Who’da thunk it?

My friends, family and business partners can attest for it, but what about in Social Media areas?  How do people know that you REALLY CARE?

Or better yet, “How  do you know who doesn’t and is just pretending to care?”  It seems like these days 60-75% of my work time is dedicated to doing something in Social Media and it is increasing every week.

Social Media brings us together and yet distances us all at the same time. Periodic non-visible online interactions take longer to sort out who is real and who isn’t.

I recently attended a conference where Chris Brogan spoke (it was my first time meeting him and I was sooo excited)  Mike Volpe also made a great presentation.  If you don’t know Chris, he is amazing you should follow him.  He is as real as they come and in person, he can make you laugh so hard that your sides split.

Mike Volpe of Hubspot fame was a lot different than I thought he would be.  I watch their podcasts religiously and read their blogs and I would recommend anyone feeling intimidated about social media and applications you can lurk around on any of these sites and learn a ton.

What did I mean when I said Mike Volpe was different than I thought?  I knew he was smart, I knew he knew his stuff.  His podcast partner Karen Rubin, is mega bubbly.   When I met Mike at the conference, what I met was a kind of shy guy.  Not what I expected.  He puts forth so much confidence on his sites and podcasts, I was a bit intimidated at the idea at the face-to-face.

Chris Brogan has this message that he calls “Be Human”, he has a great post here outlining what this means.  In fact, when you Google the term “be human” his blog entry comes up in the first 5 searches.  Rather than to reiterate what these captains of industry have to say, I included several links here so you can easily find them.

Clients will ask me, “Why do I care if someone’s eating high fibre cereal for breakfast?’ or “That their kids soccer game was a blow out?” Truth is YOU may not care, but one of the thousands of other readers may. If you were one of the people in the battle to fight cancer, you could provide support to many in different situations and stages just by seeing these buzz words.

This makes a “human” connection that is important to an often hard to connect with medium.  Some of us don’t use real photos as profile shots all the time.  Some of us are vague about how to find us.  Maybe our user names aren’t exactly intuitive. The internet is full of great people as well as weirdos.  That doesn’t necessarily make you a “Nervous Nellie,” but if someone is trying to learn about you or your business, you may seem a little less “human.”  What you have to deliver and say becomes that much more important.

First impressions can be misleading.  Establish yourself or your business as the someone you ARE.  Stick with it on blog comments, blog posts, other platforms.  Because after all, the keyboard doesn’t type itself. A HUMAN does!

Rodney King had it right when he asked “Can’t we all just get along”? Captain Kirk and crew had it right too in the 25th Century.

While reading the blog of Kelly’s (LadyOTrout) hero Chris Brogan- I saw this little diddy.  I thought I would share it with you all too-  Thanks Chris.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chrisbrogandotcom/~3/Rb0stU9lUug/  (you’ll need to go here to see it)

Chris Brogan found this video on Collaboration

CB “I got this via Maura’s site after she complimented my recent Twitter avatar.

What’s this have to do with anything? Nothing. Except, maybe, if you think about it: Twitter is a serendipity engine for the web, and maybe there’s a story in understanding that power. There might not always be profit, at least not in the business sense, but maybe there’s a lot more wealth in these hidden kingdoms than what you’re thinking about right away.

Just a thought.”

It isnt magical, or spiritual, I didnt understand one single word of it (since it was in Korean?) but it shows what we as a people across the world can do if we tried.  In this case it is kinda silly; but sillier things need to happen to make us forget our differences and see what is common between us-

I thought it was cute and if 100 people can take time out of their days to follow some web-based choriography to put a smile on my face, well they deserve my thanks and attention.

Why did I bring attention to the axis of evil-doers? well- 1.)  to catch your attention, and b.) to maybe catch theirs. 

We can all learn from this-  the Joe’s, the Scott’s, the Kelly’s; but also the Obama’s the George’s,  & the Kim’s, the Gordon’s & the Angela’s too!

In short, it’s a phishing scam and you shouldn’t click the link. Here’s one version of the email:

Dear user of the example.com mailing service!

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox (someone@example.com) settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click on the following link:

http://example.com/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=someone@example.com&from=example.com&fromname=someone

Best regards, example.com Technical Support.

