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	<title>The Official Schipul Blog</title>
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	<link>http://blog.schipul.com</link>
	<description>A Source for Web Marketing &#38; Design, Social Media Consulting, Small Business and a Bunch of Other Stuff</description>
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		<title>Friday Fun:  Schipulite confetti egg time!</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/friday-fun-schipulite-confetti-egg-time/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/friday-fun-schipulite-confetti-egg-time/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:32:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Katie Laird</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Schipulites and Culture]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2982</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p></p>
<p>Fayza&#8217;s Last Day from Schipul &#8211; The Web Marketing Co. on Vimeo.</p>
<p>The Schipulites bid &#8217;see ya&#8217; soon&#8217; to our very own Fayza last week and now have a fun video to archive the experience  </p>
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="400" height="300" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9946158&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="300" src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9946158&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fullscreen=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/9946158">Fayza&#8217;s Last Day</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/schipul">Schipul &#8211; The Web Marketing Co.</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>The Schipulites bid &#8217;see ya&#8217; soon&#8217; to our <a href="http://blog.schipul.com/see-you-later-schipul/">very own Fayza last week</a> and now have a fun video to archive the experience <img src='http://blog.schipul.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
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		<item>
		<title>Houston Peace Festival &#8211; Something To Do this Fine March Weekend</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/houston-peace-festival-something-to-do-this-fine-march-weekend/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/houston-peace-festival-something-to-do-this-fine-march-weekend/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:15:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JJ Lassberg</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Friday Fun]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Live Oaks Friends Meeting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peace Festival]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Quaker]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2973</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Looking out the window and seeing the sun for the first time in a while?</p>
<p>Wondering what to do with the mostly sunny, high of 68, weather this weekend?</p>
<p>Well, just so happens there is something pretty dang cool to&#8230;</p>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/peace.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2974" title="Quaker Peace Festival" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/peace-335x400.jpg" alt="" width="335" height="400" /></a>Looking out the window and seeing the sun for the first time in a while?</p>
<p>Wondering what to do with the <a href="http://www.weather.com/weather/weekend/77008" target="_blank">mostly sunny, high of 68</a>, weather this weekend?</p>
<p>Well, just so happens there is something pretty dang cool to do this Saturday afternoon&#8230; The Live Oak Friends Meeting <a href="http://friendshouston.org/announcements/peace-festival-march-6-2010" target="_blank">Peace Festival</a>. Think music, art, dancing, fun and food&#8230; <a href="http://www.quaker.org/" target="_blank">Quaker Style</a>.</p>
<h3>Peace Festival: March 6, 2010</h3>
<p>A day of celebration and networking with local and national organizations working to improve our community!<strong></strong></p>
<p><strong>Where:</strong> <a href="http://friendshouston.org" target="_blank">Live Oak Friends Meeting</a>, 1318 West 26th St., Houston, Texas<br />
<strong>When:</strong> 1:00PM &#8211; 8:00PM</p>
<ul>
<li>Live Music by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/imaeffinballa">Zachary Ford</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/orionelapse">Tyagaraja</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/listenlisten">listenlisten</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/muchlovemusac">Much Love</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/spaincolouredorange">Spain Colored Orange</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/electricattitude">Electric Attitude</a>, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/lapelband">Lapel</a>, Macy McKinzie, Meghan Miller, Jordan Cervantez, and Micah Lamb</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Dance performance by <a href="http://www.dancepath.com/">Dancepatheater</a> and <a href="http://www.brazilianarts.org/">Brazilian Arts Foundation</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Vendors &amp; artists selling their merchandise/works (<em>vendors/artists interested in a table, contact Peg Nosek at <a href="mailto:mnosek@bcm.tmc.edu">mnosek@bcm.tmc.edu)</a></em></li>
</ul>
<p>For information contact Lidney Molnari at <a href="mailto:lidneymolnari@yahoo.com">lidneymolnari@yahoo.com</a></p>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Trend Tuesday: Comment SPAM gets Tricky</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/trend-tuesday-comment-spam-gets-tricky/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/trend-tuesday-comment-spam-gets-tricky/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:51:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JMO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Official Schipul Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trend Tuesdays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conversation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spam]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2954</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We've all come across email SPAM, but that is only where the annoyance begins. If you have a blog, a website that takes comments, or even a contact form, then you have probably seen some SPAM there, too. It used to be easy to identify, but spammers are becoming craftier at their game. Learn how you can fight back.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We&#8217;ve all come across email SPAM, but that is only where the annoyance begins. If you have a blog, a website that takes comments, or even a contact form, then you have probably seen some SPAM there, too. It used to be easy to identify, but spammers are becoming craftier at their game. Learn how you can fight back.</p>
<div id="attachment_2957" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 510px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/spam-spam-spam.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-2957 " title="spam-spam-spam" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/spam-spam-spam.jpg" alt="SPAM stacks up" width="500" height="374" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">SPAM can pile up in your blog. Learn how to get rid of it.</p></div>
<h3>Why people Spam</h3>
