De ce sa cumparati o BANDA de ALERGARE?

Progresul tehnologiei combinat cu costurile de productie reduse ? toate acestea va spun ca puteti acum sa cumparati o banda de alergare pentru uz la domiciliu cu control gradient, cu programe presetate si o functionare care este extrem de apropiata de benzile de alergare comerciale de calitate pentru mai putin de 1000Euro!

Ceea ce este foarte bine, pentru ca alergatul si urcatul dealurilor reprezinta forme foarte bune de antrenament cardiovascular si ambele sunt eficiente atat in controlul greutatii cat si in reducerea grasimii din corp. O banda buna de alergare poate oferi un nivel de amortizare atat de ridicat incat face ca cei mai exotici pantofi de sport sa dea senzatia unui flip-flop, fara sa trebuiasca sa cauti rutele fara trafic si poluare, dar sigure, mai ales pentru femei in serile de iarna.

Dar benzile de alergare presupun o tehnologie mai complexa decat celelalte tipuri de echipament? (cum ar fi cross trainers (bicicletele), ceea ce inseamna ca trebuie sa te gandesti bine inainte de a te repezi sa cumperi acel produs)

Foarte important cand cumparati o banda de alergare:

Asigurati-va ca banda de alergare se vinde impreuna cu o garantie a service-ului, pentru ca multe marci de import se vand doar cu garantia pieselor (doar nu vreti sa schimbati un nou motor chiar d-voastra, etc). Asigurati-va ca garantia nu se ofera cu intoarcerea la baza (d-voastra platiti transportul), intrebati daca inginerul vine la d-voastra acasa sa faca reparatia.

Este important sa cumparati un produs cu nume de marca cunoscut “high street” pentru care se ofera service adecvat in toata tara. Astfel, daca vanzatorul cu amanuntul dispare, garantia d-voastra este totusi valabila la producator. Acum multi producatori ofera garantii pentru toata viata aparatului pentru motor si o garantie prelungita pentru structura si componente.

* Dimensiuni generale – Verificati daca se incadreaza in locul in care doriti sa-l puneti (langa o sursa de energie) cu destul loc pentru a va urca si coborati de pe aparat. Daca locul este mic, ganditi-va si la benzile de alergare rabatabile.
* Puterea motorului – Ar trebui sa aiba cel putin 2.0 cai putere si sa aiba un bun efort de torsiune (la viteze foarte mici, cureaua nu trebuie sa incetineasca cand pasiti pe ea)
* Amortizarea si stabilitatea benzii – Cum te simti cand alergi pe banda de alergare? O banda buna de alergare ar trebui sa ofere o amortizare excelenta, dar sa nu scuture, sa nu agite, sa nu faca zgomote sau sa vibreze la fiecare pas.
* Cureaua sau banda de rulare – verificati daca banda este destul de lata (se recomanda de la 40cm in sus) si destul de lunga pentru a se adapta stilului d-voastra de alergat fara sa aveti crampe si sa se miste lin pentru punte, chiar si cand mergeti la viteza mica.
* Viteza maxima – Asigurati-va ca este cu cel putin 3Km/ora mai mare decat pasul d-voastra obisnuit de alergat? pentru ca motoarele benzilor de alergare care sunt folosite la viteze maxime pe perioade lungi nu vor rezista prea mult.
* Gradientul maxim (inclinarea) -? Gradiente maxime mai mari, de ex. 12%+ sunt folositoare pentru exercitiile de mers. Mai verificati si cat de repede se schimba gradientul cand apasati butonul!
* Pupitru feedback si usurinta utilizarii – cat de clare si inteligibile sunt informatiile de pe afisaj? Cat de usor este accesul la programe (daca exista)? Daca sunt butoanele destul de vizibile si usor de folosit?
* Programele – multe benzi de alergare ofera antrenamente la intervale anume, curse de alergat in panta sau va dau posibilitatea sa va creati propriul d-voastra program de alergat/ mers. Unele mai afiseaza si controlul ritmului cardiac.
* Zgomotul – cat de zgomotoasa este banda de alergat mai ales la viteze mai mari? Benzile de alergare mai silentioase de obicei au un standard mai ridicat de structura si motor.
* Rabatarea – Se rabateaza banda de alergare pentru a putea fi depozitata?
* Standardul structurii – Structurile sudate sunt mai bune decat structurile prinse cu suruburi (suruburile se pot desprinde sub presiune si greutate mare) iar banda de alergare nu trebuie sa se scuture vizibil cand calcati pe ea (este semnul unei constructii fragile)!

Social Networking 101: Basic Tips For Online and Offline Social Networking

Guess what? Social networking online is very similar to social networking offline (in the real world)! Big surprise? Believe it or not, for some, it really is a surprise. Whether you are looking to grow your network, influence, awareness and reach or advancing your professional and personal goals it’s important to recognize that being successful in social networking online and offline are very similar. Most of us know the rules for networking in the real world, but it’s important to remember them for online, particularly if you are making your first moves into online social media and social networking. The following are tips to become a decent social networker in either medium. Most tips apply in both scenarios.

Know the organizer: Make it a point either when you arrive at the event or prior to leaving the event to thank the organizer for putting the event together, let them know that you wish to attend future events and that you met some great contacts. Knowing the organizer and letting them know you appreciate the hard work needed to put together an event may put you in position to share the highest level of invite status in the future. Find out who runs things and take the mindset that you owe them something.

Offer assistance: If you really like the event/group, offer that you’d like to be a part of helping to organize future events by volunteering time and some of your core capabilities. Help your fellow social networkers by advancing their goals, sharing their goals with others or by introducing them to a new contact in your network. Make a solid public recommendation if you honestly believe in what they have to offer.

Be polite: Enter conversations gently and in a meaningful way with something to add. Don’t interrupt existing conversations in progress, but work you way into conversations. As a conversation hits a lull or comes to a conclusion, start it again, this time with a twist. Avoid cursing. There is no need to curse and swear to make your point. If you’re succinct in your discussion, people will get the point. Use of words like F*&K and SH%T become very unattractive after a while and show a certain lack of professionalism after some time.

Smile: No one likes a all the time. Stay away from negativity, and don’t dwell on bad news. Bring uplifting anecdotes and share in the positives. Clean yourself up and dress well. Represent yourself with a decent looking avatar / profile image. Ask some of your closest friends and contacts what they honestly think about your profile image.

Meet the influencers: Take time to understand who the influencers are in the room, who are long time members and pay deference to their contributions to the organization. Share your experiences with them about the group. Ask questions of the influencers as they know a ton about the group and how to become established within the group. Perhaps you can help an influencer in some other area of life and they can help you within the social network group?

Meet the newcomers: Show a bit of bi-partisanship and don’t put all your focus on the influencers or the organizers all the time. A newcomer could one day become an “influencer”, so you should try to meet some of them. It’s important to show the rest of the group that you are not just looking to network up, but that you care about the development of the entire group. After all, Susan Boyle was a newcomer, right? Good for those who introduced themselves to her before she went on stage!

Follow up: Follow up with the people you’ve met in the network and at the event. Don’t leave your new contacts hanging. Make sure to follow up with some form of contact (phone call, email, hand written note) recognizing that you’ve met them and showing them you care about their work. Help them in their endeavors and help them reach their goals first, and they will be apt to help you.

