Michaela Cernescu’s Blog

Did you notice how rapidly the Web is changing? Following the evolving web, this means that your Internet marketing strategy must change with it.

Let’s lay out the ground of an idea which looks trivial at the first glance,   so I don’t think  that is trivial.

The web has evolved as since the  1990s. At that point, the Internet was one-way source of information. Web pages were a marketing medium where they were viewed, read and printed out, no more than that!
The internet was a good resource for researching information but marketing was based on an old fashion offline advertising techniques.

Now we know three stages of web evolvement that you need to be aware of:

• Web 1.0
• Web 2.0
• Web 3.0

Web 1.0 was a one-way communication process, it was like you read you favorite Sport magazine.

Web 2.0 represented the mass introduction of user-generated content. This is where blogging and social networking came in for the masses. People formed their own communities on niche topics and began interacting between themselves.

Note: How Web 2.0 marketing differs from Web 1.0 marketing
Web 1.0 marketing lets you speaking to your visitors, but Web 2.0 marketing allows you to interact with your visitors.

Web 2.0 is not about your advertising your web services. It’s about you developing relationships with people and offering value – free of charge
with no catch attached. If people like you and what you represent then they’ll find out more about you from reading your profile on whatever social network you’re participating on. That’s where you can sell your business.

Web 3.0 it is around the corner, and the web is evolving to become a more
personalized experience for each user. There are 2 ways so far to do this:

• Virtual Reality Marketing
• MyPage Marketing (iGoogle)
• BARD Marketing

The quality of software programs that produce a virtual reality experience increased tremendously in the last 2-3 years. Now we can use virtual reality programs to simulate real life experiences.

An example of a Virtual Reality website is Second Life. At this point, Second Life is not as popular as the social networking sites but considering companies which have already invested in the Second Life project, I have no doubt that Second life will be the next success site on Web 3.0.

After you join Second Life you can bid to buy virtual land. As soon as you own your own Second Life land you can build a business, employ people, the sky is the limit.  I suggest to read frequently asked questions which will help you start your own ‘second life’, you will find examples of businesses that are already successful in Second Life, and you will be well position to think how you could run your own Second Life business.

MyPage Marketing is a generic term for your effort on the personalizing home pages or personal profile pages of social networking sites. Google now offer their users the option to personalize their home page – they call this your iGoogle page, but it is just a Google Gadget for you. You just select “Add stuff” at the top right hand side of the page to search for ideas within your niche which are of interest.
Your Google Gadget is a really useful free tool, if you create a good useful Google Gadget, you really can lead people down your personal Internet marketing funnel.

When you’re logged into your iGoogle page, you also have the option to create your own gadget. Just click “Try it now” to get started. This “try it now” page shows you different options for how you can easily create your own personalized gadget.
You can design your own Google Gadget – or have your own Google Gadget
designed for you. That’s where the internet marketing opportunity is. If you can persuade people from your list to download your Google Gadget and have it on their own iGoogle page, this will rise up the popularity ranking within the Google Gadgets search engine, allowing more people will become aware of it.
There are no limits for design and costs for producing your own gadgets are minimal.

The main constraint is just your imagination and the main advantage is your will to use it.

Beyond All Reasonable Doubt (BARD) Marketing, a legal branding, marketing and advertising agency, announces a new advertising solution for the legal community. BARD Virtual Reality TV brings together, for the first time, the combination of:

• a state-of-the-art high-definition virtual reality digital studio
• movie-quality video production talent, and
• top-notch legal marketing expertise

to create effective television commercials and web video at a price never before available.

I hope I give you some trends, the flavor of  Web 3.0. and make you curious enough to explore more.

To your success
Michaela
http://monetize-blog.crabbysbeach.com/blogs/
http://affiliate-ecourse.crabbysbeach.com/blogs/

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Theoretically I know from years that Information Overload exists, and I have to get rid of it to produce work in a reasonable amount of time.  From time to time I am guilty of it again and again, and I have to discipline myself and implement drastic rules.

