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Consumers Resolution Services LLC, a local Beaverton company that helps consumers and homeowners locate resources to assist them in dealing with creditors and lenders recently became the recipient of a newly developed Wordpress theme by Toms Skyline Design.

This Wordpress theme includes a slider that utilizes the new set thumbnail functionality in Wordpress 2.9.2 and later. The theme includes several options and is a two-column type theme, with a widgetized sidebar and widgetized footer

I also created this header image of a loupe and documents that I thought I would showcase here as well.

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Plews Brews, a local pub, tavern, watering hole and place to meet in St Johns (the area in North Portland) was in need of a new website; when along came Jeffrey Selin. Jeffrey owns another St Johns business, the Dojo Creative Agency. He also frequents the local watering hole and contacted Tom to see about customizing a new site for Plews Brews.

What they wanted was a new Wordpress theme that would represent their business and their connection to the local historic aspects of St Johns. Toms Skyline Design created a new site for them, which of course, includes a lot of CSS, PHP and image editing. Now they only need to begin re-adding content. Good Luck to everyone over at Plews Brews.

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Once again I have nearly wrapped up a face-lift, installation and setup of a newly customized Wordpress site. The site I have been working on is for a local organic restaurant in the St Johns area of Portland, Oregon. Angel, the owner of the restaurant, The LadyBug Cafe, was in need of a face-lift and talked with another St Johns business owner, Jeffrey Selin of the Dojo Creative Agency and they decided to make the switch. Jeffrey and the Dojo, whom I perform behind the scene Web & Wordpress Development for, asked me to help him make the face-lift for the Ladybug site become a reality.

And … Woila … here it is

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So, I put together a quick little PHP script to display the time and a message and uploaded it to my site, outside of the Wordpress installation. To my surprise the time displayed was correct. The good news is that I had isolated the issue to within Wordpress. Now, it was a matter of figuring out which file in the new version was causing this problem.
With a bit of detective work I discovered the file that was causing me the grief. The culprit file was wp-settings.php At about line 21 there were two lines of code that were not in my prior version of Wordpress. Those lines looked like this:

What has happened is that Wordpress hard-coded in UTC as your default time zone. So, regardless what time you set your time zone to in the admin panel, this file was going to override those settings and stamp your posts with UTC time. What is UTC time? UTC is the term used for Coordinated Universal Time. You have probably heard of GMT, too. GMT is the acronym for Greenwich Mean Time. UTC is a more technical time and is the standard for this purpose, rather than GMT; although you may see GMT being used synonymously with UTC. However, historically, UTC displaced GMT as the basis for the main reference time scale in many regions about 38 years ago.

Inside the (…) the timezone_identifier is placed. If the timezone_identifier is your time zone, then timestamps will display correctly with your current time. However, if the information is for a different time zone than yours, you will not see your current time displayed. Additionally, if the timezone_identifier is not valid, it simply will not work at all … which would create more problems.

So, for me there were two ways to fix the problem. I could either change the second line of code to read:

or

Both of those are acceptable timezone_identifiers for PST.

Depending upon where you are located, you may need to enter a different identifier. You can view a list of supported time zones in the second format from the PHP site here; or check this Navy site for an example of various UTC time zone conversions. However, if you want to convert a time from one time zone to another, try this time zone converter.

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Can’t login to Wordpress Admin? Has your Wordpress site disappeared? Wonder … have my files been corrupted? These are all good questions and most likely you answered yes to one or more of them … and that’s how you found this page.

So, what do I do? How do I get my Wordpress site back? How do I recover without losing everything?

Well, fortunately you just backed up your Wordpress files earlier today and you can delete all your Wordpress files except your wp-config.php file and the wp-content folder; and then upload the files you backed up, right? You didn’t back your files up earlier? Okay … do you have the same version of Wordpress files on your computer as you had installed? Or, had you upgraded your installation and have a different version of Wordpress on your computer?

It might be this actually happened while you were upgrading from one version to another. Or it could have happened when you were attempting to upgrade a plugin, when you didn’t read the details first. You may have been upgrading Wordpress and did not deactivate your plugins first. If either of these scenarios sound familiar, you are probably trying to figure out how to fix this mess. It could be that one of your plugins is incompatible with the newer version of Wordpress, too.

Let’s start with first things first. If you do not have all the Wordpress files on your computer which you had on your server, you can get a copy of whatever version you had installed by going to the Wordpress Download Release Archive. Download the version you need, if applicable. As you get ready to fix the problem, an important caveat is DO NOT overwrite your wp-config.php file because it contains your database name, database username, database password and without this information you will not connect to your Wordpress database. That would not be good.

If you delete all the Wordpress files on your server, except wp-config.php and the folder wp-content you will be ready to upload the former version that was working. However, depending upon what you were doing when this error occurred, you might also want to consider adding one more step. Create a new folder outside of your Wordpress installation and move all your plugin folders to the new folder you created. Now upload the Wordpress folders and files and you should have access to your site again.

