From Dimes to Dollars

by Ben Lopez

Another week, another recap.  So, who pre-ordered iPhone 4?  Not many of us, I imagine, seeing as it sold out in an afternoon (don’t feel bad, I missed it too).  But you’ve heard that already, let’s get to what you may not have heard this past week:

This week’s highlights:

 We have a lot of social media going on in our life these days, don’t we?  While it’s sometimes convenient and enjoyable, there’s a whole lotta noise making its way in with all those spammy Twitter updates, and damned Farmville notifications every 5 seconds.  I take a look at the top annoyances and how you can avoid them.

I share a great classic quote from Walt Disney on your work in relation to the time you spend with your family.  Family first, don’t let them slip away as you get caught up in your work.

 My good friend Phil Ricci shared a story that I thought was just completely ludicrous; the New York Times apparently things we’re just completely unprofessional to use the word “tweet”.  My question to them: what the hell else are you going to call it?  See my full response here.

Last, but certainly not least, a little something for iPhone users in celebration of the iPhone 4 this past week.  I’d been wanting to do it for a while, so I finally set aside some time to do an in-depth review of Opera Mini for iPhone.  Is it really “six times faster” as they claim?  Speed tests are explained in the review.

For tomorrow’s post, I wanted to get back to a more core business focus for a while, but damn it all, after reading one of the Tumblr staff blogs, it absolutely requires a response.  Don’t miss this one…

Oh, and if anyone happens to have a recommendation left at this point (unlikely) and would like to be kind to Dimes To Dollars, you can do so in the tech, startups, or entrepreneurs category by clicking on the respective link.  Thanks for reading!^_^

PS: Special thanks to Jon Lopez Photography for the awesome Dimes To Dollars Photo shoot! 

by Ben Lopez

The problem with social media these days is that we’re constantly being pushed to make everything connected, and encouraged to share exactly what we’re doing, buying, and where we are. What does this equate to? NOISE, and lots of it.

Perhaps you read somewhere in one of those dime-a-dozen SEO e-books that maximum exposure is critical.  Well, not when you’re scaring off users from your website and social media accounts, readers from your blog, and potential customers for your business with information overload.  You wouldn’t call someone 10 or 20 times a day to tell them you’re playing a game, would you?  Of course not, that’s just not socially acceptable.  When you post things online, think of it as a real life conversation, and remember this when considering how often you want to inform people of every minute detail.

It’s inefficient for all of us; the chronic poster loses subscribers, friend interactions, and it is more difficult to keep track of their own activities due to the very clutter they themselves create. For the rest of us, it clutters our friend feeds, RSS feeds, and inboxes like nobody’s business, good grief. Same concept as people that forward a dozen or more e-mails a day. You’re my friend, and I still like you as a person, but at the end of the day it’s just bothersome to delete all those e-mails. In the same way, it’s bothersome unsubbing/unfriending, hiding individual apps, and tweaking my display settings due to the pseudo spam of others.

My advice: DO NOT LINK TWITTER to your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Myspace account, or else we’re all doomed to suffer endless pages of “LOL yea i no” and “help me tend my crops in Farmville!”. Assuming you don’t post a new article every hour, auto updates from your blog are generally considered acceptable. If you play games, get rid of the ridiculous number of updates that flood both your wall and our friend streams.

Follow these simply rules and it’s entirely possible our planet may not be doomed (maybe). What do you think? Is there still a chance of redemption, or is society beyond hope?

by Ben Lopez

We’re hot off the heels of Steve Jobs announcing the iPhone 4, which I covered on D2D’s Twitter page, and excitement is still buzzing in the tech community.  There’s been some excitement in my own life as well, as I have recently stepped in as the Director of Marketing for App Collab, ideal for anyone interested in developing or investing in mobile apps.  As you can imagine, that has put my former schedule in a blender, so I wasn’t able to sit down and get out much original content this week.  Another fail, my bad.  This week, I’m vowing right now: more meat, less filler!  Leave me some digital-slap-in-the-face comments/threats below to keep me in line, won’t you?