In my case is happening because I am doing a lot of Affiliate marketing along with my products marketing and I have to advertise a new product when is release to the public, not after a month when half of the world already know about it. Nowadays it seems like a new product launches just about every day, doesn’t it?  It is hard to keep a balance and again I find myself working on a main project and on other 3 other projects on the same time.

I can hear you saying: sure, excuses, excuses, what you can expect from a Affiliate marketer? But if I tell you that 70% of my income is coming from Affiliate marketing and only 30% from my own products, you maybe will keep reading.

What is the Information Overload? This is the definition in Wikipedia:

“Information overload refers to an excess amount of information being provided, making processing and absorbing tasks very difficult for the individual because sometimes we cannot see the validity behind the information. As the world moves into a new era of globalization, an increasing number of people are logging onto the internet to conduct their own research and are given the ability to produce as well as consume the data accessed on an increasing number of websites. As of February 2007 there were over 108 million distinct websites and increasing…  More and more people are considered to be active writers and viewers because of their participation. This flow has created a new life where we are now dependant on access to information. Therefore we see an information overload from the access to so much information, almost instantaneously, without knowing the validity of the content and the risk of misinformation.

… As a result, there is a downfall or a negative impact within this issue. Together with the amount of information being produced from various people on the net, the problem of Information Overload arises. The implication arises from the psychological field, society and individual.”

I consider this an accurate definition, with a clear explanation of the negative impact.

Two weeks ago happened  to me gain, but the difference was that all 3 extra projects I was working on was vital, in critical stages and supposed to be ready yesterday! I analyzed the results on my last month, I found out that I am not proud of myself, the pace was too slow, I kept missing dead lines, and I had to admit that a had to take action to get out of Information overload, and come back at working on just one product at the time. 

The main project was my Squidoo Challenge which was time consuming because I drove free traffic with Social Media, sometime 1/2 day I was working just on that task.

The other 3 projects:

• I was writing an eBook, 2/3 was done (60 pages), 2 more chapters to go
• I am learning to set up a Membership Site - important task which will produce recurring income if it is set up right
• An affiliate product of an exceptional value, it is written by one of my mentors, person I trust and respect, I definitely want to be part of his success, he deserve my effort as Affiliate

As you can see I cannot give up on any of them.

What I did under those circumstances?

I put in hold the main project for 2 weeks, hoping to finish the other 3 and come back to work only on this one later

I decided to completely isolate myself and work on the other 3 until I finish them or a part of them:  

• I stopped reading e-mails, and answered the phone
• Stopped tweeting, squiding, and anything else related with Social media
• Stopped watching TV News, shopping, even cooking (I improvised the dinner in 15 min, and breakfast or lunch in 5 min.)

I just slept, ate in minutes, drink coffee and worked around 12 hours per day burning the midnight oil.

The first 2-3 days was hard to follow this schedule but I resisted to open the Outlook as I knew that I couldn’t stop answering e-mails, checking sites and so on.  After that it was like a normal habit, the work efficiency was rewarding, I was able to finish my ebook, to learn all I need to know and set up my membership site, and I did a really hard work to advertise the affiliate product.

In summary – isolate yourself from the world and ignore the new “Holy Grail” daily promises if you want to finish what are you doing. Having said that, it is just one “Holy Grail” – your hard work, your perseverance, your consistency, your desire to be a winner.

Until next time, all the best

Michaela

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They’re Changing the World Through the Power of Social Media and Twitter!

The concept of Twestivals was born on September 2008, when a group of Twitters from London UK decided to organize an event where the local Twitter community could get together, and socialize offline. The event was organized using Twitter as a communication tool, and financial support of the local Twittersphere. 