Don’t sell and don’t spam: Tread lightly on the commercial approach. Don’t blanket the party with your pitch, your business card or with how great you are. If you try to sell things to your social network and you constantly GLOAT, chances are you will be rejected in some way. This reminds me of a social marketing post we made some time ago where we said:

” [social marketing] is about acting like a human and networking in it’s traditional form; being a part of the discourse, part of the conversation, meeting people and not sucking people into an E-commerce funnel.”

Bring a gift: Bring something to share at the event. Bring insights, a new contact or bits of information that others can benefit from. Don’t come empty handed. Bring an actual gift or bring your knowledge of a subject to contribute to the group discussion.

Find new events: Find new events, go to them and cross-connect the contacts you meet at one group with the contacts from another. Turning your friends on to new events helps them understand that you care about their development.

Introduce a new person: Bring a new person to the group who you think will add value for the rest. You’ll be in the good graces of the new attendee and likely the rest of the group for expanding the network in a meaningful way.

Relate: Make sure you remain relatively on-topic in discussions. Speak about the industry and if the conversation veers into the personal or off-topic, at least make sure those you’re speaking with have a remote interest in what you’re discussing. If they can’t relate, you’re done!

What are some of your social networking tips?

Facebook Wrestles With Free Speech and Civility

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, likes to say that his Web site brings people together, helping to make the world a better place. But Facebook isn’t a utopia, and when it comes up short, Dave Willner tries to clean up.

Dressed in Facebook’s quasi-official uniform of jeans, a T-shirt and flip-flops, the 26-year-old Mr. Willner hardly looks like a cop on the beat. Yet he and his colleagues on Facebook’s “hate and harassment team” are part of a virtual police squad charged with taking down content that is illegal or violates Facebook’s terms of service. That puts them on the front line of the debate over free speech on the Internet.

That role came into sharp focus last week as the controversy about WikiLeaks boiled over on the Web, with coordinated attacks on major corporate and government sites perceived to be hostile to that group.

Facebook took down a page used by WikiLeaks supporters to organize hacking attacks on the sites of such companies, including PayPal and MasterCard; it said the page violated the terms of service, which prohibit material that is hateful, threatening, pornographic or incites violence or illegal acts. But it did not remove WikiLeaks’s own Facebook pages.

Facebook’s decision in the WikiLeaks matter illustrates the complexities that the company grapples with, on issues as diverse as that controversy, verbal bullying among teenagers, gay-baiting and religious intolerance.

With Facebook’s prominence on the Web — its more than 500 million members upload more than one billion pieces of content a day — the site’s role as an arbiter of free speech is likely to become even more pronounced.

“Facebook has more power in determining who can speak and who can be heard around the globe than any Supreme Court justice, any king or any president,” said Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University who has written about free speech on the Internet. “It is important that Facebook is exercising its power carefully and protecting more speech rather than less.”

But Facebook rarely pleases everyone. Any piece of content — a photograph, video, page or even a message between two individuals — could offend somebody. Decisions by the company not to remove material related to Holocaust denial or pages critical of Islam and other religions, for example, have annoyed advocacy groups and prompted some foreign governments to temporarily block the site.

Some critics say Facebook does not do enough to prevent certain abuses, like bullying, and may put users at risk with lax privacy policies. They also say the company is often too slow to respond to problems.

For example, a page lampooning and, in some instances, threatening violence against an 11-year-old girl from Orlando, Fla., who had appeared in a music video, was still up last week, months after users reported the page to Facebook. The girl’s mother, Christa Etheridge, said she had been in touch with law enforcement authorities and was hoping the offenders would be prosecuted.

“I’m highly upset that Facebook has allowed this to go on repeatedly and to let it get this far,” she said.

A Facebook spokesman said the company had left the page up because it did not violate its terms of service, which allow criticism of a public figure. The spokesman said that by appearing in a band’s video, the girl had become a public figure, and that the threatening comments had not been posted until a few days ago. Those comments, and the account of the user who had posted them, were removed after The New York Times inquired about them.

Facebook says it is constantly working to improve its tools to report abuse and trying to educate users about bullying. And it says it responds as fast as it can to the roughly two million reports of potentially abusive content that its users flag every week.

“Our intent is to triage to make sure we get to the high-priority, high-risk and high-visibility items most quickly,” said Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer.

In early October, Mr. Willner and his colleagues spent more than a week dealing with one high-risk, highly visible case; rogue citizens of Facebook’s world had posted antigay messages and threats of violence on a page inviting people to remember Tyler Clementi and other gay teenagers who have committed suicide, on so-called Spirit Day, Oct. 20.

Working with colleagues here and in Dublin, they tracked down the accounts of the offenders and shut them down. Then, using an automated technology to tap Facebook’s graph of connections between members, they tracked down more profiles for people, who, as it turned out, had also been posting violent messages.

“Most of the hateful content was coming from fake profiles,” said James Mitchell, who is Mr. Willner’s supervisor and leads the team. He said that because most of these profiles, created by people he called “trolls,” were connected to those of other trolls, Facebook could track down and block an entire network relatively quickly.

Using the system, Mr. Willner and his colleagues silenced dozens of troll accounts, and the page became usable again. But trolls are repeat offenders, and it took Mr. Willner and his colleagues nearly 10 days of monitoring the page around the clock to take down over 7,000 profiles that kept surfacing to attack the Spirit Day event page.

Most abuse incidents are not nearly as prominent or public as the defacing of the Spirit Day page, which had nearly 1.5 million members. As with schoolyard taunts, they often happen among a small group of people, hidden from casual view.

Source:

On a morning in November, Nick Sullivan, a member of the hate and harassment team, watched as reports of bullying incidents scrolled across his screen, full of mind-numbing meanness. “Emily looks like a brother.” (Deleted) “Grady is with Dave.” (Deleted) “Ronald is the biggest loser.” (Deleted) Although the insults are relatively mild, as attacks on specific people who are not public figures, these all violated the terms of service.

“There’s definitely some crazy stuff out there,” Mr. Sullivan said. “But you can do thousands of these in a day.”

Nancy Willard, director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, which advises parents and teachers on Internet safety, said her organization frequently received complaints that Facebook does not quickly remove threats against individuals. Jim Steyer, executive director of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco, also said that many instances of abuse seemed to fall through the cracks.

“Self-policing can take some time, and by then a lot of the damage may already be done,” he said.

Facebook maintains it is doing its best.

“In the same way that efforts to combat bullying offline are not 100 percent successful, the efforts to stop people from saying something offensive about another person online are not complete either,” Joe Sullivan said.

Facebook faces even thornier challenges when policing activity that is considered political by some, and illegal by others, like the controversy over WikiLeaks and the secret diplomatic cables it published.

Last spring, for example, the company declined to take down pages related to “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day,” an Internetwide protest to defend free speech that surfaced in repudiation of death threats received by two cartoonists who had drawn pictures of Muhammad. A lot of the discussion on Facebook involved people in Islamic countries debating with people in the West about why the images offended.

Facebook’s team worked to separate the political discussion from the attacks on specific people or Muslims. “There were people on the page that were crossing the line, but the page itself was not crossing the line,” Mr. Mitchell said.

Facebook’s refusal to shut down the debate caused its entire site to be blocked in Pakistan and Bangladesh for several days.

Facebook has also sought to walk a delicate line on Holocaust denial. The company has generally refused to block Holocaust denial material, but has worked with human rights groups to take down some content linked to organizations or groups, like the government of Iran, for which Holocaust denial is part of a larger campaign against Jews.

“Obviously we disagree with them on Holocaust denial,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. But Rabbi Cooper said Facebook had done a better job than many other major Web sites in developing a thoughtful policy on hate and harassment.

