The Bella Buzz podcast devotes an entire episode to the vast change that is taking place in the web development world regarding the use of Flash.  As anyone with an iPhone or the new iPad from Apple knows, Flash applications are not supported on these devices.  Since these types of devices are becoming the norm for our mobile computing, we thought we should address the subject with an eye towards the future.

The topic has really come to the forefront as Steve Jobs was questioned about the lack of Flash support on the iPad, and he has written a post title Thoughts on Flash that is prominently featured on the Apple.com web site.

We are heading into an environment where we have moved away from the desktop as the sole form of computing, with a keyboard and a mouse as the way to navigate, to a more mobile device that requires touch and tap capability to access the information we desire.  It is this lack of functionality that removes Flash as a way to distribute rich media content.

The uses of Flash really flourished as bandwidth allowed for quick rendering of larger file formats in the browser. It provided designers with a great way to include animation and rich graphics on their web sites, as well as a way ultimately to wrap multi-media elements such as video and podcasts.  It has also flourished in the online gaming environment.

As sites are redesigned in the near future, migration away from Flash should be a priority conversation with consideration given to jQuery, HTML5 standards or Quicktime.

Desiree is starting to investigate some solutions for sites with major graphical elements including one for a photographer at A Day in the Life Photography, which will be going towards a jQuery solution for his portfolio. Desiree is suggesting that site owners make this change sooner than later so that they can be assured all devices will properly display the site and not some missing plugin icon.

NOTE: The Bella Buzz podcast will be taking a hiatus as Desiree does some international traveling.  We will look for some great insight into overseas technology as well as some uploaded photography upon her return.  The next podcast recording is scheduled for June 14th.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

Hot off Desiree’s speaking engagement at the Magazine Association of the Southeast, we speak with an award winning publisher Rajesh Jyotishi, publisher of Khabar Magazine. Khabar is focused on the Southeast Asian community of Georgia and surrounding areas.

The topic of magazine publishing and content creation is very interesting taken as a bellwether for the direction that internet development is headed.  As consumer electronics in the form of an iPad become more prevalent with widespread adoption, the magazine industry and publishing in general will be looking at everything from production and distribution to revenue opportunities of the future.  It is great to have an industry leader to discuss the way some publishers are dealing with the changes.

The business model that RJ has employed for the course of his 17 years as a publisher is one where the costs are subsidized by the advertising revenue only. This allows him to publish a free digital version on his web site that can be read beyond his geographic target audience without cannibalizing any revenues.  This also provides some added value to his advertisers who might in fact reach some customers outside of the Georgia area.

The application provider, or digital publisher, that RJ uses for Khabar is called Page Suite. There are competitive companies that are also looking to help bring digital publications to the web. Another option would be Issuu.com. At the very basic levels these services allow you to turn a print document into a robust format that includes links, embedded video and reporting features for a solid business option.

There does need to be some distinction made between publishers building applications compared to creating a simple digital version of a magazine.  Popular Science magazine has been a well used demonstration version, and this is a great video that explains what their development team had to consider when building the app.

Mag+ live with Popular Science+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.
As you can see, building a magazine app is completely different than taking a current print edition of a publication and turning into a digital form.

From a publisher’s perspective, RJ considers it a necessity to have a print edition to compliment all of the digital options that are available to us today.  His belief is that many will still want to have the tactile interaction with the content, especially with his niche audience.

Desiree’s straw poll was that it is an even split regarding preferences for digital over a print version at this point. Other factors to consider in a digital publication is the ability to include affiliate marketing or performance marketing links which provide real ROI to an advertiser based upon reader activities.  Also, the social media “sharing” capabilities place additional value to a digital edition.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

Our guest on this week’s edition of the Bella Buzz podcast is Chad Elkins. You may remember Chad from the conversation we had about regarding the excellent social media efforts he is conducting on behalf of The Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. We are happy to have Chad back on the podcast with us to discuss Foursquare Day in Atlanta.

We invited Chad back to The Bella Buzz to tell us all about the hottest networking app Foursquare, and the grassroots event that took place on April 16th called Foursquare Day.

