So this week Google announced OpenSocial and showed all of their own services and partners (pretty much every social networking site) will be working together to build a better social networking experience for the future under one API.

Not so much a surprise is that Facebook was not in this list of partners.

Do you think that Facebook will eventually need to partner with Google and OpenSocial?

The image you portray to the public either as a store front or a web page should give your potential customers the feeling that you are doing well in business. When I see a business that does not look like it is doing well I think if they keep doing the same old thing again and again it will produce the same results. 

How many times have you driven down the road and seen a sign that says going out of business sale?

A local business near where I live has hand painted signs on their windows that say “Going Out of Business Sale 70% Off”. Those signs have been up now for almost 3 years. I figured I would pop in to see why they still have the signs up and these amazing discounts. I was not surprised to find out that in fact that they are not closing and that all of the products that are 70% off are out of stock.

How would you feel as a potential customer at this point?

So the only purpose of the signs was to draw people in to the store. Once you get in there though there is nothing to buy at a discount. I asked him how sales have been and the owner said that they have been horrible.

What advice would you give to this store owner?

Halloween has come and gone. For some people, it may be hard to believe that it’s already Friday. Well, that means that it’s time to take another whirlwind tour of the blogosphere and hopefully it’s not just people complaining about their loss in Google PageRank. Because I think we’re all kind of tired of that topic already.

When Ed Lau isn’t too busy being awesome, he’s watching a lot of movies. Well, taking a gander into the horizon, Ed has named a number of upcoming movies he’s looking forward to. Nope, he makes no mention of Beowulf or Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Instead, Mr. Awesome turns his attention to flicks like Juno, The Rocket, and something with Neil Patrick Harris. You can’t go wrong with Doogie!

RockDiesel of Become An Affiliate obviously knows his way around good affiliate deals and affiliate marketing techniques. It’s right here in the name of the blog. As you may know, affiliate deals aren’t exactly one size fits all, and that’s why you’ve got to find a profitable affiliate niche. Find the critical balance between having too broad a niche (lots of competition) and too narrow a niche (not enough demand).

If you want to learn about freelance writing, Chris Bibey is a good guy to ask. He’s quite the accomplished writer and he rakes in a decent amount of coin each month to pay the bills and buy the odd toy or two. You might be wondering how does he earn so much and Chris is the first person to tell you exactly how he makes the freelance writing income that he does. It’s hard work and good customer service.

Taking a gander at the header image on Jon Lee‘s blog, you discover that the young man’s life consists of eating, sleeping and coding. He’s quite knowledgeable when it comes with anything concerning a computer, both online and offline, so this week he talks about how to delete undeletable files. Ever encounter a file on your computer that Windows just won’t let you remove? Be frustrated no longer.

Kenneth Dickson is perhaps better known as being an Investor Blogger, but he’s getting quite well versed in blog monetization too. After some serious thought, he has named 10 reasons why Adsense sucks for your blog. Yes, Google Adsense isn’t the be-all and end-all of making money blogging. And Kenneth tells you why.

The Bloggers Choice 2007 awards are over and although we were not number one for best blogging host it was fun watching. This contest did bring us up to a 4th position and of the sites ahead of us none of them were true web hosts (and most of them didn’t even blog). That means we were the best true web host blog although I am sure we won’t get a prize for that. Next year we will not be running a contest for people that vote for us due to the question of ethics around this contest.

Now on to the random draw. We drew a name from the eligible voters and the winner is taylorblue. We will be contacting her in regards to getting her new monitor shipped out to her right away.

You can already vote for the 2008 Bloggers Choice awards if you have not done so already.

I came across an interesting marketing technique the other day and I thought I’d share it with you guys today. The real estate market in Vancouver is just as busy as it’s ever been, but it can still be very difficult for any given real estate agent to grow their client base and get those properties listed (and sold). There have been many different strategies deployed by realtors to attract our attention, but I think this is the first time that I saw something like this.

Next door to my girlfriend’s house, a family was moving into their new house and the moving truck was parked outside. However, it wasn’t a rental truck or a moving truck from a professional moving company. Instead, it was a moving truck provided by the real estate team. On the back, they plastered on a huge advertisement for their real estate firm, complete with pictures of the two main realtors. Naturally, key contact information like a phone number and email address was provided, but more important than this was a single message shown near the bottom.

I don’t recall the exact words, but it effectively told you that if you bought a home from them, you’d get to use this moving truck for free. This is quite the clever marketing technique, because if someone is buying a new home, they necessarily need to move their things from their previous home. By providing them with the truck, they don’t have to worry about finding a deal on a rental or with a professional moving company. The exact details of this deal are unclear to me — I never inquired — but it does seem like it could be “little something extra” that could separate them from the competition.

The cost of renting a moving truck pales in comparison to buying a new home, but it is still a nice gesture, don’t you think?

 

Last night Netenberg updated AccountLab Plus, CubeCart, Drupal, TikiWiki and WordPress…

- AccountLab Plus: 2.8 r13 -> 2.8 r14
- CubeCart: 3.0.15 -> 3.0.17
- Drupal: 5.1 -> 5.3
- TikiWiki: 1.9.7 -> 1.9.8.3
- WordPress: 2.2.2 -> 2.3.1

If you are using these software’s I suggest you upgrade.