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Archive for the ‘News Blog’ Category

Ease of use sums it up. Compared to most social blogging platforms Facebook is tops when it comes to ease of use. While Myspace may have been the rabbit out of the gate early on, it is Facebook that won the race.

Since August of last year, Facebook has doubled its user base to more than 200 million active users. The common wisdom is that all those users will translate into millions of advertising dollars. The value isn’t in the users, but in the network effect all the connections between the users. Mix that with the huge lock-in that Facebook has by its nature; it is worth a larger multiplier.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization
The content you or your users/visitors creates is indexed by Google, Ask, Live Search, Bing and others. It behooves those serious about their internet visibility not to discount social media.

Read about Facebook page growth»

Why Facebook is better than MySpace»

Did You Know?
One can send out a tweet via twitter (quite a few other methods as well) and have that tweet automatically posted to your Facebook page. Other social media such as flickr, can do the same thing.

I discovered twitter when it was in its infancy. Back then I found no use for it as the only use appeared to be for posting inane updates; I’m brushing my teeth. Just looked out the window. Wearing my old shoes today.” Honestly, who would care? Apparently enough people cared to keep it alive; look at what twitter has become today.
Note: (tt) = twitter terms

Twitter is all over the place
Good Morning America doesn’t ask for emails anymore – they want you to twitter them. What gives? What’s so great about Twitter? How can it be a tool for your business? The key question today is how a service with bite-size messages can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary.

Naysayers
There are a lot of naysayers out there when it comes to Twitter, the most popular microblogging platform at the moment. Such ignorance is incredibly shortsighted. Success in business has much to do with relationships. By following people on Twitter and other microblogging platforms like Facebook, business owners have an opportunity to foster relationships on a deeper level than if they were to just read someone’s blog or socialize at a conference.

Blogging Bog Down
Anyone with a basic education and a Web connection can microblog, which in the case of twitter limits you to 140 characters. The incredible growth of blogs is well-documented. If microblogging is easier…

By publishing your Twitter feed on your homepage, you can share vital business information your visitors; similar to your Facebook status (more on that later).

For businesses that have daily news/information to offer, adding a twitter feed to your homepage boosts the impact you can achieve with a Twitter account and keeps the Search Engine gods happy too, because you are adding fresh content to your homepage on a daily basis. Yes, you must “tweet” or post to twitter often! Get creative and think of ways that you can offer fresh snippets of information to your clients. You learn to think in new productive ways.

Businesses such as H&R Block, IBM and Nike are now using Twitter to respond to customer queries. Market researchers look to it to scope out minute-by-minute trends. Media groups are focusing on Twitterers as first-to-the-scene reporters. (They were on top of the Flight 1549 Crash Landing on the Hudson River) Loads of new applications and services are growing around the Twitter platform, leading some to suggest that the microblogging service could become a powerhouse in social media.

How I’ve Been Using Twitter
In my world, there are constantly evolving tools for design, css, javascript, php etc. The professional who develop these tools use twitter extensively. By following (tt) them I see their tweets (tt). Good ethical twitter users tweet about things of value. Rather than posting inane trivial blips, they record valuable information, links and more. I have found more relevant information in searchers of twitter than I have in those same searches on Google.

Here are some of the reasons I twitter:

• Myriads of resources: useful articles, code, blogs, audios, video, and upcoming teleseminars.
• Access to movers and shakers (I’ve exchanged messages with luminaries like Guy Kawasaki and Shane Chipp; I’ve sent messages to Oprah’s Twitter account, but am not convinced that anyone actually reads them. As of today she has 1,643,233 followers.
• Powerful ways to grow my own community and get connected with people I ought to know about
• Ability to flag useful articles, including some that I write, or events I am involved in.
• And yes, a number of new friendships.

All this with only a few hundred twitter users that I’m following.

You get:

• 3 social media accounts; twitter, Facebook and scrnshots.
• Custom graphics for twitter, Facebook and website links.
• Registration with top five twitter search engines.
• Facebook business page.
• Twitter feed integration into website.

