Alberta Business Marketing

Facebook’s uniquitous Like button is almost ready to celebrate its first birthday.  Yesterday, Google launched the “+ 1” button to search results in the U.S., bringing real time social recommendations to search results.  Essentially, pressing the button on the Google search result is a way for users to vote for the search result.  Unlike the earlier social search experiment run by Google, user recommendations will show up in the search results!

If you were Google, what would you do with such votes? If I were Google I’d have them play some roll in the ranking of search results.

Try Google +1 on your browser

Users with a Google account can turn on “+1″ in the Google Experimental settings for their account.

The new +1 button only applies to Google.com, not global domains that are forced on users browsers depending on where in the world they are located – ie: Google.ca.  Depending on your country of origin, you’ll need to force Google to show the default U.S. domain in your browser.  Try:http://www.google.com/ncr (ncr stands for no country redirect)

What +1 looks like

When your mouse hovers over the Plus one button it becomes a colourful icon that you click in order to make a recommendation.  +1 users will also show up in the search results of people in their plus 1 network.  When users like a search result, but are not in your search network, results will show the number of people who like the search result.

Users can even +1 Ads!

According to Search Engine Land the Plus One button will also show up in Google Adwords Advertising.  Get the FAQ’s on this at Search Engine Land.

Here’s How Google explains +1.

Social Buttons everywhere!
Google will be rolling out +1 buttons for users to add to their websites soon! Sign up for an invitation to add Google’s button to your Website.
Stay tuned, it’s going to get very interesting for all of us on the social Web. Will +1 buttons have the same cachet that Facebook Like buttons do? Will users begin to get bored or overwhelmed with the plethora of choices awaiting them to like, +1 and tweet their favourite brands on the Web?

Tags: +1, free web marketing stuff, google, google news, plus 1, plus one
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This rocks.
If you are still not using Google services to enhance the management of your tourism business, consider getting on board the G-train.
I’m delivering a training program in the fall that will be focused on helping tourism businesses streamline their CRM processes using the plethora of free tools on the Web, many that Google provides.

As a Gmail user, I’m already addicted to Google Calendars, Tasks and Documents – especially the free Google Forms tool which makes tracking inquiries and leads amazingly simple, but now, we can make free phone calls fromour computer right in our email client!

It’s as easy as clicking call phone from my google chat window and I’m making calls using my computer speaker and headset or built in computer microphone.

Watch out Skype.
I’m seriously thinking of dumping our expense for outgoing phone calls from the telephone and moving exclusively to Google calls within Gmail (free-for-now across North America and seriously cheap around the world).

Since the major telcos have been ditching their telephone booths, watch for someone like Google to come into your community and offer free services to fill the void.   For the 20% of North Americans who don’t carry a cell phone or for travelers in airports who don’t want to pony up the $2 bucks a minute to talk to folks overseas while they are traveling.

HECK, consider setting up a computer in your lobby and set it up with a Google account to provide free North American phone calls for your guests!  Now that’s something your ideal guest could really appreciate!

Be sure to hang a sign that says – “Tell your family and friends you are calling for free from – ‘YOUR Business Name’ “.

In the process, you might recruit a few new fans.

Tags: free phone calls, free web marketing stuff, google, google news
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Google Maps has neatly integrated photos and videos that have been geotagged.  If users take the time to put their media on the map when uploading, Google Maps users are provided with links to your media!

Hey, it just takes an extra minute to properly tag you photos with map information.  You are already tagging your photos with compelling titles and keyword tags, right?

Tags: Google Maps, google news, maps, media, multimedia, photos, Video
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Technology came in the form of computers.

After a few hard drive or computer crashes where all was lost, I got petrified and backed up everything.

Technology moved to the cloud.

Email, calendars, spreadsheets and documents, photos and videos are available to me all the time like magic on any computer or handheld device.  I love it!

I got lazy – and start trusting the gatekeepers of my data to back it up and provide limitless free access to MY STUFF.

I realized, I’M OUT OF MY MIND! after reading @CC_Chapman’s tweet.

Regularly backing up MY CRITICAL STUFF to a hard drive and using an online service like Backupify (2 Gig free backup & paid accounts for more) to back up my stuff online I have to take responsibility for looking after MY STUFF.  No use whining about those big bad companies like Google limiting access to my stuff – they have terms of service, they are the gatekeepers to MY STUFF when I use their services.  If I violate the terms of service (based on their interpretation of my actions) they can shut me down.  I agree to that in the TOS.

Secondly, I’m back to changing my password regularly… got lazy there too.  It would be far worse for someone to hack into my email and change my password on me gaining access to my valuable data.  That news about Googles Gaia security system being hacked in January…. it got me back into prudent mode.

I’m back to being the gatekeeper of MY STUFF.

How about you?  Are you taking action to safeguard YOUR STUFF?

Tweet This

Tags: account access, Gmail, google news, security, Video
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Technology came in the form of computers.

After a few hard drive or computer crashes where all was lost, I got petrified and backed up everything.

Technology moved to the cloud.

Email, calendars, spreadsheets and documents, photos and videos are available to me all the time like magic on any computer or handheld device.  I love it!

I got lazy – and start trusting the gatekeepers of my data to back it up and provide limitless free access to MY STUFF.

I realized, I’M OUT OF MY MIND! after reading @CC_Chapman’s tweet.

Regularly backing up MY CRITICAL STUFF to a hard drive and using an online service like Backupify (2 Gig free backup & paid accounts for more) to back up my stuff online I have to take responsibility for looking after MY STUFF.  No use whining about those big bad companies like Google limiting access to my stuff – they have terms of service, they are the gatekeepers to MY STUFF when I use their services.  If I violate the terms of service (based on their interpretation of my actions) they can shut me down.  I agree to that in the TOS.

Secondly, I’m back to changing my password regularly… got lazy there too.  It would be far worse for someone to hack into my email and change my password on me gaining access to my valuable data.  That news about Googles Gaia security system being hacked in January…. it got me back into prudent mode.

I’m back to being the gatekeeper of MY STUFF.

How about you?  Are you taking action to safeguard YOUR STUFF?

Tags: account access, Gmail, google news, security, Video
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off