Again, don’t click the link. Even though the link looks like it points to your company’s site, it will actually bring you to a site that tries to steal your personal information. A quick search brings up some results of similar emails over the last few days sent to people around the world, so don’t be surprised if you see a similar email sent your way.

As always, we’ll never ask for your personal information via email. If you ever have a question about the legitimacy of an email, give us a call or send us a note to check before you decide what to do with it!

I know I have mentioned before, my old boss used to say, “You can eat an elephant one bite at a time.”  And though often I failed to see eye to eye with him on many occasions, now that I am older I can really see his wisdom in so many things I thought before as crazy, misguided prattle.  (Jeez – I hope he doesn’t read this blog!  AH!)

But he was THE GUY that told me in the early 90’s that the internet was a fad.  And to his defense, he held on to fundamentals.  Sales and Marketing as a plan not as a lark and certainly the internet to him, was “a Lark” back then. WHO KNEW back then what the internet would be today?  So thanks Phil, for making me work harder and understand the world I was in, while allowing me to reach into the fire and find out which time I would get burned.  I love him for that, truly.

So here we are again.  The NEW lark -  “Social Media” – Wow!  There are so many!  But which one to try first?  I say, try one that works for YOU FIRST – PERSONALLY. Then you will feel more confident about trying something or appreciating the web for your business promotion.  If you have a TWITTER account, start looking for people that are interested in the same things you find interesting.  If you have a FACEBOOK account, start REALLY reading what the folks are doing and engaging to a point that you feel comfortable.  If you don’t have one, then start one, you wont be sorry. It is easy to use and you can connect with family, friends and even business contacts.

I have to admit, I have tons of social media outposts and some I use all the time and some I haven’t had time to use at all.  But I do try to make an effort to play with a new toy at least twice a month.  But that is ME.  Doesn’t mean it is YOU.

Not forgetting to “eat your peas” or “eating an elephant one bite at a time” is a recognition that it is OK, NOT to take the plunge, but to just stick your toe in the water and find your way at your own pace.  Don’t be overwhelmed my the technology, just try it, it is FREE and if you don’t like a certain one, dump it and move on.

The appreciation of all of it, is really useful in making your own decisions in trying to navigate the new way to promote and connect!

Bill Gates, MS, AOL and INTEL are NOT going to pay you $245.00 per authenticated email address. Period. dot. the end.

I just received an email from an old coworker (hi Mel) asking to propagate an email that was sent to her.

It sounded way to good to be true and then of course being a little older, I recalled a previous incarnation of this several years ago.

To learn more about it- visit http://antivirus.about.com/od/emailhoaxes/a/maoltrack.htm

But in the shortened version- Supposedly someone saw this on ABC-GMA and assured it was true that Bill Gates and AOL are attempting to perform an email campaign to prove IE is the most  widely used browser-  DUH – it is!, unfortunately.

Anyway-  if this email is forwarded to others- MS, AOL and INTEL will pay upto $245.00 for the first person, and on and on…  whatever, blah blah blah!

Needless to say No One actually saw the GMA spot or recalled seeing the 2 page spread in USA Today as in some versions.  In all versions, senders are going on implied supposition that this is true; based on “quotes” from real attorneys.

It ain’t true-  dont forward the email;  dont add to the SPAM that your ISP is indeed going to wade through to deliver your other precious mail-  Resist the urge, I am sorry to have to say.

Bill Gates and AOL may be rich… Be assured they arent gonna give it away, especially like this

the email, incase you havent seen it…

Dear Friends,
Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test. When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period. For every person that you forrward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque.

I thought this was a scam myself, but two weeks after receiving this e-mail and forwarding it on, Microsoft contacted me for my address and within days, I received a cheque for US$24,800.00. You need to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford this Bill Gates is the man. It’s all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many people as possible.

You are bound to get at least US$10,000.00.

Remember the old adage, If it sounds too good to be true – it is. Emails promising riches are no exception. Forward them only to the nearest Recycle Bin.

Look, social media is changing every second and I am a believer of trying things out – even if you do them WRONG as this person’s post indicated, relax -you can always fix it.

