If I am not wrong the number of people using automated email replies is increasing lately. I am talking about these email messages that are sent back to you right after you email someone, stating the other person got your email and will reply as soon as possible. The content is usually something like this:

Thanks for contacting me. I got your email, but I am a super busy person, so it might be a while before I manage to answer to your email. There is also a chance I won’t reply at all.

In the mean while, check out my blog at http://www.myblog.com.

In my opinion such messages are useless. You either reply or you don’t to my email message. If you do, I’ll know you’ve read it and considered it important enough to reply. If you don’t, I’ll know you either didn’t read it or read it and didn’t consider it important. In other words, there is no need to send me that automated message, because I’ll be able to figure your stance out anyway.

On top of that such messages clutter people’s inbox, and that is why I wish people would stop using them.

Now don’t get me wrong. Some automated replies are useful. If you are out of the office and won’t be checking your email at all, for instance, you could create an automated reply stating that, including an emergency phone or alternative person I could reach to.

But auto-replying merely to say you got my message and will reply to it as soon as possible is completely useless in my opinion.

Do you agree/disagree?

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- His arrest and a suit, both the result of
complaints related to his wood-pellet business, got him looking through
old files to find assets to pay back customers. One of those files held
the 2003 contract with Zuckerberg. He had forgotten about the contract, which is why he stepped
forward so many years later.

- Ceglia said he looks forward to a day when he might employ
Zuckerberg again. “If at some point in the future I
start running Facebook, I guess I’m going to have to hire him to keep
running the company. I really don’t have much interest in it.”
FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Facebook

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One  networking site will serve entrepreneurs and small businesses worldwide, and the other site will serve all business interests in the Greater NYC Area. I plan to oversee both sites.

You don’t need a business to join. The pleasure of your company is requested at the grand opening online event:

“Larry Brauner to Open 2 Unique Business Networking Sites.”

You may help spread the word too, if you like.

Sponsorship opportunities will be available for site members, offline business networking groups and online business networking sites.

You can’t join yet, but these are the new business networking sites with their .Co domain names:

• Small Business Networking http://www.SmallBusinessNetwork.Co
• Greater NY Business Networking http://www.NYBusinessNetwork.Co

Members and group owners will be delegates and ambassadors respectively and will hopefully conduct business with integrity and transparency.

Additional information will be added here and on the grand opening page prior to next week’s launch.

Most Popular Social and Business Networking Sites

Also, I’ll start periodically updating my blog post on the Most Popular Social and Business Networking Sites that has already been accessed more than 8,000 times since July 2009. If you have any suggestions for that article, please comment there.

If you own a social or business networking site and would like to sponsor that blog post, you can contact me directly.

I recommend that you subscribe to Online Social Networking and “Like” me on Facebook, so that we can stay connected. Comments are welcome, as well.

Sharing is Caring!

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Split testing, also called A/B testing, is a testing method where you compare a base sample with another test sample, changing one specific variable inside it.

For example, you could have a base landing page, and then you would compare it against a new landing page where you changed the main headline.

As a blogger, there are many things you could improve with split testing. Examples include:

• The number of subscribers you get by testing the headline and position of the subscription form.
• The AdSense earnings by testing different AdSense units and placements.
• The bounce rate of the blog, by testing different placements of your content above the fold.
• The number of retweets you get per post, based on the placement of the retweet button.

But how do you perform a split test? You have two options. You can either do it manually, by changing the variable one week at a time and then tracking the results, or by using a piece of software and letting it rotate the variables for you.

The second option is usually the best one, and a couple of days I discovered a software you can use to do that. It is called phpA/B, and it is free as long as you use it for personal purposes.

I haven’t test it yet, but it looks promising. The main idea is to let you test anything within your site, with a simple setup interface. You can also integrate it with Google Analytics if you want.

Definitely worth a look. Once I test it here I’ll write a more complete review, so stay tuned.

