U.S. NetworX

Not too long ago I read an insightful article by Jeffrey Gitomer about job burnout. His idea is that burnout is a self-imposed feeling that can be overcome by (1) assessing the situation you are in and (2) taking whatever action is needed to rectify the problem.  Gitomer says to begin by asking you reality-based questions:

QUESTION #1 – How much do you love your job?

QUESTION #2 – What is the BEST part of your job?

QUESTION #3 – Where would you rather be that could afford you the same or better opportunity (not just money)?

QUESTION #4 – Is the grass really greener somewhere else?

Since “burnout” is a symptom, not a problem, once you have discovered the “why” of your burnout, you can take action to alleviate the problem. Here are a few of Gitomer’s suggestions to take you from “burnout” mode to a more positive frame of mind:

• Start your day with the three most important things you want to accomplish.
• Cancel all stupid and time-wasting meetings.
• Focus on outcome, not just task.
• Get rid of three major time wasters (attention diverters):
  • Facebook notifications at work (unless it’s business Facebook).
  • Personal emails and personal calls.
  • Negative water fountain chit-chat.
• Review your accomplishments at the end of each day to praise yourself and challenge yourself.  It helps to write them down.

Re-start your personal fire.  Never give in to self-defeat.  Decide every day that you can only be your best by doing your best.  Decide to be BEST, not burnt.

Not a day passes that I don’t get an email from someone who is purporting to be an SEO or social media expert, and the number keeps growing. An article by B.L. Ochman recently appeared on the Ad Age site with some interesting facts:

As a public service, I like to periodically check in on the number of self-proclaimed social media “gurus,” “ninjas,” “masters” and “mavens” on Twitter. Why? Well, it seems like an important metric, an indicator of something.

Whatever it means, this is one indicator that is most definitely on the rise. In January 2013, the number of Twitter users with “social media” as part of their bio has grown to epic proportions. The list now tops 181,000 – up from a mere 16,000 when we first started tracking them in 2009, according to FollowerWonk.

Today, there are even 174 people who describe themselves as “social media whores” in their Twitter bios. (We couldn’t make that sort of thing up.)

Twitter bios allow a mere 140 characters, plus a URL. Therefore, one must boil one’s bio down to what one thinks represents one’s most essential facts.

While a great many of these self-appointed gurus are no doubt taking the title with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact remains: a guru is something someone else calls you, not something you call yourself. Scratch that: let’s save “guru” (Sanskrit for “teacher”) for religious figures or at least people with real unique knowledge.

I’d argue, in fact, that “social media” and “guru” should never appear in the same sentence. That said, here are some ways to know if your “social media guru” is adding some value:
- they bring actual experience – not just observations and theories – to the table;
- they sell solutions, not formulas;
- they don’t promise that social media will provide a quick fix for your bottom line.

One thing seems certain: at this rate, everyone on Twitter will soon be a social media guru.

http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/181-000-social-media-gurus-ninjas-masters-mavens-twitter/239026/

Daniel Bortz at usnews.com recently raised the question of mobile payment security: For some consumers, paying at the checkout line becomes a lot simpler when they can forgo the plastic card and pay with their phone. Mobile payment applications like the Isis Mobile Wallet, Google Wallet, Square, and LevelUp turn your cell phone into a payment source: Just store your debit card or credit card information on the phone and scan the device at checkout. “Consumers like the convenience factor,” says Sarah Jane Hughes, a commercial law professor at Indiana University. But is this new form of payment safe?

Approximately 12 percent of mobile phone owners made a mobile payment in 2011, according to a recent survey by the Federal Reserve. According to the survey, concerns about the security of the technology were the primary reason respondents gave for not using mobile payments. Hughes says one security advantage to using mobile payments is that “your phone normally stays within your line of sight. So unlike the credit card that gets moved to the back room, you’re much less likely to let people take your phone away.”

Ben Milne, CEO and co-founder of Dwolla, a mobile payment provider, says mobile payments are inherently more secure than using a plastic credit card. That’s because most mobile payments are conducted on phones that have GPS, meaning the payment provider can determine who you are and whether the transaction is a legitimate one. “There’s a lot of data around the transaction that can actually be utilized to protect people, and that data isn’t available with a plastic credit card,” Milne says.

