Without a doubt, Bit.ly is the biggest URL shortener service out there. And without question, what made them so popular is this one social network called… mmm..

what is it called again?.. Oh yeah, TWITTER.

Users who like to share links can really use services such as Bit.ly so that they can keep their messages under the 140 character limit. So it’s good news to know that Bit.ly just announced (on Monday) their new partnerships with Verisign, Websense and Sophos.

The goal of these new partners is to ensure that spam and other types of malicious software stay off the Bit.ly network. The presence of spammy and malicious links is a major problem that Bit.ly is hoping to solve. That grey area of not knowing where you’ll end up after clicking on a link shared through Twitter is just where spammers, phishers and scammers like to be.

Bit.ly’s new parterns are planning to solve that problem in three different ways:

Verisign’s iDefense service will screen IP addresses, domains and URLs based on its reputation database, to find those that “host exploits, malicious code, command and control servers, drop sites and other nefarious activity,” according to Bit.ly general manager Andrew Cohen.

WebSense’s ThreatSeeker Cloud will analyze the content on pages linked to through Bit.ly in real-time to identify and block “spammy URLs, malicious content and phishing sites.”

Meanwhile, Sophos rounds out the equation by analyzing the behavior of potential spammers to “go[] beyond blacklists, to proactively detect spam and malware.”

All I can say is YAY!

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URL Shorteners and SPAM

Google Wave is Google’s new pet project that according to them will do nothing less than revolutionize the way people communicate online. It will go out to 100,000 beta testers tomorrow (Wednesday, September 30th, 2009).

Google Wave is unique because its platform is combining elements from many different online communication tools into one place. Things such as blogs, photo/video sharing, chats, email, documents, etc, will be all streaming in one fluid conversation, or a “wave” as Google likes to call it.

This web application was displayed at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, back in May. If you have a spare 1 hour and 20 minutes, you can watch it here.

The Google team in charge of this project see this as something that will become as main stream as Google itself. To quote one of the creators Jens Rasmussen:

“This should be something everybody uses and something everybody knows”

If you read tech blogs, you noticed the hustle and bustle around this topic today. Many of us want to be part of this beta group but trust me, it is a tight and sealed group at this point. If you’re not in yet forget about it, maybe next time!

Wave has been described as “dripping with ambition” and as a “new communication platform for a new Web.” from places such as TechCrunch.

More to come on this… Are you a beta tester? Tell us what you think!

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Google Wave’s big day

Just in case you haven’t followed this story, Project 10^100 (pronounced “Project 10 to the 100th) is a Google initiative that was launched about a year ago and it aimed at having individuals from around the world submit their ideas on how they could help as many people as possible.

The winning idea (or up to 5 winning ideas) gets $10,000,000 funding from Google.

Initially Google said that they would choose individual ideas, but they received such an overwhelming response that they decided to go for themes instead. And now, that those themes have been selected, Google is asking you and me to go to their site and vote for the best ideas!

Voting ends on October 8, so go vote if this is something that resonates with you!

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Google’s Project 10^100 themes announced

At last Yelp has rolled out a new feature, highly anticipated I might add, that lets business owners comment on their reviews publicly. This has been a long time coming, and I’m curious to see what it does to the dynamic of Yelp.com. It just rolled out last night.

The problem with not having such feature is that business owners would create fake Yelp accounts and review their own businesses to detract from what someone real said about them. The thing with that is that they almost always do such a sloppy job at it that you can tell the fakes from the real ones just by reading the reviews.

Now business owners have a serious and legitimate way to come back around. I feel that if a one star review were to be followed up with properly, there would be a good chance that the reviewer would update their review and maybe even increase their star rating.

It’s amazing how some business really do depend on having a good reputation on Yelp, so this is a great feature.

Many businesses have already started taking advantage of this. To get started, they just need to go to biz.yelp.com and claim their account page. Yelp has also put together a Business Owner’s Guide, a document worth skimming through if you’re in this boat.

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Yelp launches comment for Business Owners

February 4th was a day to remember for all you diggers out there (even for non-diggers).

A YouTube video submitted last week that went Viral instantly, David After Dentist (please watch it when you’re done with this post, it’s hilarious), was submitted to Digg. One digger by the name of bukowsky left the following comment: “IS THIS REAL LIFE?!!?!?!”… That’s all that was needed. Diggers from everywhere broke out in song and what you’re about the watch below is an awesome compilation of what happened!

This is what Viral content is all about. Have fun this weekend guys

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Digg community sings Bohemian Rhapsody

Last week I reached out to my friends over at Twitter for some advice. I was asking them what to do with my profile. Unfortunately I didn’t take a screenshot of my old profile to be able to show you what it looked like, but I’ll attempt to describe it here:

- My avatar was the icon/logo I use here on my blog. 

- The background in my profile was a tile setup of my little lifesaver image with a black background (this was my old avatar). 

That was pretty much it. 

I had been watching my Twitter feed and seeing some discussions here and there regarding the proper way to build a good Twitter account. Being that I was feeling a little in the dark about it since I’m only now starting to really use Twitter the way it’s supposed to be used (I think.. no really, I am!), I thought I’d ask the group of peeps whose Tweets I’m following what they thought I should do. I put out the following Tweet:

Question: Should I change my twitter to my real name and use a real photo? Why? Appreciate your feedback and will link to u on a blog post.

Here are some of the answers I received:

WhiskeyChick: I would do it. Your reach is still relatively small on here so making the switch is better earlier than later.

… then she sent one more: Besides, Real photos and names take you away from the awkward meetings like “Hi, aren’t you ladiesman500?”

IssaHines: If you have a lot of followers it may confuse people especially if you’ve been on twitter for a long time. If not go for it.

tysoncrosbie: http://tinyurl.com/dg7e6w My thoughts on having a photo of yourself.

