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The popularity of social bookmarking applications and sites is leaking through corporate firewalls in the form of “enterprise bookmarking” systems. Traditional bookmarking sites, like Digg, del.icio.us, or StumbleUpon, allow users to bookmark sites that are of interest or of use to the larger web community. StumbleUpon, for example, installs a plug-in which visitors can use to rate their favorite sites, apply tags or keywords, and share their discoveries with other “stumblers”. Companies are now making use of this technology to start their own enterprise bookmarking cooperatives, which would give employees access to tagging and bookmarking tools for the purpose of knowledge collection and sharing. They are realizing that a search which results in thousands of returns is useless when it comes to information gathering. Enterprise bookmarking offers businesses a way to find what they want, when they want it.

Larger social bookmarking forums like del.icio.us display users’ favorite sites based on the number of people who bookmarked. You can browse popular bookmarks or search for specific keywords based on tags users have applied. Some of the most popular displayed on their homepage include an instructional video on how to tie a double Windsor knot, a recipe for chai ice cream, and a guide to conflict resolution in the workplace. Tags attached to these sites include “knot”, “Windsor”, “dessert”, “chai”, “relationships”, and “conflict”. Users completely control the content on these sites, including the tags. It’s another example of the Web 2.0 trend towards user-generated content on a large scale, and it’s being emulated by businesses searching for information sharing solutions within their network.

Many software companies are offering bookmarking platforms for business users. IBM Lotus has released an application called Connections 1.0 which gives users blogging, social networking, tagging, and bookmarking capabilities for the low price of $110 per user per year. BEA Systems has a similar product called Aqualogic Pathways which is offered for $40,000 per CPU. The goal behind these types of applications is to create a forum for employees to share knowledge, useful information, and connect on a personal level. Companies are aiming to create web-based corporate cultures; more and more are allowing corporate blogging, establishing presences on LinkedIn and Facebook, and encouraging employees to do the same. IBM and BEA are just two examples of software providers who are quick to meet these needs. We predict a future initiative which combines social bookmarking with Universal Search capabilities for diversified, relevant results in any medium.

Corporate networks or shared drives are often confused, tangled messes where documents and solutions are buried under mounds of out-of-date information and hidden by bad naming conventions. Technology like this empowers users to create an ecosystem of useful information that is a click away. Those working on the front lines of customer service (telephone and email support roles) will benefit most from this type of bookmarking because it will enable them to access a world of knowledge in just a few clicks. Social and enterprise bookmarking can have downsides, though. For example, allowing users to completely control the content could lead to disorganized, chaotic information management. Tagging is not always fully effective or accurate. A website or page might be labeled as both “wine” and “Sauvignon blanc”, but there is no way to note that one tag is a subset of another. Other concerns about security have been raised regarding classified documents or sensitive material being available for wide distribution. There will come a time when the technology will catch up with possible pitfalls, and businesses will have to decide how much freedom to grant employees in the meantime. For the present, those of us employed by companies open-minded enough to allow us access to enterprise bookmarking systems can consider ourselves lucky to have access to the virtual library of knowledge that is the web.

Google’s loyal users may have noticed a recent change in the results of their queries: the powerhouse search engine now returns videos, music and other media types in addition to the typical website results that they provide. Case in point: when I typed in a search for “Jorge Vistel” an emerging Cuban jazz trumpeter, Google spit back to me not only individual web pages, but also a YouTube video featuring a performance and newspaper articles about Vistel. The video can even be played directly in the search results without leaving Google to visit YouTube! This change in how results are grouped is called “Universal Search,” and it is the heart of Google’s next generation of information processing. It is the integration of multiple types of media into search results, and combines all of the various vertical databases into one index to provide users a single, more relevant set of results. The search results will be blended together, incorporating local sources, news stories, videos and images, and blogs as well as web pages. This tool automatically interweaves the information across categories to provide the user with the best results, no matter the format.

Google is the first of the search engines to implement Universal Search and incorporate diverse media in their rankings, but others have announced plans to follow suit. It’s an acknowledgement that many kinds of data, including video, photos, maps, and news feeds, can be of use to searchers. Universal Search will delight users with the most pertinent information in any form, and SEO companies are scrambling to keep up with the change. This change can work to your advantage, though, as you learn to adapt your website’s content to the new system. Though Universal Search may initially seem to be detrimental to your current SEO efforts, this new technology can actually increase your visibility in search results by providing users with the most appropriate and useful information.

