Facebook - I really like the Facebook app. It's not perfect but it gets better and better with every upgrade. The app lets you chat with an interface similar to the iPhone's MMS messaging interface, you can view photos and status updates, and you can even sync your contacts photos in your iPhone contact book with the Facebook profile photos. Skype - Skype is a great way to voice chat with other people. For example, if you need to make a business call long distance and you know that your cellular company is going to charge you an arm and a leg, you can talk to the other person for free if you both have a Skype account. And once you're talking, you won't be able to tell the difference between an online call and a cellular call. MySpace Mobile - Since the dawn of Facebook, MySpace is definitely not as popular as it used to be. That said, it still has a decetly-sized following, ranking 5th on the top free paid apps under the Social Networking section of the App Store. As for the quality of the app, it takes a long time to load and isn't very user friendly. AIM - This is a really neat app. I like it beause I like to stay logged onto AIM on my home computer, but it's very inconvenient since I can't be there to get all of my messages when they come in. With the AIM app, you can select to stay logged in for 24 hours. Additionally, you can also have push notifications sent to your phone, so if someone IMs you, you'll be notified. Twitterific - This is the application that I use to manage all of my tweets. I like it a lot. You can add multiple accounts, you can do searches of nearly anything, you can @ reply, retweet, and send messages to other accounts. Another really neat thing about this app is that you can send emails with tweets in the body of the email. Extraordinary application.

Facebook - I really like the Facebook app. It's not perfect but it gets better and better with every upgrade. The app lets you chat with an interface similar to the iPhone's MMS messaging interface, you can view photos and status updates, and you can even sync your contacts photos in your iPhone contact book with the Facebook profile photos. Skype - Skype is a great way to voice chat with other people. For example, if you need to make a business call long distance and you know that your cellular company is going to charge you an arm and a leg, you can talk to the other person for free if you both have a Skype account. And once you're talking, you won't be able to tell the difference between an online call and a cellular call. MySpace Mobile - Since the dawn of Facebook, MySpace is definitely not as popular as it used to be. That said, it still has a decetly-sized following, ranking 5th on the top free paid apps under the Social Networking section of the App Store. As for the quality of the app, it takes a long time to load and isn't very user friendly. AIM - This is a really neat app. I like it beause I like to stay logged onto AIM on my home computer, but it's very inconvenient since I can't be there to get all of my messages when they come in. With the AIM app, you can select to stay logged in for 24 hours. Additionally, you can also have push notifications sent to your phone, so if someone IMs you, you'll be notified. Twitterific - This is the application that I use to manage all of my tweets. I like it a lot. You can add multiple accounts, you can do searches of nearly anything, you can @ reply, retweet, and send messages to other accounts. Another really neat thing about this app is that you can send emails with tweets in the body of the email. Extraordinary application.

The main aspect of SEO is increasing the rankings that a website has. In lamence terms, this means manipulating your content so that your website appears at the top of the results.

That said, let me share a short anecdote. Many years ago, when I was just learning how to code websites, I didn't really understand the concept of validating your XHTML. See, I was one of those people who learned how to code a website using tutorials on the internet, and so I wasn't instilled with the concept to using valid code. Tiny mistakes in my coding would render my code not valid. All I had to do was fix little mistakes, and everything would be okay.

The same can be said of search engine rankings. Visualize valid XHTML as synonymous to your website appearing at the top of a query's results. One little error in SEO techniques will render your code invalid. Like fixing invalid code, changing something to increase your search engine ranking is usually small, so let me offer to techniques:

First, include a descriptive title bar. When you open a webpage, whether you know it or not, a title bar displays on your screen. If you are using Mozilla Firefox, then on the upper-left hand corner of your screen, you will see a small image of a fox, followed by the title of your website, followed by "- Mozilla Firefox." This is the title bar, and it is one of the most overlooked ways to increase your ranking. I can't tell you how many times I've been to a website whose title bar reads "Homepage." First, the word homepage includes no information for a search engine. A more descriptive title would be "Corporate Search Optimization Blog: Howto increase search engine rankings." Now, when a spider is crawling your website, it will see something much more descriptive.