<p>Before diving into the problem of comment SPAM, I&#8217;d like to answer this question: Why do people SPAM? The biggest purpose of comment SPAM is SEO-related. One of the things Google and the others factor into their algorithms is <strong>linkbacks</strong>. A linkback is any link from an external site back to your website. In many comment forms on blogging platforms there is an option to include a website, which is then linked to your name when you leave a comment. This is a way of telling people who it is that is leaving the comment. Spammers use this opportunity to link to trashy SPAM websites that make pennies per visitor. If they rank higher in the search engines for keywords like &#8220;free viagra&#8221;, they can drive more traffic and make more pennies. Pennies turn into dollars which turn into <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWrE6DP86hc" target="_blank">Benjamins</a>, and you get the picture. However, this doesn&#8217;t work very well for the spammers.</p>
<p>While most of the blogging platforms include comments and do send links, they include a little piece of code that prevents linkbacks. It&#8217;s called a &#8220;nofollow&#8221; link. It tells Google not to count a link as a linkback. Google doesn&#8217;t follow the link, so that website isn&#8217;t given any benefit. It&#8217;s an optional setting, but it is turned on for professional blogs as well as Blogger.com and Wordpress.com hosted blogs. We don&#8217;t use nofollow links on this blog so that we can pass along benefits to our commenters. However, spammers don&#8217;t know that we do this, and they don&#8217;t seem to care much either way. Even with nofollow links, the spammers will still attack your site. Now that we know the why, lets look into the &#8220;what&#8221; of comment SPAM.</p>
<h3>What Comment SPAM looks like</h3>
<p>Most people can identify the obvious SPAM very quickly. It is riddled with links to ED drugs or other pharmaceuticals, or in some cases it is written in Russian. This kind of SPAM is automated by the spammers and can be caught by filters. The other types of SPAM are much harder to identify. They look more like real comments. Here is an example (the link doesn&#8217;t work):</p>
<blockquote><p>From <a rel="nofollow" href="http://investment-ideas-investing-spam.blahblah">Investment Ideas</a>: Great Post! I stumble by this blog from Google and your content really speaks to me. You are an expert in your field and this post is proof. I am now subscribing to read more.</p></blockquote>
<p>At first glance this looks like a very nice comment. It is probably one you would be proud to have at the bottom of your posts. Unfortunately, it is SPAM. The &#8220;name&#8221; of the commenter is used as a keyword to create a linkback to the URL, which in this case is also about investment ideas. The text sounds very nice, but it would probably sound very nice on any of your posts. These types of comments have a few things in common, and you can become a pro at identifying it and removing it.</p>
<h3>How to Identify and Stop SPAM</h3>
<p>Unfortunately, this kind of SPAM is not caught by the filters because it looks genuine. In many cases it is even entered by a real person (often overseas). They copy/paste a snippet on many sites as fast as possible. But, you can spot it when moderating your comments. Here is three-item test to identify the tricky SPAM:</p>
<ol>
<li>The <strong>name </strong>looks like a description and not really a person&#8217;s name. In the example, it is Investment Ideas.</li>
<li>The <strong>link </strong>goes to a site very similar to the name. It may also include several hyphens, which are sometimes used in spam URLs.</li>
<li>The text of the comment is very <strong>generic</strong>. It doesn&#8217;t reference anything in the post and can probably apply to almost any of your posts.</li>
</ol>
<p>Those three quick tests can help you to identify most comment SPAM. After reviewing the fake comment above, you will see that it includes all three of the regular pieces of SPAM comments. You may come across some comments that just say &#8220;Great Post!&#8221;. To determine if these are SPAM you should pay close attention to the name and link. If it is a person&#8217;s name and goes to a personal site or blog (like <a href="http://jmoswalt.com" target="_blank">JMO</a>), then it is probably not SPAM.</p>
<p>You will have to use your own discretion when deciding which comments are SPAM on your blog. Comments are great places to have a bit of further discussion about posts. They can add to the &#8220;conversation&#8221; in many cases, so blocking SPAM is even more important to keep the conversation fluid. While comment SPAM can&#8217;t hurt you directly, it can look ugly on your blog.</p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/02/were-turning-comments-off-for-a-bit/">some sites</a> have turned off comments all together to prevent this, you may still want to keep comments on your site. Using nofollow links can help prevent the spammers from gaining anything with their garbage, but it will still pile up in the back and can clutter your real comments. Moderating your comments regularly and having a keen eye for SPAM can protect your site from the evils of comment SPAM.</p>
<h4>UPDATE:</h4>
<p><strong> I have decided it to let the SPAM comments show up on this post</strong> so you can see some examples of what we get. I will neuter them by removing the link, but the text and name of the commenter will be left alone (unless it&#8217;s profane). Our first winner is &#8220;Affiliate Network&#8221;.</p>
<p><em>Awesome SPAM creative commons </em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/63056612@N00/155554663/"><em>image</em></a><em> thanks to </em><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/63056612@N00/"><em>freezelight</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Let&#8217;s call it, &#8220;See you later.&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/see-you-later-schipul/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/see-you-later-schipul/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:31:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Fayza Elmostehi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Announcements!]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Official Schipul Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Schipulites and Culture]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2947</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>When I was 21, I decided to move to Los Angeles.  Out of the blue.  I&#8217;d never expressed much interest in permanently relocating out of Ohio before, but following a semester in Washington, D.C., by golly, I felt invincible enough&#8230;</p>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_2948" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 353px"><img class="size-full wp-image-2948" title="sneaky-fayza" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/sneaky-fayza.jpg" alt="" width="343" height="488" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Wait a second. The stapler wasn&#39;t a parting gift?</p></div>
<p>When I was 21, I decided to move to Los Angeles.  Out of the blue.  I&#8217;d never expressed much interest in permanently relocating out of Ohio before, but following a semester in Washington, D.C., by golly, I felt invincible enough to do just about anything.</p>
