eCommerce and

For all of the Twitter users, you are very aware that a shortened URL is a beautiful URL. Google is starting to understand that and is jumping on the bandwagon by announcing there very own URL shortener.

Google’s URL shortener now has a website where anyone can go to make short goo.gl’s. It was only available as part of certain Google products (I used it as a Chrome extension), but now anyone can just go to goo.gl to make their own shortened links.

Aside from standard and simple shortening of a URL, Google says they want to make it “...the stablest, most secure, and fastest URL shortener on the web.” Also, a neat new feature allows you to track clicks to your shortened URLs:

 I know there are a lot of shorteners out there right now but with the analytics and the fact that Google will be backing it with additional changes and updates, this is a pretty solid URL shortener to consider using.

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With Twitter’s meteoric rise to popularity and its proven success as a marketing channel, many businesses are rushing towards it with arms open, hoping to embrace (and convert) the 105,779,710 existing users and the more than 300,000 active users per day.

But, though the service is evolving, we have to remember that human dynamics (largely) has not. Twitter is a real time conversation mechanism. The same principles that apply to actual, verbal conversation – the perceptions of trust, values, integrity, insight, responsiveness, which fuel our engagement - absolutely apply to this service.

So now, with tightening budgets and unprecedented buzz, a cash-strapped marketer might be inclined to adopt Twitter as a viable marketing channel.

But, if you weren’t an early adopter, maybe it’s time to pause before leaning into the social media giant as new, reliable marketing stream. There are already blog posts explaining “How to use twitter to grow your business” so I’ll leave the “HOW” to them. However, before you “join the conversation.”, pause to consider the WHY.

Whether you’re convinced that Twitter is congruent with your business model or, you’re of the “it’s free, why not?” school of marketing. I humbly submit two suggestions.

1)      Please ADD something to the conversation.

Keep in mind that Twitter, unlike many social networks is actually grounded in conversation. Each Tweet is a pithy, 140 character remark or reply made in real time, by real people. Whereas a blog post (or even Facebook status update) usually requires some level of pre-meditation, a Tweet is often a quick thought fired off (sometimes too) hastily by a person, to another person (or an assembly of followers.) A calculated advertisement is likely to fall on unmotivated eyes if you’re only trying to coax a “follower” to follow you back to your website and make a purchase.

2)      Please add something NEW to the conversation.

If you’re still vacillating on whether or not to market your product through Twitter, consider yourself a late-adopter. Active Twitter users are savvy, we follow selectively and, unlike Facebook or Myspace (yes, I said it), there is delineation between “Followers” and “Following” – meaning, there is more social currency in having an abundance of followers, than there is in following the population of a small country. Consider the hyperbolic, but appropriate example of perpetual comedian/Late Night host, Conan O’Brien – who has over a million followers, but follows only one person, Sarah Killen – who he seemingly picked at random. Companies like Southwest Airlines do well by incorporating personality and customer service into their tweets.

So, if you’re anything like me, you spend as much time as possible avoiding advertising, and Twitter is a great way to selectively reduce the amount of advertising in your life. Don’t go ruining that for us.

The bottom line to would-be Tweetvertisers: We control this conversation, what have you got to say?

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• As a female, I know that women struggle with many of the same issues in the workplace that men do, but there are also female related issues that we have to recognize as we move on, up, and out in our careers.  Bruce Clay’s Susan Esparza addresses women in the tech world in one of her blog posts this week.


• Brian Clark wrote on the Power of Persuasion this week.


• My favorite post of the week comes from one of my favorite bloggers, Linda Bustos.  Linda writes a compelling article, called 10 Reasons Not to Copy Amazon, and it’s worth the read.


• MakeUseOf.com shows you how to save your complete Facebook chat history with FireFox and Google Chrome add-ons and extensions.


• Associating your brand with social media accounts can be risky, but worth it.  Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media looks at how traditional media has handled their employees who work in today’s social media scene, and it’s not pretty.

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We have a lot of great articles this month so let’s jump right in.

• First, as I reported earlier this month, Youtube now has a cloud video editor. This is huge because it opens up the world of video editing to anyone with an internet connection, not just those with nice computers and expensive software. ReelSeo even showcases 5 ways to use the Youtube video editor. I have personally tried it myself, and while it is not a terribly comprehensive editor it is still a really nice feature to have access to for free.


• On the same front the iPhone 4 was released which records 720p HD video and has a movie editor that can be purchased for $4.99 called iMovie.  iMovie allows you to edit videos and pictures directly on your phone and upload them to YouTube when they are complete. This is really going to usher in a new world of video for many people who have never done much in it before, as well as add to Youtube’s unholy amount of videos (I think it is almost a billion now).


• On the more technical side Google has released a list of best practices for those that host video on their own website. These include different search engines techniques for indexing, thumbnails and countries the video can play in.


• Mashable has a great post entitled "6 Tips for Experimenting with Web Video". They include a bunch of techniques to help you take your video the next step. They deal with breaking the rules, self promotion and video on a budget, among other things.


• The Fire Horse Trail has a interesting article on promotion in the age of social sharing. In this article they talk about where to submit your videos RSS so the engines can know when there is a new one. They also talk about where to upload and syndicate those videos for viral promotion as well as traffic.


• Lastly, this is not as much related to the evolution of video as it is to creation, but the Youtube user Karimrejeb has created one of the most innovative videos I have seen in a long time. Using legos and stop motion he has designed a surfing video that is amazing. Watch it here.

