One of the most controversial practices widely used to build up influence on Twitter is now cause for account suspension, according to a message on the Twitter developers email list from a company support team member.

Using third party software to systematically add a large number of social connections each day, then break those connections with anyone who doesn't reciprocate, is a method used by some number of Twitter users to create an appearance of legitimacy for subsequent new connections. Twitter's Doug Williams said last night that such practices will now risk account suspension. Some users will be unhappy about the policy, many others will probably applaud it. There are valid arguments on both sides of the position.

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The issue was raised last night by developer Jesse Stay, one of the most consistently outspoken critics of Twitter policy and creator of the service SocialToo. Twitter's Doug Williams replied simply that "There is no limit to the number of unfollows. Using software to constantly churn followers in a repeated pattern of following and unfollowing will however risk suspension."

Critics have long complained that many people on Twitter have artificially inflated their social network despite producing no meaningful content on the site. The use of friend-inflation software has put unscrupulous marketers in particular in a position to broadcast their messages to a much wider network of people than they have "earned." It's been effective because a quick glance at the friend-to-followers ratio on someone's Twitter account profile page has been the easiest way to judge the legitimacy of a new social connection. Getting a new connection and evaluating whether it's worth reciprocating costs time and energy - so most users don't appreciate impersonal automated social connections.

Image: SocialMediaDouchebag.net

Combine the ego-boost of having a stranger "follow" you with the fact that lots of other people are already following them back, and new users are often happy to reciprocate a new connection. It must be a good party I've been invited to, you might say, look how many other people are already here. All too often users end up feeling fooled into attending the Web 2.0 equivalent of a multi-level marketing pitch session.

There's a widespread belief that "followers" on Twitter ought to be earned by a user's history of high-value contributions to conversation on the platform. The ability for users to discover other high-value people took a hit last month when Twitter made public replies from one user to another invisible for people not following the user being replied to.

Media hacker Dave Winer argued this morning that Twitter itself is the biggest offender. By sending hundreds of thousands of people to follow accounts on its Suggested User List, Winer contends that the company engages in the same kind of unfair artificial inflation of follower numbers for a select group of accounts that haven't necessarily earned that high profile with high quality content.

Users of automatic friend inflation software seem particularly offensive, though. They are often the most craven attention-seekers on the service, sometimes self-proclaimed "social media experts" who claim general legitimacy based on their large number of followers.

On The Other Hand

Not everyone will be happy with the Twitter policy of suspending accounts that have grown with the help of software. To draw a more favorable analogy, how different is this from automated promotional activities in other media?

No one is forcing people to follow-back accounts that friend them unexpectedly and have a lot of followers already. Shouldn't savvy users be responsible for evaluating an account's content quality themselves? When a social network has tens or hundreds of millions of users, is it not legitimate for businesses to use automatic methods to reach out to them?

A discussion of the policy would seem to be a good idea, instead of an arbitrary suspension of accounts based on Twitter HQ's apparent belief about how the service ought to be used. There is a small cottage industry formed already around "friend acquisition software" for Twitter. On one hand, it's an old-world business person's dream come true - just throw a little money at some software and gain thousands of friends! On the other hand, Twitter is an important new communication platform that represents the democratic and meritocratic hopes of many innovative people. It's also just a nice place to hang out and talk with friends, without someone trying to sell you things. Should we all be left to our own devices for building status, if that's important to us, on Twitter?

You might like following the ReadWriteWeb crew on Twitter. We think you're interesting and many of your friends already follow us! You can find ReadWriteWeb on Twitter, as well as the entire RWW Team: Marshall Kirkpatrick, Bernard Lunn, Alex Iskold, Sarah Perez, Frederic Lardinois, Sean Ammirati, Doug Coleman Dana Oshiro, Steven Walling, Jolie O'Dell and Lidija Davis.

Discuss

Yesterday, Google Translate announced the addition of Persian into their roster of supported languages in order to facilitate online communication within and from Iran.

Now, at least one team - the minds behind BabelWith.me - has developed the functionality into a cool, useful chat application that capably (if not perfectly) translates chats in real time. The service enables simultaneous communication in up to 45 different languages. It's kind of like the U.N. of IM.