<p>My mother, understandably, was flummoxed.  She posed every question in the world that a parent could possibly conjure.  &#8220;Where will you live?&#8221; &#8220;Where will you work?&#8221; &#8220;What if something happens to you while you&#8217;re out there; you don&#8217;t know anyone&#8230;?&#8221; &#8220;What if you hate it there?&#8221; &#8220;What if you miss home?&#8221;  &#8220;What if your car breaks down on the way?&#8221;  &#8220;What if <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gael_Garc%C3%ADa_Bernal" target="_blank">Gael Garcia Bernal</a> decides he wants to marry you?&#8221;</p>
<p>Okay, no, she didn&#8217;t ask that last one.  Duh.  It&#8217;s obvious that he does.  He responded to me on Twitter once.  I still think it was real, <a href="http://twitter.com/GaelGarciaB/status/8534213686" target="_blank">no matter what his official account says</a>.</p>
<p>Anyway, the thing is, my mother never once said, &#8220;Don&#8217;t go, Fayza.&#8221;  Despite her unanswered questions and despite her personal fears.  Do you know why?  <em>Because she knew it was good for me.</em> As hard as it was to see her eldest daughter pack up her inconsistent-at-best 1989 Honda Accord with everything she could stuff into it and head off across the country to inhabit a city she&#8217;d never even visited, my mom <em>knew </em>it was the right move for me.  To date, it was one of the most pivotal life decisions I&#8217;ve ever made.  In a good way.</p>
<p>Why did I tell you this story?  Because.  Because I like stories?  Well, yes, but there&#8217;s a point; I&#8217;ve become very sage over the years, dontcha know.  The moral is this:  <em>Sometimes, it&#8217;s hard to let a member of your family fly.</em> But spread their wings they must.  Because fly they should.</p>
<p>And taking flight from the family nest I am, again.  For today, with both a smile and a sigh, I turn in my Schipulite badge and bid the roost adieu.</p>
<p>&#8220;But what now?&#8221;  you ask.  Don&#8217;t worry; I&#8217;m not dying.  Nor am I leaving the city of Houston.  I know, <em>right?</em></p>
<p>If you couldn&#8217;t tell, I&#8217;m quite <a href="http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/social_distortion" target="_blank">passionate about writing</a>.  This hunger knows no bounds (and, some would say, no boundaries).  I also happen to be a Twitteraholic and a Facebook fiend. And when a position as the Social Media Editor at <a href="http://www.culturemap.com" target="_blank">CultureMap</a> was staring me in the face, I knew it was my time to flap ye olde wings again.</p>
<p>But I don&#8217;t do goodbyes, yo.  Because the strangers who became my sisters and brothers at this company are people who will remain in my life for years to come.  And the knowledge I&#8217;ve earned, the skills I&#8217;ve learned, and the client experiences that I&#8217;ve had will stay with me and fuel my growth &#8217;til my brain can&#8217;t hold no more.  I&#8217;ve been a lucky little person, that&#8217;s for sure. And I take that luck with me in my pockets.  Like office supplies.  Um, did I just say that?  Ignore me.</p>
<p>So this is not a goodbye, &#8217;cause HEY!  Here I am, loud and clear, still kickin&#8217;!  And so are you.  It&#8217;s a see-you-later, at best, and a now-we&#8217;re-gonna-have-to-make-lunch-plans at worst.  &#8216;Cause <a href="http://www.twitter.com/fayza" target="_blank">you know</a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/fayza" target="_blank">where</a> to <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fayza" target="_blank">find</a> <a href="http://fayza.me" target="_blank">me</a>.  So please do.</p>
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		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
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		<title>Houston Mayor Annise Parker chats city Social Media strategy</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/houston-mayor-annise-parker-chats-city-social-media-strategy/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/houston-mayor-annise-parker-chats-city-social-media-strategy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:07:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Katie Laird</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Using Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2936</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p></p>
<p>News geek and Schipul pal Mike McGuff had a great conversation with newly elected Houston Mayor Annise Parker on her use of Social Media strategy in the mayoral election and what the future holds for citywide Social Media usage.&#8230;</p>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Pry2H-vUj-Q&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Pry2H-vUj-Q&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>News geek and Schipul pal <a href="http://mikemcguff.blogspot.com">Mike McGuff</a> had a great <a href="http://mikemcguff.blogspot.com/2010/02/video-houston-mayor-annise-parker-talks_23.html">conversation with newly elected Houston Mayor Annise Parker</a> on her use of Social Media strategy in the mayoral election and what the future holds for citywide Social Media usage.</p>
<p><em>(Disclosure:  Schipul was a sponsor in helping Mike put together this great interview)</em></p>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Storytelling and How 3 Cups of Tea can Change the World</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/storytelling-and-how-3-cups-of-tea-can-change-the-world/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/storytelling-and-how-3-cups-of-tea-can-change-the-world/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:43:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JJ Lassberg</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Do Good]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Official Schipul Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Storytelling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Central Asia Institute]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[girls]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Greg Mortenson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pennies for Peace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[schools]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2921</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Imagine if world peace could be accomplished for pennies.</p>
<p>You know those little copper disks that we leave laying on the ground ‘cause they’re worth so little.</p>
<p>No more bombs, no more causalities, no more terror… peace… for pennies.</p>
<p>That’s&#8230;</p>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Imagine if world peace could be accomplished for pennies.</p>
<p>You know those little copper disks that we leave laying on the ground ‘cause they’re <a href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Adjusting_for_inflation_which_is_worth_more_1908_pennies_1960_pennies_1990_pennies_2006_pennies_2007_pennies_or_any_penny_melted_down_and_sold_as_scrap_metal" target="_blank">worth so little</a>.</p>
<p>No more bombs, no more causalities, no more terror… peace… for pennies.</p>
