Crawl Priority Works
5 Feb 2010 | 4:38 amPosted by mgaleckiThis post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.A SHORT INTRODUCTION... We all know that the search engine robots more frequently visit popular pages, i.e. those that have the largest number of incoming links, both internal and external ones. The architecture of a website is usually correlated with the popularity of these pages expressed by number of backlinks: Home page has the most backlinks, 1st… -
Whiteboard Friday - Choosing an SEO Consultant
4 Feb 2010 | 1:57 pmPosted by great scott!Will Critchlow of Distilled (who recently took over SEOmoz's consulting business) is back in Whiteboard studios to help Rand discuss how to Choose an SEO consultant--or any consultant for that matter. Whether you're a consultant yourself, you frequently work with consultants, or you're thinking of outsourcing some work for the very first time, you'll find this week's video worthwhile. Knowing beforehand how the engagement needs to be structured, what you expect to get, where to find good recommendations and/or sources of consultants, and how to determine whether…
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Micro Persuasion
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Facebook Pulls Lexicon Analytics Tool
9 Feb 2010 | 2:04 amFacebook has taken its promising Lexicon tool down from the site. Perhaps this happened when they pushed their new redesign. Lexicon, like Google Trends, provided limited yet interesting data on site-wide trends. You can read more about it here. From the Lexicon site.... "Thank you for your interest in Lexicon. We are removing the Lexicon product from Facebook for the time being. We may bring components of Lexicon back in the future, but we are focusing development on our analytics tools for Page owners, advertisers and Platform developers." Analytics remains a major focus… -
Trust in Friends Declines, Trust in Experts Rises - Social Media and PR Still Win
8 Feb 2010 | 10:52 amLast week Edelman, my employer, published our tenth annual Trust Barometer study. You can read the full report here. One of the more juicy statistics that Advertising Age and others noted is that trust in peers surprisingly dropped dramatically from 47% to 27%. Tom Foremski says this is bad for PR: "This is bad news for PR agencies because social media has been the ‘point of the spear’ for so many firms. This is what brings in new business." While he's right that social media has been a big business driver, I respectfully disagree with Tom that this is bad news for the PR… -
Facebook Will Centralize the Social Web
8 Feb 2010 | 7:31 amMichael Arrington laments about about the decentralized nature of social content on TechCrunch today... "The online social landscape today sort of feels to me like search did in 1999. It’s a mess, but we don’t complain much about it because we don’t know there’s a better way. You might be sick of hearing this from me, but strongly believe that Facebook is the next Google. It took me a while to "get religion," but now I have it. Just as Google brought a simple way to search the web, my observation is that Facebook is poised to do the same for organizing and -… -
Facebook Could Eat the Web
4 Feb 2010 | 11:54 amPhoto credit: mastermaq Like almost everyone else on the planet, it seems, I am spending more time on Facebook than any other site. The lone exception is Google. The reason I know this is that Safari, my browser, lists Facebook as my most visited site when I access its top sites feature. In addition to using Facebook to check in on what my family, friends and colleagues are up to, I have been using it as a newsreader for months. The screenshot below is my reader. This is something that the company suggested everyone do here. Although I suspect that most users haven't taken the steps… -
Go Big, Get Your Employees on the Bus or Go Home
3 Feb 2010 | 9:10 amThe following is also my column in next week's issue of Advertising Age. Go Big, Get Your Employees on the Bus or Go Home Photo credit: Traffic by scottpowerz The single biggest challenge that marketers face over the next ten years is attention scarcity. Bank on it. According to Andreas Weigland, Amazon.com's former chief scientist, more data was generated by individuals in 2009 than in the entire history of mankind. Human attention, however, is finite - and arguably, it shrinks as we age. The end result is downright ugly. It's like 25 lanes of traffic trying to squeeze through two…
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Blogging Pro
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Family Feud: WordPress Vs WordPress (On The Blackberry, iPhone And Android)
9 Feb 2010 | 11:15 amAfter initially releasing WordPress 1.0 upon the iPhone many moons ago, Automattic seems to be spreading the love by creating WordPress Apps for Android lovers and Blackberry fans. Although I am grateful for their latest update for the iPhone, it became apparent that not all WordPress Apps were created equal, with some mobile platforms receiving extra attention in the “feature department” than one notable other. Whether this has to do with the nature of the app stores themselves (i.e. Apple’s aristocracy vs Google libertarianism) is unknown, although here is a brief chart… -
WordPress Updates iPhone App (Makes A Million Spammers Cry)
8 Feb 2010 | 6:47 pmRight on the heels of the launch of their Blackberry and Android brethren, it looks like iLovers have finally received several updates to the WordPress app–all of them dealing with comment moderation. (WordPress for iPhone) I’m very excited about this new version which is focused on improved comment moderation including: Reply to Comments Edit Comments Highlighting the new items in the comment list We hope this release will make the comment experience on the go much more enjoyable and useful. These latest features should make it easier for bloggers to not only weed out the trolls,… -
Movable Type Monday: MT-Notifier 5, Melody, Sorting Entries, and More
8 Feb 2010 | 10:16 amHappy Monday, folks! From time to time we talk about Melody, a fork of Movable Type that was started by several top developers in the Movable Type community. Serdar Yegulalp has written a solid introduction to Melody for those that want a better understanding of what the project is and where it stands. Just yesterday I found out about a new MT blog that I expect to be linking to a lot here in the future. Nick at MTJ is bringing Japanese MT development to the English-speaking world. There’s a lot of great MT work being done in Japan, and with Nick’s help we’ll finally be able… -
Sunday Morning SEO: 3 Golden Rules of Guest Posting
7 Feb 2010 | 4:00 amFrom the early days of the blogosphere, savvy bloggers realized they could get traffic and links by offering free posts to other bloggers. The bloggers receiving the posts were happy to get free content. It was a classic win-win situation. This strategy of guest posting is not only effective for SEO and referral traffic, but it also builds your reputation, brand, and credibility. If you want to have a successful guest posting campaign, consider these 3 rules. 1. Relevance Your post should fit the overall flow of the blog. Read the last couple entries to get an idea of the style and tone of… -
ProBlogging On The Cheap (For Under $25 A Year)
5 Feb 2010 | 5:47 pmWith millions out of work throughout the world, many people (with extra time on their hands) are looking for extra ways to generate income by pursuing hobbies that they love. For some that includes blogging, which might explain many of the “how do I start a blog” questions that I receive, as well as all the costs associated with starting one (at least for those who choose to self host their own content). While there are many excellent blog platforms out there that do not require a person to have a server, for some the price range might be beyond their budget (especially those…
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Weekly Ramble
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How does the underdog win?
8 Feb 2010 | 8:22 amHow does the underdog win? Or put another way… How can the favorite lose? By that I mean – a person, or group, or team that was a sure bet – the best bet in fact: the odds were in their favor – even the real money odds in Las Vegas – say. And yet they don’t pull through. What prompted this thought was the (to be 100% politically correct) United States Football Annual Championship Game – the Super Bowl – a night of sports, chili, beer, commercials and an occasional great game. This year the match up was between a team that had won before and had the undisputed best… -
People are people
1 Feb 2010 | 8:22 amHave you ever been optimized? Have you ever been dynamically served? Have you ever been experientially immersed? Yes, folks, people do speak like that – and I imagine that the 2020 version of Mad Men – Digital Guys – will make fun of the latest iterations of “ad speak.” However, I will indulge my cynicism on our lingo and jargon another time. Today I will direct my cynicism at the notion that we can affect mass movement by simply allowing computer rules to direct our conversations. Now before you jump down my throat – trust me, I get it – dynamic optimization and immersive… -
What causes failure?
