Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

Be sure to watch the current featured video: Web 2.0… The Machine is Us/ing Us. It’s an interesting perspective on how the net is being built and fun to watch.

ISRO Out Does Google Earth

ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, is rolling-out a rival to Google Earth, the online satellite imagery service, by the end of this year.

The project, named Bhuvan (Sanskrit for Earth), will allow users to zoom into areas as small as 10 meters wide, compared to the 200 meters wide zoom maximum on Google Earth.

For more information: Times Online - ISRO vs. Google

Facebook Funny

I always enjoy the cartoonist’s perspective of the Internet Revolution.

Not sure how everyone’s photo is verified are you?

Brand Becomes Part of the Content

Even as print media and television find it increasingly difficult to maintain their audiences, advertisers are finding it harder to grab the attention of these prospective customers as well. Our habits are evolving with the ongoing digital revolution and some leading brand name companies are starting to produce their own content to reach their desired target market. Content being short films or articles where brands are weaved in with the actual content.

I’m not referring to the can of coke or bottle of beer sitting on the table for all to see, although that can be effective too, I’m talking about movies being produced by businesses with the primary objective of creating a hit movie people want to watch. If their movie hits it will go viral reaching more viewers (i.e. prospects) without any additional cost. Call it the anti-Tivo. People don’t forward through a great video, they forward it to their friends.

The short Featured Video was produced by BMW and is an excellent example of an advertiser becoming a producer with their brand (BMW 740i) not-so-coincidentally being right in the middle of the movie start-to-finish. It bares no resemblance to a commercial and young males, the ultimate BMW prospect, will love the flick.

My point? Times are changing and changing fast. Today’s effective advertising is not advertising at all. What works better is your brand being there when your customer or prospective customer is doing something they enjoy doing. For a BMW a series of short films works superbly. For a small restaurant it might be rolling out and maintaining a blog or holding a contest or throw-down between two chefs. Of course, the video would go on YouTube and the local press would have to be there to cover the story as well.

Just watch my teenagers TYPING on their cell phones while listening to their iPods with no TV in sight and think about how you’re going to get their attention and business 10 years from now. Better start preparing for the future because it’s here now. Enjoy the movie!

Blogging is Smart Business

My take on blogging: Blogging is smart for businesses and individuals alike. Blogging significantly increases the volume of communication and interaction with prospective customers, vendors, and other potentially meaningful contacts. Blogs make it easy for someone to connect with the blogger and begin a dialog.

Blogs are also easy on the blogger, with easy to setup blog sites, and easy to update blogging tools. Yes, it’s hard to carve out the time to make a habit of blogging, whether it be for personal reasons or for your business, but it’s worth doing it if you can stick to it. If you need help getting started or want to outsource the startup and upkeep there are companies that do that. (pssst. we can do that.)

Millions of people are blogging and many millions more are online, giving you great opportunities to earn new customers. Eventually someone is going to post things about your business and their experience in dealing with it. May as well get out there in cyber-public and gain a little more control over your destiny.

If you don’t fully get it yet just look at the various online initiatives the strongest brands have underway right now and you’ll see that they’re spending heavily to remain relevant in this rapidly evolving marketplace. All businesses of the future will have an online presence that will need to be tended to just like the office or store or shop.

Crime Reports

Every so often a new tool comes along that makes you say “wow, the internet is awesome!”. Crime Reports is such a tool.

Using Google’s powerful mapping engine combined with input from local law enforcement agencies Crime Reports gives residents nearly real-time reports of all crimes reported in any geographic area selected in their neighborhood (or a relatives for that matter). If you’ve ever used Mapquest or Google Maps then you can use this with ease.

Did I mention it’s FREE?

Here’s why the Utah based company put together this great tool for us and law enforcement:

“CrimeReports.com was created to help law enforcement agencies put crime data in the hands of those who care about it most—citizens. While crime statistics in a specific city may be available, they may not be accessible. CrimeReports.com standardizes the way law enforcement agencies communicate crime data to the public, down to the specific neighborhood or block they live on.”

Crime Reports

Google Preview is a New Addon for Firefox Browser

I like thumbnails of sites when I’m deciding whether or not the click the link so I think this add-on for Firefox  browser users is great.

It took all of 30 seconds to download and then after restarting the browser it was working. Now when I do Google searches the results have thumbnail images of the Websites.

The best Website to use for download is Mozilla’s (Firefox) and can be found here: Google Preview

If you still use Internet Explorer this is a good time to explore using Firefox. Biggest benefit is that it’s faster.

Firefox download

Cuil Versus Google

The ultimate David and Goliath scenario began to unfold on the battlefield yesterday as Cuil began offering it’s search engine to the public. What makes this battle more interesting then some of the others we’ve heard about is the fact that Cuil (pronounced “cool”) was started by several former Google engineers and Google has tried unsuccessfully to buy them out. Must be something to this Cuil then, right?

The short video below covers some of the buzz that’s making it’s rounds across the net and in Silicon Valley and is worth the few minutes to watch.

Our initial impression is not very favorable as the search results included a lot of “clutter” and instances where the same site consumed high percentages of search results. Having said that, we understand that a lot can change over time and they’ve only been turned on for one day!

Choosing The Best Online Store Software

If you’ve been online for some time you’ve no doubt heard of the free osCommerce (the leading Open Source online shop e-commerce solution that is powered by a dedicated, strong, and ever growing community) and like other popular open source solutions they have a thriving community of developers/businesses that take the open source software and build superior solutions from it and try to profit from that effort.

One such solution is CRE Loaded. CRE Loaded offers an open source version tht you can use to build small stores and then when you need a more robust solution they steer you into their “Pro” version. That’s the version I chose to use for my first online store, Big City Pet, an online pet store. I chose this solution after soliciting feedback from some online retail pros and the fact that you pay them one time for the solution and never any monthly fees or transaction fees like some of the other options available out there.

After getting started on building out my first online store it became apparent that I was going to need their Store Manager for CRE Loaded to speed up and simplify the process of starting and later maintaining Big City Pet.

Store Manager for CRELoaded is a Windows application that allows you to manage your CRE Loaded-based online store much more efficiently. You can add, delete and update products, categories and manufacturers, automatically upload your product images while editing products, categories, manufacturers, view reports, orders and keep the track of your online sales. All this from your computer. CRE Loaded Manager was made for ordinary entrepreneurs not geeks, and after only a few settings required for the program to start and it just works.

I’ll report back when my store is live, but so far it seems to be working great! They offer a free 30-day trial period if you want to check it out yourself. Free Store Manager trial

Google Keyword Tool Now Offers Search Volume

Google AdWords announced they’ve added keyword search volume data to their Keyword Tool.

Now, when you use the Google Keyword Tool to search for your relevant keywords, you’ll be able to see the approximate number of search queries performed on Google and their search network for these keywords. This gives advertisers a better idea of where they’ll get more mileage for their money and will help in budgeting.

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