I am proud to have been a part of this project.

MRM Worldwide is proud to announce the launch of Betty Crocker’s Bake The Change Facebook Fan Page .  It’s an idea based on simple acts of kindness and the change they can make to a baker and someone who receives something baked.

Please check it out and get involved!

One of the things that amuses me the most is how complicated we make simple things.  One of the simplest things we make complicated is Twitter.

If part of your business goals and objectives is to socialize yourself through Twitter, it couldn’t be easier.  Twitter provides a nice section of solid information to help you get started http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/.

Once you get the hang of using Twitter for your business socialization, the next logical step is to learn how to optimize your tweets for organic search.  Stay tuned for my next post which will give you the top 5 – 10 tips for making your tweets search friendly.

Yes, I believe Facebook is ruining Facebook and the Web.  While this may be an extreme view, I’d like you to at least hear me out. 

So now Websites are using my “friends” on Facebook to influence a “personalized” Web experience for me on third party sites.  All I have to say to that is… thanks but no thanks. 

How Facebook Is Hurting The Web

Like most people o n Facebook, my friends are extremely diverse.  I have friends that I’ve known since middle school, co-workers, former co-workers, professional acquantiences, family members, and I think you get the idea.

It makes sense that since my friends are so diverse in nature, that their likes and tastes would greatly differ from mine.  This is wherein the problem lies.  If I want to know what my friends are doing, what they’re reading, what they’re sharing, where they’re going, and what they’re saying… I’ll log into Facebook and read my status updates.  However, I don’t want a personalized experience on third party sites (like CNN) based on my friends’ preferences.  We’re too different.

Example:  I’ve added friends who are Vegan…  I’m not Vegan, I don’t like Vegan food, and I typically won’t go to a Vegan restaurant.  When I sign on to a shoe website, I don’t want to be shown “non-leather” based sneakers.  Let me pick what I want to see. 

This type of personalized experience may cause me and many others to stop using sites that are built around the OpenGraph type framework.  This may very well result in lost actual and potential revenue as well as other key performance indicator goals that are important to acheive businss objectives. 

How Facebook Is Hurting Facebook

Here is where I believe Facebook is going to hurt itself.  There are plenty of consumers who want the personalized experience on third party sites.  And this is fair.  There is a percentage of people who are only interested in what their friends are interested in.  The problem goes back to what I mentioned earlier… What happens when a diverse group of friends on Facebook cause  inaccurate personalized experiences on third party sites?

I can see in the very near future, friends removing friends because personalized Web experiences are not accurate.  This could lead to friends only being friends with people who have similar interests and in the end, akes taway from what Facebook was intially created for and what people love about it. 

In closing, I’ll just say that I’m sure there are plenty of folks who will disagree with me… but this is just my humble opinion.

I just viewed this hysterical Google Wave video on CollegeHumor.com and felt the need to share it with you.  If you need to explain the usefulness of Google Wave, this is a great way to do it.

Who still says that Facebook can’t compete with MySpace on the music front?  Honestly, I used to use MySpace all the time to keep up with my favorite bands and new videos. Since I’ve become a Facebook addict, I only visit my MySpace page maaayyybe once a month.  I’m really happy to see that Facebook is starting to get smarter about band promotion.  I recently visited my friend Jason Yudoff’s page (http://www.facebook.com/yudoff), and clicked on the “My Band” tab.  I hadn’t seen that specific UI before, but I was impressed.  It looks sharp, clean, easy to follow, and made me want to stay on and listen for awhile.

Here is a screenshot:
 

I’m looking forward to seeing new and more innovative Facebook band promotions… especially if they’re able to contextualize it around my musical tastes.

Parents beware, Google Buzz can sting your kids!

Over the past few years, Web 2.0 has caused many of us to take a second look at privacy issues.  Remember when the little yellow lock at the bottom of the screen meant that your privacy was being protected?  Remember when the biggest threat to privacy was malware?

