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Two new web services from my inbox. Maybe these are useful to some readers: 1. Trade your contacts with others with the Reach Lead Network ala Jigsaw. Cool feature is that they can resolve ’social media’ contacts (i.e. Twitter followers) into real contact info. 2. If you are looking for new product/brand/company names to trademark, searching out conflicts is a pain. Well, until you’ve [...] (11/23/09 09:01 PM)

7 prospecting rules that produce leads. Need to improve your teleprospecting efforts? Check out my guest post for ZoomInfo, a blog that offers advice on all aspects of sales and marketing. The site features industry news, analysis, and surveys. And, from time to time they let... (09/10/09 09:00 PM)

B2B Marketing Zone launched . A new B2B marketing community that I am participating in was just launched. The B2B Marketing Zone is a marketing community site that was launched as collaborative effort between Tom Pick and Tony Karrer. The community features content from other... (07/02/09 09:00 AM)

June is Entrepreneur's "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month!.

For those of you who are not yet fans of Chase's Calendar of Events, you'll find that it's a great resource for you or for your clients when seeking those special holidays to tie your promotions to! In fact, there only ONE entry in the entire book with the word "marketing" in the title, and it happens to be in honor of Entrepreneurs "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month in June. Of course, that's reason to celebrate.

In order to do our part for the celebration, we've created a cool little e-book with some marketing planning tools and 30 ideas for entrepreneurs, along with a 30-day e-course starting on June 1st. What's even better is that there's different content and different ideas in the e-book and the e-course, so it's like you're getting two for one!

Learn more about Entrepreneurs "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month at: www.diymarketingmonth.com

Below is the press release signaling the launch of Entrepreneurs "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month coming up in June.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: DanaVanDen Heuvel
The MarketingSavant Group
888-989-7771
dana@marketingsavant.com

MarketingSavant Group reaches out to entrepreneurs with "DIY" marketing in honor of June's "Do it Yourself" Marketing Month

Green Bay, WI -- (May 13, 2009) Even in struggling economic times,
small businesses' entrepreneurial spirit continues to be a driving
force in the American economy.

A Green Bay, Wis.-based marketing consulting and training firm is
reaching out to the backbone of American business, providing a
Do-It-Yourself Marketing Plan customized specifically for
entrepreneurs. MarketingSavant is delivering free marketing tools just
in time for Entrepreneurs "Do It Yourself" Marketing Month in June.

"As an entrepreneur myself, I know how challenging it is to keep
marketing 'top of mind' and to stay front of mind with your customers
when you're wearing multiple hats," said Dana VanDen Heuvel, president
of MarketingSavant and creator of the month-long Do It Yourself
Entrepreneur Marketing Plan geared to small business. "But effective
marketing is even more pivotal to a small business' well-being than
their larger peers'."

Not to mention the sheer number of small businesses ripe for
marketing assistance. Small business is not equated with small
financial impact. Consider these statistics:

In 2008, there were an estimated 27 million small businesses in the U.S. (Source: Small Business Administration)

In 2008, 12 million people were involved in starting new firms. (Source: Small Business Administration)

For 90 percent of these beginning entrepreneurs, it takes more
than five years for an outcome to be determined. In that time,
one-third disengage, one-third continue in start-up mode and another
third implement a new firm. (Source: U.S. Small Business Administration)

Small businesses provide half the nation's nonfarm, private real
gross domestic product, and half of all Americans work for a small
firm. In addition, small businesses have been the primary job generator
in the U.S. economy, creating 60 to 80 percent of the new net jobs
annually from 1994 to 2004.(Source: Small Business Administration)

With numbers like these, there's a substantial audience that can
benefit from Do It Yourself marketing tools customized to their unique
needs. The MarketingSavant DIY Entrepreneur Marketing Plan includes
several resources that entrepreneurs can quickly put to use, as well as
tools to build their long-term marketing plans, including:

"30 Days of DIY Marketing" e-book, an excellent resource that
provides a marketing calendar and more than 30 do-it-yourself marketing
ideas to grow your business over the summer;

30-day e-course, delivered daily by email, highlighting marketing tips;

Eligibility to receive one of 10 free copies of the book, "Guerilla Marketing in 30 Days" by Jay Conrad and Al Lautenslager;

Free access to a BlogTalkRadio program featuring insights from Lautenslager, a well-known and respected guerrilla marketer

Tips for reaching out to the media to obtain media coverage on your event/product/service

Much more!

