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We’re giving away a limited edition Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundle!
We are kicking off our holiday giveaways with a bang! We’ve teamed with our friends at shoot it! to bring you this Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 limited edition console, a $400 value. The bundle includes a custom Xbox 360 console with exclusive design, a 250GB Xbox 360 hard drive, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, a pair of black controllers, and more. It hits stores on November 10th, and we’ve pre-ordered one that we’re giving away to one of you. Be sure to check out the giveaway rules to see how to enter!
TripIt Introduces TripIt Pro Premium Flight Monitoring Service
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Business Tools, News, Product Offers, Productivity
Make no mistake, we are huge fans of TripIt, and have been using the trip managing site for two years now. I’d always wondered when I would be able to pay for the excellent service, and that answer came with today’s launch of TripIt Pro. TripIt Pro, first and foremost, stays on top of your flight plans and sends you text messages about flight delays, cancellations, and even gate changes (which is awesome.) In the event that a delay will mean you missing a connecting flight, TripIt will even let you know of alternate flights that will get you to your destination, including flight status and what seats are available. As you can see, TripIt is definitely trying to bring it with TripIt Pro.
According to the company, another much-requested feature has been added, that being a point tracker that keeps track of frequent flyer miles and hotel points that you rack up during travel. It’s nice to have that in your travel dashboard. Lastly, there is the Inner Circle, which basically let’s you set other specific TripIt members as contacts who can always view any of your itineraries, helpful for those of us with spouses or office assistants, where it would be helpful for them to just get those details without any action needed to be taken on your own.
TripIt Pro will cost $99 per year, and at that price, is well worth it if you travel often. Even better, though, is that from now through July 31, you can sign up and pay just $49 per year. If you sign up now, you will stay on a $49 per year price for every renewal period, until you cancel the service.
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| TripIt Pro
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Gnomedex 8.0: Using social media for good causes with Beth Kanter
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Blogging, Business Tools, Features, Planning
Beth Kanter is a technology trainer for non-profit organizations. Online, she blogs at Beth’s Blog. She experiments with all types of social media tools. Things like Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr, Qik, etc.
Today Beth is going to talk about how she has raised money to support disadvantaged children in Cambodia.
- Make it Personal - When you talk about your cause, you make it very personal. Beth has adopted two children from Cambodia. However, there are kids in Cambodia who don’t have adoptive parents, and some are even considered the head of their household, due to not having parents.
- Stories - Tell stories about the kids and the impact that the foundation she was working with was having on the children. Also share stories about what she learned doing the work, as it was unfolding.
- Three Rs of Network Weaving- Relationship building, Rewards, and Reciprocity. Putting that into action, Beth told stories about the t-shirts that she was able to get as part of her fundraising efforts. She blogged about the issues, and she continued interweaving those relationships that she was building.
- Fun, Humor, Easy, Passion - Beth’s birthday was during the campaign, and she used Facebook to ask her friends to donate $10 to the cause. She also made a series of videos with her kids to attempt to solicit her network. That got others to solicit their networks.
- In the middle of the campaign, Beth just continued blogging and sharing about the campaign using the different networks and tools at her disposal. She tried to focus on people that had larger networks, counting on the compounding effect.
Beth than put out a challenge - can we get 250 people to donate $10 to send someone to college? I have sent the link out to my Twitter network, and I am putting it here now. If you have $10 (or $5, or even $1) to help someone less fortunate than you, please go here: Beth Kanter’s call to action
Gnomedex 8.0: Search Life Meets Real Life with Danny Sullivan
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Business Tools, Features, Legal
Danny Sullivan is the Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land, here to talk about search. He talks about how we used to get info. That would be the library, friends, family, and encyclopedia (which weren’t written by everyone.) The search revolution started the information retrieval revolution, and the change from that is still underestimated. In 2000, a “Consumer Daily Question Study” was conducted, 74 people recorded all questions they sought answers to, and the majority of respondents used search engines to find the answer to their questions. Search engines were at 32%, while libraries were just 3%.
Today, 58% of people use the internet if they need an answer, while 53% turn to a professional.
Danny brought up a question - if you need the phone number of the Edgewater hotel next door, how would you find it? Most in audience would search Google, one or two would call 411, and less would use the Yellow Pages. 49% of internet users search every day. That is up 30% from 2006. Jumping off the web, location apps on the iPhone is also search, GPS is search, TV is search. These are all different ways that we are able to use search.
As more becomes searchable, and as serch becomes more used, we get collisions between real life and online life.
US Navy building in San Diego that no one really saw from the air until now, thanks to Google Maps. $600,000 will be spent to reshape the building due to concerns.
Google StreetView has some conflicts as well. There are positives and negatives, and Danny gives examples of both.
So what is the balance? Do we let anyone remove anything from Google and other search engines?
Danny is now calling people in the audience, whose phone numbers he pulled off of search. He then asked them about different things in their life that he was able to find using the Internet. Things like Amazon, Flickr, Google, microblogs, etc. It’s a valid point to show that you can get a lot of information about someone by just using Google. Aside from “personal” info on web, searches we make are personal. What about the issue where Viacom demanded all the searches done on YouTube in history from Google? Location apps are cool, though now more people know your location. Does Apple know all the places you go by way of your iPhone? Is there even a way to “clear” this data?
The conundrum now is that more is being made searchable, more people are searching and we’ve hardly figured out the issues.
Blog Business Summit: Setting Up TypePad
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Blogging, Business Tools, Features, Software
11:30: TypePad is a hosted blogging service that gives you a 30-day free trial. Keywords are very important. What words do people use when they try to find your product or service? This aids in choosing a TypePad subdomain for your blog address.
