The layout was ridiculously cumbersome. Customizing your profile was a joke. Many of its options either served no purpose, didn’t work, or moved and flashed so much that it looked like what a website would look like if the internet was around in the 60′s.

Well guess what? Myspace is back! And they cleaned all of that crap up!

I logged in the other day as a joke. Looking for some updated zingers with which to make fun of it a little more, and the joke was actually one me.  I was pleasantly surprised.

The Home Page:

The home page of Myspace is ORGANIZED with the entertainment news of the day. video clips, chart information. The top menu has your user info,  messages, alerts, invitations and stats. The navigation is easy to understand and presented plainly. Bravo!

Timeline:

After a few failures at recalling my password, the first thing that was immediately noticeable was that it didn’t take a fortnight for the page to load.  It popped right up, and I wasn’t greeted with 10 smiley faces winking at me like I had just logged into a 12 year old girl’s Myspace pa..(guess I can’t use that joke anymore).  I was quickly greeted with music tracks of House, Trance and Dance Music artists whom I had followed way back when,  to the right of my timeline.

That’s right! You read it correctly. Myspace is laid out in a familiar timeline format simular to (*ahem*) the old  Facebook timeline that we all miss, with all of the same tools and sharing options that we have grow to become accustomed to. Share music, video, photos, and links. Did I mention that it was organized?

My home timeline was filled with updates, event notifications , invitations, video and music tracks  ready for immediate play. When the Myspace player opens there are even more choices of related artists of the same genre, and a buy button to purchase the tracks on iTunes or Amazon. What was so hard about that?

The user stats are easily accessible underneath my profile image along with option for playlists, RSS feeds, and other custom options.

Profiles

Remember all of the flashy, dancing bananas, neon emoticons, free Myspace backgrounds websites that used to throw up all over the internet? Personalization was the one area of Myspace that always sent me running away cursing that we need to kill it with fire. That old iframe, pre-HTML, craptastic wheel reinvention that Myspace used to call customization is gone and is replaced with a novel idea. Upload your own background image, apply, and pick your own accent colors.  Easy-peasy. There are also plenty of preloaded themes, designs and backgrounds of popular artists and entertainers to choose from.

And it doesn’t look like some old code that your dog killed, ate, evacuated, buried, dug up and presented to you as a gift over the holidays. There are actual lines and spaces that define where something begins and ends. You’d think it was 2012 or something.

Surprise! Connect with Facebook!

I know! Right? Low and behold, what did my wandering eyes see? A “Connect with Facebook” option. It is also integrated with “Like” buttons all over the site. Very smart.

So then I logged in with Facebook, and Myspace updated with all of the artists that I follow on Facebook as well and added them to my list of listening options to the right.

Well, it was a little off. But as a fan of Dance Music, I’m used to websites guessing my music preference as R&B. And instead of presenting me with the latest Kaskade, Deadmau5 or Frankie Knuckles track, throw up some Alicia Keys or Beyonce’ ( both of whom I do like, but I can find them on the radio at any given moment of any given day).

Oh! And did I mention that when I logged into Facebook later that day, that the music tracks that I had listened to earlier on Myspace were posted in my profile’s timeline? This may not seem like such a great feat, but I think the fact that 2 Social Networking platforms are cross pollinating ( all be it one sided), is a good thing. They both have clearly defined markets and not necessarily competing. Myspace is a targeted entertainment market, a la “Sam Goody”, MTV, or Access Hollywood. And Facebook is pretty much the internet’s social Walmart…You can pretty much get a little bit of everything in one location.

It also has the familiar “Look for friends” connection option.

Conclusion? It doesn’t suck anymore!

This is not where you will go to thrash trolls in the latest Politico thread, or go to your least favorite politician’s page just to remind him  daily why he’s a jerk. It’s definitely for music and entertainment and it obviously targets a demographic much younger than mine.  But it does what it does well. Actually better than any other that I have seen in a long time. Of course, you can follow your favorite artists on Facebook, Google + (o_o) , and Twitter,  but Myspace has it down to a science because it’s all they do.

It also appears cleaner to me (did I mention that it was ORGANIZED?) since the only thing that you can follow is entertainment, so you don’t have to wade through the ton of product and “Tell this person to get bent” pages that you end up following on Facebook, to get right to some music or video clips. It’s all music and video clips. And all anyone is talking about is music and entertainment.

If you are an artist, you need to be on Myspace. Again. It definitely targets the people who buy the most music. If you follow a lot of popular music and entertainment news, Myspace is your place, regardless of your age.

It obviously still caters to the “GenY” audience (Funny, I thought we were Gen Y 10 years ago. Or were we Gen X 20 years ago?) , but all of my favorite DJ”s and artists are still there. I liked having tracks and Saturday Night Live clips at the ready when I logged in.  And even though every  music themed site in the world is notoriously horrible when it comes to House, Trance and Dance Music, (I mean just awful) , after years of ignoring the platform as one that I used to frequent, my first time back was 2 days ago and  I actually spent more than an hour on it.

But enough talk. Why are you sitting here reading me talk about it, when you can just go there and check it out for yourself. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

http://www.myspace.com/

Nice job Justin Timberlake! Nice job!

______________________________________________________

About Myspace:

Myspace LLC is a leading social entertainment destination powered by the passions of fans. Aimed at a Gen Y audience, Myspace drives social interaction by providing a highly personalized experience around entertainment and connecting people to the music, celebrities, TV, movies, and games that they love. These entertainment experiences are available through multiple platforms, including online, mobile devices, and offline events.

Myspace is also the home of Myspace Music, which offers an ever-growing catalog of freely streamable audio and video content to users and provides major, independent, and unsigned artists alike with the tools to reach new audiences. The company is headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA and is a subsidiary of Specific Media.

http://www.myspace.com

When was the last time that you spent the kind of money that a decent website costs, without doing ANY leg work to insure that your money is well spent?

We qualify every purchase we make by comparing products, seeing which has the features and functions that we want and even judging them by other products and reputation of the manufacturer, and recommendations from our peers.

Getting a new website designed or updating your existing one, can be an intimidating process, but it doesn’t have to be. Everyone wants the website of their dreams without paying a fortune for it. To be honest, it’s not the rocket science that you think it is.

If the price of a product was dependent on the amount of time that you spent with the salesmen, it’s unlikely that you would rack up hours of charges with indecision

How NOT to do it

The best way to have your web person increase the price. Take forever to get done. Ignore your calls and emails and put other jobs before yours..is to have no idea what you want, have nothing ready for them, and take forever to make the simplest decisions about what you do want. After all, doesn’t time equal money in your business too?

How you SHOULD do it

However, The best way to get the most bang for your buck from a web designer is to take the guess work out of it for him. If you follow a few common sense tips, not only will you increase the odds of getting exactly what you want and need, but you will also avoid over paying for it, and waiting forever for it to get done.