Many people may be less likely to try mobile payments simply because plastic credit cards have been around longer, but Milne says that shouldn’t be the case. “It makes no sense to make the argument that because the 16-digit account number has been around longer that it’s better,” he says. “In any event, probably what it means is the system has more problems. To me, if anything, it has probably more known ways of being exploited because it’s been around for so long.” With Dwolla, for instance, users never enter their credit card number into the app. Instead, the system stores your bank account information and then enables you to make purchases directly from that account.

Still, mobile payment applications are not immune from security threats. Square was hacked in 2011, as well as Google Wallet earlier this year.

You’ve got your new site up and running. You’re ready to keep it updated with information about your company’s services and products. And then you see it…those little icons in your website design. The FB, the T or blue bird icon, the pin. What about those links to your social media accounts? Now what are you supposed to do?

Let’s be honest: there are companies all over that are more than willing to sell you books on how to run your social media accounts. While some are ready to charge you a $2,000 per month consulting fee. The goal of this blog post is to give you some general advice and some confidence that yes, you can do this. And keep in mind, it’s a bad representation of yourself if you link on your site to your accounts, but your accounts have no posts, unanswered comments and such. They are like plants, since you have to feed and water them to make them grow!

Facebook

Let’s face it (pun not intended) – Facebook has the most social media users. If you’re facing a limited amount of time to keep up a social media presence, then this might be the place to be. You know how it works, what you can do here, etc. since you probably have a personal account there.

As far as tips go, keep it updated and current. Do you have some great photos to show off your office, staff, product or service of the month? Does your company page follow local brands or similar companies that you can like and comment on? When you have followers who comment on your posts, are you engaging them in a discussion or ignoring?

Beyond posts, Facebook has a suite of in-house apps ready for use, such as surveys, contests, games and more. You can also style your page to have icons that link to your own and functions, such as a customized contact form.

Twitter

While Facebook might seem more sedate, Twitter might be best described as the manic, overly caffeinated sibling. From a company standpoint, Twitter’s 140 character limit for each post can seem daunting. But you can’t ignore so many users, especially younger followers.

As we noted above, the character limit is a stumbling block as to what you can say and do, but nothing is keeping you from Tweeting out a link to a page on your site, a link to a new photo, or to your blog and being more in-depth there. You could also use Twitter to have a more real-time discussion with folks: imagine using Twitter for an online chat with your fans or for customer service instead of email or the phone.

Facebook and Twitter might be the larger social media platforms out there, but don’t forget these guys…

YouTube – the work behind a video post might be the most intensive of all the updates discussed here, but on the plus side you can be the most creative here. You don’t need an expensive video camera these days; your smart phone would work just fine in most cases. As far as ideas go, how about a behind-the-scenes look at your company? Maybe a training or usage video for your product? Feel like interviewing a customer to get some testimonials? Keep in mind that posting on YouTube passes the bandwidth off to the Google company to handle and that there is a comments system connected to videos unless you block them.

Pinterest – this tool might be the youngest of our discussed platforms, but it’s seeing a massive growth in users. With an account here, you create so-called boards where you “pin” photos to a variety of topics. A good start in using this tool would to pin the same images you’d share or post on Facebook or Twitter. There are also some sharing features here; pinning an image here can send out notices via your Facebook or Twitter account.

Blogs – writing a multiple paragraph blog post takes more time, but this is your chance to expound deeply on a topic with links, images, custom formatting and such. Many folks use the well-established blogging tools at WordPress or Blogger for their updates. Remember: you can always use your other accounts to promote your latest blog entry.

What’s the take away from all of this?

At the end of the day, what’s the one thing to consider? Simple: it’s not called “social media” for nothing. You have to be social. You have to be engaging. This is not you standing on a table in a crowded room and yelling. Rather, this is you listening to various people and stepping in (when appropriate) to continue a discussion. When you stop interacting (or never talk) with your followers, the game is over.

Remember hearing about the risk of overeating if you dine as you watch TV or read? But what about while sending tweets or updating your Facebook page? Cindy Kuzma, writer for Men’s Health magazine, warns that combining the events can be hazardous to your waistline:

Eating has always been a social activity. And as our relationships have moved online, so have our meals, a new survey finds.

