Digglit

In 30 years time…

1. Do you expect to see VCs placing larger and larger bets on companies or industries that could result in a singularity?
2. What will be the role of acquisitions? Will acquisitions be the dominant means by which companies gain human capital and innovation?
3. Will we see an equity marketplace develop for privately owned companies?

I’m not sure why, but it always amazes me that people cannot simply accept the knowledge of others, or even better, perhaps thank them for sharing that useful intellectual property. Everyday, especially when speaking to small clients, you hear funny little quotes; most of them tied to an odd sort of defense mechanism than anything else. Here are some fun examples I thought I would share:

1. “We meant to do that” - a response when we pointed out that a site a client built (who claims to do web development on the higher end levels) wasn’t visible in Google.

2. “We have too much business” - their continued rebuttal which I found incredibly odd in general, but especially in a down economy. I’ll be sure to check back in with them in 3 months.

3. “We didn’t have any business in January, so we are not going to do any advertising in February” - well, you can see where the flaw is in this one if you know about my rants, but more importantly, the client was on vacation all of January so his phones were not answered. You know how I feel about that.

4. “The internet has only been around for 10 years.” This came from a guy who sells interactive advertising.

5. “There’s not a whole lot of people using the Internet yet.” Self explanatory.

6. “I don’t think we should deal in that social media stuff.” - This from someone who has no ranking in Google for his own name, but there are over 10,000 NEGATIVE posts ABOUT him in Google.

Got anymore? Share them here!

Dear Speed Seduction(R) Students,

Wow.It looks like my post the other day about Tom Leykis really touched a nerve.

Mostly it generated overwhelming support. You guys are mostly very pleased that I’ve made a strong distinction between Speed Seduction(R) and Leykis’ idiotic “girl-hating” Leykis 101.

However I have been getting some colorful hate mail. Mostly illiterate and obscene. And most of it not worth answering.But some of it appears fairly thoughtful, praising Tom’s ongoing effort to warn men against the manipulations of gold-diggers, users, etc.

Ok. I get that. I can see the value. But when you step beyond issuing warnings and cross over into advocating being an exploiter and user yourself, then you are really getting into dark(and ultimately self-defeating)territory.

And here is the point you Lekyis Luvin’ Loonies missed: Tom’s view of women is directly reflected in his view of sex-it’s about dumping loads. About building a charge and discharging. About fluid pressure building and releasing. In other words, it’s just and only a highly enjoyable and more vivid form of jacking off. Just using another human as opposed to pictures or movies.

Hey, you don’t need a philosophy for that. Just a few Ben Franklins and your nearest strip-club.

And speaking of philosophy, here is a point I want you fans of Tom to try to understand: “What the thinker thinks, the prover proves”. If you put on a filter that only looks at women as evil, manipulative, vicious, self-centered exploiters, THEN THAT IS WHAT YOU WILL SEE.

I’m not talking about some idiotic “New Age” doctrine from “The Secret”. I’m talking simple psychology; if you create a strong sort filter, your brain will sort out what doesn’t fit with that filter.And equally importantly, what you set as your vision will be the limits of your experience.

That last sentence is so important I am going to repeat in all caps for you Leykettes to ponder at length over your beer and bologna sandwiches:

WHAT YOU SET AS YOUR VISION WILL BE THE LIMITS OF YOUR EXPERIENCE

If your vision of sex is simply dumping loads, you will probably dump lots of loads. But you will very likely never experience it as anything better, more exciting, or more satisfying and fulfilling.

Don’t get me wrong; occasionally we guys all want to just dump loads. Hey, occasionally we all want to eat junk food. But it isn’t exactly something I would like to have as the only choice on the menu.

‘Nuff said about this to all you Leykis Loonies. I think it’s time you raised your sights in terms of what you expect from women AND in terms of whom you turn to for advice. Might I suggest, as only I can, that you subscribe to my newsletter?

Peace and piece,
RJ

P.S. Why don’t you check out my Speed Seduction Home Study Course? It will put you into a world of satisfaction with women that Leykis can’t get with all of his fame and money.

When you set up your Blog, say using WordPress platform, one of the most important things that you need to do is to install the social bookmarking plug-in from the WordPress.org site to your Blog. This is important because social bookmarking sites can help to generate traffic to your Blog. Some of the popular social bookmarking sites are Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Reddit, Squidoo, Del.icio.us, etc. These social bookmarking sites are very powerful and can bring enormous traffic to your Blog or website especially if your listings could hit these social bookmarking sites’ front pages. It’s no kidding that the social bookmarking sites could attract tens of thousands of visitors to your website every day. This could translate into huge money-making opportunities and earn you great profit. It’s amazing, right?

If you’re eager to know more about social bookmarkings, I’m going to show you 6 methods on how you can make good use of the social bookmarking sites to help you bring traffic and profit to your Blog and websites :

1. Use Eye-Catching Headlines – Online readers are spoilt with choices and they will only pick those articles that come with attention-grabbing titles to read. This is because the social bookmarking sites will only present the visitors with the titles when they search the listings. In view of this, there is a high chance that a huge number of quality articles on social bookmarking sites might be left unread. Therefore, in order to attract visitors to click and read your articles, you have to put in some effort to use interesting and catchy headlines to grab their attention.

