Have you ever heard of TechCrunch’s “Elevator Pitches?”  I had not, until yesterday afternoon when the CEO of Yovia came down from his top floor, magnificent view,  warm and cozy with an espresso machine, office and asked for my help to record a video.  Excited by the prospect of stepping away from my computer and relaxing my bloodshot and tired eyes for a moment I jumped up and followed him upstairs.

He was going to record a video to submit to TechCrunch Elevator Pitches describing Yovia.  I listened in awe at the grander picture.  Listening to him speak, I thought to myself, “He did it!  We are exactly what and where he’d always promised he would take us.”

Don’t forget to Check out the Video!

As an intern here at Yovia it’s interesting what you can learn about the internet and advertising. The reason I say all this is because in school we cover how the internet plays apart in advertising. Although, I think the material we actually cover hardly scratches the surface dealing with internet advertising. In my classes we briefly discuss how the internet works, what banner ads are, and the internet’s advantages versus other media.

I think the thing that really hits me the most is how in internet advertising you can see exactly what your viewers are doing. For many other types of media such as billboards, the radio, television, direct mail, and others all have room for error to creep with their numbers. These media can be tracked to a certain extent, but only with the internet can you really see what’s working and how to tweak and fine tune your campaign.

For example, Google Analytics can tell you where your people are coming from, how long are they staying on your site, and more. Basically from here you can figure out what your true value proposition is to your viewers.

For some this might seem like a basic topic, but for others the reason I say all this is because I believe experience is key in internet advertising. As you get your hands more and more soaked within internet advertising not only do you learn from your mistakes, but you learn what people are catching on to. The founder of Younglife Jim Rayburn said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, earning the right to be heard”. I believe that is the definition of good marketing, and social marketing is just that, earning the right to be heard.

As technology is ever increasing and resources like Google Analytics are playing apart in the internet, it will be interesting to see how advertisers capitalize on all this especially within social marketing.

By: Matt Hite
Marketing Manager
Yovia.com

WriterRiver.com is a social news site intended for technical communicators. If you’re familiar with Digg.com, it works in much the same way. Users can submit news articles (called “stories”). Newly submitted stories initially appear on the Upcoming Stories tab. When five people float the article, it moves it to Front Page Stories tab, which is the default site view. You float the article by clicking the Float link on the blue Vote button to the left of an article.

This site is powered by Pligg.com, which is a Digg.com clone. As a long-time fan of Digg and the Diggnation podcast, Tom wanted a similar site for technical writers. He also wanted to highlight the many excellent blog posts that are being written by 200+ technical writer bloggers, and enable a news mechanism where anyone can discover cool content on the web.

Below is a little blurb about the man who created Write River Tom Johnson:

“This may sound a bit boring, but really technical communication touches many areas, such as usability, marketing, information architecture, content management, XML, Web 2.0., management, graphic design, web design, and of course just plain writing. Technical writers are often learning and working with the latest technologies. I touch upon many of these topics in my blog.”

If you would like to know more about Write River or Tom Johnson just visit his personal blog I’dratherbewriting.com.

Written By : Michelle Amos

The other day, I was involved in a rather heated, yet enlightening discussion with a dude who really hates marketing; and I don’t blame him. Here is an excerpt of one of his comments from our conversation:

“Yes, consumers want to be heard. They also want the option to NOT be annoyed by marketing. They want the option of not having to put up with marketers exploiting a medium meant for communication and turning it into one more TV commercial. Consumers should not have to spend time and effort to block marketers. Consumers do want a choice - given their druthers, most would choose to have no marketing at all.”

He was responding to a comment I made about consumers demanding to be heard online; and even as a marketer, I unequivocally agree with his assessment. In later comments, he said that he was tired of marketers like me just “talking about having conversations with consumers” and that there is way too much “talking about talking” and very little two-way communication. I agree.

A lot of marketers, including myself, talk the talk and rarely walk the walk. I often write about the need for marketers and brands to engage in “real” conversations with “real people” i.e. their customers; and I am sitting back asking myself … how the heck am I going to engage in such conversation on the internet?