1. Match the web designer’s skills and knowledge to your needs

It’s important to understand that not all web designers do all things on the web. Just because they work on computers, doesn’t mean that they can do every possible thing that is also done on computers. There are 100′s of ways to publish or build something online. Just because someone is versed in, say, flash or animation, doesn’t mean they know beans about Search Engine Optimization, or Database Management.

Ask around. Ask questions. Ask your peers. Just like you don’t want to buy something that is outdated and doesn’t do what you intended, you also don’t want to buy more website than you need and comes with unexpected maintenance fees, over head costs, and requires a PHD in theoretical physics to manage.

If your project requires specific skills, make sure that you ask questions to insure that they can accommodate you. Check out their portfolios and even ask for references if you need to. Sometimes it may be necessary to hire more than one person, and if so, that is something that you want to know up front. If you don’t know whether or not you are asking for something that requires specialized knowledge, just ask. Don’t assume that everyone does everything.

2. Look around at some websites

Before you call a web person and say “I want something that pops”, causing him to run away screaming at the thought of trying to figure out what that means to you ( as opposed to the other 50 people that have said that to him in the past month) look around at some websites in your industry that you like.

Make notes of what you like and don’t like about them and ask questions. Imagine how you would like your company portrayed on that site if it were yours. Keep the links handy so that when you talk to your web person, they have a base idea of what you are looking for.

Or if you really just don’t know, at least be honest up front and most web people will be happy to consult with you about what works based on your needs if you just give them a fighting chance with some kind of idea.

3. Get some color

Do you already have company colors? A logo? Any branding materials at all? If not, it would be helpful if you at least had an idea of which, out of the millions of colors and color combinations in the world, best represents what you like and how you want to portray your company or organization. Need some inspiration? Check out Adobe’s color scheme examples on the web: http://kuler.adobe.com/#themes/

4. What do you want it to do?

What is the goal of your website? Are you trying to attract leads? Give a professional presence to potential clients? Need a place to write articles? Show off a portfolio? Is Social Media important? All of the above and more? Write it down. This is important if your web person is to suggest styling and layout options to suit your needs. If I ask, “What do you want your website to do?”, what will you say?

5. Plan the content and pages

No one knows your company like you do. You will have to have some idea of what you want your website to say. A good web person should help you fine tune it for aesthetics, Search Engine Optimization, and other important factors, but most of the base copy should come from you.

Start with the elevator speech. You know, if someone asked you what you do in an elevator and you only have seconds to tell them, what do you say? You’d be surprised how many people can’t tell me what their company does in a few seconds.

What pages do you need, and what do you want them to say? You don’t need to have every word accounted for, but you should at least have an idea of how you want your company represented.

Just about every person that has ever come to me to build them a website, has a list of “tabs” or menu items, with sub menu item drop downs already planned out. But rarely do any of them have any idea what they want those pages to say. By the time we get down to the “nitty gritty”, that list of 20 menu items usually goes down to about 5.

If it’s just too much for you, and you just don’t have the time, most web people can help, or recommend a good copywriter or brand marketer to help you develop your company’s marketing materials.

6. You are going to need images

Whether you have a professional photographer come to your company to take images that you can use for all of your marketing materials, or you go the rout of purchasing stock photography, images are what makes a website. Using sub standard or images of poor quality will ruin the entire project. If your website is product based or it’s sole purpose is to sell products, YOU WILL NEED professionally done images of the product(s). Don’t let images be a surprise expense when you are planning your website with your web person.

7. Have realistic expectations

Sometimes it just needs to be said that you aren’t going to be able to recreate Groupon, or Facebook on the budget of a Girls Scout Troop (unless it is one extraordinarily, well funded troop).

Any reputable web designer will give you price for your project once they have taken into consideration your wants and needs. That doesn’t mean once it’s in hand, that it’s OK to run them in circles, take forever to get back to them, or make constant changes to the original plan. Like all other service providers, more time spent or wasted on a job, means less actual money made.

8. You will be a web designer’s dream

I promise you, if you just take the time to follow a few basic suggestions to take the guess work away from your web designer, they will love you! The designer will look forward to working with you and their proposal price will reflect that. You will also benefit by getting exactly what you want and not anyone else’s interpretation and this will make everyone very happy.

Start doing the prep work now and it will save you time, money and aggravation.

You and your web person both want the same thing. You both want a fabulous website that makes you and your company look great, causing you to sing their praises and refer all of your friends to them.

For a humorous look at the relationship between web designer and client, check out The Oatmeal’s,
“How a web design goes straight to hell”

But wait a minute. Now it’s been weeks, or maybe even months and nothing is happening. Sure, it looks great, but it’s not doing anything. Why isn’t the phone ringing? Why isn’t anyone contacting me?  Where is the traffic? It’s just laying there. Is this all that it does?

I’ve got news for you. It’s not going to “do” anything. Not because you’ve been had. WordPress is certainly an amazing publishing platform and all of those things that you’ve heard about it are absolutely true, and more. But what it isn’t is an automated, artificial intelligence that can read your mind, analyze the web, and then goes out on the net announcing your business to your target audience at the exact moment that they are all online.

Your new website is  just one of 100′s of millions of websites that are online at any given time and 10′s of thousands that go live everyday (In American alone). If you thought everyone on the planet was  just sitting around waiting for YOUR SITE to come online and that using WordPress all by itself  was going to miraculously place your business ahead of everyone else, let’s get you back down to earth. That was never going to happen. With anything.

Think of your new site like The Pet Rock. No one would ever know you that had one, unless you physically showed it to them. It doesn’t jump up and down looking for attention when people visit, and it doesn’t bark or make any noise at passers by. Outside of your existing clients and associates, no one across the web knows that your website exists. And those that do, only know because you’ve told them.

Your website is a tool.  Just as you don’t buy business cards, throw them in a corner,  and then wonder why no one has called you…your website also doesn’t “do” anything or “perform” on it’s own.  You have to actually use the tools that it affords you to make yourself seen around the web and get people to it.

OK, OK, I get it. So what do I do?

Assuming that you aren’t launching a multi million dollar ad campaign to steer all of the world to your new website, how about we use some common sense web practices along  with  those great features and tools available to you that actually do “level the playing field”?

 Is your Content boring the crap out of people?

(No, but this article is)

We are all very proud of our business and want people to know as much about us as possible.  After all, we are online now and what better place than our website to let others know about our life’s philosophy, family, what kind of car we drive  and zodiac sign.  Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but no one cares.  At least not at first.

The Elevator Speech trick applies here. If you are in an elevator and only have seconds to tell people what you do, what do you say to get the point across effectively before that door opens and they start itching to get out of there?  The same applies online, but you have even less time, and other people are talking over you.

