Twitter is exploding at the moment and everyone is climbing on the bandwagon, blogging about its benefits etc, and you could be forgiven for thinking that this was the new easy way to online success.

In the real world, clients want to talk about search engines, search engine optimization or search engine marketing (Google Adwords / Pay-Per-Click).

Why? The current economic downturn is having an impact on businesses and with the majority of people now using Google (mainly) to find information on an all subjects across the board, many organizations are re-evaluating their online marketing and website strategy. It’s an area that clients in every market are asking for advice on.

Many are now concerned by their visibility to prospective customers. Businesses that previously saw a website as an online brochure are waking up to the fact that online they’re completely invisible to those searching online for the products and services that they offer. Not a good place to be at the best of times, but a business killer in a recession. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been reading recently about some major newspapers requesting, and getting, tax breaks because they are failing in the current economy.

A tax cut has been approved in Washington state; I quote “Newspapers across the country have resorted to layoffs and other cost-cutting moves to deal with a wounded business model and a recession-fueled drop in advertising”

Read about tax breaks here

I really don’t get it. They are even blaming Google for their problems? I’ve been recently checking into advertizing rates for display and other types of ads in local papers and magazine here in Sarasota. They have got to be kidding! Sky high prices, with no way of really tracking results. And yet they are still failing?

I think most people see printed news as largely outdated and cumbersome.

This video post from Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand. I’m off to apply for a bail out too!

Michael Fortin is a well known copywriting and marketing genius and he’s on twitter. I followed one of his links and it goes to blip.fm. There’s so much stuff out there on the internet it’s almost impossible to keep track of whats going on. But a good thing about following some cool people on twitter is you find out where they are hanging out and what they are doing. Bottom line is I’m going to become a DJ!!

Check it out!!

Well, they probably don’t get any slower than this do they?

My good friend and business associate Paul Da Costa and I have just started a joint venture with Rev. Keith Lyndon, Certified Exchange Consultant and the man behind the Academy of Creative Real Estate.

His property exchange training manual, 1031 ways to make money in slow real estate markets is now available online for a bargain price!

You can find it here; 1031 ways to make money in slow real estate markets

Well I know I keep banging on about Google but you’ve got to hand it them, they keep on rolling on and pushing more and more advertising and marketing services.

Recently launched is Google TV Ads, which allows you to place televison network ads from the comfort of your office chair no less!

Now you have to realise that if your going to put an ad on a TV network it should be pretty good quality (I don’t mean hd!!), I mean a good script and well shot and produced etc. Come to think of it, going by some of the low budget local ads I’ve seen on the local tv channels, maybe it doesn’t matter?

It’s interesting how the video space has opened up, what with live tv broadcasting on USTREAM etc and now the ability to run tv ads from Googles interface. Plus, with G you can apparently track usage and measure results…

Here’s a nifty little tutorial from Google for your viewing pleasure;

Audio campaigns and print media campaigns are also available. You can check them out here http://www.google.com/adwords/tvads/index.html and on their blog here http://google-tmads.blogspot.com/

Yes, eBay is pretty cool for a number of reasons.

1. It is possible to get some absolutely excellent deals on eBay. I just purchsed a new set of development controls for ASP.NET. They are called RadControls from Telerik.I had been thinking about buying these for a while and as I got closer to purchasing I decided to look on eBay. As luck would have it, I found another developer selling the exact same suite and I bid and won. I got the set for an incredibly good price!!

   You do have to be very careful though as there are a lot of scammers on eBay, so watch out!

2. You can get setup as a seller very easily and start selling items. Yes, there is a lot of competition, but a lot of the compettion is, frankly, pretty poor. Most competition is on price, which is not strange considering it’s an auction site.But you can sell high ticket items on eBay too. There are even people selling homes, jets, luxury cars etc. If you want to sell items over $15000 you have to complete some extra sign up steps. So you see, that eBay has matured somewhat. In fact, eBay is huge, gigantic actually and even bought PayPal last year. They paid a ridiculously low fee for PayPal and the two services combined are awesome.

   Taken public in 1998, eBay’s market capitalization is currently some $45 billion.

3. Traffic. Yep, the good ole life blood of the Internet. The numbers of people buying and selling on eBay each day are staggering. An you can hook into that traffic stream by putting up a listing or running a Classified Ad.eBay also has a listing website for free classified ads called Kijiji.They were working with Craigslist and rumour has it dumped Craig for some reason and then launched their own listing service for free ads to compete with Craigslist.Today eBay hosts retail and wholesale transactions on websites in 27 countries and serves buyers and sellers around the globe, to the tune of tens of millions of transactions every day http://ebay.about.com/od/ebaylifestyle/a/el_business.htm.

   So, there are 3 great reasons to take a look underthe hood of eBay and maybe clear some of that crap out of your garage or loft or spare room etc. Go on, give it a try…