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First of all, we applaud the developers for making the most drop-dead simple chat process we've seen in ages. Pick a username and a language, and go for it. To invite others to join, simply give them the short URL in the top right corner of the screen or invite participants directly from email, Twitter, or Facebook.

The chat dialog shows both the original text as well as the Google-powered translation. Granted, the translations aren't perfect; Google doesn't know how to deal with "pig latin" or "pommes frites." But it's manageable and functional, for the most part.

We tested it out and do wish the program had a timestamp feature and some kind of notification or alert. Unnoticed chats went ignored with nary a flash, blink, or beep until we came back to the window or tab containing the chat room. We did love that the program gave both the original text (in orange italics) underneath the translated version. And of course, all the static text in the chat is translated, as well.

We were also told by the BabelWith.me team, "The launch was moved up to offer free multilanguage communication with those in Iran." Check out this chat set up specifically for discussion of the Iran election and aftermath.

BabelWith.me is a product of the non-profit organization LifeChurch.tv.

Discuss

It’s tough to deny that G4’s Olivia Munn has been utilizing her social media reach pretty effectively. Her Twitter account has been a central medium for announcements, and just over a week ago, the co-host of G4’s Attack of the Show (and dream girl of geeks, gamers, and teenage boys everywhere) hosted Microsoft’s Bingathon on Hulu with Saturday Night Live’s Jason Sudeikis.

While we can (heavily) debate the quality or effectiveness of the Bingathon campaign, we really can’t debate that Olivia Munn’s a rising celebrity that utilizes social tools effectively. And now, we’ve learned that she’s a rising star in the movie world too. Can anyone say Iron Man 2?

In fact, Olivia announced that she would be appearing in two movies all the way back in April – via Twitter, of course. At the time, she announced she’d be appearing in Date Night (with Steve Carell and Tina Fey) but was secretive about the second project until her role in Iron Man 2 was confirmed today (which she also addressed on Twitter). And while she’s had other roles in smaller films, this is clearly the biggest.

No, she’s not actually serious. We think.

So is the Bingathon social tech gal a bonafide movie star? Not just yet. There are no announcements on just exactly what her role will be on Iron Man 2, but it’s likely a low to mid-level role. Yet both Olivia and Iron Man 2 are getting a chunk of web buzz on her appearance in the movie already. It also doesn’t hurt that Olivia is on the cover of Playboy’s July/August issue.

Socially-savvy clebrities have been getting a lot of attention, and for good reason – their reach and connection with fans are stronger than most. Jimmy Fallon, Ashton Kutcher, and other stars have experienced increased press, attention, and fan support from their social media efforts.

So who does Olivia have to thank for her new movie roles – Twitter, G4, or millions of fanboys binging for her photos? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Reviews: Hulu, Twitter

Tags: bing, hulu, olivia munn

The current trend on the web is toward more and more real-time information, so the race is on to collect, organize, and filter that data so that people can actually many sense of it.

However, while 220k #IranElection tweets per hour is incredible, it’s also almost impossible to make sense of without filtering and search technology to help digest it. Today, a new search engine called CrowdEye launched with the goal of parsing that real-time information and making it easier for users to get value from it.

This is a space that is clearly heating up. This morning we reviewed Collecta, another new real-time search engine, and Tweetmeme, OneRiot, Topsy, and Twitter itself also compete. So how does CrowdEye stack up?

One thing users of Twitter’s built in search will immediately notice about CrowdEye is that “real-time” doesn’t exactly mean every tweet streaming over the network as it happens. CrowdEye’s results seem slightly delayed, and they don’t auto-update the way Twitter’s do. In fact, the search engine’s FAQ page admits that they’re only able to index “a large subset of tweets.” Not having true real-time access to the Twitter stream puts CrowdEye at a disadvantage, at least where being able to digest second-by-second changes is concerned.

That said, where CrowdEye differentiates itself is in the way in which it frames search results and is able to add context to trends. When you search for a topic on Twitter, you’re presented with thousands of tweets, but are given no help in sorting through them and digesting what they mean. CrowdEye adds utility to Twitter search in a number of ways:

1. Results pages include a graph of tweet volume over time (limited to the last 72 hours, which the company says is the “most actionable and interesting” data), which allows searchers to see the recent history of certain trends.

