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Vic Johnson: Motivational
Speaker and Author |
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What’s your excuse —
part three?
Remember the web video
of an autistic kid
shooting one basket
after another while the
fans and even the other
team cheered?
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What’s your excuse —
part two?
Nino Savona has a
condition that keeps
millions of people from
living life on their own
terms. But Nino doesn't
see the disability he's
had since he was
eight-years-old like
other people do.
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A
Thankful Thanksgiving by
Jim Rohn
As
a person who has
experienced over 70
Thanksgivings, I
recognize that being
thankful is something
that we have to work at,
even on Thanksgiving.
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What’s your excuse?
Ben
Underwood plays killer
foosball and is an
absolute master of video
games. But so are a lot
of 14-year-olds.
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What you say is what you
get We focus
a lot on how powerful
our thoughts and actions
are and in so doing, we
overlook one of the most
powerful killers of
dreams --- our words.
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Don’t Quit
In our darkest hour
it's hard to see the end
of our circumstance. All
we can think of is our
conditions worsening.
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Blind to Failure
We have to have a
vision for our life, for
what we want to become.
Most importantly, we
have to cherish it and
hold on tightly to it
when circumstances are
telling us that we’ll
never see our vision.
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It’s how you play your
cards I've
heard it said that it's
not important what hand
you're dealt in life,
it's how you play your
cards.
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A
lesson from Job
Like the biblical
Job who said, "the thing
I feared most has come
upon me," I, too, had
thought myself to where
I was.
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The vision of Jay Leno
and President Clinton
The vision
that you glorify in your
mind, the ideal that you
enthrone in your heart -
this you will build your
life by; this you will
become.
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Chris Baggott's Email
Marketing Best Practices |
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Best Confirmation Emails
Again with
the theme that great
email marketing doesn't
need to be hard, let's
talk about confirmation
emails. I place an
order. Some system
confirms my order and
triggers an email. The
problem is that these
emails are normally
complete...
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Marketing Is Easy
Hat's off to Kurt
Vetters. Kurt is a very
successful medical rep.
I don't know a ton about
his business, but I
guess he is an
independent distributor
for a specific kind of
wound care supplies.
What I do know...
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Many thanks to all who
voted for ExactTarget in
the ClickZ awards
I just wanted to
say thank you to all who
supported ExactTarget in
the recent ClickZ
awards. ExactTarget was
voted by their readers
as best ASP Email
Software. I'm not crazy
about the term ASP (Best
On Demand Email
Software...
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Some
redemption for the email
survey experience
Ok..credit where
credit is due. Maybe
I've been too hard on
Sofitel. I actually got
an email back that
reflected some of what I
answered in the survey:
Now, I think this is
great. I replied back
and I feel...
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Seinfeld, Jerk Store and
Email Marketing
Remember
the Jerk Store episode
in Seinfeld? Well I had
that moment this morning
thinking about my post
yesterday on the Email
Marketing Survey from my
new friend Dave
O'Shaughnessy.... What I
should have done is
reference another
Seinfeld episode...
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How a survey can let you
see into the soul of an
organization
Is hate too strong of a
word to describe how I
feel about surveys?
Generally there are two
things (maybe three)
wrong with most surveys:
You can tell yourself
lies with surveys.
Questions can be written
to give you just...
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PERSONALIZATION,
FREQUENCY AND RELEVANCY:
THE EMAIL SUCCESS TRIO
The
Technology Council of
Southern California
posted a great article
from Morgan Stewart.
Personalization.
Frequency. Relevancy.
The potential that can
be unleashed by acting
upon these three words
is significant. Consider
Amazon.com, whose CRM
database is arguably the
online world's...
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Geat Email Marketing
Doesn't have to be Hard
I love email
marketing, and I love
great innovative email
marketing. And I love
all of this even more
when it comes from
normal everyday
businesses. Folks that
don't have deep
marketing pockets or
fancy agencies. People
who are just...
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Open It, Read It, Buy
It: Email Marketing With
The AppExchange
I
was fortunate to
co-present at Dreamforce
a couple of weeks ago
talking about
ExactTarget and the
Salesforce.com
integration and more to
the point, some best
practices in email
marketing and email
marketing in general.
Questions are at the
end...
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Email Marketing Best
Practices
I'm
doing some research for
a project and I came
across this excellent
article. What struck me
was how timely it
was....and that it was
written by Jonathan
Jackson way back in
2001. I don't know what
happened to Jonathan....
