Foursquare is, at its core, a game. Users check-in at locations where they are, shout a few words to their friends and fight over mayorships, badges and special offers. Unlike Facebook, which took some time to find a true revenue source, and Twitter, which has yet to outline a stable business model, relevance in Foursquare will prove instant value to any local institution.

Foursquare takes word-of-mouth marketing to a whole new level. Receiving a ‘ping’ from a friend checking into 416-Florist.com and shouting, “Just picked up birthday flowers for Susan” will have a far greater affect on you than a bland advertisement on a billboard. As well, advertisers can find great use in Foursquare to collect data on customers checking-in and participating in certain promotions. Soon enough, the hot shots on Madison ave. will be able to pinpoint a message to meet your demands exactly. Although that may seem scary to some, the pros do exceed the cons. Like this story about Miss Shirley’s in Baltimore (via aboutfoursquare.com):

The Sunday brunch line at Miss Shirley’s Café’s two locations in Baltimore often stretches to two hours or more. Since April, they’ve offered to let their foursquare mayor jump to the head of the line.

The competition for that coveted honor has been fierce. According to Ryan Goff of agency MGH, Miss Shirley’s has seen a 427% increase in foursquare checkins since the special launched. They’ve heard several anecdotal reports of people visiting more often just to try to earn the mayorship.

In Toronto, I recently got a friend request from the nationally distributed newspaper, the National Post. I didn’t see any reason to ignore the request and so I accepted, wondering where this paper would be checking into. A little later on in the day, I checked into Hemingway’s Restaurant for a nice lunch with a friend. Only a few seconds after checking-in I received a recommendation from the National Post’s food critic about a particular sandwich. I figured I would give it a shot, and it paid off! The meal was delicious and it was because I put trust in this particular recommendation.  Local businesses can tap into this and gain new customers just by setting up their profile on the city grid. “Special offers nearby” always attract visitors and to be “Trending Right Now” is a sign of immediate success.

Foursquare, and its growing partnerships around the globe, is here to stay. Although there is considerable competition in the market from Gowalla, Foursquare is winning the people over in droves. With connections in Facebook and Twitter, updates may eventually come solely through third-party apps and with Foursquare’s fun and easy to use location-based service, it only makes sense that in time all your tweets will come through the Foursquare platform.

Still don’t get it? Watch the video below. You’ll be hooked after your first checkin.

Join Foursquare, You Won’t Look Back is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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I ‘like’ the Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. Apparently, many people who like Michael Ignatieff also ‘like’ Prime Minister Stephen Harper.It would seem that those who actually like Michael Ignatieff and stand for his policies would probably disagree with the ideals of Stephen Harper. However, due to similar ‘likings’ by my members of both Facebook Pages, political divisions have been transcended. Maybe this is an effective way to improve bipartisan politics? Possibly, or maybe Recommended Pages hasn’t fully captured the reasons behind why one may like two similar pages.

On any given day, you may receive one recommendation that seems to make sense. A person who likes President Barack Obama probably also likes Vice President Joe Biden. Yet, the correlation between a person who likes President Obama and Family Guy seems a little bit lost. Will campaign staff for the Democratic Party be looking to buy some ad space in Family Guy in 2012? Although, it may not be too far off as Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane was an outspoken supporter of Obama!

Dr.House and President Obama? That just seems a little too far off, right? There can’t be any connections between the two, I mean one is a completely fictional character! Although, they do share a calm demeanor in handling seemingly unthinkable situations and actor Kal Penn, who starred in the show, did leave TV for a position in the White House as associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. Maybe, these recommendations aren’t as far off as we had originally thought!

