Facebook seems to be in the news once again for a huge milestone. The news is, Facebook is expected to announce 500 million users. This Facebook news really does not surprise me because everywhere you look every company and every person seems to have a Facebook profile. So what does this kind of thing really mean to any of us? I guess it means that if you are one of the rare people that has not joined the Facebook craze, you are one of the very few lonely souls in the world to not jump on the band wagon.
The impact Facebook is having on all of our “worlds” is truly amazing and I believe it will be setting an example for the future of the internet and dealing with privacy issues. Stay tuned to see if Facebook reaches 1 billion users!

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Marketing comes in many different forms, one of the catchiest are the “stick in your head” jingles. According to Forbes.com these are the best advertising jingles as voted on by a group of CMO’s and advertising executives. To have a successful jingle, the consumer must listen to it, and not only like it – but want to sing it! Once people starting singing the jingle, they all essentially become advertisers for that brand. Were you ever caught singing any of these?

• I’d like to buy the world a Coke ( Coca Cola )
• Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener (Oscar Mayer)
• Two all beef patties (McDonalds)
• I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid (Toys ‘R Us)
• You Deserve a Break Today (McDonald’s)
• Wouldn’t you like to be a pepper too? (Dr. Pepper)
• Campbell’s Soup M’m M’m Good ( Campbell’s Soup)
• Plop, plop, fizz, fizz oh what a relief it is…(Alka Seltzer)
• Stuck on Me (Band-Aid)
• Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun (Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum)

Yahoo and Zillow are combining forces to make Zillow the exclusive sales partner to existing home sales advertisers on Yahoo. This partnership will form the largest real estate ad network for existing home advertisers. According to ClickZ,  Zillow which currently offers enhanced listings and profile pages for agents, will also be included on Yahoo Real Estate placements. Zillow’s for-sale listings, showcase ads, and featured listings will also be fed to Yahoo’s site. Yahoo Real Estate and Zillow currently rank second and third among top real estate sites, Realtor.com tops the rankings.

The two companies have worked together since 2006, and partnered separately with a large percentage of the same newspaper site publishers.. Bringing their resources together to become one bigger better force will logically be a positive move.

Many of us can’t wait to put our next Twitter update, Facebook status change, or access our email outside/inside of work. However, with this accessibility to our personal internet “pleasures”, IT managers are looking at potential problems with how our nation’s employees are creating “issues” with the company’s security. Does accessing our Facebook accounts and other social media put the company you are working for at jeopardy of bugs and viruses? Its seems the answer is yes.
Internetnews.com is reporting, “The security implications of these devices cannot be overstated. Between bugs in the operating system software for smartphones to complex phishing and malware scams birthed and proliferated on Facebook and Twitter, CIOs are constantly playing catch up as employees continue to bring more and more devices and risk into the enterprise. ”

So how does our IT departments manage all of their employees desire to “stay connected”? Sounds like a new project our IT managers might want to consider because it does not seem that this sort of thing is going to go away anytime soon.

Today was the day the Apple junkies have been waiting for! The iPhone 4 was released for sale today in the U.S. , Tokyo, France, Germany, the U.K. and Japan. Thousands of consumers lined up outside of stores for hours to get their hands on the newest model. The iPhone which more than 600,000 people pre-ordered forced AT&T to stop taking orders for pick up or shipment by today and could not promise delivery until July 14th.

The iPhone 4 retails for $199 or $299 depending on the amount of storage on the phone.

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Many companies use social media to generate more clients (consumers), however b2b companies are seeing that there might be some benefits with social media. Tweeting and posting status updates is a way of life with most consumers these days, however actual businesses online and “tweeting” is not necessarily as popular. Some are looking at maybe incorporating social media as a way to generate potential leads for their business. That being getting more consumers to their business or even trying to attract other businesses to their services. Companies like Dell target consumers, but now are looking at using social media to attract other businesses to utilize their products and services. This is something that many would not consider in previous years, however many are seeing that there could be some opportunity with social media. DMNews is reporting that places such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can also be a source for business to generate leads. So I guess if you are a business looking for more clients you might want to look at setting up accounts with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn soon, rather than later!

Leadpile is working with some b2b lead types and believes that there are ways that businesses can also look to the internet as a source of leads.

You would have to be in a hole if you did not hear the catastrophic disaster going on in the Gulf of Mexico. Two months ago an oil rig had an explosion that has since caused the worst oil spill ever! The company in the middle of this disaster is BP Global. BP is the third largest energy company, however it seems that this disaster has not prompted BP to turn to one of the biggest potential allies it could have: social networking sites. Why is that? With the number of people these social networking sites can reach, why would you not incorporate some sort of PR campaign through the internet?