25 Jan 2010 | 7:42 amWhat causes failure? We plan, we work hard, we are sure that we have done it all right – and then WHAM!!! – it all falls apart, like we had no idea of what we were doing or where we were going. What just happened? Ever get that feeling…? Sometimes we blame Murphy – as in Murphy’s Law. Sometimes we blame Karma. Or Kismet. Or we just say “C’est la vie,” or as is expressed in American slang. But sometimes all of the above is a mere cop-out, an excuse, a lack of accountability – you get the picture. I was reading a review of a book called The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get… -
Here is a question
19 Jan 2010 | 9:54 amHere is a question – What does a smart phone have in common with a car?Here is another – What does convergence really mean? Before I get to the answer… Last week I reported from CES – the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I talked about the Candy Store feeling and all the wild stuff that was on its way. This week I’m reporting from Detroit, where I attended the Detroit Auto Show, which for over a century has defined Detroit’s power in the industry and for the past 20 years or so has helped to define the global market as well:… -
That Candy Store Feeling
11 Jan 2010 | 12:54 pmDo you remember that Candy Store feeling when you were a kid? You know what I mean…right? You had a favorite – no doubt – but when confronted with the full array of availabilities, your eyes grew wide; your certain choice receded into the background and a quick transaction turned deliciously agonizing for you (no doubt, not so for your parents…), and if you were lucky and the adults with you were in the right mood, you scored more than your original choice. How about the Toy Store? Same experience – right? Talk about wide eyes…you really, really wanted that Transformer,…
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Lip-Sticking
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Super Bowl Ads: Female Friendly?
9 Feb 2010 | 11:48 amOk, so how many of the Super Bowl's $3mill per 30 second ads actually appealed to women, you might ask. I wondered, even though I didn't ask. After all, who would I ask? Other women, presumably, but that's a limited group (if I'm asking during the Super Bowl). Interestingly enough, Hoffman York's advertising to women's division, the Kaleidoscope Group, just released the 2010 PURSEuasion Report and it talks about how effective the Super Bowl ads were to women. Prepare to be informed. I am pretty impressed with the note I received about this. We all know, by now, that this yearly "bowl" game… -
It's all bliss!
8 Feb 2010 | 11:46 amI missed it. Did you miss it? Over 500 fantastic women were at the Blissdom Conference last week, in Nashville where they networked, laughed, learned, and did what women do: became sisters of the heart. I did win a $100 gift certificate to Dress Barn, the better to be gorgeous at Blissdom, but I never made it there. I'll be using that gift card soon enough - at BlogPaws, where all the pet bloggers will meet for networking, fun, and education. But, back to Blissdom... I'm so jealous that they not only had Wendy Scherer (@wendyscherer) whom I have yet to meet, but they had Harry Connick Jr… -
It's Not Right But, It's (Not) OK
8 Feb 2010 | 3:42 amby Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia(Another blog title ripped from a songstress...) It would appear that with the social media craziness, some of us have lost our minds when it comes to basic Internet marketing common sense. So, as a reminder, it is absolutely NOT acceptable - under ANY circumstances - to share people's contact information or add them to your mailing list without their permission. Period. I was recently invited to what appeared to be a very interesting (read: different) local networking event. Normally, I'm not a "networking event" type… -
Women Doing Good and Getting Recognized for it
6 Feb 2010 | 7:45 amEvery now and then I get something really worthwhile in a pitch. This is one of those times. Yesterday, I was pitched the announcement from SELF Magazine about their program Women Doing Good. Essentially, the magazine is looking the the next "Women Doing Good" - described as "extraordinary women who are working hard and are determined to make a difference, whether it is within their community, environmentally, medically -- or whatever, the sky is the limit." Winners receive $10,000 donation to their favorite charity, they're featured in the September issue of SELF, and they are honored at an… -
Do You Need Your Hand Held?
5 Feb 2010 | 8:29 amBy Guest Blogger, Mary Schmidt, Marketing Troubleshooter I often use examples from politics in talking about marketing. Campaigns are excellent examples of target marketing (and its misfires) as well as using emotion – versus logic - to “sell” something. (Note: people didn't vote for "the Democrat" in the last election; they voted for change. Something neither party seems to quite get.) Then I run across this in a article, GOP Still Short On Women. Gee. Wonder why? Well, you don’t have to wonder once you read this: …
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Branding Strategy Insider
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Brand Protection in a Global Market
8 Feb 2010 | 9:10 pmNot long ago, brand owners could take comfort in the intrinsic barriers hampering black marketers. While most large cities have places known by its dwellers to be sources of cheap goods of dubious origin, consumers have to consciously decide to explore these markets in addition to or in lieu of conventional establishments. Canal Street in New York’s Chinatown is a well-known example. The street is lined with densely packed shops offering watches, purses, and other luxury items at prices that are corruptively low. Until relatively recently, these markets did not pose a significant… -
Brand Messaging: Visual Over Verbal
7 Feb 2010 | 9:10 pmIn a song, what's more important, the words or the music? I think most people would agree that the music is more important. Take "Moon River," first sung by Audrey Hepburn in the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's." The song itself won an Academy Award for composers Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, one of four won by Mercer. Later, Andy Williams adopted "Moon River" as his theme song. Here is the first verse. Moon river, wider than a mile I'm crossin' you in style some day Old dream maker, you heartbreaker Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way Johnny Mercer, in my opinion, was the best… -
Brand Naming Origins: Academy Awards 'Oscar'
4 Feb 2010 | 9:05 pmIt’s Academy Award season again, and movie buffs everywhere await the results of the annual competition. So how did Hollywood's beloved Oscar, the 8-pound gold statuette get its name? Most awards nicknames have obvious sources. For instance, The Tony Awards on Broadway are nicknamed in honor of actress/director Antoinette Perry, who died in 1946. The Tony Awards began the next year. The Grammy Awards, given by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, are a diminutive of "gramophone,” coined way back in 1887 to describe a device to record and reproduce sound. -
Legal Influence And Marketing Decisions
2 Feb 2010 | 9:26 pmLawyers are retained to minimize legal exposures and risks. Marketers are employed to sell more stuff. This is oversimplified but generally true. Lawyers can help marketers better understand trademark law, trade dress, copyright law, trade secrets and false or deceptive advertising.Companies vary quite a bit in the power afforded their attorneys. Most use them to deal with corporate legal issues and agreements and contracts. At Hallmark, I was advised by my boss, a corporate officer, that legal advice was just that, advice. He recommended that I seek legal advice when appropriate but that I… -
How Color And Flavor Names Affect Choice
1 Feb 2010 | 9:00 pmIs Moody Blue a better name for a flavor than Glacier Freeze? How will consumers react to a color named Razzmatazz instead of Bright Orange? And what’s wrong with good old Fire Engine Red? Two marketing professors have been studying these shades of meaning and publishing provocative papers on color-coding and what it does to buyers’ expectations. So we went to Barbara E. Kahn (at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) and Elizabeth G. Miller (at Boston College) for some answers. Q: Is there anything wrong with good old “Fire Engine Red” to identify a nail polish? We find in…
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Geekissimo
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Drawspace, tantissime guide per imparare a disegnare
