Today, Buzzom has launched a new feature “Schedule Status”. This was a much awaited feature from our buzzom user.

Here are the screen shots from the application :

Not much has to be said about the interface. It is as simple as it look.

After scheduling the status, you can simple check the details of  your scheduling under the scheduler section:

You can edit the message or delete them.

[Posted by Kristin Hambelton Senior Director of Marketing, Neolane, Inc.] In the “old” days, search engine optimization, or SEO, was all about figuring out which keywords to use and implementing them comprehensively on your website. There were far fewer web pages in existence at the time, so there was less competition. The strategic placement of [...]

Internet marketing is in a hell lot of confusion than before. Initially, Internet marketing was all about beautiful banner ads on the most popular websites. The higher the traffic of the website, the higher the visibility of the Ads. Publisher ruled the market with their fixed banner ad pricing.

Then came the search engine which gave advertisers an alternative and cheaper path. Now advertiser could bid for the keyword terms and get their banner displayed according. Things changed upside down when Google brought their effective search engine advertising platform with advance algorithms.

In Google, you just had to bid for the keywords and Google would take care for publishing your non-intrusive ad over the internet. This revolutionized the advertising space in the Internet. Doubtful market was immediately transformed to one of the biggest business model of the Internet.

But along with the advancement of the internet and email system, there were more innovation like Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Pay per Click ads, Paid review on online news and so on. Currently, these fields are defined and has been thoroughly researched.

Social Media entered into the space when we had things like active forums and blogs where people spent their time in conversation. Till today, forum is considered the strongest channel to influence people. Blogs are also making their way to becoming influential at presenting ideas. Along with forums and blogs, social networking sites like Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and Social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious are rising as a influential platform.

Today defining your Internet marketing plan is bit tricky. Though we already have a pre-defined steps for search engine optimization, email marketing and other Google Adsense stuff, the space of social media marketing remains un-defined and open for categorization. But don’t let that deter you.

Social Media has not only brought revolution in the space but has also challenged the traditional marketing fundamentals of the Internet. Many marketing specialist say that banner ads are the things of the past and in-content advertising is the future.

In order to understand better, we need to look at the behavioral change in consumers. Data shows that mobiles devices is soon taking over PC as a consumer device. This also means less activities in web and more in mobile applications and mobile apps. Today every business is targeting for mobile applications because there is an opportunities. These new devices have changes user’s behavior.

People spend their time in sites like Facebook, Digg, Twitter, Youtube and read blogs and comments all the day. People are listening and consuming digital content more than before. Further, they have become resilient to the banner advertisement.

Today successful advertisement is not banner ads but social media campaigns. If you search for top internet campaigns they will include sites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. The main idea is to mobilize crowd and lead them. This means that we are back to the stone age where advertising meant influencing the crowd and creating communities. By stone age, I meant to say we are back to our fundamentals.

Community is the fundamental idea behind the new age marketing. But how do you create community? Unlike other internet marketing where things are automated, Social Media requires involvement and deep engagement with the consumer. NO WAY is banner going to work. You have to engage and influence.

For influencing in the social media, we have things like quizzes, games and so on. Today’s social media framework allows advertisers to use different tools to engage with consumer and this is one of the most effective way of doing it. Engagement doesn’t mean intruding but instead it means welcoming.

Today market is involving and we are seeing many tools being built. I believe that brand management is something that is going to hit big time because it solves the problem for brands to create campaigns and engage with users.

So next time, you are thinking about your Online Marketing, make consumer engagement your priority.

If you are like most Twitter users, you have used use a third-party Twitter application to read or send Tweets. As of August 31, Twitter applications will all use OAuth, an authentication method that lets you use apps without them storing your password.

What does this mean for me?
The move to OAuth will mean increased security and a better experience. Applications won’t store your username and password, and if you change your password, applications will continue to work.

With OAuth, you still individually approve each application before using it, and you can revoke access at any time. To see which applications you have authorized or to revoke access, just go to the Connections section under Settings.

One thing to note - to continue to use your favorite applications, you should make sure you are running the latest version of the app. Otherwise, you may soon find that it doesn’t work anymore.

Tell me more about OAuth
In order for Twitter applications to access your account, developers have been able to choose one of two authentication methods: Basic Authentication or OAuth. Both require your permission, but there is an important difference. With Basic Auth, you provide your username and password for the app to access Twitter, and the application has to store and send this information over the Internet each time you use the app. With OAuth, this isn’t the case. Instead, you approve an application to access Twitter, and the application doesn’t store your password.

