Last Thursday night, a friend noticed something different in his Google SERP.  Next to each organic search result, there was an up arrow to ‘promote’ the search result, an X to ‘remove’ the search result, and at the end of each description, there was a place to leave a comment about the search result.  So I went to Google.com, performed a random search, and saw the same thing.  We then realized that SearchWiki was finally out of beta testing and live.

This is part of Google’s mission to make search as personalized as possible. for this only shows when you’re signed into your gmail, or other Google account.  According to the Google Blog, this only affects your personalized search results, thus, ‘making search your own.’

Many people have been blogging and tweeting about what effect this will have on the SEO industry.   Here are my two cents: the goal of SEO is to position your relevant and quality content among the top search results through optimization efforts.  With people able to promote or remove your listing based on relevance, the goal doesn’t change.  Good websites will be rewarded with high rankings among people, and hopefully people will write plenty of positive comments for all to see.  This should only make SEO’ers become better at their job.

What are your thoughts on the SearchWiki?  Have you used it; left any comments; removed a listing?  Why?

About a month ago I changed jobs.  I used to take the bus to work and spent that time reading a lot of books (and sleeping occasionally).  Now I drive about 45 minutes to work each way.  Since I can’t read — or sleep – while driving (although I have seen people do crazier things in cars), I decided to subscribe to a bunch of podcasts.

Since becoming an avid podcast listener, I have determined what makes a great podcast:

1. A script.  Podcasts that are based on a script or outline are far better than those premised upon free-form talking.  If I want to listen to banter with people trying to figure out what to say next, I’ll listen to morning radio talk shows.
2. Background sound.  Some podcasts that I listen to have background music or sound effects, and I find that it fills the empty spaces and keeps me on track.  For the ones with no background sound, my mind fills in the empty spaces with thoughts of the day, and I lose track of what the podcast is saying.
3. Any length.  As long as the content is interesting, I’m a captive audience.  On my daily commute, I’ll listen to anything from “60-Second Science” to the “60 Minutes” podcast.
4. Any frequency.  I’m happy to listen to anything that’s updated frequently, such as “Wall Street Journal What’s News,” and to podcasts that are updated less frequently, including “Modern Manners Guy Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Polite Life.”  Just make it interesting.

Just like anyone can have a blog, not much is required to have a podcast.  There is a vast difference, though, between having a podcast that people actually listen to and one that just sits out there in cyberspace.  If you think that you have a great podcast, let me know — I just might add it to my daily commute.

If you only have five seconds: Social Media is very similar to many mar comm tactics that have been around forever. The results may be different, but the effort, resources and goals that go into a social media marketing plan should be the same.

A little different, but still striped

If you have more time:

My gripe: Marketing professionals and clients who laugh at social media for being in its infancy, and ask questions like:
“What’s guaranteed?”
“What am I going to see as a result of this social media campaign?”
“Well, I don’t want to do any work. No blogging, no engagement, nothing.”

Skeptics are everywhere, and right now social media is the Britney Spears of the marketing world. On one side everyone is very interested, wants a piece of the action, and wants Britney (Social Media) to succeed. The other side is overloading with haters who have not yet seen the social media light.

The social media light goes something like this:
Pt. 1: Like ALL OTHER mar comm tactics, NOTHING is guaranteed in social media. Nothing. In marketing we strategize to the best of our abilities, and use our best judgement to create a campaign that we believe will be the most effective. It’s the same for PR, Advertising, Web Development, Organic Search….
Pt. 2: Like ALL OTHER mar comm tactics, social media is not cheap. Keep in mind that what resources you are not putting towards development and initial cost, you should be putting in over the course of the campaign. That means that although a social media campaign may sound cheaper from a dollars-and-cents angle, a client should be prepared to make up for that lack of $$ with their own time. For a client to expect a social media campaign to blossom to its full potential with zero effort from the client side is no realistic. This is your brand. Your voice. Your future. Your audience. Who knows it best? You.