2. Offer Precise Description Of Your Articles - Keep your readers interested by giving them a sneak peak of your copies once you have successfully attracted them to read your articles. Give your readers a summary of information and tell them about the benefits that they will get in reading your articles.

3. Design An Attention-Grabbing First Paragraph – Your first paragraph is very important because it helps to decide for you whether you will keep or lose your readers. A lousy introduction will put your readers off easily. If you don’t want to lose your customers’ interest quickly, you have to show them the juiciest parts to get them glued on to your articles.

4. Write Quality Content – There are many web users spending a substantial amount of time using the internet everyday. One of the main reasons why online users are reading articles is to get information. You have to know what they want and provide them your articles with informative, useful and valuable content. If your articles are well-written and easy to understand, your online readers will be more than willing to bookmark your articles and come back to read more of your old as well as new articles because your writing style has given them a great reading experience.

5. Insert A Bottom Bookmarking Button – Always remember to insert a bookmarking button at the end of your articles to make it easier for your readers to bookmark your articles if they find them useful and of high quality. They will return to read more of your articles when they are looking for information on the internet.

6. Categorize Your Articles Correctly – Make sure that you pick the right category for your articles and allow your articles to be found easily. Don’t put your affiliate marketing articles under the search engine optimization category as this may annoy your online readers who might skip your articles to look for other writers’ instead. Remember to list your articles on appropriate categories to prevent losing your readers and prospects.

These are the benefits of using the social bookmarking sites to draw more traffic to your Blogs and websites. Most importantly, it is to help you to make money by taking the free ride on social bookmarkings.

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Just in case you weren’t already watching enough YouTube at work and on your home computer, on your iPhone, Ocean, etc., or on your Apple TV, now TiVo’s getting in on the action as well. Expect the update to pop over your TiVo’s regularly scheduled updates over the next couple of weeks. Oh, and our man Dave Zatz shot some video of the new feature and put it up on (where else?) YouTube — check it out after the break.

Continue reading Worlds collide: YouTube comes to TiVo

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Mentre l’afa di Roma mi riporta alla triste reale di una valanga di lavoro da svolgere, dopo uno splendido weekend trascorso in questo agriturismo toscano dalla cucina sublime, vi riporto alcune notizie passate in sordina.

Da Mountain View novità sull’indexing dei siti con filmati SWF Flash: Google é ora in grado di riconoscere, leggere e indicizzare il testo contenuto nei Flash movie di Adobe, nonché di “simulare” la pressione di pulsanti e seguire i link, per un crawling più completo e accurato. Rivoluzione in vista per usabilità e posizionamento degli storici siti flash-only?

Dai dati diffusi da Market Share risulta che il sistema operativo Mac OSX abbia raggiunto, nel mese appena concluso, l’8% di quota di mercato globale. Risultato record in trend costantemente crescente. Tenetelo a mente.

Annunciate in diversi paesi le quotazioni di iPhone 3G e relativi contratti a traffico. Proteste degli utenti in Canada, dove le tariffe di Rogers sono considerate esorbitanti; ritocchi sui piani di AT&T (troppo bello che rimaessero simili agli attuali per l’iPhone originale) e tariffe “solo dati” discretamente accessibili per Swisscom. Se lo smartphone avrà un prezzo contenuto rispetto ai concorrenti liberi da vincoli contrattuali, non si può dire che le tariffe ad esso associate si preannuncino esaltanti. Bocche serrate o quasi da TIM e Vodafone, e destino incerto per noi italiani. Quel che é certo é che, appena si aprirà uno spiraglio, il cracking del nuovo iPhone e la distribuzione di esemplari “sfuggiti” al controllo di Apple non tarderà ad affermarsi. -10 giorni al lancio.

Social Bookmarking websites have almost become a fad in the past two years as a way for people to save sites and blog they deem interesting, and also share it with others. Below is a video that explains what social bookmarking sites are all about.

The video above uses the website Del.icio.us as an example but you have several other options as well. Some of the sites I use are Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon

As a social bookmarking site, StumbleUpon is a favorite among many internet marketers. One of the reasons is that it doesn’t take a whole lot of time like some of the other sites out there. In a nutshell, you can quickly join groups relevant to your line of activity, add friends, etc. The next step is to add content that’s useful - either your own or others. When visitors stumble upon your page, and like what they see, they endorse it with a “thumbs up”. When this happens, it is seen by lots more people.

Before we go on to the step by step process of going about this, here’s what you can expect: Traffic - and a lot of it, and links. Rather than actual sales which can also result, you can look forward to a lot of exposure, publicity, readership to your blog, subscribers to your content feed, etc.- all of which are essential components of your online business.

