Half of the time, we find these sites on our own and the other half, our friends, fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter. However we lay eyes on it, a similar thread runs through our first batch of cool links (and, hopefully, each batch forthcoming) – these sites* can make your time on the Internet more efficiently used and a much more accurately informative experience.

Most sites (including some of the ones we pick) aren’t perfect, so we’ll point out the pitfalls of a website where applicable. And, in line with our non-perfectness, let us know where we’re wrong or sites that you think should be included.

(* we definitely aren’t claiming to have “discovered” these sites. Many of you may already be familiar with these links and you might know of similar sites that you feel are better than the ones we have listed. We’re not interested, though. Keep it to yourselves. Just kidding. Maybe.)

Grooveshark - The Good: Find just about any song you seek…and stream it for free. Grooveshark lets you create a profile and playlists that are accessible from anywhere you can log in. You can search by song, artist, album or playlist and connect with other Groovesharks to share playlists, too. Also, when you log out and log back in, Groovshark saves the last playlist you had open and you have the option of restoring it, rather than starting from scratch. The Not-So-Good: Not all of the songs are listed with accurate info, so sometimes you have to dig a little to find some of your more obscure selections. Also, and most annoyingly, Grooveshark has the tendency to slow your machine down when you let it run for a while with multiple programs open. Shutting down Grooveshark and re-opening it seems to solve this problem for us.

Boston.com’s The Big Picture – The image collections on Boston.com’s The Big Picture are some of the most stunning examples of photojournalism we’ve ever seen. From the site – “The Big Picture is intended to highlight high-quality, amazing imagery – with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting.” They pretty much accomplish that with each new collection they post – from troubling images of war and strife across the globe to nature photography that would soften the hardest hearts. Here’s a recent example of a Big Picture photo from the recent devastating oil drilling catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico – It’s a bag of water from the Gulf Of Mexico. (from Boston.com via REUTERS/Carlos Barria):

Down For Everyone Or Just Me -This site has a simple goal: You enter in a URL and this site tells you if it’s down for everyone or it’s just a problem with your machine/Internet connection. It’s fast, simple to use and incredibly useful for those times when you want to know if the whole world can’t get to a site, or if the whole world (wide web) is out to get just you.

Entertonement -The Good: Entertonement lets you listen to and easily share soundbites from just about anything (music, movies, news…seriously, anything). According to Entertonement, the site is designed to promote the sharing of these sound bites through mobile devices, but you can share from your computer, too. Searching is easy and sharing is even easier (you can share each clip on Twitter, Facebook or grab the embed code).  The Not-So-Good: The sound quality of some clips leaves much to be desired. Searching for specific clips can be difficult so you’re forced to take a top-down approach and search for, say, a movie title, and see what clips are available.

LiveLeak – LiveLeak is like YouTube’s older, much cooler older brother. With a mission of “redefining the media,” LiveLeak allows users to post video showing footing of war, riots, accidents, events, celebrity crap, and much more. Let’s put it this way – there are things you will see on LiveLeak that you won’t likely see anywhere else. Want to see how American soldiers interact with native peoples? You won’t believe some of the footage there. Want a first-person, street-level view of what deadly riots look like in Bangkok? It’s not like anything you’d see on the news. WARNING: A lot of the footage is very graphic and sometimes very unsettling, so be careful what you watch (and where you watch it).

Before we get started, let’s cover the basics. Facebook recently announced a slew of changes at its F8 conference in mid-April. Everyone in the web marketing game has been freaking out since. Here’s a quick background on what we’re talking about.

Pete Cashmore, founder of social media blog, Mashable, sees Facebook’s new “like” and “recommend” buttons as not only a potential Twitter-killer, but a serious rival to Google’s ability to deliver “personalized” search results. As Cashmore tells it, Facebook has more users that Twitter; more success with keeping the developer community happy; and a more fine-tuned ability to deliver personalized ads and information to its users than Google.

Yeah, Facebook is really starting to pull away from Twitter, but the unknown here is mobile technology. Twitter was built and designed with an eye towards mobile communication. Personally, it seems like Twitter is a little easier to use on a mobile device rather than Facebook. Found on Cashmore’s own site, the stats indicate that social media access via mobile devices shows a 347% jump from 2009 to 2010 for Twitter (compared to Facebook’s paltry 112% increase). Mobile is huge and getting bigger. I don’t really see how you can comment on the future of social media without a mention of mobile – an area where Twitter seems to have an edge.