Some categories of Universal Search results that you need to consider in your SEO efforts are:

• Image search: allow your potential customers to find you through carefully tagged, attention-grabbing images that utilize popular keywords. Images always catch the eye more easily than text, so include photos that fish for web traffic.
• News search: Think of Universal Search results as a new forum for your press releases. Keep your content newsworthy and interesting so it will be indexed as news.
• Video search: If you decide to include video in your marketing efforts, maximize your reach on the web by using file names and tags that function as keywords. Create captions, transcriptions, and other commentary that will draw hits. Post your videos on YouTube, Google Video, and other file-sharing sites for greater exposure.
• Map search: My favorite way to find everything from quickie lube joints to new restaurants is Google Maps. List your business with Google’s Local Business Center to increase your presence in your home community and your chances of moving up in the search results when a user searches in your area.
• Blog search: Adding a blog to your site creates continuous new content, and search engines crave new content. Keep your blogs simple and easy to read, but plug in the keywords you want users to find when they conduct a search.

Universal Search is a huge win for the consumer because it makes it a lot easier to find information across multiple information points. This approach can really take off when applied locally within a company. It increases your ability to find information by topic instead of by where it is stored. Internal users no longer have to slog through files on the company intranet or shared network drive, instead using Universal Search principles to quickly and efficiently locate the information they need.

Users will never want to go back to the old search results once Universal Search takes hold. The presentation of this information, and how you implement it, will also help you with your SEO strategies. Whether you’re the one providing the information, or whether you’re the consumer, you want to pay close attention to the maturation of Universal Search.

As a means of corporate communication, Web video is relatively new. Although YouTube has been in existence for more than two years, it has been primarily used as a form of entertainment for young, Web-savvy video sharing enthusiasts. However, because of the site’s usability and popularity, it was only a matter of time before YouTube, and others like it, would add commercial use to the list of possibilities created by video sharing.

As a nascent brand positioning tool, the full potential of Web video remains to be realized. It is possible to capitalize on this potential by learning how to use this tool. Keeping in mind the following points will help you navigate the difference between the old and the new.

1. Web video is not a commercial.
If you market your company in a Web video the same way you would for a television commercial, you will not be maximizing the low-cost, do-it-yourself atmosphere of the Web. With Web video, a good idea will trump a slick advertising budget any day of the week. By no means does this imply that you should forsake quality—merely that you can accomplish a whole lot more for a great deal less with Web video.

2. Web video tends toward a viral, rather than a blanket effect.
Instead of advertising from a single distribution point, Web video is all about distribution and re-distribution…and then more re-distribution. The number of viewers a Web video generates is proportional to how interesting it is.

3. Creativity is the key to successful Web video.

Whether people are inspired to watch your video with music, or humor, or an emotionally compelling story, the videos that get passed around and re-watched are the ones that depict something no one has seen before. Want to stand out from your competitors? Use a forum that is new to say something about yourself in a way that no one else can. It may not be as easy as it sounds, but if you can do it, it is worth the effort.

Web video, if produced with an eye toward its potential, can be a very powerful marketing tool, and can communicate your brand in a way that simple text or two-dimensional ads never could. If Web video is part of your overall search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, it can also help boost your search engine rankings and make your entire Web site more visible.

Found on Technorati:

An article seemingly aimed primarily at larger, Fortune 500 companies, but whose main points could benefit almost any business thinking of using a blog as a marketing tool:

Do’s and don’ts of corporate blogging

1.) Be open to blogging and don’t punish authors.

The primary reason that blogs are attractive to readers is because the messages within are perceived as genuine. Your employees work for and believe in you, and if you reward them with your trust, they will reward you with an authentic voice that communicates positively about your business. The buzz this generates can’t be purchased.

2.) Find a way to make your topics interesting.

If you are a manufacturer of industrial lawn mowing equipment, you might have to stretch to feature the minutiae of your product in some interesting way. But if you follow the Association of Landscapers in your blog, or if you can find a sensitive way to discuss the ups and downs of immigration law reform, you will probably find a much more impassioned audience.

3.) Encourage feedback.

Many companies are hesitant to allow comments on their blog, but it is both in the open spirit of the medium and of immeasurable benefit to an organization. How much money would be spent on consultants’ fees and surveys to painfully extract customers’ thoughts, here so openly offered? It is always possible to filter spam and profanity, leaving customers feeling free to say what they think.

4.) Create new content and provide links.

Creating new content is a basic building block of any website, and of blogging. Content gives readers something to keep coming back for, and helps the site get noticed by search engines.

5.) Think ahead, but don’t be a phony.

Blogging is still relatively new to most companies. As a new form of communication, it offers a great deal of potential. Because a blog is much harder to control than other forms of media, it can be scary to organizations that are used to holding the reins of their image very tightly. Yet it is the very fact that individuals, not corporations, are writing blogs that makes their message believable–and any attempt to tamper with that will destroy all the hard work and trust invested in it. Don’t be a phony. Establish a few guidelines to protect your organization, stand back, and let your blog, and bloggers, do their job.

You’ll be glad you did.

Second Life (also known as SL) is a social networking site that has gone a step beyond other popular social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. This 3-D virtual world is managed by the citizens of Second Life, which according to the creators of the website, has grown to 5 million users.