<p>That’s just what Nobel Peace Prize nominee and <em>The New York Times</em> best-selling author <a href="http://www.threecupsoftea.com/greg-mortenson-bio-and-professional-photo/">Greg Mortenson</a> thinks is possible… and he has been focused on just that for the last 16 years.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The son of educators himself, his devotion to building schools began in 1993. After failing to mount K2, the world’s second highest mountain – an adventure undertaken to honor his youngest sister, who died of cerebral epilepsy – he lost his way and stumbled into a small, remote village in Pakistan, where people took him in, nursing him back to health. Out of gratitude, he pledged to return and build a school&#8230; <a href="http://www.threecupsoftea.com/2010/01/24/globe-jan-24-10/" target="_blank">read more&gt;&gt;</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.gregmortenson.com/biography/" target="_blank"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2924" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="Greg Mortenson &quot;3 Cups of Tea&quot; Houston, TX" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Gultori.jpg" alt="" width="297" height="200" /></a>And return to build a school is just what he did… and has done <a href="https://www.ikat.org/projects/regional-map/" target="_blank">131 times over</a>. Build schools for children in Pakistan and Afghanistan to say thank you to those generous, open-hearted, people who took him into their homes and nursed him back to health.</p>
<p>Mortenson <a href="http://www.threecupsoftea.com/2009/03/29/palmbeach-mar-29-09/" target="_blank">has shared that</a>,</p>
<p>“In my own observation, educated women tend to refuse to allow their sons to join terrorism groups,” he says, adding that about 30 of the 1,100 teachers he knows in Afghanistan are former Taliban sympathizers, who explained to him that they defected after their mothers told them it was “disgraceful.”</p>
<p>I had the joy of getting to attend a luncheon where Dr. Greg (<a href="http://www.gregmortenson.com/biography/" target="_blank">as the people of Korphe</a> nick-named him) spoke about his experiences helping to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What I took away most were not the staggering statistics or the pleas for policy change… what stayed with me, haunted me, inspired me to share with friends and family and co-worker and anyone who would listen were the stories of the people Mortenson has connected with along his journey.</p>
<p>Here at Schipul we are very focused on the art and power of storytelling. We help our clients craft and share their stories and we have a <a href="http://schipul.com/culture/" target="_blank">culture </a>of supporting our fellow <a href="http://schipul.com/personalbrands/" target="_blank">Schipulites </a>in telling their own personal stories.</p>
<p>In “<a href="http://www.halftheskymovement.org/" target="_blank">Half the Sky</a>” Nicholad D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn write,</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Frankly, we hesitate to pile on the data, since even when numbers are persuasive, they are not galvanizing. A growing collection of psychological studies show that statistics have a dulling effect, while it is individual stories that move people to act.</p>
<p>I for one can attest to the power of storytelling, based on my experience at the “<a href="http://www.artshound.com/event/detail/35897" target="_blank">3 Cups of Tea” luncheon</a>. One week has passed since the luncheon and what I remember most is that 1 dollar will fund a child’s education for an entire month and the story below…</p>
<p>Mortenson had a meeting with shura (a council of elders) in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Or%C5%ABzg%C4%81n_Province" target="_blank">Oruzgan province</a> in volatile, southern Afghanistan. He wanted to build a girl’s high school in this Taliban controlled part of the country and these men’s approval was the key. The shura asked to visit one of the <a href="https://www.ikat.org/" target="_blank">Central Asia Institutes</a> (CAI) schools. Mortenson shared that these very powerful men arrived with long black beards, black turbans, machine guns and belts of grenades. What these men noticed was the playground at the school and for an hour and a half these men, these fierce powerful ruling men, laid down their weapons and with turbans flying played on the swing set. Mortenson let them have their fun and when it came time to settle into the business of the visit the shura said there was no need to meet… they were satisfied. They would give him the land, the supplies, the labor he needed… he would have his high school.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.threecupsoftea.com/" target="_blank"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-2925" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="mortenson-and-villagers" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mortenson-and-villagers.jpg" alt="" width="277" height="184" /></a>What Mortenson realized was that for these men, raised in a country at war… from the moment they could walk they were taught to fight. These men, these fierce, armed, powerful men had never been allowed to be children. They had never played… and what they wanted for their children was a school where they could swing and play and learn.</p>
<p>If this story moves you and you want to know more about Mortenson and the Central Asia Institutes work building schools check out:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.threecupsoftea.com/">http://www.threecupsoftea.com/</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ikat.org/">https://www.ikat.org/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.penniesforpeace.org/">http://www.penniesforpeace.org/</a></li>
</ol>
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		<title>Google Buzz: What you Need to Know</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/google-buzz-what-you-need-to-know/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/google-buzz-what-you-need-to-know/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:43:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JMO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Official Schipul Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Using Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google Buzz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Sharing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2906</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Unless you are a huge, die-hard fan of our favorite search engine, you probably had no idea Google was creating a new software product. And that it would take over our inboxes and (inadvertently) share our lives with everyone. Welcome to Google Buzz.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_2910" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 242px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/what-is-buzz.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-2910" title="what-is-buzz" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/what-is-buzz.png" alt="Posting a message in Buzz" width="232" height="202" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Posting a message in Buzz</p></div>
<p>Unless you are a huge, die-hard fan of our <a href="http://google.com">favorite search engine</a>, you probably had no idea Google was creating a new software product. And that it would take over our inboxes and (inadvertently) share our lives with everyone. <strong>Welcome to Google Buzz.</strong></p>