OBJECTIVE is key if you decide to use Facebook, Twitter or if you decide you want to blog (or to pay someone else to do it), on your behalf.  A PLAN is important too and a stash of content, stuff you read, links, etc. for when you are in the mood to write.  Frequency in posts makes you interesting and lets face it, it is like a re-run of Seinfeld.  You may love Seinfeld, but you will find yourself surfing off the channel because you know what is coming up… new posts regularly is always a good thing.

To say that we, (Sephone) haven’t had the challenges you may have, would not be truthful.  We get busy, customers need jobs done and our Sephone Blog may become stale.  My own personal blog has fallen victim of that.  Sometimes, I just don’t feel the urge or sometimes I just don’t feel interesting enough to post anything.

I look to people that I only know online to encourage me.  I call Chris Brogan my online therapist! (We have never met in person.)  Here is a post he wrote two weeks ago that really hits the nail on the head for me. Brogan helps, he doesn’t scold.  You are an adult you don’t need scolding, when you are trying to learn something new. Generally, you are trying to teach yourself – in between work, home, kids, etc. Chris Brogan has a book.  Yeah a hard cover book, an old-fashioned printed on paper BOOK!  It is called “Trust Agents,” VERY easy to read and to understand and not intimidating.

So what is my point?

Learning is GREAT.
Learning about Social Media and how it can work to promote your business is GREATER.

Don’t feel guilty, if you don’t get it right the first time.  Some “EXPERTS“  can be arrogant, generally, they are the same in person and it takes a bit longer to recognize it online.

Reaching out and asking for help from someone that understands that you are finding your way is the GREATEST!

So don’t be discouraged or embarrassed. Don’t feel intimidated enough to turn away.  You can do it and there are so many people to help that don’t “ball you out “ when it isn’t perfect.

Most people aren’t trying to “cheat,” they are just doing something that is familiar to them and within some of the social media platforms-Facebook for example, are rigid.  These aren’t bad, but you need to learn them and sometimes you make mistakes.

NEWS FLASH you are human.

This goes the same for businesses. If you are a business owner (or a Marketer that has been sent to the Principal’s office because “nobody cares about your website”), then here are three questions you need to ask yourself:

1. When you built your web site did you have an objective in mind?
2. Were there expectations that were set for what things the web site was to accomplish? Save money, make money, sell your product worldwide?
3. Do you measure the traffic and view those numbers regularly? (Do you know what the numbers mean?)

At beginning of 2009, this blog was posted for statistics on the internet for 2008.   Click here. The highlight being, the number of websites on the Internet in December 2008: 186,727,854. The number of websites added during 2008: 31.5 million.

If “nobody cares about your website,” do you know why? Has your site been online and not changed for a while?  If you are doing the 3 things mentioned above, then perhaps some tweaking to the construction, the background keywords or some content in order to make sure that today’s search engines are finding you.  If you answered “No,” to the above questions, perhaps you might sit down and think about it or call “someone in the business” to help out.  After all you are competing with 186,727,854 and 31.5 million of them were built recently. As daunting that these numbers may sound, remember these are from year end 2008!

For another post on this subject, click here.

But I am finding those moments more challenging as every day passes, I find myself anxious when I cannot connect or be connected. Who knows where that path will lead us? Text messaging from friends, relatives, or my cell phone going off in the middle of the night, with an email that can wait until Monday- it isnt their fault it is mine! I know lots of people and I love them all, but sometimes I need to unplug and I am sure everybody is feeling those pressures.

But if you truly disconnect for a bit, will your customers and friends feel abandoned?

Has our microwave mentality (need it now, need it done) over taken the understanding for personal space, family time or just time to regroup?

Last week, I went to a soccer game of my best girlfriend’s son and I truly wanted to be there.( As I am sure many others did.)

But what did I see?

Blackberries and iPhones going off everywhere in the stands and people craning their necks to look at the small screen – meanwhile they miss their son making the play of a life time.

This post is a bit of a reality check. We are HUMANS and as George Costanza so eloquently put it, “We are a society!”

But are we burning ourselves out worrying about NOT knowing everything that is going on with everything in the world at every second of our 24 hour day?

And more recently, a Business Week Article of the same.