SearchBuzz: -Yes – i would like to do the same. Why? Well, first time I met you I didn’t even recognize you without your life preserver on?

palisade14: On @twhirl your real name appears below your handle. Consider @leelefever | @commoncraft ’s approach too.

imnotadoctor: Stash it! (I’m hoping he was referring to putting up a photo I have with a mustache… I hope )

I appreciate the advice and after taking all of it under consideration, I started the changing process with my Twitter account. My first step was to upload a real photo of me, and then to change my Twitter profile page. After that, I received a little more feedback from some closer friends and will be making a few more tweaks here and there, but overall I think I’m moving in the right direction. Here are some lessons I learned during this process:

1 – It’s okay to use an avatar and not your real name on Twitter (duh!). However, if you want to network in the real world, then you should try to just have your name there somewhere. In my case, I chose to display my real name within my profile page, but continue to use “seosurvivor” as my username. 

2 – It’s important to have consistency with your avatar, especially while building up your account. I also seemed to have received an overwhelming amount of feedback pointing towards making my Twitter avatar a real photo of myself rather than the logo image since it wasn’t very personable. Since I changed my avatar to my actual photo, I have started to lean towards finding a middle ground. I’ll be spending some time on Photoshop tomorrow trying to come up with a real photo that also incorporates the seosurvivor life raft.

3 – It’s helpful to develop your Twitter profile page with something creative. Feel free to edit the background and make it your own. See mine for example.

That’s it for now. I’m looking forward to connecting with you on Twitter, so get in there and follow me!

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Improving my Twitter profile

I ran across something on the web today that I can only describe as being top notch viral content. This thing is already “on fire”, but it’s only going to get more and more attention.

A comedian called Toby Jones has put together this hilarious website and video — a delicious juicy bite of goodness for all social networks out there. People will love to share this because they know the people they are sharing it with will enjoy receiving it. If you like this and you’ll be in Chicago for New Years, you can party out with Toby at the Jones Big Ass Truck Rental and Storage New Year’s Eve Bash!

I can’t really explain why it’s so great, you have to experience it for yourself. Before you watch the video and visit the website, keep a few things in mind about creating viral content — this is a good example to learn from:

• It’s a simple concept.
• The video is short enough that most people will watch it through the end.
• The website follows the same pattern, it is simple, to the point.
• The follow up is great, the phone number works and everything (and he sells t-shirts!)
• It is FUNNY!

Without further due, here’s the video:

.. and site: http://jonesbigasstruckrentalandstorage.com/

What did you think? Leave a comment

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Top Notch Viral Content

Good morning, it’s Monday and time to roll up the sleeves and get back to work. Having said that, I’ll also point out that it’s important to keep the mind working, the wheels turning if you will. The last thing you want is to let your mind run loose amidst the daily challenges..

Why? – you ask.

Because if you don’t, your mind will kick your ass! – I respond.

We can get into how that happens later, but you get the point. In order to help you keep your mind thinking about something interesting, intriguing, and for all us geeks even inspiring, I’ll share a video with you this Monday morning.

This well crafted video, created by Michael Wesch, from the Kansas State University, which was actually debuted early 2007, is a fascinating look at how Web 2.0 is an era where the Machines is Us/ing Us. That’s right, the machine IS us and it is USING us.

The concept that this organic, and yet machine like organism is acting in synchrony with us, and it represents who we are, was also introduced in John Battelle’s The Search. This book is a great read, and even though it isn’t really the newest publication by any means, it still is a must read for anyone intrigued by the web. In it, Battelle refers a lot to the “Database of Intentions”. This is the knowledge that powerhouse search engines such as Google and Yahoo have of the human race. What are humans desiring? What do they want to know more of? What are we searching for? Quite interesting… Tools like Google Zeitgeist (now Google Trends) and Yahoo! Buzz will give you a glimpse, have you cared to take a look lately?

Make sure you comment if you have anything to add, and enjoy the video!
if you’re receiving this post through an email subscription or other form of syndication, click here to see the video.

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

We are the MACHINE

Well, the weekend has been great so far! I had a mellow, productive and super fun time with my daughter, girlfriend and friends, Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate, and I decided to write a quick post about Favtape.

You see, I don’t want to be regurgitating things you already saw somewhere else, so this is something new to me even though it may have been around for a while. Have you heard of FavTape? I like it!

FavTape is ridiculously easy to use and a cool resource to have if you use Pandora (or Last.fm), and bookmark your favorite songs. I never really cared much for Pandora until my iPhone came along. Now I’m all about it, it’s just awesome to have it available wherever I go. FavTape works with Pandora, and it creates a playlist for your bookmarked songs from Pandora. There’s no account to create or anything. All you do is go to FavTape.com, type in your username and click on “Submit”. It spits something like this back to you:

It’s a playlist that you can share with your friends or just use it for easy access to ringtones, videos, lyrics, more info, iTunes, and more. It’s a really cool tool and if you haven’t heard of it make sure you check it out.

Here’s my feed: http://favtape.com/pandora/cadaum

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Favtape Is Cool!

Good afternoon people!

Well, it’s a busy busy day as usual. Although I have no great SEO post to share right now, I thought I’d share this video with you. It definitely made me smile. Discovery Channel has some of the best shows on American TV today, and I don’t feel bad at all about endorsing them here, free of charge

As a side note, I’m a bit hesitant about the new version of Wordpress. I haven’t updated mine yet, scared of change I guess… I’ve seen some mixed reviews from people’s whose opinions I respect, so I’m feeling uneasy about it. I should probably slap it onto one of my other domains and see how it does. Any thoughts from anyone? Have a great day!

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Discovery Channel commercial break