Google Social Search

Just like contextual advertising, Google Social Search makes your search experience contextual to you and your friends.  Cool.

I’m not immediately seeing the business application of this and I’m not excited about seeing what my friends have written on a subject.  I have many friends that write blogs.  I aggregate them on my Google Home Page.  I pretty much know what my friends are doing, what their opinions are, and what they are writing about.  I can’t see myself Googling a search to find out what my friends are thinking.

I suppose that if they did write a blog last year that I somehow missed, it would be interesting to to have the ability to at least have the option of reading their thoughts first.  For personal use, it would be interesting if Google could deliver an aggregated search and pull from Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, comments from Flickr & YouTube, and serve them to me sorted by acquaintances.  But, Google Social Search isn’t there yet.

What they’ve done is simply taken the enormous amount of collected data from the Internet they’ve accumulated and sorted it by the searchers list of acquaintances.  Clever, but I don’t think disruptive.  The one strong social-psychological benefit here is, it is that this type of a search is giving greater empowerment to the participants of the social Internet.  The biggest change in business marketing that has taken place over the past several years with the integration of social media, is the shift in power.

No longer does the big corporation control their message, control their markets, or control their customers.  The shift has allowed the individual, the Internet social citizen to take control over the corporate communications.  With Google Social Search, you can find recommendations and criticisms written and reported by your most trusted social network, your friends, family, and coworkers.  Recommendations by a friend is one of the most powerful influence there is.  Google Social Search, I think, will add significantly to this shift in power.

Facebook’s “Obama’s Assination Poll”

I was recently asked what I thought about the affect that Facebook’s “Obama Assassination Poll” would have on Facebook’s advertisers.  Here’s how I responded…

Facebook is right to try to monetize everything.  Google has built a more than $20b business around Internet advertising.  Polls are a necessity and very popular.  (My ex-fiancé’s father Bill Gaskill and his Mad Men partner, George Gallop made an industry out of taking polls in the 1940’s.)  So, I think Facebook, Google’s Contextual Ads, and ole George’s polls are a perfect match.  It’s unfortunate that there are idiots like the one who posted the “Obama Assignation Poll” on Facebook, but that’s human nature.  Sometimes social media brings out the best in people, sometimes it’s the worst, and sometimes it brings out the stupid.

What happened on Facebook was an unfortunate mistake.  The important thing about a mistake is not that you make it, its how you take responsibility for it and fix it.  Facebook removed the poll immediately upon notice.  Go Facebook!  The poll went up, they were notified, it went away.  In the past, there have been a lot of social interactive sites that weren’t that responsive.  Craig’s List was one of them, which has now changed.

I don’t think this is as much about social media as it is about human nature.  We’ve seen this type of bad judgment since the Internet first became popular.  In the beginning there were “hate” sites, “sex” sites, and other content that we as a culture find offensive.  While I am a strong proponent of the First Amendment, sometimes some things are just not appropriate.  This was one of those times.  The great thing about social media is the social conscience and the self policing.  I am sure that it was an astute social citizen that first alerted Facebook to the poll and it was quickly removed.

The more I practice social media, the more I realize its similarities to conventional media.  When asked by human resource managers “How do we create new rules and guidelines to control employee participation in social media”.  It explain, don’t create new rules, use the ones you already have.  You have rules that say as an employee, you are not allowed to talk to the media.  Well, social media is media, too!  The same rules apply.  The same goes for liable, fraud, theft, and stupid.

When it comes to advertisers who use contextual advertising, the same rules apply.  Instances like this will happen, not often, and not for long.  As an advertiser you have two choices, understand that it was an isolated instance and roll with it or pull your advertising as you would with a newspaper or magazine you advertise with that ran a distasteful OpEd piece.  With on-line advertising generating so much revenues, having such an effective delivery system, to such a targeted audience, my advice is “Get over it.”