9 Feb 2010 | 6:00 amL’ho sempre pensato che si nasce con il dono del saper disegnare. Vi sono persone che senza seguire alcun corso d’arte riescono a dar vita a veri e propri capolavori, che spesso sono così realistici che ci è difficile distinguerli da una fotografia. Alle persone, che invece sono nate senza questo dono non resta altro fa fare che imparare dei trucchetti per avvicinarsi in qualche modo ai livelli più alti del disegno. Inutile illuderci di imparare a disegnare da veri artisti ma, comunque, è possibile notare nei miglioramenti delle nostre creazioni seguendo delle regole e degli… -
Webpage Decorator, come personalizzare colori e caratteri dei nostri siti web preferiti
9 Feb 2010 | 5:00 amSicuramente, a tutti voi geek, sarà capitato di visitare un dato sito web e di pensare di volerne personalizzare la visualizzazione, almeno per quanto concerne i colori, al fine di una migliore e più agevole lettura dei contenuti o, molto più semplicemente, per una questione di gusto personale. Ovviamente, di consueto, si tratta di un operazione impossibile da eseguire se non sfruttando appositi strumenti da integrare al browser in uso, qualora compatibili, come nel caso degli userscript di Greasemonkey. Tuttavia, se preferite navigare in rete sfruttando Chrome, allora di certo troverete… -
Paragon Rescue Kit Express, ripristinare Windows senza disco d’installazione
9 Feb 2010 | 3:00 amTra amici, parenti, conoscenti e persone che sbagliano numero di telefono ma visto che ci sappiamo fare con il computer ci chiedono qualche dritta su come rimediare ai disastri informatici, noi geek siamo sempre impelagati in brutte faccende aventi come protagonisti sistemi che non vogliono più saperne di avviarsi normalmente, partizioni corrotte, MBR mandati a ramengo e cose del genere. Fortuna che esistono i dischi di pronto soccorso, preziosi ferri del mestiere senza i quali saremmo condannati a chissà quante reclusioni forzate causa riparazione PC. Fra questi, spicca sicuramente Paragon… -
42 sfondi dedicati a San Valentino
9 Feb 2010 | 2:00 amVisto e considerato che questa è la settimana degli innamorati l’argomento che tratteremo oggi è strettamente correlato a San Valentino. Sono molti i preparativi che si fanno per questo evento. Regali, sorprese, cioccolato, rose e quantaltro. Ma noi rimaniamo nel campo informatico. E sapete come? Presentandovi 42 fantastici wallpaper dedicati a San Valentino. Chi li mette in evidenza sono diversi utenti del famoso sito Deviantart ma sono stati resi disponibili e di conseguenza conosciuti dal sito Mytechquest.com. (...)Continua a leggere 42 sfondi dedicati a San Valentino, su… -
Windows 7 e le batterie da sostituire: bug o no?
9 Feb 2010 | 1:00 amPrendete in considerazione l’ipotesi di cambiare la batteria del vostro computer. Questo il fastidioso invito che Windows 7 sta ponendo a un sempre maggior numero di utenti in tutto il mondo. Compresi quelli che, additando l’ultimo sistema operativo di Microsoft su forum e blog, dicono che di cambiare la batteria del proprio portatile non hanno assolutamente bisogno. Ecco quindi scattata la caccia al bug: possibile che così tante batterie se ne siano andate all’altro mondo nel giro di poco tempo o è Windows 7la causa di tutto? Per cercare di rispondere a questa domanda (più che…
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Matt Cutts
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Chrome support for Greasemonkey
8 Feb 2010 | 9:30 pmBack in December, I happened to click on a Greasemonkey script in Chrome and was shocked that it just worked. At the time, I wrote a note within Google that said Whoa. I just clicked on a Greasemonkey script in the latest dev version of Chrome (4.0.266.0 on Linux). Chrome offered to install the GM script, so I said okay. The script ran perfectly in Chrome with no changes at all! I don’t know how many Greasemonkey scripts will run in Chrome unchanged, but at least some will. Last week brought that news as an official announcement. My guess is that scripts that don’t use specific… -
Improving Arabic searches and talking more about ranking
2 Feb 2010 | 12:55 pmMoustafa Hammad and Mohamed Elhawary, a couple engineers in our search quality group, just did a nice post about improving Arabic language searches: Our algorithm employs rules of Arabic spelling and grammar along with signals from historical search data to decide when to leave out spaces between words or when to remove unnecessarily repeated letters. Now, when you type a query leaving out spaces or repeating a letter, we’ll return better results based not only on what you typed, but also on what our algorithm understands is the “correct” query. There’s a few nice… -
Installing Android development environment on Ubuntu 9.04
30 Jan 2010 | 6:18 pmI wanted to play with writing Android apps on my home Linux computer, which is currently running Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope). These are mostly notes for myself, so don’t feel guilty if you skip this post. - Make sure your system is up-to-date: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade - Install Java sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk - Switch Sun to be the default version of Java. It’s much faster than the built-in version, at least when I tried it. sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun - Make a directory, e.g. mkdir ~/android - Download Eclipse from… -
Keep an eye on changing pages
25 Jan 2010 | 6:58 pmGoogle just launched a nice feature on Google Reader: the ability to keep an eye on pages for changes. This works even if the page doesn’t have its own RSS feed. This sort of thing is very handy. You could use it to spot new things on a privacy policy page or watch for changes in the executives page at another search engine. Check out the blog post, but it’s easy to use: just add any url to Google Reader. -
PubCon 2009 talk: State of the Index
22 Jan 2010 | 1:34 pmIf you followed @googlewmc on Twitter you would already know about this, but I recently recreated my “State of the Index” talk from PubCon in November 2009. Here’s the video of the talk below: And here are the slides if you’d like to follow along: The talk is almost half an hour, so I hope you enjoy it and learn something new!
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PR 2.0
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The State of Social Media Around the World 2010
8 Feb 2010 | 3:09 amIf you were to look at Social Media the United States and many other parts of the world, you would believe that the world of Social Media was flat, dominated by social continents including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and Flickr. As we zoom in, we visualize other established and emerging social services that depict provinces and outlying settlements of our social atlas.Upon publishing the original Conversation Prism, which was the culmination of a year’s work documenting and organizing the social web by usage and conversational patterns, the world responded by creating… -
The Roles of Facebook and Twitter in Social Media Marketing
5 Feb 2010 | 4:14 amSocial Media marketing is rapidly earning a role in the integrated marketing mix of small and enterprise businesses and as such, it’s transforming every division from the inside out. What starts with one champion in any given division, be it customer service, marketing, public relations, advertising, interactive, et al, eventually inspires an entire organization to socialize. What starts with one, a domino effect usually ensues toppling each department, gaining momentum, and triggering a sense of urgency through its path. And, it also marks the beginning of our journey through the ten… -
Mobile Internet Market to Eclipse Desktop Internet
3 Feb 2010 | 4:42 amSounds like a sensationalistic headline, but if you read Morgan Stanley’s latest series of reports on the Mobile Internet, you’ll walk away with the same impression.Morgan Stanley’s global technology and telecom analysts documented the rapidly changing mobile Internet market to provide a framework for emerging trends and direction.To set the stage, Morgan Stanley forecasts that the mobile Internet market will be at least 2x the size of desktop Internet when comparing Internet users to mobile subscribers.According to the report, Apple’s iTunes + iPhone/Touch ecosystem… -
The Human Algorithm: How Google Ranks Tweets in Real-Time Search
1 Feb 2010 | 4:57 amIn 2009, Google struck a deal with Twitter, rumored at $15 million, to integrate tweets into keyword related Google searches. And last month, Google also integrated real-time search technology to surface blog posts and news content as they hit the Web – dramatically improving the previous five to 15 minutes its spiders would take to crawl the Web. I should also note that Collecta also offers the ability to search the real-time Web, but its results also include popular networks within the social Web. Between Google and Collecta, Twitter Search is starting to show its age.The opportunities… -
Who is the ME in Social Media?