DDOS attacks have not been confined to just Twitter and Facebook but have been responsible for many very high profile sites falling victim to this type of activity. A Fact:  25% of all web servers online are currently vulnerable to these types of attacks and that number is growing every day.

How can that happen?
What happens is a “flurry” of messages that go to a web server that are irrelevant lines of code. This confuses the server. When we say “flurry” we mean, tens of thousands in a matter of seconds or minutes that continue until the web server raises a white flag and surrenders.

A “DDOS” can also be a result of a malicious attack on software or operating system vulnerability on a given server.   Kind of like leaving your back door open and someone you don’t know comes walking into your kitchen.

What does this mean to you?
If you are a website owner it means your site is very slow to serve or perhaps it doesnt serve at all. So online you are hanging out the CLOSED sign or in geek speak you get “404 page not found” message on your screen.

As a web application and service provider, we need to say we have been victims of these attacks ourselves and it is very challenging.  In fact,  we had one recently. During this attack, one of our servers fell prey to the maliciousness effects of the hacker.  This caused the server and all sites on it to stop operations. To fix it, Sephone technicians worked at all hours going to the backup and then rebuilt a new server so the sites could be re-hosted and work properly. But  every situation is different and the troubleshooting is vital to learn the root cause and fix the actual PROBLEMS and not just the symptoms of the problem.

Hackers are very busy writing scripts and setting them loose on the web-just for the fun of it. It doesn’t seem to cause any long term damage to the website or application, but it does create a huge short term inconvenience to your business and to ours.

In our goal is to be a consistent and conscientious web service company. We are always looking to see how to provide the best service, how to stay on top of things to combat the what seems to be countless people from IP addresses located in far off countries like Russia, Phillipines, China, etc. with little or no regulation or laws.

There also are many blogs and stories on line about this and other types of malicious hacking activities. Most all of them more technically written than this post. Here is an example. But it has always been Sephone’s policy to try and explain things in a meaningful way as opposed to using words that can be confusing or words only “geeks like us” understand, because we want YOU to understand.

We thank you for being our clients and trusting us with your online presence. When you thought the “WWW” meant “World Wide Web” it really can mean “Wild, Wild, West” at times and we will continue to fight our fight, providing you the best service at a fair price while remaining vigilant in the cause. We will recommend new technology – when it makes sense and always keep our eyes open for the best ways to do things within the always changing internet environment.

If you have any questions, remember we are right here on the other end of the phone!

Wireless Sign

We are located in Eastern Maine (Bangor) and have a variety of clients located out of state that have a vacation home in Bar Harbor or have local clients with limited time for meetings. Hence the “lunch meeting.”

Considering the fact that practically EVERYTHING we talk about (after the personal stuff), is something that can be easily explained, viewed or demonstrated on the internet we enjoy going to places with wireless internet.

In fact recently, I went to a restaurant over the weekend and the owner said to me, “Hey where have you been, we haven’t seen you in a while?’

I said, “Well, I need connectivity to the internet during most lunches.”
He said, “Most times you can pick it up from the hotel next store.”
I said, ” Not today and not the last time I was here,” as I glanced down at my iTOUCH.

I love this restaurant and it actually has a location in Bar Harbor also and what a great way to introduce someone to it when they are meeting with their all time favorite web company! Yes we have iPHONES and Blackberries, but how long can you look at a tiny screen at a website that may not be really optimized for a mobile device.

The service at this restaurant is excellent, the atmosphere is perfect and the menu selection is vast. AND it is locally owned.

Call me old fashioned, but I support my customers businesses first and local businesses that may not be my customers (yet), next.
Loyalty is important.

Now some restaurant owners might say, “If I have wireless, then people will come in and drink one cup of coffee and plug up the place.”

True that could happen, but not bloody likely when you handle it right. I know I choose to take a client(s) to a $35-$50 lunch JUST BECAUSE of wireless being available.  And offering wireless is not an expensive proposition.  A few customers coming to your place and spending $50 will pay for your monthly fees in addition to paying for that one time $60 modem.

Wireless is a reality as a business expense, you all ready have a great menu, great staff and you aren’t some loud no name place that lacks the local flavor of the place people are visiting.  Work with it, tell your customers and it will more that pay for itself!