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The idea of being able to edit your online video without any software, simply an internet connection and a browser, is something that YouTube has been toying with for a while. They used to offer video remixes, which would let you do some simple editing and set it to music, but now they have created a full, completely online editing application. While it is not robust, it will allow you to put clips together, trim videos you have uploaded and even add music from their hundreds of available songs. Once you have created your video you can save it to your YouTube account all completely online and free of charge.  Check out more information on this service below, and let us know what you think.

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Hooray Lakers!!!!!!!!!

Okay now that I got that off my chest let’s check out some interesting posts from throughout the week.

• Mashable reports that Facebook’s 2009 revenue far exceeded expectations and was nearly $800 million.


• The Marketing Den believes “your analyst should be a pessimistic pain in the ass”, and I tend to agree.


• She may be a Celtics fan that posted awful tweets about the Lakers last night, but she still writes valuable content worth reading.  Lisa Barone’s recent article “9 SEO Mistakes Businesses Make With Content” is worth the read.


• Is there anything Amazon won’t get their hands in? “Amazon patents Social Networking System”.


• Retailers were surveyed and according to Internet Retailer “Commission Junction Chosen Twice as Often as Other Affiliate Networks”.


• Search Engine Land reports and gets confirmation from Google that they are testing showing related AdWords ads on the lower right of their search results.


• Richard Baxter of SEO Gadget makes guest appearance on Whiteboard Friday and “discusses which content types bring you the most and best traffic”.

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There has been a lot of discussion about Facebook, privacy and, what seems to be a mass exodus of technology figureheads from the service lately. It seems like every time Facebook makes an announcement, they are messing with the privacy settings they continue to make it more confusing and technical. Coming from a retailer's perspective who manages profiles, pages and advertising on Facebook this is not surprising at all. Facebook has some of the most confusing and technical merchant tools we have ever seen and it's only gotten worse. I dare you to try running a Facebook ad with targeted metrics and make any sense of what’s going on there. Sure, it might be great for throwing money at brand advertising, or building your fans, but try driving at conversion based targets and it becomes much more difficult.

Outside of these issues, though, I just can't see myself leaving Facebook without a viable alternative. Much of my friends, family and social interactions happen for the most part on Facebook and I think that most people either don't care or don't understand how the privacy issues affect them. The fact of the matter is that there is simply no decent alternative to Facebook. Sure I have heard people say, use Twitter + Flickr + Yahoo + Google + Smugmug + Geni but using all of those services instead of Facebook is simply unrealistic for me and probably most of Facebook's other users. Not to mention, it only takes one of those services to have privacy issues for it to make using other services a moot point.

Facebook has built an empire with no real rival and I think they realize that. Until there is some real competition I don't think most people will actually leave Facebook, they may consider it, they may even be concerned about their privacy but I don't think they will leave.

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

Today at Google’s I/O Conference Google announced that they are making Google Wave (which before today was invite only) open to everyone at wave.google.com.
 
Google wave is a tool to increase productivity by turning traditional email into a sort of email chat hybrid that allows much faster and easier communication and collaboration. Watch the video below for more information.

Trevor posted about this software when it was highly buzzed about at its beta launch earlier this year, but the buzz has dropped off since. However, Google has added many new features such as undo and email notification options and is encouraging those that have tried during the beta to give it another go now.
 
So head over to wave.google.com to try it yourself and let us know what you think about it in the comments.

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

• I haven’t tried but apparently Facebook doesn’t make it very easy to delete your account. Read Write Web just released an article about the recent uptick in searches for deleting Facebook accounts, which seems counter intuitive in relation to Facebook’s current popularity, but many seem to be turning to Google to find out how to do so. Since this story was written, I captured my own screenshot and it appears to be an even greater climbing search since then. You can see this reflected by Google’s search suggestion set below:





• Josh isn’t the only one disappointed with Google’s new search layout according to a recent post by Virginia of Bruce Clay’s blog.  In her post she notes that “thousands of people have downloaded the Hide Google Options plugin for Firefox and Chrome”.


• Mashable releases exclusive information on Twitter’s new Business Center.  According to Mashable and their sources at Twitter the new business features will add a variety of features like the ability to receive direct messages from non-followers and the ability to verify business accounts.


• I thought this TechCrunch article was really interesting - “Digg’s Biggest Problem Is Its Users And Their Constant Opinions On Things”.  TechCrunch points out that Digg’s history of making changes according to user uproars and complaints has actually hurt the company.  They compare this to Facebook’s strategy of “you may go pound sand” and point out that Facebook has reaped the benefits of this approach.  Interesting read.


• I’ve worked in the “Nerdery” (a room full of nerds) and had to adapt to feeling out of place.  One thing I learned about nerds is that they speak in acronyms, and if you don’t catch on quickly you can find yourself really behind in any given conversation.  Linda Bustos decided to help those of you new to this type of situation by publishing “99 Ecommerce Acronyms”.

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Now exploring the world on Google Maps is even more engaging with the utilization of Earth View in Google maps.  Earth view can bring maps to life with 3D imagery.  In Google maps click the Earth button, if you don’t already have it installed you’ll be prompted to install the Google Earth Plugin.  The video below describes the new 3D features.  Some of the more interesting features are the ability to tilt your view with the click of a mouse and then share that particular view using the link provided (which is how I was able to get the screen shot above of Niagara Falls).

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.