It seems that with President Obama having over 10 million fans, Recommended Pages is stuck with placing his face as a false endorsement of these other pages. Here are a few more Recommended Pages we just couldn’t find a connection between. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Mafia Wars and Barack Obama

The Twilight Saga and Barack Obama

Vin Diesel and Barack Obama

Awkward Facebook Recommendations is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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If you have a kick ass portfolio (or just a really good one), have an eye for type and a clean aesthetic, we want to hear from you. Please send samples of your work to toronto@thinkbasis.com. Applicants will be judged on the basis of their portfolio. We don’t care about your school experience, work experience or hobbies so a resume is really not a requirement. Any work that you send through should have been done by you from creative to completion. Due to the volume of applicants we usually get only those that qualify will be contacted for an interview.

Some things that you might be asked to work on:

• iPhone/iPad user interface design, logos supporting creative
• Web design and UI design
• Print materials
• Advertisements

Most times you will work on-site at a client’s location. But if you’re interested in doing it from home, we’re open to telecommuting too.

The internships are unpaid but the right candidates may receive a small monthly stipends to help cover costs. There is also a possibility for a full time job in the future.
Interns will receive a letter of recommendation from the company and we’ll work to get you a recommendation from the clients as well.

A bit about us

Think Basis is an atypical marketing company. You’ll find that we’re easy going so self discipline is very important for anyone working with us. But easy going doesn’t mean that we don’t care. The quality of our work is of the utmost importance to us. We just believe that if you hire the right people, you don’t need to play office politics or micromanage. Our clients demand the best and we strive to deliver.

Beyond client work we also produce a number of internal projects so the work you’ll be doing can be very diverse. You’ll come out of this internship with a good portfolio and the pride in saying that you were in charge of the creative development.

Graphic Design Internship Opportunities in Toronto is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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One of the most basic tenets of website usability is that your user should be able to get from Point A to Point B in as few clicks as possible. From a usability standpoint, does it make sense to spread a list containing 8 items across 4 pages? Your reader has to click multiple times to read something that can be easily presented on one page. It’s annoying and it’s greedy.

Look at any Digg or Reddit submission where the content is superfluously spread across multiple pages, and oftentimes you’ll see a number of comments complaining about the layout. In fact, someone usually ends up linking to the print version of the article so everyone can see the content all on one page. Isn’t that something – you spend all this time and effort putting together a great list with fancy headers and graphics, only to have all of your traffic go to the ghetto print version.

A few well-established websites and brands can get away with shoving content on ridiculous amounts of pages, but even these guys get flack from the social community (I’m looking in your direction, Forbes).

If you do need to spread your content across multiple pages or are creating a slideshow, here are some recommendations:

1. Make the slides load as quickly as possible. This submission from Divine Caroline about candy from our childhood did well on Digg, with minimal complaints in the comments about the slideshow layout. One thing Divine Caroline did well is that they loaded only the image and its corresponding blurb for each slide. Keeping most of the page static and loading only the essential parts cuts down on waiting time and makes each slide transition as quickly as possible.
2. Keep the slides to a reasonable amount. You can probably coax 15-20 clicks from your user, but the below screenshot is pretty ridiculous:

   

3. Don’t sneak in any extra promo/advertising slides. Think of your slideshow as a list — if your title is “12 Reasons Why America Needs Health Care Reform” and you list seven reasons along with three ads and two links to other posts on your site, that’s not really a list of 12, is it?  When a user sees that a slideshow has 15 slides, the reasonable expectation is to see 15 pieces of information related to the subject of the slideshow, not “Here’s some relevant content, now here’s an ad, now here’s some more relevant content, now I’ll have the last slide be a ton of links to other slides!” Case in point: Entertainment Weekly. They pull this crap all the time. Their “season 10 scouting report” for the new season of Dancing with the Stars has 12 slides. Here’s slide #12:

   
   

   Savvy social media users hate extra clicks, and they really hate advertisements. Work other content in the sidebar or underneath your slideshow instead of forcing it into a final slide that dupes the user. Strip out ads, especially if you’re not a known/respected brand (the heavy hitters can get away with this more than a new site trying to establish its presence and get traffic).

