Todd Lyden

If you have a service or retail business with a brick and mortar location, you KNOW (or should know) the value of making sure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) are all over the map in the online listing services. Yelp, Yahoo, Google, Bing, Merchant Circle, YP.com... the list is growing on a daily basis. Powerhouse Facebook is now entering the ring with  www.facebook.com/services . Why this actual might mean something is that it is a lot easier to garner reviews and comments that boost this rating via your friends, family, etc than it is to deal with Yelpers, etc. If nothing else, this is a good reminder that you should take control of your listing on Facebook (and all the other services) while you can. If you need a little help in this regard, let me know!

Image via Wikipedia " QR codes looks like a solution looking for a problem to solve." Could NOT agree more with Carl Gunell over here: https://storify.com/gunell/the-evolution-of-qr-codes2. Others think they are the bee's knees : " Forrester estimates that 1% of all internet users and 5% of smartphone users have scanned a QR code in the past three months."  The Gadget Guy thinks they can be useful but only if used properly. There are examples of different large campaigns using them, but are they really that effective? I've used Scanlife a few times with my new phone, but honestly- doing it was no less simple then to just type in a short URL in the web browser.  Here is a great discussion on the usage of codes via survey here:  http://2d-code.co.uk/how-many-would-scan-a-qr-code/ The other day I saw an ad with the QR code right about the short, extremely short URL. Does it REALLY save that much time?  Dave Boike expressed this well o...

Looking back again at 2010 from Social Media Today in 2009: http://socialmediatoday.com/SMC/146209 1. Augmented Reality Applications Will Start to Go Mainstream Really? Where are they? 2. Location-Based Applications Will Dissolve Into General Social Networks "Location-based applications like  Foursquare  and  Brightkite  will not be the darlings of social media as some predict, but will instead turn into features and dissolve into general social networks like Facebook and Twitter."  This is probably half-true. They haven't taken off as gangbusters as everyone thought, but have they been completely assimilated? Not close. Are they generally only effective because of Twitter and Facebook, YES. Will they become more important to the mobile world? Definitely.   3. Enterprise Social Software Applications Will Become Commonplace "Large software providers like IBM, SAP and Oracle will launch, or announce, the first enterprise-grade social net...

An interesting battle in the war of geo-location services or location-based services. Last week, Chipotle Mexican Grill started offering a Facebook Places Deal. The backlash was immediate and not pleasant from  Foursquare . Their CEO publicly admonished Chipotle on Twitter to setup a  Foursquare  promo deal. It's hard not see why Chipotle went with Facebook first. They have over 1 million fans on Facebook alone!The deal was apparently simple: show the local restaurant that you checked in and you got a BOGO deal. Not bad! This was a BAD move for  Foursquare . It makes them look petty. While Chipotle is taking the high ground and simply saying they can offer a 4Square deal in the future. I actually Tweeted to asked and was told "lots" took advantage of the deal. Looking at Chipotle's Facebook page for the event, there were some glitches obviously. In the end, this is unlikely to bring in a BUNCH of new customers, but instead of doing a PAID service or ema...