Nothing like being insulted by an erudite person

If there's been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it's that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup of Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard's megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century's history so far. That's why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade's flimflams, from the cancerous (the sub-prime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy). An excerpt from the NY Times

Counting Bits of U.S. Life

More adults play video games than take education courses. Americans drink more bottled water than alcohol. One in 10 male students said they carried a weapon to school within the previous month. And while abortion rates keep declining, one in three births are to an unmarried woman.

Those and 1,400 other tables add up to a profile by numbers of the United States, as defined by the Census Bureau and other government agencies in the 2010 Statistical Abstract of the United States. They quantify everything from the impact of the technological revolution to the effects of the latest recession.

An estimated 110 billion text messages were sent on cellphones in December 2008, more than double the 48 billion in the previous December. The value of retail sales online soared from $24 billion when the decade began to $128 billion in 2007.

Meanwhile, the number of pieces of mail delivered by the Postal Service, which began declining in 2007, dipped in 2008 to the lowest in a decade. The number of daily newspapers dropped to 1,408 in 2008 from 1,480 in 2000; circulation plunged to 48.6 million copies from 55.8 million.

Women, already a majority among new recipients of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, pulled even with men among new recipients of doctoral degrees in 2007 for the first time.

About 3 in 10 people who married in the early 1990s did not stay married long enough to celebrate their 10th anniversary.

Last year, employers ordered 8,263 mass layoffs (defined as when an employer has at least 50 unemployment insurance claims pending at least 31 days) compared with 5,363 the year before. For the first time since 2000, retail sales declined; spending on lottery tickets increased.

More Americans spent their leisure time hunting with firearms than playing baseball. Twice as many bowl as play golf.

Americans are consuming more fish, wine and watermelon, more Italian cheese than American cheese, and they are drinking less milk but raising more milk cows.

If you are thinking of moving to Harare, Zimbabwe, it has the highest cost of living for Americans working for private companies abroad — 143 percent higher than Washington, D.C.

La Paz, Bolivia, and Tegucigalpa, Honduras, are bargains at 16 percent of Washington’s living costs.

The statistical abstract is available from the Federal Government Printing Office and the National Technical Information Service and online from the Census Bureau.

A NY Times Article

Video Distribution and the SEO factor

What if I told you that there was a surefire way to make your website standout and POP. .. would that be of interest to you? And what if I further told you that this method is inexpensive, easily accomplished, and has a 50 times greater chance of landing you on Page 1 of a search result?

I thought that would grab your attention.

What is the secret ingredient, that magic potion, you ask? The answer is, not surprisingly — video.

It turns out that of all the things you can do on your website to engage viewers, create more page views and get higher search engine rankings, adding video just may be the best.

Forrester Research did a test and found that when search results are blended (that is, they include text, video and images) videos that are search engine optimized give you a 50 times greater chance of ending up on the all-important first page of a search result.

But here's the catch: You can't just add a video to your site and expect a great search engine result for that page. The video must be search engine optimized, that is, it must contain key words in the file names, captions, and so on. That same Forrester blog indicated that less than 20% of all online marketers search engine optimize their video.

If you want your video to be picked up and analyzed properly by Google and the other search engines, you must not only add SEO keywords to it, but you must actually "submit the video to Google using XML tools.

Putting your video on YouTube and embedding the YouTube player and URL into your site is insufficient. "The traffic and the rankings will be applied to YouTube and not your site.

Obviously properly SEOing a video offers a tremendous opportunity.

1. It helps attract new customers by virtue of the SEO factor

2. It engages them, reducing the "bounce rate" and

3. It can help increase your conversion rate – that is, the number of people who visit and then end up buying something or calling for more information

ABV produces professional videos that are affordable for a company as small as one person and distributes them, properly titled and tagged for SEO purposes to all the major video sharing sites.

Roger Stix, Producer

Atlanta Business Video

http://www.atlantabusinessvideo.com

It’s a New Age Marketing For Professional Speakers and Trainers

By Roger Stix

Being a Professional speaker or trainer is a performing art. Speaker marketing has always been about creditability, message, stage presence and the ability to communicate clearly.