While slideshows used to be more of annoyance in the past and are slowly (and begrudgingly) being accepted as a viable means to organize content, there are still some essential do’s and don’ts to keep in mind when putting one together. If you’re mindful of what the community expects and try to deliver something that’s fast, interesting, and straightforward, you should be able to successfully incorporate slideshows onto your site with minimal backlash.

Create a Slideshow, Not Frustration is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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Here are some things that have really bugged me about (mt). I’m not saying this because I hate the company. In fact I like their philosophy but…

1. They say you can host 100 sites on the service but you can only really host 1 SSL site.

I wrote to them about this several months back and they still haven’t updated their site. They state that you can host up to 100 sites on the (gs) service. Sounds great right? Well not if you have to have more than 1 SSL site. So if you run 5 e-stores you’re SOL. I asked them to clarify that small point in their marketing copy and they never did. I find this borderline deceptive and at the very least absolutely useless to making a purchasing decision between their (gs) and (dv) offerings. Especially if you already go through the arduous task of moving to their service. (see point #3)

2. The (gs) service has constant downtime and they post photos of their office parties online.

As I write this we’re going on over 2 hours of downtime. Thanks for nothing (mt). This was happening at the exact same time a client was on the phone with me inquiring about our service. Looks really good for a web developer when he can’t even keep his own site up and can’t get through to tech support. In fact I think this may have cost me the sale for an e-commerce site development project today.

Finally I said enough is enough but step #3 will explain further.

Did I mention the office parties? I wouldn’t really care but promoting their extravagant parties through Twitter at the same time my site is down is kind of rubbing salt in the wound. (This actually happened.)

3. There is no way to migrate to, from or between their services. #lame

We ran Cpanel on our server for over 4 years. During that time we could migrate sites between our servers, to and from other services with the push of a button. When moving to Media Temple we had to manually port over 30 sites including files, databases and e-mail accounts. A stupendous pain in the ass. Now that we’re here I decided that the (gs) is (bs) and wanted to upgrade to a virtual dedicated server solution and take up managing our own server again. Hell, I could keep a server up with only 2 incidences of downtime in 4 years (5 minutes total). But wouldn’t you know it, Media Temple couldn’t be bothered to come up with a migration solution between their own services. This is really inconvenient and an extremely stupid business practice. Not only are they giving me a good reason to just move to a proper dedicated server again, but they lost my business today because I can’t easily move 30 sites that are on their own servers. This one really boggles my mind.

4. Their MySQL solution is always going down so you have to upgrade.

Unless you upgrade to a MySQL grid container don’t expect your site to stay online for any reasonable amount of time on the (bs), I mean (gs). If I had a dollar for every minute I spent dealing with issues before upgrading, I’d be a rich man. It’s much easier to just pay the extra $20/month and save yourself the headache.

5. Putting in a support ticket takes at least 8 hours (and sometimes 24 hours) to get a response, and the phone wait time today was 27 minutes.

‘Nuff said about that.

6. Useless SSH access to anyone but the main user.

If you’re on the (gs) and want to give SFTP access or SSH access to a developer you’re boned. I mean you can set up the user and give him access but he will only be able to access a subfolder within his own account. Unless of course he wants to use plain FTP. Does (mt) even care about security? My answer here is going to be “not so much.”

This is rudimentary stuff for any business. Do you want to give your web guy your master password? What if things go wrong? It just doesn’t seem very useful to me. I can’t even figure out why you’d want to give someone SSH access to a useless folder. “Hey super cool programmer. Here is command line access that you can use to do absolutely nothing of use within this one folder that only you have access to.”

I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that the company will improve things drastically because I like the idea of a clustered service. But Media Temple, next time you have a party, please make sure that my site is up before you post the pictures.

What I Hate About Media Temple is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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One screen capture showcases a variety of less than complimentary reactions to the new pizza, including the gem, “new dominos pizza just tastes like shitty pizza still. just different. too much sauce. always too much sauce.”

As a response, it appears Domino’s is now manually selecting which tweets will be included in the updates.

