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topLingo's dotcomGood Webinar Recording: Web Software That Will Change the Way You Do Business! | | Wednesday, June 13, 2007 | | | |
Online applications are slowly replacing traditional software and it's important to know what your options are. Today, in our 3rd online webinar topLingo addressed the benefits of using web software and demo'd 17 cool apps that can help your business in the areas of IT, communications, marketing, sales, workflow and project management.
You can view the presentation online here:
CLICK HERE TO VIEW ONLINE
(5.7MB Flash)
Or for your iPod:
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
(22MB M4V)
 | | |  Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, E-Marketing, General, Random Links, Web 2.0, Web Applications |
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Radio Killed the Video Star – Google Radio Advertising | | Friday, June 01, 2007 | | |  Recently beta launched Google Audio Ads allows you to create
radio advertising campaigns by producing high quality radio ads and allowing you
to set your own budget and decide when and where your ads air. And for a little as $400 … I can hear that!
Google Audio Ads
| | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, E-Marketing |
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Testing Webpage Message Variations - Google Website Optimizer | | Friday, May 11, 2007 | | | |
According to Google “Website Optimizer, Google's free multivariate testing application, helps online marketers increase visitor conversion rates and overall visitor satisfaction by continually testing different combinations of site content (text and images).”
So, after I looked up what the word multivariate meant I then checked out the demo.
This free new tool comes with a Google AdWords account and lets you rotate and track ROI on webpage variations. The example they present is scenario with three different homepages that only differ by a unique headline, photo and paragraph of copy. These pages are then auto rotated and tracked by Google whose analytics reveal which message is the most effective. Try it out.
Google Website Optimizer
| | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: E-Marketing, General, Programming |
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Contract Out On Ya! Word! | | Friday, May 04, 2007 | | | |
I have an art degree. I know hundreds of Photoshop tips and tricks. My spare time is spent video editing in Final Cut. So with that in mind guess what application I use the most? Microsoft Friggin Word!
Welcome to business 101.
If you do any client development, and do it well, the necessary evil of any web shop sales professional is to spend a massive amount of time typing client proposals and contracts. Why? Here’s a good article with reasons …
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/web_design_contracts/ | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, General |
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Ask a Question Get an Answer. Answer a Question Get a Sales Lead. | | Thursday, April 26, 2007 | | |  An avid user of LinkedIn, the MySpace for business professionals, I’ve been playing around with their new Answers section.
Similar to the popular Yahoo! Answers the concept is social networking based and allows professionals to quickly post a question based on specific subject matter and receive responses from professionals who either know the answer or connect you with someone who does. I.E. sales networking.
www.LinkedIn.com | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, General, Web 2.0 |
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Budget to Small? Try Freelance, Craigs List or Overseas. | | Thursday, April 12, 2007 | | | | Like any web development company in the U.S. topLingo has a minimum development cost to take on any new project. Our threshold is $5000 for new clients.
Can we do it for $500? Sorry, no. But we offer three alternatives to prospects
- Freelancer. We have a good network of professionals who have full time jobs and are willing to work after hours and on weekends.
- CraigsList. Post an ad for your project and pros will answer.
 Outsource overseas. India is the most prominent country in the list and there are services that exist like oDesk which allow you to post a project then monitor it using webcams, activity level recording and screen-capturing technology. That’s some serious big brother stuff! And although very few Americans would work daily under those conditions and I sympathize with the developer on the other side … your project can get completed on the cheap. | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, Programming |
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Budget for Marketing ... Or Die Tryin'! | | Thursday, April 05, 2007 | | |
Recently a friend of mine ramped up to invest in a new website
application. However, it wasn’t really a
new project rather one with dozens of major competitors.
His development budget was realistic, his drive was
impressive, his operation plan was on par for success and his marketing dollars
seemed enough. $40k sounded like it
would do the job.
Then he did something very smart.
He dug deep into his competition and discovered that their marketing
budgets ranged from $500k to $1mil a year.
So, in order for him to realistically compete in the same space $40k was
only a drop in the bucket. $40k would
get him going but he’d struggle massively to launch.
Lesson learned … Digest (info) before you invest (cha-ching$$).
| | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, E-Marketing, General |
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topLingo Represents at the 2007 MBA Technology Conference in Tampa | | Friday, March 30, 2007 | | |
2700 miles flying, 483 miles driving and 7 days later I’ve returned from my “Attack Florida” business trip completing our first ever trade show event.
From Sunday, March 25th to Tuesday, March 27th we set up and operated a booth at the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Technolgy tradeshow in Tampa, FL where we officially announced to the mortgage banking world that topLingo exists. 100 projects and 30 mortgage clients later … we figured it was time.
