If you’re hesitant about participating, don’t be!  This Social Media Summit will benefit small business owners, corporate marketer to the experienced social media evangelist.  There will be 20 instructors (including my good buddy, Jason Baer of Convince and Convert) presenting nearly every social media topic under the sun, .   If you book early, there is a 50% discount, which brings the cost down to$297.

For more info and/or to register, click here.

People are starting businesses everyday based on this collective buying market niche that Groupon carved out a couple years ago.  Even with all the new competitors entering the market, there is still a lot of opportunity.  Look at it this way…Startbucks did not put independent coffee shops out of business, they helped them increase their business.  If you can put a twist on what Starbucks does to make your community coffee shop stand out, you can easily compete with them.  Just like with Groupon…if you can get creative in your approach, there is a way to carve out a niche, within a niche.

I get a ton of  Daily Deal and Collective Buying website-related traffic due to a blog post I wrote over a year ago on the “Collective Buying” website concept that Groupon created.   Groupon has spawned many knock-off websites and the industry as a whole is exploding.  Are you interested in building a “Collective Buying Website?”  If so, my team and I can help you.  We built a Daily Deal website in Europe called, “UbuyWithMe.com.”  We’ve also worked on site architecture for another collective buying site, so we have the framework in place to build a daily deal type site affordably and quickly.   Each client’s needs are different, but just to give you ballpark numbers, it will run between $15-$18k to build a site and 3 months to complete.

If you have any questions, or would like more information on building a collective buying or daily deal type website, drop us a line.

“We are extremely excited about working with Recognia, Inc. in helping them achieve their online marketing goals,” said Mike Shubic – Principal of Shubic Web Design.

About Recognia: Recognia is the industry leader in providing actionable investment research products for both institutional traders and online brokers.  Founded in 2000 in Canada’s National Capital region of Ottawa, Recognia has more than 20 million provisioned accounts worldwide, with products servicing the largest and most successful institutions, stock exchanges and online brokerage firms, including Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, NYSE Euronext, Fidelity, Saxobank, HSBC, ICICI Direct, Kotak Securities, and many more.

Line2 is a VOIP app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that enables you to use your phone via wi-fi verses your cell service provider.  The best part…it’s absolutely free for unlimited use (provided that you have a solid wi-fi connection).  I should note, the app itself is not free, it costs $14.95 per month.  Not cheap, but depending on your usage, it’s possible to use a less expensive plan with your wireless provider.  You can also use Line2 with a 3G network if you don’t have wi-fi access, but the provider says that wi-fi works best—I would predict that once 4G is rolled out, this will not be the case.

Learn more about this new app by watching the video below. Or, by reading this article published by the NY Times yesterday. (Interestingly, the Line2 website was down most of the day yesterday, I assume it was from the resent surge in interest for their product due to the article)

Quick Intro to Line2 for iPhone from Toren Ajk on Vimeo.

No question online marketing has been gaining traction over the years, and for good reason—online marketing is targetable, trackable and provides amazing ROI. The Holy Grail of online marketing is creating/getting something to go “viral,” meaning something that will resonate with people so much that they share it with their friends and those friends share it with their friends…and so on.

In Pepsi’s latest social media program, they are giving away $20 million in grant money, some critics say that if you’re going to spend that kind of money for a charitable cause, why not spend another $3m for a Super Bowl spot?  To start with $3m is just for one 30 second spot, so they’d more likely spend $9-12m, plus production.  I actually believe it was a brilliant P/R move on Pepsi’s part…think about all the media attention they’ve gained by NOT being in the Super Bowl this year (including this small blog post)…that alone is worth forgoing the big event.  In addition, marketing is about about testing and taking chances…since Pepsi is such a big brand, they can easily take a year off from the Super Bowl and use that money to test the social media waters in a big way.

Tell me what you think…brilliance or blunder?

Google Nexus One Smart Phone

phone soon—well, looks like that day has come sooner than most expected.  Later today Google is expected to announce the launch of Nexus One (or Nexus 1).  Nexus One could be the first smart phone to truly compete with the iPhone.  Everyone I’ve talked with who has an Android phone absolutely loves the OS.  The unlocked version of Nexus 1 is expected to be around $550.

Check out the demo video:

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Motorola Droid by Verizon Wireless running the Google Android OS

In addition, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google actually has plans to develop their own phone and will begin selling it directly to consumers instead of through a mobile carrier.  Apparently, some Google employees are already testing the new mobile device that runs on the company’s Android operating system.  Currently there are only a handful of phones running the Google OS, and only two carriers…T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.

I found a great article from Junta42 that asks all the top social media and online marketing experts there predictions for 2010, click here to read.

SQUARE credit card processing made simple

Square was founded by a St. Louis glass artist named Jim McKelvey who saw a problem that needed a solution. Jim teamed up with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to bring Square to fruition. SquareUp.com allows small business owners to begin accepting payment cards without contracts, expensive hardware or monthly fees that are typical with other mobile solutions.  All you need to get started is the Square Up app and a small plastic device that plugs into the phone audio input jack (which allows you to swipe and process a variety of payment cards). Customers have have receipts sent to them via e-mail or text message.

2/10/10 update to this post: CNN Money ran a great article on the iPhone credit card swipe war.

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