While there were numerous reports of Amazon being one of the few retailers who were positive this holiday season. One of the things that was didn’t receive a tremendous amount of press was the release of Amazon’s iPhone application. This program harnessed the power of the mobile platform, turning a mobile phone into a portable cash register, allowing customers to make purchases to make purchases when it was convient for them, without the hassle of black friday shopping woes. How Amazon Turned a Mobile Phone into a Cash Register »

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I was reading Google’s guide to SEO (pdf) , and it’s actually pretty good from a website or business owner perspective. However here’s a quote I found interesting, this is something they recommend NOT to do on social media websites:

involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the
top of these services.

For a long time Google endorsed viral link building on sites like Digg with no reservations. They figured the “wisdom of crowds” would naturally prevent undesirable content from becoming popular and getting links. Of course this is because the folks at Google tend to lead sheltered lives, and don’t believe people would ever sell votes, links or social media influence for cold hard cash … those of us living in the real world know otherwise. After living in denial though they eventually come around, and then start asking everyone to narc on other people, despite it being a really bad karma move.

How long before we see a “How to report social media spam” section of the google guidelines, and link to a form in webmaster central?

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Hi there. I suppose since this is a guest post, I should start with a little introduction. I’m Tim Woodin, and I’m going to talk about how to use social media to make money.

Firstly though, let me give you a bit of background info. About five years ago, I created a course on copywriting. I set up a simple website with a sales page, a blog, and not a lot else. Most of the marketing was done offline through classified ads in niche publications, and I made a tidy sum of money. Fast forward about two years or so, and I started playing around with social media. I learned new ways to drive traffic, how to filter out the good and lose the bad, and so on. Since then, I’ve created several other products, and bought licences to many others. Today, I run a very successful business, and over the past five years, I’ve made a little over £7,000,000 online, with about 85% of that being profit.
So that’s why you should listen to what I’ve got to say. And now I’ll get on with saying it.

Who Else Wants to Make Money from Social Media? »

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Blogher announced they are looking for speakers, looking for ideas for sessions and speaker nominations. I’m not sure why they can’t just say “call for speakers” like everyone else but hey that’s their thing not mine.

Anywho if you know of someone who you think should be speaking at the Blogher conference or have an idea for a session you want them to cover, use one of these two email addresses below :

Email both me (elisa@blogher.com) and our new full-time Conference Programming Manager Jes Ferris (jes@blogher.com) and tell us the following:
- Who you are and why you want to speak
- Which of our tracks you’d like to participate in, and your experience/expertise/knowledge/perspective about that subject
- Specific links that highlight that experience/expertise/knowledge/perspective
- Your contact information and a link to your blog(s)
- Who else you think should be contributing

In case you missed it I went and upset the apple cart last year with my post Is the BlogHer Conference Guilty of Sex Discrimination you should also read Blogher’s response.

So do you know anyone who you think would make an interesting and thought provinking speaker at Blogher  in 2009, if you do be sure to let them know who and why …

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I’ve submitted more than one reinclusion request over the years,  and the process was education in some ways (what you don’t think you can experiment with that too under the proper well planned and thought out conditions?). However I was looking at something in webmaster central recently and was reminded of something that bothered me. By default google shows you the screen shot below with the “request reconsideration” message showing. Re Inclusion Requests Only For Verified Sites »

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So while I was away I made it onto the Most Influential Online Marketers of 2008 list. Not that I don’t appreciate everyone who was nice enought to vote for me, and all the hard work that went into putting a list like that together, but I wonder about the culture we create and want to live in where people strive to be on lists like this and use them of some measure of personal or professional validation. So I Made it Onto Some Silly List »

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The Borgle is doing it again - after Google Maps ripping off MapQuest, Youtube is out to jack SoundClick. Mapquest v.2: Google’s Attack On SoundClick.com »

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While most of our time is spent online, conferences are the one spot where people are in the same spot, so it’s a perfect spot for interviews. As we all know interviews are perfect tool for shameless ego stroking and linkbuilding symbiotic cross promotion. Here are some recent video interviews I’ve done in the past few months. Michael Gray on Video »

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One of the things that a lot of people don’t get about the new Google is the over-reliance on trust in the algorithm. It’s this over-reliance on trust that puts wikipedia at the top of so many searches. However if you have this trust it’s like having a laminated get out of jail free card for what you can get away with in google. Don’t believe … ok here’s a nice example.
How Google Treats Trusted Sites Differently With Duplicate Content »

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The following is a video from Philip Rosedale of Second Life speaking at TED. From a search engine and information retrieval perspective the video get interesting at about minute 9:00 . He poses the thought that things are going to change that the text web will eventually be replaced by imagery and symbology in virtual worlds. Also interesting is his example of how the web is devoid of social interaction in shopping and e-commerce environments.