If you were not upgrading plugins when this happened, you should be able to move your plugin folders back and then reactivate each plugin. On the other hand, if you were upgrading a plugin when this happened you may need to locate the prior version of the plugin and upload it instead. Once you have your site back, make sure to back it up and backup your database, too.

Now, if you were trying to upgrade your Wordpress version, make sure to deactivate all your plugins. With current backups, the other consideration is whether or not your Wordpress theme will work well with the newer version of Wordpress. If you can verify it is compatible, then go ahead and try it again. Once you upgrade, you should be able to reactivate your plugins. You may want to activate them one by one and check to make sure your site is working okay after each plugin activation. This will help you isolate a problem plugin.

If this was helpful, let me know.

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However, historically one of the problems with CSS and the various web browsers is that one browser will support some of the standards and not others, and likewise another browser may support a subset of those standards, or a completely different set of standards. So, building sites that render the same way in each of the popular browsers becomes rather tricky. At the time of this post, it appears that Google Chrome 4.1.x is the most compatible with the current stages of the many CSS3 modules. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the designer or developer, as of February, 2010, Google Chrome only accounts for a little less than 12% of all browsers. However, we could see those numbers change in the future. In fact, statistics show it was only a few years ago that over 55% of all web surfers were using Internet Explorer (IE5, IE6 & IE7) and only 36% were using Firefox. The latest results show that Firefox has nearly 47% of the browser market; while IE8, IE7 & IE6 all combined for only about 35% of the browser market. For many web designers this is a good trend because traditionally, IE has been responsible for countless hours of additional work and headaches in the continuing efforts of web professionals working to get pages that render the same in all other browsers to render the same in IE browsers. According to Microsoft, they plan for IE9 to work much better with the CSS3 modules; getting away from the proprietary nightmares in their pre-IE9 browsers. However, the downside is that with IE9 they will not be supporting Windows XP. So, this may backfire on Microsoft. The other major browsers, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Sarari and even Opera support XP. Plus, in potentially 70% of the world, PC users are still using XP and have not upgraded (term used loosely) to Windows Vista or even to Windows 7. From a designer/developer perspective I will be happy when the proprietary prefixes are not needed and multiple hacks in order to get a page to render the same in one browser as in another.

Also, over the years the display size and color depth that a designer needs to take into consideration have varied considerably. 640 x 480 resolution used to be popular. Then it was 800 x 600 which was most popular. Then 1024 x 768 became a popular screen resolution. Along with this we saw the color depth go from 8 bits, to 16 bits and now 24 to 32 bits is most common. Of course, when there was a large enough demographic using each of those three display resolutions and color depths many companies and website owners would want pages to load the same for each resolution; and colors to be consistent with the lowest common denominator of color depth. With newer technology and wide screen displays, as of January of this year, the 1024 x 768 resolution only accounted for 20% of the current screen size; while a whopping 76% were at higher resolution rates … with 1280 x 1024 being the most common.

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TopSlide Screen Shot

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There have been numerous times when having the search capability would have been helpful. So, recently I did a little more research on this and discovered that if there was a problem with either the Outlook search function or the Desktop Instant Search function, it would affect the indexing of the other. Also, I read that a solution that had worked for some was to select Search Options from the Microsoft Outlook 2007 Search Bar and then uncheck the box for indexing the Outlook data file. Shut down Outlook and then restart it and reverse the action by putting a check back in the box to index the Outlook data file. So, I tried that possible solution and it did not change anything.

I also read about another option that worked for some others. If you restart your computer in Safe Mode and open Outlook 2007 it was supposed to prompt you to repair the Outlook installation. The reported information was somewhat vague, so I wondered if that meant it would want me to locate my install disk and plug it in. As it turned out that was not necessary. At this point I should mention that I hadn’t needed to initiate a start in Safe Mode since I built this computer; and I quickly discovered pressing F8 did not start the computer in Safe Mode. Instead, it went on to a normal startup. Why did F8 not work? The reason for this was because my USB Keyboard was not being recognized when I pressed F8. So, to fix this I needed to enter BIOS setup and enable Keyboard USB Support and while I was at it I also enabled Mouse USB support. That little problem out of the way and I was then able to boot up in Safe Mode.