Overall, the show attendance sucked, but the potential clients showing interest in us rocked!
topLingo Tradeshow Photos | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, General |
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Society is Stoopid, High Society is Highly Stoopider | | Thursday, March 29, 2007 | | |
So ... ummm ... Bono got knighted.
In a previous blog entry, I discussed how certain icons are above criticism. I think my examples were the VW bug and the iPod. Bono fits into that category. Why does everybody think this nebbish fool is a hero? He sings songs. He doesn't even write them anymore. He simply sings them. And they are bad. The first time you listen, you think, oh, this is a snazzy tune. But after you listen a second time, you realize just how much the current U2 sucks compared to the Joshua Tree era. They've become a formula-based stadium band like the Rolling Stones in the 80s.
Back to Bono. I guess maybe he's cool also because he whined incessantly about George Bush before that became a national pastime. Also, he was one of the first guys that wore sunglasses ALWAYS. Other than Puffy and Stevie Wonder, of course. Puffy looks like a goofball without sunglasses, so I see why he wears them. And Stevie is above my acidic whining because of the "Innervisions" and "Songs In The Key Of Life" albums. Oh and he's blind, so I go to the sixth layer of hell if I mock him. But Bono does rock the sunglasses, so he gets a point there.
Oh wait, I'm now remembering that he does something for AIDS/HIV victims in Africa. So that's very cool and humanitarian of him, but he's really, really, REALLY rich, so (a) he should do that and (b) he probably pays a whole corporation to get their hands dirty whilst he vacations in the south of France (hey, you can ALMOST see Africa from there, you know).
So why do groups of elite and wealthy people feel the need to recognize other powerful people who do the socially and morally correct thing? Is it because the ability to follow the ethical path is missing among the upper-crustaceans? Is it because the jet set has nothing better to do than heap meaningless feelgood accolades upon one another? Actually, I think they are all just bored with being rich.
| | | | Posted by Jason Berry | | Categories: General |
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Is Your “Online Rep” Cooler than In Real Life? | | Wednesday, March 14, 2007 | | |  eBay’s feedback system is really the only solution online to reach true success in having consumers respect and base decisions on another users “Online Reputation.” The Gorb is one of a few startups whose trying to capilize on that.
The Gorb has anonymous comments and ratings about an individual so whether you love them or hate them you place a rating on their personal and professional lives. Scale is from 1 to 10, with total averages and comments.
Sound scary? Maybe not. Experts believe the future of the web (3.0, 4.0 whatever) relies solely on accountability and identity. I’m just hoping someone doesn’t give me a zero and say I smell like Greek goat cheese!
www.TheGorb.com | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Random Links, Web 2.0 |
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Bald Marketing Genius Speaks at Google | | Thursday, March 08, 2007 | | |  Want a better alternative to taking a marketing class at your local college? Then pay attention marketing guru Seth Godin. Here’s a 48 minute online video of him speaking to the people at Google about why they rock and what marketing means in web 2.0.
Seth recaps his permission marketing, purple cow, idea virus and all marketers are liars concepts with remarks like “Tiffany’s doesn’t sell necklaces. They sell blue boxes with the Tiffany’s logo on it. They charge you $1000’s of dollars for the box and then give the necklace away free inside!” "All Marketers are Liars" - Seth Godin speaks at Google
| | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, E-Marketing, General, Random Links, Web 2.0 |
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PHP sucks, too | | Wednesday, March 07, 2007 | | |
Recent security holes with PHP will be undoubtedly under-reported. Why? Because it's no fun to pick on Open Source code ... there's no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Open Source has no figurehead that the contrarians can throw rotten tomatoes at. Weak.
Funny how MS Office can have some obscure issue with email attachments and the ill-informed press (both tech & mainstream) loudly compose the epitaph for MS's corporate tombstone. Less often, Jobs announces the latest iGadget and those same reporters predict with unflinching certainty that Apple is overextending and won't be around in 2 quarters. But PHP has several major security holes that affect half the world's servers and I've seen one tech notice in a small (but reliable) security newsletter. Guess what? I tested out the holes, since they are so easy to replicate, and they do exist.
So what gives? I think it boils down to the simple concept that it's not cool to talk smack about Open Source. Along the same lines you'll probably never hear anybody say anything negative about hybrids, or Volkswagen bugs, or Tom Brokaw, or PBS. There are some things in our society that somehow get a natural coating of critic-resistant teflon and that doesn't seem fair.
