Early summer in the middle of Sweden. There’s six of us sitting on the front porch of the summer house. Two laptops with tonights Icehockey game is placed in front of most of them. Me, I’m watching the other nights gardening show on my iPad. I admit it, I never watch TV except for on TV before I got my iPad. It was too much hassle. The only reason I do it now is because it’s sooo easy. I have it next to my bed, I bring it to the summer house and watch it in the sun.

Later the same summer heat and humidity makes it impossible to be in our apartment. Having looked forward to finally watching a summer tv-show I simply placed the iPad on a table on the balcony and both me and my boyfriend could watch the show quite easily.
Granted it’s a bit silly to watch a 10″ when we have a 32″ and a 40″ in the apartment – but still!

I warned my Twitter feed that I was going to try out Gowalla, Foursquare etc but that I would try not to spam them with too many check-ins.
The joke was on me as I have yet to manage to share on Twitter even ONCE!

Never mind that, here are the basics of some of the geographically related social media services that people use today:

Gowalla

Initially the one that made the most sense. Start with choosing “Check in” and then search for where you are. The fact that you get cute badges and stuff at random can probably act as both a repellant and add to the addictiveness.

I’ve managed to check in on several places, sharing 9 photos, getting 21 “stamps” and 6 “pins”.

Me – being the less socially driven of their users – got a bunch of points for being “the first of my friends” to check in to places. Now, this is a good idea – if it weren’t for the fact that I had 0 friends

Foursquare

It took me more than a bit of time to get how the check-ins worked. Once I had that figured out I quite liked the structured way in how they told me how many points I earned for every check-in.

Although I managed to add 4 friends, I only checked in 11 times, got 3 badges and a mayorship -and I still have NO idea what I would use this information for

Facebook places

This seems like the obvious choice if you want to share. I mean how many hundred friends do you have on Facebook? Despite this, I don’t feel more compelled to check in here. Maybe even less because I know a big portion of the ppl I know aren’t interested in my every move!
A big minus is the lack of photo adding – photos is what I want to share, that much I’ve learned.

In general, the want to share is the only driver that matters. It’s nice to collect points, offers and stuff. And you always share, with the people that be-friend you on each service – but that’s not enough to remember to check in to every place you set your foot every day.

These services are good when they bulk the truly social of the web with the chance to gain real benefits from it (discounts, free coffee etc)

On the other hand I probably would pay to read a blog of someone I admire/find thought provoking/funny. After all, I pay for books (even those where the content originates from a blog).

So maybe that’s a valid reason for pay walls – limiting access to columns, in-depth articles etc. The question then is, who will tell me what is worth paying for?! How many free months of access will it take for me to grow a habit? Who will play the role of the bookstore clerk/librarian and suggest material worthy of both my time and money?

I would think the real money lies in being the “critic” of content. Building a trust from knowing what’s worth ppl’s time first, and then possibly being the go-to source for good paid-for content. But that of course implies you’re not an old-school critic, working for a newspaper, because that would mean you get stuck behind the pay wall!

What content critic are you already listening to, and what sites would you pay up to use?
Maybe we also need to widen the concept of “pay”? Ads and actual money are the two everyone seems to rely on, but shouldn’t it really be a third and fourth option to explore…

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Update April 21st

Econsultancy article about a possible third payment option?!

Watched this old talk with some co-workers during lunch a while back:

This is broken

Having lucnch with a friend today I got to thinking about the need for inspiration and how lucky we are to have things like this at our fingertips. It can truely brighten the gloomiest of days. Now I only wish I could snap my fingers and be in NYC in time for GEL 2011

If you want more of Seth check out his blog of short but often thought-provoking posts, or follow his twitter-robot ThisIsSethsBlog (or don’t, because I really don’t like the idea of automating your tweets becoming acceptable)

It’s dead easy to do and you decide what you want to use the money for. it’s all paid to your PayPal account.

If you don’t want to join my group, but rather start you own – sign up here to raise money!

If you DO want to join my group I’ll be really pleased – but you have to know Swedish (for now) due to restrictions of the service I’m using.

I haven’t decided what to give the money to yet – suggestions are welcome! Remember it’s not the kind of money you’ll get from working, but some is better than none, right!

Although Twitter has evolved a lot and doesn’t provide the community spirit it did1-2 years ago, it’s still a source of information and it’s still only as good as you make it. The original though holds true: put quality content out there and demand quality from those you interact with. The fact that online marketing is becoming a standard element within marketing shouldn’t lure us into thinking it’s all said and done.