With www.TheSocialMediaBible.com and the www.LonSafko.com web sites, I had to pull the Google Contextual Advertising from both sites.  All of the advertising delivered by Google was for Bible Study, Churches, Bible purchases, and Jesus.  I’m all for Jesus, but it just wasn’t appropriate advertising for my web sites.  And there is no “Not” in Google AdSense. (Which means you can’t set it up to say “Social Media” – Yes, “Jesus, Bible, and Churches” – No.

Based on the keywords “Obama, Assignation, Poll” my curiosity is getting the best of me to know exactly what type of advertiser did Google pull up and match for that?!

Facebook Flattering Twitter Or Stomping MySpace

Facebook Annouce today another cadre of new features and  benefits, Facebook Lite & @Tagging.  No Facebook Lite isn’t design as another new social network fad weight loss program, it’s a streamlined version of Facebook that loads faster.  Facebook’s new @tagging isn’t just flattering Twitter by imitating them, their adding some proven secret sauce. … Continue Reading

Monopoly City Streets – A Hit New Board Game Or Will Players Be Bored?

I read a recent article on the PC World web site, “Monopoly City Streets’ Online Game: Will Buying Park Place Be Any Easier?” where Hasbro has taken Google Maps and combined it with their highly successful traditional board game Monopoly.  Here are some thoughts.

First off, this is a great idea!  Of course, Monopoly and Google Maps!  I’ll bet that one was thought up over a pint or two!

One of the Lon Safko quotes on my web sites says, “Innovation is taking two things that are ordinary and combining them in a way that makes them extraordinary”.  That’s kind of what I’ve done throughout my career.  Nothing truly new is ever invented.  This is just two items we all knew, combined in a unique way.  Still, very innovative! … Continue Reading

Twit or Tweet

The June 15^th cover of Time Magazine showed us all an iPhone with a Twitter Tweet from journalist Steven B. Johnson that read, “Twitter is changing the way we live-and showing us the future of innovation.”  But what does the future hold in store for us, business, and Twitter?  My guess is that unless some of the rules about “Tweets”, the text messages that user send out to their “followers” change, the future of Twitter for business is questionable. http://twitter.com/

During the research for my book, The Social Media Bible, by John Wiley & Sons, I had an amazing half hour conversation with Biz Stone, the cofounder of Twitter about why he invented Twitter and how Twitter is being used for business.  I learned a lot about the technology, its applications, and how Twitter really has changed the world of communication, news reporting, and business marketing ROI using free Tweets.  You can click http://tr.im/u6ct to listen to our conversation. … Continue Reading

While Control May Be An Illusion, Chaos Is Real

Whenever I speak with a government agency or often with larger, Fortune 500 corporation I hear “Oh, we don’t allow social media in or organization…”  Ah, yeah…

I was working as a nuclear engineer at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state when email first hit the scene and we were told ‘We will never allow email at any of our facilities because people could just email top secret information outside and even to the Russians”.  When cell phone first became popular, they were outlawed also because they didn’t have control over their use either.  Then it was the Internet and now it’s the dreaded “social media”… … Continue Reading

Social Media eBook Downloads

Welcome to the Extreme Digital Marketing – Social Media eBook download area of my web site.  I have provided these eBooks to you for free so that you may better understand the power of social media, its tactics, tools, and strategies.

Feel free to distribute them to anyone who could benefit from them and please feel free to comment below and and let me know your thoughts on them and on Social Media!

TSMB (The Social Media Bible) Sampler
This is an ebook offered in two versions; 78 pages with the complete 33 page index and 43 page without.  This ebook has been taken directly from The Social Media Bible and includes;
Table Of Contents: This is the actual Table Of Contents from the original book.
Introduction: This is the 9 page Introduction, Preface, and Acknowledgement from the book.
Chapter 1: This is the complete, 21 page Chapter 1.
Strategies: This is a 3 page excerpt from Part 3, “Building A Foundation For Social Media Success”.
Index: This is the 33 page Index from the book.
Download the TSMB Sampler eBook with the Index – 23mb
Download the TSMB Sampler eBook without the Index – 9mb … Continue Reading

The Social Media Bible – Ten Commandments

As coauthor of the Social Media Bible, I was asked “What are the Ten Commandments” of Social Media?”  So here they are!