The elevator is a captive audience. The web is not.  When people are looking for services online , they are moving quickly. Trying different search terms and checking out and backing out of multiple websites in a row.  They are judging your business by it’s website design and professionalism, and are skimming the page quickly to see if the information or services that they are looking for is there. Your job is to catch their attention before they move on, so that they stop skimming and start reading.  You need to get to the point and get to it quickly if you are to have any chance of them reading it and moving on to additional pages, or even better…contacting you.  As hard as that is to do, you don’t want to waste it.

Explain your business and services clearly. You goal is to get their heads nodding that you have what they have been searching for. If you feel the need to provide some personalization, don’t let it interfere with the message, or even better, do  it on your “About” page, AFTER you have described your skills and experience.

Call to action

Seems like it wouldn’t need saying, but, I can’t tell you how many websites I’ve serviced that don’t have a call to action or way to contact the business visible. If you are a brick and mortar business, be sure that you have your hours of operation and map of your location. If you aren’t, at least have your phone number and/or email address visible IMMEDIATELY. Hours of operation ( or at least your time zone) is a nice help. A contact page is also nice, but don’t count on the fact that people are going to sort through your website to find your contact information. Don’t assume that people don’t like forms (just ask for basic information) or only prefer email. Give your potential new clients a choice, but don’t overdo it. Don’t assume that people will “just know” or “just do” anything. You have to tell them what to do. Really.

Use SEO tools and  Plug Ins

(Geez. Finally some stuff that is actually about WordPress)

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has a long explanation, but in a nutshell, it’s the art  of matching what you have to offer on your website, with what your target audience is searching for online. And you want to make that match as exact as possible. 10 website visitors who find exactly what they were looking for, is far better than 1000 visitors that don’t because you’ve used a different bait to attract them just so that you can see traffic numbers in your stats (we’ll get to stats, and why that is important  in a minute).

Plug ins. Use them! It couldn’t be easier. Plug ins such as All in One SEO  will actually place open fields on each of your pages AND your new articles or blog posts for you to provide individual keywords, titles and descriptions of your content, as well as a completely different site wide optimization.

Search Engines use this information to better determine what content is on the page, and make sure that it is a match. If you aren’t using one of these plug ins, do so. If you have one installed and are not utilizing it’s settings on every single post and page, you are wasting an opportunity to tell Google, Yahoo and Bing about the content on your page, and denying them an opportunity to match it with the people that are searching for it.

Get ta Blogging

(Aw man!  I knew you were going to say that.)

All of the things you’ve read about WordPress’ integrated link management;  search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles; and support for tagging of posts and articles. ..blah, blah, blah, doesn’t mean a hill of beans if you are just going to let your website sit there with the same old information month after month, and year after year. I’m not saying that you have to “blog” everyday, but you need to add informative, fresh content to your site as often as you have something to say that will help attract your target audience. This was the entire point of using a CMS like WordPress in the first place. Remember?

The web is constantly being flooded with new information and that new information is indexed and consumed quickly .  Your WordPress website has the amazing, easy to use  feature of allowing you to add new articles and updated,  topical information to speak to those people and capture their attention. Once the content is indexed (listed in the search engines), it doesn’t go away. What you write today, may be what someone is looking for tomorrow or 2 months from now.

New content is also a call for Google and other search engines to continue to notice you, and index more links back to your website. Think of it as constantly throwing fresh bait into the water to attract hungry fish. Fish will bypass that old, stale, dead bait every time if they see new fresh, wiggling, live  bait in the water. So do web surfers and search engines.

Everyone is not going to knock on the front door. WordPress’ individual URL structure, organization and SEO benefits means that traffic to your website may arrive from any link to it that is out there on the web. The more links of pages with  informative or relevant information that you have out there, the better your chances of attracting searchers looking for that information. That’s not to say that you should create a 1000 page website of duplicate information just to have more links indexed. You shouldn’t. That’s basically spamming the web and can get you sand-boxed so far back into the search results, that no one will find your site until the Bills win the Superbowl.

Syndication is the key to web traffic (Memorize that!).  Remember that old 80′s Faberge’ shampoo commercial, “I told 2 friends..and they told 2 friends,  and so on…and so on…”?  That’s the brilliance of the World Wide Web!

Search Engines aren’t your only possibility of  getting your name out there, so are other websites. Other people will promote you for free if they like what you have to say or find you credible.  They will use your content to promote their own credibility of recognizing good information to share with their readers, friends, fans, and other associates. They will link to it, which is a link to your business and give you access to a new source of targeted readers and traffic. They (or the people that they recommend you to) may even subscribe to or publish your blog’s RSS feed as additional content for their own websites, or maybe even join your newsletter. What if that happened 5x’s? Or 10x’s? Or 100x’s? A day?

Get it out there!  How many times have you “Liked”, or “Shared”  or “Re-Tweeted” an article that you found interesting?  Now think about how many times that you’ve done the same for the home page of a static ( information doesn’t change) website. Probably none. People don’t share businesses websites just becuase they are a business website. They share and promote articles and fresh information ON that site.

Utilize what you have to get your content seen by as many people as possible. Share your articles on your company’s Facebook Page, Linked In account and Twitter.  And use Social Media plug ins that allow others to do the same.

If you participate in any online professional organizations or industry forums that allow you to have a profile, link to your blog or website from it. Write articles for other people’s websites or professional organizations that give you a link back.  All of those new links bring  new readers and possibly new clients. The more places that it is seen, the better your chances of that multiplying on it’s own.

Links from reputable or industry related websites is like telling Google that other people think that your website is the bee’s knees and they will reward you with better placement. It’s considered a recommendation. Search Engines are in the business of providing the best recommendations to their users.

When it comes to getting your own links, remember that quality beats quantity.  I’ll take one link from a reputable source, than 100 from garbage article dumps or poorly managed websites.

Promote. Don’t spam.   Informative articles that help or entertain = Good. Constant Self promotion about how great your business is = Bad.

Use your stats. Even if you only have a handful of visitors, take notice of where they came from and what search terms they used to find your site, and which page those search terms took them to. You can use this information not just to tweak and capitalize on what is working, but it can be helpful in determining how to grow your business, what services to offer and even fine tune your ad campaigns. It will tell you which are the most popular pages, or which blog posts were syndicated ( linked to, shared, etc) the most. If you aren’t using the best bait to attract the fish that you want ( the right keywords, content and so forth) , then your stats are useless and will only show you numbers that won’t help you gain any insights to improve your website and business. Sometimes this is evidenced by lots of traffic, and no conversions.

It doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen

As Online Brand Specialist and Marketer ( and business associate)  Ann Manion, so eloquently put it during a recent phone conversation, “The launch of your website isn’t the end. It’s the beginning”.  You aren’t competing in the race just because you’ve put a car on the track. While your WordPress website may not be that artificial intelligence  that you were supposed to be able to set up, forget about, and miraculously reap the rewards, it does give you the ability and functions to do the things that you were told that you could do to level the playing field. You just have to do them. You will get back what you put into it.

Promoting and marketing your website (and your business)  is an ongoing process that should eventually become second nature just like handing out those business cards. Those cards don’t jump into wallets all by themselves, nor does your website miraculously pop up on the computer monitors of potential new clients.

Success online has one of 2 absolutes. Either you will take the time to do what is needed to see results, or you can hire someone to do it for you. There are no immaculate ascensions into web nirvana like it’s 1992. And there are no shortcuts. It is ongoing for the life of your site.

These are merely some of the most basic things that will help your website go from lonely digital business card, to a functioning tool that attracts new clients and business associates. As you go along, you should make adjustments and tweaks to get the desired results. The web is a competitive place. Nothing guarantees that if you read every article and follow every tip that you will achieve web zen and be #1 in every search category, because you aren’t the only person in the race.  But one thing is for sure, if you don’t do anything, you won’t benefit one bit from what WordPress, or the web has to offer your website or your business.

It’s the number one question asked by business bloggers today.

The beauty of blogging is about syndication..getting your content across multiple networks so that it may be found by the maximum amount of interested people. Social Networks like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In, are how businesses syndicate that content to the masses.

This is going to be a long one, so lets get right to it. For the purposes of this article I am going to concentrate on the 3 main networking platforms for business, Linked In (over 50 million business professionals listed) , Facebook (over 500 million users) , and Twitter (over 75 million user accounts) .

Syncing your accounts relies on use of your blog’s RSS feed. If you don’t know where it is, many times you can type in www.’yourblog.com’/feed and you will see your feed displayed and the URL in the address bar. ( change “youblog.com” to your actual blog address). If you are using a feed monitoring service like Feedburner, then you will want to use that address for your feed

Syncing your blog with Linked In.

Linked In makes it very easy to syndicate your recent blog posts to your profile with their own in house app. No need to install a plug in.

Simply go to ://www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation, and follow the prompts to add your blog’s RSS feed to your profile. You are given 2 options:

• Display on my profile
• Display on Linked In home page

You can choose either or both. Simple enough, right?

“But wait, it only lets you sync one blog. I have more than one blog going. How do I do that?”

Then we are going to get a little creative and I will get to that in a minute.

You may also be interested in:

• Adding your Linked in Profile to Facebook
• Adding your Twitter updates to Linked In

Syncing your blog with your Facebook Page or Profile.

Everyone wants to have their blog posts go to their Facebook wall. I mean why have a business page or profile if you can’t auto update your information, right?

There are actually a few ways to do this, I’ll concentrate on the top 2.

The Networked blogs Facebook app allows you to claim your blogs and either have them posted to your wall, or you can opt to have a “Blog” tab in your page or profile menu. It automatically makes a screen shot of your home page and you can claim multiple blogs to add to your feed. The down side is that they ave been experiencing issues with parsing feeds and there are times that hours, or days go by without your information being updated. They are working on the issue and I have faith that it will be handled and working at 100% shortly.

However, there is another way.

1. Go to your applications settings and look for “Notes”.
2. Under “Notes Settings,” click on “Import a blog”
3. Type in the URL of your blog
4. At the bottom of the preview, click on “Confirm Import”

That’s it —Whenever you post new articles on your blog, they will automatically appear on your Wall and in your friends’ News Feeds, driving traffic to your site.

You may also want to check out:

• Facebook to Twitter

Syncing your blog to Twitter

Twitter is the most exiting of the platforms because you can sync everything to update on Twitter and use your Twitter feed as a combination of all of your activities on the web.

Let’s worry about the blog first.

There are a maze of WordPress to Twitter plug ins and tools. I like to keep things simple, my favorite is Tweet This. Tweet This does exactly what you need. Besides the option of putting your choice of “Tweet This” buttons at the bottom of your posts for your users, it also adds a check box in your post options labeled “Send this to Twitter” so that your new blog posts goes straight to your Twitter profile when you hit “Publish”.

You can also choose from your choice of several URL shortening services to use.

But wait…there’s more.

Remember our problem of wanting to import more than one blog or news source into our Linked In profile? Well, you know that you can import your Twitter updates into Linked In, why not use your Twitter updates as a conduit to display those additional blog posts or news feeds?

There’s a nice little free service called Twitter Feed.( http://twitterfeed.com/). What Twitter Feed does is allow you to parse multiple RSS feeds into your Twitter updates. So you can have multiple sources of information going to one account…your You Tube channel, Digg or other bookmarking accounts..pretty much anything that has an RSS feed.

• You need to sign up for a free account
• You need to allow Twitter feed access to your Twitter account
• You can set the frequency of the updates per feed.
• You can choose from your choice of URL shortening services and get statistical click though information from your account dashboard.
• You can also add a post prefix, suffix and keyword filter to each individual feed.

Now everywhere that you can display your Twitter updates, it will include all of your updates from other sources.

*Note: Twitter Feed should be used responsibly and not as an automated way to spam Twitter with repetitive, self promotion or affiliate offers. Misuse will get your account flagged, and banned very quickly. You should only set your feeds to update as frequently as you have new information to share.

It should also be noted that a little automation is a great thing and can definitely save you time but, Social Networking works best when you are actually Social….interacting with Friends, Followers, and Fans and putting actual face time on your individual profiles.

You cannot automate all of your Social Networking endeavors and expect to achieve any sustainable results.

I’m talking about those highly recognized, many times customized,  social networking and social bookmarking icons. You know, the little Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Digg, and other logos that proclaim to the world that your company is “social” in every sense of the word.

Just about every website has them like some kind of badge of honor shouting to the world that you are indeed up with the times. With it. Progressive. Up on all the latest advances and promotion techniques of the intrawebs. There’s no moss on your company because you are always sticking and moving to keep up with the latest trends.

Unfortunately, many times what you are projecting is just the opposite.

For many websites,  displaying the icons is as far as it goes.  Click on a few to see what I’m talking about. You’ll see that the company’s  Facebook page hasn’t actually been built yet, or that their Twitter account still has the default configuration and the first Tweet from 2009 stating proudly, “We are now on Twitter”.

"I will blog everyday, and this time...I mean it!"

Well actually…you aren’t (and who are you, anyway?) 

All you’ve done is register an account. Not exactly the progressive beacon of the intrawebs that you had hoped to be, huh?

Those little social icons aren’t membership  badges that signify that you are in some kind of website club. If you aren’t using them with purpose, they can also be detrimental to the perception of you and your organization.