In the old days speakers used written testimonials in their marketing materials. Filming or video taping performances was unusual and costly and getting a copy of the tape (remember Beta?) was something you needed to negotiate in advance. And the uses were limited.

The most professional speakers would combine presentations into a video tape demonstration, “demo reel”, have it copied and give it to their agent for distribution to prospective clients. The process was expensive and time-consuming. Oh, and those tapes your agent sent out were rarely returned. I’ve heard stories of agents sending out an average of more than 20 tapes to get one booking.

To be successful today, speakers need to adopt their marketing efforts to the new reality – video and the internet. You need to have several of your presentations video taped. If you are presenting before a big audience you should consider having 2 cameras at the event, one to capture you from the back of the room and the second to capture audience reaction and get alternative angles of you from the audience perspective. Tell the videographers where you have injected humor in the presentation so camera 2 can be in a good position and ready to capture the audience reaction. The more professional your video looks, the more professional you look, and, visa-versa. Beware; poor video quality will not make a positive impression.

The Demo Reel

Today’s demo reels are not really reels but flash files that can be played over the internet. Think of a demo reel as “the best of me”. They usually are a combination of several speeches, organized to showcase you stage presence, strength of presentation and your topics. Professionally edited demo reels do not have an elaborate introduction or background music or self-aggrandizing introductions. If you have several topics which you speak on, include them but don’t mix it with a TV interview, which is material for a separate reel. Total running time should be about 5 minutes and include nothing but your best, even if that means it will run for only 3 minutes.

The reel is about performance and message. A professional reel starts with a simple short slide containing your name and contact information. Then immediately proceeds to your best, most forceful presentation and important message followed by the second, third etc. Meeting mangers can read about your book, prior engagements, and your TV appearances in your resume.

An effective demo reel will lead visitors deeper into your website. Your reel is your most important tool. For more information on demo reels read Demo Reel Secrets for Actors: How to supercharge your reel by Derrick Boelter.

Organizing a Sophisticated Internet Marketing Campaign

Now let’s examine how a sophisticated, multifaceted the internet marketing campaign should be organized. Your second-first most important marketing tool is a professional looking website with appropriate meta-tags and a sign-up form to collect the email addresses of visitors.

Another critical ingredient is an email newsletter. This requires that you collect business cards form as many people as you can. Your audiences are good targets for subsequent engagements and to sell additional online educational programs.

Remember, your marketing campaign will evolve and grow as you do as a speaker. New speaking topics will need to be added as will clips from presentations before large audiences. Always, always try to get a copy of any video of your presentations or interviewes.

All the video’s we will be discussing can be used in many ways; on your website, in email marketing, in blogs and social networking. Then there’s posting on video sharing websites like YouTube and Metacafe.

SEO and Video Distribution

About 6 months ago, Google started placing a lot of weight on web video in SEO rankings. Virally distributed video, properly meta-tagged often come up at the top of Google organic search results with a thumbnail. Additionally, properly tagged, these videos can be linked to your website and increase your sites organic search ranking. We offer a service that distributes to about 25 of the leading video sharing and social networking sites.

Website Walk-on Videos

A“WalkOn” video starts to play immediately when a visitor lands on the site. It gives you the opportunity to speak directly with them and gives visitors an immediate opportunity to assess you (think Wink) and your delivery. Statistics show viewership of involuntary video plays drops off precipitously at 45 seconds, so you want to keep this short.

Embedded website videos

Showcase your reel on the first page of your website. This video should be embedded, require a voluntary click and be visible without having to scroll down. When visitors voluntarily click to view a video they are more likely to watch for a longer time because the act of clicking indicates an interest in the message, so a 5 minute reel will not be too long.

Video blogs

For one speaker I’ve made video blogs, an inexpensive video shot against a green screen with a background added. These videos can run as long as necessary to discuss new topics, relevant current events and as video versions of articles.

Video excerpts

Another excellent use of video presentations is to extract 1 to 5 minute video snippets from previous presentations and repurpose them for your website and elsewhere.

Monetize your existing material

Many speakers have programs on DVD they sell after a speech. These programs can be converted to flash and sold from your website too, complete with workbooks. No new program creation, no postage, no duplication and no left over inventory. The best practice is to distribute through a website that controls the number of views allowed, limits the computers they can be viewed on and can not be copied. To find these sites Google “digital rights director”.