The soft-spoken Mr. Willner, who on his own Facebook page describes his political views as “turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks,” makes for an unlikely enforcer. An archaeology and anthropology major in college, he said that while he loved his job, he did not love watching so much of the underbelly of Facebook.

“I handle it by focusing on the fact that what we do matters,” he said.

Using social media to attract customers to your cafe

Pretty much everyone you speak to is on Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, LinkedIn or some other social networking site.

But did you know these sites can be used to promote your business too? Indeed, food and drink based businesses ideally suit the short, snappy nature of social networking sites. Here, we will look at what sites you can use, and give you some tips on how best to utilise these sites to increase your turnover.

Cafes and food or drink businesses can benefit highly from a media presence, even if you do not have a specific website (which we will consider in a later post). You can post daily soup flavours or cake choices, speciality drinks, even special offers exclusively for your social media friends.

Posting such offers allows you to track the success of your campaigns. It also allows your customers to contact you, for example to place orders, to query your menu, or simply to say hello.

It is important to identify how you should use various social networking sites differently

It is important to identify how you should use various social networking sites differently too. Ensure your style fits with the style of the site. Spend some time building your network and watching how other businesses interact. Work out what you like and what you don’t like about their approaches, and use that as a basis for your own online personality.

Here are a few tips for using the main social networking sites:

Twitter

You can have unlimited followers, and follow anyone. Search by your area or by keywords, to ensure your connections are going to be responsive to your tweets.

For example, if you are a cafe in Bristol, ensure you follow other local businesses and local residents. Usually, individuals will “follow you back” if they have an interest in your business. You can build up your client base from here.

Tweets are limited to 140 characters, making them ideal for snappy comments and observations. Perfect to keep your customers informed about your products, new lines etc.

Make sure that you promote your account instore too, and encourage your customers to follow you for such information.

Personally with twitter, my favourite accounts are those which combine business and personality. All business tweets are dull and faceless, and all personality is pointless if you have a business you are trying to promote.

Keep in mind a split of tweets of about 40-60 in favour of personality, to ensure your followers are kept engaged and interested in you.

Post links to other sites you think your followers may be interested in too. This increases your chance of getting “retweeted” by others, which then helps increase your followers. Most importantly, keep your followers engaged and interested in you and your business.

Facebook

There are several different ways of having a Facebook account for your business. You can have a Page, a Group or a Profile page. Whichever you choose is up to you, but it is advisable to only have one. Otherwise, your “friends” will quickly become confused about which one to join, or annoyed with too many updates.

I prefer the Fanpages for business, as updates appear in the timelines of all your “Likers” and you have the flexibility to add a number of extra “widgets” to the page, such as a Twitter tab, Reviews board, Discussion page etc.

There is no character limit to updates, so you can go into slightly more details that you can on Twitter. This is useful for posting details on special menus you may have, or special events etc. From your page, you can also create events to invite your customers too, such as late night opening or charity events.

Facebook pages can be set up for free, and you can choose to add other programs to the basic page at a cost. You can also advertise the page (also for a small cost), by aiming it at targeted people (such as those in your area, or those that list “coffee” as an interest, for example), therefore increasing your Likers.

Facebook pages should be run purely for updates relating to your business in my opinion (you have your Profile page to be personal on), and updated less frequently than your Twitter profile.

They can act as a website should you not have one, and Facebook pages are quickly becoming the first point of call for potential customers to find out more about businesses.

Make sure yours is fully updated, interactive and interesting, and encourage your existing Likers to “Suggest” the page to their friends too.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business networking site where professionals post their extended personal CV and bio, focusing on the individual, rather than the person’s business.

It is useful to help build networking connections, rather than promote your actual business, so it may or may not suit you.

It is more suitable for those in the food business if you do outside catering, or if you supply goods or consultancy services, as it can help build your name.

There is no ability to post updates however, so if you do use this site, ensure you use it as a springboard to point people in the direction of your other sites (website, Twitter and Facebook).

Chinese social networking firms eye U.S. IPO gold: sources

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – One of China's largest social networking companies, Oak Pacific Interactive, has hired investment banks for an initial public offering in the United States next year, the first in a rush of Chinese Facebook clones looking to list.

Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI) has hired Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG to underwrite its IPO slated for the first half of next year, sources close to the matter told Reuters on Friday.

The firm owns China's largest online social networking site Renren and Nuomi, similar to the popular U.S. website Groupon featuring daily deals and entertainment community Mop.

TaoMee, a social networking site for children, was also planning to list late next year and would conduct its "beauty parade" for investment banks in the first quarter of 2011, said a source familiar with the situation.

Social networking site Kaixin001 also plans to list but has not gone through the process of selecting banks, said the source, who declined to be named as the matter was not public.

"The question is whether these companies are really going to become the Facebook of China," said Paul Wuh, a Hong Kong-based analyst with Samsung Securities.

"How they are going to monetize: through advertising or through gaming, that's the question, which one will be the most successful will depend on the business model they choose," said Wuh.

OPI's Renren website is similar to Facebook as it allows users to share locations with friends, "like" something and post updates. Renren has about 100 million registered users.

Kaixin001 posted revenue of just over $10 million last year and the company expects 2010 revenues of up to three times that level, the firm's chief executive Cheng Binghao told Reuters in October.

Profits for Kaixin001 are also growing quickly, tripling to about 30 million yuan in the third quarter from 10 million in the second, Cheng said.

Chinese IPOs in the United States have hit a record high of 35 this year. Based on the number of offerings, Chinese issuers account for 23 percent of U.S. market IPO activity, up from 1 percent in 2000, according to Thomson Reuters data.

More than half of this year's Chinese IPOs in the United States come from high technology, consumer products, industrials and retail sectors.

The Chinese social networking firms will be following in the footsteps of online video site operator Youku and online retailer Dangdang, which saw their stocks soar in this week's debuts.

Youku's triple-digit first-day pop was the biggest since 2005, when Baidu Inc rose 354 percent, data from the New York Stock Exchange showed.

A source said the amount to be raised by OPI had not been finalized. OPI and the banks declined to comment.

RISKS

Social networking sites have grown in popularity in China in recent years, garnering most of their revenue from online advertising. They also benefit from an ecosystem closed to major foreign competition. Facebook and Twitter are banned in China.

But the market is increasingly competitive with more than 100 social networking sites operating. Two social networking sites shut earlier this year due to cash flow issues, local media reported.

The industry is also fraught with regulatory and legal risks as China seeks to control the flow of information online.

"As long as they conduct their self censorship well, there shouldn't be any problems," said an analyst with a major European investment bank, who declined to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.

Analysts also said the IPOs were more of a way to provide an exit to the venture capital firms who have backed these firms and to provide incentive to their workers.

"A lot of these Chinese Internet companies are net cash, they don't need to list for funding purposes," said Wuh of Samsung Securities.

China is the world's largest Internet market by users at 420 million. About half of them use social networking sites, government data showed. (Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Winklevosses' Legal Lobs Won't Leave Much Egg on Facebook

If it turns out that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did misrepresent the true value of his company when negotiating a settlement with the Winklevoss twins three years ago, the fallout is likely to be minor. The court could take another look at the terms of the settlement, but any criminal charges of securities fraud are unlikely in the extreme. As for Facebook's reputation, this incident will likely be one it can easily shrug off.

A long-simmering legal dispute between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and two former Harvard University classmates is back in the public eye after partially redacted court documents filed this summer in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court surfaced on Radar Online.com.

