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Facebook Wants Businesses to Convert!

posted on March 31, 2011

If you accidentally (or on purpose) created a Facebook profile instead of a page for your business, Facebook is giving you a chance to make it right. Actually, it’s more than a chance, it’s kind of an ultimatum as using a profile page for your money-making or non-profit entity is a violation of their terms of service.

Prior to now, you could get away with it because switching from profile to page meant losing all your followers and starting from scratch. To quote Inspector Clouseau, “not anymore!” You can now use the fancy dancy migration tool to automatically convert.

Once you complete the process, your friends will become fans (I like the sound of that) and you’ll have access to a larger number of tools and stats. It also means that you’ll be able to cross the 5000 friend threshold because there’s no such limit on fans.

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Smartphones Are a Mommy Must Have

posted on March 31, 2011

Moms are the original multi-taskers. They’re geniuses when it comes to getting things done in small chunks of time and from the bleachers during a Little League game. So it’s not surprising to find that mommy smartphone usage is on the rise.

BabyCenter says;

Overall adoption of smartphones among moms has risen 64% over the past two years, and 51% of moms say they are “addicted” to their smartphone.

The pregnancy and parenting website surveyed 5,000 US moms to find out how and when they use their smartphones. More than half the women said that they bought a smartphone “as a direct result of becoming a mom.” Once they became a mom, the camera became the most important feature, followed by the video option and then apps. The survey said that before becoming a mom, apps didn’t even make the top ten list of important phone features.

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Microsoft Filing Formal Complaint in Europe Against Google

posted on March 31, 2011

Microsoft announced yesterday that all of its talk in Europe about unfair competition in search through various puppets (sites like which Microsoft owns part of and other whiners like Foundem who wouldn’t know what SEO was if it smacked them in the server) will now result in a formal complaint against Google.

cnet News reports

In a somewhat ironic twist, Microsoft said this evening it will file a formal complaint against Google tomorrow with European antitrust regulators.

Microsoft, which itself has been the subject of several antitrust probes in the United States and abroad, argues Google is engaging in anticompetitive behavior in search, online advertising, and smartphone software, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote in a blog explaining the action.

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The Other Kansas City Chosen From 1,100 Towns for Google’s Ultra High Speed Broadband Project

posted on March 31, 2011

Google announced over a year ago that it was looking to bring ultra high speed broadband Internet connectivity to the world but they were going to start with one town first. The original blog post suggested that this town would be rural but according to the announcement yesterday that rural town happens to also conveniently be adjacent to and share the name of an NFL city, as Kansas City, KS won the great fiber race. Gee, I wonder why they might have done this (confusion over the name, more press etc. etc). Sneaky but effective.

Here is a video from Google’s blog explaining why they chose the Midwestern city over the rest.

Some of the areas that expressed their “Aw, shucks it wasn’t us!” sentiment were Baltimore, Durham, NC and many others.

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Affiliate Summit Meetup Day

posted on March 31, 2011

Recently, I attended the first ever Affiliate Summit Meetup Day. Affiliate Summit recently launched a nation wide circuit of meetups to bring affiliate marketers together in local networking and learning groups.

The meetups are currently held in Orlando, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Denver, Baltimore, Melbourne, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City and my home-town, Austin. The Austin meetup, featured a presentation by Shawn Collins (@affiliatetip) entitled “Affiliate Marketing for Newbies”. In the presentation Shawn laid out seven things you should focus on when building a new affiliate website.

Picking a Topic

Shawn recommended that you pick a topic you’re passionate about. He warned that picking “Flavor of the Day” topics for your site in response to Internet trends can lead to a faltering commitment on your part. Stick with things you’re passionate about and you’ll be more likely to dedicate the time and energy you’ll need to in order to be successful.

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Nearly Half of All Mobile Users Use Their Phone to Shop

posted on March 30, 2011

While 89.7 percent of the U.S. population aged 18 to 64 have mobile phones, only 49.1 percent are using their phones to shop.

That fact comes from a recent study conducted by Arc Worldwide that was reported on by Reuters. They took a close look at the behaviors of 1,800 mobile shoppers and found that 80% of them fell into the “light” category leaving 20% on the heavy side.

Here’s the graphic from Reuters that explains it all.

Not surprisingly, the iPhone was the preferred phone for mobile shopping and the heaviest shoppers are younger people who tend to be “in the know.” It is surprising to see that men are the heaviest mobile shoppers. That could be because they don’t see shopping as a fun activity as many women do, so they just want to get what they need and be done with it.

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Marketing Lessons from the BronxZoosCobra

posted on March 30, 2011

On Monday, a cobra engineered a jail break at the Bronx Zoo and became an instant celebrity when she started a Twitter account to document his freedom flight.

That may sound like the plot of the latest Pixar animal adventure, but it’s actually a true story — to some extent. (Says the Cobra: I want to thank those animals from the movie “Madagascar.” They were a real inspiration.)

The cobra really did escape, though zookeepers say they’re confident the critter didn’t leave the creepy confines of the reptile house. And someone or something did begin Twittering. “The Wall Street Journal” says that the owner of the Twitter account can’t be the snake because snakes can’t type. But I say, they have fangs and a tail, either of which could be used to pound out the messages, though I’m not sure where they’d keep their iPhone while on the prowl.