testing posterous.

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Shoutlet - social media communication platform for social media marketers

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Create, distribute, track, and engage with video, polls, text messaging, podcasts, RSS, e-mail, and more all through one multi-user application designed specifically for marketers.

Exploring Shoutlet. Have you tried it?

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

PostRank™ Analytics - Real Time Social Monitoring

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Constant Contact Acquires NutshellMail to Move into Social Media Marketing

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E-mail marketing giant Constant Contact has acquired NutshellMail, a service that lets businesses track and post updates to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn via e-mail.

It's a mashed up world where pretty much everything will be social media enabled -- so much so that we'll soon stop calling it social media because most sites and tools online will come socialmediafied by default.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Combine Social Media and E-Mail Marketing - Grow Your Audience

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Social media and e-mail marketing work differently.
Social media gives public conversations a forum. Anyone with an opinion, content or a link to share can join the conversation. It's fast, fluid, timely and interactive. It's also fleeting. That's where social media and e-mail communications differ. Your posts on social media websites flow downstream with all the other messages. If you tweet in the morning and your customer logs on in the afternoon, that follower may miss out on what you had to say.

On the other hand, e-mail offers a more intimate level of contact with your customers. When someone opens your e-mail newsletter, you have a quiet moment of her time.

These are five great, basic tips to be where your customers are, use your email lists to build your social media presence, repurpose your content, and use social media to invite people to your website or blog or to sign up for your email newsletter.

Cross pollinate and milk your content for all it's worth in all of your channels. If you write something ask yourself where else you can use that same content in the same or slightly revised format or context or medium.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Vancouver Internet Marketing and Web Design Services offered by Stir Solutions, a Social Media Advertising Agency

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Strategy, Internet Marketing & Web Design Services

Since 2002, Stir Communications Group has designed, developed and implemented critical internet marketing, creative and technical solutions for clients in the US, Canada and around the world.
We continuously adapt our marketing services and solutions to deliver success under rapidly changing technology and business conditions.

Contact one of our Vancouver Internet marketing or web development experts at Stir today for a free consultation or estimate.


Strategy and Consulting
  • Strategic planning and consulting
  • Internet Marketing Strategy: organic, pay-per-click, social media, email marketing
  • Seminars and training
  • Online branding/reputation consultation

Web Design & Development

  • Website design & redesign
  • Landing page design
  • Facebook custom page design & programming
  • Microsite development
  • Content management systems - commercial & open source
  • Adobe Business Catalyst CMS
  • HTML newsletter development
  • Online database development
  • Website architecture & planning
  • Persuasive architecture
  • Information architecture
  • Design, content and conversion optimization

Internet Marketing

  • Organic Marketing
  • Pay-per-click PPC advertising (Google, Yahoo, Bing)
  • Email marketing
  • Search engine optimization
  • Search engine marketing
  • Online reputation management
  • Local search marketing
  • Mobile & geo location marketing
  • iPhone apps & marketing
  • Business Catalyst marketing
  • Video and image marketing
  • Viral & buzz marketing
  • Mobile marketing
  • Media buying & online advertising
  • Seeding: blogs, forums, groups
  • Copywriting and press releases
  • Online community development
  • Keyword and site analysis
  • Analytics and reporting

Social Media

  • Social media marketing
  • Social media monitoring & reporting
  • Social media reputation management
  • Social media brand management
  • Facebook marketing (pages, groups, fans)
  • Facebook custom page design
  • Facebook advertising campaigns
  • Twitter marketing strategy
  • Twitter account management
  • Twitter advertising campaigns
  • LinkedIn account management
  • LinkedIn advertising campaigns
  • Social network(s) account management
  • Youtube account management
  • Youtube advertising campaigns
  • Blog marketing
  • Foursquare & Gowalla marketing
  • Google profiles

Online Business Solutions

  • Web project management
  • Marketing integration
  • Analytics tracking & reporting
  • White label solutions

Stir is a full service Internet marketing & web solutions agency - Contact us today about your project.

A summary of services offered by Stir Solutions Internet marketing & web agency in Vancouver Canada

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media and Web Design Advertising Agency - Stir Communications Group

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Stir's new Vancouver Internet marketing & web solutions agency website is now online at http://www.StirSolutions.com .

