The Social Networking Mistakes of Nichepreneurs

I found this article written by Susan A. Friedmann, an internationally recognized niche marketing expert on Social Networking: The Five Biggest Mistakes Nichepreneurs Make.

In the age of MySpace, YouTube, Delicious and FriendFeed - social networking has become not just a fad, but a part of today's lifestyle. Susan Friedmann discusses how companies should look at social networks as a worldwide community that can be a powerful tool for word-of-mouth advertising. People share insights with friends in these communities, these insights might be feedback about your product.

Mistake #2 is the mistake of using social networks purely for advertising. Social networks are a good place for building your brand, but they are a good place for market research as well. Listen to what your customers are saying and improve your product accordingly.

Mistake #3 tells nichepreneurs that the internet is a form of media just like TV, radio and print. There are real-world consequences when you behave badly online - word gets out just as fast as when you behave badly on TV (maybe even faster!). So be good and be on your best behavior!

Mistake #4 is the use of sock puppets. Sock puppets, are false identities people create to boost a product or give negative comments about a competitor's product. Believe it or not, it is very easy to spot these types of accounts in social networks and it is very annoying to read the same type of comments over and over again. It's very bad practice if you ask me!

Mistake #5 pulls us back to the ground. Social Networks are great, they have a huge influence on customers, but they have to be utilized in conjunction with other marketing efforts. It cannot be used on its own.

This is a great article, hope you learned something from it too!

HD Video From an SLR - The New D90

I'm thinking of upgrading my SLR and I saw this press release about the D90 that's coming out in Mid-October. I do use my SLR in our business - it's earned me the most money so far in our event services.

All these description about the HD video capture mode sounds so good, but is it really practical? I can think about a hundred ways I can use video to enhance my event photography products. Do you think the HD video capture is a good add-on to an SLR?

clipped from www.pcmag.com Nikon announced an upgrade to the Editors' Choice-winning D80 D-SLR. The D90 sports a 12.3-megapixel sensor, improved overall image quality, and high-def video capability. When in HD video capture mode, the camera can record with any lens and with any other image adjustments like color filter effects, lighting modes, and exposure settings. An HDMI out also allows for picture and audio/video playback on HDTVs. Users should also see an improvement in the clarity of images viewed on the 3-inch LCD screen. The new screen now packs 920,000 pixels, compared to its predecessor, which was only 230,000 pixels. The D90 will be available mid-October at an estimated retail price of $999.95 for the body only.

The Power of Women's Social Networks

This was an interesting study, women seem to take advantage of their social networks more than their male counterparts.

I was watching Michelle Obama's speech yesterday when she recounted how she left her position as an intellectual property lawyer to go into social service and make the right connections.

This move paved the way for her husband's political aspirations. It was Michelle's connections, her social network, that they took advantage of to help in her husband's campaigns for public office.

I admire the way Michelle Obama talks, she's intelligent, smart and gets right to the point. I think in some aspects, she is very much like Hillary Clinton - and maybe if her husband wins the elections she may do a lot of good as first lady as well.

She gives credit to the phrase, "Behind every great man there is a great woman."

clipped from www.canada.com Female workers get by - and earn more - with a little help from their friends, a new study shows, but men don't enjoy the same boost from their social networks.

Getting Away from the Automatic

While taking pictures in dark bowling lanes, I realized that it was time to stop using the Automatic setting in my SLR and try using it's Manual capabilities. Of course, reading the book I bought about my camera was not an option. So we had coffee with our good friend, Butch and he taught me what ISO meant and how to use it. He even showed me my lighting options - the technical term being White Balance so that I could adjust my shots depending on where I was taking pictures.

I use Photoshop to cure my pictures, but I want to take great pictures and not have to edit them all the time. This lesson with Butch gave me a new perspective on what the Automatic setting in my camera does not do. So after almost two years with my SLR, I finally want to use it the way it was designed to be used.

Butch snapped pictures of us while teaching us about lighting. He was a great tutor. Thanks a lot, Butch!

L'Oreal Paris' Color of Hope for Ovarian Cancer Research

Ovarian Cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecological cancers in the US and is the fifth leading cause of death in US women.

