Posts Tagged: Links
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 31st, 2010
After a brief hiatus in December, our regular month end Reasons to be Cheerful post is back. Here is a compendium of cool sites I discovered over the past few weeks that might of interest or useful for you. Enjoy!
Screenr - easily create screencasts to post to Twitter.
Lifeforce TV – Canada’s online broadcast network.
Biddingo – an online portal that connects suppliers providing various goods and services to buyers from public and private sectors across Canada.
Xina – handy tool for checking how your SEO efforts stack up.
Entreprenuerial Woman Magazine – online journal aimed at Canadian small business.
Rollip – professional, online photo effects.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, November 30th, 2009
Its almost the festive season, the sun finally came out in Vancouver today after three weeks of rain and there is lots going on online. Check out our new media reasons to be cheerful for this month:
Grooveshark – groove to your favorite music while you work.
About Men – a new men’s health site in BC.
Twubs - making sense of Twitter hashtags #.
Twittersheep – see what your followers are Twittering about.
Sprouter – collaborative networking tool.
Slickplan – Create flowcharts and site maps for free.
SiteScan – verify your Google Analytics tracking codes.
Enjoy!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, May 31st, 2009
Lots of new media reasons to be cheerful this month.
Microsoft has a new offering the promises to change the way we search the Internet. Its called Bing and is still under wraps so we’ll have to wait and see if it will better the mighty Google.
Not to be outdone, Google also has a new offering in beta. Google Wave promises to change the way we communicate and collaborate on the web.
Make your own book with Blurb and BookSmart.
Have fun with your desktop at Bump Top.
Twitter tools: Untweeps (get rid of anactive users), Twilert (Twitter keyword listening tool) and Just Tweet It (another Twitter directory).
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, May 14th, 2009
Its been another trying day for Google users with slow gmail connections, problems with searches, analytics and lots of #googlefail posts on Twitter.
For the second time this year the Internet dominater has frustrated its users. In February Google was panned because Gmail failed for several hours leaving users stranded with no way to access email. At the time the company said it was because of an error at one of its European server centres.
Out-Smarts is a virtual company, we rely on online tools and services like Google to run our business. When Gmail goes down our productivity is effected and we are just one example. How many other companies worldwide are affected in this way and how much does this down time costs? Lots of dosh I would sat.
This time, Google says it was a traffic routing error. Here is the response taken directly from their blog:
Imagine if you were trying to fly from New York to San Francisco, but your plane was routed through an airport in Asia. And a bunch of other planes were sent that way too, so your flight was backed up and your journey took much longer than expected. That’s basically what happened to some of our users today for about an hour, starting at 7:48 am Pacific time.
An error in one of our systems caused us to direct some of our web traffic through Asia, which created a traffic jam. As a result, about 14% of our users experienced slow services or even interruptions. We’ve been working hard to make our services ultrafast and “always on,” so it’s especially embarrassing when a glitch like this one happens. We’re very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we’ll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won’t happen again. All planes are back on schedule now.
Posted by Urs Hoelzle, SVP, Operations
I can only say that if I was flying from New York to San Fran and the flight I was on ended up routing through Hong Kong, I would wonder what kind of crazy, screwed up airline I was flying with and I would choose never to fly with them again. With Google I don’t really have that choice. What’s more, at least when my airline makes a mistake they usually (not always but usually) offer some kind of compensation. Google only offers a rather pathetic analogy. Thanks Google.
Apparently all is hunky dory again and its business as usual with Google search now. Which is just as well because the Google cam is in the area and I want to check out the new view.
More on the subject:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/164904/google_says_outage_caused_by_traffic_routing_error.html
http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/05/14/google-disruption-sets-web-users-atwitter/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10240875-93.html
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/its_down_the_day_google_stood_still.php
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, April 30th, 2009
I missed last month’s reasons to be cheerful, not because there was nothing fun or innovative to share but simply because I forgot (woops). So to make it up, this months reasons to be cheerful includes more links to valuable websites, tools and social media innovations for you to enjoy.
Wowzio – is a tool that allows you to customise and create your own widgets online. They are also developing an interesting tool called Pulse which will “bubble up topics and posts that users are engaging with across the blogosphere”.
ClipCanvas provides professional stock footage and video clips.
Yelp – found a great restaurant or love your dentist? Then share your recommendations with your community or use your network to find reliable services.
New Twitter tools are proliferating, there seems to be a new one every day. Favs include: Twibes – lets you follow Twitter groups and create your own, and TweetTree - lets you view your Twitter posts and replies in context (thanks to Chakravibe for that one). I’ve also been using Power Twitter to amp up my Twitter experience with Firefox.
Need 4 Design – if you need a log or website design why not crowdsource this and run a design competition with Need 4 Design. You submit your requirement and designers compete for your business.
