Before Facebook was a giant, there was Friendster.

We are now living the Facebook era. With more than 300 million users Facebook is the king today, just like MySpace was the king of its days. Now have you ever heard about Friendster? Before there was Facebook and MySpace there was Friendster. Once the next big thing, Friendster was the first online social network and was destine to be a superstar, a pioneer of the now hot trend that is called social network, the company failed miserably even backed by investors. But why? Jonathan Abrams the founder of Friendster was all over the media back in 2003. You could see him with Jimmy Kimmel and with Charlie Rose, you would turn to financial networks and you would see him and you could not get enough of the guy, but everything came tumbling down pretty quick and today he is the butt of jokes, being bad mouthed by former investors, the news media and bloggers alike. Friendster did one crucial mistake: it tried to grow too fast and too quick. VC's backing the company brought Professionals from all over the spectrum, unfortunately the idea of bringing experienced big shots backfired. Each of the new members of the board and directors had strong ideas for the business often clashing and not worrying about its user. Also as it grew, the site started to have a lot of problems and before trying to fix its bugs that were increasing as the numbers of users increased, the site went onto a partnership spree, resulting in a poorly integrated features such as: blogs with (six apart), video sharing with (Grouper), personalized searches with (Eurekter) VoIP with (Glophone) and Internet Radion with (Pandora). All of that partnering and lack of attention to its software code meant poor quality of their site and long clocking turning users away to more friendly rivals such as MySpace. By the end of 2004 while MySpace had 22 Million users, Friendster only had 1.1 Million. The lack of knowledge of its leadership team along their failed vision of the change in social networking landscape meant the death of Friendster. Today Friendster is studied at Harvard Business School as an example in what not do in Business.

About the Author

Timothy Gates has been writing articles for the past 2 years. Please visit his new site http://www.massachusetts-granite.com/ for information on discount granite countertops.

Making Fiction out of Facebook Addiction

Before I begin, I have to admit that I'm a tad bit of a GEEK. Besides spending lots of time at the gym, having extroverted tendencies, and having a natural inclination for anything that makes my heart skip a beat (i.e. skydiving and rock climbing), I'm a bit of NERD that spends hours upon hours (did I say hours?) in front of my laptop. Ok, in these times of Facebook and Twitter, who doesn't? Well, I majored in Computer Science and wrote programs using Pascal in high school, not to mention Assembly Language in college. I should get TECH "CRED" just for mentioning Pascal/Assembly Language and being in my early thirties. Ok if that does not convince you, I think that the Intel commercial portraying Ajay Bhatt (the co-inventor of Universal Serial Bus or USB) as a Rock Star was brilliant.

I was lucky enough to attend a high school that required its students to have majors. My sister, who is six years older than me, attended the same high school and majored in computer science, so we had a computer in the house since I was ten-years old. I remember getting a book, which contained countless programs written in BASICA. In order to play the games, I had to copy the programs and execute them in the computer. It seemed like an easy typing exercise, but turned out to be a total nightmare. Essentially if one word or character is off the program wouldn't run. The first application that I attempted to run was a ping pong game. That was an early lesson in debugging code.

Although, that episode mentally scarred me as a child, I continued with Computer Science throughout high school and college. As a hobby, I also did some creative writing when I was younger. Fast forward about 10 years, Computer Science turned into a career and Creative Writing turned into two books ("Ice Cream Melts" and "A Souvenir For My Mom").

We are now in 2009 and Social Networking has become an Addiction with Facebook leading the way as the drug of choice. I thought it would be a cool idea to combine fiction and social networking so I recently completed a book called "Facebook Addiction: The Life and Times of Social Networking Addicts." The book shows parallelisms with chemical addiction and social networking addiction. I did two things to make it mirror reality:

1. I made myself an actual character in the book who starts a group called Social Networking Anonymous or S.N.A mimicked from Alcoholics Anonymous or A.A.