Cost: $250.00

1. Tweet: Your 140-character (or shorter) message
2. Twittering: The act of sending your tweet
3. Followers: People who receive your tweets
4. Retweet: Forwarding a tweet to your followers
5. @ : The symbol that precedes the name of a person you’re replying to
6. #: Hash Tag, a symbol preceding a acronym, keyword or run on keywords as in #FortCollins #FCIP
7. Tweep: Someone you know on Twitter
8. Tweeple: See “tweep”
9. Twoops: Accidentally sending a direct (private) message publicly

@QuickColorado is a reply specific to me, yet visible in my public twitter stream.

#Oprah entered into a tweet makes a clickable link that takes a user to a twitter search for Opera, whereupon one can see all the tweets that have #Oprah in them. Focused tweets. Try it»

Social Media Package

You get:

• 3 social media accounts; twitter, Facebook and scrnshots
• Custom graphics for twitter, Facebook and website links
• Registration with top five twitter search engines
• Facebook business page
• Twitter feed integration into website

Cost: $250.00

Online Billing ::
We have installed ClientExec, an online billing solutions. I apologize if your are among those who have been getting the non stop invoices, we are still trying to get a handle on that. On the upside, you can login and peruse your products and services, review upcoming and past invoices.
https://hqsecure.com/clientexec/public

Server Upgrades ::
Keeping the servers running with top notch current software and hardware is an ongoing mission. Recently PHP (used to make things happen) has been upgraded to the new version five. This has resulted in some script incompatibility. Please take the time to check your website to insure it remains as you last remembered seeing it. If not contact me ASAP and I’ll tease it back into compliance. If you are a DYI kinda person let me know and I’ll send the boring details to insure script compatibility separately.

Attention agents a brokers. Our Real Estate Listings Manager has been updated and improved. When adding and editing your realty listings users will now be able to add up to thirteen images.  Your management interface as been steamlined, cleaned up to provide faster response times. Additionally we have incorporated Lytebox into client side image display (all real estate sites have been updated).

MOBI ::
The dot mobi (.mobi) domain sales have been brisk. If you have not registered yours you might want to head over to HQ Secure Domains and do so right now. The Wall Street Journal reported today that travelers are increasingly using their mobile devices to make travel and lodging arrangements. Look for CA Coast Info .mobi to go live in the future; a condensed version of our listings. I’ve registered the domain but have to find the time to build the website. I had a dream where a voice was saying: “If you build it they will come”.

The Quick Colorado Business Directory in online and ready to accept your Colorado business information, photos and links.

http://quickcolorado.com/directory/

It is that time of year where my parents insist I take some time off from the web.

For problems/updates/misc:

Sue Foss
(512) 301-0268
Skype: suef824
sue@cedarvalleygroup.com http://cedarvalleygroup.com

Read my entire newsletter Go»

Virus Postcard (originally from Snopes.com)

Origins: Many web sites offer a service that allows a user to send a customized “greeting card” (or “postcard”) to a relative, friend, or acquaintance, delivered as an e-mail message containing a hyperlink which the recipient follows to visit the originating site and view the card. Sending out phony e-card notifications is therefore an effective method of camouflaging viruses and inducing unwitting recipients into clicking on links that install malicious programs onto their computers.

A wave of malicious messages (like the one reproduced above) sent out in June 2007 employed that very technique, arriving in inboxes bearing subject lines such as “You’ve received a postcard from a family member!” The messages contain URLs that recipients are supposed to visit to retrieve their e-cards, but those URLs actually point to servers hosting a variety of malware (including a variant of the Storm Trojan, “an aggressive piece of malware that has been hijacking computers to serve as attacker bots” since early 2007) that is furtively installed onto victims\’ PCs. (Generally, only unpatched Windows-based systems are vulnerable.)
The underlying worm is the same one that has appeared in messages with subject lines as “Sending You All My Love,” the “Laughing Kitty,” the “Dancing Skeleton,” as well as several game and music download offers. According to spamtrackers.eu:

I checked with McAffe, and they are gearing up for this virus!

I checked Snopes.com, and it is for real!!

Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.

You should be alert. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled “POSTCARD,” regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C of your computer. This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in hi s/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-m ail to all your contacts.

If you receive a mail called” POSTCARD,” even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Delete it immediately.

This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

Did you know?

In Microsoft Outlook passing your mouse over a link will show the true address of that link in your status bar. I never click on an email link before confirming it is going more or less where I exptect it to go. I never click on a link with a .ru extension (Russia)

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