This is where I got a heart palpitation. Safe Mode loaded and I clicked to open Outlook 2007. However, rather than opening up Outlook, my computer crashed. So, I rebooted and attempted to boot up in Safe Mode again. This time my computer crashed without completing the Safe Mode bootup. So, I tried to bootup with the Last Known Good Configuration. This didn’t work either. It crashed during boot up, too. I thought, maybe this newly developed problem might be CPU related, so I restarted my computer and went into setup to look at the CPU temp and fan speeds. They were within acceptable ranges. So, I decided to try to reboot with a normal startup and see what happened. Better luck this time. I was greeted with a Chkdsk sreen. During stage two of the three stages, two Outlook related files were deleted and then it attempted recovery of the orphaned files. This was followed by a normal startup. I opened up Outlook and expected to see a folder titled Lost & Found Files, which would have been consistent with what I had read on a Microsoft Support site. Instead of the Lost & Found folder all of my folders were listed. However, there were hundreds of emails now in my Inbox, Junk Folder and even a Spam folder which had been deleted, some as long ago as six months or more prior. So, I deleted a couple thousand emails and checked to see if the search function was working. It was not. However, I was happy my computer was able to boot up normally. I tried the unchecking and checking sequence referenced above. That did no good either. I then went online and downloaded Windows Desktop Search 4.0 and installed it. I discovered fairly soon that Desktop Instant Search was working again. Good News!!! Unfortunately, when I opened Outlook, the search function was not working. Again I tried the uncheck and check routine to see if that would fix the problem. Once again, there was no difference. However, the following day, just for giggles, I decided to try the search feature in Outlook 2007 and to my surprise, it was working.

So, if Outlook search has quit working for you, you may want to try these methods to fix the problem. I hope it works for you. Let me know if it helps.

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Understanding your market and targeting your small business marketing will position you to become a major player in the green industry. Have you heard Realtors say the three most important keys to business are “location, location, location?” For green industry entrepreneurs, this is also true. However, it’s internet location which is important. Why is that? Inherent to the green industry your target is not locally confined. It is national or global. This is integral in determining the methods of marketing you employ. This is why it is important you utilize search engine optimization [SEO] as a key area of your marketing focus.

According to a recent Penn State survey 10% of your target audience will be searching to make a purchase or searching for your company. Conversely, there is an 80% chance your target market will be searching the internet for facts or information about your product or service. So, in order to capitalize on the majority of searches you need a website that provides relevant content about your green specific product or service.

Essentially, there are two ways that internet searchers will arrive at your site following a search. You either have to appear high in the organic rankings or be in the top few sponsored search results. To clarify, the sponsored search results are paid ads that will appear at the right side of the page or in a different color at the top of the search results. Interestingly enough, according to another study at Penn State, people are very suspicious of the sponsored ads. In fact, according to their research, about 80% of internet users will click the organic links rather than the sponsored links.

The first lesson to learn from this—in contrast to what Search Engine Placement [SEP] companies will tell you—investing the time to create a website with several highly optimized pages targeted for specific topics and keyword phrases will provide you with a much higher return on investment [ROI] than spending money on sponsored links. In future articles we will continue to explain the differences in SEO and SEP, so that you can have a clearer understanding of how search engine marketing [SEM] can be employed to provide the most value—both short term and long term—for your small business start-up. In the next article we will discuss how using narrow keyword phrases versus broad based keywords will impact your business. Make sure to subscribe so you do not miss out.

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I have been busy and noticed I hadn’t got around to posting to this site in several months. Of course, unless I post some information on here nobody that stops by this site will know if I am still here or not.

Its Another Portland Skyline

Also, several months ago I converted this site over to a Wordpress site and also have my old Rants, Raves & Insights blog up and running on this site, too; notwithstanding that I have not posted to it in almost forever it seems. What I noticed was that I had grown tired of the theme I had been using and decided to build a new Wordpress theme from the ground up. You are looking at it. I call this Wordpress theme, Skyline Two. Website design, coding, Photoshop design and slicing, Flash design and a bunch of PHP coding all go into developing something like this.

This is the second Wordpress theme I have built from scratch in the past few weeks. You can see the other theme at Portlands Foreclosures. I also created a landing page for them too. Check out the “Coming Soon” link on that site to see a Real Estate Listings mockup with a nifty Flash intro.

Speaking of Flash … if you haven’t clicked on the PLAY INTRO link on the header image above … do so now. That’s another Flash intro that I am using here; because I Flash adds to a site, but an entire Flash Driven site is not so good for most sites, because Flash still is not as search engine friendly as standard XHTML and CSS driven sites. Nonetheless, Flash still looks cool and adds some pizazz to a site. In fact, I have recently put together a couple other sites that include Flash banners. Check out Just Settle My Debts and Renegotiate My Home Loan websites.

Rather than run on a bunch on this post, I will keep it short by saying that I have also been doing some social media marketing with Facebook and Twitter, some online classified marketing, developed some landing pages, tying some of them to lists and autoresponders. I also put together a few ebooks and done a little bit of work with Joomla, too. I will write more later to update the site.

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The bad news for social media advertising and mobile advertising is that they are falling short of the desired results businesses had hoped to see. Continuing to use a blend of advertising appears to be the best way to hedge against uncertainty in the social media and mobile advertising markets. The report indicates a great deal of risk exists in utilizing these forms of digital advertising. However, it stops short of defining any reason why social media and mobile advertising are failing to deliver the results that other forms of digital ads are delivering.