In SL, people are able to create a new identity through their virtual characters and interact with other avatars from around the globe. They are able to build islands, homes and anything else they can dream up, attend events, fly to another country or do business with fellow users. Business transactions take place through dealing with Linden dollars that can then be translated into real money for “first life” spending.

Confused yet? Well, so are many other first time second lifers. There is definitely a learning curve involved with SL, that many critics are pointing out as a drawback of the site, saying this difficulty in getting started results in a low number of participants who could possibly be targeted by marketers. Yet, despite the critics many advertisers and marketing departments are taking interest in this latest online trend and looking at Second Life as a new place to reach potential customers.

Toyota is one example of a company who has taken the leap into SL in hopes that its “in world” marketing campaign will pay off. They have created a virtual dealership where they sell all three models of the (computer generated) Scion XB. Buyers can customize their cars any way they would like, a feature which Toyota hopes will keep residents coming back for more.

While Toyota charges for its vehicles, Nissan opened a dealership in which they dispense Sentras like bubblegum, free to residents via an enormous vending machine.

And it’s not just cars that are being sold and dispensed in SL. Residents can purchase anything from a Starbucks latte or Heineken beer to a Nike sneaker. Vogue, a publication of Conde Nast, has creatively marketed their brand by dropping virtual magazines throughout SL. This feature, when clicked on by a resident, brings them immediately to the Vogue Web site.

Sunbelt Technology has created an island where residents can meet to discuss computer related issues. There are several areas of the island ranging from a pavilion for product awareness to an auditorium for lectures and conferences to an underwater world for beginners of Second Life.

Even charities and nonprofit organizations are looking at SL to get their message across. Adventure Ecology, a UK based charity, in an effort to spread the word on global warming, submerged under water, low lying areas in the world such as the Netherlands and Tokyo.

Second Life, like many other social networking sites, provides companies with the means to tap into new markets, test products and ideas and interact with customers in new and innovating ways. Today, Second Life has about 5 million users who interact with this site. As this market grows, you can be sure that the number of companies who want to interact in this virtual world will grow as well.

To learn more about Second Life please visit www.secondlife.com

You have a new idea, product or service. What’s the first thing you want to do? Share it with someone! In business terms, you want to share it with the world and hopefully make a profit. When it comes to marketing your product or service you have several options on how to go about it. You can stick to traditional, cut and dry advertising efforts, such as print, television and radio - or you can take a more creative approach and use some more modern agile approaches to marketing.

In 1983, Jay Conrad Leninson was considered the pioneer of guerrilla marketing with his take-no-prisoners approach to marketing for small and medium size businesses. Individuals make guerrilla marketing more complicated than it really is far too often. Guerrilla marketing is simply a more effective way to stimulate an idea, using both traditional and non-traditional methods. Being able to combine both traditional and non-traditional marketing efforts is what makes guerrilla marketing so unique. In doing this, you fast track your message to the public.

Standards still exist in guerrilla marketing even as a low-cost alternative, more so than in traditional marketing. The planning, insight and execution involved in guerrilla marketing often takes more attention to detail than traditional marketing.

Through the evolution of guerrilla marketing, agile marketing has aroused. One could even draw a parallelism to agile development, a process of sending web applications to the market faster. Agile marketing is focused around using preexisting relationships along with flexible ideas and tactics through the internet to deliver significant information to potential and current clients. Social networking, business blogging, wikis, forums, email branding, web site communication and newsletter campaign management are all outlets in which agile marketing is made possible.

One big mistake people have when using this approach is that fundamentals go out the door. Whether it’s a newspaper ad or a social networking event planned within Second Life (see Second Life blog) it is important that you still have a clear understanding of your customer, the market(s) you’re in and what you want to accomplish.

Whether it is guerrilla or agile marketing you chose to pursue to penetrate your idea or service to the public, it is important to have clear business goals and measurements. Having these defined will help you decide on which traditional and non-traditional marketing options to select. Clearly defined goals and measurements coupled with an open mind and researching will allow you to have more options and uncover greater possibilities in your marketing direction.

We’ve all heard amusing horror stories about companies whose marketing campaigns went terribly wrong due to bad translations. For instance, Pepsi’s slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” was interpreted in Taiwan as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead”. Another prime example is American Airline’s “Fly in leather” tagline, which, when translated literally for the Mexican market, invited passengers to fly in the nude. These tremendous oversights, while entertaining, have the effect increasing the cultural awareness in businesses around the world. Errors such as these, coupled with increasing numbers of non-English speaking web users, have led many companies to adopt a strategy of “localization” when it comes to presenting themselves in the global marketplace through the web. More than simply careful, appropriate translations, localization refers to an adaptation of language, content and design to reflect local cultural sensitivities as a whole.

