Read an article today from one of my favorite blogs on the web - ReadWriteWeb.com.  They have decided to use Buzz a bit differently than the rest and it has finally brought that big ol' light bulb back into my head.  Now I sit here realizing what the potential of Buzz is as another social avenue.  While first using Buzz, I was a bit annoyed as I followed people only to see regurgitated info (tweets, blog posts etc.) that could be viewed on all the other sites I connect with them on. It just felt like one big redundant way to gather and broadcast content.   However, RWW wrote the following about their hopes in using the tool:

..."We won't be cluttering up our own Buzz stream with bot-like aggregations and self-promotion. As we've said, if you want to get RWW news, there are many other platforms well-suited to that.  We're really looking forward to getting to you know as individuals in a more casual online environment.

What if we were to cut out all of the self-promotion and all of the links and truly use it to ask questions of one another? Discuss Issues?  Ones that won't just be limited to a 140 @ reply.  These could be questions and discussions that can truly be talked about with a wide variety of people all at once?

One could argue that Facebook can service this need but again, Facebook also consists of the clutter of applications, multimedia, links and thensome.  Perhaps Buzz could be in between for what is defined as a chatroom/forum/blog. People will not feel compelled to write lengthy blog posts in order to evoke response.  Perhaps brands could use it to gather authentic information and input from their customers all in one place without having to ask on their Facebook fan pages where fan comments/company announcements and more are clustered together.

I had left Buzz up and running just in case I finally figured out a use.  If more people were to consider this approach, we may be onto something.  I would say an occasional link posted on an article/topic would be sufficient providing it was not something necessarily tweeted and blogged about on their other social accounts.  While it may be a pain to keep up with yet another site, it may be beneficial as we can lessen our interactions on other sites to gain the same insight/feedback we require as professionals, individuals and companies on a weekly basis.  What do you think?

Ok.  So I've seen the reviews of Google's new G1 phone and as a happy T-Mobile customer, I'm very, very tempted to buy it.  I'm quite impulsive with electronic purchases at times (I will admit) but bought the Blackberry Curve only 2 months ago.  I enjoy having the Blackberry Messenger and all of the various applications that have been created for the device over the years but am tempted to have the "newest" thing and discovering all that Google has to offer via a phone.  I suppose I should be patient and wait for more reviews until I jump into it... but part of me wants to buy it and discover it for myself and spread the word!  Will it be as "professional" as the Blackberry?  Will it be the iPhone killer?  Oh the questions!

Engadget has had several posts about the phone today - located here, here and here.  (There's more on the site if you look).

What do you guys think?

I've been MIA.  I'd like to say I was busy changing the world or striking up the most insane business deals but neither are the case.  Either way, I'm here today and I'm posting so that's a good thing?

I just noticed when I searched on Google (exclusively through Google Chrome), that after you type in the keyword you are looking for, Google suggests you search on various other search engines?  I'm confused!  Yahoo is the first they suggest you search on and MSN is nowhere to be found on the list. *Update: My mommy brain seemed to have missed "LIVE" on the list.  So yes, MSN is on the list*  Sure this makes it easier for us as searches looking for the most comprehensive list of results without having to pull up a million browsers but what is the benefit for Google?  Innerestin'.

Update: I ran a few more searches and the suggestion of other search engines is gone.  Could this be something Google is testing?

The rather upsetting Serp spam (That I spoke of in my last article) that inhibits Google under my name is still there and I have since reported it but am unsure as to how long it will take for them to remove it.  (I'm guessing a while)

The URL of the site is stio-group.com/english/_images/7gcbc/kate-dickman.html

What I did was simply paste stio-group.com/english/_images/7gcbc into Google and up came two more results that yielded the same horrible website.  One was for a woman by the name of Linda Zillman (who barely yields any Google results but is apparently the wife of some President at a University in Maine - random?) as well as results for some sort of Mitsubishi power supply?  When searching for either of these (very rarely searched terms), up pops up the same infected site that comes up for mine.   I looked a bit deeper and it seems another keyword - Dungeon Lords Patch 1 4 (which is apparently a popular gaming download) is infected as well. 

The oddest thing of all?  The STIO Group situated at http://www.stio-group.com/, is a French Freight Forwarding and Logistics company.

Talk about random.  I'm pretty confused to say the least... :-/ 

Yet ANOTHER update:

I decided to try my name on Yahoo & MSN and I see it on the second page of MSN for my name! Only this time under a totally different URL (TWO sites)......it's under Kate Klingsmith (who is ALL over the web) but ranks for my name..whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhat is this nonsense!!?!?! It basically looks like this type of spam/malware is randomly searching out keywords to rank high for and infect and somehow using various websites as URL's to direct you to... I wonder how many other sites/keywords they hijacked? If you look closer, they are trying to rank for "Kate McCann - Mother of Maddie" (the little girl from the UK who is missing as well as some forest products and just a bunch of things. Is this common at all?

SERP SPAM