Does the “like” button spell doom for Google?

No, dude.  Very much no. Here’s what’s happening. People – crazy people – are getting all hot-and-bothered because Facebook looks like it might be doing a better job of personalizing information for its users when they are looking for something. The appearance of delivering more personalized results and actually delivering those results are two different things. Google is the reigning champ when it comes to following through on your search queries. Facebook is attempting to take a shot at the title by harvesting the reams and reams of info its users share and tailoring the marketing experience towards them. For Facebook – at 400 million users strong – there’s a catch, though.

Cashmore makes a casual and fleeting reference to Facebook’s user base at the ass-end of his piece on CNN. Look, here’s the undeniable truth about Facebook and any other social network, for that matter. Early adopters made you, and early jumpers will break you. Facebook was created so you could keep in touch with your family and friends, both old and new. No one who signs up for Facebook is joining because they want their personal information and social media behavior recorded, analyzed and used to tailor marketing campaigns directed at them. Cashmore is right – Facebook does have a volatile user base. If our social media experience starts to feel like a daily run through a gauntlet of cheesy and not-so-subtle advertising, the more savvy users will abandon their profiles and others will follow. MySpace kinda reminds of an untended parking lot where the weeds choke every crack in the pavement. I wonder if Facebook is gonna look the same.

Oh, and lest I forget to point out – Cashmore runs a blog about social media. That’s how he makes his living. Of course he’s going to choose the social network over the search engine. Check out this piece of CNN sensationalist bullshit for an example of Cashmore’s pro-Facebook alarmist nonsense.

A more rational, informed view of Facebook developments and challenges

Caroline McCarthy at cnet news tried to pack every single aspect of Facebook’s recent spate of announcements and new projects at the April 21 F8 Conference into one article. She actually did a pretty good job. From the social plug-ins to the Open Graph announcement – perhaps the most striking point that McCarthy exposes is this:

“Indeed, many of the concepts that Facebook executives unveiled aren’t totally new ideas. They borrow, at least in theory, from everything from Google Friend Connect to Meebo’s chat bar to Digg’s thumbs-up buttons. But Facebook, once again, is using its melange of marketing, engineering, and design expertise, which draws the occasional comparison to Apple’s, to pitch a subtle message to the developers and publishers of the Web: they can do it, but we can do it better. And people are buying it.”

Facebook has got the launch marketing push down almost as good as Apple. And it raises an interesting point – this is all hype right now. Will Facebook’s new “like” and “recommend” buttons take over the Internet and replace old-school links as the information-trading currency? It might, but Facebook is trying real hard to convince you that it will before it actually does. Hype begets success in a medium that moves as rapidly as social media.

The biggest piece of hype from the F8 conference? Docs.com. If I wanted the experience of using Microsoft Office, I would just go use Microsoft Office. Do I want to share docs through Facebook. Hell no. Not until Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg comes to my house and guarantees in writing that I retain ownership of every single piece of information I produce and share on Facebook.

And that issue of privacy, according to subsequent posts from cnet’s McCarthy looks to be the biggest obstacle facing Facebook now. The politicians have caught wind of the gradually growing grumblings about privacy issues with Facebook and how the biggest online social network on the planet makes it almost impossible to control your own information. From activist groups to headline hungry U.S. Senators and any number of other privacy challenges that will arise in Washington D.C., Facebook looks to be facing a steady stream of challenges not only from its users, but from regulators.

A reality check from some quality search-minded folks

So, back to the common refrain that search engines like Google will falter in the wake of Facebook’s Open Graph announcement. I’ve come to the conclusion that anyone hawking this idea that Facebook’s shiny new mechanism to seemingly connect people with preferences and deliver from that everything you could possibly imagine…is an idiot.

For a clear explanation of how Facebook’s new features and Google’s search offerings are not even really able to be compared, check out Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz. After listening to Fishkin, it seems even more clear to me that Facebook is simply delivering services that already exist, but they carry more weight because of their 400 gabillion users.