Foursquare is a location based application, which takes advantage of the social gaming excitement that has been most prevalent on Facebook. However in this case, Foursquare provides opportunities for real life customer acquisition and retention strategies for business. By checking in (identifying yourself as being present) at various locations, users can earn badges, points and even a classification as “Mayor.” If it ended right there, it would be a fun game that did not have much relevancy. With a back end built for business, it provides opportunities for incentives to users for checking in, privileges for Mayors, and at even more sophisticated levels, deep analysis and actionable user data.

Foursquare users can see others who are in a location where they have checked in, or simply just the Tips (reviews) they have written about the place. Since this is a location based application, it may push specials and offers from nearby locales as well.

Chad was putting together a group of venues who would participate with offers during Foursquare Day in Atlanta and for many this was their first foray into the service, so this application is still in its very early adopter stage.

In celebration of the “global social media holiday”, there were swarm parties hosted around the world where Foursquare users would gather to celebrate the event.  The founders of Foursquare were gathered in New York City, while Atlanta guests attended an event at The Cheyenne Grille as seen in this coverage from MetroMix.

Rumors appeared recently that Yahoo was making a bid to purchase Foursquare, however these are the founders of the previous location based service DodgeBall that was purchased by Google but ultimately was discontinued.

There are some serious branding campaigns that are using the badge features of Foursquare including Starbucks, Bravo and The History Channel. Chad has a great story about using the History Channel tips on a pilgrimage to the famous magnolia tree from the home of the Atlanta Crackers, Ponce de Leon Ballpark.

For more information about Foursquare, you can watch their blog and for Atlanta based activities watch Chad’s site at Foursquare Atlanta.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

This week on The Bella Buzz podcast, we discuss a publishing platform that provides site owners an easy to use tool for managing content, WordPress.  The platform is expected to be releasing its version 3.0 in the very near future according to information that Desiree received at the WordCamp Atlanta that took place this past January.

Desiree points out that one of the major upgrades to the platform will be the ability to manage multiple users across multiple web sites.  Currently this would require individual logins for each user on each site.  This is just one of the many additional features expected with the launch.  According to this post at Mashable, the Beta of 3.0 is now available for testing.

One of the misunderstandings about using WordPress is that it is only a “blogging” platform, when in fact it can be a wonderful way to set up a site with static pages that only need infrequent updates.  Bella Web Design recently built a new site launched on this platform at BrightClaim.com.  Looking at this site, you will see a very fresh well laid-out site that does not have the appearance of a WordPress format.

A key aspect to the use of WordPress is the open source nature of the platform.  Since the code is easily accessible many plugins have been created to expand the functionality of a WordPress site beyond its strong baseline features.  As a service to Bella Buzz listeners we have made a list of suggested plugins that you should consider, in no particular order:

Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap for stronger SEO
Share This – Let your visitors share a post/page with others
Twitter Tools – A complete integration between your WordPress and Twitter, passing links to posts via your tweet stream.
Wordpress Database Backup – On-demand backup of your WordPress database.
Powerpress – The plugin gives you everything you need in one easy plugin to use WordPress for Podcasting.
Akismet – Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not (Comes pre-populated in Wordpress & is a valuable tool).
Dagon Form Mailer – easily customizable contact form
All In One SEO – this plugin helps you to optimize all of the critical aspects of site design to achieve better ranking results.
WP Super Cache – this is a very efficient way for a site to load faster. Indications are that Google is looking a site load time as a factor in ranking, and this should help that requirement.

We should note that there are other options to consider when deciding on a content management system and we would at least call attention to Typepad and Squarespace, Joomla and Tumblr as other potential platforms.

As a guide for learning how to use WordPress, there are great resources that you can Google, but there is a site called WP Beginner that can be a big help.

There is also an iPhone app that allows easy access to the platform for managing posts.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

Rebekah Lovell from Renown Promotions is our guest on this episode of The Bella Buzz podcast.  We discuss the field of public relations and how social media has changed the game for small and medium sized business.  Renown is a communications consulting company that specializes in community-minded marketing and PR for small business. From copy writing, to full campaigns, they are a source for original and creative approaches to communication challenges.