If you’re only going to print what you want people to say, why bother including a live feed in the first place? Why not just handpick a few testimonials or fake some positive reviews?

Oh, I forgot, that wouldn’t be “engaging in the conversation.”

Domino’s Twitter Feed Falls Flat is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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At the moment, the core focus for the search product is almost exclusively based on price. It’s basically a price comparison tool so people can get the cheapest product around: great for consumers, but perhaps not so useful for the economy and the world at large. Buying cheap may not be the best course of action when it comes to sustainability, the environment or local economies.

I know I know. Lots of criticism, not a whole lot of suggestions. So how would we improve Google Product Search this holiday season? Here are a few ideas:

1. Let the consumer decide what the overriding purchasing decision is instead of price.

Personally, I like a deal but price is rarely the deciding factor when I’m making a purchasing decision. I like to know about quality, ingredients or materials and where the product is coming from. It would be nice if I could have that info right in the search results.

2. Add additional product tags for “Green” credentials.

There is a lot of talk about global warming, sustainability and pollution in general. There are also a lot of regulatory bodies including the USDA that certify organic products. Unfortunately none of these show up in Google Product search. I’d love to see these added as tags so organic and earth friendly credentials are prominently displayed. I think this would be in line with Google’s own stance on the environment so I don’t know why it’s taking so long to have it implemented.

3. Show the country of origin and Fair Trade status.

With all the talk about economic recovery and impoverished nations, it’s really surprising to me that the country of origin is not displayed for any products. In this day and age, wouldn’t you pay a dollar or two more for something made in the USA? It’s a key selling feature in many paper catalogues so let’s give the consumer the right to know where their stuff is coming from. I think a little flag icon would do the trick nicely.

While we’re at it, how about fair trade? It’s nice to know my organic chocolate came from Peru or something but are the farmers and processors being fairly treated? Was my rug made by a 5 year old kid who was forced to work? Were my electronic products made in an energy efficient manner? There are numerous bodies and organizations dedicated to these issues. If these certifications were shown in the search results, customers could opt to vote with their dollars if they deem an issue sufficiently important. At the moment, they can only be self serving by choosing the cheapest option. We can’t improve the world if we can’t make an informed choice.

4. Indicate local products.

Sadly this feature is implemented to some extent but it only works for places to buy. It would be great to see things produced within your city or state. (Bacon from a local farm, honey from within your state rather than pasteurized and blended from Argentina.) What a wonderful way to support local economies by putting the product’s origin right in the main search results and letting the consumer vote.

5. Sort by the features above.

Currently you can sort by price. You can get the cheap product or the expensive product. I’d love to be able to search by local product, or by fair trade only, or by organic only. Give me some options Google. Come on, I know you have the technology. Lead the way.

I don’t like to call Google evil often because I like a lot of their products. But it seems like Product Search is lacking in innovation and like google.com is out of sync with google.org. The great news is that a lot of these features would be pretty easy to implement and retailers would jump right on them. So, if anyone at Google happens to read this, maybe we can get a few of these changes done in time for next Christmas. Please.

5 Ways Google Product Search Could Be Less Evil is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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Yes, I too love the idea of conveniently being able to pull up a list of all the relevant businesses in a specific category. However, rather than just randomly browsing through a directory of names and settling on one that seems good enough, I’d prefer to have my results offered up with just a little more information than what the company chose to print in their ad. Imagine if you were somehow able to not only see all the plumbers in your area, but also simultaneously browse through reviews from some of their previous customers. That sort of information might be kind of helpful if you were trying to figure out who’s best suited to fix your perpetually clogged toilet.

Fortunately, if you’ve used a computer, a cell phone, or even have a single friend under the age of 50, chances are you’re well aware that the informational utopia I just laid out has already been happening for the past few years. The fact is, if you already know exactly what business you want to call, a quick search by name is considerably easier than pawing through a one-thousand-plus page tome. And, if you don’t know who you want to call, then scanning through pages and pages of variously sized ads is hardly the most effective way to narrow down your options. I’d say I can’t remember the last time I picked up a phone book if it wasn’t for the fact that I vaguely recall taking the freshly delivered plastic bag of phone books directly from the front door to the dumpster sometime in mid-July. The last time I actually opened one? Well, that’s another story.