Closing

Being a Professional speaker or trainer is a performing art. Written accolades are no longer effective. Your computer has a display and speakers, use them. We’re in the show me era and video is the most effective way to showcase your skills. There are costs involved but they eliminate printing, duplication and will keep you competitive and profitable in the 21^st century.

Roger Stix is the Founder and Producer at Atlanta Business Video, ABV produces affordable, professional HD video captured on location, at speaking engagements and in our green screen studio. Our collaborative, post-production editing process ensures client satisfaction and compresses completion of projects that might take weeks elsewhere, into days, reducing cost. Now, anyone can take full advantage web video without budget-busting prices.

How Engaging Is Online Video?

Very.

In October 2009, Eyeblaster reported that creative was the key to more engaging rich media ads. Based on the research firm’s “Online Video Advertising: Doubles Engagement, Boosts ROI” bulletin, video grabs attention and has a lasting impact.

Rich media ads with video had a higher dwell rate than those without, and almost double the dwell time.

This translates to fewer impressions needed for the same results. For example, Eyeblaster found that two exposures to a video ad campaign produced the same dwell rate as three exposures to nonvideo rich media ads.

Unsurprisingly, in-stream banners were most likely to be fully played. They far outpaced the start rate and fully played rate of all other video ad formats.

Other creative decisions also influenced effectiveness. Video ads initiated on rollover performed best, followed by auto-initiated ads. Ads that only began playing when a user clicked did worst.

The performance of video ads also varies according to the content it appears with. Video ads did best when placed next to e-mail, news, finance, sports and music, but fell behind in social network and gaming environments.

Ask an Expert: Video's a great way to get traffic to your site

By Steve Strauss for USA TODAY

Q: Steve — You always seem to write about making your small business unique — so as to set yourself apart from the crowd. That seems like good advice, but easier said than done. In my case, my small business is a website, and most websites are more or less the same, so what can we do? — JD

A: What if I told you that there was a surefire way to make your website standout and POP. .. would that be of interest to you? And what if I further told you that this method is inexpensive, easily accomplished, and even so, has a 50 times greater chance of landing you on a Page 1 search result?

I thought that would grab your attention.

What is the secret ingredient, that magic potion, you ask? The answer is — video.

It turns out that of all the things you can do on your website to engage viewers, create more page views and get higher search engine rankings, adding video just may be the best. As I said, Forrester Research did a test and found that when search results are blended (that is, they include text, video, images, news, etc.) videos that are search engine optimized (more on that in a moment) give you a 50 times greater chance of ending up on the all-important first page of a search result.

Now that is what I call standing out from the crowd.

But here's the catch: You can't just add a video to your site and expect a great search engine result for that page. The video must be search engine optimized, that is, it must contain key words in the file names, captions, and so on. That same Forrester blog indicated that less than 20% of all online marketers search engine optimize their video.

That offers a tremendous opportunity for you.

So I spoke with Benjamin Wayne, the CEO of the great video website Fliqz. Fliqz offers affordable, branded video solutions – everything from video hosting, and SEO tools to search engine submission. He explained that offering video content on your small business site actually serves three functions:

1. It helps attract new customers by virtue of the SEO factor

2. It engages them, and

3. It helps convert them into paying customers.

But again, just adding video to your site is insufficient. According to Wayne, if you want your video to be picked up and analyzed properly by Google and the other search engines, you must not only add SEO keywords to it, but you must actually "submit the video to Google using XML tools." Fliqz helps with that too, giving you an easy way to submit your video's URL.

Maybe you are thinking that it is enough to put your video on YouTube and embed the YouTube player and URL into your site. According to Mr. Wayne, that too is insufficient. "The traffic and the rankings will be applied to YouTube and not your site," he says. So the best practice is to add your video to your site and submit your URL and keywords to the search engines.

And don't make the mistake of thinking that you have to create an expensive video for this to work. In this YouTube era, people are used to watching videos that are less than perfect. Of course yours must be professional and add to your brand, but that does not mean they must cost a fortune or take forever to create.