That of course leads me to my one announcement of good news: comments are working again.  I had nearly become a hypocrite after making my plea to Tumblr users  explaining why comments should always be enabled!  When I upgraded to a premium theme this week, I wondered why I wasn’t getting any e-mail notifications for new comments.  But the problem is fixed, so let’s resume the conversation with the great community we have here at Tumblr!

This week’s highlights:

Less than 24 hours after I shared my predictions about Reblogging becoming a widespread standard, Wordpress announced they’re adding a feature to allow reblogs.  It won’t be long until you se this feature adopted by all major blogging sites.  Well, the smart ones, anyway.

A bombshell announcement was met with a surprisingly low-key reception in much of the tech community, when Skype announced they have finally been authorized to allow calls of 3G networks.  Naturally, I tried it out immediately like a giddy schoolgirl, and giggled uncontrollably when it worked like a charm.

RFS Claymations is not a happy camper after taking Microsoft Office 2010 beta for a test drive, and delivers a rant accordingly.

No comic strip for this week’s humour, we innovate here at D2D, gosh darn it.  A blogger introduces the new Myspace Pro service, which got at least a few chuckles from me.  It’s a shame this is fake, if there was a service really like this I’d pay for it…

If you found any of the above particularly interesting or useful, please consider recommending this blog for the tech, startups, or entrepreneurs category.  Thanks for reading!^_^

by Ben Lopez

It’s time once again for the week in review: for those that can’t be bothered reading all of those pesky articles in their entirety, this is the weekly post for you!  Of course, if you find one that strikes your fancy, just give it a click.  But enough with the patronizing instructions, onto this week’s highlights:

I decided to start off the new week with a bang and jump right into a topic that had been bothering me for a while now: Tumblr blogs that don’t allow comments.  I go on for a while on why you would never, ever want to do that.

 Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, founders of 37 Signals, share their thoughts on business plans.  37 Signals is an excellent blog that I heartily recommend.  I also own their book, Rework, and can hardly put it down.  These two men will make 30-year CEOs question traditional business wisdom, and embrace technology like a new born puppy.

 Some of the other entrepreneurs had some excellent blogs this week as well, so I went ahead and reblogged Phil Ricci’s experience with a crappy business owner who is sure to fail miserably and added a few thoughts of my own.

 But that’s not where the reblogging (are we allowed to call it RBing?) ends; Mr. Postling himself, David Lifson reblogged some interesting thoughts on Tumblr and @Replies.  Naturally, I had to put in my two cents, so I reblogged the fella and did just that.  

 In this week’s humour, an animated office worker shows precisely how I used to be before I got (semi) organized.  Though I do still have a row of post-it notes lining the top of my computer monitor, so maybe I’m not quite there yet…

 Last, but certainly not of lesser importance, I cover the phenomenon that is Quit Facebook Day.  For those who aren’t quite ready to quit, but are fed up with the privacy issues and still want to show their disgust, I also share when and how you can do just that.

If you found any of the above particularly interesting or useful, please consider recommending this blog for the tech, startups, or entrepreneurs category.  Thanks for reading!^_^

by Ben Lopez

This is it.  After months of hype, today is the day where Facebook users near and far, in every corner of the world, are being asked to delete their accounts in protest.  It’s not just Facebook’s policies that have come under scrutiny, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal actions as well.  I could have shared a news article every day on a new piece of incriminating evidence against the company.  And it is bad.  The press on Facebook since the F8 conference has been almost universally negative.

If you’re looking for somewhere else to go, there’s always Myspace, who has detailed in this interview with Mashable, some of the major changes they’ll be undergoing throughout the summer and into the fall.  Many of their features, such as the ability to filter your friend feed by category (status update, photos, videos, etc) has already been put into place, and are actually quite useful.  If it’s been a while since you’ve logged-in, take a look around and I think you’ll be surprised.

Another hopeful is Diaspora (die-ASS-pore-a), an open source solution that will have a large emphasis on privacy.  Unfortunately, development is still early, and no UI (user-interface) or concrete details have yet been revealed.  However, some tech insiders, such as Leo Laporte (host of This Week In Tech), sees great potential in it, and has personally donated money to their Kickstarter campaign (as have I).  I’ll be keeping my eye on them, and will report any details as they become available.

