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There is a saying:  “The Truth shall set you free”, but even truer to the point
is that honesty will not only set you free; it will sustain you. I have a
beautiful apple tree outside of my kitchen window in my backyard, and it is a
constant reminder of this fact.  

From the beginning of time, apples have been associated with love, beauty, luck,
health, comfort, pleasure, wisdom, temptation, sensuality, sexuality, virility
and fertility. It doesn’t matter what period of time or which culture, the
themes always come down to these. The apple tree signifies the Tree of Life, and
in Greek myth, the apple tree is a symbol of abundance.   More

A few weeks ago, I purchased a domain name on auction that had a pr 6 with +40k quality backlinks on it. When I checked a few days ago, ALL the pr was GONE as well as the backlinks.  This also happened with the one other domain I purchased on auction.  The one I already mentioned had a PR 6 and the other one had a PR 4.
More

Today, 01:07 PM

This is a progress report on my participation in the Thirty-Day-Challenge (30 DC): I just wanted to let others know that even if your main site disappears from the SERPS, you can still have a presence representing your main website. This is what happened to me. My main URL disappeared from the SERPS and I was fretting something awful. I checked with the Google diagnostic tool to see what could be wrong, but there is and was  nothing wrong with the site in that respect. (It could do with some good conversion work, among other things.) I continued working on the social networking aspects and lo and behold my URL can be found in the SERPS due to a COMMENT I made in a group! The DIGG position never disappeared. In fact, when the part of my site that was in position one disappeared, the Digg position became #1. Now part of the site is in #1 again, the Digg link is in # 2, and in both the broad phrase match, and in the exact phrase match, there are 3 positions, including the comment. Mind you, I am still very irked about my site disappearing from the SERPS. I will certainly continue to follow the conversation, make those comments and build relationships. In this way, it doesn't really matter if the main URL is in the SERPS or not because I will have many more positions there due to other links from social networking sites. http://friendfeed.com/angelaw

Tags: SERPS, Thirty-Day-Challenge, search engine ranking, disappearance from SERPS, Google, Google diagnostic tool, social networking, URL, commenting, DIGG, Digg link, AngelaWickenberg

Apropos Facebook for business and how to make money from your content and network on Facebook, I found this article on Early To Rise:

7 Sizzling Business "Discoveries" From Stanford's Facebook Project (and How They Can Help Any Entrepreneur Make a Million Bucks)

By Charlie Byrne

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg turned 24. 

And my guess is, he's pretty pleased with himself so far. 

A college dropout, but from Harvard. A self-starter who launched a business from his dorm room. And, oh yeah, the world's youngest self-made billionaire, according to Forbes magazine. 

Make that a "theoretical" billionaire, since nobody is really sure exactly how much his hugely popular social networking website - Facebook.com - is actually worth. It's not publicly traded (although Microsoft recently laid out $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake). It's not clear where it's headed. (Mark himself isn't sure.) To some people, it's not clear what purpose it's supposed to serve either.

But at least two things are sure.

First, people love it. Nearly 70 million visited the site last month alone. And second, it's looking like one of the greatest entrepreneurial innovations since, well, since someone launched the first business that offered sliced bread.

One area that's receiving plenty of attention is Facebook "apps" (applications). From useful tools such as stock market tickers and productivity management helpers… to complete time wasters such as "Give the Imaginary Puppy a Bone" and "Who's the Coolest Person You Know"… there's a Facebook app for just about everyone and everything.

After (if) you've chosen to add one of them to your Facebook homepage, it appears in your browser whenever you sign into Facebook. Most of these mini software programs are developed by third-party entrepreneurs and monetized (not always successfully) through a classic advertising model: Get eyeballs and sell ad space or place affiliate ads.

Facebook apps are so big right now that B.J. Fogg, a professor at Stanford University, launched a semester-long project just to develop more of them for Facebook users. 

At the end of the project, Professor Fogg and his students published a report to name the entrepreneurial "discoveries" they had made. But were they really breaking new ground… or just reinventing the wheel?

I decided to take a look. 

Combing back through the longstanding principles you've come to know and love by reading ETR and Michael Masterson's new blockbuster book, Ready, Fire, Aim, I found at least seven "power principles" with fascinating parallels to the Stanford project.

ETR Longstanding Principle #1: Introducing Products in a "Mature" Market

Consumers aren't looking for brand-new products. They are looking for clever new adaptations of products they already know and love. When it comes to new, the human brain can take only a little bit of it. Eighty percent of the old and 20 percent of the new is a good ratio. Your goal is not to develop brand-new ideas, but to notice trends that are beginning and develop products that anticipate that trend by a little - just enough to catch your customers' attention.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "It's Never Too Late to Create a Winning App." When Stanford launched its project, over 6,000 Facebook apps already existed. Just 10 weeks later, the students had six apps in the top 100. None of them were radically innovative.