Judging from a recent thread on reddit, it’s pretty obvious I’m not the only one who feels this way. Not only have phone books outlasted their usefulness from a consumer standpoint, but from a marketing standpoint they rank somewhere between burning money and just printing out millions of colorful pamphlets you never intend to pass out. People aren’t looking for your business in the phone book, they’re looking for your business online.

Unless you’re selling mechanical stairlifts to senior citizens, it’s hard to make a case for traditional phone book advertising (and that’s still making the assumption that your geriatric clientele doesn’t have a single relative who loves them enough to help out with a quick online search.)

Granted, there have to be some people who are still using phone books. I mean, I did see someone using a pay phone a couple weeks ago and it totally blew my mind that not only did that mean pay phones still exist, but this guy actually needed one. However, when I took an informal poll at my local coffee shop by asking if anyone had used a phone book in the past year, I was met with nothing more than a bunch of blank stares before everyone went back to working on their laptops and texting on their iPhones.

It should tell you something when the most recent data you can get on Yellow Pages usage is from 2007, and the media kit cited stat that “About 45 percent of adults turn to the print Yellow Pages each week” is based on average usage over the past 20 years. These stats hardly offer a compelling argument that print yellow pages haven’t already spiraled into obsolescence.

I’m curious to hear what other people think on this one. Does anyone have any clients that are still seeing decent results from the Yellow Pages? Or have phone books joined the ranks of VHS tapes as something that’s long outlasted its usefulness?

Basically, what I’m wondering is, are phone books just on their way out, or have they already died off completely?

Are Phone Books Totally Useless, or Just Mostly Useless? is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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On the one hand you could lazily define bullying based on some lame text book, but I’d rather define it based on those 80s teen movies we all know and love. The bully was the guy who shamelessly (and without cause) picked on the protagonist just because he could. He’d knock the books out of some nerd’s hand and then high five his friends because acting like a dick is totally cool. They’d instigate a fight just because they were stronger and then they’d totally humiliate some poor kid who’d just moved in from New Jersey.

But, since people rarely behave like this in the real world, the idea of bullying seems to have been co-opted and abused by people who don’t want to engage in actual debate. Sure, there’s no reason to dignify petty name calling or baseless insults (which are often the cost of online anonymity), but when someone stands up to you and offers a well reasoned argument or opinion, turning around and calling them a bully is just a crutch. There’s a huge difference between being outspoken about your opinions and going out of your way to start a fight with someone. There’s nothing bullying about someone calling you out and saying they disagree. In fact, it’s exactly those types of comments that help keep you honest and relevant.

Sometimes it’s easier to whine about how people are bullies than it is to stick up for your opinion, especially if you happen to be wrong. And let’s face it, most of us are wrong from time to time. The true leaders in the industry are the ones who embrace dissent and are not afraid to admit when they’ve stepped out of line and extend an olive branch to whomever they might have judged unfairly.

Does bullying take place online? Absolutely. But aside from the ever present comments from trolls, the reality is it’s usually a whole lot more subtle. Genuine online bullying is a lot more like bullying in real life. People don’t just run around dumping spaghetti on someone while an entire restaurant laughs at the poor sap’s misfortune. However, people most certainly do say nasty things about each other behind their back and encourage friends to do the same.

Real bully blogging isn’t about passing along your opinion or responding to someone you disagree with, it’s about using your audience to attack someone who has done absolutely nothing wrong. A good example would be the “mommy blogger” who threatened to say negative things about Crocs if she didn’t get a free pair of shoes. That’s just blackmail and intimidation. Compare this with the commenter who takes the time to explain why they disagree with something you’ve written, or something someone in the industry is doing, and it’s pretty easy to distinguish dissenting opinions from outright bullying.