Second, determine your link popularity. Link popularity is the number of quality sites that link your your site. Nowadays a supermajority of search engines use some form of link popularity in their ranking algorithms. There are many free, online tools that you can use to determine your link popularity. Submit Express offers one (link to: http://www.submitexpress.com/linkpop/).

While most people would overlook these two simple things, they're a lot like adding alternate text to an image when W3C renders your XHTML invalid. It's the little things that count, and these will definitely set you in the right direction.

I have owned an iPhone for almost a year now, and I, like the rest of the community have been subject to the "there's an app for that" joke. The joke follows as such: whatever jam you're in, there's an app that will get you out of it. If you need to defuse a bomb and rescue the mayor’s niece with mere seconds to spare, there’s an app for that. If you wanted to finally figure out if Shcrodinger’s cat is dead, there’s an app for that. We all know that there's an app for just about everything. Just the other day, I read the following article about a real-world instance where the iPhone has come in handy: Alone in the darkness beneath layers of rubble, Dan Woolley felt blood streaming from his head and leg. Then he remembered -- he had an app for that. Woolley, an aid worker, husband, and father of two boys, followed instructions on his cell phone to survive the January 12 earthquake in Haiti. "I had an app that had pre-downloaded all this information about treating wounds. So I looked up excessive bleeding and I looked up compound fracture," Woolley told CNN. Read the rest of the article. http://alturl.com/ym5e The aforementioned man had been trapped in the ruins of a hotel in Port-au-Prince as a result of the earthquake the struck Haiti, and remembered he had an app that would help him survive. He looked up what to do on his app, including how to treat for shock, and was pulled from the rubble more than 60 hours later. While some perceive the "there's an app for that" saying as merely a joke, there really is a wide-variety of apps for everything, and chances are that one of them can save your life.

Whenever something horrible happens, I cannot seem to have to right words to express what I'm feeling. Something similar happened when the earthquake struck Haiti. I knew inside what I was feeling, how I felt for the Haitians whose lives will never be quite the same and the Haitians who lost their lives, but I don't have the ability to articulate how tragic and how unfair it is. While I can't comment on how terrible things are in Haiti, I can comment on how terrific a role social media is playing in what's happening there right now. This past week, I came across an article that covered just that (see: http://thecustomercollective.com/TCC/49144?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=The+Customer+Collective+%28all+posts%29). Here, I'd like to expand on each of the points Rhodes covers in his article. Rhodes covers three aspects of social media's involvement: how it provides a voice for the victims, how it informs society of rescue attempts, and how it provides eyewitness content. I would recommend reading the full article to get a good sense of social media's involvement. What I want to cover here is how each social media outlet is playing a role. First, Twitter. Search "#haiti" on Twitter and you'll find a plethora of tweets. Some provide links to news articles covering the earthquake, some are personal stories from Haitians themselves directly after the earthquake struck, and still others are pleas for monetary help. A real estate agent announces that he's donating a portion of his commission to the Haitian relief services each year. A Haitian in the midst of the earthquake comments that people are singing when the night begins. And a statistician posts some horrifying, well, statistics. Second, Flickr. Flickr and other photo sharing sites like Photobucket, have done a fantastic part of notifying outsiders how tragic it really is. A picture of a mother and her sons standing in front of their demolished home. And then a picture of three young children, who probably lost their parents. There are grotesque images and some non-grotesque images, but all propose the same thing - things in Haiti are bad, and the photographs have inspired relief services. Third, YouTube. Pictures can only do so much. Since the earthquake, YouTube has been filled with videos that provide caught-on-tape images of the aftermath. The videos only add to the sympathy and compassion felt by non-Haitians. Fourth, Facebook. With the dawn of the option to create groups on Facebook, hundreds of groups have been created specifically for outreach purposes. Most link to websites like World Vision or the Red Cross where you can donate money toward relief services. Some are prayer groups, others simply support groups. Some are continually posting updates from news sources. Either way, Facebook plays a big part. As you can see, along with the mainstreem media, social media is playing a big part in spreading awareness of the earthquake in Haiti.

There are many ways that one can advertise his site through social media and marketing. You could create a Facebook fanpage, start a Twitter account, post videos to Youtube, and do essential a slew of other things to boost web traffic via social media and marketing.

