Curated Stories Mar. 4, 2010

Last year I did a short post on building links via local blogs. Looking back at that post I think it is quite limited. Those resources are so much more than just link building tools.
Learning to find and build…

New statistics about baby boomers’ usage of the mobile web are here, and the news, sadly, is not surprising. This generation of users (ages 45 and older) has been slow to adopt mobile Internet technology. Howev…

[Second in a series.]
Business people do lots of things on the internet other than read or watch or listen to content. So when I say that only two kinds of content matter to them, I don’t mean web-based appli…

Spreadsheets are especially useful for geographically dispersed project teams looking to centralize project data like issues tracking, requirements gathering, action items, scheduling and other data capture tas…

When I first had the insane brilliant idea to start a business and get out of the alleged safety of the corporate world, I started by reading everything I could find.
I wish I could remember where the thread s…

As it turns out, Europeans got a bit of a head start having their defective Toyotas fixed. Yoshimi Inaba, head of the company’s North American operations, admitted to a congressional committee last week that in…

Last week, my husband Eric was caught in the crosshairs of an overzealous museum curator eager to impart his encyclopedic knowledge about twentieth-century model trains. For what seemed like an eternity, Eric f…

I spend a lot of time in Twitter search. I do it for several purposes. One is for my client partners. For instance, if I’m thinking of ways to do things for MolsonCoors, I might start up searches on various b…

If your teen is seriously considering a college, I now highly recommend setting up an overnight visit with the admissions department. Here is our experience: while on this college visit my daughter spent the n…

Filed under: iPad”Reading literature makes you a more well-rounded individual.” That’s what an author told me once. Notice he didn’t say “watching literature.”

paidContent:UK has an article on a presentation P…

New Scientist reports on research published in PNAS (abstract here) about what may be the earliest writing yet discovered, on eggshells dated to 60,000 years ago. “Since 1999, Pierre-Jean Texier of the Universi…

Recently, some of my favorite story practitioners have been registering protests over manifestations of “story” that they consider to be too loosely characterized or defined.

I’ve written a number of ti…

An early-stage company wants to convince investors that its product is better than those of all its competitors — so they create a competitive analysis.
This is a standard process. And Steve Blank, serial entr…

If you sell consumer products like skincare, sunglasses or video games, a celebrity endorsement can be a powerful thing.
In the B2B world, you can still tap a famous individual – but it’s not necessarily w…

Now that Toyota is on the ropes, people are lining up to get their punches in. Analysis and advice are coming from people who’ve probably never visited the company, let alone have deep expertise in the Toyota P…

I often have to remind the dedicated, smart CEOs I work with that leading takes time and energy. Directing the feelings, attitudes, actions, and behaviors of a team is a big task. Often, I also hear the secrets…

Adding Unique Value to Earn a Living

We have the wisdom of teachers all around us. They say that when we’re ready to learn the teacher will appear … We can find those teachers in our family, in our frie…

In 2001, as the dot.com boom turned to bust, CEO John Chambers of Cisco saw a massive $460 billion of Ciscos overall stock market value evaporate before his eyes. Game over? Not really. At that moment, Chamber…

Cambridge UK startup Rapportive has released a Firefox and Chrome extension that will replace the ads in your Gmail with photos, biographic data and social media links, including a live display of recent Tweets…

Since Vlingo first introduced its voice control app for the BlackBerry more than a year and a half ago, smartphones and voice-to-speech technology have evolved quite a bit. Today, the company has launched a pr…

I follow some very successful Twitter users and noticed they tweeted a lot, which inspired me to try the experiment I’ll outline in this post.

For several weeks, I tweeted the same type of content I always h…

As the world becomes more and more engrained in social media networks, it can be a little confusing keeping track of who you’re connected …

As you think about the debate about Forresters blogging policy, Id like to share a little more about how the opinions you read from Forrester analysts come about. With 15 years experience in this business, I kn…

Sam Diaz / Between the Lines:
Google adds free cloud “backup” to Apps, feature that reduces risk of data loss — Google, in its continued quest to lure enterprise customers to switch to the cloud-base…

In an effort to jump start small businesses – and remind them of the power of a single referral – marketing expert John Jantsch is launching Make a Referral Week 2010 March 8 through 12.
The goal of the eve…

We’ve done the legwork, and below are five groups for anyone interested in the goings on of the social media niche. The discussions posted in these groups …