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Apple iPad Launches Internationally (But Lacks Snacks Inside)

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Although it came early to an address or two yesterday, Apple’s “magical” tablet is officially available today in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Soon maybe the backs of cereal boxes will be touch screens something like the ipad screen adn then kids can play games via wifi against each other on their own boxes of cereal at the kitchen table, and on the bus on the way to school. An ipad with sugar snacks inside. Now you're talking.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

The 7 Deadly Sins of Google Local Listings

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In my “teenage internet marketing years” when I was first playing around with local listings, I experimented with many things that might not exactly be 100% down the whitehat trail of happiness. Now, I am much older, much wiser, much worse looking, and I have been able to determine a few practices that might be tempting for some, but to me they are 7 deadly sins that will ultimately lead down a path of destruction for your local listing.

1. Stuffing Your Business Title With Keywords
2. Putting Location Keywords in your Categories
3. Using a P.O. Box For Your Business Address
4. Using a call tracking number
5. Faking Reviews
6. Hiding Your Address
7. Stuffing your description with duplicate information

Need help with getting your business listed in Google Local listings? Contact Vancouver marketing consultant Brent Purves at http://www.brentpurves.com or email brent[at]stirgroup.com today

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Twitter Blog: Twitter for iPhone

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Comprehensive analysis of the Twitter user experience in the iTunes App Store showed very plainly that people were looking for an app from Twitter—we didn't have one so they generally got confused and gave up. Obviously, we saw room for improvement. Starting today, Twitter for iPhone and iPod touch is available for free on the iTunes App Store.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Make content 'good enough to steal,' Maggie Fox tells Mesh | Marketer News

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The objective should be to create "social objects—things worth spreading, things worth sharing," said Fox. Sometimes that content has to be created by the brand, but other times consumers are creating it for you. Videos, blog posts... it should all be viewed as content to build your brand, she said. 

"It just has to be good. It just has to better… People don't get tired of good."

But just as important as creating good content and taking advantage of earned content created by consumers, is sharing the content quickly and effectively.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Google Wave: Now open to the public | Deep Tech - CNET News

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Google Wave, a Web-based tool to let people chat and collaborate in real time, is now open to the public.

The Google service brought a social dimension when it arrived with much fanfare a half year ago, but in that domain, it was overshadowed by Google Buzz. Buzz, built directly into the widely used Gmail, had a much better built-in user base from the start.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Putting email in context with Gmail contextual gadgets

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Contextual gadgets in Gmail – like YouTube, Google Docs and Picasa previews – intelligently display relevant information from other systems as you read your email, so you can be more efficient without leaving your inbox.

Starting today, third party developers can build Gmail contextual gadgets and distribute them in the Google Apps Marketplace. These gadgets can display information from social networks, business services, web applications and other systems, and users can interact with that data right within Gmail.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

PolicyTool for Social Media

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PolicyTool is a policy generator that simplifies the process of creating guidelines that respect the rights of your employees while protecting your brand online.*

It's easy. The streamlined process simply requires you to answer a brief questionnaire and provides you with a complete Social Media Policy customized to your company.

Nice simply social media policy tool builder. You can try it and just put junk into the fields to see what the end product looks like.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Social Media For Business - Foursquare and Gowalla universal check-in macro geo-location social shopping

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While Gowalla and Foursquare checking in and gathering badges and become a place-mayor is still a novelty, many businesses can take advantage of check-in incentives as an additional way to lure the tech-savvy to their establishment. What happens, however, when nearly every store in a shopping mall offers something free if you're their Foursquare mayor or offers virtual Gowalla goodies redeemable for real stuff? Will people take the time to open those different social apps to explore what check-in incentives exist at each store they like? Will a geo-location macro hybrid app that runs on most mobile devices that lists all participating stores in the the whole shopping mall (or nationwide) make it easier for people if, say, when an opted-in app-user came within a short distance of the shopping area the app pushed a text message announcing available deals for stores of interest? What apps have you seen to date that are trying to accomplish this? Perhaps both Foursquare and/or Gowalla will add functionality of this nature and make it much easier not only for customers to use to find businesses offering incentives, but also for small businesses to buy into geo-location incentive marketing campaigns.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Tools For Businesses On Foursquare - Social Media Marketing for Business

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Should your business join Foursquare?