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Business Opportunities
Weblog |
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Offer Your Employees
This No-Cost Job Perk
Associated
Content: If you own or
operate a small
business, you probably
have looked for perks
that you can offer your
employees to help boost
morale, increase
productivity and
generate some loyalty.
However, you don’t have
the budget of a big
company, so extras like
company cars, gym
memberships and in-house
babysitting are probably
too expensive [...]
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Carnival of Marketing
This week’s
Carnival of the
Capitalists is up at The
Real Estate Tomato.
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Not So Silly String In
Iraq Time:
American troops in Iraq
have become masters of
improvisation, like
bolting jury-rigged
armor to humvees to
shield themselves from
sniper fire and
shrapnel. Lately, an
even more novel item has
joined their battle
kits… Silly String.
Marines working in Iraq
have shown Army combat
engineers how it can be
used to detect trip
wires. Before searching
[...]
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Creative Ways To Help
Charities
Personal Finance Advice:
The holidays are a time
for giving. There seems
to be an assumption that
the only way you can
help a charitable cause
is by donating money,
but there are ways you
can help without
spending any money. 1.
Donate Your Time. While
this may seem obvious to
a lot of people, many
don’t [...]
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Biz Idea: Create Your
Own Gift Card
Gift cards are
more popular than ever.
According to the
National Retail
Federation, Americans
will spend $24.8 billion
on gift cards this
holiday season, a $6
billion increase over
last year and an
all-time high. If you
offer a product or
service, you can create
your own gift cards.
Offer a low cost
promotional item or
[...]
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Entrepreneur Helps
Others With Alzheimer’s
Store
Pressroom.UPS.com: Mark
Warner graduated with a
degree in architecture
and a certificate in
gerontology. His
interest developed into
a passion and he wrote
The Complete Guide to
Alzheimer’s-Proofing
Your Home, identifying
strategies and products
to make homes more
dementia-friendly. Once
the book was published,
readers began calling
and asking for the
products featured in it.
The [...]
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Carnival of the
Capitalists
This week’s Carnival of
the Capitalists is up at
Show Me the Money.
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Cashing In On Your
Intellectual Property
Greg Brown at Work.com:
Every small business
that suddenly grows big
is based on an
innovation of some kind.
What’s less common is
that the actual
innovator has the focus
or financial reach to
turn the idea into cash.
Learning how to protect
your big ideas can mean
later turning know-how
into a business unto
itself. It’s [...]
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Entrepreneur Offers Tips
On Finding A Business
Marco Island Sun Times:
Each year, thousands of
people make new year’s
resolutions. In addition
to “This year I will
lose weight,” “This year
I will stop smoking” and
the ever-popular “This
year I will stop
watching reality TV,”
one of the more common
resolutions made by many
this time of year is
“This year I [...]
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Student Building His
Future On Ebay
Web@Devil: Before even
graduating from college,
Corey Kossack started an
online business that
raked in sales of half a
million dollars last
year. Kossack, a
computer information
systems senior, started
Koss DVD - which sells
DVDs, video games and
books on eBay - two
years ago. The business
became more successful
as he learned how to
build a [...]
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Must See CriticalTV
Business 2.0 Magazine:
Sean Morgan dreams of
becoming a new type of
media mogul. As CEO of
Critical Mention, Morgan
is plotting some fancy
footwork himself. Going
up against the likes of
Google and NBC
Universal, he’s bringing
search to TV - and TV
syndication to the Web.
With Critical Mention,
he has a Web-based
service called [...]
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Young Entrepreneur
Starts Apartment
Shopping Site
The Arizona
Republic: Eric Wu and
friends thought there
had to be a better way
for college students to
find apartments and
rental homes via the
Web. Jon Lange, director
of sales and a friend of
Wu’s since seventh
grade, said they started
the company because of
the frustration they
experienced moving every
year in college. The
company [...]
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One Cent Ebay Auctions:
Beta Testers Wanted
Do you
participate in $0.01
eBay auctions? I’ve
written a new webservice
to make it easier. If
you’d like to
participate in a free
beta, send me an email
at dane@carlsoncarlson.com.
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Bizop Podcast #9
Episode
#9 of the Business
Opportunities Weblog
podcast is up. In this
episode: 2007 is right
around the corner. What
are you doing in your
business to get ready
for it Tim Grahl and Dan
Portnoy discuss the
steps you need to take
in order to ready your
business for the new
year.
