Google TV Has Landed
Looks like we're one step closer to trading in our 19" computer monitors for our 50" LCDs. Then perhaps we can all finally die happy.
-Dusty.
Four Amazing Resources for Finding Blog Topics
Let's face it, people have more options than they know what to do with when it comes to subscribing to blogs. How on earth can you keep things interesting day-in and day-out without blogging yourself into the poor house with all the time you spend researching? How do some bloggers constantly find something great to talk about?
Answer: They use some great tools.
Blogging and creating great social media content is not about knowing everything, it's about being resourceful. It's about letting others do most of the heavy lifting for you, and then putting your own spin on things. Here's four great resources for finding fascinating topics to blog and tweet about no matter what your subject matter may be.
StumbleUpon - Just pick a topic you want to chat about today and click the stumble button until something catches your eye.
AllTop - Find out what's hot right now on just about any topic you can imagine.
SmartBrief - Get daily email updates on hot topics in your industry.
Google Alerts - Setup email alerts on a daily or weekly basis to find out what's ranking at the top in Google for certain topics each day or week.
-Dusty.
Using Humor to Smooth Over Customer Service Issues
I'm an avid Pandora user both on my computer and my phone, but from time to time I like to use a fun little internet radio site called Grooveshark instead. Upon visiting Grooveshark today I was dismayed to find their servers were down, but quickly forgot all about that once I read the thoroughly amusing webpage they put up explaining the outage.
You can check it out here: http://down.grooveshark.com/
I found this a fantastic (and refreshingly unique) way to mitigate potential customer service issues. You can bet I'll be visiting GrooveShark again soon when they're back up.
Just another great example as to why it's getting more important to personalize your business.
-Dusty.
The Effects of Social Media on SEO
Nice presentation by Hubspot on the evolving nature of search engine optimization (SEO). The video talks you through how SEO has evolved first from being all about page content (Context), to being heavily influenced by inbound links (Authority), and now to being highly customized based largely off of social media data (Personalized).
"At any one time you rank #1 or #8 or #40 based on who is searching, where they search, and what is happening."
In other words, who you're connected to, what is known about your interests, and things like your search history affect the order of how websites appear in your searches.
So one basic answer to the question "Why does social media matter?" is for search engine optimization.
Check out the presentation below if you want more info, or watch the video if you're really salivating. 
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