"Realistically, entrepreneurs want to take charge of their own
marketing, just as they take charge of everything related to their
businesses," said VanDen Heuvel. "The DIY Marketing Plan makes this
good intention a reality by delivering a comprehensive plan
specifically for entrepreneurs in an easy-to-implement, do-it-yourself
format."

To learn more about the DIY Entrepreneur Marketing Plan and/or to
participate in the plan for your small business' benefit, visit www.diymarketingmonth.com today!

(05/14/09 09:00 PM)

MarketingExperiments B2B Landing Page Web Clinic Contest. I will be hosting a MarketingExperiments Web Clinic along with MECLABS Sciences Group Director, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, this Wednesday, February 25 at 4 pm EST. This clinic is special because it will feature an interactive contest. Ten B2B landing pages... (02/25/09 09:00 AM)

Top 10 Best and Worst Communicators of 2008 (by Bert Decker). Every year my father, Bert Decker (author, entrpereneur, 30-yr communications expert) posts his Top 10 Best and Worst Communicators of the year. This year you will see some twists and surprises. Read the entire blog post here.Ten BEST Communicators of 2008 Barack Obama Tim Russert Randy Pausch Colin Powell Mike Huckabee John Chambers Sarah Palin "New Communicators" -- Nancy Duarte, Garr Reynolds, Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin Tina Fey Anderson Cooper Ten WORST Communicators of 2008 George W. Bush Richard Fuld Rod Blogojevich Elliot Spitzer Roger Clemens Sarah Palin (yes...best and worst! Read how that's possible) Dan Rather Al Davis Rosie O'Donnel John McCain How is Bert qualified to post this list? Here's his bio:Bert Decker is a national communications expert, best selling author and entrepreneur, founding the communications training company Decker Communications, Inc. He has been featured in the NY Times, Business Week, 20/20, as well as being the communications commentator for the NBC TODAY Show for the Presidential Debates. Coach to Charles Schwab, U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, former Mattel CEO's John Ammerman and Jill Barrad, Olympians Bonnie Blair and Tom Dolan, SF 49er All-Pro Brent Jones, and dozens of other executives Founder, Chairman and CEO of Decker Communications, Inc., a leader in communications training and executive coaching. Consultant to Siemens, State Farm, Schwab, Met Life, and many others Professional Speaker and best selling author of "You've Got to Be Believed To Be Heard" and "Speaking With Bold Assurance" Co-producer of an Academy Award documentary Entrepreneur, founder of four companies,... (02/24/09 09:00 AM)

New Event! What's Your Marketing Stimulus Plan?.

I've just launched the first of a series of marketing, thought leaderships and social media events that I'll be running in Wisconsin in 2009. If you're up for some 'marketing stimulus', I recommend that you check out this program!

The MarketingSavant Group invites you to attend the Marketing Stimulus Plan Boot-Camp, a one-day in-depth workshop that will jumpstart or revitalize your marketing efforts in these tough times. The best companies don't cut marketing spend in a downturn, they do the opposite. They know that even the toughest market conditions still provide plenty of opportunity.

Attend this one-day workshop to refine and revitalize your marketing strategy to help you swim upstream during the recession and position your company for long-term success.

Who: The MarketingSavant Group
What: What's Your Marketing Stimulus Plan? Workshop
When: January 27th, 2009 from 8:30 to 4:45
Where: De Pere, WI at the F.K. Bemis Center - St. Norbert College
How Much: $295 early reg / $395 after 1/9/09
Where do I Sign Up: At the Eventbrite website

Marketing managers, sales professionals, business owners, and executives within small to medium sized companies responsible for sustaining profitability and striving growth in a downturn will learn how to:

* Develop a road map for putting frugal, ethical and effective marketing strategies in place immediately
* Understand how new approaches in digital and social media marketing can catapult your company into new market opportunities
* Adapt your marketing spend for today's unpredictable economy
* Adjust prices and promotions without sacrificing market share or brand image
* Focus on accountability and obtaining measurable results from your investments
* Improve strategic and tactical planning with marketing ROI techniques and tools
* Manage your marketing budget and collaborate CFO and CEO

It's been said that "Every adversity carries a seed of equal or greater benefit." This program will help you and your business find the silver lining in those dark clouds by adopting creative, compelling, and low-cost/high-return marketing strategies. We'll discuss and learn new ways to devise new strategies to overcome economic turmoil, and execute new tactics to win, sustain and grow new business.
Bonus Item for Attendees:

All attendees will receive a copy of Marketing in a Downturn: Recession-Proof Strategies for Smart Marketers, a 90-page e-book featuring over 25 interviews with leading marketers, consultants, managers and business owners sharing their most effective marketing strategies for remaining profitable and sustaining growth during a downturn.

Who Should Attend?
* Marketing and communications professionals
* Small business owners
* Channel and brand managers
* Entrepreneurs and start-up managers
* Advertising and public relations professionals seeking new client solutions

You'll Walk Away With:

* Dozens of low-cost and effective ideas that you can implement immediately to jumpstart your marketing in the recession of 2009
* The tools, templates and action plans you'll need to succeed in the world of digital and social media marketing
* An idea packed e-book, Marketing in a Downturn: Recession-Proof Marketing Strategies for Smart Marketers, on how to make the most of your marketing in a recession

Register Now at Eventbrite

(02/24/09 09:00 AM)

New Event! What's Your Marketing Stimulus Plan?.

Attend this one-day workshop to refine and revitalize your marketing strategy to help you swim upstream during the recession and position your company for long-term success.

Register Now at Eventbrite

(12/17/08 09:00 PM)

Push vs. Pull Marketing.

The push marketing vs. pull marketing discussion is still alive and well. Check out this article on Adotas. It's been pretty popular so it's pegged as the lead article on the site for the last week.

Success Is A Tug Of War, Push And Pull To Win

(04/04/08 09:00 PM)

Site Update and New Feature.

This weekend I spent some time adding some great new resources to my site. Check out my What's New Page to see what I've added.

I've also instituted a new feature for these and subsequent new resources. Recently, I discovered Clipmarks, a tool you can use to clip and stash snippets from Web pages. I've been trying to come up with a way to incorporate Clipmarks on my site and decided to begin using it to highlight the new additions. A possible other use might be to incoporate it in this blog, maybe for a "Site of the Week" or "Site of the Day" feature. I'm still thinking about this, so stay tuned.

Now what you will see when you go to a page on my site where I've added a new resource is something like what is shown at the bottom of this post -- a clip from the Foundation Center website.

To see the clips for the new resources, go to any of these pages:

Business Plans
Grant Writing
Small Business
Grant Subjects
Grant Samples
Legal, Financial & Contracts

What do you think?

clipped from foundationcenter.org

"The subject of this short course is proposal writing. But the proposal does not stand alone. It must be part of a process of planning and of research on, outreach to, and cultivation of potential foundation and corporate donors."

(03/24/08 09:01 AM)

My 1997 Home Page & Resume...still alive!. Maybe with the new baby I'm in a nostalgic mood to share this with you... I was going through some old files on my computer tonight and found a local version of my personal home page I built in 1995 and abandoned in 1997. I clicked on one of the links and it went live! It's still at http://users.aol.com/samdecker. I have no idea why this is still live...I lost my free "SamDecker" AOL account in 2000. My home page simply featured my online resume and list of links live, but it's an interesting trip back in history, with an animated gif and .gif photo of myself (everything was .gif back then!). You can see some early Internet links, many of which are not live anymore. I don't call out some of those college accomplishments on my resume any more, but you can see my entrepreneurial roots! Also, as an aside, you can see my first corporate web site I built (with the technical skills of Raines Cohen). Here you can see the 1996 version of the User Group Connection web site. And if you want to see what I looked like with hair in 1995, here you go: Before: And after... If anyone tries to sell you something with these before and after pictures, don't buy it (as if I have to tell you)! (03/09/08 09:00 AM)

My New Toy.