The documents, which apparently were leaked to the site, were filed by Facebook's legal representatives in response to the former classmates' attempts to overturn a settlement they made with Zuckerberg three years ago.

The dispute between identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Zuckerberg was the basis for the movie "The Social Network," released earlier this year. Facebook has denounced the portrayal of events in the film as inaccurate.

Briefly, the dispute originated in 2003 when the Winklevosses hired Zuckerberg to code a social networking site called the "Harvard Connection." The twins later settled their claims with Zuckerberg in 2008 for US$68 million and Facebook stock.

Now, they are alleging that Zuckerberg was deceptive when during agreement negotiations, hiding the true value of Facebook.

A Securities Issue

Essentially, the twins are accusing Facebook of securities fraud. According to their reasoning, Facebook owed them -- as would-be shareholders -- complete disclosure of any information that would have aided them in calculating the company's value at that time.

It is difficult to gauge how much is at stake for Facebook and its accusers based on these gleanings. Possible outcomes include an overturn of the settlement agreement and resumption of the original litigation, as well as criminal charges.

However, the most extreme scenarios are far-fetched, according to James Fanto, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and a securities expert.

"There is almost no possibility of criminal charges here, and the securities fraud claim is probably a reach as well," he told the E-Commerce Times.

The worst-case scenario he views as a possibility is a determination by the court to revisit the settlement if it believes it was reached through fraud.

Reputational Risk

The risk to Facebook's reputation is also minor, even if the company does go public eventually. In that situation, the Winklevoss case would point to a lack of respect on the part of Facebook when dealing with potential shareholders.

Even that is a stretch, however, said Christopher M. Collins, a partner with Vanderpool, Frostick & Nishanian.

"Any time there is a lawsuit, there is a cloud on a company," Collins told the E-Commerce Times. "But it is pushing it to say that these accusations would represent how Facebook would treat its shareholders."

Social bookmarking links

Every story page on the News and Sport websites now includes links to a range of social bookmarking / sharing websites.

Social bookmarking links can be found at the bottom of all story pages

These sites allow you to store, tag and share links across the internet. You can share these links both with friends and people with similar interests. You can also access your links from any computer you happen to be using.

So, if you come across a BBC story that you find interesting and want to save for future reference or share it with other people, simply click on one of these links to add to your list.

All of these sites are free to use but do require you to register. Once you have registered you can begin bookmarking.

Each of the sites works slightly differently so use the links below to find out which service best suits your needs.

You can find out more about social bookmarking on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia article on social bookmarking

For more details about each of these services:

Del.icio.us
To register, go to:

http://delicious.com/

For more information:

http://delicious.com/help/learn

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Digg
To register, go to:

http://digg.com/register

For more information:

http://digg.com/about

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reddit
To register, go to:

http://reddit.com/login

For more information:

http://reddit.com/help/faq

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Facebook
To register, go to:

https://register.facebook.com/r.php

For more information:

http://www.facebook.com/about.php

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StumbleUpon
To register, go to:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/sign_up.php

For more information:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/aboutus.html

Grow Online Business Using Social Networking Posted By : Jack Goldwins

Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn today's heads in the field of social networking online, with no individual order. Although all has dissimilar objectives and audiences and dissimilar kinds of network objectives. Social Network Marketing is basically what relationship marketing is. However, the online social network is much expanded than practice.

Social networks sell ads and commercial messages arise after users tell their associates come seal a individual goods or labels they like. And sustains messages from the business transmitted it will sell. In a sense, his imagination to offer a ad a great success, like millions of these networking sites are advertising outcome to each call. The service network has gone from being a tool for population to continue in touch with associates is a very productive way to brand worth for retailers and organizations for their goods and services to create.

Most social networking sites, but their strict administers and numerous of them do not want to sell by the inhabitants, it is easy to formulate a marketing strategy in terms of the toiling group and the traffic generation site, site electronic businesses is desirable. The platform, through social networking sites and adding a constant basis and the assembly has a novel viable industry, goods or website and online marketing promotion. The membership is so high that no matter what can be traded online at these sites and a perceiving to be guaranteed.

Although the exercise of these sites is organized by customers in many enterprises is immobile limited, since it is a sighting that constituents of social networks to converse distribute related to recreation, etc. Can we pinpoint the public purpose? Is there evidence for the contend that all types of public assistance. Some constituents of the online social network, extensive ties with the business new contact or forceful, representative, small financial collections can generate for each novel bodily overpass is a high modification in your organization.

Some of the giants in the field remain pessimistic come seal whether a social networking site can play a role in the expansion of finance on the Internet to play online, numerous think that the setting in these pages, a in individual marketing encourage and deliver online sales business. Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

Social Media Optimization is the new concept in internet marketing field which can be better implemented by a Social Media Consulting firm ErocketFuel.com

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Network Marketing Leads - Your Warm List Is Spent, Now What? Posted By : Norm Sjodin

After you are done with your list of co-workers, family, and friends, what do you do? Not knowing what to do next, you call your upline and see what they recommend. Guess what they told you? They want you to call your circle of friends again and get them on a 3-way call this time. They also want you to go out and talk to everyone you see, because that is a great way to get network marketing leads (I don't think so). Now you are really stressing as you know you have NEVER just started up a conversation with a STRANGER. You could also go put flyers on cars in the parking lot, or go hang door hangers in your neighborhood. You say to youself, "I'll try putting an ad in the paper.".

Please Lord, Show me How to Get Good Network Marketing Leads!

As you sit anticipating a word from God, you think, maybe I could pay for a list of network marketing leads and get on the cell phone and call each of these STRANGERS. You also decide to go to the mall and hand out flyers assuming some of the people will be interested and call you, yah, that?s what I want, people to call me! Bingo! You sit down and practice you writing skills and come up with an awesome flyer and rush to the mall. You walk by the no soliciting sign at the entrance but choose to ignore it, I?m not selling anything; I?m just handing out flyers. Once you have pretty much handed out almost all your flyers to everyone you walked by, mall security approaches and ask you to stop soliciting and you head home. You figure now you will get some calls, so you sit by the phone and wait for the calls.

So, You Wait, and Wait, and Wait??

But No Calls

Why did this fail? Why did nobody call? Were you trying to market skirts to men, or Chevrolets to BMW owners, or happy 9 to 5?ers more work? Was your aim good but your target way too small. You start wondering if you put your number on the flyer wrong? Even if you were so fortunate as to hit on this individual, is this how you are going to teach him to get network marketing leads? By handing out flyers at the mall? Really? Could I sell you on that job? If so, I have 15,000 flyers and I will pay you minimum wage to hand them out!

A Better Idea, Generate Network Marketing Leads From Those Interested In Network Marketing!

Wow, can that really be done? Yes, not only can it be done, but you can also get paid for those leads. "Do you think I was born yesterday"?, you are probably saying to yourself. No, I do not, and quite frankly, I had the same doubts before I started generating network marketing leads that were pre-qualified. Trust me, I was as skeptical as the day is long, but when I found out the top network marketers got their network marketing leads this way, I understood why they recruited people and there organizations exploded.

Can You Imagine?

Just imagine for a moment that you could generate just one quality lead per day and you then trained your down line to do the same. Would your organization EXPLODE?

Wait, I?m not done, you would also get paid by that ONE quality lead just for them following you, the leader.

I can tell you one thing for sure though, when you start using this system, even those higher up than you in your business will be wanting to know how you are recruiting so many people. They will want to sign up under you so that they can achieve the same success as you.