Do get me wrong. I understand. You had every intention of tackling it head on and building a thriving social interaction page that engages customers and builds brand loyalty. But things got a  little busy and the next thing you know weeks past. And then months. And for some of you….years. And all the while visitors to your website kept clicking on the little icons, directing them to a dead page or inactive profile, making your company look as if no one has been home and active online since Al Gore invented the internet back before the turn of the century.

As hard as it is to get people to your website in the first place, why would you want to send them away to an abyss of interaction and time waste if you aren’t represented properly? It’s like asking a client to meet you at a vacant lot, and then not showing up.

For instance, you know as well as I do that  most of your customers are likely to have a Facebook profile (over 500 million users) ..that’s why you want to be on Facebook in the first place. So what do you think will happen when they click on your Facebook link and there is nothing there?  Well now they are on Facebook.  Away from your website.  And odds are there is something else there begging for their attention that will keep them away from your website even longer, if they ever come back.

So what do you do?

It’s easy.

Take them down! Take the buttons down! *Gasp*

Take down the links to your dead, inactive, default, Social profiles that you haven’t gotten around to, until you have time to get to them. For some of you that may be as hard as throwing away your favorite old leather jacket from high school or those skinny jeans that you know you will never fit into again. As if somehow just having them around keeps the dream alive that you will one day be able to wear them again, or makes you feel as energetic and productive as you thought you’d be if they kept staring you in the face.

In the meantime, what you are actually showing the world and potential clients is that you aren’t as progressive as you want them to believe. That you don’t have a grasp on social media and basically ( at least in this instance) that you don’t know what you are doing or how to do it. You can avoid all of that by simply not sending readers away to see it.

If you haven’t had the time or don’t actually have a real plan of what to do with your social profiles. Why leave a link up on your website that shouts it to the high heavens?

You wouldn’t link to a dead page within your website, so why would you link to one on another website?

And for pete’s sake,whatever you do, don’t link to your personal profile in the interim for potential new clients to browse your family photos and follow your conversations with friends that have absolutely nothing to do with your business. Your company should have a separate profile from that of your personal profile.

There is no rule on the web that says you have to have social icons  or they won’t let you into the website club. If readers come to your website to find out more about you or your organization ( the main goal anyway), then work to retain them with what you have now, rather than sending them away to something that you hope to have in the future.

When you do get around to it, and you will, you don’t have to try to embrace everything under the sun all at once. Every social product or website is not a good fit or productive for everyone or every business. Find the ones that do what you need to do and that you are comfortable administering regularly.

Start out with realistic goals. If you don’t have tons of time, tackle your social media plans one at a time. Start with one. Set it up (or have it custom designed), and  learn how to use it. If you don’t have hours for discovery or trial and error ( after all that’s how we got here in the first place)… there is no shame in paying a consultant for an hour or so to give you the run down,  showing you a few of the key points, and maybe even provide some ideas and suggestions that may work for your company.

Create a plan to implement the social network of your choice, and incorporate it into your company’s identity, promotion and marketing plan. And then integrate it into your website. Then once you have that sailing along smoothly, move on to the next one.

You probably don’t need all of them. The sheer number of possible online profiles that you can build will make your head explode, leaving  little bits of “0′s” and 1′s” splattered all over your office walls. Figure out where your demographic is likely to be and create a plan of attack to inform, engage or entertain them there.

You will get more mileage and use out of one or two social profiles  that you are actually using well, communicating with and engaging readers and potential clients…than promoting 5 dead profiles without any activity or customization.

For tips on how to develop a Facebook marketing plan and all things Social Media, I recommend that you drop by Mashable every now and then. They offer lots of interesting news and tips on Social Media and Social Networking to help you navigate the changing landscape and get you up and running.

http://mashable.com/2010/10/07/facebook-marketing-tips/

There are also a ton of resources and articles on the web, including on the social sites themselves.

Samsung giveth and U.S. wireless companies taketh away.

It should be he biggest tech product of the year. The Samsung Galaxy Tab, a Droid powered Tablet  that is almost half the size of the market leader iPad, making it truly portable, with stunning features not available on the iPad such as 2 cameras..both rear and front facing for video chat. A remarkable and some what affordable entry into the tablet market.

I, for one, have been awaiting the release of the Galaxy Tab since I first heard about it.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab™ brings you the media you want and keeps you connected with anyone, anytime. Compact and light, you can keep in touch with people and content through 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi® 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth® Wireless Technology 3.0. With a battery life of up to seven hours and a crisp TFT-LCD display, you’re free to communicate, update, and enjoy. – Source Samsung.com

To make things even more exiting it’s being offered across every  major mobile phone network…AT&T, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, T-Mobile,  and Verizon. Oh joy! I don’t have to change carriers to have this device. But wait…why are phone companies offering this device? Because the most appetizing feature and game changing function of the Samsung Galaxy Tab is..(drum roll please)..IT IS ALSO A PHONE!

No, not just phone capable. It is built from the ground up as a phone. Full featured. No additional apps or special configurations needed and it is ready to rock and roll right out of the box as a phone. Woo Hoo!

Finally! A tablet that is not limited to what ever wifi signal you can find and I can make calls on it using my wireless number!

YES ! A smart phone that is actually big enough for me to see and use all of the functions comfortably.

Makes perfect sense right? Why wouldn’t it be a phone? Why wouldn’t all tablets be able to be used as phones? Most are made by phone makers and operate on wireless phone networks. What’s the big deal? Seems perfectly logical right?

Well, not quite.

It’s true that the Samsung Galaxy Tab is designed, constructed and has all of the necessary hardware and software to be used as a phone on most major U.S. and International wireless phone networks. To put it plainly..it makes and receives calls just like any other phone.

It is also true that they are raving about this feature in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
And yes it’s true that the wireless companies that we know and love/hate here in the U.S. are international companies now and offer service around the world.

So why then, is the phone function of the Samsung Galaxy Tab blocked here in the U.S.?

This is a bigger let down than  Hulu trying to charge $7.99 to access it’s free website because of what kind of internet device you are using. (but we’ll tackle that one later).

To get to the bottom of this, I called my wireless service provider Sprint.  After being rerouted from India, to the Philippines, to the U.S. (or maybe it was Canada) and back to India for what I though each time  was tech support, I was finally told by the 4th person (having to verify my account each time) that Yes, you can indeed use the Galaxy Tab as a phone.

Yeah! Right On! I knew if I called I’d get to the bottom of this.

However my exuberance was short lived as the customer service rep went on to explain..”if you download the Skype app, you can then make calls using Skype and a wifi connection”.