29 Jan 2010 | 4:11 amGood friend Stowe Boyd recently shared a quote by Gabriel García Márquez, “Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.”Indeed, quite simply many of us live life allowing specific, trusted individuals to know us in one or more of our personae. Our moral compass as well as outside influences affect how we balance our three lives. The size and permeability of our personal dividers vary in the separation of each life and resemble doors that open and close based on our desires. We nurture each individually with slight coalescence, but concentrate on…
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Make the Logo Bigger
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9 Feb 2010 | 12:15 pm
9 Feb 2010 | 12:15 pmI WAS TOO DISTRAUGHT TO EVEN FILE A REPORT LAST WEEK. THIS WEEK THOUGH, OLD JACK GOT RIGHT BACK ON THE HORSE. DID YOU SEE THAT SHIT? NOT ONLY DOES MY UNDERCOVER PARTNER SHANK ME, BUT I RIP IT OUT AND TAKE OUT A HOSTILE IN THE THROAT—FROM ACROSS THE ROOM. THEN I TAKE OUT ANOTHER. SO I GO BACK AND CONSOLE HER. HER! AND I WASN’T EVEN PISSED THAT SHE STUCK ME. THAT’S HARDCORE. UNLESS I’M GETTING SOFT.BAUER, OUT.*Self-doubt, the first sign?TAGS: JACK BAUER24PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPONJACK BAUER MEANS DEATHKIEFER SUTHERLAND GRAVITAS, JACK BAUER FACTS -
And CBS passed on this?
9 Feb 2010 | 11:30 amShocking. I mean, Super Bail has a catchy tune and a family-friendly kid. Fox would’ve run it. -
Old Spice Kills. Owns. Rules.
9 Feb 2010 | 11:10 amAnother Super Bowl spot that wasn’t? Attacking the genre of mens’ healthcare products yet again, Old Spice would’ve cleaned up if they had actually run this during the game. Next to Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man, there’s no better Real Man™ spoof campaign running. (Doritos giving the *pros* a run for their money? HA! Yeah. Whatever.)(Via.) -
Before the Super Bowl, under the radar, over the hype.
9 Feb 2010 | 10:45 amAnother ad that *technically* could pass for a Super Bowl spot even though it ran just before the game. Paying homage to the classic Jordan v. Byrd battles of years past, McDonald’s updated the campaign with LeBron James and Dwight Howard. Did it hold up? Not sure. The banter between them felt more real than the old stuff, but the cgi... er, jams felt a little too anything but. If you watch enough dunk competitions, there are only so many dunks you can try. Not that Jordan’s “Over the river...” scenario was believable, but in that context, the absurdity works. Here, focusing only on… -
You’re a quart low.
9 Feb 2010 | 10:05 amArla ecological cottage cheese has virtual cow udders. I guess it beats going door to door squirting people with a real cow. Now, go have fun.(By Perfect Fools.)
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The Marketing Minute
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Examples of social media policies
8 Feb 2010 | 5:35 amIn corporate America (and probably corporate World), rules get created when people make bad choices. It's how child labor laws came to be and why we now have sexual harassment policies. The few and the stupid are the catalyst to regulation.Which is why it's not a shock that companies big and small are beginning to institute social media policies. After the Dominos pizza incident and the world famous FedEx tweet -- who can blame business leaders from wanting to protect themselves by setting down some rules?I've put together a long list of social media policy… -
Have you built a rock solid foundation for your personal brand?
5 Feb 2010 | 3:10 amWhether you work for someone else, are a serial entrepreneur or anything in between -- in today's world, you can't afford to ignore the idea of personal branding.A generation ago, employees often stayed with one employer for the lion's share of their career. Today, most professionals will not work for several companies -- but they will most likely change their entire profession.And even in the unlikely case that you do find the employer of your dreams right off the bat -- you still want to distinguish yourself by standing out from the crowd.Enter personal branding. -
Nuggets of smart
2 Feb 2010 | 6:21 amI don't know about you, but one of my struggles is sifting through all the information out there to find the real nuggets of smart. I thought, from time to time, I might point out some of the really smart stuff out there so you don't have to go digging for it. I'd love to know if you find value in this sort of post. (Just click on the bolded text to get to each offering) New study on customer gratitude: Elaine Fogel talks about a new study done by the American Marketing Association that looks at the sales impact of generating a sense of gratitude in… -
The best Superbowl commercial of 2010
31 Jan 2010 | 7:43 pmRemember when the Superbowl was about the game? Now it's the halftime show wardrobe malfunctions and of course, the commercials. Here's one of my favorites from last year, to get you in the mood! (e-mail subscribers, click here to view) Want to get a jump on Sunday's new spots? Don't want to have to wade through 60 minutes of football just to see what Budweiser, GoDaddy and Doritos have in store for us?Head over to MSNBC's site where they are hosting an Ad Showdown. You can watch each and every spot and then in a nod to the NCAA tourney… -
Extinction is right around the corner...