The second advantage of video is that it engages your audience. When you have video on your homepage, 50% to 80% of your visitors will click that first. So video becomes a very effective tool for reducing your "bounce rate" – the amount of people who come to your site, take a quick look, decide it's not what they are looking for, and surf on.

And the final thing video can do for you is to help increase your conversion rate – that is, the number of people who visit and then end up buying something. According to Benjamin Wayne, by using video instead of just text as part of your call to action, your conversion rate can be increased multi-fold.

He gave me the example of a rental property website that decided to vastly increase its use of video: It offered guided tours of each of their properties, and then near the end of each video, up would pop a link that said "Rent me now!" As a result, both the site's traffic and conversion rates increased dramatically.

Web 2.0: It's not just for the big boys any more.

Today's tip: Another very good business book that I recently received and read is The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life by Gehse Roach. Roach explains how his years as a Buddhist monk and the principles he learned helped him build a multi-million dollar diamond business. It is a compelling book – for not only how to be an ethical and highly successful entrepreneur, but how those principles can change your life, your business, and the world.

Google and Bling to start including Twitter and Facebook in Search Results

Last month it was announced that both Google and Microsoft are putting together formal plans with Twitter and with Facebook to start including them in searches on google.com and bing.com. THIS IS HUGE!

Since Twitter hit the scene people have been grappling for the best business use of it. Some argue Twitter is a mass media tool, some argue it is best for one-on-one or small group communication, others might argues it is good for running specials and events. Quite frankly these are all good uses. The challenge is finding the right approach with it for your business and sticking with it. At least that has been my challenge.

But if everybody’s “Tweets” are soon to be indexed by search engines and start appearing as listings in peoples’ search results, this could be as far reaching as having the ability to literally search the minds of everyone in the world. Well, maybe that is an exaggeration but it does mean you would be able to search the conversations that people are publishing to their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

You thought blogging made it easy for the every day guy, gal, or business to have a voice, think of what Twitter and Facebook will make possible once this information can be sought out on search engines.

Roger Stix, Producer

Atlanta Business Video

Going Social Anywhere and Everywhere

Tweeting while driving

Despite the slowing growth of Twitter after its explosion earlier in 2009, many users still cannot get enough. Crowd Science reports that in August 2009, although only 27% of Twitter users posted daily, 46% checked for updates every day. Almost one in five social media users reported using Twitter in the past week.

Although 60% of Twitter users reported using only their computer to access the service, microbloggers are highly mobile, accessing social media from the washroom, the car, the theater and even during a religious service.

Twitter users were more likely than other social media users to feed their addiction from every location but school, including hotels, libraries, public transportation and restaurants.

A September 2009 study from Retrevo found that among those under age 35, 39% of Twitter users and 27% of Facebook users checked the sites at least 10 times every day.

The under-35 crowd dramatically outpaced older users in usage from different locations. Younger users were more than twice as likely to check Facebook or Twitter at work, and more than four times as likely to do so while driving—not to mention their propensity to “kiss and tweet.”

An Emarketer Article

Roger Stix

Atlanta Business Video

Making Sense of Video Formats

Extracted from a recent posting by Roxio.com

Digital video quality has been improving rapidly, thanks to ever better and more efficient compression algorithms. But the consequent alphabet soup of acronyms (MPEG-1, 2, 4, DV, HDV, AVCHD, H.264, DivX, Flash etc.) out there just seems to grow with every technology advance. However, thanks to Roxio video burning and editing software's ability to convert to and from most formats there are really only a few you need to worry about.

Here's a guide to the most common formats you'll see around the Web:

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (advanced video codec) -- This is the highly efficient format used by most new portable players, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, Apple TV and Sony PSP. It's also used by a lot of web video chat and conferencing programs, and is popular for streaming video due to its compact size.

AVCHD -- A high-def video format based on H.264 video that has taken the camcorder market by storm. Most flash and hard-disk-based camcorders record in AVCHD. Discs, including DVDs, authored as AVCHD are playable in most Blu-ray players.

DV/HDV -- DV is the original consumer digital camcorder format. All MiniDV tape camcorders are either DV or HDV, the new high-def version. DV is a special high-quality standard definition video format that is very space-consuming. By contrast, HDV uses the MPEG-2 compression scheme, the same used by DVDs (although in a higher resolution), so it can fit a decent amount of high-def video onto the same size tapes. Both are excellent quality, but are being displaced by AVCHD due to AVCHD's even smaller file sizes and easier handling.