And for the search marketing fiends, here and here are a pair of articles that covers the Facebook push and its implications on search, SEO and the entire web marketing game.

At 90MilesNorth, we are firm believers that any blog post worth reading begins with a rant….so here we go:

The SEO industry (along with the social media marketing industry) is too interested in writing books and making speeches to actually have experience with what they’re talking about.

People think that aggregating the experiences and talent of others and presenting it to novices as original thought makes them an expert, maven, wonk or whatever those douchebags call each other. And most people buy it – literally.

And because all these SEO novices and hacks do is read and watch and listen, they soon have no idea how to actually do it. We’ve created a new layer of completely unnecessary middleman – the “guru.” In this case, guru would mean someone who doesn’t really want to work, but wants to be a modern-day techno-philosopher. And then this new pack of idiots aspires to write books and articles…and the beast feeds itself.  We don’t need ‘em. We do marketing…on the Internet. Who the hell needs a mantra for that?

What You Should Look For In A Hudson Valley SEO Company Or Search Marketing Firm

Here’s a quick list of things you should look for when considering a company to create and execute a Search Engine Optimization campaign for your website. As with our recent take on Hudson Valley social media (minus the cracks against local “artists” – you wouldn’t believe how hard they take it), we’re going to give you a solid set of fundamentals to wield so you can expose the fakers.

• Speaking English – No, this is not a jab at the endless roster of foreign SEO firms that make search marketing seem like an illiterate mix of Mad Libs and Tourette’s syndrome. This speaks to those SEO experts who lack the ability to explain what they do to those who are trying to understand. With Search Engine Optimization, we deal with a mixture of technical and marketing concepts that sometimes intersect neatly, and other times collide in a heap. Some things might seem counter-intuitive (like “Hey, I know you’re a photographer, but your site shouldn’t be all images”) and other things might just feel wrong (like, “You’re going to have to rename most of your pages”). The point is, when you hit those spots of divergence between your vision for your site and an SEO-laden vision of your site, you need someone who can explain why those changes are necessary and beneficial. Too often do SEO companies in the Hudson Valley and elsewhere simply insist rather than explain (in English).
• No Guarantees – This is a standard cry among SEO professionals – anyone who guarantees you a top spot on any search engine is no more than a snake-oil salesman. It’s really that simple. Proper optimization of your site accompanied by a well-planned SEO strategy will improve your visibility in search engine results. How great that improvement is depends on many, many factors that extend beyond search engines and beyond the digital space all together. Any search marketing companies that come to you with a guarantee for anything other than hard work and smart strategy, at least require them to make it a money-back guarantee. That should set them straight.
• Reasonable Application – This might be the most important tip of them all. A reasonable application of SEO to your site means that a web marketing company doesn’t insist that you overhaul your entire site to make it 100% SEO fit. For example, say you own a small business in the Hudson Valley and you have a modest website. Chances are, you aren’t looking into Search Engine Optimization because you want to dump a ton of money into rebuilding your site. Since we cater to small businesses in the Hudson Valley, we know there are financial restrictions that would prevent a full SEO overhaul. That’s where the creativity comes in. The key is to make the most of what you have to work with and make plans for efficient, manageable changes to your site in the future. Would a full optimization be the best option for your site? Sure. Is that always financially feasible? No. Bottom line – Look for a reasonable SEO plan and look out for those firms that will try to blow your budget (and then ask for more!)
• Actual Strategy – Okay, if the last one is the most important tip, this would be number two. When considering an SEO firm in the Hudson Valley, make sure there’s some substance to all the style they’ll no doubt be championing. In other words, optimizing a site so that it will be more search engine-friendly is one thing. Knowing what to do with that optimized site is another. Look at it this way, SEO comes in two major parts – site optimization and promotion. Once your site is optimized, you go about promoting it on the Internet. Without a clear, creative strategy to accomplish that promotion, you’re dead in the water. When considering an SEO company, ask all about that promotional phase of SEO. If it sounds hazy, generic or out-of-line with your business goals, ditch ‘em.
• Attitude-Free – Similar to our Hudson Valley Social Media assessment, when you are seeking Search Engine Optimization services in the Hudson Valley, it shouldn’t come with a large chip on the shoulder. SEO isn’t magic and it’s not some hushed discipline with a secret handshake. It’s marketing…on the Internet. You know your business better than anyone and your website is a digital extension of that business. Don’t let some SEO “guru” hijack your brand with a lot of bluster and bullshit. Just like you would with any vendor, if the message you’re receiving comes with a little too much swagger and condescension, ditch ‘em. If that’s how they act towards you, imagine how they will interact with current and potential customers. We’ve seen it…it’s not pretty.
• Affordability – Just like a social media campaign, a Search Engine Optimization campaign should not bust your budget. SEO is a long haul strategy designed to raise your visibility in search engine results. Spending an inordinate amount of money on it is counter-productive, especially for small businesses in the Hudson Valley. At 90MilesNorth, we create flexible budgets to fit any marketing mix. Any SEO company you sit down with should try to do the same.