2. Collaborated with the New York Daily News and used real life articles.

Here is where the Information Technology background helps. We created an interactive blog, which allows everyone to write about their Social Networking/Facebook Addiction stories. Actually, all books that I write have an interactive blog component, which can be found at http://www.IceCreamMelts.com/blogs. The next step in our "EVIL" plans is to give all Authors the ability to create interactive book-based blogs on our IceCreamMelts.com platform. At the time of this writing I have my pinky in my mouth and my neighbors can hear the echoes of a sinister laugh.

About the Author

Nnamdi Godson Osuagwu, Author of upcoming book, Facebook Addiction: The Life and Times of Social Networking Addicts. Free eBook, A Brief Guide to Social Networking Addiction Website: http://www.thefacebookaddiction.com

A Brief Guide To Social Networking Addiction

The following 12 members of Social Networking Anonymous (also known as S.N.A) decided to come forward and tell their stories in the upcoming fictional book: Facebook Addiction: The Life & Times of Social Networking Addicts

Nnamdi G. Osuagwu, Toni Lane, Jeff Frake, Robert Blage, Ellen Kane, Jennifer Towers, Joel Smith aka Johnny Rocket, Michael Sandelli, Natasha Harrington, August Stone, Zoe Mecklin, and Carrie Reed

A Brief Guide to Social Networking Addiction

Social Networking Addiction is a mental illness centered around a dependency of online 'FRIENDS' or online interaction on social networks. Social Networking Addicts are unable to control their tendency to be logged in and participating on social networking websites.

What are some characteristics of Social Networking Addiction?

Some of the most common characteristics of Social Networking Addiction are:

* A feeling that being online is the only way to be noticed by the world at large. The longing for another post, update, or chat session (otherwise known as 'SNEAKING') before they sleep. A strong anticipation to being logged onto their social network of choice and seeing what everyone in their network is doing.

* Episodes of logging onto their social network randomly while in the middle of something completely different.

* Attempts to control their addiction by changing social networks. For example jumping from Myspace to Facebook.

* SNEAKING for long periods of time.

* Deleting wall posts so that others don't notice their excessive amount of posts or updates.

* Binge SNEAKING and sleepless nights due to SNEAKING. Drowsiness the next day from long nights of SNEAKING.

What is S.N.A?

Social Networking Anonymous (S.N.A) is an online community of men, women, boys, and girls who help each other control their social networking addiction. They offer support to everyone and anyone who is ready to face their Social Networking Addiction and SNEAKING habits. They all have a unique understanding of each other because people on the site are all social networking addicts, except for the online friends of addicts who join for moral support of a Social Networking Addict.

S.N.A members say that they are currently social networking addicts even when they have not been online for many hours, days, or months. They don't believe that they can be completely free of their addiction because it is literally at their fingertips. Once people have lost the ability to control their SNEAKING, they can never become "former social networking addicts" or "ex-social networking addicts". But in S.N.A, they can become recovering social networking addicts. The community is accessible on www.SocialNetworkingAddiction.com.

The full version of the "Brief Guide To Social Networking Addiction" can be downloaded from:

http://www.thefacebookaddiction.com/downloads/SNA_Guide.pdf

About the Author

Nnamdi Godson Osuagwu, Author of upcoming book, Facebook Addiction: The Life and Times of Social Networking Addicts. Free eBook, A Brief Guide to Social Networking Addiction Website: http://www.thefacebookaddiction.com

Top 3 Ways to Boost your Marketing Efforts: Wristbands & Other Tips

With the economy straining businesses, marketing budgets are invariably compromised. Needless to say, marketing is quintessential; being absent from the market is not an option for many businesses. Barring the traditional marketing and advertising mediums, there are several ways to make your presence felt. What's more, they have been detailed below to fit your budget (no matter how small).

