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New Web 2.0 Startup Offers Fast Track to Mediocrity
2007-02-13 18:18:02
I’m generally a huge fan of new Web 2 .0 offerings for several reasons, the largest of which is probably that I enjoy all the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit surrounding this mini gold-rush we call “Web 2.0.” Ironically, it’s for this very reason that I am advising against new startup “Competitio.us.” The site’s sole mission is to help you keep an eye on your competition, and offers the following tools to get the job done: Clippings - Organize news clippings of your competition. Blog - Subscribe to your competition’s blog. Traffic Graph - Compare your website traffic to that of your competitors’. Feature Matrix - Keep track of and compare competitors’ features to your own. As a general rule, I don’t like to keep track of what my competitors are doing. The way I see it, how can my organization possibly gain from becoming much more LIKE our competition? I frankly don’t want to spend a moment of time workin...
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Very Best Firefox Extensions for Entrepreneurs
2007-02-13 18:18:02
These Fire fox extensions will greatly improve your ability to conduct business efficiently and effectively. Adsense Notifier - Display your Adsense earnings within the Firefox toolbar. Copy Plain Text - Have you ever copied something to Thunderbird or Office and been annoyed that the text formatting (bold, font size, etc) came with it? Feedview - Display an entire RSS feed as a web page. It also adds the ability to add a livemark and the ability to switch article lengths. FireFTP - secure, cross-platform FTP client. Free eBook Search - search for free eBooks to help you solve any business problem under the sun. Sage - stylish RSS and ATOM feed reader. RankQuest SEO Toolbar - several nifty tools to help you drive more traffic to your website. TimeTracker - Track how much time you spend on the internet. (especially useful for bloggers) StumbleUpon - Find great new websites to support your professional education. SpellBound - nifty Firefox spell checker.
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links for 2006-10-25
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Podcasting: Police Use Podcasts to Keep Public Informed To keep the public informed about police and public safety issues, the Tulsa (Okla.) Police Department has begun posting podcasts on its Web site. The radio-style show, which can be heard on a computer or personal digital music player, will be updated mon (tags: podcasting podcast innovation) Podcasting News » Web Developers Plan To Use Podcasts A large survey of web professionals has found that many are planning to use podcasting, blogs and wikis in the next 12 months to help build communities. (tags: podcasting podcast blogging wiki web development) What Your Web Site Can Learn from Starbucks One of many new writeups on the decline of the Starbucks empire. Their top brass claims it’s because of longer waits. I personally think that sticking a Starbucks inside every two-bit grocery store and mini-mall killed the brand. It’s no longer special (tags: starbucks brand marketing)
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Nurture Your Clients and Contacts
2007-02-13 18:18:02
A business advisor once gave me a great piece of advice: “Any time you read a magazine, newspaper, journal, etc., always ask yourself ‘Who do I know that could benefit from this information?’ Cut out the article and send it along to that person with a little personal note.” What great advice. Just asking the question “Who could benefit?” puts you in a nurturing mindset. Trust me - your contacts will not soon forget that you thought of them and took the time to send a personal note. I try to clip an article and send along to a friend at least once per week. It’s really pretty easy to do, and again, it sets you apart. Give it a try for six months and see the results for yourself. Other great blog posts having to do with nurturing techniques: John Jantsch Duct Tape Marketing - Add a 2 x 12 to your foundation Keith Ferrazzi - Finding your Currency Geof Morris - Thoughts on Never Eat Alone
More About: Contact , Your , Clients , Contacts , Client