Add your company to LinkedIn.
Eventbrite – online event registration tools.
Backtype – find, follow and share comments on the web.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 27th, 2009
Scribd - document upload and sharing site, explore books, magazines, manuals, spreadsheets and more.
SocialMention – a social media search engine that searches blogs, websites, microblogs and news sites amongst others for your keywords.
LoadedBow – I love this blog aimed at young women entreprenuers. Packed with handy advice, interviews and links its definately one to subscribe to.
Biznik - a new business networking site allowing you to network, share events, publish articles and promote your business.
ResizeIt – a handy tool that allows you to easily resize, crop and edit images for free online.
And on the lighter side, find out about: The State of the Web – Winter 2009
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, November 30th, 2008
With the bleak weather and economic outlook we’re all in need of some reasons to be cheerful this month. Thankfully there are many social media reasons to be cheerful. Here are our discoveries of the month (and we have more than usual so enjoy!):
Intranet Connections – a great tool for any company looking to put the benefits of social media to use internally.
Pipl – wondering about your on line profile? Use Pipl yourself and see.
In my constant search for tools that help me Twitter more effectively I found Twhirl, Tweetscan and Brightkit this month although none of them effectively manage Twitters from different times zones or auto replies (if you know of another share it please!).
Want to create a vector – try Vector Magic.
Blippr, Second Brain – new social media sharing sites, one for organizing media (books, music and movies etc) the other for online content.
Gliffy – create flow charts and diagrams.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 17th, 2008
1. Its not good enough to simply to put up a web site and hope that people will
visit. You have to give them a reason to visit and more to keep them coming back.
Get creative and remember to always add value – tell them something they dont
already know.
2. Positioning is vital. Theres no need to spend vast amounts of money on this – if
you dont have it: do it yourself. The top engines that you should position with are:
Google, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, Add-Me and Scrub the Web).
3. Search engines are more likely to find your site if the content is updated regu-
larly so make sure that the site is well maintained and regularly reviewed. Share
tips and advice as well as new testimonials, company milestones and press re-
leases.
4. Consider using a branded blog to establish or entrench your expertise. This has
the added benefit of driving traffic to your site.
5. Internet marketing should go hand in hand with a traditional marketing strategy
with one complementing the other. Your brand should be consistent. Use the same
logo, typeface and branding on the Internet as you use in traditional marketing
pieces.
6. Links – encourage partners, clients and interested parties to link to your site (and
reciprocate). The more links your site has the more attractive it will be to the
search engines.
7. List your website on all company letterhead, brochures and business cards to
promote your presence and make it easier for prospects to find you online.
8. Use all tools at your disposal to drive traffic to your web site including traditional
media and Internet advertising, blogging, wikis and social networks.
9. The Internet is a vital source for market research – use it. Always check out your
competitions web presence and find out what people are saying about your market
or even what clients are saying about you!
10. Use Google analytics to track and monitor traffic to your site to ascertain
whether your goals are being met.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, August 22nd, 2008
Links are like gold on the Internet, the more your have the better your ranking. Link building however can be arduous and frustrating and if you don’t know what you are doing you can spend a lot of time chasing your tail.
Here are some tips to make your efforts more effective:
1. Always ensure your site is listed in all of the major search engines prior to starting your link building campaign.
2. Only submit links to quality sites.
3. Target your linking to sites that are pertinent to your business.
4. Remember to add your links in appropriate directories.
5. Quality is better than volume. Link to sites that have good traffic stats.
6. Track your progress – set up a spreadsheet to track submissions.
7. Many sites require a reciprocal link. Decide in advance if you will take this approach and add this to your web site.
8. Only pay for listings if you can determine your ROI.
9. Go for the low hanging fruit. Request a link from customer and partner sites.
10. And this is perhaps the most important. Don’t get disheartened. Effective link building takes time and commitment. Results are not instantaneous and it often takes several months to see the full effect.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, July 30th, 2008
Its that time of the month again. Time to look back and recap on new media developments. Here are links to our favorite finds of the month:
Fresh Start Recycling – not only an online wonder using blogging, blog PR and social media to spread the good word, this Vancouver company gets rid of your junk (both home and domestic) and recycles as much as possible.
Sphinn – is a great forum to find Internet marketing news and to participate on related forums, its a great source for whats new in the industry.
Easy Tweets - I found this where else but on Twitter. It allows you to manage mutliple Twitter profiles in one central place. Very handy for social media marketers.
Xobni – I am ever on the lookout for ways to keep organised and love the concept of Xobni as a tool to help me keep my in box efficient.
Yelp – had a good meal and want to rave or had a bad spa experience and want to rant, then you need to Yelp.
Loopt – the concept seems a bit wierd (I am not sure if I want everyone to know where I am and what I am doing via maps on their phones) but Loopt will probably catch on.
