Archive for February, 2007
 |
How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive GuideFeb 23 2007 | Social Networks |
When people speak about driving traffic through social networks, the first site that comes to mind is usually Digg. Digg’s popularity is obvious: as the numbers increase above the “digg it” (or “dugg”) button, the likelihood for increased traffic goes up as well. There are numerous posts that explain how an extremely popular link on Digg can bring you traffic and links.
A lot of people want to get their page on the Digg main page, but in terms of popularity of other online social mediums, it stops there. There are other means of getting good — perhaps better, when considering that it’s targeted — traffic, such as StumbleUpon.
45 Comments » - Posted in Social Networks by Tamar Weinberg
|
Damage Control: Using Online Media To Get the Word OutFeb 21 2007 | Business, Social Networks |
Chris Garrett said something really insightful yesterday: “It is a lot easier to damage a brand than it is to build one.” And so, with last week’s JetBlue cancellations that were largely a result of poor weather conditions, a lot of speculation began about the ability for JetBlue to return to normalcy and live up to its mantra: “to bring humanity back to air travel.”
Every business makes mistakes. Every business has to occasionally deal with damage control and reinstate the public’s faith. Some businesses will refuse to acknowledge defeat and ignore their most outrageous errors, while hoping that their customers will continue to be loyal to them (note: in such cases where the company doesn’t sufficiently address these issues, they usually aren’t). Others will live up to their mistakes and make apologies that the public, and everyone will notice.
4 Comments » - Posted in Business, Social Networks by Tamar Weinberg
 |
186 Diggs and Still in Upcoming?Feb 18 2007 | Social Networks |
Whenever I talk to someone about Digg, each person seems to have a different number of how many Diggs it takes to hit the homepage. Most feel that once you get to 60 you’re pretty much assured the homepage (assuming that your story doesn’t get buried along the way). Sometimes you can get up to 90 or so and still be in Upcoming.
Well today I saw something that I had never seen before - a story with 186 Diggs that was still in the Upcoming News section.
As you can see this story was up to 186 Diggs before being made popular. Once it hit 187 - it made the homepage:
In all my time on Digg I have never seen a story with this many Diggs still stuck in Upcoming. Typically when you have that many Diggs your story would have made the homepage already. So what could be the reasoning behind this?
5 Comments » - Posted in Social Networks by Chris Winfield
 |
Halftone and Bitmap Effects: Photoshop TutorialFeb 16 2007 | Design |
Adding texture to illustrations or photographs is something that can pack that extra punch and make a graphic really pop with character. In this tutorial we will explore Photoshop’s bitmap and half-toning tools and effects. Much of this tutorial will be based on experimenting with the various options and finding out what works best for you.
Take chances and play around, you may find an effect that is exactly what you are looking for.
What is half-toning?
Halftoning is the conversion of a continuous toned image into a grid of regularly spaced dots or cells. These halftone spots vary in size to simulate the appearance of shading and light. Smaller dots appear lighter; larger dots, darker. This technique is used in printers, as well as the publishing industry.
4 Comments » - Posted in Design by Patrick Winfield
|
Online Publicity and Link Building in 2007: An Eric Ward WebcastFeb 15 2007 | Coverage |
While I enjoy writing about what I am learning from the extremely informative SearchMarketingNow webcasts, I recommend that you take some time out of your day to hear from experts on all matters related to online marketing (they only occur 1-2 times per month). This week’s presentation was given by Eric Ward, master “link baiter,” though he surprisingly did not use that term at all during the webcast! 
Eric is known as “the original link builder” with over 14 years of experience. Interestingly, this was something that he has been doing before there were search engines. The experience has allowed for Eric to watch how search engines have evolved and how search engines are now paying more attention to the links than they previously did.
Introduction
Links are generally important. They can have an impact on your click traffic or search rank. Some people don’t understand the role or power that links may or may not have in driving traffic and driving PageRank to your site.