The answer depends on what type of business you are and the demographic of your customer. Local consumer oriented busineses that depend on foot traffic will get the most out of Foursquare, especially if your customers are gadget-friendly, smart phone owners. However, your business has to be something that people want to tell others about. It might be pretty hard to get someone to check in to a dry cleaner store, but if you offer check in incentives (like dry cleaning coupons), Foursquare just might work for you.

Need assistance with using Foursquare, Gowalla and other geo-location mobile apps for your business or non profit marketing campaign? Contact social media marketing consultant Brent Purves in Vancouver Canada at brent[at]stirgroup.com today http://www.BrentPurves.com and http://www.StirGroup.com

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Facebook SEO: 5 Ways To Improve Your Facebook SEO - Facebook Page Custom FBML Landing Page Design

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With reports that Facebook sees more traffic than Google, it makes sense that many SMB owners are getting serious about setting up shop on the hip social networking site. Facebook pages are often being used in lieu of a real Web site (which I’d caution against) or as a business’ second home on the Web. With all the opportunities that Facebook provides for small business owners, it’s important that you take the proper steps to increase your SEO efforts on the site. 

Need assistance optimizing your facebook page for search engines? Need a company to design and program a custom FBML Facebook landing page for your facebook PPC advertising campaign or just to improve your Facebook page's professional appeal? Contact Brent Purves at brent[at]stirgroup.com today http://www.BrentPurves.com in Vancouver Canada for a free Facebook marketing consultation.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

New AdWords ID Data in Google Analytics API - Got any great ideas for mashups between adwords and analytics APIs?

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Google Analytics helps marketers measure the performance of their ad campaigns. By linking Google Analytics and AdWords accounts, advertisers get a detailed picture of the performance of their ad creatives and keywords. Manually optimizing campaigns works well for the top 100 or 1000 keywords, but can be a challenge for the 1000+ keywords in the long tail.

Got any great ideas for mashups between adwords and analytics APIs?

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Credit Card Scanner Square Comes to iPhone - (not avail in CDN iTunes Store yet)

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Square is a mobile credit card transaction application founded by Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame. The app became available for the iPad about one month ago, and now it’s also available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

3D Television Coming Whether You Want it Or Not

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the first three-dimensional televisions are appearing in stores. Some of them come with a free Blu-ray disc of “Monsters v Aliens”, which serves as a reminder that the path of human progress is not always predictable. Yet TV programme-makers and media firms reckon that the technology will prove epochal nonetheless.

I'd guess that 3d tv & movies will soon become as commonplace as color in television or wifi in coffee shops or street-corner hot dog stands with their own Twitter accounts. Mix all of these things together and you might just have something...

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Yahoo's New Ad Disses Google. (It isn't working for me -- all my junk in one place in a big pile? Sometimes (very often) I just want search and nothing to distract me from search

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Yahoo launched a new $75-$85 million ad campaign (a subset of the $100 million campaign CEO Carol Bartz launched last year) that positions Yahoo as the single destination for all your online needs. Its slogan: “Your favorite stuff all in one place. Make Yahoo your home page.” Its first target: Google.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Bing Adds Facebook, Twitter Sharing To Shopping

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There are a number of “social shopping” sites and, of course, numerous product or shopping-related blogs. Among the most visible in the first category are Kaboodle, ThisNext/Stylehive and Polyvore. They offer tools and features that allow people to share, compare and vote on products. The mainstream shopping comparison engines such as Shopping.com or PriceGrabber don’t fully enter into this realm, although Shopping.com is giving away an iPad if you become a “fan” on Facebook:

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Microsoft Announces Social Aggregator - (Facebook, Twitter, Bing etc)

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spindex_logo.pngLili Cheng, General Manager of Microsoft's Fuse Labs, announced the debut of Spindex, the company's stab at a dynamic social media aggregation tool.

Aimed at bringing together the varied strands of a personal web at each point of a user's online experience, Spindex is currently only available in a tech preview.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

All Google Services To Be Available on Google Apps Later This Year

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At Google Atmosphere last month, Google Apps President David Girouard said that the company gets lots of requests to open more apps from the Google portfolio.