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Seasonal Businesses
Jeff
Cornwall: I heard a
report on Wall Street
Journal radio this
morning about another
example. It seems that
many entrepreneurs with
lawn service businesses
are also getting into
the professional
Christmas decorating
business. Those of you
who live in America’s
suburbs have seen the
proliferation of ever
expanding outdoor
Christmas lights and
decorations displays.
Many [...]
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Hot Idea: Party Planning
for Teens
Entrepreneur: Blame
MTV’s My Super Sweet 16
for showing teens
nationwide the extremes
the super-wealthy go to
for a child’s
coming-of-age soiree.
American teens, who
number more than 70
million, want what’s hot
at their parties–from
bar and bat mitzvahs to
sweet 16s, quinceañeras
and other coming-of-age
rites. Whether you start
a new specialty, add
teen [...]
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Learn to Make Money
I just discovered a
unique home-based
opportunity, that’s
really got me excited:
They teach people to
make money. Period! They
don’t motivate or
inspire. They teach
motivated people how to
make huge amounts of
money so they can enjoy
their life. You will
learn: To use a powerful
system already in place
to [...]
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Micro Biz: Cardboard
Construction
When Andrew McGrew was
an elementary art
teacher he wanted to
build BIG cardboard
sculptures with his
students. He did a few
projects, but there was
a definite limit to the
size of sculpture he
could make using duct
tape before it collapsed
under it’s own weight,
and duct tape didn’t
hold up well to [...]
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Paying Yourself
Entrepreneur.com:
It’s an age-old
conundrum that faces
every entrepreneur
planning their business:
What do I pay myself?
There are a lot of
different theories when
it comes to this issue,
but the two most common
for startups are: 1. Pay
yourself enough to get
by. At least during
startup until you are
operating in the black.
2. [...]
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How to Get Referrals
Seth Godin: Make it easy
for someone to bring up
what you do (by changing
the nature of the
service or product).
Give your best customers
something of real value
to offer to their
friends (a secret menu,
a significant gift
certificate). Once you
do that, not giving that
gift to a friend feels
selfish. Paying me to
[...]
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Start Your Own
Coffeehouse
Entrepreneur: Whether
it’s a drip, a latte or
a cappuccino, Americans
are addicted to their
coffee. According to the
Specialty Coffee
Association of America,
specialty coffee was an
$11 billion industry in
2005, up from $9.6
billion in 2004. But
some historians theorize
that what Americans are
really looking for in
their cup of joe is
[...]
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Committee Wants eBay to
Report Seller Revenue to
IRS
AuctionBytes.com: A
United States IRS
advisory committee
recommended the IRS
require Internet
business sites to get
tax identification
numbers from all
sellers, according to
USA Today. It appears
this non-governmental
panel wants to put the
burden on sites like
eBay, requiring them to
collect tax ID numbers
and report sellers’
income to the IRS. Blame
eBay in [...]
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Restaurant Site ‘eBay’
Style
Scotsman.com:
Priceyourmeal.com, which
launched in Glasgow in
March, now has more than
80 restaurants on board,
taking in excess of 700
bookings a week.
Registered users can use
the site to bid for
meals at top restaurants
in auctions or haggle
directly with the
restaurants over meal
prices. Sukhvir Dhillon
said he saw a gap in the
[...]
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Credit Cards Fish For
Small-Business Biz
USA Today:
Small-business owners
face an onslaught of
choices as companies
blitz them with new
credit card offers.
American Express just
launched a cash-back
card aimed at small
companies. Visa this
month is rolling out a
card targeting small
firms with big
appetites, those
spending $25,000 or more
a year. Discover entered
the market for the first
[...]
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Niche Biz: Party By Mail
StarTribune.com: Kristen
Manolis has parlayed her
love for social events
into the launch of
Decor-In-A-Box. The New
York-based Web business
delivers by mail the
items you need to stage
a party for eight, 12 or
25, in color schemes of
red, white, green,
silver, gold and
chocolate. The basic box
for eight starts at
$250, with Italian [...]
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Flyte:
web marketing strategies for
small business |
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Welcome, Carolyn!
Yesterday
flyte welcomed Carolyn
Phillips to the crew as
our new project manager.
