Make Money Online

The latest Rolling Stone magazine had a list of some musicians on the popular micro blogging site Twitter. So it got me to thinking who else is active? Here are 50 celebrities on Twitter, I tried to sort out the real celebs from the fakes.

FYI – If you haven’t checked out Twitter yet, one tip – get your name right now! Twitter is becoming increasingly popular and you only have one chance to reserve your name. Register your name for free and the name of your company to save it.
To get started with Twitter, have a look at my Twitter feed to see some of the people I’m following.

Please add any other celebs you follow to the list in the comments and we’ll update it in the future!

Politics
1. Barack Obama
2. Arnold Schwarzenegger
3. Al Gore
4. Joe Biden

Miscellaneous
5. Richard Branson
6. Deepak Chopra

Pop/Hollywood
7. Brittney Spears
8. Demi Moore
9. Ashton Kutcher
10. Ryan Seacrest
11. Perez Hilton
12. George Lucas
13. John Cleese
14. Jimmy Fallon
15. Jimmy Kimmel
16. Penn Jillette
17. Mischa Barton
18. Dane Cook
19. William Shatner
20. Kevin Smith
21. Stephen Fry

Music
22. Diddy
23. John Mayer
24. Dave Matthews
25. MC Hammer
26. Timbaland
27. Chris Cornell
28. Snoop Dogg
29. Yoko Ono
30. Taylor Swift
31. Lady Gaga
32. Katy Perry
33. Lily Allen

News
34. Rick Sanchez
35. Anderson Cooper
36. Stephen Colbert

Sports
37. Shaquille O’Neal
38. Steve Nash
39. Michael Phelps
40. Shaun White
41. Eli Manning
42. Lance Armstrong
43. Andy Murray
44. Jerry Rice
45. Natalie Gulbis
46. Alexander Ovechkin
47. National Hockey League
48. Dwight Howard
49. Chris Bosh
50. Jason Richardson

View original post here:
Top 50 Celebrities on Twitter

Guys from digg.com have been very active this week. They launched a new mobile website specially designed for smart phones like Treo, Blackberry and the new popular iPHONE. You can reach the mobile website of Digg at m.digg.com. Also they added a new feature or application that will allow anyone who currently uses Facebook to seamlessly become a Digg user and start sharing and digging right away. This allows both Facebook and Digg users to easily share the content they care about with the audience at large.

Read the original:
New mobile digg.com

As gas prices increase, so does online discussion of driving. There has been an increase in discussions in various social media sites on the topics of driving, as well as rising food costs.
Consumers are using social media to share gas-saving tips, and research alternative modes of transportation, as well as to discuss changes in shopping and tips for savings.
According to Marketing Vox:
• Consumers are describing specific changes to the way they shop, such as using coupons and buying sale-priced items.
• As consumers venture online to hunt for the best deals, traffic to weekly circulars ads on retail banner websites was up 155% in May 2008 compared with May 2007.
“Shoppers are enthusiastically sharing deals online in discussion forums and on blogs, and marketers who reach these customers with relevant savings will likely engender the support of consumers looking to stretch their dollars,” claims Nielsen Online.
The business model of coupon sites, and coupon site affiliates, could not have a better time for positioning of online marketing, than now.

View post:
The time is now for a coupon site

I bought gas today and reached a new sad milestone on the pump…

Here is the original post:
A very sad moment…

I was interviewed for a newspaper story on this topic today! And I was referred to a post by Kristina Cowan called 7 Tips For Boosting Your Career Through Online Social Networks.

With a recession looming (or here already) it is more critical than ever to start build your network IMMEDIATELY. I hope things don’t get any worse, but unfortunately, many Americans are going to be looking for work in the next 6-12 months. Now is the time to lay the foundation of a strong network of friends and business relationships that you can call upon if you, or someone close to you needs help.

I told the journalist that in my mind everyone should follow these three key steps.

1. Create a great profile in the online social network that you get invited to join most frequently. If you get a lot of LinkedIn invites, it is likely that your personal ‘network’ can be found there. If you hear from a lot of friends on Facebook that is the place for you. Kristina covered this topic extremely well in her blog.

2. Online networking is still networking. The old saying is that ‘you must give to get’. What that means in online communities is you should help people out, answer their questions, connect people looking for jobs with opportunities you know about, participate in groups on the social networks. Find things that interest you or groups focused on areas that you have a lot of knowledge about. Participate actively and volunteer for any possible organization roles.

3. The final step is to Build your personal brand online. Develop a blog or website focused on your unique area of business expertise or a personal passion area. A blog on Blogger.com or WordPress.com is free! And, these blogs can be formatted to look like a website, updates take minutes to do and are as easy as sending an email. By making 3-4 posts a week you’ll quickly develop a following and Google and the other search engines will start showing your posts in the search results. Link to other popular bloggers who cover the same subject matter as you and comment on their blogs to develop your link to the online community.