Fortunately, developers have known about our transition to OAuth since last December, so they’ve had time to update their apps. And many apps, including Echofon, TweetDeck, Twitterrific, Seesmic, and Twitter for Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry, are already using OAuth. We appreciate the work and time that developers have invested in this update in order to keep you safe.

Dear Buzzom Users,

First of all, we are really sorry for the service down of the Buzzom since Saturday. We had been hoping that the issue could be resolved by Monday, but it hasn’t.

As you can see that you cannot log on to the system using Twitter Authentication, but you can certainly use our Facebook features.

Apparently, our service has been randomly shutdown by the Twitter’s automatic monitoring system. It is not the first time that we have faced this issues. But unlike in our previous case, this time we have not been given any reasons.

We are still figuring out why this has been done. As you all probably know that we have changed our service a lot of time to comply with the Twitter’s changing Terms and Conditions. As a result, the present version of buzzom had nothing against the Twitter’s TOS.

One of our following/unfollowing engine was also converted from automatic to manual. The only value addition we had with our following/unfollowing engine was not the automation but listing out of user’s followers and unfollowers. Besides that every follow/unfollow action was manual.

Further, we have been working to develop the best possible Social Media client adding many other social networking site.

One thing I would like to tell to all our users is that Buzzom is not just a random tool being created in the Internet. It is a well planned and designed application build by the industry experts. The road map of buzzom is long and interesting and we only work to add value to online network’s eco-system. Our history proves that very well.

Buzzom has been running like a professional web products with 24 hrs support system and user guidance. Our buzzom users will know this much better than anyone. We respond to each mail and each query being fired on Twitter.

Lastly, we are still looking forward to Twitter’s response and possible way to resolve any kind of issue that is there. Buzzom is here for betterment of online eco-system.

Hence, I appeal users and Twitter that we are working hard to bring the service back.

Thank You.

Deep Sherchan

Chief Marketing Officer, InRev Systems

P.S. Our other service Buzzom Premium is also facing similar issue.

Dear User,

Buzzom Services has been down temporally as we are still awaiting some updates from Twitter. We are extremely apologetic for all the inconvenience this outage might have caused you. Though you can sign in using your Facebook account, login through Twitter is still not activated.

We hope to hear back from Twitter in a few hours and put the service back up as soon as possible. We thank you for your patience and promise to add more value to the service and make up for the time lost.

We are also in the process of shortlisting a lot of features for Buzzom and Buzzom Premium which will be available very soon. If you have any feature in mind that you’d like us to add, please let us know.

We’ll keep updating you on the progress here.

Regards

Team Buzzom

bit.ly has a lot of data, and we are always learning interesting and unexpected things from it.  For example: approximately .05% of URLs shared through bit.ly include content about cheeseburgers. (An inclusive search for cheeseburgers and “cheezburgers” raises this figure to .07%.) By contrast, roughly .01% of URLs shared through bit.ly include content about automobiles.

We’re currently hard at work on several systems that will expose some of the interesting data we’re playing with. In the meantime, we’d like to introduce @clickabit.

Clickabit is a curated list of some of the surprising and delightful things that are trending in the bit.ly data stream. You’ll see a wide variety of timely, bizarre, useful, and intriguing links that we think you’ll enjoy, and you’ll see them here first.

Follow us if you love the Internet!

Ready for Service

Here at the HQ, we are proud to be the first and only social media dashboard in the Apps.Gov catalog and are pleased to announce that HootSuite is officially approved* has released “federal friendly terms of service” and is now listed as a social media dashboard application for United States government agencies. {Note: See clarification/update below}

This designation means that we’ve worked with the GSA New Media team to amend the HootSuite Terms of Service to address a few specific requirements specific for US federal agencies. Now these agencies can use HootSuite without jumping through extra hoops, approval queues, or application processes.

The official GSA New Media Twitter account published the announcement to alert the various agencies:

Social for the People

Today, people are reaching out in all sorts of different ways through multiple social channels including Twitter, Facebook, and more. And governments are no different.

Smart agencies, task forces and departments are effectively utilizing the same efficient and inexpensive communications tools which “regular folks” use for socializing with friends. Who’d have predicted that one day tools like Twitter would play a role in international diplomacy as well as delivering basic services and information?

Gov Watch

Here are some of the innovative USA government agencies, authorities and organizations who chose HootSuite as their social media dashboard — and you’ll find many others on the @hootwatch/gov-ngo list.

