Blog

Here's the email they are sendng their user base:

Hello,

You've downloaded samples of our books in the past, so I thought
you'd be interested to hear that for 14 days you can download The
Art & Science Of CSS (worth $29.95) absolutely FREE.

All you need to do is follow @sitepointdotcom on Twitter. It's
a two week Twitaway, so don't miss out —- follow us today!

Don't do Twitter? That's cool, we've got you covered. Check
out our 14-day CSS Twitaway here:

http://www.twitaway.com

Freebies like this are few and far between, so help us spread the
word. Tell everyone you think might be interested in a FREE CSS
book about the SitePoint 14-day Twitaway!

Warm regards....

This is an interesting example of creating an event using Twitter, providing an alternative platform too (the site mentioned above) and using a traditional marketing event approach (delivered via non-traditional Twitter) to entice new customers and boost sales.

It's well established that other media drive consumers to search and there is a growing body of research that shows search results have an effect on brand perception. This is, of course, a double-edged sword: it can help a brand when search results are positive, and hurt if the results are negative. What is a brand to do? I'll be discussing the reputation challenges marketers face online and some search-based solutions they can adopt to protect their brand at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago on December 11th. Please stop by and participate if you happen to be in the windy city next month.

 

Yesterday both Yahoo! and Google revealed how they are opening up their systems. In a blog post on Yahoo! ,  Jay Rossiter, Senior VP Yahoo! Open, stated how Y! has opened up its platform to developers "who are now welcome to come in and access our tools and data so they can build applications for a more customized, social, and relevant Yahoo! network and beyond." Some of the things that you'll now be able to do are:

1. See what your friends are doing on Yahoo! and let them see what you are doing

2. Create a single, universal Y! profile

3. Develop a portable address book that you can take to other sites

4. Customize Yahoo! by making it easy to bring in content from other places across the web into Y!

5. Connect with people through social networking features

What I find really interesting about Yahoo! opening itself up in this way is that it's one step towards portability of content across the web. And that, in my humble opinion, is a good thing.

Google announced yesterday the launch of Google Apps Lab. There are three Google Apps that can now be used by business and schools:

1. Google Moderator: "Makes it easy to gather and prioritize questions or opinions on any topic from a group of people."

2. Google Code Reviews: "Facilitates quality software development by making it easy for peers to review an author's changes and share feedback."

3. Google Short Links: "Allows users to easily create descriptive shortcuts to web URLs. This makes it easier for users to recall and share the locations of important documents and web sites."

The fabulous TechCrunch reports that "Google will be opening up the platform to third party developers who want their apps to be available to the 'million-plus businesses' using Google Apps today."

The open systems are the Internet's free market: the pros of free markets (until the recent financial meltdown) are that they typically spur competition, leading to lower prices and better quality for consumers. Open systems have the same effect spurring innovation, from both companies and individual developers, to the benefit of all Internet users.

I was amused to read this morning that scientists have found that outer space has a whiff of fried steak about it, and Nasa has briefed a specialist fragrance firm to recreate the scent to help train astronauts (can they not just cook up a few steaks for a post-training supper?).

Patrick Moore, astronomer extraordinaire, has disputed this revelation though, giving this advice to aspiring spacemen, ‘boys or girls attempting to go to space because they think there is fried steak flying about might be disappointed.' Now there's a surprise.

Check out the full story here courtesy of The Sun: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1820985.ece

The latest figures from comScore show that YouTube has moved past Yahoo! to become the second most popular search engine in the U.S. (after parent company Google, of course). The growing popularity of YouTube as a search engine puts an ever-greater premium on digital asset optimization (DAO). I wrote about this in a recent iMedia Connection column and will be moderating a panel on the subject at the upcoming Digital Publishing & Advertising Conference (DPAC) on October 28th in New York City. We've got a great lineup of speakers on the panel and an exciting, timely topic to discuss, so please stop by the event if you're in New York toward the end of the month.