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(continued...)

MUSIC BREAK

JAY: This section of the podcast is called “Live from the Blog.” Each week the team at www.tengoldenrules.com  blogs about trends they’re uncovering. The blog is located at http://tengoldenrulesblog.blogspot.com   or you can click on the blog link on our homepage at www.tengoldenrules.com. Here’s some of the top things that the team has uncovered this week. First up is Margie.

MARGIE: If you’ve noticed things like Google Maps, froogal listings and videos at the top of Google’s search results, you’ve noticed their latest innovation, universal search. It’s a massive change for our industry and it’s impact is only starting to be felt. I appreciate the richness of search results as a regular user of Google, and feel energized by the possibilities for our clients. Recently a client video we uploaded to YouTube and GoogleVideo almost instantly infiltrated the Google universal search results, making a big splash for our client. Goggle’s innovation is already challenging the way we approach search engine optimization and the end result, if you apply the appropriate creativity and strategic thinking, is another doorway to social media marketing.

JEFF: This is Jeff. Last week I bought a Palm Treo and went to the MyPalm site to register my Treo to get free updates and free software. While I was there I had to register and part of the registration process is proving you’re an individual, a real person, not an automated bot. That little system is called a “captcha.”  It’s that little four or five or six letter code that is generated, that you fill in, that a bot doesn’t recognize, that shows you’re a real person. Well when I went to MyPalm and registered the captcha that came up was a curse word. Not your random four-letter word that many people would be offended by, but it was still, I won’t bother saying it on this podcast but I’ll spell it out for you. It was a-n-u-s. Many people out there would probably be offended by that. At first I thought it was kind of funny but the more I thought about it, the more offended I was. So if the vice president of marketing or customer relations of Cingular, or AT&T or Palm is out there, you should be careful what’s going on. And if you want to send me a free palm, that’d be great in the process.

SUSANNA: Hi, this is Susanna and lately I’ve been watching the growing trend of how-to, do-it-yourself and instructional videos booming across the internet. Many of us, including myself, search for these videos regularly. Whether we want to learn how to do magic card tricks, boil an egg, open a stuck drive in your PC or learn new hula-hooping techniques, we can find a video, usually a plethora of videos, on the internet. Here are a few sites that are aiding us in our search for these videos. YouTube, purchased last year for 1.6 billion dollars by Google, is the most popular and widely-known video viewing and sharing site. ExpertVillage, recently purchased by Demand Media, contains how-to videos and articles from credentialed experts. And VideoJug provides how-to videos by experts and users. So what sites are you using to satisfy your how-to craving?

KATHRYN: Hi, this is Kathryn. Touting themselves as the “trustworthy encyclopedia” Conservapedia is rapidly getting noticed in the media as the conservative online encyclopedia that is taking on Wikipedia, the number 9th ranked site on the internet. In a stroke of brilliance this little encyclopedia that could has gotten our attention with its rather alternative viewpoint. Unlike Wikipedia, it’s not trying to claim it’s unbiased. This social networking site revels in its narrow viewpoint of the world, claiming that its contents are educational, clean and concise. I foresee in the next couple of weeks as being very busy for Conservapedia. Bloggers will either vilify the conservative viewpoint or support the conservative view with almost a religious zeal.

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JAY: Well thank you very much to the team. That’s our first time out and I think everyone did a great job. This next section is called “What’s Hot”. Each week we’ll look at a website or a trend or a technique that’s got a lot of buzz on the internet. So here’s the “What’s Hot” intro.

MUSIC - WHAT’S HOT INTRO

JAY:  One website is incredibly hot right now, seems like everybody’s talking about it, and that website is Facebook. Until recently Facebook was the MySpace for University students.  The business community preferred a website called LinkedIn. Right now Facebook is the hot site for social networking at any age. The site Facebook was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard University. Initially the site featured student photos and information Zuckerberg hacked out of the Harvard student records. After some resistance from the Harvard Administration, the site was re-launched as a student directory. The students filled in all of the information and the site took off. Soon friends at other schools including Yale and Stanford wanted a version of the site. After his sophomore year Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto, California for the summer. Once he landed some VC funding he took the advice of another Harvard drop-out, named Bill Gates, and he deferred his schooling. He hasn’t gone back. By 2005 there were over 5 million active Facebook users and in September of 2006 the site was opened up to absolutely everyone and the thing absolutely took off. A cover story on Fast Company Magazine in May seemed to propel awareness into the stratosphere. Seems like everyone is talking about Fast Company now.

We recently met with John Donovan, he’s the COO of Lending Club. This is a great concept. It’s person to person lending and the website launched their product, in beta, on Facebook. There’s no dot-com for this site, it’s only available on Facebook. And Mitch Joel from SIX PIXELS formed a Facebook Group. It’s called “The Six Pixels of Separation Podcast Society.” Just three weeks ago he started it up and there’s already almost 400 members on the society. Now if you’re on Facebook or LinkedIn, please search for Jay Berkowitz and send me a friend request. I’d love to connect with you.

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