Jan
30th

Punxsutawney Phil – Prognosticator of Online Popularity

Posted by Natalie on January 30, 2009 at 3:09 pm

With one of my favorite holidays right around the corner, I couldn’t have asked for better timing to write a blog post.

Next Monday, February 2nd, Punxsutawney Phil, “the Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators,” will come out of his burrow on Gobbler’s Knob, in front of thousands of anxious fans from all over the world, to predict how much longer winter will last.

gobblers knob by eddie s

Image: Gobbler’s Knob by Eddie~S

Do six more, long, freezing, dark weeks of winter lie ahead of us, or will our sentence be pardoned by the arrival of an early spring?

While some of you may share the perhaps overzealous passion I have about this holiday, there may be some of you lost souls out there wondering, who is Punxsutawney Phil and why would anyone in their right mind travel across the world to see this thing crawl out of a hole?

Well, to gather some more information for you I searched Punxsutawney Phil on Google and was pleasantly surprised to see that there are many folk out there who take delight in this holiday just about as much as I do!

The first site that pops up with a Google search is PunxsutawneyPhil.com, and this site showcases the businesses that sponsor this event. (And yes, I repeat, this event does have sponsors!) It additionally displays pictures from past Groundhog Days, along with sound clips about Phil’s forecast! If you’re feeling particularly prompted by this holiday, you can even purchase Punxsutawney gear to sport the day of the event!

Groundhog.org is the second site the appears on my Google search, and this site actually features a live timer counting down the days, hours, minutes, and even seconds until Phil makes his heroic journey out of his hole-and for many of us, predicts our fate. It also answers many frequently asked questions about this holiday, and for all of you doubters out there wondering how often Phil’s prediction is correct, the answer is 100% of the time according to Groundhog.org – so I doubt there’s any room for error.

Additionally, if you’re wondering how many Punxsutawney Phil’s there have been, rest assured that there has only been one and he’s been the same one making predictions for over 120 years! Groundhog.org also fills us in on the highly sought after question of how Phil gets his longevity? Evidently, it is from drinking the “elixir of life,” a secret recipe that Phil takes one sip of every summer at the Groundhog Picnic that magically gives him seven more years of life. (Boy, don’t we wish they posted this recipe somewhere online as well – I’ll keep my eye out!)

Lastly, if you really want to prepare yourself for what 2009’s Groundhog Day will have in store for you, you can watch coverage of 2008’s events on YouTube:

Until then, keep your fingers crossed that Phil won’t see his shadow and that we will have an early arrival of spring or else, “Hear ye, hear ye, if it’s his shadow he sees, six more weeks of winter it shall be!”

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Jan
29th

Oneupweb Reviews : Lotsa Helping Hands

Posted by Duncan on January 29, 2009 at 4:18 pm

Today’s Oneupweb Review is the website LotsaHelpingHands.com.

This site has been an instrumental tool to coordinate a large group of people who seek to help a dear friend that was recently diagnosed with brain cancer at the young age of 35. She is scheduled for 6 weeks of radiation and chemotherapy. Her husband and young son will need tons of support to get through this.

LotsaHelpingHands.com makes it easy to get a group of people organized around everything from bringing meals, feeding pets, helping with snow removal, and more.

The site is a perfect example of how people can get connected online for little or no cost. With sites like LotsaHelpHands.com it makes it easier for people to get out there and do something positive for their communities. It becomes harder and harder to make excuses for not volunteering some of your time for the greater good.

Below is a look at the homepage of LotsaHelpingHands.com.

While we found this ideal to help our dear friend (and her family) get through the tough stages of aggressive cancer treatment, there are many more great causes that apply. For instance this could be a great site to get organized around friends or family that are having a new baby, any kind of coordinated volunteer effort, church functions, eldercare and more.

It was easy to get started. Simply fill out the form (see image below) to get registered and start planning. We had actually been referred to the site by a friend that posted the idea on my wife’s Facebook Wall. Good stuff and fitting that we used a social network site to find other networking tools.

On a side note our friends are in a growing age group of Facebook users. Our average age is above 35. Please don’t ever tell me Facebook is really only for young people and college students. That may have once been true, but no longer.