It may well be the reason they are not performing as well, is due to a general lack of credibility; due to the fact that there really has been no formal regulation regarding claims and endorsements made about products, services and opportunities which are abundant in blogs and social media.

Social media spam may contribute to the lack of delivery for social media ads, as well. We have been dealing globally with email spam for about ten years. Some measures are in place to address this type of spam; not that they have actually eradicated spam from email marketing and advertising though. However, using reputable email marketing companies and utilizing opt in lists, has allowed email marketing to still deliver decent returns with targeted audiences. Blogs, and social media are still frontiers, without any consistent regulation. I wonder if the spam and abundance of non-regulated marketing could be a significant factor in the results found in the survey?

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Clamping down on blogs and bloggers who post tainted endorsements and who make incredible claims, will be quite a task, in and of itself. Enforcement should prove interesting, especially with many blogs being written by people not residing in the United States. Monitoring and addressing deceptive advertising in other forms of social media presents other interesting questions and dilemmas. For example, on Twitter, how can a twit make an incredible claim and disclaim it; plus add a clickable link; all in a 140 characters or less? That would be the challenge for tweets; should they fall under the new scrutiny of the FTC. Once the FTC identifies violators, then what will they do and how will they be able to eradicate the problems?

Although I am opposed to censoring personal expression, I am supportive of maintaining ethics in advertising of all types. To that extent, I believe claims and endorsements in blogs and tweets need to be truthful and forthright; no different than in traditional forms of advertising. If you make claims about your personal results, first and foremost, those claims need to be factual. If you say you are making $50,000 per day, you need to be able to prove you are consistently making $50,000 per day. If you say you have a system that will generate a gazillion users, followers, clicks, or whatever, then you need to be able to prove you have been able to consistently produce those results. If, however, that statement is not factual and provable and you benefited due to actions of others in reliance upon your claims; then you should be liable for all damages sustained by those who relied upon the deceptive statements. Second, in this same example, in the event you are actually realized the results claimed and this realization is not a typical result, then the typical results need to also be stated conspicuously. A simple disclaimer saying these results are not typical is not enough. Ideally, these two rules would be applied similarly to other endorsements and claims; whether they are for weight loss, improved health, or any other quantifiable results. Additional comments relative hereto were recently solicited by the FTC, as noted in the FTC Endorsement Guide

As a side note, although beyond the scope of the newly planned monitoring of blogs by the FTC, this author believes that equally important to consumers and taxpayers, are elections, ballot measures and political campaigns; some of the biggest violators of deception in advertising in this country. Truth in advertising, because of the gravity and magnitude of the potential damage in the election and campaign process, transcends civil damages. Deception at this level should be prosecuted criminally; as egregious felonies or acts of treason.

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In this post I am simply providing you with a small handful of Useful Social Shopping Networks that some of us could be utilizing and taking advantage of:

Social Shopping Networks

• Books, Music & Whole Lot More: Amazon
• Connecting Stylish People: Stylehive
• Discover & Recommend Products: Kaboodle
• Product Reviews: Crowd Storm

Note: Toms Skyline Design is not an affiliate of the above Social Shopping Networks, nor does their listing here necessarily constitute an endorsement of their content, policies, practices or effectiveness. They are listed for information purposes only. Hopefully, the information can be helpful and valuable to the readers of this blog.

Coming Soon:

More Market Expansion Listings for

• Horizontal Markets
• Virtual Worlds
• Photo Sharing & Video Sharing Networks
• Mobile Networks

Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog so you do not miss valuable information and important news.

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Fail Whale says Twitter is Over Capacity

Notwithstanding there are some companies utilizing the social value of Twitter, one would have to question whether or not tweeting holds much value for smaller companies. The Harvard study seems to indicate that of all Twitter users they will tweet on average only once during their Twitter lifetime.

What do the ten percent that are responsible for 90% of the tweeting, tweet about? Although there are some tweets about news events, there are also some who simply troll for followers, by repeatedly tweeting a rotated set of keywords. However, the bulk of the tweets I have seen are MLM related, or attempting to sell their information or services. The same tweets are repeated over and over again; many of which, are too incredible to be true. Obviously, all of the people who say they are making twenty gazillion dollars per month; or who can show you how to get 50,000 followers in 90 days on autopilot, are not making the money they say, nor is it possible to build these empires on autopilot. It is, however, possible to send out thousands of tweets making these claims.

Twitter needs to figure out a way to minimize the SPAM that is flowing in the tweets; otherwise the value to businesses and to individuals will quickly diminish; and the only sustainability will be the smell of Hormel on Pareto;s plate.

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I am talking about this now, because, you may have noticed my site was down for a few hours today. I didn’t really want it to be down. However, the upside is that I am now working with a really great web hosting service that should make my life easier; so I can focus on positive activity rather than spending my time trying to troubleshoot server and support issues.