SEO In The Hudson Valley: Go With Grit Instead Of Grandeur

The point here is, as with most shiny new opportunities for small businesses, there’s a fair amount of snake-oil being sold. In fact, search engine optimization is such an unknown entity for so many that it can be sold in almost any form. Enough people, here in the Hudson Valley and elsewhere, have already been burned by poor SEO practices that it’s starting to tarnish quality search marketing companies. As business owners or managers, you have all dealt with vendors before and you can separate the ones with grit from the ones blowing smoke.  As always, do your research and be as educated as you can when trying to decide on a Search Engine Optimization company here in the Hudson Valley.

Get in touch with us to learn more about how to creatively and strategically implement a real SEO campaign to your website.

Someone way smarter than us once said “All politics is local.” (ed. note – it was Tip O’Neill, former Speaker of the House of Representatives…yay Google)  It’s true, of course. Here in the Hudson Valley, local politics is fascinating (and often frustrating) to follow. The best true politicking, though, takes place during campaigns. In turn, political campaigning is equal parts art and science – a 50-50 split between delivery and substance.

At 90MilesNorth, we’re naturally drawn to the mediums through which candidates deliver the substance of their campaigns. Certainly on a local level – in Ulster County and throughout the Hudson Valley – traditional methods of advertising like newspapers, radio and television have their place in any campaign. But, as national political campaigns have shown us, including the Internet in your marketing mix can sometimes make or break a campaign.

Major Players Are Bracing For Flood Of Political Campaign Internet Spending

Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling wrote recently that both Google and Facebook are bracing for a “flood of political ad cash” with the upcoming mid-term Congressional elections this November.

“Just in time for this year’s mid-term Congressional elections in November the US Supreme Court opened the financial floodgates by overturning campaign finance rules that prevented corporations from spending at will to oppose or support political candidates. Two of the biggest likely beneficiaries of these new more liberal (not in the political sense) spending rules will undoubtedly be Google and Facebook, although they stood to benefit regardless as more and more political ad dollars flow into search and online display.”

It’s clear that online marketing and advertising is gaining clout in the political arena. It would make very little sense to ignore it. The same holds true for political marketing in the Hudson Valley area. With the ability to target Internet marketing campaigns to fairly specific geographic areas, why ignore an incredibly effective tool that could both expand your reach and help focus your message.

Hudson Valley Political Campaign Marketing Solutions On The Internet

At 90MilesNorth, we have identified ways to structure internet marketing campaigns – using a blend of search marketing, social media and web video – to suit local political campaigns in the Hudson Valley and beyond. Our strategy focuses around concepts like reputation management and creating an open flow of accurate information to the public. The best part is, our strategy is scalable to fit any size campaign.

We’d tell you more, but then you’d go and get elected all by yourself

The undeniable fact is that political campaigning is no longer solely limited to hundred-handshake town hall meetings and Sunday morning pancake breakfasts at dirt-road firehouses (those things are awesome in their own right). Political campaigns are divisive by nature, so it’s best to get a handle on your on-line efforts before someone else does.

Here’s the irony about Facebook – it’s an imperfect site that could use some serious changes, but 90 percent of its users lose their minds at the smallest tweak. That’s where applications like Facebook Fixer come in handy (actually they call it FFixer now…a marginally lamer name).  FFixer is a userscript that allows you to customize your homepage and profile through your browser. It doesn’t change how your FB profile looks to anyone else but you.