Good luck building your online presence. I hope you won’t need to fall back on your network, but if you need it in 6 months, you’ll be happy you started today, instead of the day after a layoff.

Hat tip to Sonia Meisenheimer

Read more:
Build your Network NOW to prepare for economic uncertainty!

It hit the net this week that Twitter secured a large round of funding. Hopefully, this means that the service will be less likely to be “over capacity”, as it has been displaying that message frequently.

Twitter is no longer the only player in the space, with several other players now in the mix, including: jaiku, pownce, twoorl, kwippy, microblogr, etc. There certainly seems to be room for more players in this arena, especially if twitter continues to be over capacity.

Recently, a Harris Interactive poll revealed that people are moving away from email toward other communication forms, becasue: 59% say there is more immediacy with other forms of online communication, and 52% say there is more interchange (ie. it is more like having a live spontaneous conversation).

While I was personally hesitant to be active with microblogging, a micro-essay contest recently got me involved with it. Now that I am more involved with it, I am catching up on the twitter language, check out the twictionary.

Originally posted here:
Microblogging gaining ground

When blogging, a question many people may have is how long a blog post should be. Some people may not even consider the length of a post, but I believe it’s an important element in blogging success. There isn’t really one answer, but a few elements to consider.

Quality over quantity is always a good piece of advice. A good blog post can be 200 words and just be as good as a 500-1000 word post. In my experience a post that is too long may be overlooked, since most web readers tend to scan text more than actually sitting down and reading. Also, short and to the point blog posts are good because they get their information in as little words as possible, and the information will most likely stay with the reader.

With attention span in mind, checking your web stats can be another way to determine if long blog posts or short blog posts are better for your blog. Depending on the average time a user spends on your site, it may be better to do either or.

I’ve seen bloggers divide their posts into multiple parts if you need to do a long blog post. I believe this tactic is a good way for readers to keep coming back to your site. They may have read your first part of an interesting blog post and will keep coming back in anticipation of your second part. But in the meantime, they may go through other blog posts within your blog, which leads to getting to know more and possibly become a frequent visitor.

The best advice is to focus on the point of the blog post. What are you trying to get across? That should be the main focus, followed by blog post length. It doesn’t hurt to do both longer post and shorter posts. That’s the beauty of blogging, there are a bunch of different ways to go about doing things.

Go here to see the original:
Blog Posting Tip: How Long Should a Post Be?

Pandora still reigns supreme for music search, and customized streaming stations. I recently caught up on a few of the other music search services and briefly rated them. So, if Pandora is a 10, the following is how I rate 6 of the other sites:

Songza: doesn’t stream stations like Pandora, it lets you search a database of songs, and play them. The jukebox interface is cool, slick, and fast, but not much as far as effects, or “bells and whistles”. score: 5

Songerize: requires you to know the song name and artist in order to search and play on this service. If you just enter a song name, it could play something completely different than what you seek, rather than allowing options. Also, Google ads in the player interface, that’s cheesy. score: 3

Streamzy: allows you to stream your music, as well as save your playlists, in addition to the standard search functions. The interface is ok, if basic, clean and easy to navigate. score: 7

Deezer: has a very well developed site, comparitively to each of the above. There is a lot more happening here than just a music search function, and an embeddable player. There is music news, and the important facet of a community, as this is a web 2.0 world. score: 9

Musicovery: is a unique and eclectic version of the music search and player; this site allows you to search music based on mood. Choose: positive/ energetic/ calm/ or dark, then choose a genre and era. You will be offered some random tracks, in a creative player. As innovative as the idea may be, the music on here was not great. score: 7

Dizzler: has some different skins that you can use for your player, which makes it somewhat customizable. The results that came up for my searches were thorough. Also, you have the ability to embed the player. score 8

Here is the original:
Pandora is still queen, 6 others rated for music search

Mozilla is attempting to set the world record for most downloads in a day when they launch Firefox 3 on June 17th. A quick search on guinessworldrecords.com had no information on the current record holder for most downloads in a day. Firefox has been my primary browser for sometime now and I will be part of the download. Firefox has even set up a website to help spread the news, where you can pledge to download the program, to date over 1 million individuals and counting have pledged. Also on the site, Firefox has set up numerous banners and buttons to further help spread the word.

See the rest here:
Help Firefox Break a World Record

eBay Live Chicago 2008 conference June 19 – 21, 2008 at McCormick Place West in Chicago, Illinois will play host to four of the world’s top sales and marketing keynote speakers. Those who are attending will learn Internet marketing ideas such as how to sell things on eBay and internet marketing ideas from leadership keynote speakers Jay Berkowitz, Seth Godin, Jeffrey Gitomer, and Andy Sernovitz.