Change is a constant in this day and age, and nothing has been impacted more than PR. We begin by looking at the way a PR professional goes about practicing client communications.  Rebekah points to the fact that the old form of a press release is dead. The thought leader David Meerman Scott wrote the book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and promotes the paradigm shift from a press release to a news release, and advocates that companies become publishers themselves. You no longer have to rely on the media as being the gatekeepers of information distribution.

In the past, a cultivated and proprietary media lists used to be one of the greatest assets that an PR agency could own, ensuring that a client’s story would be seen by the right media person covering that industry.  In today’s social world, there are tools available for everyone to access with details about contact information. Sarah Evans has developed the extraordinary resource called Media on Twitter.  Using this social form of communication eliminates the prior practices of mailing or faxing, however it has shortened the pitch time for presenting the story and gaining interest from a media contact.

A valuable insight that Rebekah shares with us is how to use Twitter Lists to see what the media is talking about each morning. She can direct client messaging and ensure real relevancy as a source on the latest topics.

The latest form of communication distribution comes from the web site pitchengine.com, which combines written and visual elements into what they term a social media release. Desiree points out that a key feature of this type of release is a “Share” button, allowing for easy re-broadcast of a message. An SMR will also provide good search engine optimization benefit delivery traffic to a web site.

The one thing that has not changed with the implementation of social tools is the clear and concise delivery of a story.  There is no time for fluff and filler to appear in a pitch, with the speed of the news cycle, and it is even more of a challenge to pitch within the confines of 140 characters.

When trying to decide whether to work with a PR professional, make sure to look into the ways in which that person is practicing the profession.  Someone who is simply spamming and broadcasting re-purposed press releases and calling it social media will not be successful in effectively representing you and your brand. There is a great shift in the balance of power where the smaller specialty agencies can be quick and nimble in applying new technologies as they prove successful, while a larger agency must be concerned with maintaining billings.  This allows for affordable, high quality work for clients who might not have been able to use a professional in the past.

In the end, good media relations is a mutually beneficial relationship where the client’s message can be presented to the right person at the most relevant time.  A PR person will know what the media member is writing, their niches, how they prefer the stories to be presented .. whatever is necessary to make sure that the reporter / blogger is successful as well.

BTW, we are celebrating our one year anniversary here on The Bella Buzz! We are so grateful to everyone who has inspired us, appeared with us on the show, left us encouraging feedback .. and most of all, to the listeners who graciously allow us to express ourselves each episode! Thank you for all of the great comments and message you send us about The Bella Buzz!

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

On this week’s episode Desiree speaks from the cockpit of The Bella Beetle, as we welcome Chad Elkins, the voice behind the social media strategy of the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. He first came to our attention through a writeup on the blog Not Easy To Forget from its author James Ball.

For those who are not familiar with this Atlanta landmark, Oakland Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries and one of the largest green spaces in the City of Atlanta, and it is on the National Register of Historic Places. Famous “residents” include Bobby Jones the golfer, Margaret Mitchell the author, Maynard Jackson the former Mayor of Atlanta, and Joseph Jacobs who was the proprietor of the soda fountain where Coca-Cola was first served in 1886.

Chad brings a great perspective to his use of social media in attracting new visitors to the cemetery, and believes that his use of a Twitter account has reached a different demographic than the traditional destination / attraction marketing that tourism venues typically enact.

The content that Chad likes to generate through his social media efforts include the same types of things that any business should consider distributing.  Don’t let the fact that he is interacting on behalf of a cemetery fool you!  He is looking to engage in conversations about events and answer customer service type questions, plus he can include some interesting history that makes his tweet stream an interesting read.  Chad believes that it helps to share information about other things that are happening around the City of Atlanta so that it incorporates Oakland Cemetery as part of the “eco-system” of venues.

Successes include driving measurable traffic to the web site at Oakland Cemetery.com, as well as seeing additional friends and fans attend their events such as the Run Like Hell 5K, Halloween Tours, and Sunday in the Park. All of their events had record attendance which can be attributed to these efforts.  It also pays off from a volunteer recruitment standpoint (and must also be applied to employee recruitment in more traditional business).