ETR Longstanding Principle #2: The Power of Simplicity

You can sell your product very well by talking about its many benefits, but the most successful advertisements are those that highlight a single benefit above all the rest. When this benefit can be presented as uniquely characteristic of your product, you have an advertising proposition that can last and last and last. Consider any great marketing campaign - Burger King, Charmin, Marlboro. Examine any best-selling, non-fiction book - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, What Color Is Your Parachute?,  Chicken Soup for the So ul, etc. What do they all have in common? Simple themes. Ideas so simple they can be expressed - and understood - in a few short words.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Simplicity & Clarity Are Key to Success." Too many and too clever features must be avoided. Make the app easy to understand and easy to use.

ETR Longstanding Principle #3: Ready Fire Aim

Prudent entrepreneurs do not want to risk all their time and money on a single product. For the best chance of having a successful business, they need to be flexible about what they are going to sell. If their first product idea doesn't sell well, they have to be able to generate a second one. Innovation matters. And so does speed. Combined, they give your business extraordinary growing power.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Speed & Flexibility in Launch & Iterations." Many fast and imperfect trials beat deep thinking. Flexibility beats quality. Getting too attached to one app idea can be fatal.

ETR Longstanding Principle #4: Teamwork Accelerates Success

Don't even try to be a solo creator. You will get much better results much faster by working with a creative team. Sometimes you might get ideas while showering or exercising or sitting on an airplane. But don't act on those ideas. Write them down and bring them up when you're brainstorming with a group.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Community Cooperation Leads to Success." Students helped each other a lot, sharing app development tools, tips, and insights.

ETR Longstanding Principle #5: Check Your Ego at the Door

How do you know your product idea is good? Because you think it is? Business is not and must never be about what the business owner thinks is good or right. Business is about providing value to the customer. And that value can be determined only by the customer. Don't let your ego convince you that you can teach the marketplace what it should and should not buy, or you and your ego will soon find yourselves in the poorhouse.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Individual Opinions About Apps Are Worthless." Don't be swayed by one person's opinion. Just get the app out there and see what happens.

ETR Longstanding Principle #6: Don't Be a Pioneer in a Market

When it comes to answering most of the fundamental questions about selling your product, the best answer will always be this: Imitate the industry norm. If you are always trying to come up with product ideas that are completely new and different, you will likely have a very poor success record. Let others live (and die) on the "bleeding edge."

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Copying Success Is a Cheap/Fast Way to Succeed." Novelty isn't the best approach to apps. If you're desperate for a win, just copy something that's working. Flipside: If your app is doing well, expect imitators.

ETR Longstanding Principle #7: Accelerated Failure

Success isn't usually about genius. It is more often about trial and error. Money loves speed, so spend your time trying new permutations of existing successes rather than endlessly hoping to find the "next big thing." Don't be satisfied when things are "running smoothly." An entrepreneurial business should never be running smoothly. Accelerate failure. Cut your losers and run with your winners.

Stanford Students' Discovery: "Success Comes From the Chaos/Control Cycle." Successful innovation is a process.

So there you have it…

Now I didn't have access to the details of everything Stanford attempted. They probably made a ton of easily avoided mistakes. And it sounds like they had some very nice successes as well.

Over the course of their project, they generated somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million in revenue from their Facebook apps… not to mention at least three new companies that were formed during the experiment, two others that were acquired by outside interests, and reports of lucrative job offers for all those who completed the program.

But I'm willing to bet they could have had a LOT greater success, a LOT sooner, if they'd spent some time reading Early to Rise and Ready, Fire, Aim first.

That's where you have an advantage. You see, every day you get (for free!) what took about 75 smart Stanford students months and months to learn. (And think of all that tuition you saved too!)

So congratulations to the smart and energetic Stanford students who learned these lessons the hard way - valuable business principles that most people never discover. You're getting them the easy way… but now it's up to you to go out and use them.

Of course, you've got to be careful out there. Just because lots of people are talking and writing about Facebook doesn't necessarily make it a lasting business model. There have been plenty of "next big things" on the Internet that have turned out to be quite the opposite.

But you've got the knowledge to find out quickly, without spending a fortune, if a business idea is going to work. So who knows? Use ETR's ideas to develop an "app"… and maybe YOU will be next to make a million bucks on Facebook!

Various types of strategic alliances and joint ventures exist.  To avoid confusion, I feel it's important to be aware of the thought behind the words and the names and define the terms, as they are normally used in business beyond online marketing.

Joint ventures are typcially thought of as arrangements where organizations remain independent but set up a newly created organization jointly owned by the parties involved.

A consortia may involve two or more organizations in a joint venture arrangement. An example could be the Star Alliance (a group of several air transport companies), gigantic building projects (like the ones that builds bridges and tunnels, connection two countries) or major aerospace undertakings (like Airbus).  In these circumstances, the organizational relationships are likely to be formalized either in shareholding or agreements specifying asset sharing and the distribution of profits.

At the other extreme are networks, which are arrangements whereby two or more organizations work in collaboration without formal relationships but through a mechanism of mutual advantage and trust.