• @whitehouse
• @USArmy
• @TheJusticeDept
• @ArmedwScience
• @usairforce
• @USNavy
• @NavyNews
• @americagov
• @tsablogteam
• @smithsonian
• @Oil_Spill_2010
• @BusinessDotGov
• @foodsafetygov
• @NatlParkService
• @EPAgov
• @fema
• @americagov
• @FS_Region1
• @HUDNews
• @ConnectStateGov

Any other US Gov agencies flying with HootSuite yet? Send us a note @hootwatch to say hello. Of course, we’re also watching municipal, regional and international governments and enjoy seeing the unique ways you are using HootSuite.

Has your organization conducted a successful social media-powered campaign using HootSuite? We enjoy hearing about these and making case studies. Let us know your ideas.

* UPDATE FROM APPS.GOV

Point of clarification regarding what it means for applications to be on the free social media page on apps.gov.

First, no application is “officially approved as a web application for United States government agencies.” Being listed on the apps.gov social media page means that the provider has amended their standard TOS to not comply with federal law.

While these TOS amendments resolve the major legal issues of the sign-up process, clarify expectations, and set the stage for productive use of these services, agencies must still comply with laws and regulations on security, privacy, accessibility, records retention, ethical use, and other specific agency policies and requirements when they use the tools. Agencies are advised to seek the advice of their counsel on whether the TOS is legally appropriate for their use.

See http://apps.gov and click on the Social Media Apps section in the top navigation for more information.

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Dear Buzzom Premium users,

Buzzom Premium is currently undergoing some maintenance work and will be down for sometime. We regret the inconvenience caused to you.

Regards

Team Buzzom

Localization and Blackberry 1st Look

Plenty of news from HootSuite recently so you know the Owls at the HQ aren’t slowing down for the summer. Today, HootSuite announces a global crowd-sourced project to translate and localize HootSuite for users around the world. Plus, we’re sharing a sneak peek of the coveted Blackberry app.

Crowd-Sourced Translation

Do you speak geek in multiple languages? Great! We want you to be a star in your community by joining the HootSuite translation project.

So far, HootSuite is localized in English and Japanese, but with updates coming in from all around the world (including far-flung locales like Palau and the Faroe Islands), we want to make life a wee bit Hoot-ier for everyone.

To accomplish this mission, we need help from a few wise Owls to play the translate game:

1. Sign up for the HootSuite translation project
2. Choose your languages and projects
3. Submit appropriate words for approval
4. Bask in the glow of your good deeds

We’re starting with a few popular tongues but welcome your suggestions about which language we should add next. We’re also curious to see which language will be first to go live? Portuguese and Dutch are safe bets but maybe Russian or Chinese will storm to the top of the leader board. Whichever is the winner, expect to see a custom Owly design to celebrate.

Fascinated by linguistic nuance? Apply to be a language translation coordinator which means you’ll give the thumbs-up on the submitted translation candidates before pushing live to the applause of thousands.

Watching the Hoots

Some fans want to know *everything* about HootSuite. If you seek knowledge, consider following @HootWatch– a back-channel account which shares a firehose of HootSuite media mentions and fan reactions.

Curious about who’s using HootSuite? Choose a few @HootWatch lists to follow well-know brands, famous artists, government agencies, education institutions who choose HootSuite for their social media forays.

Plug-ins, Extensions and Apps

While the web version is the most-used variation of HootSuite’s social media dashboard, you can also run HootSuite as a standalone app, add browser extensions, or utilize the Hootlet to enhance your experience.

The Hootlet is the social media aficionado’s secret weapon. Add this bookmarklet to quickly create an update from any web page. A single click pops open a messages already pre-populated with a short link and the page’s <title> tag. You can then edit, schedule or send like any other message. Also available as a browser extension for Firefox and Chrome.

Grab the apps and learn all about these mighty tools at the Help Desk.

A Very Berry Owl

Blackberry fans are adamantly vocal about their desire to Hoot from their beloved ‘berrys — and the wait is almost over! Soon fans everywhere will have a ‘berry-ready Owl with Facebook and Twitter in your hand — just don’t squish it!

To quench your desire, here are the first screenshots of HootSuite for Blackberry to share with your colleagues.

The pilot batch of HootSuite for Blackberry beta users are testing the first iteration with more invites going out soon (we haven’t forgotten about the thousands of you who signed up to test).

Haven’t added your name to the beta list yet? Get on board by signing-up for the HootSuite for Blackberry beta program to be ahead of the curve.

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