2. CrowdEye also includes a list of related categories, hashtags, and common words from tweets about your search term (displayed as a tag cloud). Clicking on any related term or category adds it as a filter and further refines your search, which makes diving more in depth into that topic easier.

3. Popular links being tweeted about your search term are highlighted, making CrowdEye a competitor to link-centric real-time search engines like Tweetmeme.

4. Of course, CrowdEye also displays recent tweets about the topic.

CrowdEye was founded by husband and wife team Ken and Becca Moss. Ken previously was the head of the search engineering group at Microsoft and was general manager of Live.com (now Bing).

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Reviews: Twitter

Tags: collecta, crowdeye, OneRiot, real-time search, Search, topsy, tweetmeme, twitter

We’ve been flooded with interest in the Real Time Stream CrunchUp to be held Friday, July 10 in conjunction with our 4th annual summer meet-up at August Capital (see ticket info below). Since we first announced the event two weeks ago, some major speakers have confirmed their attendance and the schedule is really starting to come together.

Jack Dorsey, the inventor of Twitter, will be on hand to share his first-hand account of how the real time stream rose to prominence so fast and where it needs to go from here. Chris Cox, the director of product at Facebook, will have his own thoughts on the subject. And we might even stream Robert Scoble live via video from London just so that he can tell Dorsey all about FriendFeed. If Scoble needs help, FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor will be there to set him straight.

We’ll kick things off with a morning discussion between two of the smartest investors focusing on real-time startups today: John Borthwick and Ron Conway. Both hold shares in Twitter, but their commitment to the real time stream goes way beyond that.

Borthwick runs betaworks, a startup accelerator with investments in bit.ly, Summize (which was acquired by Twitter and now powers its real time search), TweetDeck, and most recently Twitterfeed, among others. Conway, an early investor in Google and more than 500 other startups, is now laser-focused on the real time opportunity as well. Come learn why they are scanning the horizon for real time investments and how they think these startups are poised to reshape the fabric of the Web.

Individual panels will take a look at how emerging real time platforms are setting the stage for other companies to build applications on. These include not only other Websites, but also desktop and mobile clients. The stream is not bounded by the browser, as stream readers from TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop are proving. We’ll also do a deep dive into real time search with Collecta (which launched yesterday), OneRiot, Topsy, and others.

The stream will touch every aspect of the Web, from real time media (including social reporting and live video) to real time business (brand monitoring and rapid response when customers complain in the public stream). We’ll be exploring those realms as well.

Interspersed throughout the day will be new product demos from Google, Salesforce, Seesmic, Andrew Baron’s Magma, and several stealth startups. (If you have an eye-opening demo or want to launch a product at the CrunchUp, please contact our conference producer, Asad Akbar. We have just a few spots left.)

It is going to be a whirlwind day. TechCrunchIT editor Steve Gillmor and I will be hosting the event. We are calling it a CrunchUp because it will be highly participatory and real-time in every sense of the word. Our confirmed speakers include:

• Jack Dorsey, Twitter
• Chris Cox, Facebook
• Bret Taylor, Friendfeed
• Ron Conway, angel investor
• John Borthwick, betaworks
• Robert Scoble, Building43
• Iain Dodsworth, TweetDeck
• Nick Halstead, Tweetmeme
• Loic Le Meur, Seesmic
• Joel Strellner, Twitturly
• Vipul Ved Prakash, Topsy
• Gerry Campbell, Collecta
• Kimbal Musk, OneRiot
• Andrew Baron, Magma
• Bhaskar Roy, Qik
• Eric Marcoullier, Gnip

Additional speakers will be announced over the next three weeks. If you’ve got some real-time hotness you are ready to unleash on the world, contact us.

CrunchUp Details

The CrunchUp will take place on Friday, July 10, between 9:00 am and 4:30 PM at the historic Fox Theatre in Redwood City. CrunchUp tickets are $295 and include expedited check-in to the August Capital party.

Get CrunchUp tickets here, courtesy of Eventbrite.

The complete line-up is here.

Big Time Thank Yous to Our CrunchUp Sponsors

Tokbox is our offical video-chat sponsor of the CrunchUp.