For those of you who aren’t ready or willing to quit, but are still fed-up with the way Facebook has handled your privacy, there’s another way to send a message to FB: Facebook Protest’s D-Day.

Am I quitting Facebook?  Halfway.  I’m deleting my secondary account.  I do use it as a business platform, but I would eventually like to quit, yes.  Did you end up quitting?  Share your comments and questions below!

by Benjamin M. Lopez

The nosedive for Tecmo’s stock as seen above could be a mirror image of the earnings forecast for many small businesses very soon.  But the economy and stranglehold of government regulation is only partially to blame.  Many businesses are putting themselves out of business by their own hand.

My jaw hit the floor when I read a recent article from Inc. Magazine, that reported when 552 executives with under 100 employees were asked about utilizing social media, 81% admitted they had not even tried it.  Not “failed”, not “inefficient”, but had made no effort to pursue the endless potential of social media.  In this age of incredible technology, streamlined processes, and whole new worlds of opportunity like never before, that’s inexcusable.  This isn’t simply a bad policy, it is a fundamental error in how to conduct business.  How you did business 10 years ago will no longer cut it today; we all need to adapt as needed, and if don’t take the necessary steps to keep in step, I don’t see sunny days ahead for your company.  I’m not alone in such a reaction; John Seely Brown, a legend of Silicon Valley, expressed a very similar outlook in a recent keynote at Stanford University saying that “something fundamental is broken”, and focusing the majority of his one hour speech on the reluctance to embrace change.  If you are a small business owner who has yet to explore social media, I implore you my friend, don’t make the same mistake, and keep in mind always that time is of the essence.

But if you happen to be one in a bad situation, know that it is not too late.  The social media highway is open 24 hours; hit the gas and catch up to the pack!  This race is ongoing, so you always have an opportunity to find an opening and take the lead.

Hi everyone, glad you could make it!  

If you’re reading this blog, then we have at least one mutual interest: using the internet for business.  Perhaps you’re an aspiring entrepreneur who is determined to divert their career to the online realm.  Maybe you own a local service or brick-and-mortar store that you’d like to take online for greater business potential.  Or you may already be a well-established online presence, and are practicing the one key principle that any good entrepreneur should always be consistent in following: KEEP LEARNING.  

This Blog will focus on:

-How to stay organized and streamlined both online and offline to increase productivity

-Social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and the various ways to utilize these powerful tools to their full potential

-Trends, techniques, and discussion of online marketing practices

-Adopting the entrepreneur mindset

-How to build-up your own personal brand

-How to be persuasive in your writing, and personable in your everyday interactions for maximum success

-Discussing issues that will have a significant effect on online/small businesses and what it will mean for the future

But let’s pause a minute.  I’m probably being a bit too dry, aren’t I?  If I am, for pete’s sake, konk me on the head and tell me to stop writing so formally.  As long as we’re busy learning from each other, we may as well have a fun time doing it, and that’s the experience I’m aiming to deliver for this blog.  I’ll do my best to make each entry interesting and readable.  We best retain knowledge of things we have a genuine interest for, and it’s my goal to make these entries not just readable, but something you’ll be genuinely excited about!  Before long, you’ll be waking up in the morning enthusiastically saying things like, “Yes!  These stupid spreadsheets aren’t going to keep me down, I’m going to dominate them and move on to the next task…all before lunchtime!”, or “Ha!  I’ve just mapped out my hourly tweets for the rest of the month.  Nothing can stop me now!”  I hope your reason for visiting this blog will be both for business and pleasure.

I’m still fleshing this thing out, so if there are any tweaks I can implement to make things easier for you guys, just let me know.  I always invite suggestions on how things can be improved, so fire away.

I have a few articles prepped, and will start posting a little later this week if nothing changes, but I’d really like to hear from you all and get some feedback on what you’re currently working on, questions you may have, or where you’d generally like the focus to be for this blog.  Let me know if you have any useful ReBlog candidates as well, I’ll certainly consider them.  Like I said, I hope we’ll all be able to help each other in the long run for success all around!

The faster we begin the discussion, the faster we’ll be exchanging long-distance-high-fives.  Let’s get to it!