Or, you could hire someone to do it for you.

Meet Jason Sadler. Jason makes his living by wearing t-shirts (link to: http://iwearyourshirt.com). Jason wears a different company's t-shirt every day of the year, taking pictures of himself, writing blogs, making videos, and then updating his Twitter and Facebook accounts. For this service, he charges the face value of the day. For example, if he wears your t-shirt on January 1, then you pay him $1. If he wears your t-shirt on January 8, then you pay him $8. If he wears your shirt on December 31, then you pay him $365. This may not seem like a lot, but over the course of the year, he makes $66,795.

The story of Jason Sadler brings two points to mind.

First, it brings the point of finances to mind. In my school district, to make as much money as Jason, teachers would have to have both a bachelor's degree and eight years of teaching experience. Does Jason have to have a bachelor's degree? No. Did Jason need to wait eight years to earn this much money? No. Granted, he has a degree in social marketing. But the point is that he didn't have to. I think that this story really gets to the heart of why the Internet is one of a kind. With the Internet, anyone can make money. All you need to do is have a great idea. The Internet is the place that hails the progression of ideas. And anyone who has one can get a grounding in the world. 

Second, it brings to mind advertising. You don't have to have a knowledge of social marketing to advertise your website. It is without a doubt the biggest and most accessable way to advertise your website, but you don't have to know anything about social media and marketing to use it when you can hire Jason Sadler to! Don't have a t-shirt for your company? For $25 additional dollars, Jason will make a shirt for your company too.

It's a win-win, in my opinion. It works out for Jason, and it also works out for you, the company.

In early centuries, news of virtually everything was communicated by word of mouth. In our modern age, the phrase “word of mouth” can refer to anything communicated by way of text messaging, email, media, et cetera. Because humans have a natural tendency to talk about things that interest them – from gossip to news to websites – a real power can be found in things communicated by word of mouth.

 

There are several ways that webmasters can promote visitors to talk about their websites:

 

• Viral marketing – by creating an unforgettable viral market strategy, people will have no choice but to talk about a particular website.
• Commercials – like a viral market, commercials will get people talking about your website or product (e.g. Super Bowl commercials).
• Social media – through social media, a company can amass a plethora of fans that have the option of inviting other people to become fans.

 

Word of mouth has been the world’s oldest form of transferring information about nearly everything, and it still remains (though with a slight change of definition) a powerful way of informing people about a website or product.

There are several key factors that contribute to the success of a website, the main factor being a website’s strategy – an elaborate and systematic plan of action.

 

Take a web log for example. A blogger’s strategy for his web log would consist of the categories of topics he intends to blog about. Mashable’s strategy is to provide readers with content about the world of social media by way of a blog, whereas Youtube’s strategy is to promote the creation of videos by providing users with free space to upload and share videos.

 

Nearly every website has a strategy that serves to guide its actions. In simple terms, a goal is what you want to do, and a strategy is how you are going to complete your goal. In understanding what the goal of your website is, you can determine what your strategy is also. So, if your goal is to promote a positive reaction toward Martian citings in Northwestern Alaska, then your strategy would include extensive research in the area, and then finding a way to send information out to readers.

 

Without a strategy, a website has a goal but no way to implement that goal.

A lot has been written concerning ­­two popular video sites, Viddler and Vimeo, and the differences contained therein. However, the breadth of knowledge has been written over a multitude of websites. I’d like to summarize the general conclusion here. Of course, your decision to use the former or the latter to host your videos is based upon what features you think a video site should offer. But here are the facts.

 

Let’s begin with the quality of the video. While Vimeo provides for high quality video, Viddler does not. Viddler tends to stutter slightly on computers with a slower internet connection, where Vimeo runs seemingly smooth regardless. A photograph on Flickr compares the quality of the same high quality video uploaded to both sites. When it comes to quality, Vimeo certainly comes out on top.

 

Second, the usability of the video player. While Vimeo’s player is functional, it’s rather boring. It’s a one-size-fits-all, and it has no interactive features. The other downside is that when you click on the video, it doesn’t even link to the Vimeo website. Viddler, however, has timed comments (which can be turned on or off as the user sees fit), tag adding, and a button to retrieve the embed code. It’s far more interactive, and customizable if a user would rather have a simple player. Here, Viddler seems to win.

