Twitter Phishing Scam — Watch and Beware!
Anyone using Twitter should watch this video. Now that Twitter has nearly 20 million monthly unique visitors, a lot of marketers and scam artists are working this new channel. Careful who follows you!
Viral by Design
Anyone interested in designing websites that engage users and grow virally would enjoy this presentation.
U.S. Army steps into networking world with Facebook profile | Stars and Stripes
Anyone wishing to “friend” the U.S. Army now can, thanks to a new Facebook page and blog.
The Facebook page, which launched last Thursday, already has nearly 3,000 fans. Yelps of “Hooah” litter its wall.
“In just a weekend the Facebook site has become a vibrant community,” said Lindy Kyzer, a public affairs specialist in the online and social media division of Army public affairs. “We have soldiers, spouses, retirees, family members, even a grandmother whose granddaughter just signed up.”
Both the Facebook page and new blog, called “Army Live,” are meant to allow people inside and outside the service to speak informally about the Army. The Facebook page asks viewers to comment on such topics as “Why did you join the Army?” Or “Who is your favorite noncommissioned officer?” It also features podcasts, photos, links to other Army-related Web sites and even a way to follow the Army on Twitter.
“It’s a one-stop shop for people to connect to us,” Kyzer said.
via U.S. Army steps into networking world with Facebook profile | Stars and Stripes.
Guy Kawasaki and John Gerzema to Give Keynote Speeches at Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York 2009 Conference & Expo
Kawasaki to discuss his latest book, Reality Check, and his upcoming keynote, “Twitter as a Tool for Social Media,” during free Webcast this Friday, March 6, from 1 to 2 p.m. EST
New York, NY (PRWEB) March 4, 2009 — Search Engine Strategies (SES), the leading and most established search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) conference and expo series, today announced that Guy Kawasaki and John Gerzema will give keynote speeches at SES New York (http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork/), which will be held March 23-27, 2009. Leading up to the event, Kawasaki will discuss his latest book, “Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition,” and his upcoming keynote, “Twitter as a Tool for Social Media,” during a free Webcast this Friday, March 6, from 1 to 2 p.m. (EST).
Matt McGowan, Vice President and Publisher for Incisive Media’s Interactive Marketing Group, which includes Search Engine Strategies, Search Engine Watch and ClickZ, will host the SES Webcast with Kawasaki. To register for this event, go to SES Webcasts (http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/webcasts/).
McGowan said, “We’ll discuss Guy’s most recent book, Reality Check, and get his insight into why Twitter is rapidly becoming the social media tool of the 21st Century. Our exclusive 60 minute closed-circuit webcast, which takes place in advance of Guy’s keynote presentation at SES New York, is also your chance to engage Guy with specific strategic and business questions of your own.”
Kawasaki is giving the opening keynote at SES New York on Tuesday, March 24, 2009. He is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures, a seed and early stage venture capital fund. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web — the success of which is attributed to social networking tools such as Twitter. He is considered one of the top 50 most popular bloggers worldwide, and was recently selected by Invesp.com as the #2 top marketer of 2008.
Kawasaki’s newest book, Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition (Portfolio, Penguin Group), was released on October 30, 2008. Reality Check is his all-in-one guide for starting and operating great organizations — ones that stand the test of time and ignore any passing fads in business theory. He is also the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.
Gerzema, the Chief Insights Officer at Young & Rubicam Group, is giving the morning keynote at SES New York on Thursday, March 26, 2009. The best-selling author and pioneer of account planning in American advertising agencies has designed brand strategies for clients for almost 25 years, guiding campaigns to international strategic and creative acclaim. He previously oversaw the international network for Fallon and founded offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Sao Paolo.
Gerzema’s new book, The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How To Avoid It, was voted #3 Best Business Book for 2008 from Amazon’s editors and “Best Advertising and Marketing Book for 2008″ from CEO Read. The book is currently on Business Week’s Best Seller List.
Those who register for SES New York (http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork/registration-details.html) by Friday, March 6, 2009, will save up to $200.
About SES
Incisive Media’s Search Engine Strategies (http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/) is a leading global conference and training series focused on search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Other Incisive resources for interactive marketers include Search Engine Watch (http://searchenginewatch.com/), which provides news and information about search, analysis of the search engine industry and tools for improving search marketing effectiveness, and ClickZ (http://www.clickz.com/), which provides digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion and research.
Incisive Media (http://www.incisivemedia.com/) is a leading global provider of specialized business news and information, in print, in person and online. The company’s principal markets include financial services, legal services, commercial real estate, marketing services and risk management. Incisive Media’s market-leading brands include Accountancy Age, Computing, Investment Week, Legal Week, LegalTech, Post, Real Estate Forum, Risk, Search Engine Strategies and The American Lawyer.
The Evolving State Of Social Media & SEO
The thumbprint of social media on search engine optimization is evolving. It used to be that the big rage was figuring out how to develop link bait that had a strong chance of making the front page of Digg, Reddit, or other similar social news sites. The results were good, mostly in terms of getting a volume of links to a page on your site.
This is still a great tactic, but social media can do so much more today. For example, with Twitter or Facebook it is possible to use networking and information sharing techniques to build high quality links. I have seen sites from a number of different spaces use Twitter effectively as a PR outreach mechanism.
This new type of PR has become a new technique for link building and promotion. However, fast forwarding from today, there is the widely held belief in the SEO community that social media will be a major source of ranking signals for the search engines in the future
Facebooks Thiel Explains Failed Twitter Takeover – BusinessWeek
Facebook remains on the lookout for acquisitions after its failed attempt to buy microblogging site Twitter, one of the companys directors and largest investors says. “Were still focusing on growing as much as possible,” says Peter Thiel in an interview with BusinessWeek.
In Facebooks first public confirmation of the talks, Thiel said the parties disagreed over price and structure when they seriously considered a deal last fall. “It became pretty clear it wasnt going to happen,” Thiel says from the mid-Manhattan office of his hedge fund Clarium Capital. “The deal would have to be done with Facebook stock. And then you have to figure out how much the stock is worth.”
via Facebooks Thiel Explains Failed Twitter Takeover – BusinessWeek.
Marc Andreessen Crosses Over to the “Dark Side” With New Venture Fund (Here’s the Video) | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD
Last night, well-known Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen appeared on the “Charlie Rose” television interview show, talking about the digital sector and unveiling the news that he is creating a new venture fund.
I had heard rumblings about Andreessen’s funding efforts earlier this week, with sources I talked to nicknaming it “Project A.”
Actually, Andreessen said the new firm is called Andreessen Horowitz (zzzz), because he is doing it with longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz.
“For the first time in my life, I am crossing over into the dark side,” said Andreessen.
Although he gave few specific details about the fund, Andreessen essentially said he was simply putting a structure around his own active angel investing, which has included start-ups like Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn and many more.
His new effort will focus on early-stage investments, he said, noting that “our claim to fame is, we’ve actually, you know, by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, we’ve done it, we’ve been on that side of the table for a long time; we know what it’s like.”
Adding that he and Horowitz had made 36 investments over the last three years of up to $200,000, Andreessen said his new firm will make up to $1 million bets on start-ups.
Of course, for most of the interview, Rose zeroed in on hot topics like Facebook, the social-networking site on whose board Andreessen serves.
The voluble tech star did his job, talking about how Facebook could turn on the spigot and make all sorts of money anytime it wants and about the recent controversy around its Terms of Service kerfuffle.
He also talked about the Andreessen-backed Ning social network service, the Apple (AAPL) iPhone, Twitter, why the New York Times irks him, Google (GOOG), the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle e-book reader and gaming.
Twitter — A Great Way to Promote Your Blog
I stumbled across this presentation introducing Twitter to beginners. Twitter is a microblog in which you can broadcast what you are doing right now. It is also a great way to promote your blog if you Twitter every time you write a new blog post.