My birthday is coming up soon -- it will arrive next week while we're in Maine. So my husband got me a new toy that I can play with while we're there. Want to see? Just click here.

This is my kind of toy. I've only had it since Sunday and already I'm in love. The toy does everything I need, or at least it will once I figure out how to use all the features. I played with it at home until yesterday morning, when I decided to give it a test run while doing some errands.

Get in the car, drive to the grocery store, pick up a few things. Uh oh, there's a long check-out line. No problem, I spend my time checking my e-mail on my new toy. Get back in the car to go somewhere else and I remember that I need to make a call. That's easy too -- I talk to the toy and tell it that I want to call Janet Smith. The toy asks me if I want to call her work, home or cell phone. Amazing!

Head over to Starbucks for a latte. I wonder what is going on in the news. I go to my Yahoo home page on the toy and get the latest headlines. I read a few of the news stories while drinking my latte. Then I send an e-mail to a friend.

It's not going to be too difficult to get addicted to this new toy. Goodbye Palm PDA, goodbye old cell phone. I've never liked either of you, and now both of you are history!

So Happy Birthday to me!

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

My New Toy.

My birthday is coming up soon -- it will arrive next week while we're in Maine. So my husband got me a new toy that I can play with while we're there. Want to see? Just click here.

It's not going to be too difficult to get addicted to this new toy. Goodbye Palm PDA, goodbye old cell phone. I've never liked either of you, and now both of you are history!

So Happy Birthday to me!

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Top 10 Best and Worst Speakers of 2007. Every year Bert Decker (disclosure: my father), Chairman of Decker Communications, publishes his Top 10 Best and Worst speakers of the year. The top 3 speakers of 2007 are: Gov. Mike Huckabee Dr. Mehmet Oz Al Gore Click here to see all Top 10 Best Speakers The 2007 worst three speakers are: Attorney Alberto Gonzales Michael Vick Robert Eckert (Mattel Chairman) Click here to see all Top 10 Worst Speakers Bert Decker is a national communications expert, best selling author and entrepreneur, founding the communications training company Decker Communications, Inc. He has been featured in the NY Times, Business Week, 20/20, as well as being the communications commentator for the NBC TODAY Show for the Presidential Debates. Coach to Charles Schwab, U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, former Mattel CEO's John Ammerman and Jill Barrad, Olympians Bonnie Blair and Tom Dolan, SF 49er All-Pro Brent Jones, and dozens of other executives Founder, Chairman and CEO of Decker Communications, Inc., a leader in communications training and executive coaching. Consultant to Siemens, State Farm, Schwab, Met Life, and many others Professional Speaker and best selling author of "You've Got to Be Believed To Be Heard" and "Speaking With Bold Assurance" Co-producer of an Academy Award documentary Entrepreneur, founder of four companies, Chairman of Bold Assurance Ministries, NBC TODAY Communications Expert commentator, Advisory Board Salvation Army (01/05/08 09:00 PM)

Three Answers from the Web 2.0 Summit. I couldn't make the Web 2.0 Summit a couple weeks ago, but my colleague Jay Hallberg (Co-founder and VP of Marketing for Spiceworks) was there and answered my top three questions: If I were a brand company.... top three things... that would help my business: 1) Web 2.0 is moving into 'adulthood' and changing industries. There was a general feeling that web 2.0 has grown up. In fact, the Red Herring had a great piece on this: "Is Web 2.0 Growing Up?". Collaborative technologies are solving problems for enterprises and entire industries. It's no longer about whether your CEO has a blog or your company has a wiki. You better be paying attention to how Web 2.0 is helping your competitor or turning your company upside down. Half of the companies featured in the prestigious Launch Pad were "B2B": Cleverset optimizes website revenue, ClickForensics analyzes PPC click fraud, and Spiceworks (my company) has introduced free, ad-supported IT applications. Some of the crowd bemoaned the fact that Web 2.0 is no longer about the next YouTube or Flickr -- it's now about how it's impacting the bottom-line or up-ending industries. If you are still talking about blogs and wikis you may have missed the boat. 2) "Online" is everything. Brian McAndrews who runs Microsoft's ad business really nailed it when said that within 5 years online will be the center of all media, marketing and advertising strategies. It's where people should start. Frankly, it's hard to believe that this isn't already... (10/29/07 09:00 AM)