Check out some of the options with FFixer (damn, that name is awful) –

• Big Profile Pictures and Photos
• Big Album Pictures
• Video Download Links
• Load Full Albums
• Homepage Customization
• Bookmarks
• Age and Sign
• Calendar Integration
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Re-Title
• Error Page Reloading
• Menu Bar Customization
• Import/Export of Script Settings
• Automatically Check for Script Updates
• Cross-Browser Support
• and more…

FFixer makes Facebook act a little more like you want it

Alright, it doesn’t seem that impressive in list form, but once you start digging in, the benefits reveal themselves. Some of the biggest perks include automatically filtering out all of those crappy games and apps before they litter your wall; you can hide individual sections on the left or right nav bars, including highlights, friend suggestions, etc.; and you can widen the whole damn set-up to fit your screen width, rather than everything clustered in the middle.

The three biggest pluses for FFixer are bookmarks; custom page titles; and picture pop-ups.

• When you have a busy Wall feed, you can lose some pages in the shuffle. Creating bookmarks makes finding your favorite profiles and pages as quick as any other bookmarking function. No searching through your feed, friends and fan pages, or the FB search box. Just a drop down list from the top navigation bar.

• Custom page titles allow you to drop the “Facebook” from the page title, allowing you to see what page you’re on when you have 3 million tabs open in your browser.

• Picture pop-ups are the most noticeable customization of the bunch. Here’s how it works – you hover over any picture with your mouse and it pops up in its original size. In other words, you don’t have click through pictures and albums anymore, you can just hover without the click. No more waiting for FB to load pictures or squinting at profile pics – you see all instantly.

Tons of Options and Features – You Should Just Friggin’ Try It For Yourself

Get FFixer here. Try it out. It’s pretty easy to install and it works on most browsers. The important thing to remember is that it allows you to change Facebook in ways that make it easier to use for you. It’s not Facebook handing down mandatory changes to the miserable, grumbling masses. You call the shots. Plus, FFixer is constantly troubleshooting and adding new features. If you’re feeling a little adventurous, you’ll end up with a Facebook page that works like no other.

Try it out and either thank or curse 90MilesNorth for your efforts.

Social media marketing actually reminds me a lot of modern art – especially here in the Hudson Valley. We have a deluge of artists here and in some ways that’s a good thing. The downside is that every clown with a paintbrush and a gallery connection is considered an “artist.” The market is flooded by posers with a knack for churning out spare-time eyesores, so eventually no one knows what good art is anymore.

The same thing goes for social media marketing (again, especially right here in the Hudson Valley).

Have a computer? Know how to create profiles and networks? Have the ability to type and spell things correctly at least 65% of the time? Guess what? You just became a social media maven…or guru…or jedi…or whatever fabricated titles people cull from Thesaurus.com.

Here’s a good example of what we’re talking about here (WARNING: Not safe for work. Strong, but incredibly funny, language involved here)

But, unlike the art world, it’s easy to separate the real deal from the imposters in the social media world. If you are a business in the Hudson Valley considering hiring a firm to develop your social media strategy or you are looking for help boosting your existing efforts, here are some things to look (or look out) for:

• What if you went to a plumber’s house and every time you flushed the toilet, water would shoot out of every faucet in the house? You wouldn’t hire this guy wash your car, much less fix your pipes. It’s the same concept with social media. When considering a Hudson Valley social media firm, check out their own efforts on Facebook and Twitter. Do they seem competent? Are they participating in a constructive way? Or, do their own social media efforts appear confused, muddled and misguided? Does their Facebook page look like a haphazard collection of unintelligible and almost useless information? Take a few minutes and check these things out before even considering hiring for social media.