27 Jan 2010 | 7:22 pmFor getting lost, desktop computers and glaciers. At least according to The Future Trends book called Future Files by Richard Watson. (buy it by clicking here) As part of the promotion of the book, the author released the chart below. It's an extinction timeline...predicting that newspaper delivery will be gone by 2012 and FM radio by 2027. I promise you...you'll find this fascinating and its content will be your conversation starter for at least a week. If you're having trouble reading the timeline, you can click on the chart to open a…
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Repubblica.it > Homepage
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Superenalotto, usciti due sei Vincono 70 milioni a testa
9 Feb 2010 | 11:27 amLe vincite a Parma e Pistoia. L'ultima era stata il 22 agosto scorso a Bagnone La combinazione fortunata: 20, 22, 24, 40, 51, 80. Jolly: 60. Superstar: 82Superenalotto, usciti due sei Vincono 70 milioni a testa(20:27 09/02/2010)Articoli correlatiBerlusconi: "Non ho evitato la morte di Eluana" Il padre: "L'avesse vista non parlerebbe così"Siracusa, arrestato un parroco di frontiera "Rilasciava falsi permessi di soggiorno"Marrazzo "intercettato" dai fotografiBeppino Englaro replica a Berlusconi "Se l'avesse vista non parlerebbe così"Immigrazione, il grido dei vescovi "Rosarno non è razzista" -
Immigrazione, il grido dei vescovi "Rosarno non è razzista"
9 Feb 2010 | 11:05 amE' uno dei passaggi del documento, approvato ieri dalla Conferenza episcopale calabra, sulla rivolta che ha portato all'allontanamento di 1500 braccianti di coloreImmigrazione, il grido dei vescovi "Rosarno non è razzista"di GIUSEPPE BALDESSARRO(20:05 09/02/2010)Articoli correlatiBerlusconi: "Non ho evitato la morte di Eluana" Il padre: "L'avesse vista non parlerebbe così"Siracusa, arrestato un parroco di frontiera "Rilasciava falsi permessi di soggiorno"Marrazzo "intercettato" dai fotografiBeppino Englaro replica a Berlusconi "Se l'avesse vista non parlerebbe così"Superenalotto, usciti… -
Omicidio Raciti 14 anni a Speziale
9 Feb 2010 | 10:40 amCalcioOmicidio Raciti 14 anni a SpezialeCondannato da Tribunale per i minorenni di Catania, dopo quasi otto ore di camera di consiglio, il giovane ritenuto responsabile della morte dell'ispettore di polizia dopo i fatti di Catania-Palermo del febbraio 2007(19:40 09/02/2010)Articoli correlati"I tabloid? Basta rigare dritti qui vinceró entro due anni""Stadi più sicuri per i tifosi perbene"La sfida di king Carlo "Mou, ti è andata male"Rosso per chi bestemmia No alle scritte sotto le maglie -
Rosso per chi bestemmia No alle scritte sotto le maglie
9 Feb 2010 | 10:33 amCalcioRosso per chi bestemmia No alle scritte sotto le maglieLa decisione presa dal consiglio federale della Figc. Sará possibile usare la prova tv. Sanzioni per chi dopo un gol mostra la sottomaglia con scritte religiose o politiche. Abete: ''La logica è migliorare i livelli comportamentali''(19:33 09/02/2010)Articoli correlati"I tabloid? Basta rigare dritti qui vinceró entro due anni""Stadi più sicuri per i tifosi perbene"La sfida di king Carlo "Mou, ti è andata male"Omicidio Raciti 14 anni a Speziale -
Beppino Englaro replica a Berlusconi "Se l'avesse vista non parlerebbe così"
9 Feb 2010 | 9:43 amIl padre di Eluana ribadisce che la figlia era costretta in una condizione "che non esiste in natura" "Era un purosangue della libertá, era terrorizzata all'idea di finire in quel modo"Beppino Englaro replica a Berlusconi "Se l'avesse vista non parlerebbe così"(18:43 09/02/2010)Articoli correlatiBerlusconi: "Non ho evitato la morte di Eluana" Il padre: "L'avesse vista non parlerebbe così"Siracusa, arrestato un parroco di frontiera "Rilasciava falsi permessi di soggiorno"Marrazzo "intercettato" dai fotografiImmigrazione, il grido dei vescovi "Rosarno non è razzista"Superenalotto, usciti…
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Why Advertising Sucks
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Honest to Post Its 36
9 Feb 2010 | 8:57 am -
Mishka. The Talking Dog... which will scare the shit out of you.
8 Feb 2010 | 10:16 pm -
Steven Seagal = Yes, please!
8 Feb 2010 | 10:11 pm -
Honest to Post Its 35
8 Feb 2010 | 8:57 am -
We need you to find us a new friend.
7 Feb 2010 | 10:31 pmGuys and gals out there... We need help! Yes, it's that time again when I whore up and literally beg you to share our blog with your peeps. We need clicks! More clicks! Loads of clicks! Come on, help us climb the ladder of the Ad Age Blog 150! They are kicking our butts down there! See that number in the red badge? We need to push it to be lower! New Years Resolution, get that number at least to
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ProBlogger Blog Tips
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Blog Like a Cartoonist – Six Stunning Secrets to Help You Break Through Bloggers Block
9 Feb 2010 | 11:24 amAnd now for a guest post with a difference from Cartoonist Mark Anderson from Andertoons.com who created this comic to illustrate the writing techniques he uses to create his cartoons, and how they can help bloggers push through writer’s block. Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger. Blog Like a Cartoonist – Six Stunning Secrets to Help You Break Through Bloggers Block Share This -
Have a 37 Minute Coffee Break with Me [Audio Interview]
9 Feb 2010 | 5:43 amIf you have a spare 37 minutes today to grab a coffee with me (or at least are doing something that will allow you to listen to something for 37 minutes in the background) check out this interview I did with Robb Sutton late last week. Robb’s also transcribed it for those who prefer to read. In the interview Rob asks me about a whole range of stuff including: my background in blogging my philosophy on lots of sites vs focusing upon a single (or just a few) sites the process of going full time (and my wife’s six month ultimatum) my shift in focus to e-books and membership sites a… -
What Is Your Blogging Goal for February?
8 Feb 2010 | 6:22 amA few days back I asked readers a question: What Have You Been Putting Off and What’s Holding You Back? Some of the responses to the question in comments (and via email and Twitter) revealed a lot of bloggers really wanting to step things up and get what they’ve been putting off done. So – lets set some goals – what do you want to achieve by the end of February? I’m not going to be calling you up to check up to see if you’re meeting your goals – but hopefully in putting them down publicly you’ll find yourself a little more spurred on to reach… -
9 Tricks I Used To Triple My AdSense Earnings In 30 Days
7 Feb 2010 | 6:34 amGuest post by Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips. I have been using Google AdSense to monetize my blogs and websites for as long as I remember. In fact it was the first method I ever tried (I made a whooping $15 on my first month… back in 2005). Over the years I migrated to other methods (e.g., direct sponsors and affiliate marketing), which made AdSense become merely an inventory filler. I was still making around $1,000 monthly from it, but whenever I could I would use other methods over it. Then some months ago I started noticing an upward trend on the CPC of my sites, and I figured that… -
How I Got Some Paying Sponsors Without Really Meaning To
6 Feb 2010 | 6:21 amA guest post by Josh Hanagarne. World’s Strongest Librarian was about four months old when I got interested in sponsors. I’d read the articles about how to do it, and none of them sounded that plausible for me and my situation. For one, my traffic wasn’t impressive, certainly not to the point where sponsors were approaching me. And, while my blog has become slightly more focused in its first ten months, it wasn’t targeted at any group of readers in particular, so I wasn’t sure how confident niche advertisers would be. It’s a little more focused now, but I can’t really think of a…
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Il Sole 24 ORE - Prima Pagina
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Google rivoluziona Gmail, ecco Buzz
9 Feb 2010 | 12:28 pmFacebook medita di fornire un servizio di posta elettronica? E la grande G gli risponde trasformando l'e-mail in una sorta di social network. Anzi, di più...articoli correlatiGiochi da tavolo virtualiLe prime regole dell'Eurostato virtuale riguardano i minoriIn Francia internet, tv e telefono a 9,9 euro al meseEditori alla riscossa sui contenuti on linewww.buonenotizie, nelle mail dei lettori vanno le good news -
Iran, attacco all'ambasciata La tv di stato accusa l'Italia