There’s nothing wrong with being vocal, in fact sometimes it might be one of your biggest assets, but the next time you get into a disagreement with someone who says, “I think you’re full of shit…and here’s why,” maybe you should hold off on calling them a bully until you actually listen to what they’re saying.

Just something to think about.

Being Vocal with Your Opinions is Not the Same as Bullying is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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1. The Validation Seeker

I like to call this the attention whore. It’s usually someone who thrives on having other people inquire about their life so they can tell everyone how great things are while simultaneously receiving that special little “I’m important” feeling. It would be just as easy for them to write the actual news, but doing that would take away from the extra attention they get when someone finally decides to indulge them and ask the question they’ve been desperately waiting for. Plus, it’s a good way for them to test who their “real” friends are, and who actually has a life of their own.

2. The Perpetual Victim

Rarely stemming from legitimate hardship, this style of tweet typically centers on something so trivial that the rest of us probably wouldn’t even give it a second thought. Things like long lines at Starbucks, slow service, or a disappointing meal aren’t nearly the tragedies some people make them out to be. Everyone’s entitled to a bit of complaining now and again, but sometimes you need to nut up a little bit and pick your battles.

3. The Existentialist

There’s a fine line between being thought provoking and being a douchebag that tries too hard. While there’s always a place for a well-quoted song lyric or literary passage, trying to dress these up as a showcase for your depth of thought and incredible insight is questionable at best. Just because you’re quoting Thoreau on a regular basis doesn’t mean you’ve found some deeper meaning that we’re all lacking. You’re not the only one who’s read Walden, and the fact that you’re also on Twitter tells us you couldn’t have found it that inspiring.

4. The Too Cool for School

There’s a huge difference between informing people of what you’re up to and bragging about how awesome you are. We get that we should be envious of your carefree lifestyle and VIP status, but the fact that you’re Tweeting about how you’re shopping for a Ferrari makes us wonder whether you’re not actually sitting at a stoplight in the backseat of your parent’s astro minivan. What’s the deal, are you trying to compensate for something?

5. The Negativismo

Named for the fictional superhero that incapacitates criminals simply by bumming them out, this person thrives on sucking the fun from people on a daily basis. Although slightly less annoying than the people whining about their own (often imagined) hardships, you can still rely on this joyless soul’s tweets to put a damper on even the best of moods. Sure, there are a lot of sad things going on in the world, but sometimes we want to forget all about those things with amusing pop culture references and comical video links. Thanks for keeping us grounded in despair.

6. The Baller

Seemingly breast fed on hip hop, despite growing up in a cozy suburban home, this user is tweeting at you straight from the hood. His updates consist mostly of over-the-top-trying-too-hard-ebonics that are barely discernible to even the most studied linguists. Although there’s nothing wrong with tossing around a bit of slang from time to time, The Baller operates on a completely different plain. Fortunately on Twitter it’s easy enough to ignore this confusingly chest-beating macho gibberish once you’ve pinpointed a repeat offender…now if we could just find a way to keep him from commenting on YouTube.

7. The Self Promoter

Usually someone with the word “guru” in their title, the shameless self promoter sees Twitter as their own personal medium for evangelizing their products and/or services. The updates usually consist of projects they’re working on, projects they plan to be working on, and the occasional update on projects they have recently accomplished. It’s like an RSS feed of minutia about a business you have no interest in learning more about. You can usually spot these people by the auto-DM you receive the moment you’re foolish enough to start following them.

8. The TMI-er

Taking the concept of micro blogging to embarrassing heights, this is the person who doesn’t understand where to draw the line between public and private. Just because you have the ability to tweet something while you’re sitting on the can doesn’t mean anyone wants to hear about your most recent contribution to the Regal Cinemas men’s room. It’s bad enough that there’s plenty of noise on Twitter as is, you don’t need to go around adding your flatulence to the mix.

8 Types of Twitter Users We Could Do Without is a post from: Think Basis SEO & Marketing

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