Thank you also to demonstration sponsors OneRiot and Loopt. And to Eventbrite for ticketing and MediaTemple for hosting.

Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. Additional details here.

August Capital Tickets

August Capital year 4, can you believe it?
Friday, July 10
5:30 - 10:00 pm
2480 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA

We’re also releasing the first batch of 150 August Capital meet-up tickets here, courtesy of Eventbrite. Hurry, they’ll go fast.

Tickets are $20 to help manage the guest list and minimize no shows. Due to extremely limited availability, we regret that tickets are non-transferrable and non-refundable. If you use your name to purchase multiple tickets, your guests must arrive with you to check in at the door. Additional tickets will be released over the next three weeks, so please be patient and stay tuned.

As usual, there will be lots of start-up demos, giveaways, drinks and fun. CrunchUp tickets include expedited entry to the August Capital outing.

Demo tables, photowalls, games and other sponsorships are available to make a memorable impression with MeetUp attendees. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities.

Hope to see you there.

UPDATE: August Capital Tickets SOLD OUT quickly as predicted. Watch for the next batch next week. Else, get a CrunchUp ticket and attend both events with us.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

As a business owner, you know that one of the keys to a successful year is promoting your business. No matter what size your business is, marketing and promotion need to be addressed. Marketing has become a daunting task with the increasing number of online start-up businesses.

And now, along with the traditional offline marketing methods, there are many online marketing tools and methods available.

Online Marketing is also known as Internet Advertising, web marketing, web advertising or e-marketing.

There are many benefits to marketing your business online. Here are a few.

Lowering Your Costs

A recent eMarketer article (http://www.emarketer.com/Article/aspx?R=1007064) sites that “in the wake of the global economic downturn, marketers worldwide are shifting more of their budgets into cheaper, more-measurable categories. In most cases, that means online.”

Your marketing budget is only so big and online marketing can stretch it even farther for you. TV and radio spots are expensive, printing costs for corporate and product brochures are expensive and traditional mailings cost not only in materials and postage, but deplete the environment as well. Why not direct potential customers to your website for information on products and services? Your website is your brochure, a marketing tool available 24 hours a day to prospective customers. Your revenue potential will increase while your costs diminish.

Offline marketing ads for newspapers, TV and radio are for a limited time and you pay for the time slot and space. In online marketing, your ads potentially can stay up longer and over time you end up paying less. Using article marketing, you could either write an article yourself or pay someone else to write it. When that article is distributed online, it stays on the Internet for many years. For a small cost, you’ve placed a marketing proposition that stays around indefinitely, pointing potential customers to your website and your products and services.

Compared to traditional marketing or telemarketing, email marketing costs very little. These targeted messages go directly into the homes and offices of your potential or existing customers.

Reaching a Larger Market and a Targeted Market

The Internet allows people from all over the world to do business with each other.

From another recent eMarketer article, (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1006988) in 2009, more than 65% of Americans are Internet users. They’re not only checking e-mail and Twittering, they are shopping for products and services.

With traditional media, your ads are restricted to a specific location for a limited time. When you promote your business online, you reach a larger audience than you would ever be able to reach otherwise since your marketing activity is not restricted by location. More potential customers always equal more sales opportunities.

Online marketing allows you to target specific demographics such as age, location, gender and income levels and in many cases allows you to track the behaviors of these groups as they interact with your online marketing.

It can also bring a branding campaign to life in a new way. This unique consumer interaction with your brand can leverage emotional links to your brand. Instead of a brand talking to a customer, your customer can interact with and experience your brand. This is intelligent brand marketing. You can influence people at the perfect time - their time, right when they are looking for information, comparison shopping and possibly buying.

Flexibility and Tangible Tracking

Online marketing can include email, newsletters, blogs, microblogs, podcasts, video and social media sites. All of these outlets have the ability to be flexible. An ad placed in a magazine or newspaper can’t be changed until the next submission. With online marketing you’ll know very quickly if a campaign is working and you can change wording or graphics and adapt product information to match changing market conditions.

The Internet also removes any guesswork from measuring campaign results. Using web analytics, you can measure the number of visitors that a campaign brings to your website, how long they stay and the average number of pages they visit. This important information along with the flexibility, allows you to improve the conversion of your campaign and to increase your return on investment.

