Pinning Possibilities Increase for Business - Stellar Blue Web ...

It?s official, last Tuesday Pinterest announced they are open for business! One of the Internet?s fastest growing social media websites has welcomed the option for businesses to create their own accounts. The platform will now legally be available for commercial use, which is great for businesses, considering Pinterest users have increased by 145 percent since the beginning of 2012, and recent research suggests 47 percent of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from Pinterest. Good idea? We think so.

??Thousands of businesses have become a part of our community, giving great ideas, content, and inspiration to people on Pinterest. Whether it?s Anthropologie sharing awesome cloths, Whole Foods sharing tasty recipes, the Smithsonian sharing fascinating collection, or Amazon making products easy to pin, many of us have been inspired on Pinterest by businesses.?

-Pinterest on Business Pages

Pinterest has made the process easy and quick to start a new business account or convert your personal account. The new business accounts don?t look different than the other Pinterest pages, and the site is offering new features that are available for both personal and business accounts:

Profile widget: This new feature allows you to engage audiences and establish a larger presence of followers by displaying your most recent pins.

?Board widget: This tool allows you to show specific boards that appeal to a targeted audiences and draw them to a particular page or section of ?your website site by highlighting pins on individual boards.

?Along with the new widgets available, Pinterest has provided different examples of case studies done on companies like Allrecipes, Etsy, Jetsetter, Organized Interiors, and Petplan.? Before signing in to create or convert your account you will be able to learn how some of the most followed and repined companies on Pinterest have used different types of marketing strategies to obtain and engage more followers and repins. ?This is just another example of how social media is a fast-paced field and it?s important to keep up to speed with how it?s evolving.

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Learn how to use other social media platforms to engage your audience by signing up here to register for our free workshop on LinkedIn coming up Novemeber 28!

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Source: http://www.stellarbluewebdesign.com/php/blog/index.php/2012/11/pinning-possibilities-increase-for-business/

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7 Reasons You Need an eBook to Promote Your Business?

The importance of eBook in Internet marketing is already widely accepted within marketing and publishing circles. However, eBooks are still relatively under-utilised among businesses. As a business owner, you may not have given a serious thought to writing an e-book to promote your business.

Publishing an e-book for marketing purposes has become even more popular in recent years, with the growth of the Internet and devices such as tablets and Kindle. E-books are fast becoming an essential part of the Internet marketing strategy for businesses.

There are several benefits of publishing an e-book to market your business. In this article, we will take a look at why eBooks are important for online marketing and why every business must use it to reinforce their brand.

1. Attract Traffic and Grow Your Audience

Ebooks are very popular on the Internet. Creating an eBook that specifically addresses the needs of your target market is a very effective way to drive targeted traffic to your website and attract consumers towards your business. An increasing number of ?businesses are now taking advantage of this technique with great results.

2. Easy Way to Build Back-links

Quality eBooks act as link-bait and have the potential to attract tons of one way back-links to your website. Take a look at the example below. A simple 3 page eBook that I had created on this website when I first started blogging has managed to attract over 1,500 back-links to my website and still continues to be referenced and linked to even today.

3. Establish Your Expertise

Online expertise and reputation have become increasingly important, not just for professionals and publishers but also for businesses. Producing good quality content can help to improve your authority and reputation.

Publishing eBooks is a great way to establish your business as an expert in its field.? It shows your authority on topics relevant to your industry.

4. Brand Exposure

An e-book also gives you the opportunity to talk about your business and promote your brand. Businesses can take advantage of branded eBooks to improve brand recognition and exposure for the business. E-Books can also be an excellent source of free publicity for your business and offer the opportunity to promote your products and services.

4. Build Your Email List

E-book offers offer an excellent opportunity to generate leads for your business. It is a very effective tool to build your e-mail list. Offering eBook as an incentive to sign-up to your email list has become a common practice on the web and a very effective way to build your email list fast. This technique is used successfully on many blogs as well as business websites.

5. Generate Leads for Your Business

In addition to an incentive for joining your email list, you can also use your e-book directly to generate leads for your business. It is common for eBooks to include a lead capture form or call to action to help generate leads.

Take a look at the example of Hubspot?s Internet Marketing eBook below where one of the pages is used to generate interest in?their marketing software and encourage readers to book a demo and try the software.