My wife took the lead on this and believe me she is not terribly tech savvy. She wasn’t even sure our friends would find LotsaHelpingHands.com easy to use. She showed it to me and I was impressed. My wife selected a few other key friends to assign as administrators within the LotsaHelpingHands.com environment. The rest of the friends and family group were invited via email to take part.

It has been a tremendous success. We have just about everything booked and covered for the next 6 weeks. Most of our friends have thanked us for taking the initiative to get this setup. And it has relieved us just a little bit from the stress and worry we have for our sick friend. Every little bit counts when you are dealing with such heavy issues.

This is a new era in connectivity more and more people are connected via social sharing and social networking sites. President Obama reminds us that:

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Sites like LotsaHelpingHands.com make it easy for YOU to get involved and start making change a reality rather than a talking point.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Oneupweb Reviews on StraightUpSearch, social media-related reviews on our sister blog StraightUpSocial, and product-focused Oneupweb Reviews on Epinions.

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Jan
28th

Hey Yahoo! – Fix Search, Don't Sell It!

Posted by Vern on January 28, 2009 at 10:13 am

Poor Jerry Yang. Handing the reins of his creation over to Carol Bartz must have been tough. Her no-nonsense approach will be a stark contrast to the mild-mannered indecision exhibited by Yang when the going got tough.

Many in the press and the search industry pilloried him for not selling to Microsoft. In this case hindsight is truly 20/20. C’mon, give the guy a break. Who could have predicted the present state of the economy and it’s effect on Yahoo! when he was negotiating with Redmond?

Ms. Bartz hit the ground running. Kicking ass, taking names, saying goodbye to the old guard. Quickly making the obvious changes required to keep her new employer afloat. But one recent action really got my attention. Killing the Yahoo! Publisher Network outside the U.S.

carol bartz photo by yodel anecdotal

Image: Yahoo!’s new CEO Carol Bartz by Yodel Anecdotal

Yahoo! recently informed advertisers in the UK, Germany and elsewhere that, effective March 31st, 2009, the Yahoo! Publisher Network will cease to exist. In the email Yahoo! cited its intent to “deliver a high ROI for our advertisers.”

This is awesome! But what about us? What about advertisers in the U.S.? ROI is important to my clients too! In my opinion, Bartz should waste no time in shuttering the Publisher Network here as well. And if the reality is that they can’t shutter it because of the revenue opportunities, blow it up and start over. If you have good partners, with real traffic, that drives conversions, my budgets are all yours, but what’s out there now is like a wasteland.

We’ve tested Yahoo! Content ad placements, and in the early years CTR was high and ROI acceptable. Then something changed. Traffic shrank, CTR was still high, but ROI was terrible almost across the board. We quickly realized that the poor results didn’t justify the click spend and pulled all clients ads out of the Yahoo! Publisher Network. We’ll test exposure in the Publisher Network occasionally, but almost always conclude it’s a waste of our clients money and of time to try and manage all that.

I have no idea what amount of resources Yahoo! has allocated to this area of its business in the U.S. But I’m sure Yahoo!’s bottom line would benefit by terminating the program here as they’ve done offshore.

This isn’t the only fix that Yahoo! needs to make to improve its search business, but it’s one that would be a huge step in improving everyone’s ROI. Just friggin’ do it Carol!

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Jan
27th

Oneupweb Reviews : The Pope on YouTube

Posted by Starr on January 27, 2009 at 3:57 pm

Catholic friends of mine are often accused by their parents of seeing Father Pillow instead of Father Michael at the local St. Mary’s on Sunday mornings. Those friends all have different reasons for sleeping in on Sunday and not attending mass, but one big excuse I hear is that the Catholic Church isn’t modern.

Does the recent creation of the Vatican’s YouTube channel mean Pope Benedict XVI is adopting modernism? Will this help a few of my friends think the church is modern enough for them to wake up and go to church on Sunday?

vatican youtube channel screenshot

Maybe it will or maybe it won’t. But one thing the Vatican’s YouTube channel will do is give the Catholic Church an opportunity to do a little reputation management specifically aimed at Catholics, like my friends, who were hoping for a slightly more modern Pope.

Prior to becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was a close advisor to Pope John Paul II and was well known for his conservative defense of doctrinal purity, which included preventing more liberal ideas from swaying the Church to adopt more modern ways. Upon becoming Pope in 2005, the Pontiff even named himself after Benedict XV, who was an opponent of doctrinal modernism.