9 Feb 2010 | 12:07 pmIn azione le milizie basiji. Teheran protesta ufficialmente per le parole di Berlusconi in Israele. Analoghi assalti alle ambasciate di altri paesi Ue. Obama: «Presto nuove sanzioni»...articoli correlatiAfghanistan, offensiva imminentecontro la «Fallujah talebana»A un mese dall'inaugurazione chiude la terrazza del Burj DubaiFiat, impossibile il "Ritorno al futuro" (Ft)Londra al voto con qualche dubbio sul sistema elettoraleJohn Murtha, il marine pluridecorato che si oppose alla guerra di Bush in Iraq -
Dal Senato nuovi paletti alla Bertolaso spa
9 Feb 2010 | 12:00 pmIl Senato ha dato il via libera al decreto sulle emergenze e ha piantato due nuovi paletti per la "Protezione civile servizi spa", la società voluta da Guido Bertolaso e duramente...articoli correlatiNel Cud debuttano i familiariRegione per regione la mappa della spesa per scuola, sanità e sicurezzaIl sequestro di The Pirate Bay notificato agli internet providerTutti i dati sullo scudo fiscale entro il 15 giugno in ParlamentoDare del bandito a un condomino costa una condanna per ingiurie -
Caso Boffo, il Vaticano: "Una campagna contro il Papa"
9 Feb 2010 | 11:55 amUna nota vaticana, approvata da Benedetto XVI, rinnova la fiducia al segretario di Stato e al direttore dell'Osservatore Romano. «Campagna diffamatoria anche contro il Pontefice» ...articoli correlatiVerso la riapertura dei termini per le onlus escluse dal 5 per milleVerso la riapertura dei termini per le onlus escluse dal 5 per milleScuola, nel 2010 arrivano i primi risparmiFazio: «Costi standard delle regioni in base alle best practise»Omicidio Raciti, Speziale condannato a 14 anni -
Omicidio Raciti, Speziale condannato a 14 anni
9 Feb 2010 | 11:55 amI giudici hanno accolto quasi completamente le richieste dell'accusa. L'imputato: «Sono tranquillissimo». Annunciato ricorso in appello...articoli correlatiVerso la riapertura dei termini per le onlus escluse dal 5 per milleVerso la riapertura dei termini per le onlus escluse dal 5 per milleScuola, nel 2010 arrivano i primi risparmiCaso Boffo, il Vaticano: "Una campagna contro il Papa"Fazio: «Costi standard delle regioni in base alle best practise»
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Delicious/tag/blogging tips
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10 Ways to Build Social Media Expertise Using Personal Web Projects
9 Feb 2010 | 11:56 am -
8 Qualities of Powerful Writing - Stepcase Lifehack
9 Feb 2010 | 11:22 am -
Principles of Successful Blogging – Confessions of a ProBlogger
9 Feb 2010 | 11:14 am -
How to Quit Hitting the Snooze Button on Your Blog
9 Feb 2010 | 11:00 am -
The Huffington Post's 8 Tips for Great Blogging
9 Feb 2010 | 9:54 amThe editors of the Huffington Post are behind these tips for great blogging...some are great reminders, and others may surprise you. By the way - these tips for great blogging double as tips for successful writing! Remember, fellow scribes: the more
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Blogging Without A Blog
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Don’t Let Your Heart Be Broken
7 Feb 2010 | 2:16 amMany of you know CommentLuv is my all time favorite plugin. With CommentLuv a blogger gets to let those who comment share a link back to their site which often results in more traffic for both bloggers. It’s a great reward for those who take the time to comment on our blogs; a way to thank others for sharing their thoughts. CommentLuv definitely spreads the love. Today’s Lesson You may have noticed when a blog has CommentLuv enabled, at the end of the link to your blog post is a small red heart. By hovering over the heart with your cursor, it can tell more about you, your blog,… -
One, Or A Million
3 Feb 2010 | 5:26 pmLast night when I was visiting blogs I landed on a beautiful post written by Jodi at Joy Discovered. In the post “Great Expectations”, Jodi shares how we often live our lives by the expectations of others and in the process, forget to live for our authentic self. I don’t want to give “it” away, but will say, the post is well worth the read. It was how Jodi started her post which inspired this one. Today’s Lesson Jodi opened her post by sharing how Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Committed came to be. …Gilbert describes how it was difficult to write… -
Unveiling The Results Of My Facelift
31 Jan 2010 | 1:35 pmMany people go under the knife to take years off of their face. Nips and tucks are made, injections are administered and when the bandages come off and the bruising goes down, years have been taken off of their looks and they appear to have gone back in time. That’s kind of what has happened with my theme. Today’s Lesson As mentioned in the “Inquiring Minds Want To Know” post, when I started blogging, the birth of this blog’s name first appeared in written form, in my notebook. Over the past three years, I’ve tried to replicate that “feeling”… -
Advantages of Guest Posting Outside Your Niche
27 Jan 2010 | 2:10 pmGood Day, Class, Although it’s been awhile since we had a substitute teacher (guest writer) here, today that’s changing. Some of you may have heard of him. Some not. Please join me in welcoming fellow blogger Bamboo Forest, from the fabulous blog, Pun Intended. Bamboo has chosen a topic we haven’t discussed before; “guest posting”. On that note, I’ll grab a seat and join you in listening to this great lesson. The floor is yours, Bamboo. Hello Class! As you’re reading this you may recognize that I’m guest posting on a blog about blogging even though my… -
Numbers – A Love Hate Relationship
24 Jan 2010 | 3:20 amI love numbers. In fact, my real job is all about numbers. Whether I’m bidding a job, pulling measurements off of blue prints, balancing check registers, costing out jobs, billing customers, preparing payroll or compiling governmental reports, I’m surrounded by numbers. I’m in my glory. Today’s Lesson When I started blogging, one of the first things I noticed was how numbers play such a big part in blogging. With the ability to sign up for numerous statistical programs, we not only get to observe the growth of our blog, but we can also learn and improve our blogs based…
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acleareye.com
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What dat?
8 Feb 2010 | 5:51 amWhat a game! Who dat, indeed! And those Super Bowl commercials? What dat? A Doritos ninja? Men singing in an open field about wearing no pants? Men being men again through the purchase of muscle cars and big screen TVs?... -
Amazon, Macmillan, Apple and the future of books
3 Feb 2010 | 10:00 pmLast week a temporary cease-fire went into effect amidst a brewing battle between Amazon.com and Macmillan, a unit of Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GMBH and one of the largest publishers in the US. The battle was over the price... -
The Hole in the Soul of Business
31 Jan 2010 | 10:00 pmThat's the title of a recent blog post by management author and consultant Gary Hamel. He blames this hole, which "bleeds the vitality and enthusiasm out of people at work," on a "paucity of purpose." Near the end of his... -
Engagement and Apple's new iPad
28 Jan 2010 | 4:37 amThere wasn't any (engagement, that is). And that's not a problem. At least not in the short term. Engagement is the very first door that any business must open when attempting to unlock hearts and minds in today's idea economy.... -
Theater and substance
27 Jan 2010 | 5:18 amThere's a theater part to your work, and a substance part. Theater is about originality, intensity and passion. Theater engages people. It stirs the emotions and touches people's hearts. Substance is about planning and consistency. It's about managing the details...
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Brand Insight Blog
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Jargon vs. the branding power of plain english.
31 Jan 2010 | 9:16 pmI had an experience in a brewpub last fall that was inspiring and insulting at the same time. Keep in mind, this Oregon, where there are more brewpubs per capita than anywhere on earth. So brands are plentiful and the competition is stiff. If you don’t like the food or the service or the beer in one, just walk around block and try another one. So a buddy and I popped into this new brewpub for a burger and beer, après golf. We were parched. The beer menu offered “craft beers” in all the usual colors and categories… a blonde, a red, an amber, a black, a pale, an IPA, etc. etc. Each… -
Disruption as a branding discipline.