Chad suggests that the Atlanta Tourism community look into something like the new location based application Four Square. Another service of this same ilk is Gowalla.

The success that Chad has witnessed on behalf of the Oakland Cemetery demonstrates a couple of key points that we stress on the Bella Buzz podcast, it can be accomplished no matter what the business is. If a cemetery can find a voice in social media, anything can have a voice.  Also, Chad works on a volunteer basis so it is not an all consuming time commitment requirement.

We have often heard the question raised that it can be a complicated scenario when an employee who has taken on the social media responsibilities, in effect, has become the voice of the organization, leaves for other opportunities.  Have the gains made been lost? Does that employee end up carrying the followers with them to the next stop?  Chad beautifully answers this concern by stating that the “voice” of the organization should simply be a reflection of the internal culture within the organization.  The term that we have used, and Chad reinforces is transparency.  By being honest and transparent, and reflecting a community culture, there should be no loss in effectiveness when reassigning the social media duties and responsibilities.

Chad can also be found at the Twitter handle @Ratpack

Just as we are about to sign off, we end up talking about Listening tools such as the ones we discussed on last week’s episode.  One item we did not bring up last week was the search for commonly misspelled terms that you are monitoring.  Chad keeps an eye out for the misspelled Cematery and uses it as a chance to reach out to a potential visitor.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

It is a Super Bowl commercial postmortem on this week’s Bella Buzz podcast.  Desiree and Joe break down the effectiveness of the advertising dollars that the big brands spent during Super Bowl XLIV, or should we say lack of effectiveness.

Last year, the expectation was more and more of the big brands would find creative ways to incorporate social networks into their traditional campaigns.  The rating for social media usage by this year’s advertisers is once again a big #FAIL.

We know we tend to see things from within our bubble of online marketing and social media practitioners, but it’s time for the big brands (and more specifically the big brand agencies) to start leveraging the dollars they spend on broadcast advertising by driving customers to interact via social networks.  The opportunity exists right now to engage a customer, capture some of their key contact data and then continue to interact with that customer so that they become a true brand evangelist.  Why are they wasting this media buy!?!

On the podcast, we did dig into a couple of the ads directly to discuss our reactions to them and the first one we reviewed was the Google Ad:

We had both heard that a spot was a possibility, so we were on the lookout for it to appear on the broadcast.  It was a very well done spot which subtly displayed how search is completely embedded in our lives. Google just needs to be careful about how well they present information for web searchers.  They could be accused of “scraping” so much content from web site owners and content producers that the traffic no longer actually clicks to the original site.

Throughout the night’s broadcast there was a considerable amount of conversation taking place on Twitter using the hashtag #BrandBowl you can still see some activity there by following that link to the Search.Twitter service.  These large brands HAVE to be aware that there is a large, receptive audience ready to interact with them if the creative is done correctly.  That hashtag was different from the #SB44 which was mostly game specific conversations.  Brands should be able to manage the variety of conversations effectively by understanding the difference.

At the very least consider what we call the Offline Ask.  At every opportunity in front of a potential customer you must make the ask.  Ask them to become a part of your community whether it be to follow you on Twitter, join a Facebook Fan Page or submit an email address.

What specific actions should a business owner take when participating in the Live Web?  Get involved in the conversation around a particular event.  If you come with relevant, interesting, eloquent insights that make someone take notice and check out your profile .. which in turn, drives someone back to your business web site, you just might gain a customer.

How did the Super Bowl ads work for you? Were you expecting anything in the social media space that didn’t appear, or maybe you did see some things that we might have missed?  Let us know in the comments, we would love to know what you thought.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network. 

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.

It is time to talk about Email Marketing as a topic on The Bella Buzz podcast. We take a look at the rationale for adding this distribution channel into the marketing strategy, some of the vendors who can provide the services, and even have a direct example of what email marketing can achieve.