Instant Conversion Ability

Online marketing allows you to convert a shopper to a customer instantly. A potential customer reading a traditional newspaper ad does not have the ability to click a mouse and buy your product or service immediately. Offline marketing involves more time and money to convert a shopper into a sale.

Online ads allow direct response. Consumers can click to learn more about a product, sign up for a newsletter or RSS feed, or buy right then and there. This will in turn create a database for you, which, with email marketing, will allow you to reach people who have already expressed an interest in your product or service. And online marketing allows you to sell to anyone, anywhere and at any time. You’re not restricted by time, geography and location considerations.

Internet marketing includes strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click marketing (PPC), article marketing, blog marketing, online brandcasting, social media marketing and many more interactive marketing services.

While these strategies may seem daunting at first, with a little research, you can use some of these tools to help you optimize your website and increase web traffic. Or, if you have it in your budget, there are companies that specialize in many SEO services.

There are many benefits to both online and offline marketing. A mix of the two might be just what your business needs to grow.

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Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat, the only online marketing and advertising company employing Brandcasting, the most effective way to brand your company on the web. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. The approach is simple, highly effective and affordable. Learn more at: http://www.Brandsplat.com/

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Growing Your Business with Online Marketing

As the international date line swung around to the States and rain finally stopped in NY, a few hundred people lined up outside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store today for Apple's new iPhone, with the those The iLife guys up front descending into the store at 7AM to the sound of applause from the cheery horde of Apple Store employees. It was a far sight from the mayhem of previous launches -- the whole line was able to be contained in the elevated portion to the right of the store, no sidewalk necessary -- but it was still a fairly impressive turnout for a spec-bumped phone and a rainy night. Stand by for video from the launch, and be sure to send in your own launch impressions.

Update: Video is after the break!

Continue reading Apple unleashes iPhone 3G S on well-prepared US public (with video!)

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Apple unleashes iPhone 3G S on well-prepared US public (with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

In case you missed it, the iPhone 3.0 software will be available worldwide on June 17th (today for developers). It will be free for iPhone owners and $9.95 for Touch. There are also some new features unveiled at WWDC.

Whats new: MMS will be available from 29 carriers at launch, but it won't be coming to AT&T until "later this summer" (WEAK!), tethering is official for 22 carriers (no AT&T at launch naturally), Safari handles JavaScript 3x faster along with HTTP streaming audio & video, auto-fill, and HTML 5 support. There are also 30 languages total available in 3.0—including Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Greek, and Korean.

There is also a new "Find My iPhone" feature that is available to MobileMe customers. It shows users where their lost iPhone is on a map. You can even send it a remote wipe command to protect your sensitive data in the event that it is stolen.

Naturally, there are also plenty of new apps on the horizon. Head on over to our WWDC 2009 iPhone app roundup to get all the details. [Giz Liveblog]

Angelica Mari, Computing, Thursday 18 June 2009 at 06:15:00

In tough economic times, collaboration can help CIOs make the best use of their resources

Since the end of the world as we knew it, we have witnessed a rollercoaster of events in the economic world order and experienced feelings ranging from uncertainty and panic to a brutal reality check and, lately, hopes of a possible recovery.

For many, the post-recession technology heritage will be a portfolio of postponed projects and an IT shop cut to the bone. But how can IT leaders keep things running and return to growth with limited resources in the upturn?

Future challenges are not related to technology, but how to use it as an enabler. This may sound familiar, but chief information officers (CIOs) are looking even more similar to chief operating officers, as they put IT into the context of the new business imperatives.

CIOs across most of the UK’s biggest companies are leading IT transformations, but the smartest are realising the need for more partnership, inside and outside the business, so that such projects can be completed successfully.

A good example is banking. Its need to drive more segmentation, retain customers and rebuild their trust is urgent, as is the creation of better risk management and compliance frameworks. Unsurprisingly, a lot of change is happening.

Collaboration technology can help leaders to identify change agents and expertise within the business. Change is often concerned with altering the way people do things, so if teams can identify someone who can spread the benefits of projects via strong networks, staff become more efficient and risk can be minimised.