This system is a marketing sales funnel and you need to get yourself one. It creates profits even from those 95% of people who will not sign up for your network marketing business. There are many different sales funnels out there, so find one, use it everyday, and you will prosper. Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

Norm Sjodin utilizes one of the best marketing sales funnels to generate tons of quality network marketing leads to his inbox everyday. For more information on this and other lead creation tactics, visit my online lead generation blog. To your success and your profits!

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Balonare

Balonarea este cauzata de o anumita afectiune sau este o consecinta a unui stil alimentar dezordonat. Daca senzatia de balonare este repetitiva, in ciuda regimului alimentar optim, este important sa va adresezi unui medic specialist pentru a depista daca exista probleme digestive si cum pot fi tratate. Balonarea se manifesta prin gaze in exces in tubul digestiv, in special in stomac si intestine. In cazuri de balonare persistenta, este recomandata o detoxifiere de 2-3 ori pe an, necesitate prezenta in special dupa varsta de 35 de ani, cand problemele digestive devin mai frecvente.

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Network Marketing Secrets - Create Mystery Posted By : Norm Sjodin

Why do you think people sprint from you or shutdown when you try to tell them about your network marketing business? Have they ever started totally ignoring your phone call, emails, and other attempts to contact them?

Why do you think that is? Well let me tell you one of my network marketing secrets-- you must produce mystery.

Please Do Not Do This:

Do not harass your family, friends, or co-workers (not yet at least). Why? They do not want to feel obligated or pressured to join your business. It's not comfortable, plus, they cannot imagine doing what you just did--selling to friends, family, or coworkers. It's frightening!

We have all felt this way-

"Oh my, God, here he comes with another business proposition."

This is why they don't want to do network marketing. The thought of them making others feel the way they do is not fun for them.

Pro recruiters make you come to them. How do they do this? Listen closely--here is one of my top network marketing secrets.

They Create Mystery. If a friend, family member, or co-worker comes up to you and says, "So, what are you doing tonight"? Your reply, "I am mapping out next month's goals for my new home-based business so that I can replace my income, quit my job, and work from the comfort of my home".

What did you just do? You created mystery which will prompt "them" to ask "you" more about it, "Oh yeah, what home-based business are you talking about"? Your reply, "Ask me again in a few weeks and I will tell you all about it, I am still honing my skills as a leader". I want to start realizing some of my goals and feel more comfortable as a leader before seeking a business partner, but I will keep you in mind if you like."

You have not disqualified them but they can tell you are serious about your business and being a leader. You have just unthinkingly positioned yourself as a leader!

Then conclude with something like this, "Maybe in a a month or so when I have started to prove myself as a leader and realize some success, I will be more educated and in a better position to seek a business partner."

Tha is all you need to say!

Yes, shut up! It will not be easy but keep your mouth shut; someone else is not going to steal them from you! Change the subject and chat about something else.

Hey, I heard your son just won...blah blah blah!

This technique plays on their emotions. You just created HUGE mystery and possibly even some envy, which is great.

Haven't you ever been attracted to someone simply because they were mysterious? Isn't that what we are after in the end, individuals to be attracted to us, to follow our lead, to become part of our team and build a huge business?

The next time you see the individual in the example above, he or she will probably ask you again, "So are you ready for a business partner yet"? Go ahead and tease him some more, or if you have studied some of my recruiting techniques then begin that process on him now.

This is one of my best network marketing secrets, and it works! Create attraction through mystery and sprinkle it with a small dose of envy!

Creating mystery is by far one of my favorite network marketing secrets. This secret will have individuals itching to know what you are doing. When the time is right, recruit them, and then teach them the network marketing secret that just recruited them.

Now get out there and create some mystery because it works and it is powerful! Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

Norm and Kevin Sjodin are well versed in the use of network marketing secrets to get their prospects excited about the business and asking them questions. If you need some help recruiting others, check out their attraction marketing blog to learn even more tips and tricks you can use to become a leader and recruit more people!

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Glide Technology Event at CIPR – November 26th, 2010 London

I’m speaking at the Glide Technology event tomorrow morning here in London focusing on Glide Intelligence, Glide Technologies new platform.  Posting has been as light as the activity and social interactions in London this trip have been intensive.   I’ll be returning to New York late this weekend.

I also spoke at an Integrasco Event at the Soho Hotel on Tuesday, November 23rd which went very well.   Tomorrow’s event has 55 registrants which is pretty packed for the Certified Institute of Public Relations (looks like a brownstone from the photos on Google Maps).

Here’s the information about Friday’s event at the CIPR

How to measure the engaged web; what worked yesterday does not work today. New methodologies for new challenges.

To coincide with the launch of Glide’s revolutionary new automated sentiment analysis tool, this seminar will examine the challenges of successfully measuring your brand in a socially networked world.

Find out

How to effectively track your reputation across thousands or tens of thousands of media outletsWhy traditional methodologies simply don’t work when it comes to measuring social mediaHow to cost-effectively benchmark against the competitionHow to measure traditional media (print, broadcast) alongside social media, whilst understanding the connections

Spaces are free but limited so register now to reserve your place.

About the speakers

Marshall Sponder is an independent Web Analytics and SEO/SEM specialist working in the field of market research, social media, networking and PR. He provides digital data convergence generating ROI and develops data metrics, KPI’s and dashboards that drive businesses by setting and evaluating benchmarks. Read his influential blog here.

Keith Woods-Holder is a pioneer in automated sentiment analysis. A former Research Director of Saatchis, he began his career creating advanced mathematical models for the UK Government. He also worked at IBM where he built one of the first commercial sentiment analysis models.

When

Friday 26th November 2010, 8am to 10am GMT

Where

CIPR, 52-53 Russell Square, London, WC1B 4HP

Meanwhile, the one day trip to Oslo was to address the Board of Directors of Integrasco.   I had no idea Norway was so big and far from London (2 hour flight).

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NETWORK MARKETING, DO YOUR RESEARCH Posted By : Charlene Stien

When looking into network marketing it is hard to figure out which ones are legitimate
and which MLM's are not. MLM (multilevel marketing) ranks the highest on the internet.

Things to watch for:
Be careful of plans that claim to sell wonder products or pay out large earnings.
Avoid plans that ask you to purchase large amounts of inventory.
Be careful of references that might be done by their family and friends.
Watch out for plans of constant growth of new members to make money.

A legitimate MLM has no hidden purchases and has quality products and services for you to
market to make money! The ideal thing is to do your research and familiarize yourself on
marketing.

Things to research:
That the company truly has an up line support system for success.
Check into the company management.
What products and services does the company have to offer. Do the products meet your needs?
How does the company back their products?

What is the company's track record and how does it rank with other companies?
Is it a solid company?
Is there a required minimum of sales for the month?
What kind of investment do you need to join?
Do you need to sign up new members to be successful and if so, how many?
Don't listen to a road to riches or get rich scheme!