DivX -- DivX is both a brand name for products from DivX Inc., and a compression format noted for its extreme encoding efficiency. Movies encoded in DivX format maintain surprising quality, even in high-definition. Both Roxio Creator for Windows and Toast for Mac can convert video to DivX format.

Flash -- The format used by YouTube and much other web-based video. Requires Flash Player to decode, as well as special authoring tools. Best avoided by consumers except for playback.

WMV9 -- Windows Media Video 9 is the Microsoft implementation of the VC-1 SMPTE HD video standard. VC-1 is an efficient codec that can be played back in set-top Blu-ray players, and WMV9 can support both unprotected and DRM (copy-protected) material.

QuickTime or MOV -- QuickTime files (usually with the .MOV extension), can contain almost any type of video format within them. QuickTime is basically a wrapper that tells the QuickTime Player how to decode whatever is contained inside. Since QuickTime is a system-level architecture, many applications can play QuickTime files in addition to Apple's player. You will need to have the QuickTime framework installed on your PC or Mac, however.

Roger Stix, Producer

Atlanta Business Video

Broadband Now! So Why Don’t Some Use It?

ACCESS to a fast Internet connection has become more than a convenience. It’s being enshrined in some countries as a legal right of all citizens. Finland, for example, announced last week that it was moving up its timetable to next year from 2015 for guaranteeing broadband access to all, according to YLE, the Finnish broadcasting company.

Enlarge This Image

Photo Illustration by The New York Times

Congress is clearly irritated that the United States has not done well in the international broadband Olympics. Other countries have national plans to accelerate the diffusion of broadband; America does not. So Congress has given theFederal Communications Commission a mandate to produce a plan with specific recommendations by next February.

We shouldn’t get caught up, however, in a space-race panic. We’ve actually done surprisingly well making a broadband connection accessible to a vast majority of American households. No less than 96 percent of households either subscribe to or have access to broadband service, according to an F.C.C. task force, which presented a status report to the commission last month.

The report does not play up the fact that almost all homes have, or could have, broadband service.

Nor does it highlight the actual median speed of 3 megabits a second among households that now have broadband, (which is based on data that probably understates the speeds substantially). The authors seem happily caught up in the thrill of playing an international game of catch-up.

The most interesting question here is the one that the F.C.C. can’t answer: Why have 33 percent of American households that have access to broadband elected not to subscribe? The reasons “are not well understood,” the report says. A survey focusing on the nonadopters is under way.

We do know that adoption levels vary by age, income, education and race. Perhaps the F.C.C.’s survey of nonadopters will show that low income is the main barrier to access. In that case, means-tested subsidies could remove that obstacle.

But age is clearly another factor. Survey data supplied by the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that just 30 percent of Americans who are 65 or older use broadband, compared with 77 percent of the 18-to-29 age group. (Which raises an interesting question itself: only 77 percent?)

The F.C.C.’s own survey of nonadopters is likely to confirm that many older people are simply not as comfortable with newer technology. But it may also reveal that there is an irreducible core of people, spanning ages and income levels, who simply do not want to use the Internet.

And maybe that won’t change, no matter how many social workers knock at their doors, and no matter how many years pass after Internet service has come to be accepted by their neighbors as a utility as essential as water and electricity. South Korea’s experience as a broadband pioneer is suggestive. The task force looked at 22 countries with broadband plans, seeking best practices that were well suited to the United States, and South Korea’s broadband initiative was of particular interest.

In 1999, South Korea began to help low-income and elderly households get PCs and become connected, and the outcome could be described as quite successful: “Today, 83 percent of households in Korea have adopted broadband access,” the report says. But one can also look at the remaining 17 percent and wonder what has prevented those households from getting online, despite the strenuous efforts of a government that has been a world leader in the broadband race.