About one-third of Americans tweet, use Facebook, or otherwise connect on social media while eating or drinking. Among Millennials (people born roughly between 1980 and 2000) the percentage jumps to almost half, reports the Hartman Group, a consumer research and consulting firm.

There could be upsides: Virtual connections can make solo dining seem less lonely, says Gary Small, Ph.D., a UCLA psychiatrist and author of The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program.

But diet experts say if you’re not careful, stuffing your mouth while updating your status could expand your waistline. “When you’re posting, tweeting, or surfing, your mind will be focused on your device, not your dinner. You may come to the end of your meal feeling stuffed but strangely unsatisfied,” says Michelle May, M.D., author of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat: How to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle.

Your Brain on Twitter
To understand wired dining, it helps to know what’s happening in your brain when you try to do it all at once. Neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D., has used functional magnetic resonance imaging and EEG to study multitasking in his research lab at the University of California, San Francisco.

As you’re working on one task—say, composing a tweet or status update—your brain activates a neural network to help you remember and process the information you need, he says.

Introduce a second task, and those connections are basically broken. “After the interruption is done, you have to reactivate that memory network,” he says. “It’s not really multitasking—you’re switching between these tasks when you’re trying to do them both.”

Subconscious Snacking
Eating, however, is a bit of a different chore, and one that requires far less brain-processing power, Gazzaley explains. Since we’ve done it so much, it’s become almost a reflex, and that may be part of the problem. “We’re a fast-food nation; we’re gulping all our food down,” says Small. And when you eat in front of screens, you tune out your body’s fullness signals, so you eat more than you need, says May.

The effects may last beyond your current meal. In a recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people who played a computer game while eating lunch consumed twice as many cookies 30 minutes later and couldn’t recall the order of the foods they ate. The results suggest distracted eating may actually interfere with our ability to encode new memories about our meals, contributing to overeating throughout the day.

Dine Mindfully
Unless food or nutrition is part of your job, save social media for after your meal, May says. She advocates mindful eating as a way to manage your weight and enjoy your food more.

To do it, set down your iPhone and take time to appreciate the appearance, aroma, and flavor of your food. Put your fork down between bites and savor the food that’s in your mouth. And consider that if it’s boredom driving you to Twitter, that’s a sign you’re getting full.

http://news.menshealth.com/is-twitter-making-you-fat/2012/03/08/

Working to create and launch a website is one thing, but then what? How do you take care of it? If you want to promote it, how do you track results? Let’s take a look at website traffic stats and some of the tools Google Analytics offers you.

Engage, Mr. Data

Google’s Analytics suite of tools has become the 800-pound gorilla of stats tools for website managers. When a site is built, it’s easy for companies like U.S. NetworX to add custom tracking code, which is in turn used by Google to report on your site’s activity. You then log into their Analytics site to do all of your research and work.

The amount of data presented is mind-boggling, to put it simply. The initial view, called the Dashboard, provides the easiest to read and use data. It’s here that you can apply a date range for results, then view data such as visits, pageviews, time spent on the site, how folks found your site, keywords used, a map of users, and more. And to its credit, the Analytics system just makes sense; it’s laid out well and can be as simple (or as advanced) as you wish to make it.

If the Dashboard is too low-level for you, there are many ways you can customize the data and results you’re after. You can use the menus and settings to generate a myriad amount of data to track your site’s performance, from long-term campaign trends to “how many people visited my blog page just today?”

Put it to work for me!

Explaining Analytics’ virtues is one thing, but practicing it is another. Let’s do an example with some suggestions as to how to use it.

Let’s say you embark on a push to promote your company’s services. Your site has a Services page which you updated on March 1, and now that it’s a month later, let’s see how things went.

I’d first change the date range to match March 1 to April 1, so your first glance of data will report traffic for just that month. However, that’s the whole site. In order to see traffic to that one page, click the Content link. From this section, you should easily see a breakdown of traffic in that date range for specific pages. (Note: for the sites U.S. NetworX builds, “/index.php” is your homepage.) If you can’t find your important page, click the View Full Report link and sort via the Page column which is really the URL of the page.

You’ll see the traffic data for the page in question. Here’s what you should keep an eye on:

Pageviews: how many times your page was viewed

Unique Views: out of the number of Pageviews, how many were seen by the same users during the same session.