Right now she's job
shadowing Beth, learning
about flyte, our
clients, and the
projects we have in the
hopper. However, with
over 10 years in project
management...
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Internet Marketing for
Socially Responsible
Companies
Are
you looking to market
your business on the
Internet, but your
concerned about being
labeled as a spammer? Or
you're not sure how you
can compete against
companies that may hire
black hat search engine
optimizers to rank
artificially...
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Have You Noticed More
Spam Lately?
Clients often ask me
why their opt-in email
newsletters are getting
blocked, while emails
targeting under-endowed
men and promoting penny
stocks are getting
through. eWeek, which is
become one of my
must-reads, has an
interesting article
about the recent spam...
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Flyte Views
Although
it's been a few weeks
since we've moved into
our new abode at 136
Commercial St.,
Portland, Maine, we're
still not 100% settled
in. Regardless, I
thought I'd share a few
photos before we head
out for Turkey
dinners...
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Of
Ceiling Wax and Shopping
Bots
Tonight
I'll be on 207, Maine's
evening news program,
talking about Web sites
that make finding the
perfect gift easier, or
locating the watch or
earring a celebrity was
wearing (or a cheap
knock-off), or how to
find the best...
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Web Classifieds Blog |
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At
Last…More Online
Storefronts!
We would like to
announce three more
online storefronts. Here
they are:
MyBookMarket.US
MyBabyMarket.US
MyKitchenMarket.US
MyMediaMarket.US
MySportsMarket.US If you
visit right now, they
are still being worked
on, so give it a few
days to be dazzled.
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More Online Shopping
Storefronts
As you may recall,
yesterday I mentioned
that I set up a new web
store with tons and tons
of items. Well, last
night and today, we
completed 4 more sister
stores. They
compliment our
classified sites. Their
addresses are:
MyAutoMarket.US
MyPetMarket.US
MyCycleMarket.US
MyBoatMarket.US This
makes twelve websites
that comprise the
DotUSNetwork.
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New Online Storefront
You have to
check this out:
UpMyAlley.US This is a
new online shopping
storefront. Through some
pretty neat technology,
we are able to pull in
every single item from
Amazon.com. This is
huge, because while
being able to offer an
extremely large variety
of products, we are able
to micro-target our
classifieds audience.
Say for example, if
[...]
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Now Listing On Lycos &
Vast We
would like to announce
that we are now feeding
our classified listings
to Lycos and Vast. This
is a huge benefit to our
members, as their
classified ads are being
spread across the
internet on the most
high profile websites.
Not only are the
classified ads EXTREMELY
searchable by search
engines, but now, in
[...]
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Free Classifieds Oodle &
Google Base
We recently upgraded
our Oodle feed and
Google Base feed for
our Free Classifieds
website. Now, on both
Oodle and Google
Base, your ads that have
photos attached to them
on our website will have
their photos show on
Oodle and Google Base.
Showing photos on
classifieds websites
dramatically increases
click-through rate. We
have already had an
[...]
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Smart Advertising In
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate
marketing is all about
the promotion of
products of an online
company. The affiliate
sign-ups with the
advertiser or marketing
arm of the online
company and the
affiliate becomes an
active searcher of
potential clients. Such
set-up of affiliate
marketing can become
easily successful if the
affiliate is aware of
the importance of
advertising. Advertising
[...]
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Free Classified
Categories
Just an FYI. These are
the category listings
for our free classifieds
site. There are
many items for sale. You
can always find these
categories in the right
hand column of this blog.
Antiques & Collectibles
Art Auto, Cars & Trucks
Boats Books & Magazines
Business Opportunities
Clothing & Fashion
Computers & Internet
Electronics & Cameras
Employment Events
Finance & Money Food,
Beverage & Tobacco
Health & Beauty Home &
Garden Jewelry & [...]
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The Power Of Viral
Marketing
You
certainly know by now
that the term “viral
marketing” is not just
another dot-com cliché.
Quite the contrary, it
describes the
incredible, unmatched
power of the Web to
promote your business by
marrying email to the
traditional concept of
“word-of-mouth.” Viral
marketing, the concept
of making each customer
a marketer by
encouraging
word-of-mouth referrals,
is [...]
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The Art Of Writing
Powerful Classified Ads
One
powerful little
classified ad can make
you a fortune! It will
sell your product or
service for months, even
years, to come in any
advertising venue you
choose. On the other
hand, a weak ad won’t
produce enough income to
justify the time it
takes you to write and
submit the poor little
thing. Writing [...]