Yahoo Buys Zimbra for $350 Million. Yahoo has agreed to buy Zimbra, a startup that offers Web-based corporate e-mail (and a Next Net 25 company from 2006). The price is a hefty $350 million—one of the largest for a Web 2.0 startup to date. Yahoo is right to build up its portfolio of Web-based apps, but Zimbra is an enterprise app. Yahoo (YHOO) is a consumer company. So this could end up being a stretch for them (or its entry into a whole new market). Update: A senior Yahoo executive just told me that the acquisition was more for Zimbra's technology than an attempt to create a wedge into the nascent enterprise Webtop market. That makes more sense. So expect to see some of Zimbra's gee-whiz Webtop features appear in Yahoo's consumer e-mail, contact, and calendering apps down the road. (See my earlier coverage fo Zimbra here, here,and here) (09/17/07 09:00 PM)

Glide Mobile Lets You Check Out PowerPoint Slide Shows on Your iPhone. While Google (GOOG) is still supposedly fooling with the finishing touches to its Web-based version of PowerPoint, one startup already has it working on a mobile phone. Transmedia out of New York City is finally bringing PowerPoint presentations to the iPhone and other mobile devices with it's Glide Mobile service. One of the sorely missed features of the Apple iPhone is full compatibility with Microsoft Office. Out of the box, you can read Word documents on it, but you can’t edit them. And don’t even think about running a PowerPoint slide show. But starting later today, Transmedia CEO Donald Leka tells me, Glide members will be able to go over to glidemobile.com on their iPhones (or Blackberries or Treos or Nokias) and show people slide shows that they’ve uploaded to Glide. They can even edit them or create new ones from their iPhone (assuming they have a lot of time on their hands). They can also type away on Word documents to their hearts content—a feature that was implemented a few days after the iPhone hit stores. If a small startup in New York City can make Word docs and PowerPoint slides work on the iPhone, why can’t Apple (AAPL) or Microsoft (MSFT)? (09/17/07 09:00 AM)

Disruptors Video: One Laptop Per Child. In this week's episode of the New Disruptors, I visit One Laptop Per Child, the non-profit building $176 laptops for children in the developing world. I think they are disruptive for many reasons, but foremost is that by trying to design a laptop that initially was supposed to be under $100 they had to rethink many things about computers that most of us take for granted, like the display, the networking, the power consumption, and the durability. (There's no hard drive in this thing). It's also one of the greenest computers on the planet. CTO Mary Lou Jepsen explains to me in the video how getting the power consumption down to a fraction of what a normal laptop needs was one of the main challenges. (It turns out they do this by turning things off when they are not in use to a greater degree than conventional computers do). Don't be surprised if you start seeing many of these features copied in regular laptops soon. Watch the video. (09/14/07 09:00 PM)

Disruptors Video: Changing the Face of Business Travel (DayJet). This week's New Disruptors video is about one of the most promising air taxi startups out there: DayJet. CEO Ed Iacobucci, the founder of Cytrix Systems, plans to use a fleet of small jets from Eclipse Aviation to offer charter jet service on a per-seat basis for not much more than the cost of a business-class seat on a commercial carrier. But he's trying to disrupt driving more than commercial air travel, since he is targeting secondary cities on the outer edges of the airline's traditional hub-and-spoke system. Watch the video. (Full transcript after break). (For more on air taxis, read the feature I wrote about DayJet and Eclipse last March). Subscribe to The New Disruptors Check out my weekly video series on CNNMoney and iTunes where I discover startups with the potential to overturn existing industries or open up new markets. (09/07/07 09:01 PM)