Find out and learn about the owner or founder of the company. Are they personable and easily
approachable? Learn what the owners morals and beliefs are concerning the conduct of their
company. The company should be honest with you and let you know it takes dedication and hard
work. Make sure they offer good training and support lines. Be careful of using your family
and friends as leads. A legitimate marketing company, you earn money on the company's products
and services. A well established company will provide you with support of a website, leads, sales
literature, etc. These things are important to succeed! They don't pay on bringing in new members
alone. Legitimate MLM companies do business in all 50 states in the United States and also in 100
other countries. Network marketing can be an amazing business, if you position yourself with the
right company.Yes you can earn money, if you look into what the business has to offer. Most of
all, if you get into network marketing know that it is a job. Although it is a home based business,
you need to work marketing just like you would any other job.You get up in the morning and get to
work at it. You wouldn't just not go to work at any other job, then not with this job either. To do
good at a job and be successful you need to be dedicated and work hard at it. If you neglect your
business it will fall apart, just like anything else. What you put into your business is what you
will get out of it! Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

href="http://www.connectyoutosuccess.com"> CONNECT YOU TO SUCCESS and find out Now what you need to know!!

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Making Better Decision finding Influencers – Fresh Networks Social Media Influencer Report

A tip from Charlie Osmand over at Fresh Networks (who I believe spoke in London at #msm10 last week, where I was at and also spoke) caught my attention this morning and I took a look at their (his) review of Social Media Influencers.   The link to download the PDF  is contained in Charlie’s DM  below.

curious to hear what you’ll make of this one: 9 Social media monitoring tools compared for ability to find influencers: http://t.co/pANb2h

Direct message sent by charlie osmond (@cosmond) to you (@webmetricsguru) on Dec 04, 10:10 AM.

The report is excellent in that it goes into some depth of influencer identification because it confines itself to actually focusing on a particular aspect/application of each of the 9 platforms (I was not familiar with PeerIndex, but have worked on all the other platforms listed and have active accounts on most of them).

But the closer you get to the truth, the more you realize there is no “one truth” or infact, one tool good for everything.  According the FreshNetworks paper  BrandWatch is best for finding Forum and Message Board Influeners while Radian6 was better finding Twitter followers (I’d put my money any day on finding Forum followers over Twitter followers as there are so many free tools like Klout and PeerIndex that handle Twitter followers – but identifying  Forum Influencers by topic – that’s rare and potentially much more valuable).  Scout Labs/Lithium was best at finding YouTube and Image influence while Synthesio was better than the rest at finding Facebook Influencers (again, much more valuable because it’s harder to get into Facebook and really find a consolidated influence score there).

The rest of the platforms really stood out for other features but not  for influence identification such as Alterian/Techrigy/SM2 for segmentation, Sysomos for best overall tool (USP) and Social Radar for the best data visualization platform.    The subject of the influence study was “organic baby food” – something every platform should be able to do a good report on.

There is so much “fragmentation” between vendors and what outputs they produce and buyers (and what inputs they need) that each platform tends to be good at certain things but not as good at others – you pick the platform you need for the relationships and capabilities you need on one project, then find it’s unsuitable for others, and you get into the datasoup mess most agencies are in, with a hybrid set of tools that are not interoperable and do not support the workflow or analyst, never mind the stakeholders.

But still, this is the best overall influencer study of a comparative set of social listening platforms I’ve seen so far and does a good job at defining influence in a workable way that is useful for most people reading this blog.

FreshNetworks quotes Dave Sifry, founder of Technorati as …

targeting the Magic Middle of online influencers, sandwiched between Chris Anderson?s Long Tail and well-known A-list influencers.

Makes sense to me as it’s unlikely your going to get Lady Gaga to advocate much of anything (if you can even get through to her handlers) but you may have some luck getting through to people just ahead of the Long Tail (who have groups of niche followers and aren’t so inundated with requests that they are putting up barriers to being contacted).

It’s also interesting the FreshNetworks study talks about 4 types of Influencers yet only shows the three (above), where is the forth type hiding?

Another great thing about the FreshNetworks paper is how of it defines 5 levels Engagement – I don’t know if this is the best definition, but it’s certainly workable and even possible to manually rank influence based on it.

Inactive – aware of the relevant sector or topic but not actively engaging.

Brand Conscious – aware of your brand. Generates some buzz but not fully engaged and mostly fleeting references online.

Word-of-Mouth Amplifiers– spreads key messages and updates that relate directly to your brand, products or services.

Brand Advocates/Evangelists – support and champion your brand online.

Brand Ambassadors – key advocates who have a strong involvement with the your brand online. Could be a commercial relationship.

I doubt you could automate the classification of influence (but it’s worth a try).

There’s also a section on “what’s in it for me” in approaching influencers,  how to do it and how to select the right tool/platform.   I honestly could not have done a better job if I had written the report myself, though I might have tried to pick clear winners and losers instead of giving every platform kudos for something they do better than anyone else, as FreshNetworks did.

On the hand, to be fair and honest, as I am known to be – the real issue here isn’t influencer identification capabilities, it’s rather, the right tool/platform you need for your particular situation – that’s a custom consulting case scenario, not something that a paper like this can fully address.

My book will attempt to set the case and rationale for more strategic investment in tools and processes than any of these types of studies has produced (the basis for the FreshNetworks study is to build more clientele – nothing wrong with that ) but doesn’t really address that fact, nor can it, that every business and situation is different and the precision needed in influencer identification continues to evolve past where any of these tools, profiled, goes.

Also notable, is that this study covers 9 platforms and leaves out others that could have also been interesting such as Traakr (not to mention that just about every PR, Advertising and Marketing firm now is either creating influencer lists of their own or buying them and white labeling it from firms like Traackr or other similar type services).

Prices vary for such lists and are widely dissimilar, often for the similar lists to tell the truth, but having done some of this myself, in various capacities, I am of the belief we should not invent the wheel  unless we can show a much better cut of influence than what the existing tools and platforms produce now, nuff said.

These are the current comments for "Making Better Decision finding Influencers – Fresh Networks Social Media Influencer Report"

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Online Marketing Tools That Will Help You Succeed in Network Marketing Posted By : Mark Manderville

In the age of the internet, it is pretty rare that you can?t start up your computer and search a subject and not find what you are searching for. Where network marketing has traditionally been a face-to-face business, it is starting to see a shift to the internet for help. There are hundreds of online marketing tools available to help with this shift and here are just a few that can help the serious network marketer make a smooth transition from face-to-face to online marketing.

Social Media is at All Time Highs

There is no better place these days to connect with people than through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. With over half a billion users on Facebook, this allows network marketers to search out more like minded people with similar interests, share their products or services and just build a relationship with someone who they otherwise would never have been able to meet. Through social media is has become the norm to make friends with people you have never met face-to-face and probably never will. The secret to using social media as an online marketing tool is to really build that relationship, search out groups that have similar interests and ask a lot of questions without leading with your business. No one wants a business pitch on a social site. You never want to lead in with business. Get to know someone first to see if they are qualified or interested in what you are doing.

Get Those Thoughts on Paper

Article Marketing is a very under-utilized online marketing tool that can help in many ways. Basically the concept of article marketing is to write content that offers value to the reader so they come back for more. If you are in network marketing, you want to write about things that will offer value to other network marketers or those interested in pursuing network marketing. The rule of thumb with Article writing is that you need to make sure your articles are keyword rich so they rank on search engines thus they are actually seen. You also want to make sure to submit your articles to well known directories and also to as many directories as you can. An easy time saving way to do this is to purchase an article submitter that will automatically submit the content.

People Like Visual

With the internet, it is so easy to be fooled or to be misled. Video marketing is a great online marketing tool that more and more people are using to generate leads. Video marketing has become a must have in the network marketing world. Like article marketing, your videos need to be that of value to the audience you are looking to ensnare. With videos you always want to make sure to say who you are, a short summary of why you are cutting a video, have some valuable, relevant points and then a call to action of what you want the person who is watching to do. Also post to as many sites that will accept videos for the most exposure. Videos tend to work well to generate a following which is especially important when you are trying to build a list of people to talk with like in network marketing.