Pure pwnage.

I’m gunna keep this short and sweet.

By now you must have heard of the Motrin ad that caused quite the ruckus in the online social world and if not, then let me tell you, you are missing out on one of the largest cases of epic fail occurring by a company that has terribly pissed off its target consumer.

Motrin started a small campaign geared towards “baby-sling wearing mothers” and angered them, way more than you ever thought that you could anger a group of mothers.

The moms are everywhere. Blogs, forums, discussion boards, communities, Twitter and they were all complaining…here is an example of an angry mom.

Motrin halted the campaign  and issued an apology on the homepage of their website.  Let this be a lesson to never underestimate your target consumer and to seriously know them well.

Learn more by typing “Motrin” into Google.

The wild swings in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) can make anyone run for the nearest heartburn medication these days.  It’s anyone’s guess what the DJIA will end at this year.  With stock market declines, government bailouts and failing banks and mortgage companies, now is the time for financial services firms to reassure investors.  Here are some tips on communicating during times of market volatility.

1. Communicate to your employees first.  Just like clients, your employees and financial representatives most likely are invested in the stock market as well.  They are seeing the market value of their 401(k) plans deteriorate and probably are being asked questions by their friends about what’s going on.
2. Encourage your financial representatives to reach out to their clients.  During times of financial panic, it can be tempting for financial representatives to hide and hope that it all goes away — not a good idea!  Now is the time for financial representatives to proactively pick up the phone and contact clients to ensure that they have the proper asset allocation and diversification for their risk tolerance.
3. Put your top investment officer out in the public eye.  A Minneapolis/St. Paul financial services organization recently hosted an online webcast with its chief investment officer and its CEO.  Clients were given the opportunity to attend the event in person or submit questions online.  The result?  Thousands of online visitors to the webcast and reassurance that the organization is there for its clients.

Markets have periods of ups and downs, and it’s important to remind your audiences of investing for the long term.  The present time presents an excellent communications opportunity, and it just may present an excellent buying opportunity as well.  And where do I think the DJIA will end this year?  My guess is 9,000.

The heaviest social media presidential campaign is now behind us, what are the plans for the President Elect and the future of his Presidential campaign?

Well, just check out Change.gov also known as the site of “The Obama – Biden Transition” , I saw the site and was very enthused to see that it is very social media driven.

The 2 most amazing features of the new site are:

1. An American Moment: Your Story…this urges us to:

“Start right now. Tell us your story in your own words about what this campaign and this election mean to you. Share your hopes for an Obama Administration and a government for the people.”

2. The Weekly Online address

Obama plans to deliver a weekly status update via YouTube. That’s right. YOUTUBE!

“For the first time, the weekly Democratic address has been released as a web video. It will also continue to air on the radio.

President-elect Obama plans to publish these weekly updates through the Transition and then from the White House.”

I know this blog post is quick but I urge you to check out the Change site and explore the site and efforts of President Elect 2.0.

There are two ways to add a custom 404 page for the DotNetNuke content management system. Your approach depends on what your hosting provider will allow.

1. Create a hidden 404 page in DNN. Add the URL for that page as a custom error page for 404 in IIS. Check with your host if you don’t have access to this information.

Here is a good post if you have IIS access and want to do it yourself: http://ask.enquiro.com/2008/how-to-create-a-custom-404-error-page-in-microsoft-iis/

2. Create an aspx file in the root directory. Create a new aspx page called 404.aspx. Also open the default.aspx file and a skin ascx file (you want the 404 page to look somewhat pretty, don’t you?)