It turns out to be an exiting experience to meet the faces behind the avatars, tiny pictures, or not picture at all. They get some entertainment, a few drinks, and the most important a food drive and fundraising effort for a local homeless charity.

Since Sep. 08, the globalization of  Twitter made possible similar events to be organized and other local Twitter communities got together and took action for a variety of great causes.

Twestivals was born and they had a spectacular impact to bring awareness to global crisis. 

This is one more proof that Twitter can be a powerful communications tool.

It can

• Connect, mobilize and inform people around the world instantly,
• It has the ability to create targeted communities from those people who find and follow each other,
• It is extending your virtual community into the real world, and doing  it  can help a lot of good causes.

Starting Thursday, February 12^th, fans of Twitter.com are coming together for Twestivalsf – in San Francisco branch of an event happening simultaneously across the  world, so far 175 cities are coming together to benefit charity: water.

The mandatory $20 donation (i.e. the cost of a ticket) goes to Charity: Water, which lends a hand to some of the 1.1 billion people in the world who don’t have access to clean drinking water. Organizers for the event are all volunteers, find out more on the twestivalsf  link.

Be Part of a Revolutionary Event.

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If you want to have a Social Network, NING is a perfect platform for it, a service for creating your own social network for any niche with your choice of features, your design, your customization, and your members.

What is a Platform – it is  just a software program that is able to make some services available to other programs via API (Application Programming Interface).

Why we need a Platform - we do as a platform empower us to create, customize and maintain our applications to meet our specific needs. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel all the time, a platform has the power to make us bypass the redesign of some services and make us users of the platform imbedded functionality.

Of course there are poor and powerful (rich in functionality) platforms. Ning is a powerfull one as we can build almost anything you want on it. 

When you creat your own network on Ning you have access to a lot of features to chose from, moderation and management tools which are priceless. More, you are in the driver sit, you will decide which features are appropriate for your purpose and how they will appear on your main page.

Example of features:

• Activities stream on real-time – they are latest activities across your network
• Applications – they allow members to communicate and interact with you
• Badges and widgets – to promote your network, blogs, websites, lenses, hubs
• Chat – priceless – you can participate to a live chatroom: network wide or one-to-one with a member (private)
• Events - you can organize events related with your activity
• Express yourself loading music, photos, videos
• Forum - your network can have a forum to discuses your niche, I’ll say, this is a must 
• Groups – if your topic is larger in scope, members can organize themselves into groups
• Integrate your blog or Website with your network, make your members participate…
• RSS – add external RSS feeds to your network’s main page
• Text Boxes – in your network’s main page you can use text boxes to add relevant text, photo, video
• Wiki-like Notes 

After you choose your features, you can came back and do maintenance.

I suggest to read and respond on forum, the discussion will tell you how are you doing, what topics your member want to talk, what needs they have. When you run out of ideas for a Digital Product, you can put a question on your forum, you will be surprised how many ideas you can pick up, or if you don’t have comments your topic is dead – no interest what so ever.

The old method of creation was to sit down with a white piece of paper in front of you and brain storm you own head.

The new Method, Social Networking Method will give you the unique chance to interact with a large community, pick up a lot of ideas, needs, controversy, and working around them you will create a product that is needed and you already have a pool of targeted prospects among your members.

Craft with care your bio, and network’s appearance. On Ning platform you have a lot of tools to change a theme, add your own graphics, add your own CSS, customize widgets, add photos, and customize your tabs.

Layout wise Ning is the most flexible platform I know.

Ning platform is FREE, by default you have a quota of 10GB of storage, 100GB of bandwidth, this is a lot of space, you can fit 5,000 photos or 500 videos.  

If you want to have more then just default or other fancy features Ning has Premium Services for a decent amount per month.

This is one of my social network on Ning:

http://michaelaebay.ning.com

and I am working on other one which will be restricted to my new challenge on Squidoo:

http://www.squidoo.com/SquidIncomeGoal

Until next time Happy New Year

Michaela

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