links for 2006-11-03
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Communicate to an Audience of One | Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog Lewis Green makes a great argument for the lost art of writing for an audience of one. The same approach works very well for podcasting. The best broadcast pros will tell you to imagine there is one specific person listening to your show. Talk to just (tags: writing blogging style) advertising: How long do you keep in touch with prospects? Troy White breaks down this common question into a simple math equation. How many of us don?t even have a standard rule for keeping in touch with prospects? (tags: sales prospecting) Seth’s Blog: Will you be missed? Seth once again asks a great bottom-line question. What an interesting way to quickly evaluate where you are now and where you want to be in the future. (tags: customer-service brand purple cow)
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Episode 13 {Permission-Based Marketing}
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Download Episode 13 Permission-Based Market ing Download Special Interview with Cantaloupe & JibJab In this episode, Tony and Alan discuss many aspects of Permission-Based Marketing, including tips and tricks for your company’s email campaigns. As an added bonus, this show features a special interview with John DiGregory and Tom Corey of Cantaloupe Shows. Cantaloupe is an Indianapolis company specializing in permission-based marketing, leveraging video to tell their client’s stories. Also featured: a portion of Alan’s tBGR interview with JibJab’s Greg Spiridellis. View the Cantaloupe Six reality series.
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Tag, You?re It. Buzzoodle Ron Turns Me On to a Blogging Game
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Ron McDaniel (Buzz oodle Buzz Marketing Blog ) tagged my blog in a virtual “getting to know you” blogger game. Since I’ve been tagged, I’ll post five things most people don’t know about me below. I’ll then tag five other bloggers and encourage them to do the same. Thanks for including me Ron! Most of you may not know: I am a pretty accomplished musician/singer/songwriter. I play piano and keyboards pretty much by ear. I speak Spanish. I once talked my way on to Willie Nelson’s tour bus and hung out with his band for the day. I love to cook. I’m a sucker for a low-grade horror flick. And now to tag five other bloggers, thus spreading this “virus.” Hopefully they will do as I’ve done, thus helping us all discover new and exciting blogs. Lorraine Ball, Jose Castillo, Ann Handley, Andy Wibbels, David Meerman Scott
More About: Blogging , Game , Blogg

A Simple Way to Create Social Bookmarking Badges
2007-02-13 18:18:02
An important part of building blog traffic is placing easy bookmark links to the end of each blog post (see below). I just stumbled upon a service that promises to make this task much easier than it normally is for most bloggers. The service is called “Badged.” The process is simple: Enter your page title and URL, check off which badges you want, and click “Create Badges.” Copy the code into where you want the badges to appear. I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to within the next week or so. Hopefully this helps all you time-challenged bloggers out there!
More About: Social , Bookmark , Book , Simp , Social Bookmarking

Will You Let Another Year Go By Without Upgrading Your Website?
2007-02-13 18:18:02
If I’ve learned anything from my eight years (and counting) in the web design business, it’s that nobody enjoys updating their website content. Seriously, it’s like pulling teeth for most of us. Before those major web update plans regress to the back-back-back-burner another year, ask yourself this very serious question: “What opportunities will I miss out on if I don’t get this done?” Do you have a new product offering that isn’t even mentioned on your website? Is your staff page horribly out-of-date? Have you changed major focus three times since your last website redesign? I highly suggest completing the following three exercises within the next thirty days. Your results will certainly motivate you if you need a little kick in the pants. Examine your website as if you have just received a completed project from your web design firm. Take good notes. Are certain pages out of date? Is certain information lacking? Would you accept t...
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Every Website Needs a Supporting Cast These Days
2007-02-13 18:18:02
The main goal of an internet presence is and has always been to be found and understood. It’s generally the introduction to a (hopefully) long and fruitful business relationship. Much like a fisherman, webmasters and internet marketers fiddle with an array of different “cyber-bait,” lures, fishing nets, bass boats, etc. Let’s look at the current mix of internet “properties” that make up the Promethius Consulting web presence. Keep in mind that these change all the time as we constantly tinker to keep current with internet marketing best-practices. Promethius Consulting, LLC Webs ite - This is of course our foundation. The site has existed in one form or another since 2000. Promethius eMail Newsletter Archive - Although this is a sub-set of our main website, I list it here because it brings us so much traffic. Our archive spans all the way back to August of 2001. All that targeted content just sits there and works for the search engines year a...
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Episode 14 {Duct Tape Marketing and John Jantsch?s New Book}
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Download Episode 14 {Duct Tape Market ing } If you are an avid reader of the hugely-popular Duct Tape Marketing blog, you’ll want to rush right out and buy John Jantsch’s latest book entitled Duct Tape Marketing - The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide. I had a chance to chat with John about his book, his theories on marketing and some of the common marketing “pitfalls” business owners fall into. What I really like about John’s approach is that he demystifies marketing. He has this way of making it all sound fairly simple and, most importantly, attainable. If you’re interested in purchasing his new book, I would suggest checking out his bonus offers page. If you haven’t read the Duct Tape Marketing blog, here are two of my favorite recent posts of John’s: Does your firm suffer from feature creep? (How true it is!!) Basecamp for Lead Generation (Very clever!)
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Episode 15 {How to Recruit the Very Best People}
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Download Episode 15 {How to Recruit the Very Best People } In business, we all compete for the very best people. We visit with two experts today to gain insight into real-world techniques for recruiting the very best staff. My first guest is George Lessmeister. George has fourteen years of documented success within the specialty recruiting industry. A former Sr. Regional Vice President with an international financial staffing firm, he was instrumental in the growth and development of a nine-branch region in the Central United States. Today George is President and co-founder of LGC Associates, a staffing firm specializing in the recruitment and placement of business administration professionals and food service and hospitality professionals. George really knows his stuff! One important lesson I learned from this interview is that using the services of a good recruiting firm is of no cost to you until and unless you hire a candidate supplied by th...
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Podcasters - Enough With The Mindless Banter!!
2007-02-13 18:18:02
I’ve recently gone on a new podcast bender in an attempt to spice up my morning commute. I’d venture to guess that I’ve subscribed to six or seven new podcasts within the past week. It’s been an interesting experiment…unfortunately mostly futile. I’m surprised at how many podcasters seem to lack a feel for their own pace. A common mistake is what I like to call the “pre-content banter.” This is the portion where the host and his sidekick giggle back and forth with each other, usually about inside jokes, and often make reference to personal minutia having nothing to do with the topic of the show. One thing to keep in mind is that a podcast listener has an unbelievable range of choice at his fingertips. In five seconds he can back out of your podcast and start up another one. In fact I do this all the time. There is so much choice out there that you simply have to respect the listener at all times if you want to retain that listene...
More About: Pod , Podcast , With , Mind , Cast

Our Podcast Reviewed by Small Business Trends Radio
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Steve Rucinski over at Small Business Trends Radio wrote a nice review of our podcast. It’s rewarding to be recognized by your peers. The SMBTrendwire site regularly reviews business-oriented podcasts and is a great resource if you are looking to fill up your iPod with new discoveries.
More About: Small Business

Odeo Player Now Shows Up in Google Reader
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Thanks to the folks over at Your Daily for this find. If you use the Blog This functionality from Odeo, to put an audio on your blog page, the Odeo player will now show up in Google Reader for readers of your blog who happen to use Reader. Here’s a screenshot:
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An Instant Cure.
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Blogging is tough sometimes.  It takes commitment and focus, and perhaps most of all, ideas.  I was sitting here blankly staring at my computer screen wondering what in the world I was going to write today. The well was dry.   The game was over.  I was about to be exposed for being absolutely irrelevant.  What to do?!?! And then I checked a favorite blog and found this post.  Thanks Ron!
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Podcasting Gives Job Seekers an Edge
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Straight Up Search has a great post about how listening to recorded messages (think podcasts) from job candidates can help employers better understand a candidate’s true personality. What a great idea! I can think of several times that I have been quite excited to meet a certain applicant, only to find out later in a face-to-face interview that his personality in no way matches his resumé. It’s a real time-burner to weed out candidates this way. Listening to a brief “podcast greeting” attached to each resumé would help greatly. I continue to see podcasting as kind of a “third dimension” internet technology. It delivers a much more complete feel for a person than does the printed page.
More About: Pod , Podcasting , Podcast , Cast , Give

No Excuses for Missing the International Podcasting Expo This Weekend
2007-02-13 18:18:02
O.K. Pod cast Producers! There are no excuses for missing the upcoming Inter national Podcasting Expo as it occurs entirely online. I am really excited to follow this event right from the comfort of my own home this weekend. There are lots of great networking opportunities with other podcasters, podcasting seminars and workshops, and of course exhibitors galore. Here is the complete podcast expo schedule for this weekend. Their list of speakers is pretty impressive, including Andy Wibbels of BlogWild!, Peter Davis of ClickCaster, and Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting. See you all in Cyberspace this weekend!
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Corporate Podcast Success Story: Battlestar Galactica
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Season three of the surprise hit Sci-Fi series remake Battlestar Galactica premiers tonight. Do you have your tasers set to “stun?” (I know, wrong show!) Battlestar’s production company does a lot of very creative things to make Battlestar fans feel incredibly connected with the show in every way possible. A major tool in their quest to generate a real connection with fans is the BSG Pod cast, which stars Battlestar Executive Producer Ron Moore. Ron recently spoke at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo about the value of podcasting. clipped from webpronews.com “You can sum up the show, what it’s about, what went wrong, what went right. It’s all very fresh. DVD commentaries are made months or years after. With podcasts, it’s still in the moment. You have no reaction before the audience sees it. It’s real and natural.” “I could never imagine having this kind of connection with my audience a couple of years ago.” Ron M...
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Why We Blog
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Ron over at Buzzoodle has a great post entitled “How Blog ging Helps.” He reminds us that business blogs give our potential customers a chance to get to know a bit about us before entering in to a business relationship with us. “When you are writing a blog post, you frequently do it out of habit, and you do not think about the readers. You should, because they are reading what you write and deciding on the level of relationship they will have with you.” Our own Episode 11 podcast is a perfect example of why blogging works. I stumbled upon Ron’s blog a month or so prior to that episode and found his ideas on Buzz Marketing to be really interesting. I immediately wrote him a note asking if he would be interested in appearing on our show and he graciously accepted. The rest is “ep11 History.” This process was so quick and so easy because Ron’s blog made the introduction for him. I knew he would be a great guest before I ever met him. ...

links for 2006-10-07
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Robert Scoble Talks Podcasting Scoble gives you some great insight and advise on where to start in Podcasting. (tags: Podcasting Scoble News) Search Engine Probes Podcast A new search engine seeks to drive traffic to podcasts and video blogs while sharing the ad revenue. (tags: podcast search enging business) Cingular Teams With Melodeo to Offer Mobile Podcasting Cingular customers can now search and listen to thousands of podcasts that interest them, including news, sports, entertainment and more, on their Cingular phones. (tags: mobile podcasting cingular news) Kansas State Launches Podcasting Initiative Kansas State plans to have all 6,000 class podcasts available to its students this year, making it by far the education realm’s largest podcasting implementation worldwide. (tags: podcasting university education kansas state classroom)
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links for 2006-10-08
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Multiply: A Different Approach To Social Networking This clever approach will have the Social Networking leader Del.icio.us playing catchup soon enough. (tags: social networking multiply del.icio.us) Technophilia: Craigslist for power users - Lifehacker (tags: craigslist) What is RSS? - Lawn Tennis Association RSS allows you to see when sites from all over the internet have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and articles (or even audio files, photographs or video) in one place… (tags: rss feed atom xml) RSS, Blogs Head Up Holiday Marketing Plans for Etailers : Business Blog Consulting Nearly half, 41.6 percent, of retailers will incorporate blogs or RSS feeds into their holiday marketing strategy, and 79.5 percent will use viral marketing at social networking sites, like MySpace and Friendster… (tags: business blogging rss viral marketing social networking MySpace) Sun CEO at front of blogging trend At the helm of Sun Microsystems Inc., Jonathan ...
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Zoho Cracks the ?Single Sign-on? Nut.
2007-02-13 18:18:02
I had a history teacher that used to call these “watershed events.” You know… things like the Polio vaccine, Women’s suffrage, seedless watermelon. We were never the same after these things. And now we have this: single sign-on from Zoho. Avid readers of this blog have long since figured out that I am quite a fan of the web application developers Zoho. One minor irritation for users has been that each service or application required a separate login account. Lately I’ve been using Zoho CRM and Zoho Sheet quite a bit. It did cross my mind more than once that it would be nice to log in just one time and have access to all Zoho applications that I use. And now we have it. Oh joy! Here is their full write-up.
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links for 2006-10-09
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Future rosy for young entrepreneur Not only has she produced a unique item that customers like, she?s also selling it retail. And she?s only 12 years old. (tags: entrepreneur feel-good) Internet Payroll Entrepreneur Develops Online Tutorials - PR.com Along with the tutorial is a fanciful analogy illustrating the positive impact of compound interest. Students can clearly see the dollar amount earned build over time… (tags: online business tutorial payroll) Organizing entrepreneur helps get entrepreneurs organized Having trouble finding that important document that?s lost somewhere under the pile of papers on your desk? Well, you?re not alone. And a growing number of entrepreneurs calling themselves professional organizers are exploiting messy desks and chaotic (tags: entrepreneur organizer learning consultant) Angel Investor Directory Finding the right angel investor could help you get your start-up off the ground. Angel-investor networks are a good place to start looking...
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links for 2006-10-10
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Small Business Trends » The Wiki - No Longer Trapped in the Land of the Nerds We did a podcast a few months back on the power of wikis for business websites. Anita Campbell has a good update on the status of wikidom. She mentions Jotspot, which we have been experimenting with here at Promethius for about the past month. This is (tags: business wiki jotspot) One - to - One Direct Mail Doesn’t Have to Be Ho-Hum Any more I’m a fan of very small target client lists for marketing purposes. Years ago we used to mail out pieces 5,000 at a time. For many reasons, this just doesn’t make sense in today’s world. If you do your homework and whittle your target list dow (tags: direct mail marketing creative design idea)
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Advance Your Career - Learn THIS Second Language (never guess which one I s
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Want to advance your career by becoming fluent in a second language? Forget French. Say so-long to Spanish. You won’t believe what lingo I’d strongly suggest before any of the romance languages! We Americans rank about dead-last among industrialized societies when it comes to speaking a second language. There are many reasons for this — some valid and some a bit short-sighted. I happen to be almost fluent in Spanish but I rarely get to use it conversationally. I certainly don’t benefit professionally from my Spanish knowledge. For me it’s just a fun thing to do. It’s difficult to get other professionals enthused about learning a second language, and I can’t blame them. We all are so pressed for time. We are spread thin. We can’t even catch up on our email. How can one commit the hours upon hours, weeks upon weeks, that it takes to truly learn a new language if she will rarely have a chance to use, let alone profit from it? ...
More About: Your , Care , Earn , Career , This

A Skilled Blogger Makes it Look So Simple
2007-02-13 18:18:02
I don’t claim to be any more qualified than the next guy to judge great writing from just decent writing, but we bloggers get used to having and sharing strong opinions about things. I’ve just been enjoying reading through recent blog posts of one of my favorite bloggers — Ann Handley — and this post really made me take notice. Man, she is SO GOOD!! You other bloggers surely know where I’m coming from. When we find someone that somehow manages to stand out in this endless idea-tickertape we call the blogosphere, we really take notice. More importantly, we want to understand how she does it! Well, I’m happy to report that after about 90 minutes of sifting through roughly ten Ann Handley blog posts this morning (with the help of three cups of coffee and a bowl of Count Chocula somewhere along the way), I have cracked her code. So here it is. The 5 Things That Make Ann Handley Float to the Top of the Primordial Blog osphere Ooze Attitude - You re...
More About: Blogger , Simp , Simple

links for 2006-10-17
2007-02-13 18:18:02
Podcasting Grabs Grade-schoolers It’s fun to see that kids are getting into the podcasting game. I would imagine they get quite a sense of pride when they hear a completed podcast for the first time. This article is just another reminder to me of the educational power of podcasting, bo (tags: Podcasting podcast education)
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Top 10 Podcasts Every Business Owner Should Listen to Religiously
2007-02-13 18:18:02
One of the reasons that I decided to become a professional Pod cast Producer is because I could see how much real learning I was able to do by listening to podcasts during the time that I might otherwise waste. My morning commutes are key learning opportunities. The treadmill also provides at least a good half hour to listen to one of my favorite business-oriented podcasts . So take it from a “knowledge junkie.” Podcast s are amazing sources of nearly free learning. If you don’t supplement your ongoing education with targeted podcast consumption, then maybe you aren’t serious about getting that next promotion. These are the 10 business-oriented podcasts that I have found to be exceptional : CIO Podcast(website| feed) overview: Great in-depth podcast for the manager that needs serious technology content. Might be a little overbearing for some. If technology is not your main focus, then you can get away with just casual listenership. The Engaging Brand Podcast (...
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A Peek Inside My Favorite Links
2007-02-13 18:18:02
I thought I’d post a few of my favorite links here in the hopes that you might find them useful and/or entertaining. Let me know what you think! jotspot is a web 2.0 application that the Promethius staff has been trying out. It is wiki- based and is generally quite intuitive. What makes jotspot really stand apart are its ready-make wiki applications which include a project manager, blog app, spreadsheet app and bug tracker. Google Blog Search aims all the force of the mighty Google search at blogs only. Of course, Technorati is just as good in my opinion. This xml sitemap generator will help greatly in creating a Google-friendly sitemap. What links can you share?
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