The Race to Buy Facebook Apps. Facebook only opened up its social network to outside applications last May, but already there are 2,960 of them. And the top apps are being snapped up by larger companies. For instance, Slide acquired an app called Favorite Peeps in June. The latest rumor in this regard is that TripAdvisor is paying $3 million for a mapping application called Where I've Been. That's would be a nice check for Craig Ulliott, the sole developer who cobbled together the Facebook app in his spare time. It used to be that a few smart engineers could build a Web 2.0 site, and if i took off, Yahoo or Google or some other large company would buy it after a couple years for as much as $30 million. Now all you need to do is build a blockbuster Facebook app, and you can be bought for $3 million after just a few months of work. If you are only one person, and you own the entire company, you could end up with almost as much on an individual basis as if you owned 10 percent of a larger company. The race is now officially on to buy the most successful Facebook apps. Still, the majority of these Facebook apps are nothing more than features. It's just that anyone can buy a features on Facebook these days, not just Facebook. Where I've Been is a widget you can put on your Facebook page and mark each country or state you've ever visited or lived... (08/17/07 09:01 AM)

Keeping Attention. Part of my post the other day, What should WSJ.com do?, included a little snippet about advertisements potentially distracting from the readability of the Wall St. Journal online. I understand that companies need to make money, but it never ceases to amaze me how prominently some major sites feature advertisements within their pages. We use to have the "banner ad", which we all learned to ignore, so it makes sense that ads drifted down into... (08/13/07 09:00 AM)

Social Startups Kaboodle and Clipmarks Get Snapped Up By Old Media. Old media wants some of that Web 2.0 mojo. Hearst, the magazine company that publishes Cosmo, Esquire, and Seventeen, is buying social-shopping startup Kaboodle. And Forbes is reportedly closing in on a deal to buy Clipmarks, a bookmarking site that lets you clip, save, and share parts of Webpages you find interesting No official word on the purchase price for either one, but the word in the Valley is that Kaboodle sold for between $30 to $40 million. Why are media companies buying Web software startups? Because simply feeding people information—whether it's stock tips or style tips—is no longer enough. If media companies want people to stick around their Websites, they need to give them something to do. And that requires Web-based software. Clipmarks makes it easy for people to share information with each other, while Kaboodle lets them create virtual shopping lists. What is not clear is whether these Web services will be better off as captive arms of big media companies than they are on their own. For Kaboodle, the risk is that instead of becoming the general social-shopping engine of the Web (it's previous ambition), it will be seen as nothing more than a feature of the various Hearst magazine Websites. That opens up the field for other competitors such as ThisNext (see earlier post), StyleFeeder, or Stylehive to pursue that goal. For Clipmarks, selling might be the best move, since it doesn't seem to be gaining much ground on other social bookmark services such as del.icio.us... (08/08/07 09:00 AM)

Facebook Widget Makers See Traffic Rise on Home Sites. Does it pay to make a custom app for Facebook? Some of the top widgets on Facebook from companies like Slide, RockYou, and HotorNot appear to be driving significant traffic back to the home sites, reports VentureBeat. It makes sense. Widgets tend to have limited feature sets and act as teasers to go to a bigger site. The question is whether traffic measurement sites like Quantcast incorporate widget traffic in their overall stats or just look at teh main sites. (Anyone know the answer to that, please tell us in comments). Compete shows a similar trend, but Alexa doesn't show quite as dramatic a jump (and actually shows HotorNot declining slightly). Still, if 10 million people added Slide's Top Friends widget onto their Facebook page, chances are a fraction of them will go and check out what else Slide has to offer. At the very minimum, widgets can be a powerful form of marketing. Once companies figure out how to make money inside the widgets themselves, then we might finally see the beginning of a true Facebook economy.... (07/24/07 09:01 AM)

AT&T Launches Mobile Video Sharing Service For its (Non-iPhone) 3G Network. From the folks who brought you the Picturephone, ATT now lets some customers (those with 3G phones in one of 160 select markets) stream live video over their mobile phones. Want to show your friend in LA how funny your dog looks in sunglasses? Turn on the video cam. Startups like Kyte.tv already allow you to shoot and broadcast videos from your phone, but ATT now let's you do it live, while you are still talking on the phone. I admit that is pretty cool. But is it worth an extra $5 to $10 a month? We'll soon find out. ATT needs to give people a reason to upgrade to their 3G network, and they hope this is it. Today, a cell phone without a digital camera seems crippled. Video is the next logical step, especially as wireless networks become faster. The problem is that it doesn't work with the iPhone because that is not a 3G phone (and the iPhone only takes pictures, not videos). So all those folks who just shelled out $500, if you want this feature you will have to buy another ATT phone (or wait for the 3G iPhone to come out and pay another $500 for that). I'm scheduled to discuss this on CNBC tonight around 7:30 PM ET.... (07/23/07 09:01 PM)