We know online security can be overwhelming, so in this post we’ll provide you with two simple things you can do to add an extra coat of armor online, right now.

1. Strong passwords are the key (or the lock)

What would you think if the combination to the safe at the bank was ‘12345′? Using your first name, your username, or words like ‘password’ as your password is the online equivalent of a bad safe password. The one most effective step you can take to secure your accounts online is to use secure passwords.

At Sephone, we encourage our customers to use passwords that are at least six characters long and have at least one capital letter and one number. I’ll be honest: some of our clients are frustrated at first when we tell them our policy. Believe us, committing a new password to memory is a lot easier than what can happen if your password is discovered.

Bonus tip: Hopefully your house key, your car key, and your office keys are all different. Make sure your online keychain is the same way by using different passwords on different sites. If a hacker discovers the password on one service and feels like searching, using the same password is an open invitation to explore the landscape.

2. Pick a good secret question

Remember back when hackers managed to find their way into former governor Sarah Palin’s email? Yahoo – the service where her mail was hosted – is one of the many sites online that use a “secret” question feature to help you remember your password if you forget it. Her email hackers found the answers to her “secret” questions online. As more information is posted online (birth dates, death dates, and yes, even mother’s maiden names), these password recovery questions become less secure.

What can you do to prevent this? If the service allows you to type your own question, create a question that only you would know how to answer. (This could be anything from “What make of car did Andy’s father buy from Dad when we were kids?” to “What was the code word to our snow fort?”) If it doesn’t give you space to create your own question, lie with an answer you’d remember. If the question is, “What street did you grow up on?” and the answer is Summer Street, answer Winter Street. The service never checks the validity of your answers, so create an answer that only you will remember.

Online security can be a hassle, but with a few short steps you’ll be much more secure than ever before. What else do you do to beef up your online security?

Photo by Steven Tom, released under Creative Commons.

It’s difficult to paint a clear and accurate representation of the browsers people currently use. We can’t very well ask every site visitor, “Hey, you there! What browser are you using?” (Not everyone knows the answer to that question.) It’s important for us to know, though, because it shows us what people use to view our sites and how the trend may be changing over time.

Luckily, Google Analytics, a tool we install on many of our sites, provides a fairly good picture of browser usage. For the sake of transparency, I’ve gone through six of our largest sites and looked at browser usage among them. While this information may not be helpful to you personally, it allows developers make key decisions about the sites they build.

The data below is from six Sephone sites in June 2008 and June 2009. These sites appeal to a general population and include real estate, tourism, news, education, and other markets.

We hope to do this periodically to establish a better perspective of browser trending over time. Developers: are you seeing the same trends? Business owners: have you considered a browser switch?

The site in question, (names have been removed for obvious reasons),  had not been changed in many, many years, thus, the site  was not ranking very well.  We did not go into details regarding how the site if- updated more frequently would assist in results ranking, because he stopped me before I opened my mouth-

“It ain’t gonna happen-  I don’t have the time,  It ain’t gonna happen”

OK-  I am a firm believer that the client is always right-  but our clients expect us to bring our expertise to the table, don’t they?  Sephone is a firm believer to share opinions, not force opinions. Sharing what you know and what we know, makes us succeed and faster. Since we fell on deaf ears, we decided to post this on our blog to get it out there anyway.

We all know the adage “Time waits for no man”-  Right?  This goes even more for the Internet-

Time waits for no website-(neither does Google).  If you do not spend time to manage or promote your site today, then tomorrow there will be more competition and it will be more challenging than ever.  Maybe, depending on your business – too late?

In order to stay relevant, timely and  competitive you need to be seen-  Depending on the type of business you are, or the services you provide to the pool of customers you want to wade in, as this is a dynamic pool, the answer is similar-  You need to be seen and you never know when someone is looking for you.

Simply stated-

• if your entire business is virtual then you need to get it as exposed as much as possible, within reason and within your budget (and time is money too, so social media efforts need to be realistic also).
• if your business is regional or local to any degree, you need to focus on that region or locality.

Exposure in this case is visibility to your target audience, whether through links, banner ads, traditional advertising, or in this case Internet Marketing, Social Marketing Services and SEO.