1. Thou Shalt Blog (like crazy).
2. Thou Shalt Create Profiles (everywhere).
3. Thou Shalt Upload Photos (lots of them).
4. Thou Shalt Upload Videos (all you can).
5. Thou Shalt Podcast (often). … Continue Reading

“The Five Ps of Social Media Implementation” But Not FRED Figglehorn

Here is Lon’s  parody on the YouTube sensation; Fred Figglehorn.  Fred is a 14 year old pretending to be an 8 year old with anger management problems.  Fred creates his 3 minute improv videos with his voice pitched high.

When I interviewed George Strompolos, the Content Partnerships Manager For YouTube, he said that he couldn’t be specific, but 14 year old FRED was earning more than $100,000 in advertising revenues from his videos.  He’s also generated more than 33 million views. … Continue Reading

The Five P’s Of Social Media Implementation

Here is a transcript of the audio and video posts on YoutTube and here at The Social Media Bible web site of my Five P’s Of Social Media Implementation.  I hope it is helpful!

Hello, my name is Lon Safko, co-author of The Social Media Bible, published by John Wiley & Sons, the most comprehensive book ever written on the subject of social media.

And today I will be speaking about the Five P’s of Social Media Implementation.  Everybody asks, “Okay, now that I’m getting a better idea of what social media is, “How do I actually apply it?”  Well, these five P’s actually are Profiles, Propagate, Produce, Participate, and Progress. … Continue Reading

A Virtual Presence-tation

It always seems to happen.  Anytime the economy goes into a downturn, the first thing corporate hatchet people do is go after the training and education budget.  Honestly, when times are the most difficult do you really think this is the best time to attack morale and eliminate necessary training? … Continue Reading

The Social Media Bible – October Update

As promised, I am keeping you up to date on the progress of The SMB book design and launch.  We have had some incredible additions to the Executive Conversations, we’ve nearly completed the book cover design, and still have a great deal of opportunity for you to participate and contribute your insights to the design and content of The SMB!

Executive Interviews
Expert Insights
A special thank you to all of those who have participated in the Expert Insights, Executive Conversations. These podcast conversations with industry giants has brought an incredible array of fascinating insights. We added quite a few new names to the already impressive list of participants for you to listen to. … Continue Reading

35 Major Corporations Engaged In Social Media

This is a list of 35 major corporations engaged in using Social Media. It was so compelling I had to blog about it! The results for these corporations have been great.

Every corporation both large and small will have to engage in social media sooner or later. Those that wait will be left behind by their competition.

Blendtec is famous for its bevy of inexpensive “Will It Blend” videos posted on YouTube and shared by millions.

Adobe maintains a list of interesting company related websites and conversations on the social bookmarking site Delicious. … Continue Reading

Your House Plants Can Now “Tweet”

This is one of the most innovative, albeit silly applications of social media I have seen yet. A company called Botanicalls has come up with a combination of do-it-yourself electronics and computer code that allows your house plants to Twitter you when they need water!

Everything you need is listed on their web site. All you need is a DYI moisture sensor, an Arduino electronic board and either an old Blackberry or laptop with internet access. They provide the computer code download which allows your plant to communicate directly with you through Twitter, the extremely popular microblogging service. … Continue Reading

The Social Media Bible Company Reference

Now is the time for all good men & women to come to the aid of their party!

The project is now finally underway with John Wiley & Sons to produce the largest book ever written on Social Media, called The Social Media Bible.

The book contains three parts; the first part is an overview of all of the social media components and their history. The third part is how to apply social media to a company to increase revenues. And, the middle part, a reference which is the largest part, are profiles on all of the social media participating companies. Companies like Jott, WordPress, Twitter, Yahoo!, and LinkedIn will be represented in this huge directory / reference bible.