 

In terms of the community, Vimeo tends to serve the needs of the younger audience while Viddler seems to serve the needs of a much greater audience ranging from all age demographics.

 

So if you’re looking for an interactive video player, then Viddler is your best bet. But if you’re looking for a site that will attend to your high quality videos, then Vimeo might be for you. Tell us what you think of Viddler and Vimeo!

Last week, I had a conversation with my friend. It went like this:

 

Him: “Did you watch Glee last night?”

Me: “No, I didn’t get a chance. I had a ton of homework.”

Him: “Are you going to watch it today?”

Me: “Of course!”

Him: “Hulu?”

Me: “You guessed it!”

 

And that’s pretty much how every conversation goes about television shows between my friends and me. I used to watch television live, but I just don’t have time for it anymore. And with three younger sisters filling up the DVR with Hannah Montana, I have to move to something online. My conclusion: Hulu – a video streaming site featuring TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox, ABC, and a plethora of other television networks.

 

But it’s not just me. Last month, 24 million other people made that conclusion.

 

In the first year of Hulu’s existence, their content library has grown 333 percent, from 12,000 videos in March 2008 to 40,000 videos as of today. Today it includes over 7,100 hours of premium video. And as of March of this year, more than 3.9 million Hulu players have been embedded across more than 100,000 websites.

 

The numbers are through the roof. But how did Hulu become so increasingly popular in less than a year? Glancing through the user feedback posted on Hulu’s website, users enjoy the service for a number of reasons, namely (a) the service is legal, (b) the ads are short, (c) the shows are posted in high quality, (d) the interface is clean and simple, (e) and users are inviting their friends to check out the sites.

 

Imagine you’re reading your favorite blog, and you click an embedded video. But what you find is something more than that – an entire television show. The embedded video looks so professionally created, that you click through to Hulu, browse around, and find a treasury of videos that are just waiting to be watched. And what happens when 3.9 million Hulu players are embedded across thousands of blogs? The web traffic goes through the roof!

 

With all this in mind, Hulu certainly adds some flair to your website. In our cyber society, where stylistic websites tend to attract more web traffic than bland ones, the use of Hulu makes a statement. It says “My website isn’t like all those other ones. It’s chic and it has a personality.” And people from all over the world will understand what you mean when they click to view the HD video embedded in your website.

 

So if you’re looking for visitors who can appreciate your top-end website, then instead of embedding a Youtube video, try embedding a Hulu video and be amazed at the results.

How to Turn Your Website Viral

 

We’re in the eye of the flu season in southern California, and in some way or another everyone is feeling its effects. In fact, I nearly caught walking pneumonia. In these types of seasons, a virus spreads throughout an entire population in a small amount of time. Shaking a hand, touching door handles, being in radius of someone sneezing – nearly every action can transfer the virus. And before you know it, nearly everyone is sick.

 

Just like the flu can go viral, a website online can go viral. I’m not talking about a website becoming a malicious virus that’s out to damage other computers. On the contrary, I’m referring to websites like Youtube or Facebook, where traffic levels spike due to the increasing popularity of the site. A website that is said to have gone viral attracts hundreds and thousands of viewers in a small amount of time.

 

This can happen for a number of reasons. However, the biggest is viral videos.

 

Viral videos are a huge way to increase traffic and popularity of a site. Everyone has seen viral videos, whether you know it or not. The most popular was a rendition of O-ZONE’s Dragostea Din Tei called Numa Numa. Less than three months after the release of the video, it had been viewed more than two million times on the debut website alone. Commercials for brand-name products are a type of viral video. Viral videos, when used correctly, can have an enormous effect on the web traffic.

 

Other viral videos more company-based would be commercials played during the Super Bowl, and then watched over and over again on the internet after the game.