One budget efficient way to advertise, although often overlooked, is through yard signs. Traditionally used by politicians, landscapers and auto repair shops, yard signs are becoming more and more popular. With households seeking alternative sources of income, yard signs have become a good alternative to hugely expensive billboards. These signs are particularly useful for targeting your consumers concentrated in and around a specific zip code. Yard signs also offer a variety of sizes to choose from. The general rule is that larger signs are placed where cars speed faster and smaller signs in lower speed limit areas.

Wristbands (http://www.vip-wristbands.com/) are yet another effective and creative marketing option. Traditionally used for crowd control and security at events, many companies often overlook the fact that they can also be used for promotional efforts. As wristbands are a necessity at many priority events, consider customizing the wristbands by adding a company logo and website address. Something as simple as that can have a lasting effect. Many times, people keep wristbands as souvenirs or may be interested in visiting the website printed on the wristband. Go one step further and engage potential clients by printing coupon codes on the wristbands (http://www.vip-wristbands.com/). This is a great way to see how effective your marketing strategy is, as purchases on the website made with that specific coupon code can be easily tracked. Spending a couple extra cents per wristband to have a message printed on them can lead to a pretty substantial increase in sales.

The internet is another great tool for marketing. While owning and operating a website is not always inexpensive, push your online efforts further with some free options. Start a blog and have employees post on it. That's a free and easy way to brand your company and become a thought leader in your respective industry. Additionally, write articles and submit them to online hosting sites. Many times, these articles will get picked up by other news sites and blogs, a great way to get free PR. Lastly, utilize social media. If you're company is an appropriate fit for a Facebook or Twitter account, sign up for these free services. Social media is a great way to reach your target market, get a feel for how your products/services are viewed, and advertise events or promotions.

These small marketing techniques will give your brand more mileage at a low cost and can be quite effective. Continue branding your company, without worrying about the big monetary cuts being made to your marketing budget.

About the Author

Leona Chavez is the Marketing Communications Programs Manager for Precision Dynamics Corporation. PDC specializes in the use of promotional wristbands and identification wristbands. Chavez has ten years experience in PDC's marketing department, having specialized in the company's Leisure & Entertainment division.

Facebook pay per click from Web-Writer

What Makes Facebook Pay Per Click Effective?

Facebook is a superior online marketing instrument that http://www.web-writer.co.za will make easily available. Facebook is a database that allows easy to place into targeted categories, and you will notice high levels of conversion from these campaigns, and increase traffic to your site.

Define Your Target Market First

In order for your Facebook adto be effective, you need to define the users that could potentially become clients of yours.

Once your target market is decided, Web-Writer will design a unique Facebook banner ad for your company that will be visible to your Facebook target market.

The brilliant part is that you only have to pay once an interested user clicks on your Facebook ad. Therefore you are in control of your ad-spend, because you only pay once a potential consumer clicks on your advert. Using this method of online marketing, your conversion rate is very high.

Fill in the lead form on the http://www.web-writer.co.za website and we will get in touch with you to help formulate a South Africa online marketing campaign to suit your market offering. http://www.web-writer.co.za :How Online Marketing Inspires Business.

http://www.web-writer.co.za is a South African online marketing company based in Johannesburg. Services include web design, search engine marketing (including SEO and PPC), web hosting, content management, banner ad design and placement, logo design and social media marketing (such as Facebook). We also offer traditional forms of marketing, including corporate identity: logo design, business card design, cds, pamphlets and other promotional items.

About the Author

Philipseo: http://www.web-writer.co.za

FaceBook On Top Again!

Facebook is now making money and has topped over 300 million people joining. Since the beginning, Facebook was started in a dorm room five years ago. It has emerged from there as the internets most popular online meeting place. It has increasingly challenged both Google and Yahoo. Facebook as revamped their search engines last month and users have tripled.

Because of this, Facebook will have a higher confidence on working with investors. And that they could possibly go public in late 2010 or in 2011. Their even exploring more ways to make the service perform faster.