Since web sites are increasingly the lens through which a company is viewed, web designers are considering more than just literal translations in order to increase their positive image and presence in overseas markets. More and more, the trend is to consider numerous factors of cultural significance when creating a web site. Consider funneling customers to tailored sites based on their cultural identifications; you can ask users to select their home country before entering the site, for example. Formatting for date and time, representations of numbers, currency symbols, the tone of content, and even color is important to putting the best foot forward. For example, during a 1994 campaign, the telecom company Orange changed its approach when running ads in Northern Ireland. Their slogan, “The future’s bright…the future’s Orange,” was inappropriate because the color orange, associated with the Orange Order, a Protestant militant group, would alienate a large group in the target market. Similarly, an overly casual message, anglicized numerical values, even non-metric specs to describe a product, can be a turn-off to a potential customer with different cultural expectations.

Localization can be accomplished by careful research in your design. Many companies are using anthropological consultants to give them the edge over their competitors. Experts with vast bases of knowledge can interpret cultural symbols and push you in the right direction. When crafting your message, be sure to use translators and writers who are sensitive to the cultural complexities of the target audience. Not all Spanish dialects are created equal: a perfectly inane term in Argentina could have a foul meaning in Puerto Rico. Local literacy levels in Spain may be quite different from those in Ecuador, and different terminology should be considered. Use a translator who speaks the local dialect of your audience.

Many times, companies try to bypass errors in translation by using non-textual means of communication, but local trends must be considered in this circumstance as well. Tide detergent created a word-free billboard with three drawings. The leftmost showed a woman frowning and examining a dirty shirt. The second showed her loading the shirt into a washing machine and adding Tide. The furthest right frame showed her happily holding up the now-clean shirt. Many of you have spotted the problem with this ad: some languages, including Arabic and Hebrew, are read from right to left, which makes Tide a very unattractive product indeed. Carefully researching your intended audience’s habits and needs can prevent your customer from misunderstanding your message.

Just as you would consider keywords for optimizing your search engine results in English, this must also be a priority when developing a localization strategy. Your translator should use the correct language encoding to ensure that text in other alphabets and configurations will display properly. This is essential for languages using non-Roman alphabets, where the text will need to be reorganized for ease of reading. If the language is encoded incorrectly, users will have difficulty viewing your site and search engines may not be able to categorize it. For example, if your site is encoded correctly in Korean, a search engine might deem it more relevant to a user who performed a search in Korean than a similar site encoded in English. However, if the encoding is incorrect, you have lost this basic advantage over your competition. And, as always, use the most accurate local term for your product and services, not an exact translation.

Businesses are increasingly competing on a global level, and the internet is the staging ground for launching a product to an international market. Considering local customs, culture, and needs is the key to reaching a global audience without looking foolish. Steer away from literal translations, and don’t make assumptions about your audience without first doing the proper research. If successfully done, your web site will positively reflect the image of your company abroad. One last example: Coca-Cola, after careful research of over 40,000 Chinese characters phonetically similar to their product name, hit upon a winner. The characters they chose roughly translate as “happiness in the mouth”.

The term “widget” used to bring to mind George Jetson and his employer Spacely’s Sprockets, where poor George’s job was to count unnamed, hypothetical manufactured parts, cogs, thingamajigs. But for a new generation of internet users and advertisers, widgets are an increasingly popular customization and marketing tool. Users can access web content from various sources with just one click, while advertisers can catch a ride on non-commercial websites like MySpace.

Widgets are tiny applications that reside on a user’s desktop or web page. They allow you to stream information from various sources in a non-intrusive manner, enabling everyday internet users to add professional-looking content to their personal web pages or desktops. This symbiotic relationship is beneficial to both the widget developers and the individual users; the developer gets exposure without annoying banner ads or videos that take over the screen, while users get a more attractive, interactive interface. Traditionally, destination websites like Yahoo! or Google would wait for web traffic to come their way, then make money from the advertising on their sites. With the release of widgets they can now troll for traffic; an email monitor that alerts the user to unread messages, for example, will pull users back to Gmail, and back to the advertising.

Commonly downloaded widgets include everything from automatically updated weather and stock information, news feeds, maps, chat boxes, search tools, airline schedules, and even games. Microsoft Flight Simulator for Xbox has released a widget that lets users check weather information by flying to any airport to obtain the latest from the National Weather Service. This provides a teaser for the video game as well as the information that a user was seeking.

The technology is being customized by programmers for all markets, both for commercial gain and for fun. A quick search of Yahoo!’s widget gallery reveals everything from wind speed monitors for surfers to applications counting down to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. The variety is astounding, and it speaks to the Web 2.0 trend towards customization. Individual users and businesses alike can carve out a niche for themselves in cyberspace, making the most banal daily task, like checking the weather, a personalized experience.