The announcement that Bob Lutz will retire from General Motors on May 1 at the age of 78 brings down the curtain on one of the most remarkable careers in the history of the auto industry. Lutz held top executiv…

In his first time speaking at University of Washington—the giant Microsoft-endowed school in the companys backyard—Steve Ballmer explained “the cloud.”
First, there was a goofy video showing how stoned mos…

Kicking things off with the proclamation “We’re betting the company on it,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussed his vision of cloud computing at the University of Washington this morning. He described a…

Next time an out-of-control pen wreaks havoc on your clothes or furniture and you don’t have a spot remover on hand, try a little hairspray. Reader Shelley says it worked wonders after her two-year old used her…

Traditional forms of advertising applied to social media annoy users who log in to communicate with friends and don’t want to be inundated with extra noise. …

Spotify is a free, legal, cloud-based streaming music service delivered via desktop software with a nice social twist. A Swedish start-up with offices in London, it launched back in 2008 in Europe and now boas…

I recently wrote about Alex Payne, a developer for Twitter, who posted a tweet that caused a lot of contention among the Twitter developer community. Think Before You Tweet: The Do Not Tweet List.
…

I don’t think there’s much of a downside to giving your readers tools at their fingertips to easily share your content with their contacts. From the early days of “share this with a friend” buttons, to…

From Tony Wright dot com My startup (RescueTime) has enjoyed some pretty ridiculously good PR (online, print, and video). It’s not a surprise that the most common questions that we get from other founders…

“Ugh,” you may sigh to yourself when you receive a colleague’s request to fill out a 360-degree feedback instrument with 150 items. Of course you’re lucky if you only get one; you may get a half dozen requests…

One of the big subjects of debate on the Interwebs this morning is a big, existential technological question: Are phones on the cusp of replacing PCs?
Don Dodge (presently of Google, formerly of Microsoft) thin…

One of the topics people ask me frequently about is social media; specifically, they ask me for how to make the best use of their time. …

Dallas Lawrence is Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications, the nation’s top crisis communications firm. He blogs on emerging digital media trends and best practices…

According to the Huffington Post’s Google Analytics numbers, the news site gathered 40 million unique visitors in February, Peter Kafka at MediaMemo reports.
While Comscore estimates are more conservative at 26…

Almost three years. THREE YEARS!
It has almost been three years since my company drove a stake into the ground in Indianapolis and Oklahoma City. It is funny to look back on the process and change the business…

Senior marketers are putting their money where our conversation has been — on integrating social with their activities.The Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) 3rd Annual Marketing Trends Study* and T…

I have once shared a few ways to check Twitter comments about any page but what if we need to keep an eye on all Tweets around some domain?
All the three tools listed here have three things in common:
(1) They…

Which companies have the best reputations? Apple tops the list for the third year in a row. See who else made the top 50 this year.

Chrome is a great Web browser, but it has enough weaknesses that Lex Friedman put Safari back in his Dock instead.

As the race to be be ebook format of choice hots up, Penguin is making some bold, experimental bets…

President Obama had a well-publicized routine health exam last week.
One of the more controversial issues was the virtual colonoscopy he received. It’s been well covered here that virtual colonoscopy doesn�…

0 comments | 44 reads I am amazed by how many small businesses do not utilize social media to the maximum. Âlong_spaceThink about it: social media, like the internet two decades ago, allows any business to com…

If I can sell you something without a sales call or expensive ad campaign, I can sell it cheaper.If you want to buy a business development relationship but you’re not willing to negotiate, do contracts and inve…

He: ‘I’m rich, thinking of marriage’ She: ‘I’m not fat’
Help is at hand for those who make use of – or perhaps help to run – online dating services. A new study has revealed who is most likely to tell lies abou…

From Fortune: Two thirds of the way through a 3,000-word essay on This Apple-HTC Patent Thing, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber quotes a tweet by John Siracusa that gets to the heart of the matter:
To me, the Appl…

Listen here: You don’t want to be a social media expert, okay? You really don’t.
Social media is limited in focus and lifespan.
It’s *one* line of application in an otherwise vast business landscape that…

In the next decade, we will see significant changes to the way that content is created, monetized and experienced. During the next few years, existing media players will begin to increasingly face the realities…

If you’re blogging for business, rather than blogging about your cat, baby, fashion addiction, or crush on Taylor Swift, you need to set some success metrics.Without a statistical measure of your blogging pro…