11:35: Dave takes everything through the basic TypePad setup process. Filling in fields, choosing a domain, Terms of Service, etc.
11:38: Question - Are you giving traffic to Six Apart rather than to yourself when going with a hosted blogging service? The blog should be subset of your domain. You can redirect your domain from TypePad through their interface, forwarding your TypePad blog to your personal site.
11:43: Focusing on title of the blog - again, focus on keywords here. Then moves to choosing a TypePad layout template. The further down content is on a page, the less relevant to Google. As for sidebar, 2 column right is much better than 2 column left as far as ranking.
11:49: Password-protected blogs are an option, which is great for private communication or corporate blogs.
11:56: Dave goes on to show the TypePad interface and posts a blog post right from the stage.
Live-Blogging Blog Business Summit: Dave Taylor Keynote, The Future of Findability
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Blogging, Business Tools, Features, Marketing
We are here at the 2006 Blog Business Summit in Seattle. Dave Taylor just took the stage to give his keynote.
9:00 AM: Dave begins by asking how many people updated their website in the past seven days. Of course, many of them have, since this is the Blog Business Summit. However, maybe 5% of site owners update at least weekly.
9:03: Google aims to provide good, fresh content. Same with all search engines. Since most info on the web is out of date, this is the dilemma of the search engines.
9:04: What is findability? When customers try to find your product or service, can they find it? This is what is critically important to your business - especially if they find your competitor instead of you. Every time someone finds someone else, they aren’t finding you.
9:05: No one really understands what the best practices of blogging really are - they are case by case. If you can’t be found, you’re already dead. If I ask my cellphone for the closest Chinese restaurant, and the Chinese restaurant across the street doesn’t show up as a search result, they’re dead.
$100 Off Blog Business Summit Registration Fee
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Blogging, Business Tools, Product Offers
Okay Mind Campers, we have a bit of a treat for you. The Blog Business Summit conference is happening here in Seattle at the Bell Harbor Conference Center from October 25-27th. We were able to get special discounted rate for anyone who wants to attend. Simply put, if you would like to mingle with the major movers and shakers in the blogging world, this is the place to be. By using our link and coupon code, you will get a $100 discount off of the entrance fee. Here are the details:
Head on over to The Blog Business Summit and click on “Register Now” at the top of the page. During the checkout process, enter coupon code AESM06 to receive the $100 discount.
If you know anyone else who may be interested in attending, feel free to forward this information to them!
Free eBook On Using Paypal to Boost Your business
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Business Tools, Product Offers
PayPal is an easy way to deploy e-commerce for your website. As easy as it is for a non-technical person to deploy, there are many situations where a little extra know how is needed. Instead of reading the manuals or cruising the developer boards filled with over 10,000 posts, you can read “Happy About Website Payments with PayPal”. It’s easy-to-read and full of tips and techniques that can be applied immediately. If you want to make more money with PayPal, this is the place to start. If you want to know what’s in this book and judge how relevant it will be for you, download this eBook. Best part, it’s free.
Read More | Payments With Paypal
For all you Internet entrepreneurs out there, it appears that Google is in the process of updating PageRank as we speak. PageRank is factored on a bunch of things - not all public - but the number of quality links to your site that are out on the Internet play a large factor. To find out more, check out this discussion thread, and keep in mind, PageRank updates take about 72 hours before settling down.
If you want to see what your PageRank might end up being, try this tool.
Read More | ProBlogger
Turn To Attempt To Give Adsense A Run For It’s Money
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Blogging, Business Tools, News
Looks like a new startup is going to attempt to steal away some of Google’s Adsense members. The new company is called “Turn,” and will be led by Jim Barnett who served as Altavista’s CEO in the past. With $10,000,000 in startup capital, Turn just might have what it takes to make a dent. Of course, Yahoo! Publishing Network is already trying it’s hand at taking down Adsense, as will be MSN’s AdCenter once it hits the states. It’s a good time to be an Internet publisher. Turn will be located at Turn.com.
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| Turn via ProBlogger
Wireless Office Gives Small Business Owners An Edge
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Business Tools, Productivity
For mobile entrepreneurs who are always on the go, Office Depot has what looks to be a great service meant to give your small company the appearance of seeming larger than it is. As we all know, that can mean the difference between a new client or one that walks away. The Wireless Office service starts at about $65 per month, and includes all of the following services.
After Hours Answering Service
Need a way to manage calls after hours? Wireless office service works for a fraction of the cost of a live answering service and can actually connect the call rather than setting up a call back With Wireless office service, you avoid playing “phone tag” and connect to your callers after hours.Virtual Receptionist
Don’t have an office? Don’t have a receptionist? Need to present callers with a main business number that routes calls to the right people or information? Wireless office service works as your virtual receptionist 24hrs/day for the fraction of the cost of a dedicated person.Consolidating and Connecting Virtual Workers
Are a majority of people in your “office” not in the office at all? Most phone systems deliver calls only to office phones. If your company primarily uses home or cellular phones, then Wireless office service is for you.Consolidating and Connecting Multiple Offices
Looking to consolidate multiple branch offices with one phone number and one phone system? Wireless office service lets you do that and much more.Making Small Businesses Look and Sound Larger
Tired of your small business sounding like a small business to callers? Wireless office service makes any business sound like a large enterprise.Retail Call Routing
Are your retail employees spending too much time answering the phone and too little time helping customers? Wireless office service allows retail store to focus on customers while providing automated information to callers and only connect the right callers to the store.
Not bad, eh? If anyone is using, or has used, this service, let us know how it is.
Read More | Wireless Office
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