Digital Biographer™ » 2007

Facebook Shortcuts: Faceto.Us offers free custom shortcuts for Facebook Profiles and Business Pages November 30, 2007

Posted by David Petherick in : facebook, facebook shortcut, googlicious, online identity, search marketing, social media ,

Create memorable facebook shortcuts for free - create a simple, short link to your profile, business page or fan page on Facebook at FaceTo.Us!

As well as being available in seconds from http://faceto.us, FaceTo.Us shortcuts can also be activated directly from within facebook from the pages of Digital Biographer, Certain Host and Faceto.Us, and is used by:

And of course…
FaceTo.Us: Face To Us Facebook Page http://faceto.us/shortcut

UPDATE 11-Jan-08: Due to abuse from spammers, new links from faceto.us have been disabled. We are working on amending the service to only allow links to content located within facebook.

Business Pages are FREE on Facebook. Here’s mine. Where’s yours? November 24, 2007

Posted by David Petherick in : commerce, corporate blogs, facebook, search marketing, social media ,

Facebook means business - for all kinds of businesses, small or large.

There are over 45 million people on facebook, and you can reach them as a business, and have them talking about you, talking with you, recommending you and buzzing about your products or services. Free. Or not.

Which will it be? Set up a free facebook page for your business today and start connecting with your customers.

Digital Biographer Business Page on Facebook

Can anyone use your web site on a mobile phone? November 18, 2007

Posted by David Petherick in : mobile, mobile search, search marketing ,

Does your web site work well on portable devices? Or does it work at all? Mobile search (and specifically mobile search for local content) is growing rapidly, so your visibility and LEGIBILITY will be more and more important.

The iPhone has an advantage over most mobile browsers with its high resolution screen at 160 pixels to the inch, as opposed to a more common 96 dpi for an LCD computer monitor, and has an easy to manage zoom facility, so one can view any website fairly well - but do you know what your site actually looks like when it’s viewed?

iPhonemy.com is an elegant, simple site that allows you to answer this question - you can download free software (for Mac users) or have a screen shot of your site viewed on this software sent to you. For WordPress users, there is also a link to a plugin that automatically senses when an iPhone is viewing your site, and displays your site with an iPhone-specific theme.

It’s worth remembering that a mobile phone is also a wallet - and it’s always there, and almost always switched on… Informa Telecoms & Media predicts spending on mobile advertising as a whole to reach £5.6 billion by 2011.

What does your site look like on an iPhone? iPhonemy.com Web Site >>

5 Ways Small Business Can Benefit From Social Media/Networking Sites November 17, 2007

Posted by David Petherick in : corporate blogs, ecademy, facebook, googlicious, online identity, search marketing, social media ,

Sometimes, someone just writes something so apt, concise and useful, you want to just say “read this”.

So - read this! 5 Ways Small Business Can Benefit From Social Media/Networking Sites which delivers exactly what the title promises, and also provides a link to a simple guide to enhance your online reputation and footprint - with a few resources that you may not have on your radar.

Written by David Wallace at Search Engine Guide

MyOffice: Groupware Tool launches on Facebook

Posted by David Petherick in : commerce, corporate blogs, facebook, social media ,

A Facebook groupware tool has just been launched called MyOffice, which includes private discussion boards, file sharing, a schedule, and to-do lists you can share with a public or private group within Facebook.

The current MyOffice tools are pretty basic, but the three Columbia University students who created it are already responding to user feedback to improve and extend features. It’s very easy to use and seems to work well. Each project gets its own dashboard with a helpful activity stream that keeps you on top of the latest moves by team members.

This is the sort of application I have been expecting to see a lot more of since Facebook launched itself as a platform in May - something very simple but useful that lets one stop just poking around, and start collaborating with your network, and drawing in new partners and ideas to projects.

Facebook Brand Landgrab: Now Open for Ads 2.0 November 7, 2007

Posted by David Petherick in : commerce, digital biographer, facebook, online identity, search marketing, social media ,

I am now a product on facebook. A brand. Or rather, Digital Biographer is. See httv.biz/biographer/.

I have also created a page for myself as a writer (that’s a celebrity, I am pleased to hear).

As such, I can now have fans who can tune in to my messages, news, hear about events and more… quite apart from being able to target advertising very precisely to demographic and geographic groups.

Facebooks Ads are here (and Social Ads), and it’s quite staggeringly simple, and complex, in a layered sense.

Find out more at http://facebook.com/ads/ and see the announcement on the Facebook blog:

You now have a way to connect with products, businesses, bands, celebrities and more on Facebook.
Ads should be getting more relevant and more meaningful to you.
You now have the option to share actions you take on other sites with your friends on Facebook…

… we noticed people wanted to connect with their favorite music, restaurants, and brands; but there was no good place for these types of affiliations to exist. Now, there is a place for them and you can become a fan of whatever pages you choose in order to interact with your passions in new ways. You can post reviews for a local restaurant, buy tickets to a new movie, or be the first to get a heads up about new promotions.

Ads will be getting more relevant and more interesting to you. Instead of random messages from advertisers, we’ve launched Social Ads. Social Ads provide advertisements alongside related actions your friends have taken on the site. These actions may be things like “Leah is now a fan of The Offspring” (if I added The Offspring to my music) or “Justin wrote a review for Sushi Hut” (If Justin wrote this review on the Sushi Hut page). These actions could then be paired with an ad that either The Offspring or Sushi Hut provides.

I can see a lot of ad agencies, ‘new media’ agencies and PR companies reaching for the phones now, asking how can we do this? Where do we start? Well, my number is 0845 658 9058, and I am preparing a 1PrecisePage™ download for release shortly.

The Barcelona Masterclass from Digital Biographer - “Brand New Friend“ from March 8-10, 2008 is the first event to be launched in Facebook as a Digital Biographer ‘brand’ event.