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by: Anne Haynes

Update: 9AM April 1st 2008
I found the joke this morning on the Official Google Blog site. This years April fools joke is permanent human settlement on Mars.

Googles Virgle Project

10PM March 31, 2008
I’m doing my homework. This is what I get for the term “Google April Fools 2008″
Number 1 rank - previous ranker for the term.

Number 2 rank - Google Operating System.

Number 3 rank - get educated with the wikipedia.org.

Number 5 rank - prediction from the Marketing Pilgrim.

by: Anne Haynes

Because I’m an educated newbie (uh ya –um) to Facebook, I’m receiving certain application requests from friends and tonight I interfaced with the Vampires application. I love scary movies and a friend of mine sent me a request to install the Vampires application. I clicked here and clicked there and finally, the screen showed up to invite friends – the facebook chump reference below reminded me of rugby. My cousin is a rugby chick and even though she is sweet as can be, when she’s playing rugby, she trash talks on the field.

In many sports, there are strategies; tough talk, rough talk, trash talk and in Facebook there is Chump Talk. In rugby the trash talk strategy is used to keep the opponents in their place.

My friends aren’t chumps and I’d prefer a more pleasant phrase than chump.

Do you have a better phrase for the word chump, let me know.

by: Anne Haynes

Being the novice programmer that I am, I’m always searching for development quick guides and resources. When I was in college I programmed in BASIC and I did pretty well, but when I moved onto COBOL, I knew I wasn’t meant to be a programmer. I missed out on the cool visual programming applications in college.

With widgets, I’m finding myself wanting to program again! I can’t believe I just said that…. I ran across the Google Visual Developers API today. And I can’t wait to play around with the functionality. With visual programming, creating code is like using a content management system. I’m just having a hard time finding good manuals and resources.

Enjoy the video:

by: Anne Haynes

I love the Jeff Hinkin Band and I love widgets, so tonight I worked on my first widget using my server space, creating the code and all of the above. I have a feeling, based on the below results that I’m not checking the right box or something…. I’ll work on it later, but for those of you that love the Beatles, you’ll love the Jeff Hinking Band. Listen below and then go to the Jeff Hinkin Band MySpace

Let’s hope I don’t junk up the web with my newbie widgets….

by: Anne Haynes
Yesterday I watched two webinars; Enhancing Web Interactions with Web 2.0: The Keys to Success and the Widget Webinar with Widgetbox. They were both great webinars, but the widgetbox.com webinar was a live event! The new CEO Will Price made a quick speech about leaving the financial firm that funded Widgetbox to working with Widgetbox.com. This speaks volumes for the future of Widgets and Widgetbox! The best part of the webinar was the web development team. With the new release of their AJAX development platform – their integration insights to the inter-workings of social media sites was apparent! The development team on the webinar that spoke the most to coding widgets and distributing widgets were Dean Moses and Tam Huynh. The entire team at Widgetbox is amazing! They have great energy good spirits and really listen to their users!!!! You have to love a company when asked what their business model is – they reply, “To make you successful”. These widgets are viral money makers! And anyone can make these widgets, blidgets and facebook applications with little to no programming skills. I made a blidget = blog + widget last night; it’s on my personal blog, my myspace and my facebook and it took me 10 minutes! I just love these things and I can’t wait to make some money using them! I’m keeping my eye on Widgetbox.com and if anyone knows of any development tutorials for novice coders, please comment or send me a message with your best widget development resources. I hand code HTML, so I’m comfortable in “simple” code. However, I’m looking to become more advanced with programming widgets specifically.

I’ve read this document and it has some good forward thinking about Universal Search and Personalized Search. A post on ReelSEO titled Universal SERPS - Video Results Get Higher Clicks made me think of this study, so I decided to post the paper. Enjoy, it’s a long read.

One of the first things I read this morning was an email from my cousin. This came my way and I decided to share it:

Author: Unknown
“I woke up early today excited about all I get to do before the clock strikes midnight.

I have responsibilities to fulfill today. My job is to choose what kind of day I’m going to have.