Again, the online marketing tools that are available out there are endless, but knowing the proper ways to use them will take you much further than not. Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

Mark Manderville is a professional in attraction marketing and personal branding. Click on ONLINE MARKETING TOOLS to learn how to better utilize the internet and become a true online network marketing expert.

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Making Queries better with related phases

In my the last few weeks I have been hearing of ways to improve the results of Social Media queries by finding out words that often appear near each other in documents that are crawled and indexed.  While some platforms don’t allow that information to be extracted, others do, including Sysomos.

I wanted to be sure Sysomos did, in fact, do this (provide the numerical association number between any two commonly associated words in a topic, and you know what?  It does (see the spreadsheet excerpt below the buzzmap).

Here’s an expanded “buzzmap” on the keyphase “Influence” that Sysomos produces.  But what you don’t know is that it can also take that information in “plain form” and then exported to .csv and provide a better query.  I’ll go into what makes this the raw material for a much better query in a subsequent post – but just keep this in mind.

I used such a wide word that I think there’s still a lot of things that could be refined before getting to this stage – but it’s possible to make much better queries with this information.

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Selling Advertising Space an Income Generator for Internet Portals Posted By : jennyrs

You would probably not have to jump from one site to another all the time if Internet sites could decide on their own. You would instead be at a site known as an Internet portal most of the time. Internet portals make it a point to make people feel they belong in a virtual community.

An Internet portal is essentially a Web super site that wants to be your start page and your end page. The fact that many services offered by the owners of these sites are free makes the sites so tempting. E mail accounts are among the free offers of the typical Internet portal. Considered popular among users, instant messaging programs are found in these sites, along with chat rooms and message boards. The popular search engine tops the list.

Availing of these services will allow you to think that you are not just looking in on a particular site. The American express approach to Web sites is what I fondly call this. The term members stuck well with people more than customers or cardholders, as revealed by an American express survey.

This explains the appearance of the slogan Membership has its Privileges. This is the same way portals work. Why is the idea of community such a big deal for these portal sites? It all revolves around the idea of money. These sites produce free services, and so they must sell online advertising space in order to earn income. The thinking is that the more free services they provide and the more they make you feel like a member instead of simply a user, the more time you're likely to spend at that site. The advertising space provided by the site would cost more.

Advertisements will doubtless be found at every portal you go to. With its netcenter site, Netscape became known as a pioneer in the portal concept. Rather than reinvent the wheel, it has teamed with other noteworthy Internet companies to offer many of its free services. For example, netcenter's free e mail is actually provided by USA.net, which operates the net address free e mail service.

Services of the netcenter include business related discussion groups and online shopping spots. Internet users would always start with Internet search engines. Thus, popular search engines have now begun to provide the same features as portal sites.

AltaVista also offers satisfactory portal features. Text translation is a feature that the site also has in one of its pages. One of my favorite sites on the Web, Yahoo has made waves as both a search tool and a portal site. Searching can be done, and an e mail account can be made free of charge. Constructing your own yahoo, called my yahoo, is possible.

For the sake of macintosh and unix users, a java version as well as a downloadable version of Yahoo pager is ready for public consumption. In order to get Yahoo as your Internet service provider, you have to sign up. You can buy groceries online through eGrocer. The excite product finder adds a new dimension to your online shopping experience. By typing what you need, you can have a whole list of sites and prices. You are also given the chance to use the search engine.

The same features are available at lycos. Lycos is quite similar to other sites because of the services it offers. The unique thing about lycos is that it offers free home pages, something not common to other portal sites. Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

A deeper insight relating to web marketing services is found there. Go to this site for further information on online marketing strategy.

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Social Media Case Studies – I’m smiling – Web Journal – general

Well, I got the first case study for my book back from Synthesio – its for Accor hotels and it’s exactly what I asked for – smiling.  I realize that in asking people to fill out a form with details in a certain structure that I’m making more work (but it’s also the way that many other types of forms are structured – for a specific purpose).

In my case, I need to compare what the case studies show, look for overall patterns and trends, some of that will actually be spreadsheet analysis – some with be broad statements on what Social Media ROI is or is not.

I can’t share the Case Study yet, but it was several pages – it will be in my book along with many interesting diagrams (some of them vendor generated) no one has ever seen before.    What I show will make perfect sense when the book is published.

I am meaning to update my web journal and make some commentary on the recent Google – Groupon acquisition rumors but it’s really hard to do it when all my spare time is going into the book – event the book site isn’t ready yet – it’s still too noisy – frustrating in that as fast I try to move – there is only so far and fast I can move.  It’ makes me more appreciative of how difficult it is to get moving parts to all line up (probably the biggest problem agencies have, if you ask me – along with the idea if that they may or may not be relevant any longer, esp PR agencies – what’s their value proposition?)

One thing that is coming up a lot is Google, and from my talk with Giles Palmer of BrandWatch over the weekend in Brighton, I got an appreciation of how much Google Instant and Google C affine have been changing the web, improving it, yet skewing it to show results that are largely pre cached in order make a richer search experience.  The problem is – if your not someone or something that is searched on often (the long tail or even the pre-long tail) you not going to get that extra “massaging” by Google caching and preprocessing the results.

A few more interesting posts I’ve read include

Research Examines What Motivates People to Comment Online in RWW and JAtIN’s blog about Google Complexity – according to the post …

As Google grows in complexity, the number of bugs in their system multiply. Sometimes you don’t rank because you screwed up. But sometimes you don’t rank because Google screwed up. Typically Google sees minimal difference either way, as there will always be another website to fill up the search results. But as a business owner, when Google gets it wrong you can be screwed pretty bad, particularly if you stock physical inventory and have to tightly manage your supply chain & cash flow.

Another reason why Search Engines need to be regulated – as much as they hate that idea – it’s needed.

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Facebook - A Brand New Awesome Advertising and marketing Avenue Posted By : bsb88my

Advertising as an exercise is all about reaching the correct clients with the fitting products, and the outcome sought is delighted prospects who are more than willing to open their purses wide sufficient to boost your revenues. For a few years, entrepreneurs stalked their target clients by means of numerous means and by attempting to get their message across to spread consciousness about their wares.

Conventional Technique of Communication

Traditionally, advertising communications have been carried out by way of print, broadcast and such conventional media by way of disruptive advertising, where ads seem in between the content of interest for the customer.

Traditional media does give a big reach to a marketer with its programming of mass appeal. However, the wastage is equally high, since a large portion of the viewers would belong to a distinct section than the one that's to be targeted by the marketer.

Enter Social Media and the Web

The revolution stirred by the web as a medium occurred because of the truth that it is extremely customized and gives extra content on-demand than any other out there medium. Social websites proliferated far and huge in their utilization for just a few easy reasons:

The facility to create and distribute content material is equally available to every person, regardless of him/her being a buyer or a marketer. Within the earlier types of media, that energy rested with the editorial workers of the channel or the advertiser, but hardly with the user.
The medium is completely personalised, and a consumer can create or be a part of groups and additional create content based on what he/she likes.
Opinions are free and fair. That is one purpose why social media is of utmost concern to entrepreneurs, since buying selections aren't any extra influenced as much by advertisements. The traditional phrase-of-mouth marketing approach has grown leaps and bounds on social networks.

