Online advertising has many different faces. We see the usual banner ads, to be sure, but they’ve since been joined by paid reviews, sponsored tweets, text link ads, in-text advertising, and all sort of other varieties. Video sponsorship is on the rise as well.

When considering the marketing possibilities for your business, offering to sponsor popular videos could be a very worthwhile venture. Think about the audience that you might be able to reach with a mention in a Dot Com Pho or iJustine video, for instance.

If you’re only interested in brand presence and brand recognition, a simple mention (usually accompanied by some kind of logo’d product) might be enough. However, you may want to take the added step of being able to track the number of referrals these video plugs are able to generate. To do so, you’ll want to provide a unique link, perhaps to a “special deal” page.

For instance, instead of getting the video producer to embed “yourcompany.com” in the video, you may want them to embed “yourcompany.com/deal” instead. If videos are the only place where you are sharing that specific URL, you can know exactly how many people found your site via the video. Gaining access to such metrics can be very valuable to your marketing efforts.

The best way to get the most out of your online efforts is through synergy and cross-linking. You don’t want your online presences to exist in isolation; inter-connect them for the biggest possible impact. Embed Facebook is one such way to do this.

It is a free WordPress plug-in that effectively lets you embed just about any Facebook object into your WordPress-powered website or blog. Say that you have a photo album on Facebook that you’d like to share with your blog readers. Instead of providing them with a link (which would take them away from your site), you can embed that album right in your post.

The same thing can be done with Facebook photos, events, pages, videos, notes, and groups. The interface is remarkably easy too, because all you have to do is write the URL to the Facebook object you’d like to insert on its own line. There is no complex coding required, as the plugin will automatically translate that URL into an embedded object.

You can see several demos in action before downloading the Embed Facebook Plugin for free from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

There are two distinctly different strategies you can use to grow your business. As you take a look around the marketplace, you’ll see that different companies decide to use one or the other. Lately, it seems that Microsoft is very much pitching itself toward a marathon rather than a sprint.

That’s precisely the terminology that the company used when it introduced the Zune lineup of portable media players in Canada. The Apple iPod is still very much the dominant force in this arena, but the Microsoft Zune was able to carve out some market share. It has since fallen back into the background.

Microsoft is once again saying that it’s going to take the marathon approach for the new Windows Phone 7 smartphone platform. This launch has a bigger “ramp up” than the Zune, offering multiple devices from multiple manufacturers on multiple carriers, but Microsoft is adamant that they’re in it for the long haul. They’re not as interested in an overnight success, it seems.

Is this really the best strategy to take, particularly in the fast moving world of high technology? Based on the tremendous sales numbers that Apple is able to produce with the launch of each new product, a series of sprints may be more effective than an extended marathon. It may be different in other industries, though. What do you think?

What do you do when you want digital SLR quality photographs, but you don’t want to deal with the added bulk that an SLR brings to the table when compared to a regular point-and-shoot digital camera? Panasonic and Olympus got together to address this concern and they emerged with the new micro four-thirds format.

Both companies have had cameras in this format for about a year now, but the newest to join the fray is the Olympus PEN E-PL1. The idea with this camera is that it can simplify the process for novices while providing spectacular quality photos. For instance, white balance is a “slider” going from cool to warm, rather than dealing with the esoteric terminology that populates the more professional space.

The Olympus E-PL1 uses the same 12.3-megapixel sensor as its E-P1 and E-P2 cousins, but it is the first in the range to include a built-in flash. There’s also the 2.7-inch HyperCrystal LCD with Live View, continuous autofocus, a number of different art filters (including one that mimics tilt-shit photography), and interchangeable lenses. The 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 Zuiko digital zoom lens is included in the bundle.

The newest Olympus PEN digital camera is currently on sale for less than $500 on Amazon Canada, which is a pretty good deal considering that some other online retailers are selling the E-PL1 for north of $600. Amazon has free shipping too.

Many people choose to call BlueFur their online home and one such individual is John Fearnall. He’s the guy behind Some Good Noise, a weblog dedicated to all sorts of interesting photography from just about every walk of life. He shares his pictures one at a time, opening your eyes to new perspectives.

Fearnall was born in Wingham, Ontario and is currently residing in Leith, Ontario, located about 180km north of Toronto. It is there that he takes on his role as a teacher and a photographer, as well as a husband and a father. You can check out his about page to get a better sense of what Fearnall does and why Some Good Noise should matter. He does think that he can change the world, after all.

You can navigate through the individual photographs by clicking on the “previous” and “next” navigation links toward the top of the main page, or you can head to the mosaic to access several of his latest thumbnails all at the same time. From Arnold Schwarzenegger to the endearing eyes of a pooch, from zombie walks to captivating sunsets, the photographs certainly are eclectic in nature.

Do you use BlueFur to host your websites? Let us know and we can feature you in a future blog post. Send an email message to blogfeature@bluefur.com with your name, website URL, and a brief description of what you’d like to see highlighted.

Sometimes, you just want to kick it old school. You may be very much ensconced in the world of high technology, but you also yearn for the simplicity of days gone by. If that happens to be the case, then the Desk Theme for WordPress from Nearfrog Web Design just might might be up your alley.

This “very clean and functional” theme is based on the concept of having a single lined piece of paper lying on a wooden desk. Perhaps it gives you the feeling of getting away from all, sitting down at a desk in your cabin in the woods, finally getting down to writing your memoirs on a regular pad of paper. This makes your blog feel approachable and familiar.

The Desk Theme features a simple two-column layout, allowing you to place pertinent navigational and section links in the sidebar. Some additional navigation links are just above the header image, giving readers quick access to whatever it is that they need. The theme is completely widgetized in its sidebar and footer. Other highlights include the custom menus, post image support, threaded comments, and admin control panel.

Check out the live demo to get a sense of what this theme can look like. Then, go to Nearfrog.com to grab the free download link and give Desk Theme a try on your own site.