We want every company that has contributed in any way to the Social Media Ecosphere included! I need help finding and contacting all of them! I don’t want to miss a single one. Let’s put the value of our own trusted networks to work.

PLEASE, text, twitter, Jott, blog, call, and email this to everyone you know! We want every Social Media technology that should be in the guide, in the guide!

This is the link to the on-line form where each company can input their basic information for the profile: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2mVrAUTbTEzoikD3ecPEiA_3d_3d

The initial web site has only just been set up and is really under construction. This site can be found at http://www.TheSocialMediaBible.com, and my background is at http://www.LonSafko.com.

If you have any questions whatsoever, please contact me at lonsafko@lonsafko.com.

Please, help us to be sure that everyone is included.

Thank you!

Lon Safko & David Brake

Largest Virtual Event In History

Extending The Experience Through 3D Advertising…

On Saturday afternoon, March 15th, I was one of the guests of honor at this year’s American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life. The event was like many other events I have attended in the past. The room was a modern elegant theater style auditorium, the podium was strategically set on a lavishly decorated stage with large screens at either end of the stage. While I sat in one of the many comfortable director chairs set on the stage for the guests and speakers, I could see my partner Linh Tang and several of our designers sitting in the audience. I could hear the D.J.’s background music playing one of my favorite Beatles songs, and the M.C. at the mic repeating the infamous pre-show “testing, testing, testing”, sound check mantra.

I watched the nearly 400 attendees filing and flying into the theater rushing to find just the right seat with the best view of the stage; and that’s when it happened. I heard someone yell, “I think were crashing! We’re going down!”. At that very moment, everyone froze; literally. The number of attendees (or avatars), exceeded SecondLife’s computer capacity and we crashed their servers. Second Life was down… … Continue Reading

The Social Media Book Survey Results Are In

The Social Media Book Survey results are in and finally available for download!

Thank you for your patience through this process and especially for participating in the first of two steps in development of the Social Media Book Project.

As we begun working on the Social Media Book Project we realized that we were onto something bigger than the standard 250-page business book that most publishers punch out by the hundreds. The feedback and level of participation in the initial survey was more than double and nearly triple the usual participation Content Connections sees when they survey a standard business book idea. We had nearly 1,000 people assist us in the creation of this new book so far! … Continue Reading

TSA Speaks & Now Listens…

I really wanted to share this recent Social Media success story I heard on “On The Media” which is broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR). This was an interview with Bruce Schnier, security specialist speaking about the T.S.A. (Transportation Security Administration). A recent poll showed that our beloved TSA has tied for last place as the “most hated” federal agency. Guess who they tied with… Yeah, the IRS.

This success story is actually about our government using cutting edge technology to communicate with us. This is worth repeating; our government is using cutting edge technology to communicate with us… … Continue Reading

Social Media: “Will It Blend”

This is another great example of Social Media Viral Marketing at its best and WII-FM (What’s In It For Me). I am often asked when I speak, “How can I create a video, blog, web site fish food, that will become viral and spread on its own?” The answer is always WIIFM. There always has a “What’s In It For Me” or “What’s In It For Your Customer”. In many cases it’s a white paper with value, a take-away, or in this case the WII-FM is humor or entertainment.In this video Tom Dickson, President of BlendTech a manufacturer of consumer blenders blends a brand new iPhone! … Continue Reading

Social Media: Subway verses Quizno’s

Here’s a terrific and fresh example of the power of  “User Generated Content” video on YouTube and iFilm.  Like a lot of Social Media Marketing, this video had some unanticipated results, both good and not so good results. … Continue Reading

Social Media: At Work

I just met with Don Mock at Jobing.com here in Phoenix. This is someone who really understands the importance and effectiveness of using Social Media as a key component in their corporate marketing and sales strategy plan. Don explained to me that he has recently implemented a blog site for each of his Jobing job categories and that the most recent one he has created was for Construction/Trades. … Continue Reading