10 Comments » - Posted in Coverage by Tamar Weinberg
|
The Emerging Political Strategy into the Blogosphere and Social Networks |
As presidential hopefuls are looking to strategize their political campaign, new media outlets are being explored as novel ways for these candidates to reach out to a different demographic. Candidates are looking at blogs, search engines, and other popular social networks to reach out to the tech-savvy and the youth that embraces the online social sphere.
Last month, John Edwards announced his candidacy on YouTube. When Barack Obama announced that he was joining the race this weekend, his website was launched with a social network, My.BarackObama.com, which is displayed prominently on his website. Hillary Clinton has a MySpace page, and as of this writing, has 22,310 friends.
3 Comments » - Posted in Blogging, News by Tamar Weinberg
|
Yahoo Goes Mobile: 19 Nations to Embrace Cell Phone AdvertisingFeb 13 2007 | Yahoo! |
Even though Yahoo is still in the “Big 2″ for search, not being #1 has got to be disturbing. It’s like looking for your desired keyword term in the SERPs and finding that someone else is in the #1 position with you not far behind — but you’ve apparently done everything you could possibly think of to make it to the top. What can you do next? Well, in Yahoo’s case, they are looking to be better in another area. (Likewise, you can focus your SEO tactics on other keywords or go long-tail.) If you can’t beat them somewhere, beat them somewhere else. Find an area where you can excel in and go with it.
Over the weekend, Yahoo announced that it is focusing its advertising efforts in the mobile world. Yes, that’s right, cellular telephones in 19 countries will begin featuring Yahoo brand advertising for a number of major service providers and products, including Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Intel, Nissan, and Hilton’s Embassy Suites.
1 Comment » - Posted in Yahoo! by Tamar Weinberg
|
Space.com Banned from Digg?Feb 12 2007 | Social Networks |
Looks like it.
I just saw a pretty humorous article: Florida Restaurant Holds Benefit for Astronaut Lisa Nowak and I was going to submit it to Digg (in the Offbeat News not the Space section) mainly because I couldn’t believe that this restaurant couldn’t find a better person or cause to hold a benefit for.
So I went to submit it:
Then I got the infamous banned message:
This was quite surprising because Space.com would definitely be considered a trusted, authority site. They have certainly had a lot of exposure on Digg and many homepage stories with one as recent as two days ago. We covered other sites that have been banned back in December but I would venture to say that Space.com would be at the top of that list in regards to a trusted news source.
5 Comments » - Posted in Social Networks by Chris Winfield
|
The New Wave of Personalization and Who is Joining in the GameFeb 09 2007 | Google, Social Networks |
It’s what you want. The very popular StumbleUpon concept is simple: when you sign up, you provide the service with some of your interests, and you install the neat little toolbar. Once you’ve got the application installed, you can simply begin stumbling and you can tell the system how you feel about the page that was served to you. By clicking on the thumbs up “I like it” button or by clicking on the thumbs-down button, you teach the SU system what content you truly enjoy. By stumbling and sharing your finds to other users, you’re personalizing your own experience and the experience of your peers as well.
The personalization concept — where content is being provided based on your own desires — has proven to be quite successful. Since it was introduced two years ago, StumbleUpon now boasts over 1.8 million users, and is continually expanding. Version 2.90 of the toolbar, which came out earlier this week, is incorporating the relatively new video social search engine that it unveiled in December. StumbleUpon is truly growing…
6 Comments » - Posted in Google, Social Networks by Tamar Weinberg
|
Digg Comes Out With Friendly Buttons For Every SiteFeb 06 2007 | Social Networks |
Today, Digg announced that it is offering improved functionality over plugins that you see on other blogs. Those who have been confused by the installation of such third-party tools should be happy to know that Digg has announced “smart” buttons, buttons that don’t only afford you the opportunity to Digg a blog post, but can be extended to any website page (it’s a simple Javascript code snippet), and will even check against current content on Digg to see if you’re submitting a duplicate story. The color of the button also can be modified to match with your site’s color scheme and a smaller version is available as well.
In the included screenshot, you can see the compact Digg button in action on a red background.
Check it out and see how you can configure these buttons to work best with your site.
