Looking for the best career search websites? Online tools to help you check out that prospective employee, new next-door neighbor or potentially significant other? Specialty search engines? The story behind LOLcats? Resources to improve your Internet marketing skills? Find music online? Record and promote podcasts? Find the answers to these random and unrelated questions and more in this set of valuable but difficult-to-classify posts from the last year. Help wanted. Desperately. by Reflections of a Newsosaur In a great post about online career resources , Alan Mutter traces the decline of the newspaper industry to the fall in help-wanted classified advertising. Mutter contends that newspapers once virtually owned the business of connecting employers with job-seekers, but, failing to sense the shift happening around them, have conceded billions of dollars in classified ad revenues, first to sites like CareerBuilder ,  Monster , and more recently to SimplyHired , and  ...

Search marketing guru Gord Hotchkiss wrote an intriguing post last Thursday on neuroplasticity —the ability of the human brain to constantly adapt to its environment. In Grandma Via YouTube, he points out while this happens throughout our lives, and is generally called simply "learning," " there are two phases where the brain literally reforms itself in a massive restructuring: right around two years of age and again as teenagers." Pondering the implications of this in an age of rapid technological advancement, Hotchkiss asks: " What happens when our children's brains develop to handle something we never had to deal with as children? Quite literally, their brains function differently than ours. This becomes particularly significant when the rate of adoption is very rapid, making a technology ubiquitous in a generation or less." To put this in historical context, had you been born as recently as the late 1700s, your brain development likely would have ...

This content has been moved to Best of 2008: Blogging for Business on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: business blogging free and cheap blog images Influential Marketing Blog Rohit Bhargava ProBlogger Rich Page Ann Handley MarketingProfs Copyblogger Sonia Simone The Blog Herald Jonathan Bailey Photo Dropper Zemanta blog directories TopRank Online Marketing Blog Blogsessive Alina Popescu del.icio.us tags: business blogging free and cheap blog images Influential Marketing Blog Rohit Bhargava ProBlogger Rich Page Ann Handley MarketingProfs Copyblogger Sonia Simone The Blog Herald Jonathan Bailey Photo Dropper Zemanta blog directories TopRank Online Marketing Blog Blogsessive Alina Popescu icerocket tags: business blogging free and cheap blog images Influential Marketing Blog Rohit Bhargava ProBlogger Rich Page Ann Handley MarketingProfs Copyblogger Sonia Simone The Blog Herald Jonathan Bailey Photo Dropper Zemanta blog...

With all the hype that's built up around social media marketing, it probably shouldn't be surprising to see a backlash of sorts in the form of a spate of recent articles suggesting that social media is worthless for marketers. These remind one of the link-baiting SEO is dead articles that pop up periodically. For example, Luis Paez takes some liberties with statistics to make the case that social media is useless for marketing. There's even a term for this alleged uselessness: social notworking . Get it? As in, when people are Twittering, Digging or interacting on a social networking site, they are not working. And these sites are not working to bring in new business. Isn't that clever? Well, let's see, what are some of the business uses for social media? Monitoring what's being said about your company, industry and competitors Reaching new prospects Responding to customers Connecting with key influencers Enhancing your company's credibility by ...

This content has been moved to Best of 2008: Cool Web Tools on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: online reputation management cool we tools social media email signature video chat session LookupPage Retaggr Exalead Name Combo WiseStamp ePoster ooVoo FutureNow Bryan Eisenberg Feed Compare Xinu Returns social bookmarking sites Website Grader Kyle Monson Animoto Jott NationMaster del.icio.us tags: online reputation management cool we tools social media email signature video chat session LookupPage Retaggr Exalead Name Combo WiseStamp ePoster ooVoo FutureNow Bryan Eisenberg Feed Compare Xinu Returns social bookmarking sites Website Grader Kyle Monson Animoto Jott NationMaster icerocket tags: online reputation management cool we tools social media email signature video chat session LookupPage Retaggr Exalead Name Combo WiseStamp ePoster ooVoo FutureNow Bryan Eisenberg Feed Compare Xinu Returns social bookmarki...

Given that, depending on whose numbers you trust, organic search accounts for 75-80% of all clicks while search ads get just 15-20%, it's fair to ask the question: with a limited online marketing budget (do you know anyone who has an unlimited budget?), why spend scarce dollars on paid search at all? Can't I get most of the clicks for "free" using SEO rather than paying for clicks on search ads? Well, in a word, "no." Here's why companies need to invest in both organic optimization and search engine advertising: 1. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Stating that 75% of search clicks are on the organic results rather than ads isn't untrue, but it is misleading. That's the rough figure for all searches. But not all searches are commercial in nature. Someone searching for "who invented photography?" is far less likely to click on a paid ad than some searching for "Canon PowerShot SD1100." Put another way, searchers with an i...

As new technologies evolve, so do the etiquette standards of accepted behavior associated with them. Ever gotten an email in ALL CAPS, from someone not realizing they were virtually shouting? What about talking loudly on cell phones in a quiet train car or other public place? Today these seem like obvious etiquette missteps (well, to most people anyway) but early on, when people were learning the rules, they weren’t as apparent. As video conferencing becomes commonplace, video calling provider ooVoo wants people to get the best possible experience and outcome. While you may be able to get away with no pants, please DON’T remove articles of clothing while on a video conference. It happens—check out this clip of a woman removing her bra while on a business conference call (don't worry, it's safe for the office): While I've never personally seen anything quite like this, I was on a video conference call once where a guy was reading and forwarding email jokes while the call ...

This content has been moved to Best of 2008: Strategy and Branding on the Webbiquity blog. ***** technorati tags: marketing strategy branding Growthink Dave Lavinsky Bootstrapper FreshBooks Marketing Edge podcast Albert Maruggi Big Brown E-consultancy Aliya Zaidi David Hutchinson marketing operations Value Acceleration: The Secrets to Building an Unbeatable Competitive Advantage Mitchell Goozé Ralph Mroz Copyblogger Dean Rieck Sales and Sales Management Blog Jill Konrath del.icio.us tags: marketing strategy branding Growthink Dave Lavinsky Bootstrapper FreshBooks Marketing Edge podcast Albert Maruggi Big Brown E-consultancy Aliya Zaidi David Hutchinson marketing operations Value Acceleration: The Secrets to Building an Unbeatable Competitive Advantage Mitchell Goozé Ralph Mroz Copyblogger Dean Rieck Sales and Sales Management Blog Jill Konrath icerocket tags: marketing strategy branding Growthink Dave Lavinsky Bootstrapper FreshBooks Mar...

Note: This is the final article in a four-part series of guest posts on B2B branding strategy and website design from Rebekah E. Donaldson ("Red") and Cris Rominger of B2B Communications . When approaching a re-skin or redesign of your company’s website, it’s helpful to keep in mind both branding goals and user goals. For example, consider these questions: Website branding goals Do the changes communicate professionalism? Are they appropriate for our industry/market? Do the changes render error-free on different browsers? At different resolutions? On different operating systems? Website user goals Do the changes help users accomplish their goals on the site quickly and easily? Are we communicating a clear value proposition? Is our site organized for our visitors? Are the paths to information clear? Is the orientation clear? Is the labeling instructive? Does our content instill trust and credibility? Is it formatted for online readers? Does our writing compel vis...