The F.C.C. has invited comments and suggestions for its broadband initiative and has received about 41,000 pages in response, from individuals and businesses. Googleproposes that every American have access by 2012 to a connections of 5 megabits a second (Mbps) — in both directions. It also suggests that several cities be selected to test the installation in every household of 1-gigabit-a-second connections — or more than a thousand times faster than the speed that the F.C.C. uses to define downstream “broadband.”

What exactly one could do with such a gloriously fast connection is not detailed. Then again, even the recent F.C.C. report, which does its best to list exciting possibilities that come into view with each increment of broadband speed, struggles to come up with many examples beyond 5 Mbps. Streamed classroom lectures, for example, require 1 to 5 Mbps; with 10 Mbps, the lectures come in high definition.

The estimated costs for universally upgrading the minimum speed of the nation’s broadband connections to 3 Mbps would be about $20 billion, according to the report. Getting to 10 Mbps would be $50 billion. To play in the same league as Finland, with its 100 Mbps service promised to every citizen by 2015, would require $350 billion.

FINLAND occupies a compact 130,558 square miles, versus more than 3.5 million for the United States. The economics of broadband deployment are greatly affected by physical distances. With some understatement, the F.C.C. report says, “the economics of providing broadband to the rural U.S. are challenging.”

In a news release introducing the task force report, the F.C.C. calls broadband “the infrastructure challenge of our time,” which seems a wee bit overstated, given the decrepit state of our bridges, highways, railroads and schools. It also blithely overlooks the fact that the infrastructure is already in place to provide speeds of 3 to 10 Mbps to 94 percent of American households.

We’ve built it, but not all have come. Some may never come.

Let’s not assume that their and their nation’s future will be hopelessly blighted if they don’t.

By RANDALL STROSS

Found by Roger Stix, Atlanta Business Video

Low CPMs Stall Social Network Ad Spend

Big impressions, not-so-big money

Time spent on social networking sites is increasing steadily, taking users’ attention away from sites such as portals. According to comScore, the top 20% of social network users visit networking sites 2.4 times per day, on average, and spend 31 minutes on them—twice as long as the same users spend with e-mail or instant messaging. And that, in turn, means more time with ads.

The research firm’s “The State of Social Networks as a Media Platform” report found that more than one-fifth of online display ad impressions occurred on social networking sites in July 2009. That was more than double the display ads viewed on e-mail and entertainment sites.

The bulk of those ads were viewed on MySpace and Facebook, with MySpace accounting for somewhat more impressions, but a slightly smaller share of total display ad spending than Facebook.

Despite social networks’ large share of ad impressions, just 3.5% of the total US display ad spend went to social networking sites, according to comScore. The research firm attributes that small share to the low CPMs social network display ads get.

Nielsen reported that August 2009 display spending on social networking sites had more than doubled year over year. Dollars are following eyeballs, but depressed prices may keep social network ad spending low relative to display inventory.

an E-Marketer article found by Roger Stix at Atlanta Business Video

Troubling News Questions

Some troubling questions were asked in several recent periodicals that are worth contemplating. They don’t reflect my opinion but will need to be considered as the debate progresses.

Afghanistan: Is the problem best solved by understanding the limits of what we can reasonable achieve, or, by sending more troupes. Some are saying our focus must shift from nation building to deal making. - They note literacy rates are 70% and the country has not had a strong functioning central government and viable economy in decades.

Medical Insurance and rationing: The question of rationing medical care becomes even more difficult when one asks the question, how much we should do to save the lives of premature births and babies with chronic medical problems that will never be able to live a normal life, and be very expensive to care for.

I do feel Tort reform is necessary if we want to stop the doctors from practicing “defensive medicine” intended to protect not patients from illness, but doctors from lawyers.

Roger Stix

Atlanta Business Video

Affordable Internet Marketing Campaigns by Atlanta Business Video

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Atlanta Business Video offers professional video services at an affordable price! Call today to schedule a free consultation- and learn how the internet can work harder for you! 404-343-3540... http://www.atlantabusinessvideo.com Distributed by Tubemogul.

George is Dead Comic

Measuring the Business Effects of Web 2.0

Video-sharing, social networking show biggest benefit

New Web technologies that generate buzz may seem attractive, but businesses must keep an eye toward measurable benefits before investing. ROI is a top concern of marketers, in tough economic times more than ever.