<h3>WTF is this Buzz thing?</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/buzz">Google Buzz</a> is a new product from Google that lets you share things. If you use Google Reader, then you will likely recognize the interface. The two both include a list of posts with information like who it&#8217;s from, when it was shared, and a list of comments below each item. It is strikingly familiar in design to <a href="http://friendfeed.com/">FriendFeed</a>, your <a href="http://www.facebook.com">Facebook Newsfeed</a>, and in some ways, <a href="http://twitter.com">Twitter</a>. All include shared updates from friends with the option for additional feeds and pictures/video.</p>
<p>Buzz is almost identical to Friendfeed in the way it allows you to merge outside services like Blog Feeds, Twitter updates, and Google Reader shared items into one constant stream of sharing. To add these settings in Buzz, you must first have configured a <a href="https://www.google.com/profiles/me/">Google Profile</a> (you have that setup, right?). Then, after your feeds are added there, Google Buzz will allow you to add them to Buzz by selecting them from the Connected Sites link in Buzz. While allowing you to share things and see your friends&#8217; shared things, you can also add comments on anything. You can follow along with the conversation and even have new comments show up in your Gmail inbox.</p>
<div id="attachment_2909" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 413px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/google-buzz-main-screen.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-2909" title="google-buzz-main-screen" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/google-buzz-main-screen.png" alt="Google Buzz Main Entry Box" width="403" height="92" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Google Buzz Main Entry Box. Look familiar?</p></div>
<p>The big difference in the Google service is that you already start out following everyone in your Google Contacts, which often includes people you may have emailed once or twice in the past few years. For most of us, this is a huge concern because we are now sharing things with people we never intended to share with.</p>
<p>If you have a phone like the iPhone or an Android phone, then Google Buzz will also share your location. This has been done by other services, but it is a major privacy concern for this opt-out service.</p>
<h3>The Opt-Out and Privacy Concerns</h3>
<p>Opt-out services, where you are automatically signed up, are usually not great for you (with the exception of 401ks). You get hooked into something that you never chose to use. Instead of giving Buzz it&#8217;s own URL and special place on the web, <strong>Google just stuck it in your Gmail inbox</strong>. Everyone was signed up without a great explanation of Buzz. You have to manually go in a either remove people from your contacts or block them.</p>
<p>Lets use an analogy. Imagine if, when you first signed up for Facebook and entered in your high school and class year, you automatically became friends with everyone else from your class. Except Facebook didn&#8217;t tell you or give you an option to opt-out of this. Facebook wants to get you started building friends so it adds some for you. They think they are helping. And now, you have to un-friend hundreds of people that you don&#8217;t care to share your life with anymore.</p>
<p>Google thinks they are doing us a favor, but I don&#8217;t feel helped very much. The privacy settings on Google Buzz are granular, meaning everything can be set to private, but you have to hunt and search to find out where. Harriet at Fungitivus <a href="http://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/fuck-you-google/" target="_blank">ran into this problem</a>. All of her Google Reader shared items were instantly exposed to anyone in her &#8220;recent contacts&#8221;, which contained many old email addresses from random past emails. Google Reader is public by default, but no one may have been viewing it if you were using it on a private email account. <strong>Buzz now exposes this to all of your recent contacts</strong>.</p>
<p>The privacy settings are all available to be turned off or configured specifically, but the notion of being set to public by default is not cool. Facebook has <a href="http://blog.schipul.com/facebook-as-a-phone-book-fbfail/">run into trouble</a> <a href="http://blog.schipul.com/facebook-privacy-and-you/">like this before</a> and has had to scramble to fix things. I have faith that Google is already working on a better all-out admin interface for settings, but nothing like that has been released yet.</p>
<h3>Getting rid of the Buzz</h3>
<div id="attachment_2908" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 269px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/sharing-settings-reader.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-2908" title="sharing-settings-reader" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/sharing-settings-reader.png" alt="Google Reader Sharing Settings" width="259" height="111" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Google Reader Sharing Settings</p></div>
<p>You can set all of your Connected sites to be private by setting them as such when adding them. To update your Google Reader settings, you have to open the sidebar, click the + on the People you follow list, and click sharing settings. Chances are your shared items are set to Public (the default). You can view a list of people following you and Block them by default if you wish. But, you must do this individually. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/warning-google-buzz-has-a-huge-privacy-flaw-2010-2#after-clicking-buzz-on-the-right-inside-your-gmail-page-click-on-your-name-as-shown-1">Business Insider</a> has a nice walk-through to make some things private.</p>
<p>You can also set anything you do to private, and select a group of people to share with. These groups come from Google Contacts, which many people may not use unless they sync them with a mobile device. They are editable within Gmail. By not connecting any sites, blocking all of your &#8220;followers&#8221;, and unfollowing everyone, you can effectively get off of Google Buzz. But it will still exist right next to your inbox in Gmail, at least for the time being. <strong>UPDATE: <a href="http://mark-hurd.com/">Mark</a> from the <a href="http://blog.schipul.com/google-buzz-what-you-need-to-know/#IDComment56546435">comments</a> tell us that you can simply turn off Buzz in the Gmail footer. Thanks for the tip!</strong></p>
<h3>Implications of Buzz</h3>
<p>With Buzz, I see Google trying to be the <strong>central hub for online human interaction</strong>. It&#8217;s the place you email, chat, use documents, share pictures and links, and now bring in some of your outside services. Google is very late to the party, as many of these kinds of services have been done by other companies. The idea of having everything in one place is wonderful, but even that has been done before to limited success.</p>
<p>Google is a bit different, though. They already have many of us hooked into their services. If you were on Twitter two years ago, or joined facebook three years ago, then I&#8217;d bet money you are using Gmail. If you know how to subscribe to RSS feeds, then you are likely using Google Reader.  Google already has us using their services, and they are betting with Buzz that we will choose to use Google for even more.</p>