26 Jan 2010 | 2:21 pmThe word for the day is Disruption, with a capital D. In our society there’s a stigma against all things deemed disruptive. When you’re in elementary school you learn to not be disruptive in class. Sit still in church and don’t disrupt the service. By the 6th grade it’s “don’t cause a scene or call attention to yourself. Don’t be different. Be the same.” Write like everyone else. Dress like everyone else. Behave like everyone else and you’ll get along just fine. That’s the message we got, and it’s the message our kids are getting. Loud and clear. Maybe that’s why so… -
Back to Basics — A working definition of Brands and Branding.
13 Jan 2010 | 5:32 pmWelcome to the new-and-improved Brand Insight Blog. I’m moving forward this week by going back… back to fundamentals and to the most frequently asked questions of all: What exactly IS branding, anyway? And why should the average business owner care? No doubt, the semantics of marketing and branding can be very confusing. Every firm, consultant, author and marketing professor has a slightly different spin on the subject of branding, and it’s easy to fall into that classic, insider’s trap… So I’m attempting to aggregate the best of them, and boil it all down to something you can… -
Branding in a skeptical world — Two Trends For 2k10
3 Jan 2010 | 10:11 pmMagazine editors and TV journalists love year-end lists. And when it’s the end of a decade, there’s even more interest in rehashing the top 10 things in every category from celebrity scandals to the most trusted brands. I prefer to look forward, and I suspect many of you are with me on that. So here are two — not ten — branding trends that will help you, right now. • The crisis of confidence and the consumer’s ultra-sensitive, internal BS meter. The last two years have not been good for consumer confidence. The banking collapse. Bernie Madoff. AIG bonuses. The automotive… -
The difference between a new product launch and the birth of a brand.
27 Dec 2009 | 9:54 pmThe Mt. Bachelor ski report for December 20th was delightfully promising: Ten inches of new snow, 18 degrees, calm winds. Not only that, the storm was clearing. Blue skies beckoned. It was the kind of day ski bums live for. The kind where they’re queued up before the first lift and you hear a lot of hollering from the forest, the glades and the cone, where the hard-core hike for fresh tracks. But for intermediate skiers accustomed to the forgiving comfort of corduroy, it posed a bit of a problem. See, all 10 inches fell in the early morning hours — after the grooming machines had…
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The mind-mapping.org Blog
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VUE: New version in view
4 Feb 2010 | 5:42 amVUE from Tufts University has just appeared in a new version: 3.0 New data discovery and exploration tools. Import XML documents, RSS feeds and CSV files. New Exploration Tools panel. Automatic zoom feature for selected items. More automation in highlighting specific content. Compatible with Firefox’s Zotero extension. This is free and it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. Worth a look, as it brings concept mapping and presentation together. As far as I know, the only other software that does that is the super-slick Prezi. Vic (@VicGee on Twitter) http://www.mind-mapping.org/ The… -
A couple of significant updates for 2010
5 Jan 2010 | 11:59 pmHappy New Year! Gradually catching up – more to go though. Topicscape Pro The beta version of Topicscape I wrote about last month has now passed out of beta and been formally released as a live version. 2D and 3D views below. I’m using this and liking it a lot. Give it a try. Freeplane The alpha version I wrote about last June is now into a more stable release – it’s in beta. I tried it and had one problem, but that turned out to be an out-of-date graphics driver, so it’s fixed. Try this one as well and report any bugs to the Freeplane team. The… -
Up next: MOT, RTIME, Thinking Space update
4 Jan 2010 | 7:36 pmNew on mind-mapping.org this week: MOT, RTIME and better information about Thinking Space. MOT MOT is an interesting knowledge-modelling tool. The MOT acronym means “Modelling using Object Types”. A knowledge model is similar to a concept map, except that it is based on a typology of links and knowledge objects. There’s a MOTPlus, as well. I have no pricing information for these yet. RTIME RTIME is a software requirements and development lifecycle tool with a MindJet mind mapping front end. In fact there are two products: RTIME which connects to on-line service and is… -
SimpleDiagrams and VuNotes [updated]
30 Dec 2009 | 12:30 amNew at the Master List: SimpleDiagrams and VuNotes. SimpleDiagramsThere’s a plethora of diagramming apps – web-based and desktop – I have a couple more waiting to be added. But SimpleDiagrams is different. It aims for a neat but definitely hand-drawn look. It’s written with Adobe Air, so is platform independent, and is a desktop application, unlike most of the newer diagramming apps I’ve seen. It’s in the early stages of development, and worth keeping an eye on. Reminds me of the drawings in Dan Roam’s “The Back of the… -
Topicscape wants more users for new Beta
3 Dec 2009 | 6:09 amHere’s a turnup for the book – 3D Topicscape goes 2D! (in beta so far) I’m a bit late mentioning this. I’ve written before that I’ve been using Topicscape since its first beta. I use it every day for organising files for most of my projects and reference notes. Now, Topicscape have a Beta out that gives a new option for viewing all the information stored in a Topicscape – you can opt to see it in 2D. And you can flip from 2D to 3D and back again. I’ve tried it and it’s very cool. Topicscape is not hard to use, but I’ve seen…
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Macworld
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Neo Nectaris strategy game arrives on the iPhone
8 Feb 2010 | 4:51 pmHudson's nifty turn-based strategy game, Military Madness, enjoyed a revival on Xbox Live last year with Nectaris. Now it's spreading the love to iPhones with Military Madness: Neo Nectaris. -
iHound aims to help you find your missing iPhone
8 Feb 2010 | 4:31 pmAt this week's Macworld Expo, iHound Software will hand out stickers aimed at aiding people who find lost iPhones to reunite them with their owners. And for the month of February, iHound has dropped the price on its iPhone app. -
Report: Google to make Gmail more social
8 Feb 2010 | 2:22 pmGoogle will add social features to Gmail, according to the Wall Street Journal. -
Review: McSweeney's for iPhone
8 Feb 2010 | 2:07 pmA $6 app that provides pieces of random fiction may not be for everyone. But McSweeney's delivers great content in a simple, classy interface. -
Adobe apologizes for 16-month-old Flash bug
8 Feb 2010 | 1:44 pmAdobe apologized over the weekend for letting a 16-month-old bug in Flash Player languish without a patch, even though it updated the popular plug-in four times since the flaw was reported.