Signs and Symptoms of Ovarian Cancer include:

• Vague but persisten unexplained gastrointestinal complaints such as gas, nausea or indigestion


• Abdominal bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, or feeling of fullness


• Unexplained change in bowel habits (constipation or diarrhea)


• Unexplained weight gain or loss


• Frequency and urgency of urination


• Unusual fatigue


• Shortness of breath


• New and unexplained abnormal postmenopausal vaginal bleeding

Are you or your loved one at risk? Here is a list of risk factors:

• Highest occurence is in women over 50 - increasing age, increases your risk


• Family or personal history of ovarian, breast, endometrial or colon cancer


• Uninterrupted ovulation (having no pregnancies, infertility, low parity)


• Presence of gene mutations especially BRCA1 or BRCA2

For more information, please visit L'Oreal Paris' website.

I found this ad as I was browsing through my shopping newsletters. They are launching a cosmetics collection where they will donate $5 to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund for every product sold this September.

Personally I don't usually buy cosmetics because I don't work in an industry where you need to wear make-up. But because of a fundraising show I will be a part of, I thought I'd look into purchasing some cosmetics. I usually use hypoallergenic foundations from Neutrogena or Clinique, but I do go to L'Oreal for colors like eyeshadows and lip colors - so being able to donate to a worthy cause while getting great cosmetics is a win-win situation for me!

I think L'Oreal has done a great job in incorporating this fundraising opportunity for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund with their product line. I hope many other companies are so inclined to fund such worthy researches as this one. Great job!

Kevin Mitnick : Weakest Link in Cybersecurity Today

What do you see as the biggest threats to cybersecurity today?

Cybersecurity used to be about the network or operating system. Now it's more at the application layer. Companies and their contractors build their own applications hosted on a public Web site, and the people who write them aren't trained in secure coding. The mistakes they make can be leveraged to break the system.

This is from an interview Forbes.com had with Kevin Mitnick who is one of the most infamous hackers today. The story of his capture was turned into the film called Takedown in 2000.

We have become our own worst enemies. Because of all the advertising around - from web hosting companies, web development companies, etc. - that it is easy to put up your own website companies have delved into this enterprise with developers who have just learned scripting languages - who might have self-studied them at that.

New developers who have never come across the concept of network security. Naive developers who think that as long as they have a good systems administrators their applications are safe and that they have nothing to do with keeping their applications protected.

These are the biggest threats to cybersecurity today. With the proliferation of SQL injection, denial of service and other types of attacks to bring down a web server - all developers must design secure code. They must, from the start, know what defenses are available to them in the language they are using and follow the best practices so that their application is not vulnerable.

After all, a famous hacker has already pointed to us as the weakest link in cybersecurity today!

Letting Other Sites Promote Your Content

National Geographic has syndicated their widgets to third-party sites, letting other sites use their widgets and link back to them.

They are getting their content out there, as a publisher their content is their product - so they are effectively having these third-party sites promote them.

Brilliant strategy, right? This new kind of co-branding is a concept advertising agencies are starting to take into consideration.

Great idea! Keep up the good work.

clipped from www.computerworld.com August 18, 2008 (Computerworld) National Geographic Digital Media is taking its foray into the world of widgets to the next level with a new campaign to let third parties co-brand and add the widgets to their own sites. Rob Covey, National Geographic's senior vice president for content and design, said those agreements extend the potential reach of the National Geographic-branded widget to more than 3 million new users.

Congratulations, Michael Phelps!

Team USA favorite, Michael Phelps, has broken the world record with his 8th Olympic gold medal win in the Beijing Olympics. Congratulations!

Above is a screenshot of the NBC Olympics website featuring this incredible athlete. Good job!

Sony Vaio Desktop: PC + HDTV

I saw this 22-inch flat screen from Sony at Fry's yesterday. Because I have recently had my eyes only on Dell and the Apple Store, I naively asked a store clerk if I could buy the monitor separately.

I give that store clerk points for not laughing at me as he explained that I can't because the monitor is the PC! Wow! And it's wall-mountable too! Imagine how clean your home office would be if you just had this monitor on your wall and this ultra-thin wireless keyboard that can be hidden to minimize dust when you're not working on it.

Oh, and yes, it is also an HDTV. It can optionally play blu-ray discs. And it's an energy star appliance!

Wow! There are models that actually have Intel Core 2 Duo Processors, up to 4 GB of memory and 1 TB of storage capacity. This costs around $2,299 in the Sony online store - not bad, huh?