<p>However, not everything can be done with Buzz, which is the beginning of the problem. I recently moved to Tumblr for sharing things online, and I can&#8217;t find a way to bring that feed into Buzz. You also can&#8217;t bring in Facebook updates, but that is due to Facebook&#8217;s sharing policies and not Buzz. People that are already using other sites like Friendfeed will not come over willingly, since Buzz only replicates that service and doesn&#8217;t add much visible value. The hidden change is in using the data power of Google to <strong>decide what is Signal and what is Noise</strong>, and how that distinction is different for everyone. That will take some time to come through, which is why I&#8217;m not yet buying into Buzz.</p>
<h3>Final Thoughts on Buzz</h3>
<p>One of the reasons that Facebook is successful is that it connects you with Real People, not just with online personas. Almost all other services allow people to create personas and hide behind them. Facebook strips most of that away, so that who you are on Facebook is closely related to who you are offline. By tying users to their email address, Google has the opportunity to do the same with Buzz. I can &#8220;follow&#8221; celebrities and such in Buzz, but seeing the enormous string of comments will be overwhelming and unhelpful. Instead, I will follow people that I know in the real world.</p>
<p>This online persona/offline Real Person is a big distinction. You may be a fan of a teeny-bopper pop singer, but you probably don&#8217;t want to send them pictures of you grandkids. The privacy settings in Buzz can be used to share different things with different people, which is a great feature once you setup your groups. And after some time of seeing what your Buzz friends share, you can parse your list into a readable stream of interesting information.</p>
<p>I am generally a big fan of Google, but Buzz may take some time to get used to.</p>
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		<title>I Am Waters Needs Your Vote!</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/i-am-waters-needs-your-vote/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/i-am-waters-needs-your-vote/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:55:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Courtney Pemberton</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Contests]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Do Good]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Official Schipul Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Schipul clients]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hope]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[I Am Waters]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pepsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[refresh]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[water]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2884</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: left;">Have you ever thought about how easy it is to get a glass of water? There is tap water, bottled water, filtered water…all conveniently available within the comfort of your own home. It is so accessible that we&#8230;</p>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/I-Am-Waters.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2887" style="margin: 5px 10px;" title="I Am Waters" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/I-Am-Waters-400x400.jpg" alt="" width="237" height="237" /></a>Have you ever thought about how easy it is to get a glass of water? There is tap water, bottled water, filtered water…all conveniently available within the comfort of your own home. It is so accessible that we almost take this basic necessity for granted – a basic necessity that is a key component to our everyday survival.</p>
<p>So what  about those who live without clean drinking water? You see them every day and more often than not, glance towards the other window in hopes of a red light turning green.</p>
<p>One woman not only stopped to take a deeper look, but realized the hope and inspiration a simple bottle of water could bring to those less fortunate…thus, creating the <a href="http://iamwaters.com/" target="_blank">I Am Waters Foundation</a>.</p>
<p><em>&#8220;I knew I needed to “Bring water to the homeless” and not just any water, but water with special messages delivered by powerful words such as Love, Faith, Gratitude, and Peace. These words may be the only source of inspiration for a person on the street. My goal is to fill the hearts, minds, and bodies of all of the women, children, and men who don’t have access to life’s most basic necessities.”</em></p>
<p>-Founder, Elena Davis</p>
<p><a href="http://iamwaters.com/about-i-am-waters/about-the-founder/" target="_blank">Elena Davis</a> is quite a remarkable woman in the fact that it’s not just about the water…it’s about giving the homeless inspiration to succeed in life. It’s about<a href="http://iamwaters.com/stories/sacramento-tent-city-2009/" target="_blank"> sharing the real-life stories</a> and the trials of day-to-day obstacles. It’s about <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jibMY39edPU&amp;feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">Steven Higgins</a> realizing his potential through one single photo…</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="560" height="340" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jibMY39edPU&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="340" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jibMY39edPU&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>This is the cognition of our world and it is refreshing to see a movement for revitalization.</p>
<p>So how can you help “bring physical and spiritual hydration to the homeless?”</p>
<p><strong>Please vote for the <a href="http://www.refresheverything.com/iamwatersfoundation" target="_blank">I Am Waters Foundation in the Pepsi Refresh Project contest</a></strong> &#8211; rewarding $250,000 in grants to those who are creating a positive impact in their community. If I Am Waters receives the funding, they would be able to extend their efforts in order to bring a human face to the homelessness problem in America, deliver water to American’s homeless, and revitalize the homeless with messages of inspiration.</p>
<p><strong>Voting ends February 28th!</strong></p>
<p>To find out more information about the I Am Waters Foundation, connect with them through <a href="http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/iamwaters?ref=ts" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/iamwaters" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/iamwatersfoundation" target="_blank">YouTube</a>!</p>
<p>*The I Am Waters Foundation is one of Schipul&#8217;s newest clients and we are absolutely thrilled to be working with Elena!</p>
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		<title>Trend Tuesday: iHype and a different kind of Internet Marketing</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/trend-tuesday-ihype-and-a-different-kind-of-internet-marketing/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/trend-tuesday-ihype-and-a-different-kind-of-internet-marketing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:54:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JMO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Official Schipul Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Storytelling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trend Tuesdays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hype]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2872</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the past two years, hundreds of thousands of blog posts, forums, and comments had speculated about Apple making a tablet. Last week, Apple did something they hadn't done during that entire timespan. They admitted they had designed a tablet computer. How did they create so much buzz?]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_2876" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 256px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/apple-ipad.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-2876" title="apple-ipad" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/apple-ipad.png" alt="Steve Jobs Apple iPad announcement" width="246" height="210" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Steve Jobs announces Apple&#39;s new product.</p></div>