• When using social media to market your business, it’s not a race to see how many fans/friends/followers/connections you can make. It’s knowing how to treat the fans you have and appealing to the ones you don’t. Your social media following is not there to be endlessly blasted with promotions, sales, and marketing propaganda. Think about it like this – if you went into a market to get a steak and the butcher bombards you with high praise of his own skill; what meats are on sale; asks you three or four times how you plan on cooking your steak; and caps it off with greasy handshake and a fistful of promotional flyers…you might not go back there. If that same butcher told you the brief history of the knife he was using to make the cut – or a quick anecdote about learning to become a butcher – and mentioned a great wine that would go with your steak before wishing you well…you’re probably more likely to return to that market. Bottom line, it’s the quality of interactions with social media – not quantity. Be sure that you are hiring a Hudson Valley social media firm that capable and focused on acquiring goodwill on the Internet, not driving people away with over-marketing.

• Content is king. It’s that simple. DO NOT HIRE A SOCIAL MEDIA FIRM THAT DOESN’T KNOW THIS. Quality, competent and concise writing can make or break a social media campaign. In addition to social network profiles, most people and businesses don’t realize that blogging is also included under the social media umbrella. So again, check out the efforts of the social media firm that is seeking your business. Are their blog posts compelling? Are they rife with spelling errors or sentences that go on and on and on? Does it seem like they took your marketing message to the local elementary school and had five year olds churn out crayon-fueled copy? Every piece of copy produced as part of your social media campaign should be carefully written by a professional writer. Every picture should be taken with an artist’s eye and a marketer’s soul. Every web video should be shot with the same. You’ll regret settling for anything less. Oh, and remember, the credentials of a professional writer should never (under any circumstances) consist solely of being a blogger. Anyone can start a blog. That’s like saying you are a professional race car driver because you drive your car to work every day.

Size up your choices smartly for a Hudson Valley social media firm

When you decide to hire a Hudson Valley social media firm for your business, you’ll probably have a few meetings to hash out things like pricing, strategy and execution. Here are some very important things to notice during this phase.

• First, SOCIAL MEDIA SHOULD NOT BE EXPENSIVE. If you get a proposal with a price that seems a quite steep, it’s probably because it is. Access to quality social media services and professional content should not be prohibited by cost, especially for small businesses in the Hudson Valley. At 90MilesNorth, we look at social media as an opportunity to level the playing field by making our services affordable enough for all local businesses, no matter how small. You shouldn’t have to have deep pockets to stake your claim on social networks.

• Second, when discussing strategy with a social media firm, you should be doing most of the talking and directing. You know more about your business than anyone and it’s our job to get up to speed. If a prospective social media firm starts telling you what’s important about your business, show them the door. A social media campaign that is formed around anything other than your intimate knowledge of your own business will not succeed.

• Also, execution should be a team effort. You have to keep us informed about the happenings of your business and we should always keep on top of developments in your area/industry. Ideally, it should be an open channel of communication between social media firm and client. The more you participate, the more authentic the marketing message is.

• And lastly, and certainly not least(ly?), when considering a social media firm in the Hudson Valley – make sure you are dealing with strong creative forces and not just a group of people who imitate what everyone else is doing. If you heed only one thing away from this rant, let it be this. Social media is no place for boilerplate strategies. You can have profiles on every social network out there, but without the injection of creative thought into the process, your brand and message will not survive among the masses. I can’t speak for other firms, but at 90MilesNorth we won’t take on a client unless we are sure we can develop a creative, effective strategy for their business. Creativity in content. Creativity in implementation. And creativity in tracking the results of you campaign.

The point of all of this is to illustrate one of the major problems with a marketing medium like social media.

It’s fairly new. It’s very effective. And it’s difficult to spot the fakers. Take your time when choosing a social media firm. Go with your gut feeling. Would you trust your web marketing efforts to a firm that is using the popularity of social media to mask their inability to actually master the medium? Or, would you pick a team of professional writers and content producers with serious creative chops that have been using social media for most of their lives – not just in the past couple of years?

The whole predicament reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the 1998 poker film “Rounders” – “If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.” Unless, of course, you’re sitting at the table with 90MilesNorth – the only sucker-free social media firm in the Hudson Valley.

Check out the other social media firms in the Hudson Valley, then compare them to 90MilesNorth.  No one brings the range of talent; the depth of skill; and the creative force that we do.

Get in touch with us to learn more.

And check back soon for a similarly rabid rant on Search Engine Optimization. That one is going to be a doozy.

