WebmasterWorld is the leading source for Search Engine and Internet marketing news, best practices and educational events. Founded by Brett Tabke, an early ’80s innovator in running BBS (Bulletin Board Systems), the WebmasterWorld Forum began in 1996 and is now the largest community of online marketing professionals with more than 2 million posts and more than 100 discussion topics.

Network Solutions is represented by me  and Ben Cook our Search Engine Marketing expert. Conferences such as this help us keep in touch with the latest trends in online marketing, websites and ecommerce.

Day 1 started off with a Keynote by Tony Hsieh CEO of Zappos. Zappos grew from a small business selling shoes online to a Billion dollar company which Amazon acquired. ( http://blogs.zappos.com/amazonclosing ). Tony Hsieh clearly said that concentrating on company culture and defining the core values was the hallmark of success for Zappos. His advice is to concentrate on customer service, encourage all employees to use Twitterand be transparent.

The theme of Tony Hsieh’s talk was on “Delivering Happiness” also the title of  is forthcoming book. “What would you be happy doing for 10 years, even if you never made a dime?” Tony Hsieh asked the audience.Tony told me in a conversation ater his keynote that he had delivered the draft of his  book, “Delivering Happiness“, a few weeks ago to his publisher and is going to be published in 2010. he reads a lot of books and also told the audience that they can download a free copy of Tribal Leadership audio book he recmmends  from Zappos website: http://about.zappos.com/tribal

See more coverage of his keynote in this article by Amanda Finnegan Las Vegas Sun

The advantage of having a large number of bloggers at a conference is that there are several informative posts on the first day’s sessions and Search Engine Land did a great job making a list of Pubcon 2009 coverage of Day 1

I would like to recommend the coverage of the session Top Shelf SEO: Hot Topics and Trends by Lisa Barone

Pubcon Las Vegas Day 1: Twitter Sessions by Vertical Measures

Smart Keyword Research & Selection by Guillaume Bouchard

If you are here at PubCon Please say hi to me @shashib or Ben @skitzzo . Hope you will leave comments and questions on what you want us to cover when we go to conferences?

The  email services for customers impacted from yesterday’s issue should be back to normal. In cases where customers are still having issues we are advising them to contact our 24/7  Network Solutions Customer Support at 1-800-333-7680 or open a ticket on our support page at http://www.networksolutions.com/help/email.jsp

Update : Nov 4, 2009 @ 14:34

The email issue has been isolated to incoming email which is temporarily queued.  Network Solutions is working to restore inbound mail to normalcy.

We have resolved any issue with outbound email or the ability to send emails.  Also, only some email users are affected.

Nov 4, 2009 @ 13:32
Some Network Solutions email customers may be experiencing latency checking/sending email. You may also experience this using Web mail or if you are downloading your mail using tools like Outlook etc.

Network Solutions Operations is working to resolve this ASAP. Mail for these customers is currently being queued. We will update here as soon as we have more info Thanks.

Comments and feedback welcome at the Network Solutions Customer Feedback Site

Since joining Network Solutions about 6 months ago Tim has been focused on expanding Network Solutions’ product and service offerings, leading the company’s strategic marketing efforts and streamlining Network Solutions operations.  Tim came from Sprint/Nextel where he held a number of executive positions including President of Sprint’s Consumer Division where he had full operating responsibility of company’s largest business unit.

Miles Reidy joined Network Solutions as CFO in May 2009 from Sears Holdings Corporation where he was Executive Vice President and CFO. Mr. Reidy’s responsibilities include the finance function and now firm-wide operations including Customer Service. Roy remains Chairman and trusted advisor to the company.
With these changes Network Solutions is well-positioned to continue to excel at serving its growing client base. We have a number of important strategic initiatives in process as we continue to expand our range of offerings and further develop our services to our small business customers. Network Solutions has been gearing up by organizing and streamlining the business and building the infrastructure needed for continued growth and providing excellent value to customers.

a) Redirect this domain to my Linkedin Profile

b) Maybe start a new blog (Easy with Our 1-Click Install http://www.networksolutions.com/web-hosting/blogging.jsp)

c) Setup a website by adding this domain to my hosting package

You can check the offer out by going to http://marketing.networksolutions.com/dms/09Q3/INFO/index.php . Also give me other ideas on how I can use http://shashi.info/. If you buy a .info domain with this offer be sure to let us know by commenting here and we can brainstorm ideas or give you a link .

*$3.99 pricing applies for one year registration terms only.  Alternative savings apply for longer registrations terms.

*Shashi Bellamkonda is Network Solutions’ Social Media Swami

I heard about  Wildlifedirect.org at the Poptech conference in Camden Maine . The aim of the conference is to bring together people  towards the goal of “world-changing people, projects and ideas”.

The story of Anthony Kasanga was told by Paula Kahumbu Executive Director of WildlifeDirect.org. Paula was named one of the 16 fellows of the prestigious PopTech Social Innovation Fellows program of 2009 for her work at WildlifeDirect.