<p>Over the past two years, hundreds of thousands of blog posts, forums, and comments had speculated about Apple making a tablet. Last week, Apple did something they hadn&#8217;t done during that entire time span. They admitted they had designed a tablet computer. How did they create so much buzz?</p>
<p>While I think their <a href="http://www.apple.com/ipad" target="_blank">new device</a> is a <a href="http://jmoswalt.com/articles/a-real-breakthrough-in-future-computing">real breakthrough in future computing</a>, I find the marketing (or lack of marketing) for such an item much more fascinating. How does a company build up so much hype? Why are people so excited about something they didn&#8217;t even know existed? And why have so many critics turned negative on something that isn&#8217;t technically for sale yet? Let&#8217;s dive a little deeper to solve the iHype mystery.</p>
<h2>Apple iHype</h2>
<p>Apple, in its history as a company, has been known for releasing ground-breaking products that change the way we do things. It started back in the &#8217;80s with the Apple II and the Macintosh, and continued in the 2000&#8217;s with the iPod and iPhone. The widespread obsession in the tech community over Apple rumors is fairly new, but the true Apple geeks have always been a hype-driven excitable bunch. The return of Steve Jobs near the end of the &#8217;90s helped to rejuvenate this passionate group. The basics behind iHype are these:</p>
<ol>
<li>Develop new things in ways that haven&#8217;t been done before.</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t publicly show prototypes or &#8220;proofs of concept&#8221;.</li>
<li>Make a polished, grand announcement of the new thing.</li>
<li>Ignore the negative critics.</li>
</ol>
<p>Your business or organization may not make awesome tablet computers, but the principles of iHype can still apply to your business.</p>
<h3>Develop New Things</h3>
<p>Whether it is a piece of software, a book, a networking organization, or a physical item, your product or service stands out in some way. You may do lots of R&amp;D for your new device, or you could simply offer a better way to manage alumni donors. Perhaps you offer public speaking advice or maybe you write code and build web apps. You can be a star by developing things that are new, fresh, and useful. Think like Apple and create things that people dream of using. Offer services that no one else can match and create your own category. To build iHype, <strong>you must build something to hype up.</strong></p>
<h3>Don&#8217;t show Prototypes</h3>
<p>The biggest lesson here is this: <strong>Prototypes eat up all the hype</strong>. When you announce that your company is working on a new product to be released in 18 months, users will forget about it two days later. Not only are future predictions unreliable (see <a href="http://www.xkcd.com/678/">XKCD&#8217;s take</a> below), you kill off all of your excitement by the time the thing launches. You effectively use your marketing window of opportunity to announce a future announcement.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 517px"><a href="http://xkcd.com/678/"><img class="size-full" title="product protoype announcement" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/researcher_translation.png" alt="20 years away will be 20 years away forever." width="507" height="431" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">What Prototype announcements really mean (from XKCD)</p></div>
<p>Imagine going to a party on July 31st that was solely to announce another party in 4-6 months (New Years Eve). You would likely kill any buzz for the real party and possibly upset your current guests. The exception to this is a short timeframe with a solid date. Announcing your new product that will come out at the end of the month is probably OK, but it&#8217;s better to announce things that ship today. (Apple occasionally announces things before their release to do patent and FCC filings which inadvertently announce things. If they could wait until the ship date, they would.)</p>
<h3>The Grand and Polished Announcement</h3>
<p>You won&#8217;t have the same stage as Apple, but you can deliver your message with the same gusto. If you are issuing a press release, than include graphics, numbers, and memorable quotes and taglines. If you are sending an email newsletter to current clients to announce a new service, give it a great subject line and pay attention to the details. If you are lucky enough to make your announcement in person as a presentation then practice, practice, practice. A boring and unoriginal announcement is likely to be forgotten. <strong>Tell the story of your great new thing</strong>. The time you spend on it will often mirror the amount of attention it gets from your audience, so put in the time it deserves.</p>
<h3>Ignore the naysayers</h3>
<p>Apple made their announcement last week and already many of the tech blogs are denouncing the new device. Apple has experienced the same thing happening with the iPod an iPhone, so they are not fazed by harsh words. You may not have the same experience so a negative review could be very painful initially. <strong>Do not let it get you down</strong>. Your new offering has taken you time and energy because you built it with intent and passion. If someone with a blog or an email account doesn&#8217;t like it, there is no reason they should kill any of your excitement. You are trying to sell your product to people who want it, not people who don&#8217;t. Do not forget this. Every product has a negative critic and unfortunately their voices can drown out the positive folks. Have confidence in your service and in your announcement, do great marketing, and the buyers will come.</p>
<p>You probably won&#8217;t get the same media level of hype that Apple gets, but there is no reason you can&#8217;t create stir of similar excitement with your followers and customers. Make something great, boldly announce it when it&#8217;s ready, and ignore anyone who talks down about it. These are the simple keys to creating your own storm of iHype.</p>
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		<title>Trend Tuesday: Google Page Speed and the Social Web</title>
		<link>http://blog.schipul.com/trend-tuesday-google-page-speed-and-the-social-web/</link>