I know it’s not just YouTube. I have spent countless hours of my life perusing funnyordie.com, collegehumor.com, ebaumsworld, angryalien.com; you name it, I’ve probably wasted time watching one silly video after another there. If I find one particularly hilarious, I post it on Facebook so that my friends can be amused too. I’m good like that.

And I happen to know for a fact that I’m not alone. I’ve been very active in social networking… well, since there was social networking. I’ve had a Friendster, a LiveJournal, a Myspace, a Facebook. I Tweet, I’m LinkedIn, I’m hooked up to the Internet for more waking hours of my day than I’m not. I see every funny video that gets passed around, good and bad. The little dancing boy in the red shirt, Ebaum’s End of the World, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, 30 second bunny theater; they’re all considered Internet classics.

So how does this help you, the small business owner? You gotta grab a piece of that market, my friend. Because if I’m out there watching silly videos, a good portion of your customer base is too. All it takes is one interesting video to go viral, and suddenly you’re all over the web. Now’s the time to get in, and we can help you out there.

What’s your favorite Internet video?

Those videos I mentioned are some of my personal favorites, but I’m more interested in hearing some of yours. What’s the one viral Internet video you simply must spread around and show to other people? Post it in a comment. If nothing else, it will certainly give me something new to watch.

Ah, who cares. You’re probably broke, too. If not, get out. We’re not talking to you.

Everybody else can rest assured that this is not a plea for money to help get our fledgling, web-video business off the ground. We’re actually looking to give you some cash.

You’re probably thinking several things: Wow, how can a small start-up offer me money in this economy; I wonder if there’s going to be a point made in this rant; how come nothing rhymes with “orange”?

The answer is no, we’re not just going to give you money. You gotta work fer it, dude. Here’s how it goes: We know you. You know people. You probably know some people that own or work at a small business in the Hudson Valley. Hook those people up with our people. Whatever type of beautiful, cash-spewing relationship results, you get a cut.

And yes, “my friends” (circa John McCain, fall of 2008), your cut will be monstrous. And by monstrous, we at 90 Miles North mean 15 percent, more or less….kinda.

Ok, fine. Twenty percent. Your cut will be 20 percent. I don’t know how we’re gonna have any money left over for our traditional-based media blitz to get 90MilesNorth some friggin’ attention. Oh that’s right – traditional media advertising sucks and doesn’t work because the Internet is now twisting the knife it sunk into TV/newspapers/radio over the past decade. (Zing!) That’s why we make documercials for local businesses and cut large swaths across the Internet with them. (Zing, again)

And that’s the story of 90MilesNorth. Hey, you can use that when you’re arranging for your people to talk to our people**.  Do whatever works. If you are detained, try and ask the arresting officer if he or she has any connections to the small business community. You lose your cut, but damn that’ll be a great story to tell (the judge).

Bottom line – you make a couple calls; drop a few e-mails to your friends; put them in touch with us using the contact information below; and we will actually come to your house and line your pockets with your cut. Amen.

Also, if you want to know more about this deal-io, get in touch with us.

** ed. note: We have no actual people. 90MilesNorth exists through the tireless (more or less) efforts of Andrew, Lori and our cats – Baby Hank (the loudly stupid and awful smelly) and Zelly (the psychotic and unruly Princess). What we lack in outdoor winter apparel, we make up in awesomeness.

90MilesNorth
90milesnorth@gmail.com
845-802-0293

Or you can find us on:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

We could spend another day talking about the shortfalls of traditional advertising (print, radio, T.V., etc.).

That would end up being two full days of conversation, so we’d probably be sick of each other at that point. After a day off, we could talk for about five minutes and then 90MilesNorth could get busy shooting a video for your business because there’s no way to deny how badly you need a documentary-style commercial on your website.

But, you probably would want a little more proof…maybe some expert opinion on why more and more advertising dollars are being spent on web video advertising.

I can help you out with that. Whether it’s industry trends or how much money your competitors are spending on their own web video ads. Hey, maybe you want to read about how badly the print industry is doing and how fast advertisers are pulling money away from print ads.

Don’t ignore it. Don’t waste continue to waste your money on traditional advertising.

You have a website, right? Then use it.

-90MilesNorth

Oct. ’08

After you watch, shoot us an e-mail at 90milesnorth@gmail.com