Anthony Kasanga is a Masai who were traditionally Lion hunters but Anthony decided to form a group called the Lion Guardians to save the lions and educate the tourists who come to Mbirikani Group Ranch in southern Kenya. Anthony uses a blog to educate people on the project http://lionguardians.wildlifedirect.org . The collective efforts of their activities saved 50 lions from being killed last year. When one of the blog readers mentioned a scholarship at the Oxford University in England , Anthony applied and was accepted and is now at Oxford. Great story.  The issue of Lions in Kenya being poisoned by the local population to prevent them from eating livestock is one of the causes that Paula Kahumbu mentioned in her talk at PopTech. She also said that wildlifedirect.org was using websites but the adoption of websites is not very high in Kenya so they are working on projects like a Wildlifetracker where the local population ca report on the wildlife they see by using mobile phones.with the help of a organization called http://www.ushahidi.com/. I spoke to the Erik Hersman co-founder of Ushahidi which I will be uploading to Youtube soon and he said Ushahidi means ”testimony” in Swahili and is a open source application that enables gathering crisis information from the general public in near real-time using mobile phones which are more prevalnet that PCs in many parts of the world.

Read a great recap on the PopTech Blog by Michelle Riggin- Ransom and Paula Kahumbu’s own blog post at wildlifedirect.org

See the video about Wildlifedirect.org here and hope you will give them a helping hand.

Please take a few moments and check all your accounts – domain names, banks, utility companies etc to make sure you have the right email addresses listed there as contact email. Take the precaution of changing your email, username and password especially if you use one of the public email addresses. If you are the type of person who uses the same passwords at multiple sites and accounts, those account passwords should be changed as well.

In two earlier articles we had advised checking your contact email addresses:
Simple things to do to protect your domain name registration
8 Tips to Protect Your Domain Registration

If you are a early adopter of email, chances are you have changed quite a few email addresses since your internet life began. Your eventual solution hopefully was to move to email on a dedicated domain so you are no longer dependent on having to change emails even if you changed ISPs.

Prevention is always the better than cure.

The GrowSmartBiz conference s a premier one-day event featuring renowned small business leaders and well-known industry experts, including keynote speaker Chris Anderson and Sen. Mark Warner.

We also have some great news for folks who are far away and cannot make it in person. You can watch the conference live and most sessions will also be online for viewing on demand later. We will be using LiveStream for this service

How to watch the webcast live :

1) Go to http://livestream.com/networksolutions

2) Refer to the Agenda /Schedule for timings http://cli.gs/smartbizagenda

3) Chat in the LiveStream chat room  or watch the Twitterstream at : http://twubs.com/growsmartbiz/

There may be last minute changes in timings and schedule but we are working hard to give the best value to our guests with a knowledge and resource packed agenda. Of course we would love to see you onsite to have the opportunity to network with the Speakers and attendees and also every attendee gets a copy of Chris Anderson’s book “FREE’ for free There will be plenty of networking time and all attendees will receive a bag of useful business resources including a free domain name from Network Solutions, Free Business Planning Software from Palo Alto Software, a copy of Chris Anderson’s book, and actionable tips that business owners can begin working on for tangible results.

Pre event tweetup: http://cli.gs/rNp22d
Agenda: http://cli.gs/smartbizagenda
Live webcast of the Conference: http://livestream.com/networksolutions
Twitter Stream: http://twubs.com/growsmartbiz/

Thank you LiveStream for your support in enabling  the GrowSmartBiz Conference to reach a wider audience.
.

Please pass on this info to anyone who wants to start blogging.

Our marketing friends who are enthusiastic about the launch of this package say:

nsHosting™ for WordPress® is perfect for the avid blogger and it includes the essentials that you’ll need to set up your blog quickly and easily. You’ll get access to the WordPress® blog hosting platform, an extensive library of blog template designs, plug-ins, a free* domain name, and an email address that matches your Web addresswith 10 emailboxes.

You can also go beyond simple blogs and use the Wordpress® platform to create a customized website.

Blogging can be a lot of fun and we’ve made it easy and convenient for you by offering a low-cost flexible product. Your WordPress® blog hosting package comes with 50 GB of disk space and 500 GB of bandwidth to handle your posts, pictures, videos, reader comments and more. Plus, you can enhance your blog by making it interactive when you add widgets like a calendar, archives, top posts, Facebook® and Twitter® integration, and more.

You also receive online marketing credits with top search engines to attract website visitors.  Advertise online with a $50 Yahoo!® credit, a $25 Google® AdWords™ credit, $50 off the set-up fee for Network Solutions® Online Marketing services, and a 60-day free trial of email marketing with Constant Contact®††.

Best of all, we’re here for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our customer service consultants are able to answer your questions whenever you need them. Our service comes with a 30-day money back guarantee*. So, you have nothing to lose.

So, go ahead, express yourself. Start your blog.