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Blogging’s been a little lighter than usual the past few weeks as I was getting caught up, but now that my heads back above water, the regular blogging should kick back in.

Also by special arrangement I’ll be blogging weekly-ish over on DIR Journals you can check out my first post Tips for Optimizing for Universal Search: Video. Also you can read Using Social Media as a Sales Channel by Shana Albert, and SEM for Mom and Pop: Turning Big Challenges into Golden Opportunities by Melanie Nathan. Barry Welford is also on board none of hos posts have published yet though, but stay tuned they are coming I promise.

Also I’ll be starting a monthly column on Search Engine Land, although my boss already yelled at me cause I got the date for my first deadline wrong, but I’m on it now I promise.

I’ve also got a guest post in the works for John Coronella on his blog Online Marketer

Regular blogging will be resuming on Viral Conversations next week as well.

I’ve also got a few other guest blog post coming up I can’t reveal just yet, but will when they are published.

If you’ve got a blog with over 250 subscribers and would like a guest post, use any of the email addresses on the contact form and get in touch, we’ll see if we can work out a deal.

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When I started my new website ViralConversations.com, I also started a new twitter profile. Since this was a brand new profile I was able to observe changes easily. As you can see from the screenshot below I am following 42 people but have 43 followers. The extra person who is following me as a person I’d like to talk about.
Blackhat Method for Increasing Your Twitter Followers »

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So last night I was chatting with Rae about Partnering for Profits program on Copyblogger. I paid signed up and downloaded my PDF copy. I sent myself a copy of the PDF by email so I could read it on my iPhone. When I did I encountered a problem I see with a lot of other products so I thought I’d share. Why Font Selection and Usability Matter on Your Product »

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My friends over at Disney came up with this video that has the answer Danny Sullivan Naughty or Nice for Christmas

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or

“How To Be Creative In 4 Steps”

Ever pay attention to the affiliate network ads that pervade the blogs-on-blogging-and-marketing blogosphere? If you have, then you know that they’re all interchangeable. Every network promises you “better payouts and unique offers.” Singing In The Rain »

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Had to redact the terms (sorry) but here’s a new advertising format I cam across while doing image searchs

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Since it’s a short week and your most likely going to be looking to bail out of the office early, I thought I’d leave you with a link you can watch when you have some free time. it’s from James Surowiecki at TED Talks in 2005. He talks about the role that social media and blogs play in our society, and how the sometimes become front line journalists. It’s about 15 minutes, but it’s very thought provoking and IMHO worth watching.

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Last week Google announced the release of a new project known as the search wiki. This represents another step where google shows complete disregard for their users, ignoring what they want, and instead forcing them to participate in what can only be described as a plan that was never fully thought out and was ill conceived at best. Google Search Wiki - Like Forcing You To Eat The Heart of a Live Cobra »

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Yesterday, Text-Link-Ads launched a new service InLinks, that places ads inside the content part of blog posts (full disclosure TLA is an advertiser on this blog). I’ve seen this service in use for a while and it does really good job of not leaving a footprint that is detectable to the external user. New Link Advertising Program InLinks.com from Text Link Ads »

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I was lucky enough to have lunch with Matt Cutts last friday, and one of the things we spoke about was the Google voice search application that was (FINALLY) released today. After playing with it for about half an hour this morning I have to admit it’s pretty darn useful. If you speak slowly and clearly it does a really good job on recognition. However like most voice recognition software it falls apart when local/non english names and locations are spoken. For example google has no idea what to do with Long Island town names like [nissequogue], [massapequa], or [copiague]. That said unless you’ve grown up on long island chances are you’ve got no idea how to pronounce them either (they are american indian in origin in case you were interested). Things like this present a real challenge in the local search market, especially in mobile local search. Google iPhone Voice Search - It’s All About the Ads »

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