Now Here’s How You Generate Traffic From Stumbleupon

As you become more popular, it increases the traffic to your website. You have to be a regular on the site, which goes without saying for any social bookmarking site. It is also important to be perceived as someone who posts useful content that appeals to the users. How do you do this?

Submit Under The Right Topic

When you browse around the internet and find a site that you like, you can submit it under the relevant topic. This is crucial. You must select the most appropriate topic under which to submit the site in order to receive the ‘thumbs up’ to it. If it is under an irrelevant title, then there’s a good chance that it might not get noticed at all. Be as specific as possible to ensure that more people see it. If your site is about football, then let it go under football and not sports in general.

Tags

Tags are to your submission what keywords are to your content. After you submit the site, you must add the right tags. This will enable the site you submit be stumbled upon frequently, as well as help those who are searching for these tags. When you use the right tags, your site will get more visibility.

Send To Friend

An important feature of StumbleUpon is the facility to send your stumbles to your friends, directly. Get the StumbleUpon toolbar. So should your friends. Each time someone sends them a stumble, a red number appears next to the stumble button. When they next use the button they can view the page sent to them. You can also add and receive messages to these.

Groups And Forums

You name it, and they’ve got a group or forum for any topic you want. You can join about 63 groups. The special part is you can post links on some of the groups which can be seen by other group members. Don’t even think of spamming though as it is the best way to get deleted.

Blog

Start your StumbleUpon blog and post HTML and images on it. This kind of blog is more visible since it can greatly increase your stumbles and add more friends. This in turn creates a good impression.

I tried to sign up for Linkarena a German social bookmarking site and encountered the following problems. In fact 2 of 4 fields came up with very creative error messages:

1. User name: green -> not taken. great.

2. Email address: “steiss@gmail.com is not a valid email address…”
WHAT??? I’m using it for years now and I have no clue what your tool dislikes about my email address.

3. Password: It’s secure. great.

4. Repeat your Password: “It’s not a valid email address”
Why am I not surprised?

Dear Linkarena,
I really like your form. It’s easy, short, plain. A great form when you look at it. I like the functionalities, like checking if the User name is still available and so on. This might not happen all the time, but still it seems to happen. So please make my life easier and your form more effective by making it work.

Advocates in the web space are the breed of users any company is looking for. Because they’re a salesforce you don’t pay, because they’re a salesforce that generate more confidence in your company and in your products, because they’re experts who would provide you with end users needs and desires, those people can become your trump card to speed up your business growth and build your reputation. To be able to follow the same growth FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Threadless, 37Signals, and many other companies (as well as many artists and music groups) have generated, the point is to be able to detect those advocates and to know what to expect from them.

Somes simple steps can manage your company to detect within and out of your user community who are the advocates you should rely on, feed with information, and engage with them to make your brand and your products better (I mean fit to interest users needs):

1. Pitch, pitch, pitch, and listen to what’s been understood by your users: spreading the word would generate feedbacks, listen to them carefully and adjust your product and your pitch to appeal people. Never underestimate feedback, they’re your raw material to get notice of interest from people for your product, and your first filter to classify your community members (community meaning here anybody who’s taking time to share time with you).
2. Adjust your communication and categorize your community members: adjust your pitch according to what’s been highlighted in your community members’ feedback and be sure to use the right pitch from your pitch deck regarding the point of interest the person you’re speaking with. That’s how you can engage with this person: don’t take time to explain about what she didn’t notice but focus on what she underlined and on her expertise field. It’s the second filter to classify your community members.
3. Gather people who provided feedback and who are experts: make those people your first target of any upcoming communication: the small community of interested people you’ve managed to identify is now the pool of advocates where you would have to fish to get your advocate taskforce.

That pool would be the first destination of communication and you have to stick with that, while adding in it any new person willing to get involved (directly or not). Adjust your product and your communication to be sure they would keep on speaking about your company. The more you make these people happy and proud of what you’re delivering, the more they would have reasons to broader speak about you.

Now the identification is done, you have to understand what you can expect from your advocates. Depending of their word of mouth ability (blog traffic of their websites, forum and wiki curators, basic user level, …) you would be able to send them specific message, always according to their point of interest and their ability to deal with the information you’re sharing with them. Never mass email, always target communication: you don’t detail marketing action plan to your engineer, don’t mess with your advocates with global information if they don’t want to hear of it (if they do, they would ask for it).

Robert Scoble was the one who turned sped up FriendFeed adoption, as well as he was a Twitter power user and help the company community to grow. Louis Grey also collaborated to the growth of many companies by providing more than review of products but a location where many ideas on those products were shared. The value of the advocates is more on their ability to generate discussion and then ideas than in their ability to drive new customers to your product, then providing you the time to create a relationship with them and to turn them into customers (and maybe advocates).

Photo Credit: Gjik

To read more on that topic:

• Community + leveraging = You have to lead or fail
• Review of the Internet news for Today
• Ideas + Social Media = Free Marketing leading to engagement and product purchase
• Social Media + Community = a new approach to creating customer loyalty
• Review of the Internet News of the Day