Okay, so maybe that’s not true. But I did learn a lot last night… including that my mother has some decent marketing chops without even realizing it. But I’ll save that for later.

So Tuesday (Sept 22) night was socStardom4 at Johns Hopkins’ Montgomery County Campus in Rockville, Maryland. (If you don’t know about socStardom, it’s a series of events co-sponsored by JHU Montgomery County Campus and Network Solutions with a huge helping hand with marketing from series “co-chair” Mayra Ruiz.)

Last night’s guest was Jason Alba, founder of Jibber Jobber, a personal relationship manager for your career, and author of I’m on Linked In – Now What? and I’m on Facebook – Now What?. The focus of his talk was how to use social media to grow your business.

So why should we listen to him about this? Because that’s exactly how he grew his business into the household name it is today. (Okay, maybe it’s not a household name yet, but that’s his goal, and he’s well on his way to achieving it. He even told us a story about that last night. But you had to be there…)

So what did I learn about social media – and general marketing and relationship management — last night? Well, here are the highlights:

Managing social media: Social media can take over your life. Don’t let it. Some suggestions if you’re short on time:
Twitter: Put one tip a day on twitter. That’s it.
Blogging: Spend ¼ of your time writing your blog posts and the remainder developing relationships with other bloggers in your space.
Linked In: Use the two-minute strategy. Anytime you go on, only stay there for two minutes. (Oh, and if you’re not living in the LinkedIn Answers space, you need to do so. According to Jason, “LinkedIn Answers is the bomb!”)

Twitter: There are two important ratios you need to master: business to personal and value add to selling. If you’re only “selling stuff” all the time, people will stop listening. (I wonder if Jason would consider my tweet last night about my new ring turning my finger green a valuable “personal” tweet…)

Relationship management: Know people’s birthdays. Know their interests. And find reasons to stay in touch. One of Jason’s suggestions? “There is nothing like cutting out a magazine article and sending it in the mail.” (Remember earlier when I mentioned my mom? She does this. All the time. To me and my sister. So yes, apparently she’s doing a great job of marketing herself to us.)

2 Sins of Bloggers: 1) leaving out the “checkbox” in the comment area that allows people to follow a thread of conversation; and 2) not giving readers the ability to sign up to get your posts via email. (Hmmm… Shashi, does NetSol offer that on this blog?)

Email Signatures and Business Cards: Be creative. Be different. (Jason’s business card is pink and says “Pink Slip” on the back. He’s in the job space and helps job seekers. It’s actually clever.)

So there was a lot more I could write about, but I think I have to keep it short. Interested in more “words of wisdom” from Jason? Go to Twitter and search on #socStardom. You’ll see my tweets (@rferrier) along with others from last night’s guests.

Oh, and one last thing, two book recommendations — other than his — from Jason last night: Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn by Peggy Klaus and Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz. (Jason said the latter changed the way he thinks about relationships.)

Guest post from Robin Ferrier. Robin Ferrier is the Communications Manager for Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County. As the Communications Manager, she oversees media relations, community outreach, marketing, publications, and special events, and manages the Campus’ web presence, including the web site and its presence in the social media realm. Robin also engages in limited legislative affairs activities and works on partnership development and business development efforts for the Campus.

Robin is the President of the Capital Communicators Group, an organization of more than 1,000 public relations, public affairs, and communications professionals in the D.C. metro area. She is also co-chair of the Tech Council of Maryland’s Marketing Committee, a Leadership Montgomery graduate, and one of the founders of the socStardom series of social media events.

Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Robin worked in Corporate Communications for Choice Hotels and also handled public relations and marketing for a national non-profit scientific organization, a small public relations firm, and a literary agency.

Take  a look at this video interview where she not only talks about Small Business success stories using new media and also the reasons why you should attend the GrowSmartBiz conference.

This all day conference will take place on Tuesday, September 29^th at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC. Chris Anderson, the Editor from Wired magazine and renowned author of The Long Tail, will be the keynote speaker discussing the concept of thriving through freeconomics—what business models look like when free has emerged as a full-fledge economy. We are also honored that Senator Mark Warner will be attending the conference as a special guest speaker, sharing his personal lessons learned as an entrepreneur turned state legislator. In addition, we have a number of other notable speakers lined up. You can learn more about what is in store at this link–there’s a full agenda and a list of speakers.

The conference is positioned to focus on actionable items that small business owners can take to improve their business. We will have industry experts sharing their experiences and providing advice on innovative marketing ideas, raising capital, and insight into the mystery of social media. There will be plenty of networking time and all attendees will receive a bag of useful business resources including a free domain name from Network Solutions, Free Business Planning Software from Palo Alto Software, a copy of Chris Anderson’s book, and actionable tips that business owners can begin working on for tangible results.

The registration fee is normally $299, but if you use the discount code — POWERGSB — your cost is only $99/attendee. This is a one-day conference you won’t want to miss, so click here now to register for only $99: www.tinyurl.com/gsbiz