I wonder what the criteria is for receiving that coating. The only reason I'm asking, of course, is because I'm jealous and I want it.
| | | | Posted by Jason Berry | | Categories: Web Applications |
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Start Menu > Search > Sucks | | Wednesday, March 07, 2007 | | |  If you’re still using the painfully slow built in Windows
search function to look for documents on your personal computer consider upgrading to
Google desktop. Searching is as easy as searching on Google.com and also includes:
- Smart one time indexing when your machine is idle
- Searches all regular files as well as email and web
history
- Google.com integration
- View news, photos and more anywhere on your
desktop
- Outlook integration
- Add Google Gadgets to customize your desktop and
sidebar
- Lock Search to prevent anyone else from doing a
Google Desktop Search
Google Desktop
| | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: General, Random Links, Web 2.0 |
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Salesforce.com Webinar: Marketing in the Google Era | | Tuesday, March 06, 2007 | | | | Need more info about e-marketing? I attended this informative webinar from Salesforce.com which did a good job outlining e-marketing concepts tips and tricks.
Click here to watch it online. | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, E-Marketing, Random Links |
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topLingo's dotcomGood Webinar Recording: Pay Per Click E-Marketing | | Monday, March 05, 2007 | | |
With great success last week topLingo executed our second dotcomGood webinar titled "Pay Per Click E-Marketing: Why it's OK to Buy Your Way to the Top!" This 15 minute webinar showcased everything you need to know about search engine Pay Per Click advertising. The players, the costs, the strategies and the do's and don'ts. But don't worry if you missed it, you can view the presentation online here:
CLICK HERE TO VIEW ONLINE
(12.7MB Flash)
Or for your iPod:
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
(22MB M4V)
 | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, Database, E-Marketing, General, Hosting, Random Links, Web 2.0, Web Applications |
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Adobe Taking Photoshop Online! | | Friday, March 02, 2007 | | | A few days after I posted a blog about Google's online apps waging war on Microsoft more big news comes from a major player in our field. Adobe is taking it's flagship product Photoshop online.
Adobe recognizes that the future of software is to be a hybrid offering both online and installed versions. They're also following the lead of companies like Google who benefit from ad supported online services and subsequently are bringing both Photoshop and the new Adobe Remix (a web based video editing tool) to the internet. Released dates are scheduled within next 6 months.
To quote Borat "NIIIIIIIICCCCCCEEE!"
Full story from CNN | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, Graphic Design, Web 2.0, Web Applications |
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Launching Google Apps First Blood is Drawn Against Microsoft | | Wednesday, February 28, 2007 | | |  Feb 22, 2007 remember the day.
It’s a major milestone for Google and a day they've officially waged a war against Microsoft and their dominance in the office software market by offering subscription packages of premium, hosted business applications. Applicaitons include Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets, Page Create and Start Page. Features include:
- 99.9% uptime and 2 to 10 GB of email
- Mobile access
- API’s to integrate with your infrastructure including single sign-on, user provisioning and management and email gateway support
- Email migration tools
- Online support
- 24/7 assistance including on the phone
- 3rd party applications and services
Click here for edition comparisons and costs.
www.Google.com/a | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, General, Hosting, Random Links, Web 2.0, Web Applications |
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Are You Linked In? | | Tuesday, February 27, 2007 | | |  Considered a MySpace for business professionals this web 2.0 networking site is awesome for keeping in touch with your contacts. Free to join it's features include:
- Find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended
- Be found for business opportunities
- Search for great jobs
- Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
- Post and distribute job listings
- Find high-quality passive candidates
- Get introduced to other professionals through the people you know
www.LinkedIn.com
And you can add me: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/338/b05 | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, Random Links, Web 2.0 |
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24-7 Web Site Support and Being Responsive. | | Monday, February 26, 2007 | | | | It’s rare but at least once a year we get woken up because a web site or web server is down. That was early this morning and proof that you can have redundancy, monitoring and other fail safes but just like in life things happen beyond your control. Life will always throw you a curveball but as long as you react responsively and intelligently you’ll be just fine. We did, and everything’s cool.
The events went like this … Client called my cell to wake me up, I researched the issue and then called IT. IT in this case was my business partner Jason who I woke up and then drove to co-location facility. He quickly diagnosed the issue to be a failed UPC unit and within 15 minutes from the initial client call the system was back online. That’s being responsive. | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Business, General, Hosting |
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The Blog Maverick – Mark Cuban | | Friday, February 23, 2007 | | |
 Mark Cuban is a nut case. He sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo! right before the bubble burst for $5.7 billion keeping $1.9 billion himself. He then bought the Dallas Mavericks for $280 million, which at the time was the highest price ever paid for a basketball team and now he holds the record for largest NBA fine ever when he complained about an official saying, "I wouldn't hire him to manage a Dairy Queen." Dairy Queen in turn invited Cuban to run a Dairy Queen for a day. So Mark did.
This dude is outspoken, intelligent and has his pulse on technology which is all evident in his blog. Like tech and basketball? Check it out.
www.blogmaverick.com | | | | Posted by Michael Glezos | | Categories: Random Links |
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