Social networks have become an open forum for people to share personal information between their networks of friends and contacts.  On Facebook, I post regular status updates that speak to my mood or what I’m doing.  Twitter allows me to push the PR of this blog and other relevant professional information.  Foursquare allows me to check in and let people know where I phyically am.  YouTube allows me to post videos of adventures with Sam (my dog).  LinkedIn provides a place for me to list my entire professional history.  I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Furthermore, all of these sites make my network of friends visible to each other unless I choose otherwise.  But that’s okay… because I have the choice to set my privacy settings to where I am comfortable.  I’m an adult, and I understand what is appropriate to put out there and what isn’t.  I also understand the risks involved with sharing my information.

Now, along comes Google Buzz, Google’s attempt at becoming a viable force in social media.  And while Buzz can be another great way to connect, in my humble opinion, Google Buzz is a nightmare for the privacy and safety of our kids.

With Google Buzz, anyone can follow/friend anyone.  I can search for people within the Google network to follow or I can follow anyone on my Gmail contacts without their approval.  This is important for parents to know and understand the gravity of the issue.  I recently signed into Gmail to a notification that I had a Google Buzz update.  When I clicked on the notification, Buzz showed me a conversation between one of my relatives (who is under 13) and her friend.  I was sort of stunned that I was able to view the string of communication.  Thankfully, nothing out of line was said.

Why this is important?  Parents, family, siblings… it’s important because if I can view this kid’s communication, so can ANYONE that chooses to follow her.  Imagine your 12 or 13 year old child is being followed by a sicko that she wasn’t aware of.  One day, she buzzes “heading to the Coral Springs Mall @ 2:30 today… come join me”, and at 2:30pm,  Mr. child predator shows up too.

People, this isn’t a joke.  It’s very serious stuff we’re talking about here!  It’s okay for adults to freely give away their privacy, but it’s another for it to be taken from a child. 

According to a recent LA Times article:

University of Maryland law professor Danielle Citron said Google is not legally required to confirm the ages of Buzz users, but should.  http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/23/business/la-fi-google-privacy23-2010feb23

Also, in the same article, Google puts the onus of protecting a child’s privacy on the parents.  While this is true… parents should be responsible, it’s also almost impossible for parents to ensure that every area of a child’s online activity is protected.  Furthermore, why do politicians parade around Washington pushing their “moral” agenda and not do anything about social media’s serious risk to kids?  The Government has mandated that if a child under 18 attempts to purchase a ticket for an R-rated movie, he or she must be accompanied by an adult.  Why does the motion picture industry get regulated when social networking sites don’t?

Some sort of legislation needs to be created to protect our kids from online predators on social networks, but in the meanwhile… parents, please keep an eye on your kids’ online activity and make sure they understand the risks of publicly releasing personal information.

For the past few months, I eagerly anticipated the end of my two-year contract with T-Mobile.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to stick with the pink logo’d carrier or not.  I was convinced by T-Mobile’s commercials that they had the best priced plans, but I wanted a cool phone and most of their devices are boring. 

Initially, I wanted the iPhone.  For years I used the iPod Touch but always had iPhone envy.   The issue is that my past experience with AT&T (more specifically Cingular) wasn’t that great.  Additionally I didn’t want to pay for one of their overpriced plans (no offense AT&T users).  So based on my previous AT&T experience and the current pricing models, I opted to look elsewhere.

My next choice was Verizon and the Android, but even with my corporate discount, I felt that Verizon’s plans were overpriced.  Infact, Verizon and AT&T were similar with only a few dollars separating the two.  So, it looked like I was back to exploring my options with T-Mobile; I figured I’d just stick with them since the coverage was pretty decent and the prices were fair.  When I called to inquire about signing a new two-year contract with a new phone, they wanted to increase the price of the plan that I was currently on.  I couldn’t believe my ears. 