Facebook – On the Heart of Social Media

With 500 million (and growing) distinctive users worldwide, Facebook is the number one social networking web site when it comes to exercise and subscriptions. What started as a storage initiative by Mark Zuckerberg has now become the largest phenomenon on the internet.

A consumer interface that allows for quick communication and the power to create fan pages and teams at the click of a mouse button are what make Facebook extraordinarily popular. Another necessary cause for its immense reputation is the wide range of social applications which have been developed and made available inside the Facebook environment.

These purposes can allow customers and mates to do joint activities like playing games that run endlessly, sharing pictures, videos, and web hyperlinks, and lots of more.

How does this help a marketer?

Historically, media plans have been drawn to include tv channels, publications, or any other media that may grab maximum eyeballs and effectively attain a particular goal audience. The science of segmentation and concentrating on has turn into solely more correct in the case of social media.

Facebook provides a wide variety of avenues to communicate with the viewers, which opens up a wholly totally different world of potentialities to have a fruitful dialogue with customers. Some of these strategies used popularly by entrepreneurs are:

Promoting: The primary opportunity, which is the obvious one, is advertising on Facebook. The distinction, nonetheless, is the truth that you'll be able to create your own advertisement in a matter of minutes and also specify the main points of your target group in terms of demographics and kinds of discussions the place you want your commercial to appear.
Fan Pages: Facebook permits each model, in addition to individual users, to create fan pages for their favorite celebrities and their own homegrown businesses. Massive manufacturers have additionally created their official pages on Facebook which have an enormous, fast fan following across the world. The fan web page has immense utility to convey first hand details about the brand and in addition to gather instant and frank feedback out of your customers.
Branded purposes: One of the vital effective methods to have interaction a user towards your brand is by creating an software; this could possibly be a game or a contest, with your branding coming across subtly by it.

What makes Facebook much more exciting is the way in which it lets you goal your communication sharply simply to the customer phase you want to attract. It also offers analytics and web page insights that give good feedback and measurement on the exercise done.

The choices supplied by Facebook will be creatively explored and used judiciously for bringing about maximum benefits to any brand.

Nonetheless, while doing all this, you need to concentrate on the truth that customers have an equal say and have the flexibility to respond instantly to any of your actions with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Availing the service of a social media advisor to work out a social media strategy could also be required so that your efforts won't be in vain. Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

Article submitted by Chad Aho To find out more information, kindly visit Hyper Facebook Traffic.

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Making Queries better with related phases

In my the last few weeks I have been hearing of ways to improve the results of Social Media queries by finding out words that often appear near each other in documents that are crawled and indexed.  While some platforms don’t allow that information to be extracted, others do, including Sysomos.

I wanted to be sure Sysomos did, in fact, do this (provide the numerical association number between any two commonly associated words in a topic, and you know what?  It does (see the spreadsheet excerpt below the buzzmap).

Here’s an expanded “buzzmap” on the keyphase “Influence” that Sysomos produces.  But what you don’t know is that it can also take that information in “plain form” and then exported to .csv and provide a better query.  I’ll go into what makes this the raw material for a much better query in a subsequent post – but just keep this in mind.

I used such a wide word that I think there’s still a lot of things that could be refined before getting to this stage – but it’s possible to make much better queries with this information.

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NETWORK MARKETING, DO YOUR RESEARCH Posted By : Charlene Stien

When looking into network marketing it is hard to figure out which ones are legitimate
and which MLM's are not. MLM (multilevel marketing) ranks the highest on the internet.

Things to watch for:
Be careful of plans that claim to sell wonder products or pay out large earnings.
Avoid plans that ask you to purchase large amounts of inventory.
Be careful of references that might be done by their family and friends.
Watch out for plans of constant growth of new members to make money.

A legitimate MLM has no hidden purchases and has quality products and services for you to
market to make money! The ideal thing is to do your research and familiarize yourself on
marketing.

Things to research:
That the company truly has an up line support system for success.
Check into the company management.
What products and services does the company have to offer. Do the products meet your needs?
How does the company back their products?

What is the company's track record and how does it rank with other companies?
Is it a solid company?
Is there a required minimum of sales for the month?
What kind of investment do you need to join?
Do you need to sign up new members to be successful and if so, how many?
Don't listen to a road to riches or get rich scheme!

Find out and learn about the owner or founder of the company. Are they personable and easily
approachable? Learn what the owners morals and beliefs are concerning the conduct of their
company. The company should be honest with you and let you know it takes dedication and hard
work. Make sure they offer good training and support lines. Be careful of using your family
and friends as leads. A legitimate marketing company, you earn money on the company's products
and services. A well established company will provide you with support of a website, leads, sales
literature, etc. These things are important to succeed! They don't pay on bringing in new members
alone. Legitimate MLM companies do business in all 50 states in the United States and also in 100
other countries. Network marketing can be an amazing business, if you position yourself with the
right company.Yes you can earn money, if you look into what the business has to offer. Most of
all, if you get into network marketing know that it is a job. Although it is a home based business,
you need to work marketing just like you would any other job.You get up in the morning and get to
work at it. You wouldn't just not go to work at any other job, then not with this job either. To do
good at a job and be successful you need to be dedicated and work hard at it. If you neglect your
business it will fall apart, just like anything else. What you put into your business is what you
will get out of it! Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com

href="http://www.connectyoutosuccess.com"> CONNECT YOU TO SUCCESS and find out Now what you need to know!!

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Social Media Case Studies – I’m smiling – Web Journal – general

Well, I got the first case study for my book back from Synthesio – its for Accor hotels and it’s exactly what I asked for – smiling.  I realize that in asking people to fill out a form with details in a certain structure that I’m making more work (but it’s also the way that many other types of forms are structured – for a specific purpose).

In my case, I need to compare what the case studies show, look for overall patterns and trends, some of that will actually be spreadsheet analysis – some with be broad statements on what Social Media ROI is or is not.

I can’t share the Case Study yet, but it was several pages – it will be in my book along with many interesting diagrams (some of them vendor generated) no one has ever seen before.    What I show will make perfect sense when the book is published.

I am meaning to update my web journal and make some commentary on the recent Google – Groupon acquisition rumors but it’s really hard to do it when all my spare time is going into the book – event the book site isn’t ready yet – it’s still too noisy – frustrating in that as fast I try to move – there is only so far and fast I can move.  It’ makes me more appreciative of how difficult it is to get moving parts to all line up (probably the biggest problem agencies have, if you ask me – along with the idea if that they may or may not be relevant any longer, esp PR agencies – what’s their value proposition?)

One thing that is coming up a lot is Google, and from my talk with Giles Palmer of BrandWatch over the weekend in Brighton, I got an appreciation of how much Google Instant and Google C affine have been changing the web, improving it, yet skewing it to show results that are largely pre cached in order make a richer search experience.  The problem is – if your not someone or something that is searched on often (the long tail or even the pre-long tail) you not going to get that extra “massaging” by Google caching and preprocessing the results.

A few more interesting posts I’ve read include

Research Examines What Motivates People to Comment Online in RWW and JAtIN’s blog about Google Complexity – according to the post …

As Google grows in complexity, the number of bugs in their system multiply. Sometimes you don’t rank because you screwed up. But sometimes you don’t rank because Google screwed up. Typically Google sees minimal difference either way, as there will always be another website to fill up the search results. But as a business owner, when Google gets it wrong you can be screwed pretty bad, particularly if you stock physical inventory and have to tightly manage your supply chain & cash flow.

Another reason why Search Engines need to be regulated – as much as they hate that idea – it’s needed.

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