Time on Page: the average length of time a user was at your page

Bounce Rate: the percentage of visits to the page which resulted in the person leaving your site.

% Exit: the percent of exits from your site from this one page.

What’s the take-away from all of that? The number of Pageviews is one thing, but Unique Views can help you see if there lots of repeat visits to the page by the same users. Time on Page would help you see if a user is sticking around and reading a lot of data, watching a video, etc. But if your Bounce Rate is high, it’s possible folks read your content and moved past it and the site. Not necessarily bad, if they left your site and acted upon your info, though. But if your % Exit rate is high, you might consider changing up things to keep the user in your site, such as a link to more info or form to request more info.

A note to our clients

We’ve been transitioning new projects and sites to Google Analytics this year with good results. Existing sites can be moved to the tool with minimal fuss; please contact us to discuss the process. We think you’ll enjoy viewing and acting on your website’s traffic.

UPDATE: As of Jan. 20, Congress is backing away from the bills and postponing action.

You’ve heard about SOPA and PIPA, the two pieces of legislation aiming to stop online piracy of copyrighted material, and the accompanying protests. But let’s distill it even more, as this is a controversial enough topic we all need to consider.

To make things simple, let’s attack it with the 5 W’s we learned in school, and we’ll certainly leave you to dig even deeper if you like.

Who?

As NPR reported, the battle is basically Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley. You have the media conglomerates (movies, music, media lobbyists, etc.) on one side wanting to stop the online piracy of their content. The other side, you have the vocal opposition of many Internet users and those who rely on it for their own jobs, including Google, Ebay, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox and LinkedIn.

What?

While SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act – PDF) gets the majority of coverage, there’s also PIPA (PROTECT Intellectual Property Act – PDF). SOPA originated in the House of Representatives, while PIPA is the Senate version. Both seek to add powers to respond to copyright infringements across the Net. The New York Times reports that some methods could include preventing search engines from sending users to sites with questionable content, as well as interacting with payment tools/sites like PayPal to stop the transfer of money for possible pirated media.

When?

Reports show that the Senate could begin voting on PIPA on Jan. 24. However, protests were hitting a feverish pitch starting Jan. 18, with many big-name websites (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) going dark in protest, as well as explaining the issues and requesting their visitors to take action.

Where?

While the two bills have originated in the U.S. Congress, their reach could extend even farther. The Internet being so decentralized will lead to so many problems as to searching for possible infringements, you might see foreign websites, hosts, ISPs and the like stuck in such a legal morass. Let’s say a user in Ireland posts an infringed movie file from a California movie company to a website hosted in Israel – it’s likely both groups will be pulled into the fight with the studio. How do you get all the groups, with their separate legal issues, to comply with one another?

Why?

At the heart of the matter is a fight against online piracy of copyright infringed works. I don’t think people want to have free or vastly cheap access to songs, movies, TV shows, etc., but the too broad, too powerful laws are irking many. There is talk of these laws having an adverse effect on free speech rights and the integrity/security of the technology that “powers” the Internet.

I want to know more!

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/21380/SOPAPIPA-blackout (Disclaimer: I’m a paying member of this website, but this post goes into a very detailed account of a SOPA-like request to shut down a site due to alleged copyright infringement.)

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/copyrights/index.html?smid=tw-nytimes (Once again, the Times has a great overview on a large topic, with multiple links and details.)

http://www.vice.com/read/pipa-supporters-copyright-violations (Some of the SOPA and PIPA legislators are in fact using copyrighted works without request/permission.)

http://theoatmeal.com/ (The animation takes a humorous look as to how SOPA might shut his website down. It might be crude, but the points are valid. Note: the animation might not be safe for work.)

I’m a huge fan of maps and their graphical display of any topic. With Google’s mapping technology as just one of many options, there’s a huge selection of data being presented on top of base geographic information. Here are some of the best ones I’ve found lately.

Ship-ment tracking

It’s one thing to see where your UPS package is located, but how about tracking an entire cargo ship? You can use the Live Ship Map at MarineTraffic.com to see what’s currently sailing and any associated data with that vessel. For instance, you can follow this link to see what’s sailing near New Orleans. Click any vessel to bring up data such as name, speed and photos of the ship.