A major UK bank, for example, is planning to use an analysis tool to support its merger with a European institution. This will help it reach out to staff worldwide and improve co-operation by examining email content to identify people with relevant knowledge and expertise.

“Such tools are definitely worth the investment, even when it is so difficult to get money to do new things and when there are so many old things to fix,” said the head of innovation at the bank.

Decisions related to multi-sourcing, integration or cost cutting may seem daunting. But seeking advice from internal partners, suppliers and peer groups to react to market changes -­ and justifying projects that will help understand what the business needs ­ should be one of the steps towards becoming a proactive, valued CIO.

Everyone is talking about social networking, and many claim social networking to be the panacea for all of your marketing ills. Marketing on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can help you increase the size of your email list and help you grow your business. The key to success with this strategy is making sure that members of your target market are in your network.

Facebook is very strict and very particular about how its participants contact each other. Facebook limits the number of new invitations that can be sent in a given day or week. The exact number is a Facebook secret and unknown to the public, but if you exceed this secret amount you can get booted from Facebook. However, I think if you stick with no more than 10 per day, you will probably stay within their limits. Secondly, you are permitted only 5000 friends in Facebook, so if you’re successful in this strategy, you may ultimately need to create a waiting list of friends.

How do you find your target market in Facebook? Whether you’re an experienced social networker or just a newbie, here are 10 secrets to growing your target market network in Facebook:

1. Update-to-date profile and/or Fan page: Before you begin a “friending” (i.e. request to become another’s friend), be sure that your profile is up-to-date with an accurate description of what you do, your interests, and your contact info, including your web site URLs. If you have multiple businesses, invite people in your appropriate target market to become fans of your niche-specific fan page.
2. Follow the gurus. Follow leaders in your field/industry and “friend” them. Anytime you make a friend request, include a personal note, as that will increase the likelihood that they will accept your request. Say something like, “I’m a big fan and have been on your ezine/blog list for several years. I’d love to have you in my network in Facebook.” Once they have accepted your invitation, make comments about their status updates to help you get on their radar and in front of their networks.
3. Friends of friends. Take a look at the people in the network of your industry leaders, as they are probably part of your target market as well, and send friend requests to those of interest to you. When you friend someone that you only know by association, send a personal note as well, like “I discovered your profile in ’s network and would like to get to know you batter by adding you to my network.”
4. Use groups. Look for groups that may contain your target market. In your search for groups, use keywords that describe your niche, your industry, your geographic area, the interests of your target market, or whatever other terms you might use to find members of your target market. Join and begin to participate in the group so that they begin to get to know you. Then peruse the member lists for good prospects, sic as the members you’ve connected with or have gotten to know. Since you won’t be able to view the profiles of the group members because they aren’t in your network, much of your decision-making about whom to friend may be based upon appearance or how you might be connected to them via other friends in your network.
5. Check your own lists. Friend people that you already know from your high school, college, alumni associations, and places of employment if they fall within your target market definition.
6. Facebook-recommended friends. Facebook typically recommends friends based on your current friends list when you log into your profile. I’ve found these recommendations to be pretty solid. Take them up on their recommendation and add those folks to your network.
7. Add by interest or industry. Do a people search by job title, industry, geographic location, or interest. Those people with those terms in their profile will show up in your search, and you can request to add them based on common interests.
8. Build the relationship. Once you friend someone, you need to begin to get to know them and start them on the like, know and trust journey so that you become their top-of-mind expert in a particular area. Begin building the relationship by posting a quick “thank you” note on their wall, as well as a comment about something on their profile that interests you or in which you have in common. Watch for their status updates, as well, and comment on these when appropriate.
9. Create a group. Once you’ve got about 500 followers, create a group for your target market. Provide the group with useful content and and ask questions to stimulate discussion and get the members to return to participate in the group. You can post articles, links to blog posts, or videos you have created. Invite group members to any free virtual or face-to-face events you’re hosting.
10. Integrate into your plan. No marketing strategy works unless you consistently implement it over time. As a newbie to Facebook, you might want to spend as much as 60 minutes per day researching friends and participating in groups. As your network grows, you many spend only 15 minutes 3 times per week on Facebook. The key to success is to put this strategy on your calendar and make it a routine part of your ongoing Internet marketing tasks.