I think the Mac just gained a rival for my heart!

clipped from www.sonystyle.com

Shutterfly: Share Your Photos Online

I love taking pictures and of all the photo sites I tried using I am most satisfied with Shutterfly. Last year I compiled our photos from church group activities into a 2008 calendar, I had two shipments delivered and over 50 copies distributed to our members. I have to smile when I visit friends' homes and see the calendar displayed somewhere. I've had others tell me they have the calendar displayed at work. The quality of the Shutterfly calendar, their speedy delivery and great bulk discounts had me hooked on their service.

Last week they launched their Share Sites component, which I put to very good use as you can see above. You can launch a share site by just uploading your pictures, clicking on Create a Share Site, type in the required fields and invite your friends. Yes, it's that easy! The site looks professionally done, your photos are featured wonderfully by the design and you have an option to blog and add more sections in the site. For me, it was a great way to be able to share photos I took at our events without having to print them or save them all to disk and hand them out like I did last year. For my friends, they can order prints, photo gifts, and other products using the photos without having to ask me to do it for them. So it's a win-win for everybody!

Great feature! Keep up the good work, Shutterfly.

Great Article: 10 Worst Web Glitches by Rafe Needleman

Rafe Needleman of Webware compiled this list of the 10 Worst Web Glitches of 2008 (so far). I love this <a href="http://news.cnet.com/glitches/">article</a>! It's the same fascination I guess when you watch commentators critique bad fashion choices by stars on the red carpet, but for web technologies instead.

It just reiterates the fact that Web 2.0 has its flaws, these great big web technologies have failed at some point in their lifespan - they're not perfect. But they survived - and for a developer, it brings hope that maybe my applications will too.

clipped from news.cnet.com We have been reminded several times lately that Web 2.0 is in no way a synonym for "reliable." What happened: These massive infrastructure services, Amazon's S3 especially, underpin many Web 2.0 companies. When they go down, big sites go down. When the sites go down, they lose money. What happened: Twitter began to get unreliable. It's up, then it's down. Repeat. What happened: Mozilla announced the release data of the Firefox 3.0 and its goal to get a million downloads on that day. When the day comes, the download doesn't work.

Trashionista at the 2008 Pisay Homecoming

I'm not sure how many of my Pisay (Philippine Science High School) batchmates actually read this blog, but for those who do - another year has passed and another Pisay Homecoming is fast approaching. Please save the date, this year's homecoming is on September 6th, Saturday.

And though I would love to go, my vacation to the Philippines must be postponed for a couple more years.

I love the evening program highlights though - "trashionista," a green fashion show. Saving the environment must be on everyone's to-do list right now - and I think this is a brilliant way to promote this.

Good luck to this year's host, Pisay Berde, the class of 1983! Wow! Hope you get a lot of attendees.

clipped from www.friendster.com Pisay Homecoming 2008 Calling all PSHS alumni especially the jubilarians of 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998 and 2003 to attend the 2008 PSHS homecoming at the school gym on Saturday, September 6th. This year's host is Pisay Berde, the class of 1983. Registration for the evening program which highlights a "trashionista" fashion show featuring recyclable materials adapted as day wear (and evening wear) starts at 7 PM. Pre registration ongoing. Please visit our websitehttp://www.pshs83.org...... or http://www.pshsaa.org....... You may also contact Ms. Lilyann Manligot Alberto at 09196615295 or 9412436 or Email ms Gladys Barrer at prereg@ymail.com.

Photoree: Photo Recommendations

I love photographs especially of nature, animals and amazing architecture. And of people captured in one frame executing a beautiful movement. I think photos are like poetry, they tug at your heartstrings and leave you in awe that you have managed to catch a single second in a lifetime to look back on and reminisce.

I found this flickr photo recommendation site called, Photoree. It lets you rate photos so that it can learn what you like. You can bookmark the photos, check their license for use, find the photographer and the website where it is posted. Then you can join the discussion in their forum, invite your friends to the site or recommend a flickr collection that you would like to feature on the site. They have beautiful photographs, they are a sight for sore eyes.

I love the simplicity of the site design. It's a nice way to showcase your photos, if you so choose. Good job on this website!

Dragon Basketball

clipped from www.google.com

This is one of my favorite Google images to date that correlates to the Olympics. Although when you think about it, it's not the year of the dragon in the Chinese calendar - but I guess China has long been associated with this magnificent creature that we can overlook that little tidbit.