Unfortunately, what seems to have happened is those on sites such as Twitter and Facebook have created BP bashing posts that have ultimately hurt BP even more that what this disaster has caused them financially. The question is should companies that are going through large “reputation killers” look to social media as a way to help their image? It seems that the public does think so because many appear to be upset that this company has not even made an effort to recover their image.
BP… might want to look to Facebook to help you put a happy “face” back on our nation’s
faces!

Do you wake up craving your morning dose of caffeine?

Recent research may be showing that caffeine addictions may hinder your ability to get the “pick-me-up” that the caffeine originally offered. Just like with other addictions, it is being noticed and researched that a tolerance can be developed to the effects of caffeine. Studies have shown that people who feel stimulated by their morning tea or coffee may be actually experiencing reversal of the fatiguing effects of caffeine withdrawal rather than a “boost” from the caffeine.

I don’t know about you, but I am not going to pass up my morning caffeine yet.. Whether it’s reversal of fatigue or an increase in my alertness delivered from my diet coke for breakfast, I need it!

Believe it or not the increase in smartphones has also impacted the online gaming market. Emarketer is predicting the revenues for mobile gaming are going to see a 19% increase this year, versus last year. With the accessability of gaming sites and also the creation of mobile apps, many individuals AND application designers have made the move into this online industry. The free apps available to consumers will probably see more success, but the eventual move to more paid downloadable apps could see more joining the bandwagon (because there might be more perks with a paid application versus the free applications). So with more and more starting to utilize gaming sites, does this mean potential regulations of the industry like it is with casinos and such?

Looks like we all have yet another reason to get “addicted” to our phones!

Twitter has made the decision to ban third-party advertisements on its site in an effort to keep control on the integrity and monetization of the site. According to PCWorld, Twitter is building a firewall that will block out the advertisments that tarnish the coherent “timeline”. As this change may help with the amount of “spam” you receive in your timeline, it also appears that Twitter would prefer to make money with its “Promoted Tweets platform” this change will restrict just anyone from posting their own advertisements.

Twitter has listed these 3 reasons as being behind this decision:

• Preserve Twitter’s unique user experience
• Focus on long-term monetization, rather than the short-term goals of third parties
• Ditch covering all costs of maintaining its network — third parties apparently shoulder little responsibility

Those who will be/will not be affected by this new change:

• Services that do not generate revenue, or do so without advertising (such as subscriptions), will not be affected.
• To pay, groups can establish a revenue split with Twitter or agree to license their data stream. Using Promoted Tweets is encouraged.

The fine details — such as minimum fees and revenue splits — have not been established and Twitter is likely to implement fees on a case-by-case basis.

LeadPile team members all have Twitter pages that can give you information regarding new or exciting offers before anyone else!

To follow us on Twitter:

LeadPile Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/Leadpile

Mari Holt LeadPile Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/mari_leadpile
Eugen Ilie LeadPile Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/Eugen_LeadPile
Natasha Aronov LeadPile Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/N_LeadPile

Is Facebook a friend or a fo? Recently there have been debates about the open privacy policy that the site has implemented. In Pakistan there have recently been public protests against Facebook due to content posted on a users page. The Pakistan government ordered Internet services to block Facebook recently over a user-posted page that promoted “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” – Islam’s Prophet Muhammad this act is prohibited by the religion and found offensive. According to Facebook, this page does not violate the site’s terms, but acknowledges that it may not be legal in some countries. Facebook’s terms and conditions make it hard to determine what is considered “hate speech” since the privacy has been adjusted and the profile information is no longer “private”.

Where do you think the line is crossed in free speech and hate speech? The first amendment leaves censorship to the province of the government, but also allows Facebook to govern what is posted. Knowing that your profile is no longer private, will this influence you to delete your information and no longer post?

In an effort to bring an advantage to Hotmail over Yahoo or Google Microsoft is completing upgrades to the free Web mail service , the changes expected to be available in July or August. According to the Associated Press, the upgrades will automatically sort incoming messages into different categories devoted to users’ key contacts and Internet social networks. It will also show a thumbnail preview of incoming photos or videos without having to open the attachment. The improvements are also going to make syncing Hotmail on mobile phones easier.

Currently Yahoo’s email service has 95 million U.S. users, Hotmail trails behind with 47 million and Gmail a close 3rd with 43 million.