		<comments>http://blog.schipul.com/trend-tuesday-google-page-speed-and-the-social-web/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:02:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>JMO</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEM]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Trend Tuesdays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Page Speed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.schipul.com/?p=2849</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ever clicked on the top link in Google only to find a page that takes For-ev-er to load? Well, that page may not be a top site for long. Google is changing up how they are ranking websites and one of their new pieces of criteria is speed.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ever clicked on the top link in Google only to find a page that takes <a title="For-ev-er" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Q7b-vHY3Q" target="_blank">For-ev-er</a> to load? Well, that page may not be a top site for long. Google is changing up how they are ranking websites and one of their new pieces of criteria is speed.</p>
<div id="attachment_2856" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 585px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/google-page-speed.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2856 " title="google-page-speed" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/google-page-speed-575x112.png" alt="google-page-speed" width="575" height="112" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Example of Webmaster Tools Page Speed Graph</p></div>
<h3>Page Speed</h3>
<p>Google has recently released an entire sub-site to <a href="http://code.google.com/speed/">improve on website speed</a>. The site includes a <a href="http://code.google.com/speed/tools.html">tools page</a> which highlights among others <a href="http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/">Page Speed</a> which is Firefox plugin for developers. The also showcase a new report in <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en">Webmaster Tools</a> to show how quickly your site loads. Many of these tools give you stats about your site speed as well as suggestions on how to improve it. These suggestions include:</p>
<ol>
<li>Combining external files such as CSS style sheets</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minification_(programming)" target="_blank">Minifying</a> or zipping javascript files.</li>
<li>Using <a href="http://css-tricks.com/css-sprites/" target="_blank">image sprites</a> or images optimized for the web</li>
<li>Minimizing DNS lookups (content from other sites)</li>
</ol>
<div id="attachment_2852" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 469px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/page-speed-tool.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-2852 " title="page-speed-tool" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/page-speed-tool.png" alt="page-speed-tool" width="459" height="389" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Google Page Speed in Chrome showing data load times</p></div>
<p>*This website embeds our Twitter feed, which requires an extra DNS lookup and can increase the load time. You will have to decide the importance of similar widgets for your site. We like our Twitter feed and Flickr pics, so we&#8217;ll take the small performance hit to keep those. But, we don&#8217;t include other widgets from most of our other social media profiles so we can speed up our blog. Finding the right balance for your site may take some testing and tough decisions, but speed is definitely something to keep in mind.</p>
<h3>Social Search and Authority</h3>
<p>Speed is very important to Google themselves. As the real-time web continues to change minute by minute, Google is beginning to bring some of that data into its results. You may have noticed that Google now displays twitter results at the top of some searches.</p>
<p>The first part of the ranking system is the time of the tweet. Google generally displays the most recent tweets first so searchers will have up-to-the minute results to their queries. This speed combined with link authority shapes how searchers can get the latest Glee news (or other important things of course).</p>
<div id="attachment_2854" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 585px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/glee-twitter-search.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2854" title="glee-twitter-search" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/glee-twitter-search-575x376.png" alt="glee-twitter-search" width="575" height="376" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Google Search with Twitter Results displayed above the regular results</p></div>
<p>As you can see, this search result shows twitter responses. While the exact science behind choosing tweets is not know, we do know that Google follows a similar model to their search results. Incoming links to a website can raise its ranking, and similarly more followers and incoming links to a Twitter profile can give that Twitterer more authority. There are <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/web/24353/?a=f" target="_blank">similar theories</a> out there, but we know that Google is ranking authority somehow.</p>
<h3>The Facebook Factor</h3>
<p>Google also has agreements with Facebook to bring your status updates and Facebook info to the Search Results as well. Before you freak out, yes, you can keep these things from the search engines using the Privacy features in Facebook. They have a dedicated page for <a href="http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy&amp;section=search" target="_blank">Search Privacy Settings</a>. I have mine set to Everyone, but I understand that may not work for you. Other options include Friends and Networks, Friends of Friends, and Friends Only. From the Search Privacy Settings you can preview your public profile, which will give you an idea of what information Google will see about you (see below).</p>
<div id="attachment_2862" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 539px"><a href="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/FB-search-privacy.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-2862" title="FB-search-privacy" src="http://blog.schipul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/FB-search-privacy.png" alt="FaceBook-search-privacy" width="529" height="249" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Facebook Seach Privacy Setting Options</p></div>
<p>Google can also use this public Facebook profile to show authority. If you do not have your own website, doing a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22John-Michael+Oswalt%22" target="_blank">vanity search</a> may show your Facebook profile as the top result for your name. I have my personal website (<a title="JMO" href="http://jmoswalt.com" target="_blank">JMO</a>), but my <a href="http://twitter.com/jmoswalt">Twitter feed</a> and <a href="http://facebook.com/jmoswalt" target="_blank">Facebook profile</a> both rank above it because of the authority those sites carry. I urge you to search for your name to see where your social profiles rank.</p>
<p><strong>Tips for you</strong></p>
<p>What steps can you take to insure people find you fast?</p>
<ol>
<li>Setup your website in <a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en" target="_blank">Webmaster Tools</a> and use <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome" target="_blank">Google Chrome</a> or the <a href="http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/" target="_blank">Page Speed plugin</a> for Firefox to check your site speed.</li>
<li>Follow the suggestions from those tools.</li>
<li>Link to your Social Media profiles from your own website.</li>
</ol>
<p>Google is still king of search engines and of how people can discover you. It&#8217;s up to you to make sure they can do that quickly.</p>
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