 

This is just one of thousands of examples of how companies have got themselves off the ground by using viral marketing. To do so yourself, simply come up with an idea that would catch the attention of your target audience. It could be as long as five minutes or as short as commercials aired on the television. Then, put your plan into action. Use services like Youtube or Viddler or Vimeo to host your videos, and wait as the traffic soars. Additionally, you could use Twitter or other modes of social media to get the word out about your new video. Then, just sit and watch it go viral. You might just surprise yourself.

 

So if you’re looking for hundreds of thousands of viewers, and ads just aren’t working out for you, try going viral with a viral video!

Some people use Twitter for their own personal use, to keep in touch with friends, to keep up on the news, or to promote their website or products. If you are a website owner, here are five ways that Twitter can be beneficial to your website:

1. Build a large group of followers – Whether you are selling a product, or offering services there are bound to be people who are interested in what you have to offer. Many people do a simple search for products they’re after, and if your tweets show up on the search results, then there’s a chance they’ll follow you. Send the link to all of your friends, and ask them to send it to theirs. Pretty soon, you’ll have attracted a large group of followers.

2. Direct traffic – Once you have all of these followers, you can begin to direct the traffic to your website. By tweeting with your website URL, there will inevitably be someone who will click on your link. Furthermore, if you ask your friends to re-tweet your website, the message will be spread all over Twitter and there’s no telling who much traffic you’ll receive.

3. Receive feedback – If you have a large group of followers, and want feedback on something then simply tweet a question. You’ll be amazed how many responses you get from your followers.

4. Sync your RSS feeds – With TwitterFeed, a tweet will be automatically published every time you blog. You can control what types of things are in the tweet, picking from the title, a description of the post, and a link to the post. Additionally, you can have a prefix or suffix, such as “New blog post:”

5. Update from virtually anywhere – With all of the third-party apps now available, you can update your Twitter account from virtually anywhere. You can set it up via text messaging, on your iPhone, Blackberry, email, or your computer.

Utilizing Twitter is not hard, and it’s a great way to begin promoting your website, products, or services.

Two of the most popular blogging platforms online are Blogger and WordPress.  With both platforms, users can sign up for a free blog and are given the additional option of purchasing a custom domain for their blog. There are many key differences between accounts at Blogger.com and WordPress.com, and your decision to use the former or the latter to host your blog is based solely upon what features you think a content management system should include.

Let’s begin with themes, because every blogger is obsessed with how their website looks. With Blogger, you are free to edit any of the themes, style sheets and colors, and you can also install a third party theme (a popular website that offers free downloadable Blogger themes is BlogSkins). There’s a catch, however, and that is that Blogger has a unique markup language, so in order to create your own theme, some learning is involved. WordPress seems to fall on the entirely opposite end of the spectrum, where there is no template editing available to users, and style sheet editing is available as a paid upgrade. Select WordPress themes allow you to upload a header image, and even then, many of the available WordPress themes are quite disappointing.

The next issue that arises is how images are stored and how much storage space you get. Unless you have an image heavy blog (like a photo blog or a showcase of your work), bloggers don’t tend to use that much image space. Blogger gives users 1GB of image storage and all images are uploaded to a Picasa Web Album gallery that is linked to your Google Account. WordPress on the other hand, gives users 3GBs (paid upgrades are available) of images, .ppt, .doc, and .pdf file storage and you can add an image gallery to any post. If you’re concerned about uploading other types of files on Blogger, you can always upload .ppt, .doc, and .pdf files to Google Docs.

Another thing that will tear bloggers’ opinions is the static page feature. WordPress has consistently allowed the publishing, editing, and deleting of static pages. Blogger, on the other hand, does not offer the same time of availability. At a first glance, the unavailability of this feature on Blogger seems a little disappointing, however, with some patience and time, static pages can be artificially created.

Those are the main ones, but of course, there are many more feature differences that I didn’t discuss.  Or of course you could always create your own from scratch like Corporate Search Optimization and NetScope did.

There is only so many things that one can do to promote their website, and while someone may think that they have done everything in their power possible, they’ve missed a big opportunity if they haven’t created a Facebook fan page for their website.