Journey To The Home Land

Last Friday I got a unique opportunity to travel back to the Holy Land. Being a computer geek and developer for the past 20 years, I am of course, referring to Silicone Valley, Mountain View in particular. I got to fly out and meet with Google at their headquarters in Mountain View. Talk about Déjà vu! When I walked onto the Google campus, I had a total flashback to 1987. No, this wasn’t like a 1960’s flashback. This is when I started traveling back to visit with Apple Computer in the eighties. Google so reminded me of Apple in the old days. The college campus look, the industrial college type buildings with their stark Ikea type furnishings, and even the college age employees all in their jeans and sweatshirts. Only the logos on the shirts had changed over the last 20 years. … Continue Reading

Social Media Book Survey Update

The Social Media Survey Is Off To A Great Start! But, still needs your help. … Continue Reading

The World’s First Book On Social Media Using Social Media

Wow! We’ve launched the survey site that is the first design step in the creation of The World’s First Book On Social Media Using Social Media! I am proud to say that we have some outstanding people that have already agreed to participate in this history-making event. People like Chris Heuer, the Founder of The Social Media Clubs Worldwide, Robert Scoble, the Famous Microsoft Blogger and “Scoble-izer”, Pat Sullivan, the Creator of ACT Contact Management Software, and even Marc Cantor, the Founder and Creator of Macromedia, and FLASH! … Continue Reading

The First Virtual World – The SenSei O.S.

Over the weekend I was doing some research for my upcoming book on ‘Social Media, The Impact On Your Bottom Line’ where I am collaborating with Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Clubs worldwide and Robert Scoble, the famous Microsoft Blogger and “Scoble-izer”. I was asked what my first experience was with Virtual World’s or Virtual Environments similar to Second Life. After thinking about my history in the computer industry since it started in the mid ‘70’s, I came upon an epiphany. The first virtual environment I ever came across was the one I invented! … Continue Reading

Paper Models Opens Virtual Store In Virtual World

Date Line: Pinastri, Second Life, October 20, 2007
Contact: Lon S. Safko, President, Paper Models, Inc., LonSafko@LonSafko.com

Paper Models Inc, announced today that it opened its first virtual store in a virtual world, selling it’s real world products in a virtual format to virtual citizens said Lon Safko, president and creator of Paper Models, Inc. (www.PaperModelsInc.com). … Continue Reading

It’s A Small World (Wide Web) After All

Disney’s miniature, multi-ethnic, animatronics, were right! In my entire career in technology I don’t believe that I have ever experienced such an Alice in Wonderland day as I did this weekend. I bounced around cyberspace in and out of virtual reality, real reality, and around the globe until it almost became a blur. … Continue Reading

Social Media… The Impact It Will Have On Your Business

Social Media
Is the hottest business topic out in business right now, and is affecting the way business is done in America. It’s affecting small, medium and large companies alike. It is affecting all forms of media from newspapers, to magazine, to television, to the Internet. It’s even affecting the way press releases are designed and submitted to media, and product launches, and customer service. It’s affecting sales, marketing, and P.R. Social Media WILL affect you and your business in ways we don’t yet fully understand. … Continue Reading

Organic Innovation

Here’s an observation I made the other day about innovation, ideas, thoughts, and invention. It’s out there, but I wanted to share it with you.

… Continue Reading

God Works In Mysterious Ways

(God Told Phil Collins To Yell At Me)

Over the next few months I continued to work on the SoftVoice System, by expanding it’s capabilities, improving it’s voice recognition rate with new software, adding the ability to draw in color, and I even got to system to speak back to you! I installed voice synthesizing for the first time. I guess at this point I created another first. I created a computer that will speak and listen to its user and do what it’s told.