Copy this line out of the DotNetNuke default.aspx and paste it in the 404.aspx (after the page declaration tag):

< %@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" Namespace="DotNetNuke.Common.Controls" Assembly="DotNetNuke" % >

Open your skin’s ascx file and copy ALL the skin token registrations; the ones that look like this:
< %@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" TagName="LANGUAGE" Src="~/Admin/Skins/Language.ascx" % >

In the < head > tags, paste the link to your skin’s CSS file. Ex:

< link href="Portals/0/Skins/standard/standard.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" / >

In the form tag, paste the layout markup from your skin’s ascx file. The skin I chose just has a content pane that takes up the full width. Of course you can always create another CSS file and link to that to override your skins classes. In the content pane, put your 404 message:

< div id="ContentPane" class="content-pane" >
< h2 >
Sorry, the page you are looking for has been moved or cannot be found.< /h2 >

< script type=”text/javascript” >
var GOOG_FIXURL_LANG = ‘en’;
var GOOG_FIXURL_SITE = ‘http://www.mydomain.com/’;
< /script >

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://linkhelp.clients.google.com/tbproxy/lh/wm/fixurl.js”>< /script >

<p>
< a href=”/Home/Sitemap.aspx” title=”site map”>View the Site Map.</ a >
< /p >
< /div >

DON”T FORGET: Remove the visible=false attribute in your content pane div, otherwise you’ll have a blank page. You also may note that I have some extra JavaScript in there as well. I’m experimenting with enhanced 404s widget from Google’s webmaster tools.

I had to take option 2 recently and my host was able to point the 404′s to this new page, which looks like it’s just naturally part of my DNN site.

It’s been a week since the election ended
(for better or worse, depending on your point of view).
One week. Seven days. 168 hours without an attack ad.
It’s embarrassing…but I have to admit it…I miss those sleazy,
character-assassinating political ads.

I miss those photos of the candidates, caught in mid-sneer or
mid-gastric distress, while a voice-over, bloated with sarcasm,
tells us what a moron this guy is and why we should call him
and tell him to stop doing whatever it is he’s doing that’s
flushing the country straight down the toilet.

So after months of hearing endless variations on:
“You-know-who, just plain wrong for America!”….I have to admit it. I’m hooked.

And I’m sure there are lots of regular guy, Joe-sixpack,
Joe-the-plumber Americans just like me. We’ve been conditioned!
We crave negative ads! We’re going through withdrawal…and we don’t like it!

So now is the time for hot creative shops all across this great country of ours
to ride the wave. Here’s an example:

:30 TVC opens on a full figure shot of the Burger King.
Camera slowly moves in as ominous music builds and the V/O
begins: “The Burger King. He’s always smiling. But his smile seems…forced.
Artificial. Is it really a smile? Or is it a sinister smirk? Is he hiding something from us?
(Camera moves in tight on the Burger King’s face). Let’s not forget…he is a KING.
And real Americans don’t like KINGS! We threw our last KING out in 1776!
A KING today? In this time of crisis? It’s positively…UNAMERICAN!
We think the media have a patriotic duty to uncover the hidden,
unAmerican sentiments of this…….smug, elitist KING!”

We are McDonalds and we approve this message.”

I think it’s the wave of the future. What do you think?

Earlier this week I attended a session put on by The Masters Forum that featured Tammy Erickson, a nationally-known expert on changing demographics, employee values, and how successful organizations work. Her talk was titled “Creating Extraordinary Employee Engagement — Leveraging Engagement for Collaboration and Innovation.”

One interesting aspect of her presentation focused on research her company had conducted about the six values that work plays in our lives. The six values, and their descriptions, are:

1. Expressive Legacy: work is about creating something with lasting value
2. Secure Progress: work is about upward mobility — a predictable, secure path to success
3. Expertise and Team Victory: work is an opportunity to be a valuable part of a winning team
4. Risk with Reward: work is an opportunity for challenge, change, learning and, maybe, wealth
5. Flexible Support: work is our livelihood but not currently a priority in our lives
6. Low Obligation Income: work’s value is largely its near-term economic gain

For most people, the value that work plays in their lives stays the same. The only one of these values that is transient is #5, because people’s circumstances can change. Corporate executives usually fall under category #3 — they are energized by teams. What value does work play in your life?

Found this list on Twitter:

I forgot who posted it, but thanks