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 Josh Carr
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| mapping your twitter friends with Yahoo pipes |
| 2008.11.19 23:51:22 | |
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So yesterday we went a little crazy with the sproutmarketing twitter account (you can click on that link to follow us). We took all the sproutians twitter accounts and looked at who they were following and then invited those people to follow sprout proper. It worked great and many of the people we were following also followed us. But I think we went a little too crazy because the they shut us down for a while. So if that link at the top isn't working try again tomorrow :) This is what you really came to see. This is a map made with yahoo pipes that will show you where your twitter friends are located. Click here to build your own. Tags: Twitter | web 2.0 | Web | Marketing | Yahoo Pipes | yahoo | Mashup | Social Networks | Social Media Hits: 2 | Read more... |
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| Josh Carr
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| Amazing Video with Eric Schmidt |
| 2008.11.19 10:59:27 | |
 This is an amazing interview with google ceo Eric Schmidt. The Future of business a conversation Eric Schmidt My favorite quote from the video: "You can have a long tail strategy but you better also have a head because that is where all the revenue is." I don't think this statement conflicts with Chris Andersons ideas on the long tail because each trend will have it's own head and it's own tail. For example I have a friend that runs a profitable website that sell clogging supplies. He will never show up in search for "dance" but he doesn't even want to. He does want to show up for "clogging," "clogging shoes," etc. he wants to be the head of that microtrend. Think about how this applies in your online business (all businesses are now online businesses - that fact is impossible to ignore). Tags: Hits: 348 | Read more... |
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| Alex Koritz |
| When did the media become the pundits? |
| 2008.11.17 23:05:40 | |
 I'm a certified political junky. As such, I'm a regular watcher of Sunday morning's political shows. I always look forward to the special guests, or pundits, that will be on the show - whether it’s a political scientist or a best-selling author. Over the years, and certainly during the last election, these guests have become more and more infrequent. Now the pundits are the media themselves. Do we really want to hear Chris Mathews give his expert opinion, or one of his journalist panel guests? Or do we want to hear an academic, author, or certified political scientist? The point is this: The press’ job is to facilitate the information – not be the source of the information. It’s nearly impossible for them to give an objective view if they’re also giving their “expert” analysis. Tags: The Media | PR | the press | pundits | media experts | politics | PR and politics
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| Brandon Babb
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| Communicate! |
| 2008.11.17 06:31:29 | |
 I have been thinking a lot about how we communicate and share our ideas. Take a look at these Pool Balls; they both convey the same information each in a individual way. It's obvious which of these balls would be easier to play a quick game of pool with. It can be just as easy to tell if your marketing makes sense for your customers, especially if you know your target audience. If 75% your customers appreciate a simple and straightforward approach, it would be dangerous to launch a brainy rocket-science marketing campaign.  So you have your messaging down. A perfect message can be completely ruined without the right design. Communication is key! Tags: Marketing | Graphic Design | Commiunication | Designer | Target Audience | Marketing Campaign
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| Brandon Carter |
| The Importance of Being Trustworthy |
| 2008.11.13 23:39:45 | |
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Madness erupted on Twitter last night, as the latest cool "app," Twitterank, was suddenly accused of being a simple password swiping scheme. Over the past 48 hours, thousands of people were Tweeting the same message: my Twitterank is 101.54!
Each one of those thousands of users freely gave out their username and password to the site. In exchange, the site uses some complicated algorithm (or not, maybe it's entirely random) and out pops a rating. Then around 3 p.m. or so, Mountain Time, PANIC broke out.  Within minutes, similar messages were everywhere. This is the online equivalent of an angry, confused mob. ZDnet jumped in, along with dozens of other legitimate news sources. News is breaking out this morning that it really isn't a scam at all. Regardless, I think there are a couple lessons here. 1. Twitter people need to be a lot more careful about their passwords. A lot of them use the same passwords across multiple sites. If the Twitterank person wanted, he could be posting to your blog while ordering expensive popcorn with your credit card. 2. How trustworthy is your brand? Do people have confidence in coming to your site that if they share personal information, it'll be protected? It took eBay and Amazon years to get to this point; they were the pioneers. There are tons of sites that do e-commerce now, thanks to Amazon. Then you look at the Twitterank site; does it instill confidence? Kind of reminds me of an old Yahoo! Geocities page. Sure, he did it late one night for kicks, and he SAYS he won't take your password... Apparently this was good enough for tons of people. But I bet they're rethinking that today. Tags:
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