… Continue Reading

M&M’s Replaced The Popcorn

It was great to see Herb alive and smiling. Herb was cautious, and happy. Herb eventfully left St. Elizabeth’s hospital to live and work on his own. A funny note I remembered as I completed the last entry. The last time I saw Herb I was with my new wife Sherry. She joined me on a trip to visit Herb. As we were leaving the hospital I was explaining how sever Herb’s injuries were and how close to death Herb was, when we heard someone behind us. It was Herb in his regular, not an electric wheelchair. Herb, by now, had the partial use of both of his arms. He could use his arms enough to push his own wheelchair and type on his keyboard.

… Continue Reading

Flashlights And Roller Coasters

(Innovators Rules #10 & #11)

From the last story we realize two more important Rules of being an Innovator; Rule #10: Don’t Force Your Product Into One Category and Rule #11: The Roller Coaster Ride.

Rule #10 is easy to forget but important to remember. If you aren’t constantly aware of this rule, you could miss out on market segments you never thought of and like in the examples below the missed markets were larger than the original markets. And, of course when I say “markets” I mean “revenues”.

Rule #11 is a rule you can never forget about. Being an Innovator is getting up every morning, driving to the Innovator’s Amusement Part (your office), and stepping on that roller coaster ride for another 12 hours of excitement.

Here are the next two Rules of Innovation…

… Continue Reading

Handshake And A Smile

(Is It Possible?)

As I left ST. Elizabeth’s hospital that morning I had a strange sense of profound satisfaction. It was the first time I had ever designed and built something for someone who was so in need. It was gratifying. It was very exciting for me to see that someone could benefit so greatly from a product the I developed. I never experienced anything like this before. … Continue Reading

Chicken Or The Pig?

(Are your Cheap, Committed and Self-Confident?)

In the last installment of our Innovators story we saw three new Rules of Innovation emerge; Rule #7: Innovators Are Cheap, Rule #8: Commitment Versus Contribution, and Rule #9: Embrace Your Self – Confidence.
… Continue Reading

911 For An Apple IIe

After several months of therapy, rehabilitation, and instruction on how to live as a quadriplegic, Leon returned home, was working as an engineer, earning a good living, and doing very well on his own. In the fall of 1998; however, we lost Leon due to medical complications. Because of the quadriplegic’s paralysis, they remain physically inactive and often contract pneumonia and die of infection. This is how most quadriplegics die as we have recently seen with the actor, Christopher Reeves who became a C-2 Quadriplegic due to a horse ridding accident. Chris was the last disable person I got to work with using my SenSei System.

… Continue Reading

One is for On, and Two is for Off

(The World’s First Voice Activated Environmental Control Computer)

During the remaining four days before the demonstration, I retreated to my garage both day and night. What would this country be without its garages? Some people think that it’s the entrepreneurial spirit that makes us so innovative, but it may very well be that most everyone has a garage.

… Continue Reading

The First Six Rules Of Innovation

(WII-FM)Whenever I go into a company or organization to train, or teach any marketing class the first thing I teach is always ask “What’s In It For Me?”, WII-FM. What do I get out of it? What do I walk away with? What are my take-a-ways?

… Continue Reading

The Founding Of The $5.3 Billion Assistive Technology Industry

(In The Beginning…)

I’m going to step away from the technical aspects of Innovative Thinking for this entry and interweave actual practical examples. Below is the story of how I co-founded the $5.3 billion Assistive Technology industry and how Innovation helped me to develop the first commercially available voice recognition, voice synthesizing, environmental control, the HeadMouse, and the first fully graphic operating system, computer system for the physically disabled.

… Continue Reading

The Three ‘C’s Of Innovation – ‘C’ #1 – “Collection”

(‘C’ #1 – “Collection”)

As I stated in my earlier blog entry, there are 3-‘C’s in the Innovative Thinking process. Everyone can become an Innovative thinker if they only knew the actual process. It’s like riding a bike, playing the piano, playing sports, or any learned activity. You first learn how to do it, then you practice, and the more you practice, the better you become at it.

… Continue Reading

The Three ‘C’s Of Innovation

(An Introduction)

Welcome to Innovation…

I wanted to launch this blog with what I believe is the most important thing you should do–become better at Innovative Thinking. Innovative or Creative Thinking has the highest rate of return of anything you can do for yourself and your company.