Picnik; The Slickest Pic App Out There. Temps of the World Unite Originally uploaded by Erick Schonfeld Yesterday, Jonathan Sposato, the CEO of Picnik.com, came by my office to show me the slickest Webtop application I’ve seen in a while. It’s a fully-featured picture editing app that blows away iPhoto in many respects and is completely browser-based. Picnik can ingest digital photos from your computer hard drive or from various photo-sharing services, including Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, and Google’s Picassa. Once you pick a picture, you can rotate, crop, zoom in and out, remove red-eye, resize, and add tons of effects from heat maps to sepia tones to doodles to borders. What is impressive is that it does all of this faster than a desktop application like iPhoto. For instance, it took me literally two minutes to create the image above from this image I had previously put up on Flickr. The breadth and quality of features on Picnik fall somewhere between iPhoto and Photoshop. Sposato is the programming whiz who managed the team that built the Halo videogame for the first Xbox. Then he created a startup called Phatbits which was bought by Google and became Google Gadgets. Picnik is free and has attracted about 300,000 users. Sposato plans to try to upsell members to a premium version to get access to some of the fancier effects that are now free in the beta version of the site (like heat maps and doodling). It's not clear how many people will end up paying for such extras, especially... (07/12/07 09:01 AM)

The New Disruptors, Now On iTunes. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that I've been putting out a lot of videos lately. It's all part of a new Web video series I am producing on CNNMoney.com called The New Disruptors. Each week, I will profile a different disruptive startup or entrepreneur in a three-minute video. In the current episode, for instance, I visit Desktop Factory, a company in LA that wants to bring 3D, rapid-prototyping printers to the masses. Future episodes will feature entrepreneurs taking on industries as diverse as the airlines, energy, healthcare, media, manufacturing, and wireless. A new video will go up every Thursday on CNNMoney.com. You can also subscribe to the show for free via an RSS feed or, as of a week ago, get it on iTunes. (When I last checked this morning, it was the No. 15 business podcast on iTunes, neck-and-neck with Wallstrip). If you do download it from iTunes, please write a review there telling me what you think (or in comments below). All you folks who just bought an iPhone need to fill it up with free videos, don't you? For every episode, I will also do a blog post. (Advertisers interested in sponsoring the show, please contact cnnmoneysales@timeinc.com).... (07/10/07 09:01 PM)

Human-Powered Search Already Popular in Korea. ??? Originally uploaded by toan_sagittarius86 The most popular search engine in South Korea is not Google or Yahoo. It is Naver. And one of it's addictive features is the ability for searchers to post questions and receive answers from the crowd of other searchers, somewhat like Yahoo Answers (which itself originated from Yahoo engineers in Korea—Were they inspired by Naver?). Naver calls it "Knowledge iN." The NYT looks into it today. Excerpt:“When people I have never met thank me, I feel good,” Mr. Cho, the lottery ticket seller, said. “No one pays me for this. But helping other people on the Internet is addictive.”Each day, on average, 16 million people visit Naver . . . But Naver users also post an average of 44,000 questions a day through Knowledge iN, the interactive Q.&A. database. These receive about 110,000 answers, ranging from one-sentence replies to academic essays complete with footnotes.Naver has so far accumulated a user-generated database of 70 million entries. Typical queries include why North Korea is building a nuclear bomb, which digital music player is best, why people have cowlicks and what a high school boy should do when he has a crush on a female teacher.The question left unanswered is whether human-powered search yields better results, or whether it is simply the best alternative in a country where, as one analyst quoted in the story puts it, there isn't "enough Korean-language data to trawl to satisfy South Korean customers.” Can someone who speaks Korean post that one one... (07/05/07 09:00 AM)

