Barcamp Sarasota Oct, 9th
By · CommentsWhat is Barcamp Sarasota?
BarCamp Sarasota emphasizes the intersection of technology, education, and economic development. The open forum format focuses on business solutions, and people who specialize in application development and programming languages, web and graphic design, social media, film, marketing, and other areas where business and technology come together.
BarCamp Sarasota is part of an international network of user-generated conferences and participatory workshop events. BarCamps are ad-hoc gatherings born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment, and the belief that the best learning at any conference takes place while networking with other professionals between scheduled sessions.
Join BarCamp Sarasota, learn more about the BarCamp Sarasota conference event, and find the LinkedIn group. Join and get involved to help grow and promote our community’s technology, education, and business strengths. You can learn more about the spirit of BarCamp at the BarCamp wiki page.
Register for free for the Oct 9th Barcamp Sarasota Event
Social Media Study spotlights Fortune 100 companies
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This is an excerpt from the Burson-Marsteller blog
Following in the footsteps of consumers, large international companies are now becoming active participants in social media. A recent Burson-Marsteller study found that 79 percent of the largest 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 index are using at least one of the most popular social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs.
Like the Fortune 100 study found, Twitter is the social media platform of choice among the Fortune Global 100. The study found that 65 percent of the largest 100 international companies have active accounts on Twitter, 54 percent have a Facebook fan page, 50 percent have a YouTube channel, and one-third (33 percent) have corporate blogs. Only 20 percent of the major international companies are utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders.
Companies’ platform preferences also differed among regions. Companies based in the United States and Europe are more likely to use Twitter or Facebook than they were to have corporate blogs, while companies from Asia-Pacific were more likely to utilize corporate blogs than other forms of social media. However, Asian companies will use Twitter or Facebook to communicate with Western audiences (for example, Toshiba).
It also appears that some companies are getting more comfortable using social media as they are interacting and engaging more and not just broadcasting corporate messages. Companies using Twitter are following an average of 731 people each and 38 percent of companies are responding to people’s tweets (for example, Vodafone UK). Thirty-two percent have also “re-tweeted” or reposted user comments during the last week (like Verizon Careers).
Yahoo Japan picks Google search over Bing?
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You would think that when Microsoft and Yahoo got their deal approved for the US that they should have made sure that it could scale out globally?
Apparently not. B2B mag announced yesterday that Yahoo Japan is going with Google!
Tokyo—Spurning the pending Yahoo-Microsoft search implementation in the U.S. and other countries later this summer, Yahoo Japan Corp. has rejected Microsoft Corp.’s Bing in favor of Google as its default search engine.
Encrypted Google Web Search
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Google announced yesterday on their blog that it would start having a secure search via SSL.
My question is Why?
We all remember last year on CNBC when Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said:
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
If the internet is about being open and transparent as they want us to believe then why is there a need for any such privacy?
As I continued to read the blog post one particular phrase caught my attention:
Searching over SSL doesn’t reduce the data sent to Google — it only hides that data from third parties who seek it.
Read that again…
it only hides that data from third parties who seek it.
Google still knows what you are searching. I think the thing that is transparent here is that Google is an advertising company who just happens to be in the search engine game. There are plenty of third party applications that rely heavily on data from Google. The ones that I see being adversely affected by this new encrypted search are the small advertising companies and software companies that are not going to be able to pay for that kind of information from Google. Particularly the firms that focus on SEO and PPC.
I’m sure that there are many other area of your life that Google would like to “control” as they place order to the world via the internet. Is this just another way to gain control of our personal information?
Is this just another tactic to regain control over our private information? Tell me what you think. Leave a comment below
New UFC Champion Mical Johnson?
By · CommentsEveryone remembers the commercial Google aired on the Superbowl. Well to continue the success of that campaign Google released a fun new tool called Search Story Tool. Not only is this a great piece of marketing but also teaches us a few things along the way.
Let’s break it down to see why this is such a great viral marketing campaign.
They kept the process simple… 3 steps is all
You write a little story add some music and the upload it after you check it out. Keeping the process clearly defined and easy to follow is a prerequisite for any viral marketing campaign. The harder it is the less likely it will take off.
Give Creativity to the end user
Everyone likes to tell their friends about something they made or created even if they had a little help. If you give a way for your end user to do a little bit of customization it will pay dividends in the long run. Get creative and let your end user show their stuff.
Make it easy to share
If a campaign is going to go viral it needs a way to easily spread. Leveraging the end user’s social media connection is the fastest and easiest way to do just that. You don’t have to go crazy and give them every option under the sun but the top 2-3 will do just fine.
On a side note….
If Google didn’t test using Google Buzz as one of the viral tools…shame on them
Also don’t over look the ease of sending a link or embedding the media on a blog or website. It’s a great way to get your end user to spread the word even more. Nothing says Viral like being linked on millions of blogs and websites.
So to recap…
When creating a viral marketing campaign remember to:
- Keep the Process Simple
- Give Creativity to the End User
- Make It Easy to Share
Don’t be shy let my know what you think and make a comment below 