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TECH CRUNCH – Jul 30 - Bloomberg reports that Facebook is to – probably
– put off an eventual IPO until at least 2012. Waiting at least another
year and a half would give CEO Mark Zuckerberg more time to follow
through on his vision without too much public scrutiny and the
implications thereof, attract more users and developers, book more
sales and work out other issues, such as the user privacy kerfuffle and
legal matters. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Facebook

Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com

TECH CRUNCH – July 29 - When asked about Google’s partnership with
Zynga, Mr. Schmidt said “we haven’t announced it” but “you can expect a
partnership with Zynga” in the future. Expect Google Games to be
announced sometime this year. And Zynga will be one of the main game
engines populating it. And eventually one of these companies will admit
that Google invested in Zynga, too. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

See all posts on Google
See all posts on Zynga

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A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was definitely going to Blog World Expo this year. At that time I was only planning to attend the conference.

Then I heard they were welcoming speaking proposals, so I decided to send one. Long story short I got approved, and I’ll be speaking at the “New Media 101″ module. The title of my presentation is “Google AdSense Optimization.”

I am really looking to flying to Vegas in October. First of all the keynotes, presentations and panels are looking great. Here are some topics that will be covered:

• How to Get Media Coverage for Your Blog
• How to Keep Your Blog from Being Hacked, Stolen or Otherwise Violated
• 5 Strategies Bloggers Should Learn from Online Marketers
• How to Sell Your Blog
• How to Run a Successful Webinar Business from Your Blog

Second, I’ll finally be able to meet many friends and business contacts I only talked with online so far. People like Darren Rowse, John Chow, David Risley, Leo Babauta, Jonathan Fields, Yaro Starak and so on.

Many blog readers already emailed me saying they’ll be going too, so I’ll try to organize a DBT meet-up or something like that. If you are going, I hope you manage to attend my presentation too!

As we get closer to the event I’ll post more updates, so stay tuned.

Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com

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MASHABLE – July 29 - Russia has demanded a Russian ISP block access to
YouTube because the site hosted “Russia for Russians,” which was judged
to be an extremist video. The court’s decision also applies to the
Internet Archive and three online libraries, Lib.rus.ec,
Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru, all of which were found to host writings by
Adolf Hitler. With this ruling, Russian authorities join a long list of
governments that have blocked access to YouTube at some point or
another, including China, Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan,
Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand and the United Arab
Emirates. YouTube material has also been censored in the U.S. and U.K. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

See all posts on YouTube

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A couple of weeks ago Pawan from MaxBlogPress.com contacted me, saying he had developed a new plugin that would significantly boost the number of sign-ups I was getting to my email newsletter.

I have known Pawan for a while, and I use many of his plugins, so I said “Sure.” He sent me the files, and I installed it on Daily Blog Tips. The plugin is called Subscribers Magnet, and the idea is to create multiple “hit” points (i.e., methods and places your visitors can use to sign-up) to increase the number of new email subscribers you get per day.

The idea sounded cool, but only when I started playing with the plugin I realized it was a really neat piece of software, and here is why.

First of all it integrates with most email marketing applications (e.g., Aweber, iContact, ConstantContact), so getting the plugin to work is straight forward. Second, some of the features the plugin has are really innovative.

The first feature is called “Form Auto Filler.” It will automatically grab the name and email from your visitors and fill your subscription forms for them. This means that when see the subscription form their details will be there already, so they will just need to click on “Subscribe.” How cool is that?

The second feature is the “Optin Form Adder.” This will basically allow you to insert a subscription form in the sidebar or/and below your posts. The form is completely customizable, and you once you activate it through the plugin interface it will start appearing on your site. Here is how it looks like:

The third feature is called “Subscribers from Comment.” This one allows you to capture subscribers from people who will leave a comment on your blog. You have several options regarding how you’ll do it. You can put a checkbox that commenters must tick, you can include a subscription form that will appear right below their comment, and you can also subscribe them automatically (they’ll still need to confirm it on the email they will receive, so this is compliant with the terms of Aweber and other email solutions).

The fourth feature is the “Popin” one. As the name suggests, it allows you to create a subscription form that will be displayed as a pop-up. You can customize the style, as well as the frequency of the pop-up and what visitors should see it. For instance, you could show it only after the second visit, only once every five visits, once every couple of days and so on.

The fifth feature is called “Footer Bar.” It allows you to create a dynamic footer bar on your website containing a subscription form. Just like with the pop-up, you can customize how often the bar will appear.

If you combine all these features and options you can add up to 17 hit points to your blog, and this is likely to boost the number of sign-ups significantly.

But facts speak louder than words right? Here is what the plugin did for me. I already had a decent structure to capture email subscribers, so I decided to use only three features: the “form auto filler”, the “checkbox in comment section” and the “footer bar.” Before installing the plugin I was getting around 67 new email subscribers per day. After installing it the number jumped to around 90, which is a 35% increase as you can see in the screenshot below:

These days I am actually getting closer to 100 sign-ups per day, so it is working even better.

Pawan told me he beta-tested the plugin with other friends too, and some of them got boosts of 100% in the number of sign-ups.

As I said before, it is a really neat piece of software. Most of the time when people give me free plugins or software to test I usually try them for a couple of weeks and then stop using them. This one I’ll probably stick with.

The plugin was officially launched this week. It is going to cost $147, but until tomorrow Pawan is offering a discount of 30%, so you can buy it for $97. I am not an affiliate, so I won’t earn anything whether you buy it or not. I just decided to review it because it worked really well for me, and because I think other bloggers will find it useful, too.

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This is a guest post by Kevin Muldoon. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

I recently stopped using Aweber. Not because I wasn’t happy with the service but because I sold the site I was using it for. For 2 years I was a very happy customer with Aweber and wouldn’t rule out using them again. However, starting a new blog gave me the opportunity to look more into what alternatives there are out there for email marketing.

In this article I will be showing you the main alternatives to Aweber available to you. This article is for:

• Those who think their newsletter provider is too expensive
• Those who think their newsletter provider lacks important features
• Those who haven’t chosen their newsletter provider as yet and want to make sure they make the right choice

Before we look at the alternatives, let’s look at what Aweber offers and what it charges for using it’s service.

Aweber

Aweber is one of the most versatile email marketing providers available to bloggers. It’s not as user friendly as some other services however there is a huge amount of documentation and tutorials in the members area to help you get started.

Features include:

• Advanced sign up form wizard and hundreds of sign up form templates to choose from
• 135 Email templates to choose from
• Advanced autoresponder options
• RSS to Email option
• Traffic tracking and conversion options
• Integration with lots of other scripts including e-commerce shopping carts

The base price of Aweber is $19 a month. This gives you an unlimited number of emails up to 500 members. You can pay $49 quarterly or $194 yearly, saving you $32 and $34 respectively. The monthly price increases as your number of subscribers grow.

Aweber offer a one month trial for $1. I recommend ordering that if you are unsure whether to use them. Be warned: you will automatically be charged $19 a month afterwards if you don’t cancel your account.

Monthly Membership Services with Unlimited Emails

There are several alternatives to you which follow the same business model as Aweber offering an unlimited number of emails to subscribers per month.

Prices increase in line with the number of subscribers though as you will see, the pricing plans of most of these services are practically identical. So the main factors you need to consider are features and user friendliness.

1. MailChimp

A hugely popular email marketing service, MailChimp is a fun and colourful service which has some fantastic features.

• MailChimp for iPhone
• Social Media Integration
• Use friendly member area
• Easy to use autoresponse system
• Impressive sign up form wizard

Pricing is very similar to Aweber except the service is free up until you reach 500 subscribers. The monthly plans are about a few dollars more expensive that Aweber though.

A pay as you go plan is also available for those who send emails out less often. Prices start around $0.03 per email though the price drops to half a cent with orders over $1,000.

2. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a professional email marketing company which also offer online surveys and event marketing services.

• Around 50 professional looking email templates
• Impressive reporting options
• Several stylish sign up boxes to choose from
• Good import features for those migrating to the service

Pricing starts from only $15 per month and there is also a no risk 60 trial option which doesn’t require you to enter your credit card details (unlike Aweber which automatically rebills).

3. Get Response

GetResponse is a beautiful email marketing service which is a few dollars cheaper than similar services.

They boast a huge number of features including:

• An email to speech feature that allows users to listen to newsletters ‘hands free’
• Social media integration
• iPhone application
• Video email marketing
• Surveys
• Over 300 email templates
• Good tracking and reporting options

Get Response is slightly cheaper than Aweber. There is a 15% discount for paying 6 months in advance and a 18% discount for paying a year in advance.

Subscribers	Monthly Price
0 – 10	FREE
11 – 500	$18
501 – 2,500	$28
2,501 – 5,000	$45
5,001 – 10,000	$65
10,001 – 25,000	$145

4. Campaigner

Campaigner is a good option for those who don’t need a lot of bells and whistles. The service has over 450 email templates to choose from however it lacks a lot of advanced features which other services have.

This is reflected in the price as Campaigner is quite a bit cheaper than most of it’s competitors. Their top package is around 20% cheaper than Awebers equivalent. There is also a 30 day trial available.

Subscribers	Monthly Price
0 – 500	$10
501 – 2,500	$25
2,501 – 5,000	$40
5,001 – 10,000	$55

5. Vertical Response

Vertical Response is an online service which lets you manage your email marketing campaign, create online surveys and send postcards directly to visitors.

• Beautiful drag and drop email wizard
• Sign up form integration widgets
• Detailed reports

Vertical Response offer a 30 day no obligation trial and good discounts for paying in advance (particularly with larger email lists).

Subscribers	Monthly Price
0 – 500	$10
501 – 2,000	$28
2,001 – 4,000	$46
4,001 – 8,000	$72
8,001 – 16,000	$120
16,001 – 25,000	$150
25,001 – 40,000	$240

A pay as you go option is also available for those who don’t send emails as often. Rates start at a very competitive $0.015 per email, dropping to $0.01 an email with purchases over 25,000 email credits.

6. Benchmark Email

Benchmark Email is an easy to use email marketing service which boasts a large range of email templates.

• Video integration
• Drag and drop text editor
• Survey and email tracking
• User friendly interface
• Campaign archive

Benchmark Email is similarly priced to it’s main competitors. However, you ado not receive unlimited emails. Instead you are restricted to 7 emails per month to your list.

If you plan on sending a lot of emails to your subscribers every month it’s best to avoid this plan because of the sending restriction.

Subscribers	Monthly Price
0 – 1000	$18.95
1001 – 2500	$28.95
2,501 – 5,000	$46.95
5,001 – 10,000	$73.95
10,001 – 20,000	$120.95
20,001 – 30,000	$179.95
30,001 – 50,000	$230.95
50,001 – 75,000	$339.95

There is also an email limit monthly plan. 1000 emails will cost you $12.95, 5,000 will cost you $35, whilst 10,000 costs $60.

7. iContact

iContact is an email marketing service which claims to have more than 60,000 customers.

• Built in HTML WYSIWYG Editor
• Good tracking and reporting features
• Over 250 HTML email Templates to choose from

iContacts pricing plans have an email restriction of 6 times your subscriber limit. Those of you who send out newsletters a few times a week may want to consider an alternative.

There is a 15 day trial for those who are interesting in ordering a package.

Subscribers	Monthly Price
0 – 250	$9.95
251 – 500	$14
501 – 1,000	$19.00
1,001 – 2,500	$29.00
2,501 – 5,000	$47
5,001 – 10,000	$74
10,001 – 15,000	$109
16,001 – 25,000	$149
25,001 – 35,000	$239
36,001 – 50,000	$379
50,001 – 75,000	$529
75,001 – 100,000	$699

Pay Per Email Services

If you don’t send several emails to subscribers every month then you may find Pay Per Email services a lot more cheaper.

8. Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor is a popular email marketing service which is used by many top websites such as SitePoint.

• User friendly interface
• Beautiful email templates
• Great tracking and reporting features

CampaignMonitor have a flat pricing fee of $5 per email and 1 cent for every recipient.

Therefore sending an email to 500 people would cost $10 and to 2,500 people would cost $30. There are big discounts for those who to send to more than 50,000 people.

9. JangoMail

JangoMail

• Advanced HTML editor
• Connect to external databases in real time
• Create and send mass emails using Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Eudora, Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

Jangomails pricing depends on how many emails you send in that month.

Monthly Emails	Monthly Price
Up to 1,000	$30
Up to 2,500	$50
Up to 5,000	$100
Up to 12,000	$200
Up to 18,000	$300
Up to 30,000	$400
Up to 45,000	$600

Cost per email drops to about $0.005 if you send over 616,000 emails per month. More information can be seen on the standard pricing plan page.

10. Boomerang

Boomerang is a simple but user friendly solution.

Pricing starts around 2 cents an email but drops to around 1 cent if you spend more than $100 a month.

Monthly Emails	Monthly Price
Up to 500	$9.95
Up to 1,200	$14.95
Up to 2,500	$29.95
Up to 4,500	$49.95
Up to 9,500	$99.95
Up to 14,500	$149.95
Up to 25,000	$249.95
Up to 36,000	$349.95
Up to 55,000	$499.95

11. Ezine Director


Ezine Director is very basic compared to most other options though you can still send HTML emails and set up autoresponders. It’s main selling point is it’s incredibly low price.

There are three different versions available: Free, Limited and Full.

The free version has a copyright notice in all emails and allows up to 249 emails to be sent.

The limited version costs $9.95 a month and allows up to 1,999 emails per month. It has the same features as the full version except it doesn’t have campaign tracking.

The full version has campaign tracking and allows up to 19,499 emails per month. Over that you are charged a ridiculously low $0.001 an email (and that drops to $0.0009 over 50k)

Ezine Director is a pretty basic service but is worth checking out if you are looking for a cheap newsletter solution.

Why you need an email list

You really shouldn’t wait any longer to start building your email list. Seriously, you should be building your list right now!!

RSS subscribers are great however you cannot contact them directly so it’s important to build an email list as well. Doing so will allow you to contact your readers directly. Not only can this provide an extra source of income for your blog, it will also allow you to connect with your readers in another way and give them more reasons to visit your blog again.

I have read many bloggers state that you should start emailing your subscribers from the very start. The idea behind this is that people will enjoy your newsletter content so much that they will tell their friends about it. I disagree strongly with this. I really do think this is a bad idea.

I do think that you should start building an email/newsletter list as soon as you launch your blog, even if sign up rates are painfully slow at the start (an extra 50 email addresses a year from now could mean an extra $100 from an affiliate commission). Though it’s pointless to spend a lot of time writing content for a newsletter until the list is at least 500 subscribers (but preferably more than 1,000).

What is the point of spending hours writing high quality original newsletters if you only have 40 readers? It makes much more sense to post this content on your blog where visitors and search engines can see it.

Once your email list has grown to a decent level you can then start spending more time offering exclusive content through your newsletter in order to develop a closer relationship with your readers.

Best Email Marketing Provider

Aweber deservedly has a great reputation amongst bloggers. Support is great and it boasts a lot of great features. Though I hope I have shown today that there are alternatives out there.

For my new blog I initially signed up to Campaign Monitor as I like the idea of only paying for the emails you send. It’s a good service and is very easy to use but in the end I decided to go with MailChimp.

MailChimp is a little more user friendly than Aweber and has more features than Campaign Monitor. Though the main selling point for me is the pricing plan which allows me to send up to 3,000 emails a month for free as long as my list is under 500 subscribers.

This allows me to build up my email list up to 500 people for free plus I can periodically email subscribers if I want too. If I used Aweber as my newsletter provider than it would cost me $19 a month even if I had less than 100 subscribers. Therefore I am saving a good bit of money if it takes me a few months to reach 500 subscribers.

If you are building a list for a brand new blog then I would consider MailChimp for this reason. If your blog is already established then you will probably reach 500 subscribers very quickly so you may want to look at the alternatives. Most of the monthly subscriber plans cost about the same so it really depends on what you are looking for. Make sure you take advantage of the free trials in order to try out an email marketing service you are interested in.

Those of you who will not be sending out emails every week may want to consider a pay per email plan as it will work out a lot cheaper for you in the long run.

If you have used any of the email services in this article, or any which are not in the list, please share your opinion of the site in the comment area. I’m sure it will help other bloggers out.

About the Author: Kevin Muldoon is a webmaster and blogger who lives in Central Scotland. His latest project is WordPress Mods; a blog which focuses on WordPress Themes, Plugins, Tutorials, News and Modifications.

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Original Post: 11 Email Marketing Alternatives to Aweber



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]]> http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/11-email-marketing-alternatives-to-aweber/feed/ 0 http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/100-ways-to-get-more-traffic-to-your-website/ http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/100-ways-to-get-more-traffic-to-your-website/#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:00:17 +0000 admin http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/100-ways-to-get-more-traffic-to-your-website/ Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com
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Last week I told you guys I was working on a really long post that I hoped would become popular, remember? Well, I just published it on one of my other websites. The post is called 100 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic.

I had seen a couple of similar lists around the web, but most of them contained only a single sentence per item, and most items were not directly related to generating traffic at all.

That is why I decided to write my own list. I made sure only to include points that are really going to increase your traffic (even if just slightly), and I also explained each point and included links to relevant resources where suitable.

The result is a monster post with almost 6,000 words. Here is a quote:

30. Launch a review contest. If you want to increase your search rankings you could launch a contest where people need to write about the content in order to get an entry. The links you’ll get will send you both Google juice and new visitors. Keep in mind that you need a good prize to motivate people to write about your contest though.

31. Launch a voting contest. You basically need to create a contest where the winner will be picked with a voting session. Suppose you have a fitness website. You could invite your readers to submit their best fitness tip, and then a voting session would decide which tip gets the prize. This would motivate participants to link to the voting session and to encourage their friends to visit your website and vote.

32. Launch a traffic contest. If traffic is what you want, why not be direct about it? You can launch a contest where people need to send traffic to one particular page inside your website. It could be the contest page (for a viral effect) or a resource page (e.g., a page where you give away an ebook). After the established time frame (e.g., 2 weeks, 1 month or anything else), you’ll simply need to check your web analytics to see which websites sent you more visitors, and then award the prizes.

Check it out. And if you like it, please help me spread the word with a stumble or a retweet!

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Original Post: 100 Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Website



Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com

]]> http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/100-ways-to-get-more-traffic-to-your-website/feed/ 0 http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/bailey-rae-wont-use-social-networking/ http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/bailey-rae-wont-use-social-networking/#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:00:15 +0000 admin http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/bailey-rae-wont-use-social-networking/ Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com
]]> Corinne Bailey Rae says that social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are for “attention-seeking”.

Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com

]]> http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/bailey-rae-wont-use-social-networking/feed/ 0 http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/is-foursquare-a-stalkers-dream/ http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/is-foursquare-a-stalkers-dream/#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:00:11 +0000 admin http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/is-foursquare-a-stalkers-dream/ Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com
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SYDNEY MORNING HERALD – July 27 – Foursquare uses your smartphone’s
global positioning system (GPS) to broadcast your precise location to
your “friends” and, should you so wish, to the wider world. Users are
encouraged to “check in” on their phone whenever they arrive at a point
of interest – a shop, a cafe, a museum, a nightclub, an office – so
that fellow users know where they are. But with such power comes
responsibility and there are growing concerns that Foursquare is
proving to be a “stalker’s dream”.  Privacy advocates fear that
Foursquare, along with other geolocation apps such as Gowalla and
Google Latitude, are vulnerable to “data scraping”, namely, the
sophisticated trawling and monitoring of user activity in an effort to
build a rich database of personal information. The big worry, say
critics, is who might get to make use of this information.  It’s being
targeted at 18- to 25-year-olds. Facebook was forced in the end to
change its default privacy settings due to public concerns. Foursquare
should do the same. Some people are even checking in when they’re at
home. Recently Foursquare reached the 2-million-users landmark, just
three months after it had reached the 1-million mark. A week earlier,
the company received $US20M in venture capital.
FULL ARTICLE @ SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

See all posts on Foursquare





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]]> http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/is-foursquare-a-stalkers-dream/feed/ 0 http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/how-i-became-a-foursquare-cyberstalker/ http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/how-i-became-a-foursquare-cyberstalker/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:00:25 +0000 admin http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/how-i-became-a-foursquare-cyberstalker/ Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com
]]> It’s the coolest social networking tool in the world. But is the geo-location app Foursquare a stalker’s dream? Just how easy it is to uncover the intimate details of a complete stranger’s life? Louise has straight, auburn hair and, judging by the only photograph I have of her, she’s in her 30s. She works in recruitment. I also know which train station she uses regularly, what supermarket she …

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]]> http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/how-i-became-a-foursquare-cyberstalker/feed/ 0 http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/will-zynga-become-the-google-of-games/ http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/will-zynga-become-the-google-of-games/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:00:23 +0000 admin http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/will-zynga-become-the-google-of-games/ Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com
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NY TIMES – July 24 – Mark Pincus, Zynga’s founder, told his company’s
newcomers that he had set out to build an enduring Internet icon, one
that was synonymous with fun. Mr. Pincus said the opportunity to build
an online entertainment empire was “like search before Google came
along.” Zynga is on a path to pocket as much as $500M in revenue this
year. While Facebook needed four and a half years to reach 100M users,
Zynga crossed that mark after just two and a half years. The company
has ballooned to ~1,000 employees, up from 375 a year ago, and now has
some 400 job openings. And investors, including Google and the Netscape
founder Marc Andreessen, have put ~$520M into the company. Zynga has
been valued at more than $4.5 billion. Its games have 211M players
every month, according to AppData.com. Though that figure counts a user
for each type of game he plays, it makes Zynga about four times larger
than its nearest rival, Electronic Arts. Playdom is third, with 41M
users. Zynga, which is said to be contemplating a public offering,
clearly does not want to have all its eggs in the Facebook basket. It
recently signed an agreement to bring its games to millions of users on
Yahoo. FULL ARTICLE @ NY TIMES

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]]> http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/will-zynga-become-the-google-of-games/feed/ 0 http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/social-and-business-networking-event-until-august-2-on-my-facebook-page/ http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/social-and-business-networking-event-until-august-2-on-my-facebook-page/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:00:21 +0000 admin http://www.socialmarketingreport.com/2010/07/social-and-business-networking-event-until-august-2-on-my-facebook-page/ Post from: SocialMarketingReport.com
]]> I just launched my second promote your self/cause social and business networking event on Facebook which will run until Monday, August 2. My January Facebook fan page event went viral and drew hundreds of participants. Many of them made valuable new connections.

How the Event Works


This social and business networking Facebook event is fairly simple. Here’s how I envision the event working:

1. Registration – You go to the Facebook event page where you RSVP that you’re attending.
2. Go to the Event – Then you go to my Facebook business page where the event is taking place. Note that the event is not taking place on the event page wall.
3. Join My Facebook Business Page – If you’re already a member of my Facebook page, fine. If not, click “Like” to join.
4. Post on My Facebook Business Page Wall – Write something informative about yourself, and if you like, attach a relevant link. You may post one time every day, but try not to write the same thing each day that you post. Don’t post religious, adult or highly controversial content.
5. Check Out the Posts of Others – Find posts that resonate with you. Make sure you scroll down and click on “older posts” to view any posts that have rolled off the page.
6. Leave a Good Comment – Usually, sharing a positive opinion and asking a question help to get a conversation going. If a conversation is already in progress, you can join that conversation. Always be kind and courteous, even when you disagree.
   
7. Follow Up – When you receive a comment, always reply or follow up in some other way like sending a private message, requesting to be friends or doing something you said you’d do. Effective follow-up is an essential part of both social and business networking, online or offline, and it’s where most wanna-be networking mavens fall short.
8. Promote the Event – Your help promoting our event will help make it more successful. The best ways to promote it are: sharing this blog post wherever you can and using the “+ Select Friends Button” on the event page to invite your Facebook friends. On Twitter, please use hashtag #11dayparty or click here for a pre-formatted tweet.
9. Concerns or Complaints – Contact me privately with any concerns or complaints using one of the methods in my connect page.
10. Stay Connected – If you aren’t subscribed to this blog, you can subscribe by email or via RSS feed.

Promote Yourself Here in a Comment

You may also promote your self/cause in a comment on this article and get a good dofollow link back to your website or blog site. However, I do have a few guidelines for you to follow:

• Rules #4 and #6 from the list above apply here, as well.
• Use your real name in the name box.
• Place your link in the link box, not in the body of your comment.
• Use at least one of the following words in your comment: business, networking, Facebook, event and page. It will help with SEO. Try to be natural and not force it.
• I reserve the right to edit or remove any comments, as always.

Now that all the formalities are out of the way, it’s time for the social and business networking on Facebook to begin. Let’s have fun and get to know each other.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Visit my About, Services, Media Buzz and Connect pages to learn about Building Your Audience and Brand on the Web. See also my Disclosure Policy regarding affiliations and compensation.

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