It was about 8 years ago that Benedict XVI was elected pope, in 2005. 1/6th of the world rejoiced at their new leader, and the media was in a frenzy, while countless faithful Catholics pilgrimaged to Rome to witness their new pontiff. Wednesday was a big day that same chunk of the world's population: the...

"How dead are they," the Rodney Dangerfield-esque heckler might shout from the crowd? To which I would simply show this image, which graced my Facebook wall earlier today, utterly unprompted: My friend is internet savvy, and ecologically friendly. She doesn't want a quarter of a dead tree delivered annually to her front door, just so she...

It was the memo that went round the world.  Round kind of like the way the infamous Netflix email went round the world, but this one was kind of bitter-sweet. Andrew Mason, the co-founder of the largest Deal-Site, Groupon.com, was fired by his own company, and before leaving he fired off a missive of his own,...

Blumenthals ran a piece last month chronicling the sometimes deceptive practices of sales reps at companies like Yelp, who in effect prey upon local, small business owners who don't know better, in order to lock them into bad deals that rival the Yellow Pages (read: 12 month contracts at hundreds of dollars per month). Says the...

I have a confession to make.  I am a local-social marketer, and I hate mobile apps. Hate. Like, despise. I think that 90+ percent of them are a complete and utter waste of time. And the above XKCD illustrates the core frustration. And Yet... And yet, if your website sucks, people won't stick around. See,...

Here's a question I've heard posed often:  "How do I break into that 'Groupon pie?'" What's a Groupon? Groupon is the industry leader in a litany of websites purporting to offer "deals" on local establishments.  Generically, these are "Deal Sites". As we are a Local Marketing company, we've had an intense interest in such "Deal...

Did you hear that there was a football game at the Beyonce concert last night? Did you watch the game for the game, or for the commercials? It turns out that almost as many people tune in to watch the Super Bowl as tune in to watch the commercials and half time show.  Over the...

Good ol' Rand has a bit to say about unique content.  Ironically, I'm going to share some of what he has to say (but I'll link/attribute him, and thus lift him up in the eyes of the internet!). If you want your message to be seen, you need unique, relevant content that helps people.  Period....