Wait a minute!  You are a phone company and you are telling me how to use Skype and wifi on one of your own phone capable devices to make a call? Not only that, but I have to pay you for network service ( a voice and data network for phones and other communication devices)  and yet still have to piggyback some one else’s network to use all of the functions like making a call? Who is this, Apple or AT&T?

I know I can use Skype. If wifi was convenient outside of my home or office, (like it is in the U.K, thanks to companies like AT&T)  I wouldn’t need to pay for internet access or a phone anyway.  That’s not a solution. I wanna know how come I can’t use this “phone” as a phone.

So I called Samsung.

The customer service rep at Samsung confirmed that yes, this device is also a phone  and is ready to function as such on all of the major networks. The problem is with the actual wireless service providers. They don’t want to make that feature available. They don’t want you to use it as a phone.

Zoinks!!! WTF?!?! Why not?

How come my phone company doesn’t want me to use the phone function on a communication device that they carry?

Why would they do that? This is the biggest, baddest feature to come along since drive through food. Why wouldn’t they want to parade this around like K-Fed used to hang on Brittany? This beats everyone right now! It’s what we have all been waiting for!

And why would all of them agree to block this function? Aren’t they competitors? You mean to tell me that 5 different companies are carrying this “phone” and none of them allow the actual phone function to be used?

Could it be that even though they boast of new, powerful, (costly) advanced 4G speeds that our networks in the U.S. are just inferior to those of Europe, Korea, and the rest of the world?

Well that doesn’t make any sense. I can grab a smart phone and text, direct connect, email pictures and video, surf the web, download and upload docs, check my stocks, Twtitter , Facebook, access my computer, printer or private network and make calls. No problem. So that’s not it. They are definitely capable.

Could it be that since the Galaxy tab isn’t as small as a phone that it somehow requires a different network configuration to make a call?

Well that doesn’t make sense either since phones and tablets from the same maker pretty much use the same OS, processors, and run the same apps.

So why would all of the U.S. wireless  service providers that carry the Galaxy Tab intentionally block this functionality?

Conspiracy: , an agreement between persons to deceive, mislead, or defraud others of their legal rights, or to gain an unfair advantage.

I have some thoughts on why this is so…

• Wireless companies know that if I can now use my Tablet to make calls, there will be no need for me to carry and pay for both a phone (and it’s data plan) AND a wireless broadband modem for my laptop or netbook. I can use the tablet as an all-in-one, greatly reducing what I pay them now for multiple devices.

This makes the most sense to me since we already know that both the device and the networks are capable.

• Apple is putting the screws to them, threatening to pull or not allow current and future Apple products on their networks if they allow this coveted feature, which Apple’s iPad doesn’t currently offer.

As much as I love a good conspiracy theory, even this one is a little too “Get off my lawn” for me to actually stand behind.

• Wireless companies assumed that we wouldn’t know the difference, that this device is phone ready and is being used as such everywhere else where they provide service. IOW, they thought we were stupid.

It’s possible. It wouldn’t be the first time that an organization forgot that people know how to use Google. Politicians do it all of the time.

Unfortunately I don’t have an answer as to why these companies are practicing what I like to call “rationing out the technology”. Keeping us tethered to multiple devices (that have the ability to do the same thing, they just don’t let them), which in turn means multiple bills.  Seems to be the only thing that makes any sense.

If I were Samsung I would be pissed that these companies are either not capable or refuse to present my product in it’s full capacity with all of the included features. On the outside it does seem as if someone is playing a game to keep one player from overtaking another. As long as they all basically do the same thing, no one can blow the other away.

Personally, I have decided not to purchase a Galaxy Tab specifically because of this issue. Being phone capable was the big gorilla feature. Without it, it’s just a Tablet. One of many that all basically do the same thing…either iOS, Droid or Windows. Just another bill for another internet device that does the same thing as all of the others.

Sure, Tablets are cool, but the phone feature made the Galaxy Tab downright sweeeet! A must have.

I don’t blame Samsung because U.S. wireless companies are inferior to those in Europe. I blame the companies, Sprint specifically, for trying to  bullshit me into believing that this is such a huge technical issue, yet running my Blackberry with all of it’s talk, web, wifi, networking and bluetooth functions, isn’t.

If you are like me, and want this functionality released, call your wireless service provider and tell them to stop BS’ing us and Release the Tab.

Check out the features of the Samsung Galaxy tab at:

://galaxytab.samsungmobile.com/

As you look around, you will see all kinds of cool tools and widgets that seems to show off your professionalism and knowledge of blogging. However, many only serve to announce to the world that you are a complete and total noob.

I, and many others before me, have already made these mistakes for you and am here to stop you before your business blog goes from the vision of professionalism that you had in your mind, to that of looking like a 12 year old girls summer camp diary.

1. Music. You would think that you wouldn’t have to say this anymore, but, it is still being done. Your blog should not have music that automatically plays when the page loads. Actually, unless you are in the music business, your blog should not have music at all. You can’t guess the musical taste of each and every one of your readers and they probably didn’t go to your blog to hear some tunes. Keep your music to yourself and concentrate on informing and engaging your potential clients.

2. “Hello, this is my first post”. Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing a supposed professional meekly introduce to the world that they just learned about blogging and have no idea what they are doing. Even if you really don’t, there is no reason announce it. Leave the introductions and profile information for the “About” page or authors widget, and start your blog off with a real post..as if you have been doing this for years and are just picking up where you left off.

3. Counts, Numbers, and Status buttons. As you learn about things like Feedburner (which you should have), Alexa and many other monitoring and ranking services, you will also see that many of them offer little widgets and scripts to show your subscriber numbers, position, page rank and a bunch of other stuff.

This is a total noob move. Your new blog will likely have very few subscribers, poor Alexa ranking and no page rank, so why announce to the world that you are a big fat zero? Showing 3 subscribers to your new visitors is the same as saying to them, “no one else is interested in this blog either”. Even as time goes on and you do build some decent numbers to show off…don’t do it.

The only people that make this work so it doesn’t look too self serving are bloggers that blog about blogging and some of them still screw it up.

4. Overuse of Social Networking Badges and Icons. Odds are you may already have a few Social Networking and Social Bookmarking profiles set up, but are they are useful to your readers? Don’t display a Social Networking badge merely because you have a profile and let your users click it only to find out that you have no activity since you signed up back in April of 2008. Also, think about the demographic of the readers that you are trying to attract combined with the demographic of the social network. You probably don’t want to promote your My Space page to the Nuclear Physics industry, but if you are in some kind of entertainment field, it may work

Personally, I feel that there are only 3 profiles that are worth displaying for any business… Linked In, Facebook, and Twitter. Provided of course that you actually have a real profile built and actually use them. Dependig on your industry, and market, you may have profiles on networks like Ning, Orkut and so on. Just use them sparingly and only display the ones that have real Networking value to you and your readers.