6. Generate Revenue

There are several ways to generate revenue from your eBooks. The simplest way is to offer your eBook for sale on Amazon Kindle and other platforms. It is also possible to earn revenue for promoting affiliate products that are relevant to the topic of your eBook. However in my opinion, for a business the best way is to leverage eBooks to generate leads and promote the products and services of the business instead of monetizing the eBook.

6. Extra Marketing Opportunities

Any activity undertaken to promote your eBook also brings publicity and attention towards your business. It is common to use several techniques to market the eBook including press releases, blog posts, social media postings and more. This also offers the opportunity to promote your business and reinforce your brand.

7. Expand Your Reach

Publishing an eBook expands your reach by allowing your business to target a wider user-base. E-Books have an extensive market and attract a huge audience. The rise in the use of tablets, Kindle, Nook and other mobile devices make eBooks even more effective as a marketing channel to promote your business and increase your overall reach.

Following the launch of a quality eBook, it is also common for websites to report an increase in email list, RSS subscriptions, web site visits and social media following.

Conclusion:

Publishing an e-book is not only useful for bloggers and publisher but can be equally effective for promoting your business. It is an investment in marketing your business that will pay off in the long-term.

Do you use eBooks as part of your Internet marketing strategy? How is it benefiting your business? Or do you plan to do so in the future? We would like to hear from you. Please add your response by leaving a comment below.

If you like this article, please share it!

Source: http://www.kronikmedia.co.uk/blog/why-business-needs-ebook/5978/

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Samsung Galaxy S III (MetroPCS)

The Samsung Galaxy S III is MetroPCS's best smartphone. Don't buy it.?MetroPCS's version of the Galaxy S III brings 4G LTE speed and great tricks like Wi-Fi calling and Google Wallet with NFC. It's good stuff. But it's also $499, and with MetroPCS potentially switching its focus to GSM in six months, I can't recommend plunking down half a grand on a phone for the carrier's older CDMA network.

The big issue here is T-Mobile's impending purchase of MetroPCS, which would take effect in mid-2013. On day one of the merger, the combined company will start selling T-Mobile-compatible phones and shift its focus to folding the MetroPCS network into T-Mobile's.

CDMA phones like the GS3 wouldn't stop working. LTE coverage and speeds will actually get better as they join T-Mobile's new LTE network, and as MetroPCS's CDMA voice network slowly gets turned down, their CDMA halves would roam on Sprint. But the company won't be selling CDMA phones any more, opening questions about service and support from a company that's heading gung ho toward the competing HSPA+ technology.

Considering MetroPCS's spectacular LTE service plans (including $55 for unlimited talk, text, and data), that doesn't mean shunning MetroPCS between now and then. It just means that if you're buying a MetroPCS phone now, you should save your pennies and get a less expensive smartphone like the LG Motion 4G ?or the Samsung Galaxy Attain 4G , socking away the remaining cash for a killer phone on a growing network in 2013.

Physical Design
All of the Galaxy S III models look the same, except for the carrier logo on the back panel. MetroPCS's model comes in white plastic. At 5.4 by 2.8 by 0.34 inches (HWD) and 4.7 ounces, the GS3 is a large phone, although it no longer looks ridiculous in the age of the 5-inch HTC Droid DNA and 5.5-inch Samsung Galaxy Note II. That said, this is not a phone for folks with small hands.?

Solidly built, and light despite its size, the Galaxy S III is dominated by its 4.8-inch, 1,280-by-720-pixel Super AMOLED HD screen. Yes, it's PenTile, which can sometimes look slightly pixelated, but, no, you probably won't notice. Below the screen, there's a physical Home button, as well as illuminated Back and Multitasking buttons that start out invisible, so you have to memorize where they are or change a setting to keep them lit up. The 8-megapixel camera is on the back panel.?

The default Automatic Brightness setting makes the screen too dim. Kill it and pump up the brightness and it's fine, even outdoors. It's not as bright as the LG Connect 4G's Nova screen, but it's fine.

Taking off the back cover reveals the removable 2100mAh battery and a microSD card slot, which supports cards up to 64GB. Talk time was excellent at 12 hours, 15 minutes on MetroPCS's 4G network.