While social networking is an inexpensive marketing tool and can be effective in helping you grow your business, maintain your other marketing strategies, as well, and simply add this strategy to your marketing mix. A well-rounded Internet marketing plan that includes social networking and is implemented consistently will mean that your prospect well will never run dry.

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Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses by demystifying the steps needed to successfully market a baby boomer business online. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at http://www.OnlineBizU.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Social Networking - 10 Steps to Finding Your Target Market in Facebook

This week was FILLED with conceptual ideas that were sometimes pure genius, and sometimes pure WTH. Seriously, Pornisonic, we are talking to you! Natali Del Conte and Gknee join the party to make this extra-long episode 80 percent female, 20 percent male. Has this ever happened at CNET before?!

Listen now: Download today's podcast
Subscribe now: iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video) | RSS (audio) | RSS (video)

EPISODE 142

Programmable doorbell blends soothing chimes with real wood craftsmanship

Panasonic’s limp remote concept is both cool and unsettling

Tennis star Maria Sharapova dons geeky light-up phone dress

B-Touch cell phone with Braille touch screen is an iPhone for the blind

Nested cellphones track techno-evolution

Power outlet wall solves your electrical needs

...

Originally posted at Gadgettes, the blog

No matter how well you plan, every day can't be an ultra-healthy, bring-your-own-lunch-to-work day. But just because you're eating at a fast food place doesn't mean all bets are off. Get to know your options with the healthiest and unhealthiest foods at McDonald's.

Photo by Tony the Misfit.

To put this post together, we pored over the nutritional fact sheets for all the items at McDonald's. The following list of healthiest and unhealthiest foods was compiled based on several factors, including total calories, fat, and sodium content. It's up to you to decide which dietary trade-offs you're willing to make, because when you indulge in a little fast food, trades-offs are inevitable. Need a lot of protein? You'll be eating a lot of salt and fat too. Trying to avoid high sodium content? Good luck with that; you'll rarely find any truly low sodium items at any fast food restaurant outside of ordering fries with no salt.

Below you'll see our galleries for both the healthiest and unhealthiest items at McDonald's. Click through on each for the full run-down.

The Top Five Healthiest Menu Choices

You don't always have time to bring a healthy lunch from home, and we certainly understand that. Without arguing over whether or not you should just grab an apple, try a few items from the healthier side of the McDonald's menu to cut down on the impact of eating fast food. (If you'd rather see everything on one long page rather than use the snazzy AJAX gallery, click here.)

The Top Five Unhealthiest Menu Choices

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, eating a Quarter Pounder a day keeps his business brisk. Click on the image at left to see the worst foods on the McDonald's menu. (If you'd rather see everything on one long page rather than use the snazzy AJAX gallery, click here.)

The biggest key to eating healthier at a fast food place—which will come as a surprise to no one—is portion control. If you're going to grab McDonald's for lunch, you really need to ask yourself how important getting a huge meal like a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a large fry, and a chocolate shake is, compared to a more moderate meal like a regular hamburger, a small fry, and a small Coke. The former provides for the entire daily caloric needs of an average size adult, while the latter leaves plenty of room for breakfast and dinner.

If you have your own tricks and menu choices for eating healthier at McDonald's (apart from the obvious "Don't eat at McDonald's!"), we'd love to hear them in the comments below.

If you are not aware of it, some time ago the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) approved a regulation that will enable companies from around the world to register their own top level domain extensions. Microsoft, for example, could register .microsoft or even .software. There is will be a costly fee involved with the process, but if you think that domains like .sex and .poker are also a possibility, you can imagine the buzz that the whole deal will generate.

Anyway last week Lyndon Antcliff asked my feedback on the liberalization, because he was compiling a post with opinions from around the industry. Here is what I told him:

I believe that the liberalization of domain extensions was a bad move by ICAAN. It will add a great deal of confusion on the web, as the end user won’t know what extension means what. If I am not wrong companies interested in having their own extension will need to pay over $100,000 in fees, and this could have been the motivation for the whole thing.

After a while, though, I believe people will head back to the established extensions. Inside the mess of .nyc, .porn, .microsoft and .toys, people will just type .com or .org, because they know those will work. Interestingly enough, the liberalization of top level extensions could strengthen the .com majesty.