Now the Pope is embracing modern technology to promote a very old message of hope to the Internet generation.

“You must find new ways to spread voices and images of hope through the ever-evolving communication system that surrounds our planet,” says the Pope in a YouTube video entitled: Internet A New Way to Speak of God.

The Pope continues to talk of how it’s important to reach the digital generation that is searching for the church, and to do so the Catholic Church needs to be more readily accessible to “enrich a wide range of people including those who have yet to find a response to their spiritual yearnings,” according to the Vatican’s video entitled: Internet Can Promote the Search For Truth.

As of this posting, the Vatican YouTube Channel has 23 videos posted with an average of approximately 10,000 views per video and more than 10,000 channel subscribers. New videos are uploaded daily that highlight the Popes visits and messages, such as supporting unity and peace.

Control of the Catholic Church’s image is evident by the channel’s well-designed YouTube page, requiring approval for comments and preventing users from embedding the Vatican’s videos. Embedding can increase video views, but it was smart of the Catholic Church to prevent users from placing video in a way that could potentially harm its reputation or purpose for implementing the channel.

The Official Oneupweb Review… OneUp Thumbs-Up to the Vatican’s YouTube Channel. The Catholic Church adopting online social networking is a momentous event in the history of the Internet. But will it help my friends leave Father Pillow on Sunday? Only time will tell.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Oneupweb Reviews on StraightUpSearch, social media-related reviews on our sister blog StraightUpSocial, and product-focused Oneupweb Reviews on Epinions.

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Jan
27th

Let's Get Dirty: The 2009 Oneupweb Rebrand Process (Week 2)

Posted by Maureen on January 27, 2009 at 10:22 am

Welcome to week 2 of Let’s Get Dirty: The 2009 Oneupweb Rebrand Process.

I’m still your host, telling it like it is and bringing you the true view from the inside of our complete rebranding process. It’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. Uncensored (for the most part).

This past week was absolutely crazy. Our writer must have broken at least four pencils in an effort to get the copy just right (if he used pencils – in reality, he probably just pounded on the space key extra hard). His mission was to nail the true Oneupweb voice while explaining to the world just who we are, what we do and how we do it.

007 logo So in true 007 style he downed a martini (shaken, not stirred), kissed a dashing young girl, jumped into his Alfa Romeo and sped off to get the job done. Or in reality, he poured a cup of coffee, sat down at his desk and began typing furiously. Either way, it’s Mission: Accomplished.

Now, if my CEO reads this, she’ll probably tell me that’s not enough information. Alright! Alright! I’ll give you all the details (just take that shiny light out of my eyes). And let me start by saying, it really wasn’t that easy.

Who we are, we know. It’s been decided. But how to explain that in a voice that is uniquely our own, with enough information so that we don’t have people calling and asking, “Just what is it exactly that you do,” took a little bit of time. And some old fashioned hard work.

he-man Should the copy be funny? Should the copy be straightforward? Should we reference He-Man (I Have the Power!)? In the end, we decided it should be written in the exact way we communicate to our clients-straightforward and to the point, with just a little bit of humor.

Spoiler Alert: He-man got axed. But Godzilla and the Incredible Hulk are in.

I myself was completely engrained in case studies. Researching, writing, rewriting, getting testimonials, rewriting again. As weird as it sounds, they’re something I’m passionate about. Anytime I ever consider suggesting a company to work with, I always go to their case studies first to see what kind of results they’ve achieved for others.

The designers have been busy flexing their creative muscles. Management didn’t really want their photographs displayed on the website, but it’s always nice to put a face with a name, so a unique solution had to be found. And what we came up with is quite a Marvel.

Image: Oneupweb Rebrand Team

Did I mention that the original site map we have been working from got completely redone late last week? How could I forget! I lost a few strands of hair thanks to that. But I have to admit – it was for the right reasons.

During a rebrand process, you may find yourself headed down a path that made sense in the beginning. But something causes you to pause and ask if it’s really the right thing to do-or just the easy thing to do. In the words of Robert Frost, we took the road less traveled by. And I think that will make all the difference.

See ya’ next Tuesday!

But wait? Did you miss last week’s Let’s Get Dirty post where we pondered the age old question: are we crazy? Check it out to discover our new color palette, learn about the Oneupweb personality and be sure not to miss any of our Julie Andrews goodness.

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