I transferred several domains over to my new hosting partner today; and for the most part, everything went off without a hitch. In fact, on one of my other domains I was able to quickly install and configure the newest release of Joomla in a matter of a few minutes. This would have taken me several hours with my former web hosting partner. The biggest issue I had with transferring this site was that my database import said it went okay, however, it missed chunks of data here and there. Also, I did not use shell access and ftp’d everything; which, normally is fine. However, I did discover that some files did not upload the first time around. So, this caused me a little grief. Fortunately, I have experienced that before and was able to recognize where the potential issue was at.

All said, I don’t think I lost more than three or four hours, with the transfers and setup. Now, with a great hosting partner, I can focus on design and marketing.

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In this post I am simply providing you with a small handful of Useful Recommendation Engines that you and I both, can and should be taking advantage of:

Recommendation Engines

• 500+ Topic/Categories: Stumble Upon
• Media/Entertainment: MatchMine
• Applications: AppScout from NetFlix
• Movies/Film: Criticker
• What’s great and what’s not; in your area: Yelp
• Events Going On: Going

Note: Toms Skyline Design is not an affiliate of the above recommendation engines, nor does their listing here necessarily constitute an endorsement of their content, policies, practices or effectiveness. They are listed for information purposes only. Hopefully, the information can be helpful and valuable to the readers of this blog.

Coming Soon:

More Market Expansion Listings for

• Social Shopping Networks
• Horizontal Markets
• Virtual Worlds
• Photo Sharing & Video Sharing Networks
• Mobile Networks

Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog so you do not miss valuable information and important news.

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If you are familiar with Joomla then you are probably also familiar with Community Builder; a highly favored extension by thousands, to the Joomla CMS. I received word from the Joomlapolis Security Team that Joomlapolitan has advised anyone still using CB 1.1 to immediately update to 1.2.1 for security reasons. If you are running CB 1.1 make sure to update A.S.A.P.

For Joomla site owners and developers that are looking for a classified ad solution, JoomClan Classified Listings component has just released news of several fixes, including:

Fixes that address the following:

• ‘uddstart’ is undefined and other errors in IE8
• Unable to select my PayPal account
• Drop Down Select Option
• Free Ad Post Issue

I purchased and downloaded this component not too long back. I think it had the potential to be one of the best, if not the best classified listings component that runs native on Joomla 1.5.10 rather than the legacy Joomla. However, when I downloaded it (I believe it was their beta version, it still was a bit buggy) there were issues with that version that made in unworkable for my application at that time. I removed the application and they refunded my money promptly. There are only a small handful of options for classified ad extensions to Joomla. The JoomClan component, in my opinion, has the most to offer in its environment.

With that said, I have already downloaded the newly released version of Joomla; and I believe I will go ahead and get it setup and give it a test run on another site.

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A gentleman from New York discovered what he calls an “oversight” on the part of 99.9% of all marketers that allows him to get otherwise paid-for advertising at Google as well as all other search engines that allow sponsored ads.

And no, nothing about his “secret” is illegal – nor does it require that you know someone on the “inside” at Google, Yahoo, MSN, Overture and others.

Instead, the New Yorker boasts proudly “…this is something that I caught onto just before 2000 when there was so much search engine craze running around, and started doing small just to test things at first … but which I later expanded on after getting the hang of it.”

This same fellow went on to start and operate sixteen separate online companies selling everything from pet food, DVDs, children’s toys & games, books, software, and sold not only his own manufactured products but became an affiliate for other web businesses – all the while applying his mastermind secret.

Over the course of nearly eight years the New Englander confesses “I’ve actually gotten over $87 million in advertising that using my secret I never had to pay for … and the largest share of which was more recently in Google pay-per-clicks as well as other forms of pad advertising at search engines … all of which I got for free …”

So powerful is his secret that he’s able to monopolize any niche online, and can always secure the top premium spots just above the usual organic results featured at most search engines.

He still has to set up an account with the search engines – but after applying his secret he is removed from having to pay for all the costs otherwise involved.
Again, nothing about his secret is either illegal or robs from the search engines.
One spokesperson from one of the most popular search engines said chuckling after being made privy to this amazing secret “Wow! Ha! This is really unique … and in my expert opinion it would only serve to enhance and bring more business to us at [name of search engine withheld for legal & confidentiality reasons] and not cause us to lose business in the slightest. Amazing!”

The northerner revealed that in this nearly eight years’ period of time since applying his secret he’s done well over $300 million in sales revenue with a most diverse line of products, and most recently in the last two years netted nearly $166 million after really “buckling down and pressing my secret to its fullest potential.”

Now to everyone else’s fortune, the city slicker is releasing his secret for getting an unlimited amount of pay-per-click ads to the general public. But he’s not promising any of us for how long.

A bit of an eccentric, the gentleman says “We’ll see just how long I can make it available before it saturates things.”

One famous public web guru pointed out that although this man may gain economically more so as a result of the publication of his secret “he’s already so amazingly rich that whether he continues or discontinues its sale will neither make nor break the man, but not grabbing it for yourself while it’s still available could prove disastrous for you as you may only have one chance, and a very limited one at that, to get this.”