This includes traditional internet methods as well as socially based methods.  [It can also be extended to traditional 'print' advertising too.]

Your Website is your initial exposure to new clients- Your Online Brochure;  If it is not current, then you could be losing business.  Even if it appears to be dated, but isn’t; the perception is you are still using the 2003 catalog and not today’s calendar.

This goes for layout, info and images.  (info includes, text, press releases, testimonials and references).  If it is not current, you could be losing business, ooops I said that already, but it is worth stating again.

So, if YOU dont have the TIME for your business- why be IN business?   Now perhaps what the client really meant was:

“I don’t have the time to make updates to my web site, or the ability to make the updates or the “Know-How” to make updates;”

The response to that is- then find someone, an individual, a Company or LEARN how to make these changes; and you don’t need to know HTML!

That is where we come in with datAvenger  (see http://www.datAvenger.com ), but more on that later-

In addition to keeping your website current- there are other ways to do that, that can help-  If you BLOG, use FaceBook, Twitter or other social networking tools like YouTube-  these can be referenced on your website that show timeliness!  And these DO NOT HAVE BIG COSTS Associated with them-

This is  where time IS on your side as it is more YOUR time that you are already spending while doing these things that can be merged into (or linked) to your site!

So why not benefit from it and gain some well earned points and “‘cred” on the Internet for your business?

If you don’t Tweet, use FaceBook, etc-  you can still have a ‘presence’ but use someone to help you get started.  That can be a friend or someone like Sephone.  We can help you get started and then when you do feel comfy about it and you will, we can turn it over to you to keep fresh- but we are always here to help.

We don’t usually have “hit you over the head” posts like this with a sales pitch but in this case we (Joe) couldn’t help himself without offering any assistance- so please forgive us (him). And remember- Sephone is a resource for these services and you may have access to your own resources-

Therefore, we encourage our clients to consider timely updates to their sites, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Services, no matter who does it.

Marketers have always had a tendency to jump on the bandwagon of some latest craze and pound it to death.  I can say that because I am one to the core and with the advent of social media the buzz is louder and the clicking sound is that of a smoking keyboard or cell phone with all of “those people” talking to each other agreeing and singing the praises of the ideas that are exchanged between them.

Sound familiar?  But are the Marketing people the only people “getting it?”  Is this all a fad that will fade away like the Cabbage Patch Doll?

Being from Maine, Maine folks are known for not appreciating a lot of “fluff,” also we adapt to things that most need attending to, like shoveling the driveway, taking a friend to a doctor’s appointment, making sure the bills are being paid.  IMPORTANT stuff.

Right now Social Media, just may not seem that important and it is okay to feel like that, but it is July (almost) and the snow shoveling is a few months away, make part of your summer reading articles in periodicals that can give you the quick info you really need to know!

First take a quick 3 minute look at this video.

Then here are 3 quick things to read that may help you make sense of it:

1. Twitter a 140 character exchange between people from the mundane to the very important.  This article is from the periodical “The Week.”
2. Something  from a “traditional” type media about Twitter is an article in Business Week and its effect on recent events in Iran, certainly one type of media did not change life in Iran, but the fact when used along with “the old fashioned way” of doing things it helps support what was all ready happening.
3. Facebook isn’t necessarily only something your kids use to keep track of their friends whereabouts, it is really creating some unique opportunities for businesses to advertise to “specific” demographics at very reasonable costs.  Business Week has an interesting article here.

We know you don’t have time for this.
We hear this all the time.

If you want to promote your business yourself and not pay for yellow page ads (which are becoming dinosaurs) and daily news papers, (depending on which one you read, readership has declined in some cases nearly 75%).  How do you know someone, the RIGHT someone even sees your ad?  Cash a bit tight these days? Think again about Social Media.

If you have a rainy day (which so far this summer, it seems like all we have had is rainy days), go to YouTube.COM and search for “How To” or use other keywords to learn about things you may have questions about.  YouTube isn’t just a collection of senseless videos, there really are great things there – and if your business wants to produce something that you want the world to know about, here is your free way to promote it.

Also, looking for something to talk about with your nieces and nephews, or grandchildren?  Ask them about their facebook page or about how they text to keep in touch with their friends.  You may be surprised what you can learn and where you can learn it!

