Daniel Cook brings us another great piece following up on his previous prototyping articles, of things that you need to look out for when it comes to Prototyping your project.  There are common pitfalls that a prototype can suffer from and Daniel has gone and tackled some of the major ones to help you realize the incredibly high value that a solid prototyping phase represents to any development. Title: “Prototyping Pitfalls “ - Original Article Written by: Daniel Cook (www.lostgarden.com ) Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on January 5th, 2009 Bookmark Less

In the first RWW Live of 2009, we tackle an issue that is of vital importance to all startups right now - how to navigate through the choppy waters of the current economy. Joining the ReadWriteWeb authors, our special guests on our live podcast show are entrepreneurs from BrightKite and Zoho, two startups that were recognized by ReadWriteWeb in our annual end of the year awards: Zoho won ‘Best Little Co’ and BrightKite won ‘Most Promising Little Co’.   In the podcast, we discuss the lessons our guests have learned over the last year and how they plan to continue growing in 2009. Here are the details of our guests in this show: Sridhar Vembu, CEO, Zoho Raju Vegesna, Evangelist, Zoho Martin May, co-founder, BrightKite Brady Becker, co-founder, BrightKite Hope you enjoy this episode of ReadWriteWeb Live!   Less

In this free ebook, we will look at what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is, and the ways in which it can be used. Through this ebook, we will provide you with the basics on using Search Engine Optimization in order to improve traffic flow to your site. By many people, SEO is considered to be a part of search engine marketing. It is often used when people are describing a process for improving the amount of traffic that goes to a website from various different search engines. Many site owners will engage in using SEO in an attempt to obtain qualified visitors to their site. The quality of these visitors will often be measured by what specific keywords they are using in order to reach the desired result they want, such as making a purchase, or it could just viewing or downloading a particular page on that site. It may be that the visitor just requests some further information, or they sign up to a newsletter. Search Engine Optimization is a marketing strategy which can often generate a good return for the site. But what must be remembered is that search engines are not actually paid for the traffic they send to a site from a natural (organic) search. Plus, they will regularly change the algorithms that they use for these searches to be carried in an effort to improve the results for people using their search engine. In fact, there is no guarantee that using this system is successful in either the long or short term for any website. Because of this, SEO is often compared to traditional forms of PR (Public Relations), while PPC (Pay per Click) advertising is more closely associated with traditional forms of advertising. However, even if you do find you have increased traffic to your site because of SEO, if your site is unprepared for this increased traffic, it may in fact be detrimental to your site, as visitors will go away feeling dissatisfied and will not return. But though SEO can be considered as a marketing tactic which is a law unto itself, it is often considered to part of the bigger picture by many industry experts. Less

Verizon Communications SVP Media Relations Eric Rabe goes On the Record...Online at the Digital Impact Conference in New York, June 9 & 10, 2008. Rabe counsels senior management, including day to day contact with COO and CEO of this Fortune 12 business and manages the national network of PR professionals in major markets served by Verizon [NYSE:VZ]. He has deep experience in crisis management including union-related issues. Rabe has also gone On the Record…Online about what it’s like serving as SVP media relations at Verizon. Show notes: 7:13 - Introduction to Eric Rabe. 7:45 - Rabe on crisis communications at Verizon. 8:37 - Rabe on how Verizon takes advantage of online communications.. 10:02 - Rabe on influential blogs like Gigaom. 11:30 - Rabe on online communications tools of the future like Twitter and Facebook. 13:17 - Rabe on the practice of blogger relations. 15: 07 - Rabe on how a company can use an “information leak” that Steve Rubel spoke on to their advantage. 16:44 - Rabe on the convergence of personal and professional communications in the mobile space. 18:41 - Rabe on the impact of the accessibility and affordability of social media on advertiser supported media. 22:41 - Rabe on Jason Falls’s recommendation of stepping up to the proverbial online water cooler. 28:28 - Rabe on taking sides on controversial issues, like those involving NARAL. 33:38 - Rabe on a future fourth generation carrier like AT&T. 37:05 - Rabe on deploying fiber optics and speed to Verizon customers. 39:11 - Rabe on when people will be able to use cell phones on an airplane. 40:47 - Rabe on how Verizon identifies blogs to follow using tools like Technorati. 42:20 - Rabe on building visibility and credibility through social media. 47:28 - End This podcast is hosted by Eric Schwartzman who is the founder of online news room management service iPressroom and creator of the New Media PR Boot Camp, which has been attended by over a thousand public relations and marketing executives from private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. Less

Thanks for anniversary well wishes; Jack O'Dwyer interview coming up; Steve Lubetkin podcast features interview with Israeli Media Consul; Asia Report with Michael Netzley; Media Monitoring Minute; David Phillips reports; News That Fits: The 13 skills of the PR pro of the future, Phishing comes to Twitter; Sallie Goetsch reports; listener comments; music from Maria Daines; and more. Less

From a childhood spent exploring the woods near his home, to a career spent protecting habitats in the far corners of the earth, Carter Roberts -- president and CEO of the non-profit World Wildlife Fund -- has fostered a connection to the natural world. His job is as diverse as the ecosystems he visits. One day he may be negotiating with the president of a corporation, and the next he is sitting on a dirt floor talking with villagers about the importance of saving tigers.He spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about his passion for nature, why companies should care about preserving natural resources, and the value of story-telling. Less

We are proud to present the first of what will be many insightful pieces by Pascal Luban and Joel Meziane.   Today we dive into what is needed to take games to that powerful evocative level that we see in films and how to incorporate lessons learned in cinema seamlessly into the gameplay experience. Title: “Turning a Linear Story into a Game “ - Original Article Written by: Pascal Luban and Joel Meziane ( www.gamedesignstudio.com ) Read aloud by: Ryan Wiancko on January 2nd, 2009 Bookmark Less

In this podcast I expose TweetCube! Post your information products such as audio books, eBooks, and anything else digital! “TweetCube allows you to share files on Twitter. Simple as that. Blast out your images, videos, music and more with just a couple of clicks, and your files are automatically posted on Twitter.” -tweetcube.com Less

Welcome to episode #137 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast . Podcasting is not dead. In fact, it can't be dead because it hasn't even developed its own two, full lungs yet. If you have had a hard time understanding what all of this audio and video content is and how it can be used in Marketing and Communications, this episode is exactly what you'll need. Actually, it's not really *my* Podcast at all. Joseph Jaffe, author of Life After The 30-Second Spot and Join The Conversation plus Blogger and Podcaster over at Jaffe Juice gathered a bunch of Podcasters to discuss the media channel. This is the conversation. Enjoy the conversation... Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #137 - Host: Mitch Joel. Running time: 1:39.13. Audio comment line - please send in a comment and add your voice to the audio community: +1 206-666-6056. Please send in questions, comments, suggestions - mitch@twistimage.com. Hello from Beautiful Montreal. Subscribe over at iTunes. Please visit and leave comments on the Blog - Six Pixels of Separation. Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook. or you can connect on LinkedIn. ...or on twitter. Facebook Group - Six Pixels of Separation Podcast Society. In a perfect world, connect with me, directly, through Facebook. The Road to Six Pixels of Separation – The Book – coming soon. Retweet or Cross Post of Jaffe Juice #121 . Live record of a conversation with almost 100 people on the topic of Podcasting. Is Podcasting Dead? Podcasting Is Not Even On Life Support. The conversation is almost 90 minutes, but well worth the listen. Guests include: Joseph Jaffe – Jaffe Juice. Adam Curry – Podfather – Daily Source Code – Mevio. Cliff Ravenscraft - GSPN.TV. Shel Holtz - For Immediate Release - The Hobson and Holtz Report. Mignon Fogarty - Grammar Girl. Terry Fallis - Inside PR. Lee Hopkins. Jay Berkowitz - Ten Golden Rules. Dave Guerra. Jay Moonah - Media Driving. ... and many more. Please join the conversation by sending in questions, feedback and ways to improve Six Pixels Of Separation. Please let me know what you think or leave an audio comment at: +1 206-666-6056. Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #137 - Host: Mitch Joel. Tags: adam curry advertising blog blogging business cliff ravenscraft daily source code dave guerra digital marketing facebook facebook group for immediate release foreword thinking google grammar girl gspn inside pr is podcasting dead itunes jaffe juice jay berkowitz jay moonah joseph jaffe lee hopkins marketing media driving mevio mignon fogarty motivational books online social network podcast podcasting shel holtz six pixels of separation social media marketing ten golden rules terry fallis twist image twitter web 20 Less

In this cast we describe Horstman's Law of Project Management: Who Does What By When. We've talked and joked about it many times, and this cast will put to rest the details of Horstman's Law of Project Management (HLPM). Mark came up with it several years ago, to help a group of young managers get over their fear of working on fairly complex software development projects. It was actually born over a dinner at Mexican restaurant in Dallas! The concept is simple: all projects are simply tasks, done by people, within certain time frames. Despite all protestations to the contrary, no matter how complex the project, they all boil down to who is responsible for doing something, what they're responsible for, and when they have to have it done by. Complex tools can be helpful, but only on really large projects (and almost nobody looks at them anyway ;-) ). Keep it simple with HLPM. Here's how. Less

Andrew Sherman is a successful corporate lawyer and advisor with leading Washington D.C. law firm, Dickstein Shapiro . He’s also a lecturer in the University of Maryland’s MBA program and the author of 18 books - many of which have had multiple printings and become key reference sources in the areas of Business Growth, Strategy & Development. In contrast to his previous efforts, Andrew’s latest book, entitled ‘Road Rules: be the Truck. Not the Squirrel’ , is his first publication intended for a general audience - and draws on his decades of experience to provide a set of essential ‘Road Rules’ to successfully navigate the Journey of Life. In this interview, Andrew gives a brief synopsis of his book, as well as sharing a couple of his favorite ‘Road Rules’ - that will provide inspiration, hope & guidance for many people, particularly those being impacted by the global social & economic crisis. Web Links: Road Rules: Be the Truck. Not the Squirrel Mergers and Acquisitions from A to Z Raising Capital: Get the Money You Need to Grow Your Business Franchising & Licensing: Two Powerful Ways to Grow Your Business in Any Economy LinkedIn - Andrew Sherman’s LinkedIn profile Dickstein Shapiro - Andrew’s law firm Like this PodCast? Then share it with your network - or show your support by writing a Review on iTunes. And don’t be shy - please leave a Comment . Your feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated. If you’re a Blogger or Webmaster - you can download Embed Code that makes it easy to include this Episode of ‘Connections’ in your web page. Thank you Stan Relihan Expert Executive Search: www.expertsearch.com.au Less

Episode #21 - January 2, 2009 Intro How to interact on Twitter: @karenrubin @mvolpe Remember to subscribe in iTunes - http://itunes.hubspot.tv Thanks for all your support in 2008 - we're up to 200 iTunes subscribers and are getting 10,000 views per month Mailbag Something cool to talk about on HubSpot TV would be best practices for status updates on Facebook and Twitter. There are those of us (myself included) who use the Twitter for Facebook application to keep everything in sync. But this annoys a lot of Facebook users due to the pace that I tweet (which is only 5 times a day that aren't @replies). (from Ellie: Dare I plug my own blog? Feel free to grab the content from here: http://www.elliemirman.com/bid/4257/twitter-facebook-app-why-i-love-it-how-i-could-love-it-more) Joe Mako: question for your next HubSpot TV: what is a safe place to check domain availability, to avoid front-running? I used to use "Suso's domain availability checker" : http://support.suso.org/dns/saferdomainlookup.php but it has since been taken down Headlines Krafts Facebook apps perform very differently http://daveibsen.typepad.com/5_blogs_before_lunch/2008/12/kraft-gives-facebook-users-a-reason-to-interact.html Marketing Takeaway: "Make the application 1) relevant/meaningful to the audience, 2) appropriate for the site and 3) as interactive as possible." Holiday ecommerce sales Flat http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/30/holiday-e-commerce-sales-fall-flat/ Marketing Takeaway: Ecommerce is now mainstream enough that the economy fluctuations will effect it. Facebook Growing by 600,000 Users Per Day Marketing Takeaway: Facebook is mainstream. Start using it before you get left behind. Facebook fraud in Higher Education http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2008/12/18/facebook-pay-attention/ Marketing Takeaway: If you are a university and involved in social media, make sure it's clear to your students that you are the real deal. If this scares you, all the more reason to get involved. Google SEO Updates - Page Rank and Search Rankings http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2008/12/18/facebook-pay-attention/ http://searchengineland.com/google-updates-toolbar-pagerank-15982 019121.html http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/019121.html Marketing Takeaway: Page Rank is becoming less and less important over time, so don't worry about it. Monitor your search ranks for important keywords, but don't obsesss about them. The goal is to increase overall traffic from Google via SEO, not to worry about ranking #1 for a particular phrase. Internet Overtakes Newspapers as Top News Source For young people (under 30 like Karen, not like Mike), the Internet is overtaking TV as the top source. http://people-press.org/report/479/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-source http://www.briansolis.com/2008/12/newspapers-are-old-news.html Marketing Takeaway: To get into newspapers or on TV you had to pay a lot of money for advertising. On the Internet, you can publish your own blog, pictures, videos and more for very low cost. This is another proof point that inbound marketing is the next phase of marketing. State of the Twittersphere - Q4-2008 http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/22/the-state-of-the-twittersphere-hubspot-edition/ http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4439/State-of-the-Twittersphere-Q4-2008-Report.aspx Marketing Takeaway: Twitter is not mainstream yet, and there are a lot of the 5 million estimated users that are not that active. But, it is growing fast and getting started now gives you an advantage later. Forum Fodder I read in a post by one of the inbound gurus from Hubspot (cant recall which post) that hubspot has over time "trained Google" to visit Hubspot very frequently looking for fresh content. I am assuming everybody here would love to know how this can be done? Is creating fresh content almost on a daily basis is the only way? Is there anything else you need to do in conjunction with creating new and meaningful content? http://success.hubspot.com/Customer-Discussion-Forum/forumid/97/postid/5345/view/topic http://www.clickandclimb.com Marketing Tip of the Week: Try to find some data you have and compile it into a report that will gain your company media/PR exposure (like the State of the Twittersphere report) Closing Less

An exclusive show one-on-one with the Leader of the eBay Selling Tips group. My co-host of our 3rd Friday of the month show, FINALLY we have a show with just Paula! Learn more about this amazing gal and hear about how she soared her eBay career into PowerSelling Status AND became an Education Specialist Trained by eBay! paula jeans jewelry closet | brenham tx | ebay selling tips | powerseller | danna crawford Less

Time 27:53 The problem with many companies trying to get PR and media coverage is they think like a company. They need to think like a news organization about themselves, their industry, and the communities in which they play. In the first Marketing Edge episode for 2009 we talk with Kevin Dugan, co-author of the Bad Pitch Blog. The Bad Pitch Blog is a must read for any PR or corporate communications professional, and more importantly, clients of PR organizations. Why clients? Because you don’t want to put your organization or your firm in a situation where the pitch becomes the news. We get into how not to craft a bad pitch and approaching PR with a different perspective in part because social media has changed the landscape of public relations Meanwhile here’s an old PR versus new PR list for 2009, Kind of like a PR fashionista list. Old PR Thinking News is only when the company has a new product, version or customer. News is something you distribute to the news media Avoid discussion of controversial subjects that impact the company No discussion of company strategy or internal debate Limit most of communication to print or text New PR Thinking Evaluate potential news items as if you were an editorial board of a multimedia publishing company monthly if not more frequently. Consider information as it is perceived by a variety of communities impacted by your company, that’s who really determines news. News can be targeted by community participation, posted to a blog, included in a podcast and a variety of other means, you don’t need to blanket the world Use the right medium, audio, video, print, mash-up, others to convey the story Get involved in issues that matter to your industry, whether you take a position or participate in the debate, don’t sit on the sidelines. You are your own media outlet, create a channel like blip.tv, blog, podcast, slide share, and make it easy for users to share with others. Video is not limited to TV, fully integrated multimedia news organizations may well be the right target for a pitch that was previously considered the realm of television. That’s just a few, we can always talk more, start with a comment either below or at 206-600-6887. Provident Partners donates a food item to a St. Paul, MN food shelter for every comment we receive. Happy New Year! Less

Director of corporate communications & public affairs at Bausch & Lomb [NYSE: BOL], Michael McDougall, goes On the Record...Online at the 2008 PRSA International Conference about the fall of the house of Kodak, the online video explosion and the accessibility of social media channels for business to business and niche communicators. Michael McDougall is a seasoned communications and marketing professional, with broad-based experience in technology (consumer and B2B) and healthcare sectors. He is an expert in marketing some of the world's top brands on a global basis. Show Notes: 3: 28 - McDougall on his panel presentation at the 2008 PRSA International Conference. 5:17 - McDougall on how to make sure web videos will play to worldwide viewers without the frustration of buffering. 7:07 - McDougall on NBC’s inability to provide easily downloadable video content like Saturday Night Live to worldwide viewers online. 9:14 - McDougall on how he was viewed at Kodak. 10:44 - McDougall on the future of Kodak with other players like Sony, Canon and Nikon. 12:27 - McDougall on the solutions recall at Bausch & Lomb. 14:11 - McDougall on today’s frenzy over social media like Facebook, YouTube, Bebo and Twitter. 17:58 - McDougall on how he uses social media for niche online opportunities. 18:52 - End Eric Schwartzman is the founder of online newsroom management service iPressroom and creator of the New Media PR Boot Camp, which has been attended by over a thousand public relations and marketing executives from private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. Less

Director of corporate communications & public affairs at Bausch & Lomb [NYSE: BOL], Michael McDougall, goes On the Record...Online at the 2008 PRSA International Conference about the fall of the house of Kodak, the online video explosion and the accessibility of social media channels for business to business and niche communicators. Michael McDougall is a seasoned communications and marketing professional, with broad-based experience in technology (consumer and B2B) and healthcare sectors. He is an expert in marketing some of the world's top brands on a global basis. Show Notes: 3: 28 - McDougall on his panel presentation at the 2008 PRSA International Conference. 5:17 - McDougall on how to make sure web videos will play to worldwide viewers without the frustration of buffering. 7:07 - McDougall on NBC’s inability to provide easily downloadable video content like Saturday Night Live to worldwide viewers online. 9:14 - McDougall on how he was viewed at Kodak. 10:44 - McDougall on the future of Kodak with other players like Sony, Canon and Nikon. 12:27 - McDougall on the solutions recall at Bausch & Lomb. 14:11 - McDougall on today’s frenzy over social media like Facebook, YouTube, Bebo and Twitter. 17:58 - McDougall on how he uses social media for niche online opportunities. 18:52 - End Eric Schwartzman is the founder of online newsroom management service iPressroom and creator of the New Media PR Boot Camp, which has been attended by over a thousand public relations and marketing executives from private, public, government and nonprofit sectors. Less