It is currently available

here

…so you may want to head on over there now and get it.

It’s in a very easily readable format and is quickly and readily understood and mastered by anyone with even a 4th grade reading level.

While you’re there, why not scroll down and review for yourself the huge successes others are now having with this incredible breakthrough in targeted advertising now made freely available to the rest of us?

To your success,

-Tom

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“If your business is a little slow right now, this is the perfect time to take care of the web design you have been putting off.”

Of course, it may be you don’t have a website yet. That is another reason why NOW is a perfect time to promote your business with a professional web design so you can get your business on the internet and start taking advantage of the exciting revolution in marketing that is currently taking place. Notwithstanding the weak economy, representing your business with a unique web design is one of the most effective ways of distinguishing yourself from your competition. Toms Skyline Design can customize a site for you with a myriad of layout and color options. Right now, there is not a better way to invest into your company’s future growth than with a well designed website that is taking advantage of today’s interactive marketing boom. Let’s stop for a minute, in case you do feel your business is a cookie cutter operation. It may be that you are governed by a franchise agreement, or an affiliate agreement. That’s okay, too. You can still maintain compliance and be able to distinguish yourself from your competitors, so that others will want to invest in you and your business, too. Web design solutions for those types of scenarios simply require additional steps.

Find out more about our web design services here.

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In this post I am simply providing you with a small handful of Excellent Social Bookmarking Sites that you and I both, can and should check out:

Social Bookmarking Sites

• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Danny Sullivan’s Sphinn
• reddit
• Propeller
• Shoutwire

Note: Toms Skyline Design is not an affiliate of the above social bookmarking sites, nor does their listing here necessarily constitute an endorsement of their content, policies, practices or effectiveness. They are listed for information purposes only. Hopefully, the information can be helpful and valuable to the readers of this blog.

Coming Soon:

More Market Expansion Listings for

• Recommendation Engines
• Social Shopping Networks
• Horizontal Markets
• Virtual Worlds
• Photo Sharing & Video Sharing Networks
• Mobile Networks

Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog so you do not miss valuable information and important news.

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Since there are no exit polls for Twitter users I am not sure how Nielsen quantified their data. Nonetheless, compiling data is part of what they do. So, I imagine they had valid data. From all the debate back and forth on the topics, it seems that limited factors are being associated to Twitter’s dismal retention rate; which some choose not to accept or question. One of those factors is that some people are just too clueless to get it; and another is that Twitter is too difficult for some people to grasp; or a combination thereof. In other words, if you are a Twitter Quitter it is probably because you lack intelligence. That may not be the best PR approach, but who am I to say.

From what I have seen, I see other issues factoring in to the large number of Twitter Quitters. Let me point out that this is speculation; because I do not have any way to quantify the data. First and maybe foremost, if you do have an issue, Twitter simply does not provide support. Their biggest support feature is a forum. However, support from Twitter is essentially non-existent. Twitter users may complain of the same issues for months and those complaints are virtually ignored, or in some instances, they simply say the issue has been resolved. From a customer service standpoint, you simply cannot ignore customer issues and expect them to go away. Let me clarify that.. you cannot expect the issues to go away. You can expect the customers to go away. Another negative is that Twitter appears to be a breeding ground for MLM programs with some incredible claims; of which, some cannot be supported, or are clearly false, or could be the basis to get your account deleted after using some of their tools or applications. Without regulating the dissemination of this type of content, what happens is that Twitter users are inundated with hundreds of repetitive MLM-hype tweets. I imagine that some people simply get tired of it. I have also seen complaints about receiving unwanted porn. The same applies here. These two examples represent only a couple scenarios. To address some of these type of issues, there is a process to unfollow someone. You can opt to block other users. However, processes do not always work; and sometimes basic functions do not work for various users. There appears to be no fix for these issues when they arise. When these processes and functions do not work properly, Twitter fails miserably on addressing these type of customer complaints. Allowing itself to be exploited and failing to handle customer issues will only continue to contribute to high Twitter Quitter rates; consistent with your projections about the unlikelihood of Twitter’s long term sustainability.

On the flip side, I believe that if MySpace were to add a similar method of mobile messaging they would recover from their 31 point dive and blow Twitter out of the water. Facebook has already added mobile messaging. Time will tell how that impacts their growth and sustainability.

Now that I have posted this, I see that a mildly different version of this post is awaiting moderation on the Nielsen site. For some reason, my post did not appear when I submitted it. Oh well, it has not yet been reviewed and accepted yet, either.

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In that prior post I mention engaging or employing vertical markets, social bookmarking sites, recommendation engines, social shopping networks, horizontal markets, virtual worlds, photo sharing and video sharing networks, mobile networks and if appropriate, international networks. Below, are a few different examples from each of these different categories of social networks.

Vertical Markets

• Physicians: Sermo
• Personal Finance: Wasabe (not wasabi)
• Shopping: ThisNext
• Health: CarePages
• Health: iMedix
• Health: PatientsLikeMe
• Health: RevolutionHealth
• Health: WellSphere
• Seniors: Elder Wisdom Circle
• Seniors: Grandparents
• Seniors: Multiply
• Seniors: TeeBeeDee
• Mothers: CafeMom
• Mothers: MomJunction
• Mothers: MothersClick
• Special Purpose: LiveVideo
• Special Purpose: DailyMotion (some content could be a bit racy …
  like TheOnion Channel on YouTube)

Note: Toms Skyline Design is not an affiliate of the above vertical markets, nor does their listing here constitute an endorsement of their content, policies, practices or effectiveness. They are listed for information purposes only. Hopefully, the information can be helpful and valuable to the readers of this blog.

Coming Soon:

More Market Expansion Listings for

• Social Bookmarking Sites
• Recommendation Engines
• Social Shopping Networks
• Horizontal Markets
• Virtual Worlds
• Photo Sharing & Video Sharing Networks
• Mobile Networks

Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog so you do not miss valuable information and important news.

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There are numerous social networks where your message(s) can be seen. Visibility is important; however, you want to be visible in the right marketplace. Rather than spending time blasting your message and ads to the wrong market, or to thousands of others whom you are competing with, try to locate social networks appropriate to your target audience. This methodology employs the same tactics as keyword usage and SEO/SEM. Broad based keywords will have the effect of generating more traffic than narrowly based keywords. However, narrowly defined keywords will generate higher conversion rates. Being more specific and less generalized in your targeting is an important factor to consider when preparing and delivering your message.

Types of Networks

In addition to the well-known multi-purpose networks like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter; depending on your product, service or niche, consider employing vertical markets, social bookmarking sites, recommendation engines, social shopping networks, horizontal markets, virtual worlds, photo sharing and video sharing networks, mobile networks and if appropriate, international networks.

Of the more hotly discussed social media networks, Twitter is so hot now due in part to the fact that it transcends the multi-purpose market and encompasses the mobile empowered network. Even though the majority of the social network options do not share this empowerment, they can nonetheless, be valuable to your campaign(s).

To keep this post short, I will list some of the many other social network options in a soon to follow post. Go ahead and subscribe to this blog so you do not miss out on valuable information and important news.

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They tell the potential buyer that with their traffic that the new owner should be able to bring in $10,000 a month, but rarely ever have to pay anything out to the publishers, due to the $20 threshold and the CPC rate of $.025 (50% split of the amount charged). So I clicked on the link to this Twitter Ads site; and it took me to a page with a couple of banner ads; giving another page to follow to. When I clicked on that link and went to the new site, I discovered that yes it was a Twitter Ad Broker Site and guess what? This site listed a $.04 CPC and had the $20 monthly threshold policy for publishers, too. It sounds like they are following the same pattern.

This is another program on Twitter to make money, but I have to ask myself, “Is is a good one?” One thing I have seen with these sites is that I may see advertiser testimonials, but do not see any publisher testimonials. You do the research and see what you think. Caveat Emptor seems to be appropriate here.

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Notwithstanding the huge dip by MySpace, let’s examine these numbers more closely to afford ourselves an opportunity to view a different perspective. The MySpace users clearly overshadowed the Twitter users time spent on each of their respective sites by over 1600%. One reason for this is that the Twitter population appears to be fairly transient, with many users giving it a try and then abandoning it after a month or so. Thus, they have been dubbed as “Twitter Quitters” This is not the case with Facebook and MySpace users. Statistics show they have a much higher loyalty rate.

A few others in the top ten included Blogger, at the number three slot, Tagged.com in fourth, and LinkedIn was in eighth spot. So, over the next year, it will be very interesting to see where the big dogs in social media stand.

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However, running the numbers makes the plan seem like many other network marketing plans; except this one targets only one niche … people on Twitter. Get 20,000 followers in 90 days and get 400 of them to respond to your ads every day. It’s all automated and you don’t even have to waste time socializing with these people … just use them. You make money selling the plan to other people, too. Of course, going outside of Twitter to advertise this program you are already competing with thirty pages or more of people on Google with every variation of Twitter Traffic Machine in their URL that you could imagine. Every ad I saw perpetuates the same story about the massive amount of followers you can develop and the corresponding amount of money you can make with this system. I would speculate no more that 1% are making any real money (just like most any MLM or network marketing program. The first ones in have a real shot, then it gets a lot harder to make it.) The fact is that if they were making the serious money off the four hundred people daily that were responding to their automated system–which they don’t have to spend time on–they wouldn’t bother with reselling it to others … unless of course, they feel that it is like a feeding frenzy in a pool of sharks; and if they don’t sell it to others, then those people will get their 20,000 followers. The marketing plan is not explained prior to forking over your $27 USD. However, as a sidenote, for those about to drop the money for the program, look around. I did see one guy selling the system for $15 USD. I suppose, if I took a closer look I might find it for $5 or $10.