Me: “…I’ve been with you guys for years and you want to raise the price of my current plan?”  T-Mobile Rep:  “Yes sir, we do not offer that plan anymore at the price you are paying.”  Me:  “So, I guess I’ll have to take my business elsewhere”.  T-Mobile Rep:  “Is there anything we can do to keep you with us?”  Me: “Keep my current plan the same price if I sign a new two-year contract”  T-Mobile Rep:  “I’m sorry sir, we can’t do that.”  Me:  “Are you really that stupid?”  Okay, I really didn’t say the last quote, but I thought it.

So now I was back at the drawing board.  I spent days going over Verizon and AT&T phones/plans and was at a loss.  What’s a cheap guy to do?  And then it happened… like an epiphany.

I was signed into a site and a contextual ad for Radio Shack came up.  They were having a sale on the HTC Hero for new Sprint two-year contracts, and the price was sweet! $99 for a highly regarded Android phone.  I then went to Sprint’s site and checked out their rate plans… and I was SHOCKED at how reasonable they were.  Why hadn’t I considered Sprint before? 

I called Radio Shack to make sure they still had a Hero left, ran down to the store and signed up.  In the few days I’ve had my Hero, it’s been amazing.  The reception is clear, the Web is super fast, the interface is simple, and the phone looks pretty hot.  Furthermore, I’d never known how poor the quality of T-Mobile’s service was until I switched to Sprint… the difference is like night and day.

While I can’t compare service or reception to AT&T and Verizon, I can compare price.  The plan I signed up for with Sprint is $69.99 a month.  For that price, I get: unlimited mobile to mobile, unlimited Web, unlimited texting, nights starting at 7, and free weekends.  AT&T and Verizon were both over $100 a month.

So, if you’re looking for a new phone/service provider, I highly recommend taking a look at Sprint and the HTC Hero.

And a note to T-Mobile, take care of your loyal customers!

I had the opportunity to attend Google’s Agency Developer Day and it was a great learning experience.  I am always interested in getting hands on with exploring Google’s innovative ideas.  

While I was definitely impressed by Google’s innovative products, I’m also impressed with many of the innovative benefits that it’s employees receive.  Google truly understands the value of employees and it’s fairly obvious by productive and motivated they are.

The first speaker of the conference was explaining how Google is just as innovative internally as it is with the products it develops.  This includes how Google handles travel.  Here’s how they do it:

• Google runs a spider that that goes out and crawls travel sites, scrapes all of the prices for flights, and stores it in it’s travel database (it’s travel flight price system)
• When a Google employee needs to travel, they enter their departure/destination info and the flight price system kicks back what it considers a fair price. So, let’s assume that a Google employee searches for a flight from New York to California and Google’s system tells them, “You should pay no more than $500 round trip”.
  
• Once Google assigns the employee a fair price estimate, it’s up to the employee to find the right deal.
• Here’s the motivator:If an employee books a flight cheaper than what Google’s system estimates, the difference is deposited it in the employees’s personal travel savings account.  Once enough travel dollars have been saved, they can take a flight to wherever that money gets them.Continued example:  Google tells the employee that he/she should not spend more than $500 for a flight from NY to CA.  If the employee manages to book a flight that costs $350,  the difference of $150 ($500-$350) is deposited in to the employee’s personal travel savings account.

I think Google’s travel policy is a phenomenal idea.  I believe that if  companies/organizations/agencies were to adopt Google’s model of employee value, more innovation and productivity would be organically created.

SEO and Social Media Marketing (SMM) are tools that should be used to achieve desired business goals and objectives.  Using SEO  and SMM without a tangible objective is like trying to sail without the wind.

At the very beginning of a search and/or social engagement, before any strategy has been developed, a solid business objective(s) should be agreed upon between the client and the ad agency. 