If your not on Facebook yet, now is the time to join. It's really easy and it's free. Just go to Facebook.com and put in your profile. A good picture of yourself is really necessary, as Facebook is a place to connect with people and they want to know what you look like. Just like you will want to know who your are connecting with. You can upload pictures of your family, travels you've done, places you've seen, anything to let people know you're a real person, and what you do.

You can post updates on Facebook to let people know what your daily activities are. Maybe your having a party, or a big event is coming up you might think they want to attend. You can even add things like a good book you just read or a business opportunity you just came across.

It's real important to keep Facebook as a social place, not just about business. Don't try to promote your business, let your new found friends find out for them selves what you do. You can post things that are related to helping people in business, like ways to advertise. You can also join groups that have to do with different business. Or make up a group of your own and have people join it.

Make Facebook fun for you and others and your well on your way to making tons of friends and finding out tons of information that is out their in the internet world.

About the Author

Julianne Rowat, the author, has other articles and videos on motivational and self improvement. She is an internet marketing consultant that enjoys helping others with different types of advertising to grow their business without all the expense. If you want to know more about her, visit her blog at: http://www.juliannerowatsblog.com or her website at: http://www.ultimatewealthfromhome.com

Tips for Good Online Reputation Management

Online Reputation Management, or ORM, is an essential part of running a successful business. This is because most consumers rely heavily on the internet to inform them of the quality of a business's products or services. Thus, your reputation online is, in a very real way, the image that most of your customers have of you. The challenge of ORM today is that social media sites and the ease with which user generated content (UGC) gets spread make it hard to regulate and counter what other people are saying about you. Here are some tips to effective ORM for your business.

1. Set up social media profiles This is Online Reputation Management 101. Setting up social media profiles of your business on sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter is a must if you want to spread your online influence and present your business the way that you want customers to see it. Include in every social media profile your company's history, management and employee bios, and any key information that you want search engines to pick up and display in their results page.

2. Engage with your community Setting up social media profiles is not enough, however. You have to actively participate in your industry's online community as well. Answer comments and update your website and profiles continuously. Encourage forum discussions and link to related pages. Being active online will give your customers a sense that there is a vibrant community around your business. In a practical sense, it will also increase your web presence so that search engines have an easier time fining you.

3. Write! Blog, blog, blog. And post compelling articles on industry-related sites and article databases like ezinearticles.com and articlealley.com. Insert your brand name at the end of this articles and keywords that relate to your products and services throughout the article. The more of a following you have with blog readers and online article readers, the more control over your businesses online image you will have.

4. Testimonials Encourage customers who visit your site or social profiles to leave testimonials if they've done business with you. Genuine, consumer testimonials are one of the most powerful tools for improving your online reputation. You can also link to sites like consumerreview.com and epinions.com, where people can leave a positive review of your business.

Please visit http://www.bestrank.com for web design in San Diego and more internet marketing tips.

About the Author

Ryan Frank is an avid blogger and writer living in San Diego, CA.

Facebook Virus - New Network Threat

Facebook is a social networking tool for communicating with friends. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website's name came from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the hope of helping students get to know each other better.

Nowadays, however, a virus named "Koobface" is turning its point to all the users of the famous social networking sites. This virus can distribute all kinds of curious web links through the information system of the social networking site. People are prompted to click those links, which results in their computers getting infected, and their personal privacy information, such as credit card number, etc, being stolen.

If a Facebook user is infected by the virus "Koobface", lots of messages with such kind of title as "You look just awesome in this new movie", etc, will be sent out to his friends. The friends who receive the messages will be directed to other website which claims that they should download the so-called updated software of Adobe Flash Player. If the computer users indeed download the required software, then the computers are going to be infected.

Recently, Facebook virus attacks Google Reader and Picasa, which throw their users into threats. Therefore, people who have these software installed, remember not to casually click any unknown links, in case of getting infected. You need to have a security tool to safeguard your computer, such as Spyware Cease, to protect your computer against virus attacks.