Over the last couple of months, the search landscape has really caught on fire. New services are trying to chip away at Google’s lead by offering a different set of results for search queries. Here’s a brief look at three of these sites that may help you find the information you need more quickly.

Bing

Microsoft recently launched a massive rebranding campaign for its Live Search, renaming the engine to bing.com. Bing follows in the footsteps of other mainstream search engines of Internet past; in addition to general web results, Bing also provides local, image, and refined links based on your search. Microsoft has held one of the top three search spots for quite a while, and Bing is the corporation’s latest attempt to grab a bigger slice of the pie. Here’s a search for Maine on Bing.

Twitter Search

Looking for something a little more recent? Twitter Search may be what you need. A Twitter search will yield results posted by Twitter users over the last month or so. It’s a great way to know what people are saying about something in an up-to-the-minute way. We’ve previously offered some Twitter searching tips if you’d like to try a search or two. Here’s a search for Maine on Twitter search.

Wolfram Alpha

If you’re looking for data, check out Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha will give very context-sensitive results: everything from statistics to graphs to maps, depending on your query. Here’s a search for Maine on Wolfram Alpha.

What are your favorite ways to search the current landscape of the web?

Technorati Profile

With some of the latest additions to these products, we’ve realized that the names of these applications don’t reflect the companies aren’t as accurate as they could be. If you’ve visited the admin area for a datAvenger/datAvenger lite site today, you may have noticed that we’ve rolled out a name change to both applications. Here’s what you’ll see:

• If you’ve been working in datAvenger, your content management application is now called datAvenger Pro.
• If you currently use the latest version of datAvenger lite (the one with the blue header bar), your application is now simply called datAvenger.

You’ll see these changes in the text of the application, the logo, and references to the applications on our sites.

There are a few key points to keep in mind for this transition.

• The people who visit your site won’t be affected by this change at all. The only changes you’ll see are in the administration area of your site.
• The administration area will remain the same other than references to your application’s name. This change does not affect any functionality.
• Your invoices from us will reflect the name change, but the amount you are billed will not change. This is only a name change, not a pricing change.

Thank you for your understanding during this transition. Please contact us if you have any questions.

• wabi.tv in Arts and Entertainment
• dempseychallenge.org in Non-Profit
• themainemarketplace.com in E-Commerce

We wish the best to all of the other finalists.

We often hear from our clients that these applications save a lot of time in their daily routine, but sometimes there’s a learning curve as the business transitions to a new system. We completely understand this; after all, we’re used to providing businesses and organizations with improved ways to do a core part of their work.

When we develop an application for a company, we’ll often provide a version of the product for the company to use prior to its actual launch. These versions might not have every feature that’s planned for the final release, but they’re usually used by one or two people to help understand how the product works before it’s actually switched on and used by everyone. The product testing periods are a great time for you to give us your feedback about the application. If something doesn’t make sense to you, we can discuss what changes we could make before the product’s final launch.

As we often say here, nobody knows how your business works better than you do. We want to help your business succeed, and your feedback is valuable as you use your application. When the final version of your application launches, we want it to save your company time and money.

Photo by Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, released under Creative Commons.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way for web sites to relay their newly published content to you. It’s often used by blogs or news sites and very widely supported.  Rather than going to a website to view the content, the content is “pushed” to you.

Why would I use RSS

Instead of having to visit several websites to view their content, those same sites can just send their updates to you via RSS. This would enable you to just check one place for new information instead of going to numerous other sites.

It can help cut down on spam as well. With email, the sender decides if the recipient wants the message; with RSS, the recipient decides if they would like the information. Therefore little to no spam comes through RSS feeds.

How do I know if a site has a feed

In most browsers, an orange icon, similar to the one in this post will appear around the address bar.  By clicking on it, you can see the feed.  Sometimes you will see a link on a site called “RSS” or “feeds” as well.

How do I use RSS

You are going to need a feed reader. The feed reader is an application that subscribes you to the updates.  This application wiill pull RSS feed data into one place for you to view.  We can write volumes about the numerous applications, but we are going to stick to the basics.