I can complain because the weather is rainy or I can be thankful that the grass is getting watered for free.

Today I can feel sad that I don’t have more money, or be glad that my finances encourage me to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste.

Today I can grumble about my health, or I can rejoice that I am alive.

Today I can lament over all that my parents didn’t give me when I was a child,
or I can be grateful that they allowed me to be born.

Today I can cry because roses have thorns, or I can celebrate that thorns have roses.

Today I can whine because I have a job or I can shout for joy because I have a job to do!

Today l can complain because I have to go to school, or I can eagerly open my mind and fill it with new tidbits of knowledge.

Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have housework, or I can feel honored because the Lord had provided shelter for my mind body and soul.

Today stretches ahead of me waiting to be shaped, and here I am the sculptor who gets to do the shaping.

What today will be like is up to me. I get to choose what kind of day I will have.

So have a great day- unless you have other plans”

by: Anne Haynes

I was on office depot’s website the other day and noticed a FaceBook icon on the 2 inch binder product page. It made me confused :+*&? Huh, why in God’s name would anyone ever want a picture of a 2” binder on their FaceBook page? Oh friends please buy the same binder as me and become cool. I first began noticing these friendly little icons on specific internet pages late last year, but I’ve only recently noticed these icons throughout product detail pages. There had to be more to this concept, so I went searching the internet for more information on the FaceBook craze!

Back on October 11, 2007 Linda Bustos published an article around Ecommerce and FaceBook. The article is a good read and she mentions people complaining about the annoying application requests from friends. So, I logged into my FaceBook account for the first time in several months and WOW my page was on fire! I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of activity on my FaceBook page and without me doing anything. Then I started answering all the requests from my friends. It was CRAZY, but I downloaded the “Hatching Eggs” “My Starbucks”, “I Am Green”, “Movies” and a “Birthday Calendar” within seconds of my login.

On February 8, 2008 Internet Retailer reported on MySpace opening its doors for retailers. The article used Shop.com’s FaceBook application as an example of performance. Mondy Beller, senior vice president of marketing at Shop.com stated the results were underwhelming.

And just when I was losing interest during my research, I ran across the search marketing and money making perspective of the FaceBook phenomenon.

On March 8, 2008 Blue Sky Brothers gives the 411 on how to utilize Product or Fan Pages for niche marketing purposes. The article details why Product Pages are best because the Product/Fan Pages are public pages and not concealed behind a userid and password. In other words, the search engines are able to access the pages.

At this point I went back to my FaceBook applications and started interacting more with the features. While the applications are cute and fun, they take up time and it’s not convenient to be logged into FaceBook all day. However, I’m logged into iGoogle all day, so why not have these fun activities in the personalized search engine space? IGoogle is kinda like FaceBook, but without my friends. I added a couple of Gadgets to my iGoogle, but it’s not the same experience. If my iGoogle became more like FaceBook it would be more convenient. Instead it looks like FaceBook is becoming more like Google; adding instant messaging and possbily a full blown email service.

The next thoughts that came to mind regarding FaceBook Product Pages are around money. If I’m going to take the time to add a 2 inch binder from OfficeDepot to my FaceBook, when one sells, I want a commission. Even better a portion of every product sold off my Product Pages goes to a charity of my choice. If I can buy gifts for my friends, why not donate to my personal retirement fund. I’m still figuring out point applications, but it all still seems like a pain - can you say micro-billing?

While I haven’t done this yet, I’d like to make an Amazon Product Page with my affiliate tracking code in the page, so I can get a commission when one of my friends buys the book from my FaceBook Page.

For about two years now it’s bugged me that MySpace has text and rich media ads on my page and doesn’t play nice by sharing revenue or giving me something in return – besides free internet space.

These social networking sites need some consolidation. Read more on keeping up with the Social Media Jones’. I now have to change my social media site preferences from MySpace to FaceBook. It seems that most of the action is happening over at FaceBook.

Is anyone making any money on their FaceBook page? Or just losing time on the site?