About the Author: Amy Jones

http://www.spywarecease.com

http://www.threatremove.com

15 Effective Ways to Boost Traffic To Your Website

If you are trying to make money online, you need traffic and a list. Before you can build a list, you must have traffic to your site or opt in page. I have listed some of the ways I drive traffic to my website.

1. Provide fresh, unique and useful content

It is important for you to have high quality and unique content on your website so that visitors will spend more time there. If you have useful information on your website, you, considered an expert in your niche, will get customers much easier.

2. Optimize your website for search engines.

In order for your site to appear on the search engines, your niche keywords and phrases must be in your headlines and the rest of the content. This means that your website will show up and will rank high when people search for those keywords. Ping your website when you add new content. This makes search engines robots index your website, which ultimately drives traffic to your website.

3. Offer free reports and content.

Giving away short reports or eBooks in which you include your website URL is an effective way of driving traffic and building your list. Encourage sharing of these items, thus making them viral. The more reports or eBooks you write the more traffic you will drive to your website.

4. Participate in targeted forums.

Make useful posts in the forums related to your niche, and have your website link in your signature. Every time you post or respond to questions on the forum, your website URL is seen by all visitors to the forum.

5. Write and submit articles.

This is a very powerful tool for driving traffic to your website. In all your articles, make sure you have a resources box or author's biography, which includes your website's URL. After reading your article, people will want to visit your website. Allow reprinting of your articles, one article with reprinting rights can create hundreds of backlinks to your site.

6. Encourage Social Bookmarking

Give your visitors a way to share your site with others. Instead of confusing your visitors with icons from 16 different social bookmarking sites, you show them a single Share icon. Popular social bookmarking and sharing widgets are from Share This, Add This, Add to Any, and Tell a Friend. Some of these widgets provide you with tracking and analytics while others offer multi-lingual support. Choose the one which best fits your need.

7. Include your URL in your business email signature.

Anyone you communicate with can potentially be a prospect, so promote your website every time you send an email.

8. Publish your own newsletter.

Publish a newsletter that offers free tips and content on a regular basis. The newsletter can have links to items of interest on your site, increasing traffic. A newsletter keeps your URL in front of people for return traffic. Again, encourage subscribers to share your newsletter.

9. Start a forum.

By having a forum on your niche, you are established as an authority on your topic. By answering questions and helping people in your niche on your own forum, you drive more traffic to your website.

10. Arrange a joint venture.

Identify webmasters and list owners that complement your website so that they can advertise your site to their list. This is no cost traffic. Contact some list owners and present your request.

11. Create RSS feeds.

Submit the feed URLs to the major RSS feed directories. This will help generate traffic to your website.

12. Offer an affiliate program.

Having an army of affiliates advertising your site is an effective way of generating traffic. Create links and other material so all your affiliate has to do is copy, paste, and promote.

13. Use video marketing.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth ten thousand. Create a video about the product or service that you offer on your site and post it on YouTube and other such video sites. Add your URL to the video; this will enable viewers to visit your website.

14. Exchange links with sites of a similar niche.

Trading links with other sites is a no cost way to increase web site traffic. Every visitor to the exchange site is a potential visitor to yours. All you have to do is reach an agreement with other webmasters.

15. Brand yourself.

No, I am not talking about a hot iron or a tattoo; I am talking about creating a name for you, a brand. Join social sites like twitter or facebook. Keep your interaction mostly social. Post a bio that tells everyone what you do and how you make your money including your URL. In time, they will come to you or your site. On occasion, if you have something truly great on your site, mention it. Do not push or act like a fast talking used car salesman. If someone has a problem, help them solve it. The solution may be a free report or paid product you offer.

By following the tips outlined above, you will create a great number of backlinks to your site. These links will boost your search engine stats and drive a lot of traffic to your website, boost your sales and grow your online profits.

Now, get busy and take action.

About the Author

Rudy Lorrah have spent years in advertising, then in design, installation, and service of electronic systems. Now I do Internet Marketing, Mentoring, and Teaching Product Creation at http://www.TopBusinessChoice.com.