And this point raises the following question: would a company be better off spending $100,000 to buy its own extension or spending the same $100,000 to buy a premium one-word domain with a .com extension?

I would take the latter any day.

On the original article there are 19 more people sharing their opinions on the matter, so check it out. Feel free to drop a comment below with your take, too.

What do You Think About the Liberalization of Domain Name Extentions?

A guy in Miami made up a fake woman's online profile and lured Fidel Castro's son into sexy internet chats. Big news, or just like every other unintentionally male-on-male sexy internet chat?

This guy was out to prove that young Tony Castro could be got. And he got him. With Yahoo Messenger:

Mr Dominguez, who was born in Cuba, said his sting operation had been designed to "shatter the myth of an impenetrable" security network around the country's first family.

He could have, what, come slithering through the webcam like the girl in The Ring and strangled Castro Jr., mysteriously? Not quite clear on the concept here. Let's let the people decide.
[Miami Herald, Independent. Pic via]

Sonos has been sitting pretty at the top of the wireless audio distribution space for quite awhile now. Today Yamaha is fighting back with a totally refreshed (and very Sonos-like) Musiccast2 system that supports up to 32 rooms of WiFi-based distributed audio from sources such as Rhapsody, Internet radio, or tracks stored on your Mac, PC, USB sticks, Bluetooth devices, or networked shares. iTunes support is enabled via a bundled TwonkyMedia Server in the $500 MCX-RC100 Network Music Commander remote control (above) with 3.5-inch LCD, touch-sensitive trackpad, and GUI that displays details such as album art and song information from all your MP3, WMA (no lossless or PRO), AAC (no Apple lossless or FairPlay DRM), FLAC and WAV audio files. To distribute the audio, you'll need a $400 MCX-A300 (amplified, just add speakers) or $400 MCX-P200 (non-amplified for AV connection) Network Music Player placed in each room where audio is desired. The MCX-P200 can also function as a universal IR remote with multiple IR outs to control other devices in the AV rack via IR flashers or the MCX-RC100 remote control. So yeah, it gets expensive, but it's easy and quick and won't require a sledgehammer, wiring, or sheetrocking skills. Our only reservation is with Yamaha's choice of straight-up 2.4GHz 802.11b/g to link the audio compared to the rock-solid, customized-802.11n mesh created by Sonos -- nobody wants a microwave to harsh their mellow, dig? More component pics after the break.

Continue reading Yamaha's MusicCAST2 wireless distributed music system gets one better

Filed under: Household, Portable Audio

Yamaha's MusicCAST2 wireless distributed music system gets one better originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Ericsson's patent application for their Mobile Terminal can be classified as strange, since this is a bracelet-type handset that can also be used in a two-hand mode whenever there is a need to send a flurry of text messages.

…when the mobile phone terminal is worn like a bracelet by putting the ring section on the user’s arm or the like, the portability of the mobile phone terminal is improved, and the user can see the display surface of the display device and can operate the key buttons with fingers of the other arm different from the arm on which the ring section is worn. On the other hand, when the ring section is removed from the arm, the user easily can see the display surface of the display device of the terminal body section while holding the ring section with both hands and operating the key buttons, which can achieve high operability and convenience.

This is definitely one of the more radical handset designs to date, so it will be interesting to see whether Sony Ericsson engineers are up to the task in turning dreams to reality.

Permalink: Sony Ericsson Mobile Terminal from Ubergizmo | Hot: Wii, PS3 and Natal Motion Sensing

Microsoft’s new search engine Bing has been getting some serious buzz lately. We thought it would be interesting to see where in the world it’s been the most popular so far.

To get an idea of this, we used Google stats (oh, the irony) to see the popularity of the search term “Bing” in the last 30 days. Since it’s a pretty common word, we restricted our lookup to include only the “computers & electronics” category to get around this (in Google Insights for Search). No Sopranos references should have snuck in…

What we found was, at least to us here at the Pingdom office, a wee bit surprising:

Somehow we had expected the United States to top this list, or really close to it.

However, so far Microsoft’s Bing seems to have garnered way more inte