A couple of months ago I started a blog that would chronicle my experiences on the bus. I thought that it was an interesting idea for a blog and a lot of people would enjoy a bus rider’s perspective of public transportation. I bought a domain, created a theme, and went the whole nine yards. But then I realized that I had no readers. What was the point of putting the time and effort into a blog if there were no readers? And that’s when I created a Facebook Fan Page for this new blog of mine. It was a simple page that had some information about my new blog, a link to it, and some information about myself. I invited all of my friends to become fans of my new blog, and within a matter of days I had over a hundred fans, all of whom I assumed clicked through to my new website.

It was simple, and within five minutes I had hundreds of new potential readers. Even by the act of creating the fan page I got the word out there that there was this new website I thought that they might enjoy taking a look at.

Other than the general simplicity of Facebook fan pages, there are some other great features that Facebook has given its users. Dave Rigotti hits on the biggest of the features on Search Engine Journal. According to him, because these fan pages are public and do not require someone to log in to view them they only increase the SEO of a website. Fan page admins can send out updates to fans. This is extremely helpful if you’re trying to promote a particular product. Another feature is that Facebook fan pages can have new feeds. All you have to do is update it with a line of text, a picture, or a video and it will instantly appear on the home page of all of your fans.

In addition, Mashable talks about five elements of a successful Facebook fan page.

There are so many things that one can do to promote their website, but a large fan base can be found in creating a fan page and Facebook has so many advantages to helping webmasters do just that.

With the release of Microsoft’s new search engine Bing, many are clinging to old traditions and aren’t giving up their allegiance Google, but those who have decided to test the waters of this new search engine have found quite a jewel. In this post I’d like to reflect a bit upon some of the features of our new search engine, and the differences between Google and Bing.

One of the most obvious differences between the two competing search engines is the styling of the homepage. While google.com displays a simple logo, a search box, and a line of links at the top, bing.com displays an exceptionally pleasing travel-oriented photograph daily. Further, hovering over the photograph provides users with snippets about it. Today’s image is of the Louvre, and it says “The world is full of great art museums, but few are as well-known and admired as the Louvre.”

Bing provides ten times more information on its search results page than Google does. Type the name of a car into Bing and feast your eyes on all of its specs. Type a company name into Bing and get the customer service number, something that would require navigation to the company’s website when using Google. Move your cursor to the right of a search result and Bing will give you a summary of the page and you can determine whether or not to navigate to that page. Hover over a video result and the video will begin to play. You don’t have to go to Youtube or Hulu to watch videos anymore, and you don’t even have to press Play. Just hover. I could go on and on about the little things like these that make the Bing experience just that: an experience.

Whereas Google is fast and familiar, Bing is attractive. However, when it comes down to it, Bing is not as comprehensive in its search results as Google is, according to Citigroup who tested 200 of the most popular queries in both Bing and Google to see which search engine would produce the most relevance. However, what may be considered relevant by Citigroup’s standards may not be for the rest of society.

But why not let you try it for yourself?

The web is constantly changing, transforming to suit the needs of the current audience.  With more web developers mastering the art of SEO (search engine optimization), many of them wonder how social media plays a role in increasing traffic to their site.

It is important to have at least a basic understanding of how SEO functions in order to grasp social media’s role within it. Search engine optimization is achieved through relevance in keywords and concepts and authority through links on sites like Digg or Stumbleupon. Ian from Conversion Marketing makes a case that the singular thing that fuels both relevance and authority is social media. Having a presence in the social media arena provides keywords and concepts as well as links. He goes on to say that building up a social media campaign without the use of SEO is fruitless. “Social media and SEO,” says Ian, “are now inextricably linked. You couldn’t separate ‘em if you tried.”

Cameron Olthuis from Search Engine Land suggests that, since social media sites are ranked high in the eyes of search engines, a web developer will excel far more by ranking their website high within a social media site than on any particular search engine. To do this, he recommends uploading videos to Youtube, or creating a MySpace or Facebook profile.

There are a plethora of additional articles that one could peruse, but the general consensus is the same: social media and SEO cannot function in and of themselves unless they work hand-in-hand. They are complimentary, and when used together are powerful tools for increasing traffic to your website.

Additional reading:

- Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success
- You Can't Separate Social Media and SEO
- The Evolving State Of Social Media & SEO
- Social Media Friendly SEO
- Social Media Optimization: It's Like SEO, For Social Sites