Here are a few samples of potential objectives:

• Attract more qualified visitors
• Increase sales
• Increase conversion rate
• Increase sales for a particular product
• Introduce new product(s)/service(s)
• Create brand advocates
• Create brand awareness
• Influence the tone of conversation around your brand
• Replace negative search results with positive ones

The development of the business goals should be a collaborative effort between the client and search marketing teams.  Often times, I see  agencies rely solely on the client to provide the objectives.  One of the biggest complaints that I hear from brands is the lack of ideas coming from the agencies they’ve hired to handle their online advertising. 

One of the ways that I approach defining objectives is by conducting a content gap analysis.  If I can identify a major gap between what consumers are searching for and the actual content on a Web site, then I can better throw out ideas for business objectives. 

Consider the following example:

• Step 1:I’ve signed a contract to conduct an SEO and social media campaign for an existing tax preparation website (taxwebsite.com)
• Step 2: After completing a high-level keyword analysis, I discover that there is high demand for both online tax preparation and specific tax information content(i.e., tax laws, state tax laws, foreclosure disclosure on tax forms, etc…)
• Step 3:Upon analysis of taxwebsite.com, I find content pertaining to online tax preparation but no content around informational tax themes
• Business Objective Recommendation:  taxwebsite.com must become a top of mind resource for consumers searching for tax information

Once the business objective(s) of the SEO/SMM engagement have been clearly defined, a core set of key performance indicators (KPIs) should be identified.  These KPIs will help measure the overall success of the campaigns being conducted.  Finally, once the KPIs have been established, an effective SEO and social media strategy can be crafted that specifically targets the stated goals and objectives.

Hiring an agency or SEO/SMM consultant who can bring these skills to the table will determine whether or not your site will find success online through organic and social search.

In 1990, the Government passed the American Disabilities Act (ADA); simply explained, The ADA states that a covered entity shall not discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability (^ 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a)).

When the ADA was signed into law, the Internet was a baby and specific provisions hadn’t been written to cover Web properties.  However, over the past few years, there has been an increase in lawsuits where individuals have felt discriminated by the limited accessibility of a Website.  For instance, both Expedia and Hotels.com were sued due to their online reservation system being extra-complicated for those with disabilities.  Furthermore, Target was sued by “The National Federation For The Blind” for ADA violations on their site and was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.  Other sites that have felt the wrath of similar non-ADA compliance violations are AOL, Bank of America, and Priceline.com. 

In 1998, the Government amended the 1973 Federal Rehabilitation Act with section 508; Section 508 requires all Government agencies to make their electronic and information technology available to individuals with disabilities. 

While the American Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act are two separate laws, they are very complimentary in nature and compliance should be built in to a site’s architecture and design.

One of the major points that Section 508 outlines is the variety of Website issues that need to be addressed in order to be accessible to screen readers.  For those who are visually impaired, screen readers crawl and read aloud the HTML content on a page.  The interesting thing is that screen readers operate almost exactly like a search engine spider does. 

For example, both search engines and screen readers:

• Cannot read JavaScript
• Cannot see anything in Flash (although Google is getting better at it)
• Can’t read content embedded within images

If a Website is fully optimized for organic search, it is typically about 95% ADA and 508 compliant.  Additional ADA compliance tweaks may be required based on your site.  Many of the adjustments that need to occur to have an ADA compliant site make sense for good user experience in general.

Here are some tips on making your site ADA compliant, search friendly and a good user-experience:

• For any pages with Flash or video content, provide an alternate “text-only” version where the full transcript is available
• Videos: ensure that closed captioning is enabled
• Ensure all images have ALT and Title attributes
• Ensure links are text based and any effects are created using CSS versus JavaScript
• Ensure your colors are contrasting enough so that those with color blindness can easily read
• Use CSS to create table like features
• Ensure labels on form fields are accurately descriptive
• Page ”time outs”: if using a time-out feature on a page, ensure that a user is given the option to extend the time to fill out an online form
• Audio: any audio on a page should have a text-only transcript

Each Website will have its own set of ADA obstacles and if you are not familiar with the law/topic, you should enlist the help of a Web designer or SEO professional who has an established background in this area.