Google responded to those requests today and later this Fall will make available all Google services for Google Apps customers. No date was set. The apps include Blogger, Google Reader, Google News and others.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Save the date, June 17 – Launch Party Vancouver 9 « Bootup Entrepreneurial Society

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Are you ready for the next Launch Party!?
We had hoped to do LPV9 in January but with the Olympics, we had a hard time locking down a venue that was central and could accommodate all of us without breaking the bank. BUT we are excited to announce that we FINALLY found one!  The Roundhouse in Yaletown has approved our application to hold the next Launch Party there on Thursday, June 17th, 2010. It will be a great way to kick off the summer season and celebrate the best new startups of 2010.

Superheroes Wanted!
We are looking for the best Internet startups around to apply to show-off their wares at LPV9.  If accepted, there is no cost at all for you to demo and participate in the event.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Coordinate for Efficiency and Accuracy with HootSuite Assignments - Social Media Tools

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Many customer service groups, support desks, and collaborative teams depend on social networks as a primary way to manage requests. With HootSuite’s new assignment feature, these teams can ensure all messages are handled quickly and efficiently by the correct personnel. When implemented, these tools will help teams assist customers and clients more quickly, more accurately, and with less redundancy.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Broadcast TV And Web Media Sites Winning In Online Video, Twitter Users Most Engaged

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In a joint report put out today by Brightcove and Tubemogul (embedded below), the non-YouTube sites seeing the most success with online video are those of the broadcast TV networks and Web-only media brands, followed by magazine sites and music labels. Newspaper sites are lagging when it comes to both total video views and growth.

In terms of how people are finding these videos, a little more than half (51.75 percent) are navigating directly from the publisher’s main site. Following that, Google search is the next biggest source of video-viewing traffic (38.92 percent), followed by Yahoo (5.58 percent), Bing (2.29 percent) and Facebook barely registers (with only 0.40 percent). Twitter is even smaller, but people who find videos are more engaged than any of these other sources of traffic, on average watching videos longer across different media categories.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

New Reason to Submit Businesses to Google Maps: Google Navigator and Personal Information Management Integration?

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If you have a business where you want customers to visit in person, and you haven’t added and/or verified that business in Google Maps, you may want to consider doing so. You can do this regardless of whether you have a web site or not.

The Google Navigator system that Google has developed for mobile phones allows people to navigate to destinations in their cars

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

8 Things I Wish I Knew When Starting My First Business

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If you are afraid of something that you aren’t too familiar with, suck it up and deal with it. The worse that can happen is that you’ll stumble along the way.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

With Bumptop, Google Gains Multi-Touch Ammo - PCWorld

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Google just landed some impressive 3D desktop software in its purchase of Bump Technologies, but a looming patent battle with Apple suggests that Google also had BumpTop's multi-touch technology on the brain when it gobbled up the company.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Consumer Reports: Half of Social Network Users are "Oversharing," on Facebook, Twitter, Endangering Privacy

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Those who "overshare" online - posting personal information like full names, children's names, home addresses and details about when they're away from home - are "especially vulnerable," notes the report.

To counteract these dangers, Consumer Reports made the following seven suggestions of things you should stop doing on Facebook:

  1. Using a weak password
  2. Listing a full birth date
  3. Overlooking privacy controls
  4. Posting a child's name in a caption
  5. Mentioning being away from home
  6. Letting yourself be found by a search engine
  7. Permitting youngsters to use Facebook unsupervised

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Posting from Email to Posterous to Twitter all from inside Gmail

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I'm writing this email in Gmail to my special Posterous email address. It automatically posts to Posterous, along with whatever attachments I've included in my email, and then Posterous automatically posts the email Subject and first 140 characters to Twitter.

Posted via email from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Lowest Price Business Catalyst Web Design, Programming, Outsourcing Company Business Goodbarry CMS Solutions - Online Business Guys Canada USA

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Websites are dead.

It's time for an Online Business. 
The Online Business Guys easy-to-use low cost Adobe Business Catalyst system (formerly Goodbarry) is designed to meet your specific business needs - allowing you to focus on your goals, not mastering the technology behind it.