Okay, so how long do you suppose that this type of growth will last? It lasted a long time for Amway. But, times have changed. Moreover, social networks that may be booming one day, are old news a year later, when the new kid on the block arrives. Take a look at these Google Trends for MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. So, you have to gamble that you can get in and make your mark with Twitter before the program destroys the credibility of the network. After all, with the exponential growth they are talking about, in a few months it is unlikely you would ever actually be communicating with real people; only with their automated bots. That’s pretty social, right? I think what you would see is that if all you are doing is hawking your program and have nothing real to say, people will put you on permanent block. So, that means you need another 20,000 followers; and the process continues to repeat itself. Where’s the free lunch?

To sum this up, all I can gather from the skirting is that it sounds like the program helps identify keywords to use in your tweets to target Twitter users to click on your links, hoping they will click through to one or more advertisers’ pages on your ClickBank account(s). Oh, the ClickBank part is speculation; but, if I am correct, that means you need to plunk down another $50 bucks or so for each ClickBank account you set up. Now, does their system automate the ClickBank process, or do you have to actually setup your links and change them out yourself? If it is a completely automated system, I guess the program handles that for you. However, that seems highly unlikely. If it is not ClickBank, then the same question would apply for whatever program you use. Bear in mind it has to be an affiliate ad program that anyone can get accepted into. Many of the best affiliate ad programs review your website first before accepting you. That’s not to take anything away from, or slight ClickBank. They have a good program, but I think anyone that plunks down the money for the account and agrees to their rules, can open an affiliate account. This traffic machine would need something similar… or maybe, everyone simply opens up an AdSense account instead. Who knows?

At any rate, as you can see I am a bit skeptical of this program. Your comments are welcome.

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With narrowly defined keywords you will need to use more of them to maximize your campaign’s target reach. It is certainly easier to go the broad match route. However, over the long term, like so many other things in life, you get back what you put in. If you take shortcuts when you sow your advertising seeds, you will reap shortcomings on your returns.

So, the question to ask your potential SEO specialist is whether they think you should use broad matched or narrow matched keywords. You may also want to ask them why they give you the answer they do, so that you have a better understanding of where they are coming from.

This is Part Two in a Series on Selecting an SEO Company or SEO Specialist. Read Part One

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Whether or not the pattern becomes a trend or not, I think there is a strong impetus to see this shift unfold in the upcoming months. For one, mobile advertising targets a subsection of the online market. People on the go, in a hurry, who are socially active and social media receptive, are a demographic that substantially represents this market. I recently read in Paul Gillin’s ‘Secrets of Social Media Marketing’ where he quoted Giovanni Gallucci, cofounder of Dexterity Media, stating “People on MySpace aren’t running away from pedophiles and stalkers. They’re running away from marketers and advertisers.”

I think most of us can relate to that. New social media marketing is about relationships and the perception of the relationship. A good example is visible on Twitter. People are on Twitter for different reasons. It is a popular and growing social media network. Some people are trying to figure out how to cash in on it. They are trying to use it as a conduit to fill the funnel. With Twitter, if you want to monetize the experience then bring value to those who follow you, be a real person and pitch yourself in a non-intrusive way. If every time you tweet, it’s an ad, people won’t bother to even look at it. In fact, they may put you on block. It’s no different than your cousin or neighbor who only calls you or drops by when they want to try selling you something. You probably will avoid them as much as possible. The same principle can be applied to mobile marketing.

From the standpoint of mobile device limitations, not everyone has a mobile device that is capable of displaying the banners and display ads. So, advertisers are missing that mix of the target audience if they are not using search advertising. For these reasons it would make sense that the pattern could become a trend.

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Personally, I think voting on ads is great; in the right context. In fact, I used to love to watch the ads on the now defunct firebrand.com site. People could vote on ads there, too. However, do you think that voting on an ads popularity should be the criteria for how much the advertiser pays for that ad? On the surface, it sounds like it might be great … if you think the same way as a specific group of like-minded people. I see a lot of room for abuse by large corporations and organizations that have the ability to pump up the vote and blow out the little guy who is trying to get started and does not have a base of followers to cosign his or her ads.

Content and relativity are fair and equitable ways to help gauge ad pricing, more so than popularity. If an ad gets thousands of votes, then most likely they are going to generate a lot more revenue. Should they pay less or pay more? In time there is the potential that everyone gets hurt, because the online markets would be dominated only by large groups that have huge fan bases; potentially curbing new ideas, products and innovations. If the small fry that is trying to compete with the mega-popular ads is charged a higher rate for his or her ads, then the likelihood is that they will look for other more effective ways to advertise; abandoning social networks and online marketing and potentially closing their doors. I believe a serious caveat of the vote pricing model is that it has the potential of driving away competition … and without competition you have huge monolithic organizations that control what you have access to and minimizing your choices.

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