McKinsey Quarterly’s “Global Survey” polled companies about the benefits gained from using various Web 2.0 tools, both internally and externally. The study found that several technologies were a boon for relationships among employees as well as with customers and external partners.

When it came to customer-related benefits, blogs were the most useful tool, bringing measurable benefits to 51% of responding companies worldwide. That was followed by video-sharing and social networking, at 48% each, and RSS feeds, at 45%.

Technologies such as wikis, podcasts, ratings and tags were less useful, but still benefited customer relationships for about one-quarter to one-third of companies worldwide.

More than one-half of respondents (52%) said Web 2.0 tools increased marketing effectiveness, while 43% reported higher customer satisfaction and 38% reduced marketing costs.

Businesses in the high-tech/telecom industry were most likely to report customer-related benefits of Web 2.0, at 65%, followed by business/legal/professional services firms, at 60%.

Companies cannot simply adopt these technologies and expect their customers to use them en masse, however. Among firms reporting measurable benefits from Web 2.0, 74% said it was important to integrate the tools with other forms of customer interaction, and 52% said marketing the Web 2.0 initiatives themselves was a best practice.

An eMarketer article found by Roger Stix of Atlanta Business Video

Searching for the Highest Quality Video?

If you host your own videos, maintaining your video quality is not a problem because you control everything from start to finish.

However, if you use video sharing sites to host your videos, it’s a different story. Essentially, you upload your video and then give up total control over what the final product is going to look like. Traditionally, video sharing sites will “dumb down” the quality of your video to save on bandwidth costs (after all, YouTube spends an estimated 1 million dollars a day on bandwidth).

Due to ever-improving software code, video sharing sites are now able to host your videos in high quality formats. Sites like Vimeo,Blip.TV and now Dailymotion are leading the way. Check out this special video on Dailymotion that allows you to see the difference between an HD and standard def picture. The video shows, head to head, the difference between the “standard” web video formats and the new “high quality” formats. This is the best video I’ve seen that illustrates the difference. It’s worth a look and goes a long way in explaining (far better than I can do with words) what these new video formats actually look like.

You can watch the video here.

Regards,

Roger Stix, Atlanta Business Video

Job Candidates Both Hurt and Helped by Social Networks

Blurring the line between professional and private

Most social network users have heard of the consequences of having an unprofessional profile page, and know potential employers might look them up online.

A summer 2009 survey conducted by Harris Interactive forCareerBuilder.com found that 45% of US human resources professionals used social networks to research job candidates at least occasionally.

Respondents were most likely to use search engines such as Yahoo! or Google to check out job candidates online (41%), followed by Facebook (29%) and LinkedIn (26%).

The findings were more likely to get candidates rejected than hired: 35% of HR professionals said social networking content had caused them to eliminate a candidate, while only 18% reported deciding to employ someone based on a profile.

The top reasons for rejection were, unsurprisingly, “provocative or inappropriate photographs or information” (53%) and information about drinking or using drugs (44%). But job candidates were also hurt by negative postings about their previous employers, poor communication skills, discriminatory remarks and other faux pas.

On the other side of the coin, HR professionals also reported hiring a candidate because a profile page gave them a positive look into the individual’s personality, or because the profile was professional, creative or showed off the candidate’s skills.

Many social network users feel uncomfortable with the way online profiles can blur the line between personal life and work, and guard their privacy to avoid being seen as inappropriate or unprofessional.

In August 2009, blogger Marylene Delbourg-Delphis conducted an informal poll, asking what people would do if they were asked to pull up their Facebook page during a job interview. More than one-half of her admittedly self-selected respondents (55%) said they would ask why before agreeing to show their profile. Another 25.4% said they would refuse and 8% said they would simply walk out of the interview, showing how touchy the subject can be. Just 11.7% of respondents would willingly reveal their profile.

While the data should only be used for directional purposes, Ms. Delbourg-Delphis wrote on the Grade A Entrepreneurs blog that “there could be a real discrepancy between the workforce’s state of mind and the companies’ hiring practices.” And her commenters expressed concern that social network profiles often reveal information that is off-limits in a job interview, such as a candidate’s religion, political preferences or marital status.

An eMarketer article found by Roger Stix at Atlanta Business Video