We take a look at email marketing as another form of getting creative content in front of the intended audience.  There have been numerous occasions when we have focused on the ability to consistently generate new pieces of information that will attract an audience, no matter how you might want to define audience ie. customers, new business, fans, etc.. It must be considered that different people will consume content in different ways, so it is imperative for any business to deliver content via numerous channels.  We have discussed content published on a blog where the intention is to attract traffic to the site via SEO and PPC tactics.  We have discussed having blog content available via RSS subscription where a visitor to the site can receive items in a feed reader. Finally, it is time to take a look at how email can be another way of delivering content to a target instead of the target having to navigate to the point of origin.

Email marketing has become more sophisticated as technologies have improved, development costs have been amortized and the CAN-Spam Act has been enacted. Using a software program like Outlook is not sufficient for complying with these regulations, nor does it provide analytics to help make a more successful email campaign.

Bella Web Design uses Constant Contact as the vendor of choice for distributing email newsletters, and recommends them to clients.  In Atlanta they have a local rep, Pamela Adams, who attends conferences and assists in training aspects.

Some of the new features Constant Contact has added to the platform include an events module where invitations, RSVP, and followup are all managed from within the system.  There is also a survey program that can be integrated into the web site and emails through the system.

At Fluid Media we use a service called AWeber.  The dynamic form generation for collecting emails and the send message scheduling features are very attractive features.

One other company that we know of worth considering when researching for the most appropriate vendor is MailChimp.

In case anyone is thinking that email newsletters are yesterday’s method of distribution, many of the “thought leaders” in the online space have reverted back to using email as the preferred format.  Concerns about comment spam, a lack of intimacy with an audience, and inability to generate a dialogue have driven some to take a second look at email efforts.  An email can easily be replied to, allowing for opening a conversation and it can easily be forwarded, helping to spread the information.

Some who have moved towards using email include Jason Calacanis founder of Silicon Alley Reporter, Weblogs, Inc., and Mahalo.com. Chris Brogan author of Trust Agents and Social Media consultant, and Christopher S. Penn co-host of Marketing Over Coffee podcast.

Desiree shares with us a response to the most recent email newsletter that arrived in her inbox as we were recording the podcast! It really brings the point home to our viewers that email marketing can be a very powerful communication tool.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

It’s all about Wordpress and the WordCamp Atlanta on this week’s episode of The Bella Buzz. Desiree braved the icy roads of Atlanta to attend the Conference on Saturday for a chance to network with over 200 attendees interested in hearing about best practices and upcoming enhancements to WordPress.

The Wordpress platform can be called a blogging tool, a publishing platform or a content management system (CMS).  Whatever the terminology, it has become a factor across the web for developing vibrant web sites.

The open source tool was first launched in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg, and according to WikipediA as of September 2009 is being used by 202 Million websites worldwide.

Bella Web Design and Fluid Media both use the Wordpress platform as part of the tool kit we use with clients who are looking to establish a solid web presence.  Based upon the flexibility of design and functionality, it has become a logical choice when looking for ways in which to present content.

(Attention: Wordpress designers you can enter a contest the Bella Web Design is hosting, check this site for details and how to enter.)

When considering the use of Wordpress as your web platform, there are choices that you can make based upon needs.  Plugins are available to add practically any functionality that you can imagine for your site, and from a design standpoint you can look into Themes.  Themes are available for free that can be easily implemented into a site for a nice graphic feel for visitors, while advanced implementations can include custom themes designed to achieve specific graphic standard requirements you may have.  It can be an interesting business model for a designer to focus exclusively on building and marketing themes via the “freemium” model.  Freemium by the way is a term coined by Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson for when web services are offered at a basic level for free, with the intention of moving users into paid versions with additional features.

The WordCamp Atlanta Conference was a multi tracked event with beginner, intermediate and advanced tracks, with many quality presenters including locals such as Amani Channel, Dougal Campbell, and Rusty Tanton. As well as national figures such as Mitch Canter and Aaron Brazell.

We will update this post as the video presentations from all of the sessions are posted in a single location, but check out the Speakers page of the Conference web site to see who presented so you can search for presentations.

If you are interested in seeing what other people are saying about WordCamp Atlanta, search for the Twitter hashtag #wcatl.