Social bookmarking profiles like Digg and You Tube can be useful to your readers if you actually have industry related articles and videos bookmarked, and organized. Don’t display your You Tube profile to potential clients just to let them know that you have bookmarked 100 playmate videos and like Banjo music (not that there’s anything wrong with either).

This is not the same as displaying Social Icons to encourage your readers to share your content. You SHOULD use those, but also sparingly. You don’t need 20 of them at the bottom of every post, page, and widget. Pick the ones that you think will do you the most good, or just use an all in one “Share” button.

5. Kittens and Ponies and My Space Stickers. Oh Boy! This is one that really hurts my heart to see. There are tons of free widgets, scripts, functions and sparkly things that you can use on your blog. Most of them are not for you. For instance if you need to display a slide show of company images in your sidebar, do not use fun applications like Slide or others that are made for personal blogs and My Space pages. Get yourself a real Featured Image script that doesn’t have the tag line “This widget is provided by Zingers Sparkly Web Stuff for 12 year old girls”.

By using these you are screaming to the world that you have not spent one dime and your web consultant is your neighbors 10 year old daughter. The exception to the rule here is select affiliate tools like Amazon widgets that you may use to promote a book or a related product.

Bonus! Screen names and aliases. This is a bone head move. Why write a blog with the hopes of promoting yourself and your business across the web, only to use an alias or ” funny” avatar? This may work in some industries..entertainment and, sports come to mind, but it does not work for other industry professionals.

If you are hiding from the ex – spouse, a gaggle of old girl/boy friends that only know you as “Mandingo” or “Floozy Suzie”, or a cornucopia (I never get to use that word) of bill collectors, then you need to make a decision about whether or not you really want to be promoting yourself on the web. You can’t have it both ways.

If you are adamant about not using your face online, at least use your company logo. DO NOT use pictures of your kids, dogs, cats, or vacation photos.

These noob mistakes are very easy to get trapped into, particularly if it’s your first time out. In the beginning everything is cool and amazing, but once you settle down you will start to look for ways to improve your blog that will enhance the user experience, provide engagement and you will even pick up a few style tips here and there to let every one know that you are a professional in every sense of the word.

The biggest excuse that I hear from business owners and professionals is “I’ve been meaning to look into it, but I just haven’t had the time”. What they are really telling me is, “I’m so far behind the 8-ball at this point, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to learn quick enough to catch up.”

It’s probably pretty evident that if you are reading this article that you still haven’t gotten into the whole “blogging thing” and maybe for good reasons… or are they?

You and I both know that we spend a lot of free time surfing the web for entertainment a la Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube, so why not spend that time to grow your business? If you are already online and can at least get your email and update your Facebook status , then you are missing out on an incredible opportunity to promote your business or profession and attract new clients.

Since 1999, the number of blogs on the Internet has exploded from a few thousand to over 100 million. People read blogs and use social media !

Quick Stats:

• Universal McCann reports that 77% of all active internet users regularly read blogs.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people… In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.
• Social networks and blogs are the 4th most popular online activities online, including beating personal email. 67% of global users visit member communities and 10% of all time spent on the internet is on social media sites.
• 80% of companies use, (or are planning to use), LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees during the course of this year. The site has just celebrated reaching its 45-millionth membership.
• Source

5 Reason Why You Should Have a Business or Professional Blog:

1. Communicate with Potential Customers. Everyone with internet access uses the web to find information or to investigate before actually making a decision. Odds are that potential clients have looked you up online and didn’t find much and opted to go with a competitor whom had a larger presence on the web. No, it’s not a one trick pony that is going to make your phone ring off of the hook right away, but there is nothing like the feeling of a new client calling you on the phone and saying: “I was looking for some information online and I saw your article on…“
2. Promote your Knowledge and Expertise: Business blogs provide you with a chance to share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience. A powerful benefit for consultants and knowledge workers. Blogs are an excellent method to build additional web traffic, and connect with potential clients that are looking for information. There is no doubt that your competition is blogging, so why should potential customers be reading their articles instead of yours?
3. It’s Cheap: Sure you can spend a ton of money on your blog, you can spend a ton of money on just about anything if you try hard enough, but you don’t have to. Blogging is a low-cost alternative to having a web presence. For business owners without the time to learn web html or the money to hire a designer/developer, blogging offers an inexpensive method to get your company’s name out on the Internet and updating a blog is a much quicker process than contacting a web designer with changes or doing the coding and uploading yourself.
4. It’s relatively easy: Sure there is a slight learning curve, as with anything, but, you learned how to use that computer didn’t you? Blogging software is created with the self publisher in mind and most platforms already come with features and special functions that you need already built in. Simply write your thoughts or articles, link to resources, and publish to your blog, all at the push of a few buttons. As you go along, you will learn more advanced “tricks” and even a little HTM, and there are tons of help forums and easy to follow tutorials all over the web should you need to do some more advanced stuff. Also, you are going to get a hell of a lot more functionality and control over a blog than any Sitebuilder, or Website that someone else had to build for you.
5. Syndication: Blogging is all about syndication. You can easily connect your blog ( and I don’t mean merely linking, I mean actually promoting and feeding the content) with your other social networking profiles like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and just about everything else online to give you more avenues to promote your self and be seen, Additionally, readers can subscribe to your content via RSS, or Email (even on their smart phones) and get updates and new information without having to physically revisit your blog.

The Bonus:

• It’s your personal promotional tool: Times can be uncertain and if you are an employee, let’s face it, anything can happen at any time. Leaving your current position means loosing your company email, company phone number, and every other professional communication. But they can’t take your blog. With a couple of quick changes to your contact information and adding a resume page, you can continue to use it as a way to show potential new employers your expertise, or as a base to go out on your own.

3 Reasons why you shouldn’t have a Business Blog

1. Don’t have time. “With everything that I have to do with work, the spouse, the kids, the dogs, the cats, the PTA, and every other responsibility that I have in a given day, I just don’t see where I would have the time”. Then don’t do it. I don’t believe in trying to talk people into success. If you honestly think that promoting your business or profession is an unbearable chore, then no sense in wasting time. Just remember this article the next time that you spend an hour online playing “Gang Mafia Fighting” or feeding virtual farm animals and think about how much time you said you didn’t have.
2. I hate my job. This is a good reason. No sense in starting a blog just spew venom and bile about your given profession. It will only do you more harm than good. Maybe you should think about blogging about what you are truly knowledgeable and passionate about to get yourself one step closer to what you really want to do.
3. The world is being attacked by flesh eating zombies. If this is really happening, then I see no reason to take on any new projects at the moment until Bruce Willis can step in and single handedly save the world, actually I am surprised that you are still reading this, Get Outta There!