Yahoo's SmartAds Offer Better Targeting. Yahoo is slowly but surely trying to make its display ads just as relevant and targeted as Google's search ads. It is beginning to test what it calls SmartAds, graphical Web ads that can be customized in an automated fashion to the demographics of the audience most likely to see them. Cnet gives this example:For instance, instead of just seeing a generic ad for a Toyota Prius, a woman in San Francisco who conducts research on hybrid cars on Yahoo Autos could be served an ad for a local San Francisco dealer, along with information on the types of Priuses in stock and their purchase price. The ad, which is configured on the fly, could also feature a background color targeted for women in her age range, as well as a Golden Gate Bridge logo.In order for this to work, however, the advertiser must provide all the different variations and permutations of the ad it might want to show That could get complicated. Will Toyota have to prepare iconic logos for every city—the Gateway Arch for St. Louis, the Sears Tower for Chicago—as well as different colors and copy for each demographic slice it is targeting? A typical Google AdWords campaign can involve hundreds of thousands of different keywords. There is a practical limit to what an ad agency can gin up for one campaign. Still, even if advertisers come up with just 5 or 10 different combinations of the same online ad, in theory it should be more effective... (07/02/07 09:01 PM)

Kevin Rose Pownces on Twitter. Digg co-founder Kevin Rose has launched a side project called Pownce that is a direct challenge to Twitter. With Twitter, people can broadcast short IM or text messages to anyone who wants to subscribe to them. Pownce, which just launched last week in an invite-only beta, is already garnering a lot of chatter in the blogosphere, as well as condemnations among hard-core Digg fans. Pownce combines instant messaging, file sharing, and event management, all in one application. So it is a bit more fully-featured than Twitter. With Twitter, it's all about broadcasting every inane thought you have to the world. With Pownce, at least you can restrict your inanity just to your closest friends (or you can tell the whole world, if that's what floats your boat). And the file-sharing sounds like a nice bonus feature. Of course, both services only work if all your other friends are on them as well. Here's a review of Pownce on Mashable.... (07/02/07 09:01 AM)

My Interview on Invincibelle.com!. Invincibelle.com just put up an interview they did with me. Check it out here and then check out the rest of the interesting interviews and site features. It's a very cool place and I am honored to be included. Invincibelle.com... (06/14/07 09:01 AM)

Your favorite posts of 2006. plex1825 openPlexo({ "container" : "plex1825" }); Anyone can add this feature to a blog. Takes about five minutes (except for the unhappy job of eliminating the hundreds of posts that didn't make the cut). Please go ahead and expand the... (12/22/06 09:01 PM)

Here comes the Long Tail of Reddit (and Digg...). It had to happen, and it's happening all at once. Several sites (a few links at end of the post) are launching very focused, very vertical Digg-like features. My favorite is probably Squidoo (of course) because we've been working on... (12/18/06 09:01 PM)

My New Toy.

My birthday is coming up soon -- it will arrive next week while we're in Maine. So my husband got me a new toy that I can play with while we're there. Want to see? Just click here.

It's not going to be too difficult to get addicted to this new toy. Goodbye Palm PDA, goodbye old cell phone. I've never liked either of you, and now both of you are history!

So Happy Birthday to me!

(12/12/06 08:42 AM)

[Darwin Magazine] Three Myths of American Business. http://www2.darwinmag.com/read/feature/feb05_myths.cfm... (12/12/06 08:04 AM)

[salon.com] Amazon's 43 Secrets. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/02/08/43/ Remember that famous New Yorker cartoon "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog"? Revise that. On the Internet, nobody knows you're Amazon.com, if you hide behind the friendly face of an independent start-up. more...... (12/12/06 08:04 AM)

[ktoddstorch] Customer Service: How Can it Improve? Rosa Say. http://www.ktoddstorch.com/business/2005/01/customer_servic_6.html Day 3 of the "Customer Service: How Can it Improve" feature! Today's writing comes from Rosa at Talking Story. It is an adaptation from Chapter 6 in her book named Managing with Aloha. more... Please note:  Rosa is... (12/12/06 08:04 AM)