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Smashing Magazine
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Applying Mathematics To Web Design
9 Feb 2010 | 4:52 am“Mathematics is beautiful.” This may sound absurd to people who wince at numbers and equations. But some of the most beautiful things in nature and our universe exhibit mathematical properties, from the smallest seashell to the biggest whirlpool galaxies. In fact, one of the greatest ancient philosophers, Aristotle, said: “The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.”Because of its beautiful nature, mathematics has been a part of art and architectural design for ages. But it has not been… -
Color Theory for Designer, Part 3: Creating Your Own Color Palettes
8 Feb 2010 | 3:58 amIn the previous two parts of this series on color theory, we talked mostly about the meanings behind colors and color terminology. While this information is important, I’m sure a lot of people were wondering when we were going to get into the nitty-gritty of actually creating some color schemes.Well, that’s where Part 3 comes in. Here we’ll be talking about methods for creating your own color schemes, from scratch. We’ll cover the traditional color scheme patterns (monochrome, analogous, complementary, etc.) as well as how to create custom schemes that… -
SimpleFolio: A Free Clean Portfolio WordPress Theme
7 Feb 2010 | 8:35 amToday we are glad to release a beautiful, simple and clean portfolio WordPress theme — SimpleFolio, designed by Omar E. Corrales and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. SimpleFolio is a portfolio theme that includes a blog and a very extensive option page that allows you to exclude all your portfolio items from the blog page. It also includes a front page slider.It has 2 different widget areas and threaded comments, and also supports paged comments and has 2 different page templates for advanced usage. The control of images is done from the post page.Download the… -
Beautiful Motion Graphics Created With Programming: Showcase, Tools and Tutorials
6 Feb 2010 | 5:50 amWhen you hear the word “creative”, what type of profession comes to mind? Maybe a graphic designer, painter, sculptor, illustrator, or writer? It’s unlikely that you would consider a “programmer” when thinking of creative fields of work. But programmers have the potential to be creative and come up with ideas or concepts that will impact others in positive ways.We often turn to programmers to solve mathematical-related problems, but the concept of mathematics in programming is what powers programmers to innovate. When you think of mathematics you… -
50 Free UI and Web Design Wireframing Kits, Resources and Source Files
5 Feb 2010 | 6:04 amPlanning and communication are two key elements in the development of any successful website or application. And that is exactly what the wireframing process offers: a quick and simple method to plan the layout and a cost-effective, time-saving tool to easily communicate your ideas to others. A wireframe typically has the basic elements of a Web page: header, footer, sidebar, maybe even some generated content, which gives you, your clients and colleagues a simple visually oriented layout that illustrates what the structure of the website will be by the end of the project and that…
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Samir Balwani
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Are You Marketing or Advertising?
2 Feb 2010 | 7:28 amLately, I’ve been thinking about how social media has been a part of our overall marketing program. I started to realize that our definition of marketing and advertising is slowly evolving. In my mind advertising was the driving force of a marketing campaign. The idea was to create something interesting and broadcast it with advertising. credit Advertising was more important than the actual campaign. If you spent enough money and as long as it was marginally interesting, you could be successful. Nowadays, there’s seems to be a tip in the scales. Marketing is becoming more… -
This is How You Measure Social Media ROI
28 Jan 2010 | 6:45 amMore talk about social media ROI and measurement? You know it. This time Mitch Joel of “Six Pixels of Separation” wrote a post about measurements and metrics. As much as I like Mitch (his articles are great and I highly recommend his blog), I really disagreed with his take on social media ROI. credit He states that… “Thinking about business objectives instead of ROI makes the whole strategy that much workable and doable. In the end, instead of looking for the ROI in Social Media, maybe the smarter thing to do is to focus on what the business objectives are, and then figure out if… -
Will Social Media Survive?
20 Jan 2010 | 6:44 amSocial media… what a buzzword. It’s grown, exploded, and ushered in a new paradigm in marketing. Kind of. It seems like everyday there’s a new social media guru, someone to tell you how to use your Facebook, when to Tweet, or berate you for not having a FourSquare. The social media industry, in its current form, is not sustainable. Why do I say that? Well, two main reasons stand out. First, it’s not easy to assign or forecast ROI from social media. Without being able to at least estimate return, managers have a hard time justifying investment. It’s not a large issue right now… -
Social Media Requires a Cultural Investment
13 Jan 2010 | 6:00 amInvestment is a word that rules business decisions. How much do I need to invest? It’s a question I hear on a near daily basis. So why is it that when it comes to social media, many focus on money and ignore the cultural investment? Everything you do has a cost, whether it is monetary, time, or some other abstract resource. Social media although not the most expensive, requires a cultural evolution. For many of the largest companies, a cultural investment can be greater than a monetary one. To change a business culture requires a form of dedication and collaboration rarely achieved. But… -
Welcome to 2010… Now Trim the Fat
11 Jan 2010 | 7:00 amIt’s January, the month where the gyms are packed, fitness rules, and ad campaigns take an odd turn towards diets. But as much as we’re trained to make weight loss resolutions, your business should be looking to lose excess baggage as well. credit I’ve written fairly extensively on how most brands tend to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to social media. Almost always, the largest culprit to online marketing failure is bureaucracy. It’s the reason why small businesses can excel at social media, while adoption is slow for large brands. Online marketing requires a company be…
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RedheadWriting
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The Bitch Slap: Stop Bitching About the Recession Already!
5 Feb 2010 | 9:31 amQuit yer bitchin' You whiny little bastards. Quit it, would ya? All we hear in the media is “recession this, foreclosure crisis that, stock market blank…” and blah, blah, blah. Stop. Bitching. About. The. Recession. I’ll say this here and now: I am against “job stimulus.” I voted for Obama yet believe firmly it’s no business of the federal, state or local government to “create” jobs. Here’s an idea: jobs are created when a business’s model demands the need for the resource, NOT because someone needs a job. What the hell are… -
Should You Be on Twitter?
2 Feb 2010 | 7:19 amStep away from the computer – hands where I can see them. Move slowly, no one gets hurt. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a question posed to me more often than ever before: should I be on Twitter? While most seem to chirp out “Of course! C’mon! It’s fun! Everyone should be on Twitter!!!!” [notice the multiple exclamation points], my first response is generally something along the lines of: Oh, hell no. Why? Because if you don’t know WHY you’re there, you can’t understand why you should stay. Social media requires a strategy, whether… -
The Bitch Slap: OMG – Seriously?
29 Jan 2010 | 8:16 amsmack smack I am three hours from out the door to Ouray, Colorado for my annual girl’s trip to the Betty Ice Ball and I haven’t packed. There is the remnant of a zit the size of the Dominican Republic on my right cheek and I’m still sitting in my workout clothes, mildly soggy with sweat (ew). I horked a bowl of hot cereal, cleaned-up Small Dog’s pee present, took out the trash and recycling and am currently washing the dog beds because they smell like 6 shades of canine ass. But my Bitch Slap this week? It’s a thank you. I’m a paid columnist for ToyWithMe… -
What Are YOU Reading?
26 Jan 2010 | 7:25 amI want to know. Is there a hot knitting blog? A gluten-free living blog you dig? A rant, rousing environment or something just plain’ ol silly? My best reads come on the recommendations of my community…so out with it! Here’s my list of current faves: The Oatmeal (biggest laughs + biggest time-waster in the history of mankind = FTW!) Janet Reid, Literary Agent (snark + confidence = views I appreciate and a nice wakeup call in my Google Reader. And her Twitter avatar is a shark. Hells yes.) The Rude Pundit (no apologies + topical content = just my style and appreciation that… -
Chicks Who Click Denver: Bulimia (aka The Redux)
25 Jan 2010 | 10:03 amChicks Who Click Denver - 2010 I’ll betcha didn’t you were going to have to hear the word bulimia again after I’d finished my presentation, did ya? This morning, I’m putting myself first As I always do…Selfishness is a strategic business asset. Don’t delude yourself. On a side note: have you ever woken up in the morning and wondered – when did I turn into a pubescent, acne-plagued teen? I spent 20 minutes this morning looking for my Clearasil and was staring lovingly at a bottle of lighter fluid when the Clearasil eluded me… and putting out my…