This announcement that Omniture will work with Facebook to incorporate their ad results data into Omnitures system is certainly a big step forward in integrating the results of ones marketing efforts in todays…

Partly in response to my post about the growing importance of appropriate communications on a company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts, the Textifying blog over at Arizona State University (sor…

Studies show that web page views have been dropping precipitously as folks park themselves on the social web. There have even been a flurry of blog posts from Jason Falls, Jay Baer and Debbie Weil debating w…

Every now and then someone blogs a clever way to turn affiliate links into SEO friendly links and the post always gets some attention. In my experience, though, you might not want to do this.The reason for want…

There’s a startling assumption buried as a throwaway comment on this post from TechCrunch onGoogle Buzz’s recent arrival. Apparently, links shared on social networks have been growing to the extent …

News broke yesterday that Comedy Central would no longer allow popular video site Hulu to present episodes of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” The Hollywood Reporter asked Viacom if the network inten…

A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow
I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors and writers by managing their online promotion. As part of my job I read a lot of books (and I…

I just read one of the most succinct and spot on explanations of the back room dealings that are going on when it comes to the motives behind Apple’s move to the cloud. There is one caveat here – I don�…

If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time, you’ve likely noticed these lovely buttons on the right:

You may also have noticed that there’s a deeply redundant piece at the bottom of every bl…

Today I was interviewed for an article in a trade magazine for beauty supply store owners. Last year the same writer interviewed me for a similar story that was published in Pool and Spa News for owners of pool…

Larry Strickling, the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Agency (a division of the Department of Commerce), gave a speech last week where he outlined, in broad strokes, a vision for “Intern…

Comedy site Funny Or Die has brought together current and former stars of Saturday Night Live (plus Jim Carrey) to create a skit called “Presidential Reunion” that has racked up more than one million views…

Apple’s lawsuit against Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC is meant to prevent smartphones that resemble the iPhone from competing in the U.S. market, limiting consumer choice, but protecting Apple’s incent…

Ridiculously easy group-forming matters because the desire to be part of a group that shares, cooperates, or acts in concert is a basic human instinct that has always been constrained by transaction c…

Speaking at the Digital Landscapes conference at UCD, European Director of Google’s online sales John Herlihy said that Google is mostly oriented towards mobile devices, claiming they’ll become more import…

Posted by Shar VanBoskirk
I just had a one on one with Adobe CMO, Ann Lewnes, a power house of interactive marketing energy for the combined Adobe/Omniture companies.
In her words, Adobes goal is to b…

If you have one of the newer “Unibody” MacBook Pro systems, you may run into problems where the system seems to run out of available RAM more than expected, especially when running programs that can reserve lar…

Google is developing a system that will enable web publishers of any size to automatically submit new content to Google for indexing within seconds of that content being published. Search industry analyst Dann…

Dale Dougherty, publisher and editor of MAKE wrote a nice little account of accidentally meeting a maker in his neighborhood.

I noticed a blueprint of some sort on his clipboard. “Are you doing some kind of…

Image via Wikipedia Judgment. Common Sense. Simple Good Judgment is the critical component of any hire into a start up. Give me your Art History, Criminal Justice and Fitness Management majors if they h…

Google Buzz was pushed out the door too early and force-fed to users by placing it in Gmail. The launch has been marked by both privacy and usability issues. But the team at Google behind it, led by Bradley…

Nick Bilton of the Bits blog tackles Internet etiquette, including the ethics of going through the e-mail and text messages of a spouse if you suspect of infidelity.

In what seems like the blink of an eye, the social media world has exploded into one of the most popular and accessible vehicles for brand visibility today. …

The top Web apps for business growth. It takes a lot to run a small business — but what do you do when there’s too many tasks and not enough help? Tech entrepreneur and blogger Neil Patel has put together a li…

The best way to reduce bounce rates and design a path of least resistance for members and customers is to offer something they want. While others prioritize member acquisition in order to build an early product…

Digital measurement firm comScore released a study today highlighting the rise in social media access via mobile phones and offering some comparison metrics for some of the biggest social networks and their us…

My PR background explains why, when it comes to marketing and social media, it’s the public relations ramifications, not the advertising ones, that interest …

My last couple of posts have been about how important context is in KM. Without connecting to people, conversing and re-contextualising we are not really doing KM. In my mind knowledge doesn’t come in packets…