Hurricane help

As of this writing, there are no active hurricanes near the nation, but the Google Crisis Map was a boon to recent weather events like Irene and Lee. It allowed users to overlay possible tracks as well as current storm location. Other information included shelter details for storm victims and power outtages. Here’s hoping we don’t see this map receive any new storms to track.

Which state has the most football fans?

Not one map per se, but the New York Times takes a look at how states break down among college football popularity. Part of their article looks at Google’s own search data, via their Insights tool. From Insights, you can see which state is searching the most for college football-related info, and you can go as deep as to seeing that within the Jackson, Miss., area, Brandon is searching the most.

Comings and goings

Using migration data from 2007, this map provides users a graphical look as to where people are going from Country X or where they came from in the first place. Following this link you can see where Americans have been emigrating.

This conversation happened Friday night, while waiting for a table at Mug Shots in Flowood, Miss. Apologies to my wife in advance!

Dinner Discussion

“So what’s this I keep hearing about that new thing … Google+?” my wife asked before supper.

“It’s their Facebook killer,” I said. “They’re looking to move people away. Think I saw where some 20 million have created member accounts in the last two weeks or so.”

“But what makes it different?” my Facebook-loving wife asked. “Why would I want to move away from Facebook?”

“It’s all about the Circles, baby. It’s all about the Circles.”

Circle of Life

“See, their Circles allow me to group and organize folks,” I said. “I can put some people over here, and some folks over there. Maybe I only want to read what my closest and local friends say, not what some others say. I can use Circles to break those groups of people up.”

My wife then asked, “So I could have one Circle of friends and one for co-workers, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “And you can set it up so that what you say to one Circle isn’t directly seen by the other.”

“Well, that’s cool. What else does it have?”

Group Think

I said, “The Hangout function is cool. You can start a Hangout, invite folks into it, and it can become your little private chat room of sorts. But in addition to text chatting, you can do video chatting at the same time. You can also share and watch YouTube videos at the same time, but I don’t see the use of that so much.

“Facebook of all things added their own Skype-powered video chat about a week after Google+ was launched, but for now it’s just one-on-one video,” I said. “And they’ve had a text chat mechanism in place for a while now, but that’s just been one-on-one.”

Sparks

“You also get the Sparks feature,” I said. “That gives you hints and suggestions as to themes and topics they think you might want to follow and read more about. Like sports, movies, entertainment and such. But for now, it’s just a series of headlines from all over, such as a more restricted Google New feed or RSS feed.”

Brands and Businesses on G+

“However, one thing that’s an issue is that brands, companies, businesses and things like that can’t be on Google+,” I said. “At least not yet. So far, I’ve seen two branded accounts disappear: Thinkgeek and the Atlantic’s In Focus photo blog. Google said from the start that their tool was for personal use only, and they’d shut down any other accounts that infringed on that.

“But there are rumors that Google is letting branded entities sign up for a possible version or implementation of the G+ system. Now how that will work or be implemented with the millions of existing personal accounts, only Google knows.”

Additional reading

I’ve put together a list below of a variety of Google+-related notes, critiques and the like.

Mashable has an in-depth Google+ 101 walk-through

New York Times’ tech journalist David Pogue provides his own take on Google+ vs. Facebook

Mississippi blogger Knol Aust delves into the Circles settings

Infographic of Facebook’s features vs. Google+’s

In the meantime, follow U.S. NetworX’s Twitter account for more real-user feedback while we put Google+ through real-world use.

We’ve previously posted the Top 10 signs you’re using a bad site/email hosting company, so it’s only fair to post the signs your website needs to be redesigned. Watch out, folks, we are trained professionals…just not in comedy.

1.    You forgot you even had a website or what it looks like.
2.    It has a hit/traffic counter at the bottom of the page. (Congrats on your 20 visitors.)
3.    There’s an animated stick figure in a hard hat, with flashing “Website Under Construction!” text.
4.    Your homepage has an address like http://yourISP.com/home/~yourusername.html
5.    The site is built entirely in Flash.
6.    When you call your host, the call goes straight to voicemail, which is currently full or has not been setup.
7.    Audio or video automatically plays when you visit, but you can’t turn it off.
8.    Menu options read Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 …
9.    Your host says the design can’t be viewed on your iPhone.
10.    It’s hosted at MySpace.