… Continue Reading

Best Practices To Improve Your eCommerce Conversion Rate

The power of five is something that was researched by the people at Future Now (Future Now – ROI, 2006). Future Now helps traditional companies increase the effectiveness of their sales force and their eCommerce conversion rates. Understanding the concept can be very rewarding and has great value. There are ten business metrics, or operating measurements, an eTailer must track to measure the on-line performance: … Continue Reading

Number Of Keywords Verses Conversion Rates

As promised, whenever I find information that will help you and your business through Creative Marketing, eMail Marketing, and Search Engine Marketing, I’ll pass it along. I recently came across this study done by Oneupweb and presented as part of a Master’s Thesis. I found the results interesting and thought your web site’s search engine optimization could benefit from it.

In 2005, Oneupweb conducted a study to determine if the number of keywords in a search query was related to conversion rates. The hypothesis was that the longer the keyword string, the higher the conversion rate. They focused their study on data generated by natural or organic search engine results listings, not sponsored listings or pay-per-click advertising. (Remember the exercise in our SEO/SEM Conference that one key word would fit into 100 sentences, two key words together would only fit in 10, and three keywords together would only be appropriate in one sentence?) … Continue Reading

Your Email Checklist to Success

Here is your Email “Checklist to Success” for your email marketing campaigns!
9/3/06

By now you know that email marketing is still one of the most successful ways to market on the Internet, giving you the greatest ROI (Return On Investment), while providing you with the highest possible conversion rate.

Just follow the few simple rules and concepts we discussed in our “Success Strategies for Internet and Email Marketing” and our “Search Engine
Optimization Best Practices in SEO and SEM” conferences and you be emailing with success! … Continue Reading

What Is A Trademark?

A trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services produced or provided by one enterprise from those of other enterprises. Any distinctive words, letters, numerals, drawings,pictures, shapes, colors logotypes, labels or combinations used to distinguish goods or services may be considered a trademark. In some countries, advertising slogans are also considered trademarks and may be registered as such at national trademark offices. An increasing number of countries also allow for the registration of less traditional forms of trademarks such as single colors, three dimensional designs [shapes of products or packaging], audible signs [sounds] or of factory signs [smells]. … Continue Reading

eMarketing for the IT Professional

eMarketing Requirements for Search Engine Marketing – Printed with permission from Frank Fiore.

A little over a year and half ago, I wrote an article for InformIT entitled “Is Your IT Staff Giving You the Business”. Briefly, the article took the position that the online channel should be treated like any other marketing channel; it should be planned, designed, and marketed by business people, leaving the building of the infrastructure to the IT staff. Not the other way around. The article created quite a stir and the discussion board was hot with debate. Business people and IT professional took sides and had at it. … Continue Reading

How To Write A Successful Press Release

The Eight Things You Need To Know About…
How to write a successful Press Release is a question I get asked often. Like anything else, once you know the guidelines, it’s really easy to write an effective press release. You’ll find it has one of the highest R.O.I. of anything you can do for your company.
1 . Format: Follow the standard format! Everyone who receives press releases expects to see the same format right down to the “# # #” at the end of the release (the “# # #” is from the old days of the teletype where it meant end of transmission.) Look at the partial example below and go to www.LonSafko.com, Articles (top right) to download the entire example; … Continue Reading

The Computer History Museum

Computer History Museum
Mountainview, California

View the photograph album of the Donated Inventions.

Musuem Gift Letter

Museum Deed Of Gift

Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History

Smithsonian Acquisition Item Photograph Page

Smithsonian Acquisition Visit Photographs

Smithsonian September 2, 2005 Press Release (pdf)

Lemelson Center Records Collection Location Aide (pdf)

Lemelson Center Annual Report (pdf)

Smithsonian Certificate of Gift

Smithsonian Gift Letter

Smithsonian Deed Of Gift