Take a Free 30-Day Trial

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Good low cost business catalyst cms & hosting and certified adobe business catalyst partner serving Business Catalyst clients in USA, Canada, Europe, Australia http://www.OnlineBusinessGuys.com

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

brentpurves on Sprouter

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Vancouver Tech Jobs of the Week

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Here are five job opportunities that caught our eye on the Techvibes Job Board this week. Check out the full job descriptions and be sure to apply if you're interested.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Rogers Social View – What’s In A Name | AndroidGuys

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Most recent Canadian Mobile news has rumoured a new service called Social View from Rogers Wireless. Up until now, no one could figure out what it was, although we all could safely assume it had something to do with amalgamation of social networking services. Here is the official description:

a built-in feature of these exclusive smartphones that brings together, in real-time, your contacts’ updates from popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. It also includes a display of recent traditional communications such as texts, calls and instant messages from your contacts. Right in the contact list!

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

LinkedIn Quick Tip: How to Use "Company Follow" - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

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LinkedIn announced today a new feature, similar to Facebook's fan pages, that lets you "follow" companies on the professional networking site and keep track of their key developments, potential business opportunities and job leads. This tool is especially helpful for job seekers who want to keep tabs on businesses to which they've applied, and for businesses looking to monitor their competitors' announcements.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

What Social Media Will Look Like in 2012 - Advertising Age - DigitalNext

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Here are the top 11 predictions for what social media will look like in 2012 (based on a full presentation which is available on my blog). Some of these items exist today in their early stages, but this list is about what I believe will become the norm in 2012. Ultimately, share of voice, point of view and community influence will be more important than brand ownership -- and marketers will need to get over it if they want to stay relevant in 2012.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

WSJ: Google TV to be announced in May – SciTechBlog - CNN.com Blogs

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Google is trying to bring the Web to your living room.

The search engine giant plans next month to unveil a new software package to help developers better display the internet on TV sets, according to the Wall Street Journal, which quotes unnamed sources familiar with the announcement.

Google TV, an android-based software platform, has drawn interest from TV makers, the Journal says.

Google is expected to break the news at the Google's I/O conference, which will be held May 19 and 20 in San Francisco, California, the newspaper reports.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Posterous Starts Automatically Inserting Affiliate Links Into Sites, Forgets To Tell Users

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We’ve been tracking super-simple publishing service Posterous

for quite a while now, and for the most part they’ve turned us into big fans. Unfortunately, they’ve just committed a fairly serious blunder. In a post earlier today, one Posterous user stumbled

across the fact that his site was automatically converting all of his links to affiliate links using VigLink

. There isn’t anything sinister about VigLink — the service helps publishers generate revenue without having to manually insert affiliate links themselves, and has received funding from Google Ventures, First Round Capital, and some prominent angel investors. But Posterous neglected to inform its users that it was starting to monetize all of their links, which is a breach of user trust.

Co-founder Sachin Agarwal agrees — in a phone interview he conceded that Posterous should definitely have informed users about the change (they’re currently drafting a statement about the incident). Agarwal says that Posterous has actually been testing the VigLink integration for months, which means the links have gone unnoticed for quite a while. But he says it’s just an experiment, and that Posterous hasn’t decided if it’s going to be keeping them in the long-term (though he agrees they should have informed users regardless).

Agarwal also says that if Posterous does wind up permanently integrating VigLink, users won’t have to take part in the program. And there’s an upside: once they’ve built the infrastructure to support it, Posterous has plans to allow its users to generate revenue from links on their own blogs, which could actually drive more people to start using the publishing platform.

It’s worth pointing out that while VigLink will convert any normal links to affiliate links whenever possible, it will ignore any links that are already connected to affiliate programs (in other words, it doesn’t overwrite existing affiliate links).

Posterous image

Website: posterous.com
Location:San Francisco, California, United States
Founded: May, 2008
Funding: $5.14M

Posterous is a Y Combinator startup that was founded in mid 2008. It’s a simple web publishing platform via email. Text and files can be uploaded to the site via email.

Users are not required to create an account… Learn More

Information provided by CrunchBase

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Advice From Founders Who Bootstrapped Their Way to Success

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In my last post, I discussed why the odds of a rookie entrepreneur getting seed financing from a VC are very slim. The reality is that less than 5% of venture money goes to seed-stage startups; VCs typically invest when a company has a working product, a tested business model, and a strong management team. It’s the entrepreneurs who take the risk; not the VCs. They beg and borrow money from friends and family, max out their credit cards, and sometimes make do by living at home with their parents. Yet, very often, it’s the VCs who get the glory.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves