Uber-blogger Robert Scoble is applauding Dell's efforts to reach out to its customers, admit the company's mistakes and improve customer service going forward. Granted, there is still along way to go but how many other top-tier companies do you see admiting their mistakes and actively engaging in conversations with customers? That's right - practically none. Dell should be indeed be applauded. Of course, the proof is in the pudding and there will be plenty of sceptics watching Dell very closely over the coming months to ensure that the company is doing what it says it will do. But, Dell does seem sincere in their desire to correct past mistakes and make good on their promised improvements. This is a great example of effective corporate blogging, but it needs to be backed up by effective corporate actions.
Are your business files safe from thieves, fire, and other disaster? Do you have your most important business documents, spreadsheets, files and data secured at an off-site location so you can actually sleep at night? If not, you better better wake up early tomorrow and consider some of the backup solutions from a few of the providers available. Shit happens. Make sure your stuff is safe.
Link: Off Site Data Storage
"Not that you won't want to save your files to your own computer as extra insurance, but the feeling of knowing all your long, hard hours of work are safely stored somewhere after you do experience a major computer failure can not only save your sanity, but your life."
A Google-branded phone could be a boon for small business bloggers. Mobile blogging is growing more popular everyday. It's relatively easy, for bloggers. For small business owners, mobile blogging can be complicated, time-consuming and frustrating. All that and a lot more could change if the rumors of a Google phone turn out to be accurate.
Google phone could offer a suite of easy-to-use features that integrate their full line of services. Google has been rolling out a bevy of mobile services recently, a couple of which are simply brilliant: Mobile Gmail, and Mobile Reader. Matching these stellar products with mobile versions of Blogger, AdSense/AdWords and put it all on a cutting-edge cell phone - possibly a free cell phone, according to rumors - and you've got one heckuva powerful small business tool. Mobile blogging and data/content management on-the-fly will be much easier in the future. And as the cell phone/mobile hand-held quickly becomes the center of our online, connected, in-touch lives, it's hard to believe that Google wouldn't be in the forefront, chomping at the bit for a piece of the pie. That's a good thing for small business owners.
You did it! Wow, what an honor! You, yes you, are Time's person of the year.
In a move that acknowledges the ascendancy of the social web, Time magazine has named their Person of the Year for 2006, and it's you, me, all of us. Millions of people around the globe comprise the social web and the number is growing everyday. Today's Internet is an increasingly a place where people easily create and connect, transcending borders and time itself. It is a people-power thing. It is all about you.
The big players of the social web - YouTube, Flickr, del.icio.us, Blogger etc. - are the obvious catalyst for so much of the current evolution of the web and they get the requisite attention in the article, but the people, the contributors - the fuels for these sites is what what makes them great. And that fuel is you.