The bottom line is, the web offers an amazing opportunity for you to make yourself known to people who otherwise would have never heard of you. Most people who aren’t completely technically challenged can get the basics down pretty quick, and if you are reading this on a computer, then you aren’t technically challenged.

One of the biggest draw backs to starting a blog is the misconception that you have to come up with something to write everyday. If you can, that’s great, more opportunity to be seen. What you need most is some consistency so what ever that means to you, whether it be once every 3 days, once a week, or once a month, just as long as it’s consistent you should be fine. Establishing a readership is the first step in gaining new clients.

Last thing is, don’t start a blog just to do it or because everyone else is and you don’t want to be left out. It won’t do you any good if you don’t take it just as seriously as you take your other online or offline marketing and promotions. Good content is king on the web and you will find that it may open up markets and possibilities that you previously hadn’t even considered.

If you use Google, you have probably noticed by now that what used to be a discovery of the world in your search results, is now just the people around the corner. The king of all web in it’s infinite wisdom has decided for us that we would rather be limited to websites and businesses in our immediate area, instead of  seeing all that is available and choosing for ourselves.

It’s heralded as a fantastic new step and development of the World Wide Web, but in reality..Google just turned into a digital version of that thick book of local businesses that I have on top of the fridge.

O.K, I’ll admit if  I’m searching for a sushi joint from my mobile phone or car, local results would probably be helpful. However, no one does any serious searching from their phone other than quick looks for crap like food, movie times, and drunken trivia searches. Most mobile time isn’t even spent on Google, it’s spent on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare.

When I’m at work or on my desktop discovering new things, people,  businesses or doing research, I don’t want to continuously wade through local companies on every search. The whole reason I use the internet is to see what else is out there. You know..the WORLD wide web?     I’ve lived here 15 years, I already know how to find these people, and if they had what I wanted I wouldn’t be on the web looking for someone else.  Now with Google’s new agenda, finding things outside of my area is going to be the the problem.

What was wrong with designating your preference of location with “whatever, wherever”?  Google was functioning just fine before. If I wanted pizza in San Diego, I could just search “Pizza, San Diego” and viola. If I really wanted to get fancy I could type in the zip code. I didn’t have to be in San Diego to search for it. I guess that wasn’t good enough. Google has decided that we all want local results for everything that we search for. Even if we don’t ask for it!

Let’s face it, Google has gone from master of the universe to king of the block.

Sure, it’s more money for them. Local search opens up thousands of opportunities to sell more ads. But for those us who used to use Google to discover what’s out there, it sucks.

Have we already come full circle? Have we already gone from discovering new things and ideas where ever they may be, to anally bit mapping our neighborhood?

What Google has done is one of the reasons search engines like Alta Vista died a slow death. If they have learned nothing for their predecessors, they should have at least learned that you don’t mess with the search results to show people what you want them to see, over what they searched for and want to see.

There is one saving grace. According to Google themselves, there is no way to turn off local search. In other words, “You’ll get what we want you to get” but, you can at least change your location (to the left of your search results page where it say’s “Change Location”)  to cover the entire United States. Not exactly the big dog with the best results that Google was, but if you are still hell bent on using it anyway, it’s something.

Just to clarify, the results that you are actually looking for aren’t gone, they are just pushed further back so that you may rediscover the wonders of your own neighborhood first. I’m sure a it’s victory and advancement in technology for the handful of 3rd graders that just type “Shoes” or “Movies” into the search bar, but for the grown ups that know how to use a search engine..it’s just irritating.

I think Google has been drinking their own kool-aid too for far too long and have sacrificed the very thing that people loved about them, their integrity and why so many users used to swear by them, in return for  widening their advertising opportunities. People used to say, “If you want to find something, use Google”. Now they’ll say, “if you want to find things in your neighborhood, use Google, if you want to find anything else, use another search engine”.

So history has repeated itself once again. What was once a respected and useful search engine, is now just another ad machine with manipulated results.

But hey, it’s not all bad. If I ever need to know how many pizza joints, massage parlors, personal injury lawyers, and gas stations there are in my area..I know what search engine to use. But what difference does it make if none of them have the ability to do business online.

It’s easier to just walk to the corner and look around.

As most of you have probably noticed in your Admin panels, WordPress 3.0 has been released for about 2 weeks now and you may be wondering about upgrading.

Networks and Communities

The biggest and most exiting change is the merger of WordPress with WordPress MU. This simply means that now WordPress Admins can create website or blog networks running on one installation, on your root domain or domain of your choice. Just like it’s  done on WordPress.com, and other blogging platforms and networks.

This probably isn’t a big concern for most of you since many of your WordPress sites are meant as a company site, but it can be beneficial throughout your growth should you want to add additional websites and blogs to cover different aspects of your business, employee blogs, or offer paid or free blogs to your community.

You can see a working example of a new project I am working on here: New York Blogs

Setting up your WordPress 3.0 installation to act as a blog network does require some configuration changes and has other Administration concerns that should be considered before jumping right in including:  Hosting, Security,  Licensing Designs,, and many others. Contact me with any questions.

Other notable additions to the software include:

• WordPress and WordPress MU have merged, allowing the management of multiple sites (called Multisite) from one WordPress installation.
• New default theme “Twenty Ten” takes full advantage of the current features of WordPress.
• New Custom Menu Management feature, allows creation of custom menus combining posts, pages, categories, tags, and links for use in theme menus or widgets.
• Custom Header and Custom Background APIs.
• Contextual help text accessed under the Help tab of every screen in the WordPress administration.
• Ability to set the admin username and password during installation.
• Bulk updating of themes with an automatic maintenance mode during the process.
• Support for Shortlinks.
• Improved Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies including hierarchical (category-style) support. (Try the Custom Post Type UI or GD Custom Posts And Taxonomies Tools plugins to see the possibilities.)
• A lighter admin color scheme to increase accessibility and put the focus more squarely on your content.

You can see a full list of new additions  here. ://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.0

Plug Ins:

Additionally you have probably noticed that many of your plug ins have been upgraded to match the new version of WordPress.  If I did your installation and set up, you most likely have your one click automatic upgrade set and can follow the prompts to update your own plug ins.

If you need help, I am more than happy to assist as a courtesy.

Themes:

Here is the sticky part about upgrading. There are some themes that may not be compatible with the latest version and upgrading may cause them to break. If you have concerns and aren’t sure, but would like to upgrade to the latest version, drop me a line and I will check to see if everything in your installation is compatible.

It is important that you stay up to date with all current versions as much as possible. Besides additional features, there are also security updates and patches as well.

The world won’t come to an end if you don’t update right away. Particularly if it means (although rare) that you will have to change to a compatible  design to do so. But you will have to update eventually.

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful, yet safe week end.