In Internet Marketing, more opportunistic arrangements arise, which are likely  to be more focused around particular ventures or projects, but that may not be highly formalized. These arrangements are much nearer to market relationships than to contractual relationships.  They exist for a number of reasons:

1) Because assets do not neet joint management - capital, expertise, know-how and so on can come together more informally (as in StomperNet, where the teachers are not employees per se, but have their own companies).

2) Assets cannot be separated easily from the firms involved, or without harm being done, for example, it may be that one partner is providing access to distribution channels that are part of their operation as a whole (one company's list of customers, for example).

3) If the assets involved were split off into a separate organization, there would be high risk of their being appropriated by another party involved. This would be particularly the case for the know-how and skills of the different parties involved.

Types and Motives For Strategic Alliances

Forms of Alliances:

    A) Loose (Market) Relationships

          Networks

          Opportunistic Alliances

Here, assets do not need joint management. But the assets cannot be separated and there is a high risk of the assets/skills or know-how being appropriated. This is where most of us are in online businesses

    B) Contractual Relationships

          Sub-contracting

          Licensing and franchises

In this type of alliance, asset management can be isolated.  Assets/skills can be separated, but in some cases there is still a high risk of assets being appropriated, whereas in other cases, there are low risks involved.

    C) Formalized Ownership/Relationships

          Consortia

          Joint Ventures

In formalized ownership, assets need to be jointly managed. Sometimes assets/skills can be separated and at other times they cannot, depending on the instance.

    D) Formal Integration

          Aquisitions and mergers

This is complicated and any and all combinations can occur here.

Sometimes, strategic alliances (or joint ventures) do not work out very well.  Sometimes, they are not a good match, even though, on the surface, all the criteria and rationale for matching options with circumstances seemed to be a perfect fit.  Why is this?

Angela Wickenberg

P.S. Have you joined us yet?  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54338290656

It's an auspicious time for us all in business and especially those of us who have waken up to the enormous opportunities online.

While there are many great challenges in the economy and for business owners, many have spoken of the gold rush of opportunity that is on the Internet today. And this is so true! Never has there been so much opportunity and so many resources, literally available at our fingertips!

But for many, this has escaped them. This is because as small business owners, we tend to try to do it all ourselves. All of the successful businessmen have told us, time and again:

"Make offers more attractive for potential buyers!"

"Know your strengths and weaknesses and delegate your weaknesses, or form a joint venture!"

"Take what is working and exploit that to the fullest!"

"Take MASSIVE ACTION!"

So how are you going to do this if you have no resources, no time or no money? Strategic alliances or joint ventures are the answer to this.

Please leave comments or message me with your thoughts.

Strategy Calls.com also invites you to answer the questions below:

1) Is there a particular aspect of strategic alliances that you feel you do not grasp, or in other words, that you would like to learn about?

2) Have you tried joint venture relationships before and what are your experiences from this/them?

3) If negative, what went wrong? What was missing?

4) If positive, what was right? And has the relationship continued?

5) Is there something that particularly frightens you about strategic alliances/joint ventures?

6) Would you like help creating a joint venture or strategic alliance?

7) Please state in what area you need assistance.

Would you like to be a case study?

I hope to hear from you soon.

Strategy Calls!

Angela Wickenberg

P.S. Please join us!   http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54338290656

I've been taking a look at some of the free material being given out by some of the biggest and most successful marketers online at this time. Some weeks ago, Arman Morin, who has reportedly sold products and services over the Internet during the past ten years or so for over $43,000,000 (USD), and is the founder of Big Seminar and mentor of many of the most successful and serious marketers online, started sharing lots of videos on his blog.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see just how much value this marketer is willing to give away in his launch build-up over the past few weeks.  He now has 10 instructional videos and a downloadable .pdf file available at http://internetmarketingexplained.com/blog.

In his report, he dispells many myths that are prevalent concerning online marketing and shows in his videos exactly what he is talking about.

So what's so special about his giveaways?  Almost any marketer worthy of the name is giving away things to build-up trust and relationships before launching the product that the giveaways are related to, but here is where the comparison stops.

His videos are very informative and actually tell some of the "secrets" that many marketers have sold in courses and in PAID memberships.  I kid you not!  One example is in the video called massive traffic where he reveals things that I paid for in no less than TWO COURSES on Adwords and PPC marketing.

Head on over there right away and watch that video.  In fact, watch them all!

http://internetmarketingexplained.com/blog/massive-traffic/

On other videos, he reveals virtually EVERYTHING you need to know about how to create products and sell them.  These are the kinds of videos I would have available on my site for my readers!

As I mentioned before, there are no less than 10 videos available there to watch - they are not downloadable.

Thank you, Armand Morin, for showing us how to give real value and for sharing all of this.  Even those who can't afford to purchase any of his courses will benefit greatly from the information available for a limited time on his blog:

http://internetmarketingexplained.com/blog

Angela Wickenberg