Web Browser Based

A web browser based feed reader is one that you use with your web browser. Your web browser is what you view the internet with, like internet explorer, firefox or safari.   With your browser you go to the feed reader site, login, and it will show you your feeds’ content.  Here are a list of popular feedreaders.

• Google Reader
• Blog Lines
• My Yahoo!
• News Gator

Most of these are easy to setup and use.  Plus they can be used for any computer that has internet access.  The rest of these need to be linked to a single computer.  If you don’t know which one of the below feed readers to use, try one of these.  I personally use google reader.

Vista Based

Windows Vista has it’s own way of dealing with RSS feeds.  Here are the basic steps.

1. Open Internet Explorer by clicking the Start button and then clicking Internet Explorer.
2. Go to the website that has the feed you want to subscribe to.
3. Click on the feed button
4. Click Subscribe to this Feed.
5. Type a name for the feed and select the folder to create the feed in.
6. Click Subscribe.

Once you are subscribed it will show in your internet explorer.  You can now add the feed to your vista sidebar or to your windows mail program.

Outlook

Inside of Microsoft Office, Outlook provides RSS functionality.  If you have outlook installed, by clicking on the feed icon in the address bar, Outlook will subscribe to automatically.

Thunderbird

If you have Thunderbird installed, it makes a great feed reader.

1. Go to the “File” menu and select “New -> Account”. Alternatively, you can go to the “Tools” menu and select “Account Settings”, and click on the “Add Account” button.
2. In the dialog box that pops up, select “RSS News & Blogs” and press the “Next” button.
3. Enter an account name, press the “Next” button, and finally press the “Finish” button. This new account will now appear in the folders pane in the main Thunderbird window.
4. Right-click on the account name in the folders pane and select “Manage Subscriptions”.
5. Click on the account name in the folders pane, and then click on the “Manage Subscriptions” link in the main Thunderbird window
6. Go to “Tools -> Account Settings”, click on the account name in the left-hand pane, and then click the “Manage Subscriptions” button.
7. click the “Add” button
8. enter the URL for the feed into the box
9. click “OK”

Apple Mail

1. Choose File > Add RSS Feeds or click the Add (+) button at the bottom of the sidebar, and then choose Add RSS Feeds.
2. Browse and select a feed you’ve bookmarked in Safari, or enter or paste the URL of a new feed. To search feeds you’ve bookmarked in Safari, start typing in the search field. To select from a list of bookmarked feeds, Shift-click to select feeds that are next to each other in the list; Command-click to select feeds that are not next to one another.
3. If you want RSS feeds to be included in your Inbox, click “Show in Inbox.”
4. Click Add

What are some feeds I can start with

• Sephone Blog
• Maine.gov has dozens of feeds
• WABI TV-5 Central Maine news

Nearly all blogs and news organizations have RSS feeds as well.

IMG and Sephone have not merged Companies; We are still two separate Companies operating independently, but because of the common desire to offer the best services we  can to our customers- we have come together to extend each others services to Our now combined customers.

IMG is still the local leader in Portal sites such as

http://www.MaineAutoMall.com, http://www.MaineGuide, http://www.JobsInMaine.com

Sephone is still the leader in website design, application development, content management, e-commerce and  hosting solutions

When you call IMG for updates to your website, Sephone provides that service to you- but you are still an IMG client because of your long-term relationship AND the fact that you have a presence in MaineAutoMall or  MaineGuide and have all of the others services like JobsinMaine too;  PLUS  WE HAVE WENDY!!

Sephone offers its Maine clients the opportunity to include themselves in one of the States top Portal sites to promote their business, with MaineGuide.  MaineGuide.com is a TOP referrer to Travel & Tourism related businesses in the State for the last 12 + Years!

In addition, Sephone & IMG have http://www.maineevents.com  a FREE Calendar Service for Maine businesses, organizations, and individuals.   In October ‘08, we launched http://www.NJhappenings.com and in February ‘09 http://www.FLhappenings.com

So- Happy Anniversary To John, Wendy, Scott, Kelly, Joe and the rest-  BUT also- to our collective clients too!

Sephone is credited for  online products such as,  datAvenger, the new datAvenger Lite, hulaCart, BroadcasterNow and other applications as well as Custom Development for clients across the U.S..