So many companies and products are reviewed online by opinions of their customers. Today, more than ever people are posting their personal opinions. They are posting them – Positive and Negative. Services like Yelp make it easy for people to review personal experiences of other customers. Yelp has shifted the way testimonials are viewed. They are right in front of you, at the click of a mouse. You can read whether or not a restaurant has excellent, good or bad service and the quality of their food. You can even get a full understanding of a restaurants atmosphere just by reading the reviews posted by other people that have been there.
If you are planning a vacation, Trip Advisor is a company that allows all reviews to be posted right on the site. If you want to understand what a hotel is like in Venice or if a hotel has a view of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, just click on Trip Advisor. They will let you know. They even reveal the date and time of the most recent posts so that you can see if it is out dated. I recently went on a trip to St. Thomas and I reviewed two hotels that I was debating on staying at. I ended up picking the Ritz Carlton based on reward points, etc. but my point here is that the reviews were right on target. They even instructed me which side of the hotel had the best view of the ocean, which side had be renovated and what restaurants where best to eat at off of the resort. It was a phenomenal experience and I am so grateful that I was able to read the reviews before hand.
So my point is here, for companies. Hug your customer- you may never know what review they might post.
Please join Phil Percuoco and Boston Web Creative on Thursday, February 4th at 12:00pm-1:00pm for the Underground’s presentation at the New England Grows Conference. It is at the BCEC in South Boston. The conference is for members only of the green industry in New England. For more information regarding the conference please click on New England Grows Conference.
Interesting news hit the web today as Google released “Google Goggles”, a brand-new addition to Google Labs. It is an experimental application for Android devices that supports visual search.
How does it work? Just open the application and snap a photo. Google (Google Wave) will process the image and return search results. The photo search functionality eliminates the need to type or say anything on your mobile device. It also adds context to your real-world surroundings.
While the technology is pretty amazing, they admit that it is still the beginning. Selected image searches work seamless. For example : photos of books, business cards, artwork, places, logos and landmarks. Image searches for food, animals, plants and cars are still in the works.
Watch the video below for a demonstration of Google Goggles.
Often I hear from my customers how do I back up my content on my blog. So I did some snooping today and I found the below tutorial on the wordpress.org site. You will need access to your ftp information and some knowledge of how the blog is set up to do this by your self. Please if you are not comfortable leave it to the professionals.
Create a Regular Database Backup
Every post and page you write in WordPress is stored in a MySQL database. There aren’t separate files for each page or post. It’s important to regularly back up your database in case something goes wrong (such as with a rogue plugin or a misguided upgrade attempt). You can manually back up your database by using a tool like phpmyadmin, but it’s much easier to simply use the WordPress Database Backup plugin.
2. In your blog’s admin panel, go to Manage > Backup.
3. In the Backup Options section, select Email backup to and then enter your email address.
4. In the Scheduled Backup section, select Once Weekly.
5. Select any tables you want to include. These tables refer to data from any plugins you’ve added, not to your posts and comments.
6. Click the Submit button at the bottom.
Each week, you’ll receive an email with your database. The database is light and won’t take up much space in your email program. If your site ever crashes, you can restore your entire site’s posts, pages, categories, and tags (but not images) through the database file. Images are stored in wp-content/uploads folder
I wanted to touch on the founding story of Facebook and recommend it as an interesting read for all of you who are interested in understanding social media and how it was started. The concept and idea is so simple, which is one of the reasons why social networking and media have changed lives and companies today.
If you are interested and have some time, I would recommend reading this book.
I recently watched Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt’s Keynote commencement speech at Carnegie Mellon. I was very inspired by him and the amount of optimism he exuded.
Three quotes that enlightened me during his speech were :
“Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.” John Lennon
“Its all about opportunity, take advantage of it.” Eric Schmidt
“Technology and innovation are making lives more functional.” Eric Schmidt
Also, it was very interesting to learn about great products and companies that have flourished in a recession.
Facebook announced yesterday that it has secured a $200 million investment from the Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies. This is a deal that places the value of the social-networking giant at $10 billion. What does this mean for small business and entrepreneurs ?
It means opportunity !
As more and more users and businesses join Facebook, it will become a way in which small businesses can increasingly take advantage of a free network and low-cost pay per click advertising. Facebook today, allows personal users to create a business fan page. Once this page is created it allows individuals to post/support/and even give a thumbs up. This is a great way for entrepreneurs and small business to utilize their social network.
This investment comes in a time where many people talk about the down turn in the economy, loss of jobs and lack of marketing funds available for organizations. There is an opportunity out there… we just have to take advantage of it.
Facebook gets $200 million investment from Russian Firm