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Put Some Punch In Your
Classified Ad
Classified ads are
the world’s number one
cheap way to advertise.
They cost just a
fraction of a large
print ad. And you get
your classified ad in
everything from an email
newsletter to USA Today.
Most classified ads are
either hard to
understand or not
terribly exciting. To
get sales, you need
people to immediately
understand [...]
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Great Finds |
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The Device of My Dreams…
Having
misplaced my personal
cellphone and with my
Treo battery finally
burnt out once and for
all, I am - for the
first time in years -
completely immobile.
It’s only been a day and
already it’s gnawing at
me…. sure I can buy a
new battery for the Treo…
of course I may find
[...]
-
Search: Can One Size Fit
All? There’s
no doubt that the big 3
of search have done an
amazing job bringing
relevance and order to
the endless number of
web pages and documents
accessible to the
internet. But still,
when you’re researching
a niche topic, you
sometimes have to wade
through a lot of noise
to find what you’re
looking for. [...]
-
Black Clouds on Cyber
Monday? With
Black Friday behind us
and the so-called Cyber
Monday now upon us, a
follow-up to my
colleague Jeff
Hollowell’s post from
last Monday is in order.
First, imagine yourself
among the throngs of
midnight holiday
shoppers in the above
photo from today’s New
York Times (looks like
fun, doesn’t it?). Then
contrast with the [...]
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Giving in to Google
When I
recently ran into a
former iCrossing
colleague - now a paid
media guru at a small
SEO shop - I tried to
feel him out on the
subject of mobile. Were
his clients asking about
it? Did his company have
any plans to expand
their offering? “Nah,”
he said, “no one’s using
mobile [...]
-
Keepin’ it Real
Managing your
company’s reputation
online is now more
important than ever. In
the social Web scene,
companies are members of
the society, just like
people. And they are
judged on their
character, just like
people. Recently,
McDonald’s and Wal-Mart
have arguably slipped in
character by launching
flogs (fake blogs) and
are now in a bit [...]
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The coolness of library
science(!?)
Some
might say that only a
researcher would
describe library science
as “cool”. I would
answer that anyone
equipped to organize
massive amounts of
disaggregated data into
findable information is
completely cool! Take
search data for example
— in any given category
there are millions of
searches a month and
over a billion a year.
[...]
-
No, It’s *My* Space
Last week
ended with headlines
that Universal Music
Group (UMG) is suing
MySpace for copyright
infringement, the latest
such move by the content
giant in its efforts to
police the social media
space (UMG previously
sued Grouper.com and
Bolt.com). No one can
argue with the need for
effective copyright
protection, for the sake
of both [...]
-
See you next holiday
season. With
the retail holiday
season already here,
there are those who are
too late to the game. I
speak of those retailers
who weren’t thinking
ahead and are now lost
in the wonderland of
holiday search engine
results. I looked at a
couple of big retailers
and wondered why they
didn’t approach natural
optimization of [...]
-
Barr on Search Boom
I came
across this clip today
posted on
mediabistro.com:
FishbowlNY featuring an
interview between Larry
King and Roseanne Barr.
The discussion between
the Boomer Barr and
Senior King is focused
on the joy of search.
Roseanne tries her best
to relay to King her
information epiphany as
result of her access to
internet search.
However, [...]
-
Searching is a constant
reality. I
am constantly suprised
that people think
searching starts and
ends on a search engine.
People search online and
offline, hoping to find
the information they
need, want or think they
want; people, like me,
are always asking
questions and hoping to
find the answers. I ask
questions and seek
answers through search
engines and [...]
|
Additional website resources:
http://www.entrepreneur.com
http://www.hbwm.com
http://www.networkmarketingnews.com
http://www.onlinemlm.com
http://www.entrepreneur.com/bizoppzone/0,4997,,00.html
http://www.network-marketing-works.com
http://www.workathomeincome.com
http://www.fedbizopps.gov
http://www.sbomag.com
http://www.entrepreneur.com/bizoppzone/0,4997,,00.html
http://www.entrepreneur.com
http://www.albertarose.org
http://www.homebusinessmag.com
http://www.work-at-home.org
http://www.incomeops.com
http://www.business-opportunities.biz
http://www.boconline.com
http://alexa.com
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