Twitter is now conducting trials with advertisers for placement of new ads in their “Trending Topics” section, rumored to sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Trending Topics, located on the Home page of Twitter, is an area that highlights real-time topics that are most chatted about within the social network. This new advertising [...]

Do you hear that buzz?! It’s not a bird…no! It’s not a plane, no, NO, it’s GOOGLE!!!!  That’s right Google does it again, this time with their latest product launch Google Buzz. Giving us all yet ANOTHER way to share with our networks online, this tool is rumored to potentially threaten Facebook and Twitter as [...]

”Stop! Collaborate and LISTEN!” Let’s apply Vanilla Ice’s song lyric to social media. Your customers are talking, are you listening? Whether it be around your product specifically, your competitor, or the industry as a whole, people are engaging in conversations online through blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, forums, product reviews, etc. as an outlet to recommend, [...]

Last Tuesday, January 12th the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake hit Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.  Once I had heard the news of the massive destruction, I immediately hopped onto my Twitter account @carolynruiz and searched for Haiti using Twitter Search .  I did this because I wanted to see the real-time news transpiring and how I could contribute to [...]

In the past, shopping for a Mother’s Day gift involved calling a florist or going into a store and buying flowers, as well as a card. Now we have the Internet – which boasts free e-cards and websites solely dedicated to flowers, gifts, apparel, poems…and the list goes on. Since the economy is still looking [...]

We all remember the commercials – some unsuspecting lady in her pajamas answers the door and screams loudly. Ed Mac Mahon is there. She is then presented with that large white check, and we are all led to believe that it can happen to us. In the past, Publishers Clearing House used direct mail to [...]

Social media websites MySpace and Facebook have garnered much attention in the past few years, gaining millions of viewers and page owners. They are also guilty of ad targeting—specifically placing certain ads on pages based on volunteered user interests. I’ve noticed them too, especially on Myspace. Since I listed writing as one of my interests [...]