Philosophical wonder woman

Are apples the new oranges? The buzz around Ello is increasing, and the beta social network is continually being compared to Facebook.  People are speculating that many on Facebook will jump ship for the next new thing.  With Ello just now releasing a beta version to a limited number of people, the demand and intrigue increases the hype. However, Ello is something altogether new; originally created by seven people to be a private social network, mainly geared toward artists. Their network grew, so eventually creator Paul Budnitz slowly rolled out a beta public version. Ello has never promised to be a new Facebook. It's never promised games or "liking" or videos.  They really didn't promise anything except to be forever ad-free. In this interview with Carson Daly , Ello CEO & Co-Founder try to set the record straight about what their site is and isn't. If you get an invite to join Ello, here's what to expect: Mini...

In a previous blog post, I stated that each entry should have a compelling image to catch attention. THIS IS STILL TRUE. However, I suggested using Google Image search and filtering the results by "labeled for reuse."  Technically speaking, this should have been a quick solution when needing images on the fly. You can usually tell if an image is copyrighted. HOWEVER, this isn't always the case as I found out the hard way after receiving a fine for using a Getty image (unknowingly). Obviously I had not paid for the licensed image, so as a result, I was charged a 470$ fine. OUCH. In retrospect, I know I was taking the lazy approach.  But when you need to do one or two blog posts a day, it can be tough to find a relevant image for each of them. So let me provide a great link with a collection of MANY free image sites (and this post will act as a bookmark for myself as well) 53+ Free Image Sources For Your Blog and Social Media Posts And remember, just be...

There are A LOT of self-named "gurus" of social media on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. (Take your pick.)  Let me say first off, I think calling yourself a guru is a wee bit narcissistic... But technically it's a LEADER in the field. If you're a leader in the field, your Twitter followers should have a "K" behind the number. If you're trying to make it as a marketing and/or social media professional, like me, you will read everything you possibly can on strategies, content, tone, branding, which platform to use... Not everyone can be right. And you know what? There is no right! There are only ideas, floating around like code bits in the matrix. Here is my ever-growing and changing Twitter list of Marketing and Social Media folks I follow.  I read what they have to say... Some of it I've heard before, some I disagree with, some of it I've tried and implement, and some advice is a little golden treasure I had not discovered. Each soci...

So interesting... I went to Yahoo.com to get the skinny on getting your website fully indexed in the Yahoo search engine.  I typed "submit your website" into the yahoo.com search box.  Wouldn't you think that one of the top search results in the yahoo.com search would be how to submit your site to Yahoo? Yeah... no.  NO mention of Yahoo on the first page of results.  Google AdWords, other services, Google webmaster tools, BING.  These results dominated Yahoo's search results. Is Yahoo trying to be self defeating?  Don't they have programmers working to ensure their web presence?  Yeah, their free email service is still OK, though they always seem to change their format based on Gmail services.  However, Yahoo needs extra ads on their pages to compensate for the revenue they're not generating; which slows down load time and is inconvenient for the user. Yahoo doesn't have its own social media platform like Google does (which inciden...

I have to make a formal apology to Google+.  In the previous blog post , I stated my opinion that, other than the "hangouts,"  Google+  seemed like little more than a simplified Facebook page. But then this morning, I was curious to know the origins of Labor Day, typed "Labor Day" in the search box and I discovered an article by a dear friend regarding Labor Day getaways and it was the 3rd search result... simply and only because she shared it on Google+. I don't know about you but that motivates me quite a bit more to utilize Google's social media tool. If you use blogger, it automatically prompts you to share with your circles.  It's nice not to have to set that up in your blog functionality and just have it "happen."

I am trying to make the transition from web designer to more of a marketing / social media role because that has been my passion for a while.  So naturally I use as many social media tools as possible, evaluating their end result and ways to fully utilize them. Obviously Facebook and Twitter  were a given in their massive popularity and YouTube began as a fun experiment for this singin dancin fool. Then I really wanted to blog about important and fun issues to me but find there's rarely time to spend the quality time I want on it.  I tried to keep regular posts going for a while but now I'm lucky if I post every month or so. Now there's Pinterest , which seems to be spreading like wildfire - and I enjoy it because I am such a visual person. Of course I'm an avid, daily user of LinkedIn for the purpose of networking in the job arena and finding that right place of employment. Then we have Google+ which you can't really ignore since, well it's Google...