Our discussion veers into a little segment about the changing role of “spec” creative in the design world. In the past, any client who asked a creative shop to provide designs prior to awarding the work was looked down upon or simply avoided.  Today, the approach has changed to where entire web sites such as Template Monster and Boxed Art have sprung up to handle the demand of creative work distribution.

As we turn the corner on 2010 and get into conference mode, keep an eye out for the next Metro Atlanta event SoCon10, January 29 – 30, 2010.

We have a lot of fun on this week’s edition of the Bella Buzz podcast, as Desiree and Joe roll out their predictions for 2010.  We take a look at things we may be speaking about at this time next year, simply as a way to keep the radar up for things we should be following.

We spoke about these predictions in no particular order, so come with us as we gaze into our crystal ball for the coming year: 

1) Twitter will change and evolve into something else. Twitter will get bought out by someone and turn into a completely different entity.  Desiree believes it might be Google or Microsoft swooping in to pick up the users. The key to this prediction will be keeping the ecosystem around the firehose intact as it goes through any type of transition.

Google is taking a hard look at figuring out how to incorporate real time searches into the SERPs now,  since microblogging services are taking away a large volume of searches that used to go to Google.

2) 2010 will be the year of location based, mobile device applications.  A service such as FourSquare will get over the hurdle of early adopters and become a part of the mainstream marketing toolkit for destinations and locations.  There has been some early pushback as we get used to having our locations published to the general populace, but will soon be overcome as these applications become more prevalent. (There are now over 100,000 users of FourSquare. Is your restaurant or chain listed? If not, they should be!)

Using a restaurant as an example; mobile applications will allow direct couponing, instant feedback  .. and then adding the next layer of augmented reality which takes advantage of the optical capabilities of the phone, presents the available meta data, including things such as Yelp reviews.

3) Facebook will begin the process of doing an IPO.

The game developers who are writing programs for the platform, things such as Farmville, are making extraordinary amounts of revenue based upon the popularity of their applications. That popularity has grown the Farmville App to numbers of users greater than Twitter.

This Facebook IPO will generate a little Tech Bubble as these app companies will ride the coattails of this major financial deal. How much will it be?  Google raised $1.67 Billion during it’s IPO exactly five years ago.  It was only five years ago!! Today the company valuation stands at $140 Billion.

Will Facebook’s valuation be similar.  Currently based upon private stock transactions the valuation is at $9.5 Billion.

4) According to Forrester Research 59% of all US Marketers expect to pull funds from traditional marketing and putting it towards digital marketing. Self marketing, social media and crowd sourcing are getting significant attention.

Share the Happiness by Coke and Pepsi’s Mountain Dew promotions are examples of this type of new direction.

5) Merchants will accept payments via iPhone. There is now a device that can be attached to the iPhone that will allow you to accept credit card payments.  One of the founders of Twitter, Jack Dorsey has created a company called Square Payment Systems.  This device will allow vendors to accept payments via an iPhone plugin.  This will also start us down the road of payment transactions available through our phones.  It is an established functionality in Asia, and needs to start getting through the red tape here to advance.

6) We may get to the stage of customizable phone manufacturing similar to the way Dell produces desktop computers to spec.

The equipment would have a low base price using an open source operating system such as Android. Then you would have customizable options:

Do you want a keyboard?  That will cost a little bit more.  Or how about an upgraded camera?  Add some more to the price.  Think about all of the variety of features that could become a la carte, and this concept makes a lot of sense.

If Micheal Dell had not figured out how to make the just in time manufacturing process work during a peak PC market, this can be accomplished as well.

7) Finally, this global, free agent economy provides for more opportunity for collaboration. Connecting and creating the resources necessary to conduct efficient business will be a better, more flexible way to operate, rather than large corporations.

What do you think?  Do you have any predictions for what might be happening in 2010?  Please share them in the comments.

Theme music for The Bella Buzz is Fallen by Digital Chemistry, available for download at the Podsafe Music Network.

You can subscribe to The Bella Buzz directly from ITunes by following this link, and we would be happy to receive listener feedback and ratings at The ITunes Store.