Basketball. The Filipinos' favorite sport and yet I am not even sure we have a team competing... Our Filipino boxer lost. Well, we still have taekwondo to look forward to I guess - or is that done too? I have to check my widget for the schedule.

I'm enjoying the swimming and diving competitions - so far those are the only events I've watched on TV. I must admit I find myself cheering for Team USA nowadays!

Online Video: From South Africa to Chicago

This news article caught my eye in the Chicago Sun Times. Online video proliferation has grown immensely in the past few years as its use in broadcasting the Olympics has shown. But to use online video as an educational tool to connect two very different individuals/communities is a brilliant concept!

People are often visual beings and sometimes teaching students using pictures and a whiteboard isn't enough. Using online video to show them social justice, being able to communicate with someone who experienced the apartheid - now that gets students' attention.

Great work, Professor Lawrence! I hope you inspire many other educators to use online technologies to educate the world.

clipped from www.suntimes.com Haq, who grew up in Lombard and whose parents are from Pakistan, took the eye-opening tour as part of the course "Prophets: Visions of Social Justice," in which students talked live in online video sessions with activists and students in South Africa. Oliver Lawrence, an adjunct professor at Elmhurst and other area colleges, co-designed the course because he wanted to use his expertise as a self-taught computer programmer to give students a bigger view of the world. "I thought, 'I'd like to give Cape Town access to the world,'" Lawrence said. "There is a way these disenfranchised communities can access the best education in the world, and at the same time let students meet activists from the 1960s civil rights movement in Chicago."

08.08.08 at the Huntington Memorial Hospital

This is where I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing. And though it may look like it, it is not a hotel!

My mother-in-law had been taken to The Huntington Memorial Hospital earlier in the day because she fell and hurt her leg and head while preparing to go to her Adult Health Center. She dialed 9-1-1 and was brought to this hospital, which was probably the nearest hospital to where she lived in Pasadena.

We got a call from her admitting physician at around lunch time to tell us what happened and to ask us a few questions because he could not understand what she was saying for the most part.

When we finally got there it was almost 5 PM, traffic was terrible and we had to close our place up in case we needed to stay with her all weekend. The first time we drove right passed it, thinking it was a hotel, but I caught a glimpse of the entrance sign and we had to turn back.

Maybe it's an indication of the opulence of the city supporting it, but the manicured lawns, the flowers in the gardens, the fountains in the right wing didn't seem like it belonged to a hospital. The reception area looked no different than a hotel lobby. When we found my mother-in-law's room, it had the dark wood tones in its cabinetry that our interior-designed office back in Marbella Towers had. It had a small table near the window with what looked like internet ports where you could possibly connect your laptop to. The nurses even had a pull down computer station in one wall of the room. Wow, is right!

It had this ultra-comfortable window seat that gave you an awesome view of the San Gabriel Mountains. And it had a flat screen TV mounted just right so the patient in the bed and the two sitting areas for visitors - the window seat and the lounge chair had a perfect view of what's on.

My mother-in-law was ok when we arrived, she looked comfortable and she said she was a little dizzy but not that bad. The nurses took care of her, although I could tell they were not used to patients who were hard of hearing - my mother-in-law did not want to wear her hearing aid in bed.

So while we visited her, we tuned in to NBC to watch the opening ceremonies. The sheer number of performers was amazing. The light show and fireworks show was awe-inspiring. The way they tied their country's history to every number was brilliant. It was so long, but it was truly major eye candy!

Did you notice how President Bush and Laura Bush were seated in bleacher-like chairs instead of the usual VIP box? Apparently all the dignitaries were seated there, but it sure was a rare sight!

Where did you watch the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games? Were you as comfortable as I was?

Photo source: HDR Inc.

Cool Tool: EasyBib

Term papers, reports, thesis - I've written my share of them. Plus I was a copy editor once for scientific journals. I used to have a small pocket-size book with writing guidelines for term papers and reports. This was where I looked up how to format my bibliography entries - and it had been challenging in my day. The internet had only started becoming popular and I loved researching online so the rules for writing bibliographic entries for online articles were still a bit undefined.

And then you had to figure out if the article had an author, an editor, publish date, etc. Then you had to type out the bibliography entry following the format you found. And to spice it up a notch, some professors preferred APA formatting while others preferred the MLA - I think there were times when I mixed the two styles!

