News & Notes

Brrr cold and windy Wednesday.  Stay warm!

• The difference between PR and publicity (Seth Godin)
• The top 7 mistakes new Twitter users make (10,000 words)
• What to Do if Your Startup Is Failing (Business Week)
• Twitter Can Help Your Online Business (Practical eCommerce)
• How to: Work on Stuff That Matters (ReadWriteWeb)
• An Upgrade for the Web (MIT Tech Review)
• “Search Is A Pencil” (John Battelle’s Searchblog)
• Finding the Right “Brand Voice” on Twitter (Mashable)
• Getting Started Guide from Google Analytics (Web Analytics World)
• Top 10 Internet-Advertising Websites – February 2009 (Marketing Charts)
• Adjix Announces New Way to Advertise within Twitter “Tweets” (Ad Ops Online)
• Aggregation of Marginal Gains: Recession Busting Analytics! (Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik)
• The Guardian launches open API for all content – but they still control the ads (TechCrunch)
• Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere? (TechCrunch)
• Strategic Partnering: Turning Suppliers Into Partners (Duct Tape Marketing)

We post links to stories about how to use the web effectively throughout the day on Twitter or Delicious.  Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!

I’ve been writing over at Practical eCommerce again with our monthly social media feature.  This month – Twitter Can Help Your Online Business.  Hope you find it interesting and helpful!

Most people shop online for convenience rather than customer service. And while inroads have been made into providing better customer service online, the personal aspect is often still missing.

Enter Twitter, a social networking and micro-blogging tool that allows you to send 140 character updates to whoever is following your profile and to the public Twitter stream. Although 140 characters may not seem like enough for meaningful information, you’d be surprised by how much you can fit into such little space. But, it’s the ability to have conversations with customers that makes Twitter extremely valuable to any ecommerce site. – Twitter Can Help Your Online Business – Practical eCommerce

You can find the other articles I wrote for Practical eCommerce here.

Bit ugly here in Michigan, but, as we like to say, at least it’s not snow!

• Things not to do when you’re naming your new product (The Opinionated Marketers)
• The Three D’s of Being More Referable (Duct Tape Marketing)
• Twitter Has A Big Month, Grows To Over 8 Million U.S. Users (Social Times)
• What does one TRILLION dollars look like? (Zee Slash Blog)
• Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Media To An SEO Consultant (Social Media Explorer)
• StatCounter Launches GlobalStats (Web Analytics World)
• Banners Go Bust?: New Razorfish Report Finds Social Media Ad Spend Flattening (FEED)
• Google’s Revenue Weakens Markedly Over Past Month (GOOG) (Silicon Alley Insider)
• Sending the Wrong Message (Chris Brogan)
• The Essence of the Inbound Referral (Duct Tape Marketing)
• Return on Design (Seth Godin)
• The Great Restructuring (Buzz Machine)
• The value of each viewer/user/customer is NOT THE SAME! (Gary Vaynerchuk)
• Social Networking Now More Popular Than Email, Report Finds (ReadWriteWeb)
• New Opportunities and Tools for Startups Seeking Funding (Social Times)
• Do We Really Need to Optimize Our Sites for Mobile Phones? (Daily Blog Tips)

We post links to stories about how to use the web effectively throughout the day on Twitter or Delicious.  Also, if you have a post or link you think is worth sharing, please let us know!