Network and Call Quality
The Galaxy S III performed very well on MetroPCS's LTE network in New York City. Reception was quite strong, and call quality was unusually good for MetroPCS. As with all Galaxy S III phones, you can tune the call audio to the frequencies you best hear, a nice touch. The speakerphone isn't quite loud enough to use outdoors, but it's fine for the car or a boardroom. The microphone does a good job of cancelling background noise. Bluetooth headsets work fine with Samsung's S-Voice voice dialing system.

Calls get enhanced by Joyn, the first voice-over-LTE service in America. Joyn isn't seamless to start?you have to download an app from Google Play and run it?but after that, it always launches at startup. Joyn's top improvement is clear Wi-Fi calling when you can't get MetroPCS signal. That's a big benefit. If you know other people with Joyn phones, you can also stream live video to them and get an improved SMS experience with read receipts.?

The service supports two-way video calling, but only over Wi-Fi. At that point you might as well use Skype or ooVoo and get a larger potential audience.

Here's the thing, though: Joyn works on a bunch of MetroPCS phones, not just the Galaxy S III. It runs on both the LG Motion 4G and Samsung Galaxy Attain 4G, so you can get these features on less expensive phones than the GS3.

I got very good Internet speeds with the Galaxy S III, with an average of 7Mbps down and 3.4Mbps up. Metro's network has actually been getting faster with time, and that's one thing that won't decline after the Metro/T-Mobile merger, as phones like this will be able to access both Metro's existing LTE network and T-Mobile's new LTE network.

The Galaxy S III also has Wi-Fi on the 2.4 and 5GHz bands, and NFC. Google Wallet comes preloaded on the phone.

Software and Performance
The MetroPCS Galaxy S III runs Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich," and Samsung has said an update to 4.1 "Jelly Bean" is coming. Check out our full reviews of Android 4.0 and Android 4.1 for more information.

The 1.5GHz Qualcomm S4 chip in here isn't the most powerful on the market any more, but it still performs very well, and it's the fastest thing MetroPCS has to offer. For more on the phone's apps, camera and media playback, take a look at our review of the Sprint version of the Galaxy S III; this one performs pretty much the same.

MetroPCS and Samsung have added their own apps to the usual Galaxy S III build. Other than Joyn and Google Wallet, the most interesting is Easy WiFi, provided by DeviceScape. This is a nifty client which runs in the background and auto-detects and logs into public Wi-Fi hotspots. I'm always surprised to see how well it works. Otherwise, the phone is larded down with applications and media stores from both Samsung and MetroPCS.

Conclusions
We're not giving any more Editors' Choice awards on MetroPCS until its line of T-Mobile compatible HSPA+ phones comes out next year. The Galaxy S III is an excellent phone, but it costs too much up front for a phone running on a network whose days are strictly numbered.

If you have deep pockets and want to go this route anyway, your phone will probably work just fine over the next two years. Still, though, if you want a Galaxy S with a MetroPCS plan and a real future, I'd hold out for six months and hope to get a new T-Metro Galaxy S IV that's all kitted out for the new network.

Our Editors' Choice for MetroPCS is technically the LG Connect 4G, but that award came before the T-Metro merger announcement. As I said before, right now I'd save my dollars, pick up an LG Motion or Samsung Galaxy Attain, and get another new MetroPCS phone once the effect of the merger becomes clearer.

More Cell Phone Reviews:
??? Samsung Galaxy S III (MetroPCS)
??? HTC Droid DNA (Verizon Wireless)
??? Nokia Lumia 810 (T-Mobile)
??? Sony Xperia TL (AT&T)
??? Google Nexus 4 (Unlocked)
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/NBNMWa63TSw/0,2817,2412242,00.asp

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Granby Ranch: Cheap Season Passes with Bonuses - Mile High on ...

Ski Granby Ranch (formerly SolVista Basin) opens on December 12,?so season passes are still on early season sale. Pass holders at this family-friendly?resort with?2 interconnected ski hills and six terrain parks?get 10% off lift tickets for guests, retail shop purchases, food and beverage at Granby Ranch Grill and the Dining Hall (excluding alcohol), Ski & Ride School packages and ski and snowboard rentals. Also, FREE?night skiing and tubing, three FREE days each at Monarch Ski Area and?Sinlight Mountain Resort. You can still purchase them at early-season?rates: family of 4, $799; family of 3, $699; military family of 4, $499; ages 13-60, $329; sges 13-69, $229; ages 61-69, $249; ages 6-12, $139; and ages 70 & up, $69. 5 and under FREE.

Source: http://www.milehighonthecheap.com/2012/11/granby-ranch-cheap-season-passes-with-bonuses/

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Don't ditch VoIP just yet | IT-Online

How often have?people heard a small business owner, friend, colleague or online forum contributor bemoaning the terrible quality or support of their network connectivity, Internet and telecoms services? All too often, says Robert Barclay, process manager at Euphoria Telecom.
And while this may give grim comfort to more reliable business VoIP providers, the reality is that one more customer is fed up and thinking of ditching VoIP to go back to analogue.
Also,?they are?telling others about it, which knocks the industry?s credibility, with cascading negative effects on sales. Worst of all, the customer is subjected to further expenses, in the way of setup fees with an analogue service provider, time taken to get out of service contracts, and general frustration over a service that should be flexible, transparent, easy-to-use and efficient.
Coming soon ? the future
This unfortunate state of affairs however obscures the fact that VoIP holds the key to a future of voice quality beyond even analogue telephony. VoIP also offers unprecedented efficiency and cost-effectiveness in business communications, and a rich unified communications (UC)?and service experience as the standard.
Reputable service providers are tying together multiple communications and hosted business services with VoIP as the basis, bolstering its value proposition with reliable connections and quality assurance. While the bad luck stories are all too plentiful, these champions of the future are out there, and they want to help. To ditch VoIP would mean sacrificing a great deal.
Top quality, affordably
Let?s begin?the assessment of VoIP?s growing value with the issue of quality. The technology?s maturation is almost complete, and its quality can be virtually assured by putting in the right network, quality assurance techniques and failover planning.
But how do users?come by a quality network cheaply? Most SMEs can?t afford the luxury of a Diginet leased line circuit or a fibre link from the incumbent operators. While prices have come down somewhat, they are still out of reach of SMEs.
Many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have in the circumstances resorted to using ADSL as their access network. However, ADSL local exchanges are sometimes over-subscribed or poorly maintained. In such cases, there are no guarantees, and no amount of site preparation, quality of service (QoS) in the network or failover planning can guarantee the service.
A lot of work is currently being done to fill this gap in the market, and signs are that QoS-invested, affordable networks will soon be entering the mainstream, allowing SMEs beyond the start-up micro phase to run with the big dogs.
A new generation of telecoms network and service providers is building out access network infrastructures that achieve the previously unthinkable ? an affordable service with quality assurance.
The unifying factor
VoIP offers the opportunity to bundle a richly diverse but integrated (unified) communications experience, offered by one hosted service provider for a well-supported, cost-effective customer experience.
It ties together multiple communication types into one service, including fax, e-mail, instant messaging, voice calls and videoconferencing.
It goes even further ? when offered as a cloud-based hosted service, a VoIP PBX can be bundled with other software as a service (SaaS) offerings, including hosted Microsoft Exchange (hosted enterprise mail servers), online backup and business services.
Cost-effective
The penultimate chapter in the story of how VoIP is revolutionising business communications is the cost factor.
When bundled together in the abovementioned way, unified communications and business services potentially offer massive savings, because they can be offered at package prices. Combined with falling access prices, the overall effect is one of premium-grade SME communications that is cheaper than fibre and Diginet (albeit at a premium to ADSL).
One throat to choke
Best of all, the coming together of multiple communications services on IP brings about the possibility of dealing with one provider only, as opposed to struggling to manage multiple vendor relationships.
A new generation of VoIP providers have the market track record to bring this vision to market, as it nears its imminent realisation. In such a supplier relationship, customers can no longer be sent from pillar to post between access provider, backbone provider, corporate network provider and PBX provider.
The upshot of these developments will be a trusted, richly functional, affordable communications functionality that allows small companies to punch far above their weight class. And it?s around the corner.

Related posts:

1. VoIP comes of age
2. What happens after choosing VOIP?
3. Settling the great VoIP debate
4. SMBs should use their VOIP
5. VoIP will kill the analogue star

Source: http://www.it-online.co.za/2012/11/19/dont-ditch-voip-just-yet/

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'Jailbreaking' now legal on smartphones, but not tablets | The Raw ...

By NewsLook
Saturday, October 27, 2012 23:46 EDT

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Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/27/jailbreaking-now-legal-on-smartphones-but-not-tablets/

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Muslim pilgrims stone devil in symbolic hajj rite

MINA, Saudi Arabia (AP) ? Millions of pilgrims in Saudi Arabia on Friday furiously cast pebbles in a symbolic stoning of the devil, carrying out a final rite of hajj, as Muslims around the world celebrated the start of Islam's biggest holiday, the Feast of Sacrifice.

After stoning three walls symbolizing Satan in a rejection of sin and temptation, male pilgrims changed out of the seamless terrycloth robes of pilgrimage and shaved their heads, as a sign of renewal. Women ? and those men who prefer not to undergo a complete shave ? had a lock of hair clipped.

Though pilgrims will repeat the stoning ritual for at least two more days, they could now call themselves "hajjis," referring to those who have done the pilgrimage.

Malik Evangelatos, from Ukiah, Calif., said the experience felt "wonderful, satisfying and humbling."

Evangelatos, who converted to Islam six years ago, said the simple pilgrim's garment that he had worn the past few days helped him "see the bigger picture in life and go back changed, happy and appreciative." For him, the hajj brought a chance to be truly equal regardless of ethnicity or race.

"It has probably been the highlight of my life outside of getting married and having a baby," he said. "You feel an emotional release. It is something that is not recreated anywhere else in the world."

For the stoning ritual, the 3.4 million pilgrims from around the world filed in crowds through a multi-level structure housing the walls symbolizing the devil in the desert valley of Mina, outside the holy city of Mecca.

The structure of ramps maintains traffic flow, moving pilgrims on four levels past the walls, as they throw seven pebbles at each. Some have criticized the nearly kilometer-long (0.6 mile) cement structure, which resembles a mega parking garage with escalators, saying it detracts from the simplicity and spiritual aspect of hajj.

But the facility protects lives, Hajj Ministry Director General Amin Fatani, told The Associated Press. The stoning ritual has been the scene of deadly crushes and stampedes killing hundreds ? the most recent in 2006 ? as pilgrims tried to squeeze past and throw their stones, especially since there used to be pillars instead of walls, meaning the massive throngs had to focus on a smaller point. Even with the walls, pilgrims on one side often get hit by pebbles thrown by people on the other side.

"The life of a hajji is precious to the government and their safety comes first," Fatani said. "If we leave hajj the way we had it been before, there will be a catastrophe from the first day."

On Friday, Muslims marked the holiday, known in Arabic as Eid al-Adha, commemorating what Muslims believe was Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail ? the Biblical Ishmael, though Christians and Jews believe his other son Isaac was the near-sacrifice ? as a test of his faith from God.

Around the world, Muslims slaughtered lambs, sheep and other livestock in remembrance, giving the meat to the poor. At Mina, pilgrims purchased tokens to have a sheep slaughtered at nearby slaughterhouses.

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The day of stoning marked an exhausting trek for pilgrims between the string of ritual sites strung across the desert outside Mecca. They spent the day Thursday at Mount Arafat in a day of contemplation and prayers to wipe away past sins. Then overnight, they went to the nearby plain of Muzdalifah to collect the pebbles they would use in the stoning ritual before heading to Mina by the morning.

Between the movements, many also went back into Mecca to again circumambulate the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure toward which Muslims pray every day ? Islam's holiest site.

Tunisian pharmacist Ahlam Zahar said she teared up seeing the sheer number of people praying in unison as she approached the Kaaba late Thursday before coming to Mina for the stoning on Friday.

"Hajj needs energy and concentration," she said. "It's really hard under the heat."

For most pilgrims coming from poorer Muslim nations, it is common to sleep in the streets and walk the trajectory among the sites, a distance of around 30 kilometers (19 miles). Many have children or elderly relatives with them.

"I envy them," Ahmed Fahmy said of those enduring the difficult trek. "These people are following the footsteps of the Prophet (Muhammad). They could manage to get rides, but they exhaust themselves for the bigger reward with Allah."

Fahmy, the general manager of the Cairo-based Islamic Huda TV, said this was his 11th Hajj to complete. Despite feeling tired afterward, the reward of the pilgrimage is in the hardship one faces, he said.

"You feel obedient to Allah," Fahmy said. "I feel like it's something that is entirely for the pleasure of Allah."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/muslim-pilgrims-stone-devil-symbolic-hajj-rite-192804040.html

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