Yes, those were the days... Students today have things so much easier, I found this wonderful site called EasyBib, which does all the hard work of figuring out the bibliography format for you. You just type in the required parameters and it gives you the entry (which you can now copy and paste into your report). Then you can toggle between APA or MLA styles. I think it's a great tool because you want to get all your citations and bibliographic entries right and save time doing so!

I wish we had EasyBib when we were in school. Great job! More power to your application.

My BillsIQ

Starting a business is not always easy, especially if it's a high-profile business like event production. Three years ago my husband and I produced an event that got us into debt. We made the mistake of going to one of those lenders that charged you an exorbitant amount of interest first - once I realized what they were doing, I looked for help to pay our loan amount off at a more reasonable rate.

One of the first comments of the lender we went to when he saw my credit report was that I budget really well. I don’t really keep a formal budget file, but I have a very visual system of making sure my bills are all paid, I stick all my bills on a cork board and write the due date of each on the envelope.

Every week I’d check to see which ones I should send in and so I am rarely late with my bills. I check my checking account several times a week and recalculate my budget often so that I know if we are still in track. For someone who works on a computer full time, my budget tracking is very manual, but it’s a system I’m very comfortable with.

Nowadays, I avoid opening new credit accounts and concentrate on paying off what we owe. Out of curiosity I took this BillsIQ quiz and scored an 86% - not bad, huh?

I’m glad I didn’t buy a house yet – with the tough times we are going through I can’t imagine what my budget would look like with a mortgage! Are you badly in debt? Have you considered filing for bankruptcy? Bills.com is providing information about Bankruptcy in their website. I hope you never need to use the information, bankruptcy is something I never want to experience that’s why I’m glad there are websites that actually help you get out of debt – giving you helpful information, advice and tips that may make a great difference in your life.

This Post is Sponsored by Bills.com

Wooden Gadgets: Green or Not?

What's your take on wooden gadgets? Because everything green is now cool we're seeing a lot of these gadgets come up.

I must admit, the first time I saw a wooden gadget, I didn't like it at all. They say it's greener, but that's up for debate. Paper is green and organic, but by using it we cut down more trees. Wouldn't wooden gadgets promote cutting more trees down as well?

Plus it doesn't seem aesthetically pleasing to me. The Skullcandy pipe shown below might do, but I don't like the mobile phone below it. What do you think?

clipped from www.geeksugar.com clipped from www.geeksugar.com

NBC Olympics Widgets

I'm a big fan of widgets - although you would not think I was from looking at my blog. Widgets are a great marketing tool to distribute content you want to promote. You are making your audience promote you on their website, saving advertising dollars in the process - especially if your widget goes viral.

08.08.08 is just around the corner, the 2008 Olympics is almost here! And NBC Olympics has provided several different widgets available on their site. You can put them on your blog or your social network, embed them in your website, etc.

The one I embedded here is my favorite - I was going to get the Medal Tracker, but I wanted to be updated on the schedule of the games as well! Woohoo! I saw part of the Gymnastics competition for Team USA - those athletes were amazing. I can't wait to watch my favorite games - and as I looked at the list of sports in NBC, I have to admit it made me want to watch a few more than I would normally do - so good job on that!

I've been going through the NBC Olympics website and they've really developed a lot of goodies for this coverage. You can choose to receive an alert for games you want to watch online or on TV. There are games like the quick pick where you pick your favorites and accumulate points for prizes daily. There are photos and videos plus news stories around the games. It's all very exciting! Good luck, NBC! I look forward to experiencing the Olympic games through your coverage.

The New Dell Studio Hybrid

I got an email from Dell 2 days ago about their new Studio Hybrid desktop PC. It changes the concept of a desktop being too big to go anywhere with you. It is only 9-inches tall and looks about as thick as those 500GB external hard drives - so you can take it anywhere with you!

It is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processor, with up to 4 GB of dual channel memory and up to 320 GB of storage space. It also boasts of Gigabit ethernet, HDMI, DVI-I ports plus an 8-in-1 reader. And since it is a multimedia PC, you have the option to include a TV tuner to be able to watch TV on it.

The best part is it's an energy star appliance! It uses about 70% less power than a typical desktop. Wow! Now that's what I call a hybrid!

And because aesthetics is important for me as well, you can't go wrong with interchangeable sleeves of 6 different colors - of course, red is my choice - it's my favorite gadget color.

Great job! Keep up the good work!