Internet Marketing Ideas Reviewed by Internet Experts include:
* What is Web 2.0? What it means for you
* How to use Social Media to promote an eBay store?
* How to improve your website so it shows up in Google searches
* How can I build my personal brand online? How to sell things on eBay?

The rest is here:
Leadership Keynote Speakers and Authors Jay Berkowitz, Seth Godin, Jeffrey Gitomer, and Andy Sernovitz Speak At eBay Live!

Many companies don’t realize that blogging can benefit the growth and success of their business.

Here are 4 reasons why I think a company should consider creating a blog:

Blogging can help you become an authority in the industry your company is in. You most likely started your company because you know a lot about it and it interests you, so besides having your website that provides information about your products or services, have a blog with topics about the topics that relate to the industry your company is in.

Get feedback from customers and start a conversation. Having a company blog is a great way for customers to express their thoughts about a blog post discussing your services or products.

Having a blog is all about creating content, and since a blog displays your most recent blog post first, the search engines will definitely crawl your site regularly, boosting search engine rankings.

Having a company blog also allows discussing trends in the business’ particular niche. Discussing trends will show that your customers or potential clients that the company is on top of what is going on in the industry.

Currently the top 3 Blogs when searching for “company blog” in Google:
http://www.blogsouthwest.com/
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
http://blog.dogster.com/

My favorite out of the 3 would have to be Southwest Airlines blog, since there is a lot of information other than blog posts, such as company news, video, a podcast, photo gallery and even a user poll. I also like the fact that the company uses a lot of social networking sites such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Read the original post:
Why You Should Consider Blogging for your Business

Leadership keynote speakers, Jay Berkowitz, Josh Macht, Bob Bly, Chris Schroeder and Fredrick Marckini will be speaking at the 32nd Specialized Information Publishers Association Annual Marketing Conference on June 1, 2008 In Washington, DC.

Topics will include:
* How to produce Websites that come up in Google searches
* Effective Email marketing through client newsletters
* How to generate positive return-on-investment with Internet advertising trends
* What online business models are working, and not working, today
* How to build ongoing relationships with the customers who visit your Website
* How to capitalize on the Ten leading Internet adverting and website promotion trends
* Top search engine marketing services
* How to select an ethical Internet marketing company

See the original post:
Leadership Keynote Speaker To Speak At SIPA

Bill Gates announced this week that Microsoft will underwrite rebates for consumers searching for E-commerce deals on the MSN engine, Live Search. The new model may be a future model for search, or more directly an attempt to gain market from Google.

The new program is called Live Search CashBack, uses the typical CPA pricing model for advertisers, with an additional rebate to the customer. Microsoft, however, doesn’t make money on the ads.

The user experience is relatively simple and starts with an E-commerce search on Live Search that then produces a green button indicating the option to compare prices. Then, on the compare prices page, the consumer is shown product options, including the cash back rebate amounts. The rebate is not instant, but with an account is then sent via Paypal, or a check.

According to an article in Ad Age, Gates commented that “commerce represents a third of all searches but is the dominant share of revenue. The CashBack launch is a way of simplifying the tasks and rewarding the consumers and advertisers for their engagement in a major way.”

The major remaining questions are whether this program translates into increased ROI for advertisers, as well as whether the strategy means MSN gains market share for search.

View post:
Live Search CashBack

With reputation management being a very important issue for companies these days, Get Satisfaction is a site that allows companies to interact with their customers, get insight on how customers feel about their services, products and answer any questions they may have.

Users of the site can do 4 things: ask questions, share ideas, report issues or just comment on a company or product. Every company page has their own personal page, and even has an area with a feed of Twitter users’ “tweets” about that company or product, called Overheard.

Looking through the site, I noticed that many well known companies already have pages on Get Satisfaction such as Twitter, Paypal, Netflix, Google, Time Warner Cable, Apple and Nintendo. Employees of these companies are shown on these pages and the idea is for them to answer any questions and concerns. The convenience of being able to ask questions about companies and products in one place and being able to discuss with others users is pretty neat. Although there may be numerous websites that allow users to review or discuss products and companies, I don’t think I’ve seen any that endorses actual employees of these companies to participate and help their customers.

You can add your company to Get Satisfaction by entering your company name here. An account at Get Satisfaction is free, and once a signed up user, you can add official reps and employees to the company page.

Below is what Twitter’s Get Satisfaction page looks like:

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Get Satisfaction Lets Companies Interact Closely With Their Customers

Our very own President and CEO, Jay Berkowitz was featured on the “Money for Breakfast” show this morning on Fox TV.

Jay spoke during a segment titled “Tech Talk”. The topic was free or low cost ways to support your business with internet marketing in soft economic times.

Jay’s interview offers quick tips and tactics, as well as some of the top trends in use today.

You might also want to view the first in our video series explaining these tips.

More:
CEO of Ten Golden Rules, Jay Berkowitz, Featured on “Money for Breakfast” on Fox TV