It’s one thing to write about conversational marketing (and I know that some of you hate that term); but it’s another thing to actually do it. And, I agree that many marketers still don’t “get it”; and either don’t use social media as a conversational channel or use it to spam everyone. But there are some companies that realize the true value of conversations . Well, that leads me to my next point.

Are conversations really the holy grail of social media?

I think I may have been wrong with this one. Anyone can have conversations. Go to a used car lot and you will be bombarded with them the moment you step on the lot. Used car salesmen are some of the biggest spammers on the planet!

It’s the content of the conversation that is the core. It needs to be presented with a “real voice” and relevant to the other person. Isn’t that the true nature of human interaction?

Real voice, relevance = valuable conversations = trust = the beginning of a “real” relationship

Written by: Michelle Amos

The New York Times is reporting that Yahoo intends to join OpenSocial a google lead alliance.

Yahoo’s backing, which could be announced as early as this week, would bring a large base of users to the OpenSocial alliance, which is seen as a counterweight to Facebook’s successful courtship of application developers. The alliance, which was announced in the fall, already includes MySpace, Bebo and several other social networking sites.

When you have kids, you naturally censor yourself when you’re around them (or at least you try to - sometimes you just let an expletive slip out). But when you’re in marketing, is there an obligation to keep it rated PG?

“Crispy Frickin’ Chicken” isn’t exactly an expletive but it sent a PA family over the edge when the following image appeared on a billboard in their hometown of Harrisburg.

While I snickered at Sarah Silverman’s “I’m F*cking Matt Damon” on late-night TV, it was quickly and widely distributed over the Web within days (current count of this version: over 7.8 million views). Jimmy Kimmel came up with the rejoinder in his equally as funny/disturbing “I’m F*cking Ben Affleck” (currently at just over 4 million views). So, this content isn’t remaining in the sole domain of late-night viewing.

There are always going to be sensitive eyes & ears about any variety of things. The politically-correct movement is always trying to change our phraseology so no one gets offended, but the reality is, someone is always going to be offended by something. My question is: with the ease of syndication, embedded videos, and widgetized content, is their anything we can do to minimize the exposure of tiny eyes and ears to this stuff? Or is doesn’t it matter any more?

As to the above, I guess this family won’t be eating chicken fricassee any time soon. Maybe they’ll be frickin’ Jimmy Kimmel…

A few weeks back I wrote a post on a myspace forum, proposing that we all lend a helping hand in the endless plight for more traffic. I simply stated that I worked for a company with a vast network of blogs and asked if anyone would be interested in exchanging links.

Of course I expected to be flooded with emails and requests. Such was not the case! Rather I have received maybe a total of 3 requests for link exchanges and none of them made much sense.

Take the one I received this morning for example:

“Hi,I run the following website it is a financial website, I averaged last month $37 per day in adsense revenue, Looking to raise it to new levels hope you can help”

The first thing I can say to you is you have probably reached your maximum potential with Adsense. It doesn’t get much better. Remove the Adsense and start getting Real with people.

What if I visited your blog everyday and commented. What if I was a loyal viewer of your content? What if I had established myself as a solid part of your regular reader-base and identified myself as such? What if I cultivated that relationship with you, blog owner, by making chit chat and offering you key tips and pointers I’ve picked up along the way? What if I outstretched my hand in FRIENDSHIP with no apparent need for myself involved? Sounds nice doesn’t it? I would be more inclined to help a friend than ANYONE else. Would you help me if I established myself in your community in that way?

My instinct is that you would. No Doubt! We are all on here trying to figure it out. We would all like to make some money along the way. What has worked best in ALL of my experiences is to be completely transparent and REAL. To approach others as friends and nurture those friendships before asking for help. What it comes down to is there is no better advocate than a friend.

My advice Dear Adsense Revenue making man is to take down the Adsense, make more friends, generate a more natural and lasting form of traffic among those friends. Create awesome content that will be engaging and post it everyday. Then, and only then, should you begin your advertisement plastering crusade!

Please visit my newest friend Danny, the inspiration for this blog post at A College Dropouts Guide to Investing.