Alarmingly this “everyday business” is still widely unknown to the people dependent on it. Adwords and SEO are not synonyms. Link building isn’t link building isn’t link building (seriously, do have a look the sites that link to you – if it’s about apes, the alps and anacondas it’s not a high quality site).

I guess that’s one of the reasons why so many “social media experts” still have more work than they can handle!
And it’s a reason for me to keep this monologue going

Nevertheless, runners up, I’m now officially “here” and it is GO TIME! Let’s face it, it’s not like I have an option, there’s a sales organization around the world starved for marketing support.

Wish me luck, I’m off!

Had a bit of an SEO-advice column today and figured I’d might as well scribble everything down in a blog post. Hopefully it’s of help to someone

Imagine you’re creating a site or revamping an old one. This is e the basic basics you simply have to know and do.

What is your bottom line?
The main reason for your site, what you want to accomplish. This is your keyword starting point.
For our examples we’ll use: Sharing my love for clothes (after all, I think about them every day anyway)

Build your keyword list
This is not an absolute must, but I strongly recommend it. For one you will exhaust all areas you might want to write about, and you’ll start to see patterns that can be helpful in organizing the site. A second up-side is you’ll have a long list to pick from once you start writing the content – always good when your inspiration won’t show up on time.
For our example. Clothes is the bottom line keyword. From there you go to dresses, skirts, jackets, t-shirts etc. Dresses become anything from 50′s style dress to cocktail dress and Kitty Foyles

Meta-title tag
The main keyword(s) of each page should be in the title tag.
You have 65 characters to play with, put the most important words first (but make it readable!)
Each page should have a unique title tag!
Example: “Kitty Foyle dress findings – Dolly’s Dresses” (Let’s face it, you’ll wanna stick your brand in there somewhere)

Meta description tag
Google (and any other search engine) shows a short description of each page in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Page). It’s not necessary to write one, Google will pick something from the page if you don’t – but it’s always nice to choose the wording if you can. You have about 150 characters.
Example: Searching for beautiful dresses, especially the Kitty Foyle type, is hard work. Now I think I’ve finally found one and I’ll like to give you the inside tips on finding your own.”

H1 Title
The first title in your actual text is the one that Google sees as most important. Its wording should be close to the Meta title, but it doesn’t have to be the same – maybe you want to make this a bit longer. You can also use title with the tags h2, h3 etc, but that mainly for the benefit of the reader.
Example: “How to find the perfect Kitty Foyle dress”

Content
Content, content, content is one of the favorite sayings of SEO. This basically means, people like to read good content, Google likes updated content, 1 page = 1 potential hit in SERPs (500 pages= 500 potential hits), and other websites are more likely to link to qualitative content.
Example: I’ll aim to post a minimum of 2 articles per week. I’ll make it at least 300-400 words. I’ll also use different channels to spread it, hoping someone likes it enough to link to it.

Pictures and Alt-tags
Pictures are nice for the reader, that’s the bottom line. However, search engines can’t see, therefore you need to provide and alternative text that describes the picture. This is of course open to interpretation.
Example: Picture of a dress could be “Dress 1″ or “Black White Kitty Foyle dress”

Meta keywords
Basically, don’t bother with it. Google doesn’t care, Yahoo might, but no users care about Yahoo Also it’s a dead give-away for your competition, at least let them read through the site in search of the good stuff!

The URL
both users and Google will more easily understand www.site.com/this-is-my-post than www.site.com/p134 or the even more hideous versions available. Just remember that Also, I would say avoid .htm .aspx etc at the end of a URL – not everyone would agree, but frankly, if the user ends up on a webpage, I don’t see the point for it. (.pdf has it’s advantages)

Anyways, doing what I promised on new years – blogging more often (not doing great job so far, am I!)

We’ve just moved office at work, and I still a bit of unpacking to do, but it’s going to be really nice! Looking forward to getting more structure and focusing on our online marketing.

Done a bit of WordPress setup today. Mainly looking for themes and making them look as much as what we really want. Good exercise, since it’s so easy to wish for something slightly different than what is avaliable.

I’m also trying to get through the book Getting Things Done, to learn how to do more things with less stress (Sounds easy right )

But I will fulfill what I promised. I will blog more often…soon