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Let’s face it; if you’re online, and live in today’s world, you’ve heard of, and probably use YouTube. Since Feb. 2005 when it was founded, YouTube has grown by leaps and bounds, adding new features, and more options. If you have an Apple iPhone or an Android-powered smartphone, YouTube can be found in the palm of your hand, 24/7. Aside from being the world’s largest online repository of video, businesses use YouTube to promote their products, run advertising campaigns and post commercials as well.

YouTube self proclaims that “people are watching 2 billion videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.” To think that your business cannot benefit from the grossly large demographic that YouTube has to offer  is absurd, and a mistake many businesses are making today. YouTube in many ways is saturating the population like color television did when it first came out.

For the business, it is essential that even if you don’t post videos, or don’t post videos regularly, that your business has a YouTube presence. As with any booming social media tool, it has an positive impact on your target demographic simply by having a presence.

Should you want to update and use the site for promotional purposes, make your updates meaningful. In a world where the next video out of billions to be viewed, what’s going to make yours stand out to your audience? Don’t forget to market your YouTube content outside of just YouTube. Herein lies the greatest potential for your business. Informational videos, promotions, and commercials that are uploaded by your company shouldn’t just sit on YouTube waiting for the random viewer. Include your videos in e-blasts, post the videos to your company’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Doing so will help your channels viewers/subscribers to increase, and will help word about what your business has to offer move quicker in your market.

In a nutshell

People have been bookmarking web pages since the advent of the modern web browser, but free social bookmarking services like Delicious have take it a giant step further. Delicious, also known as Del.icio.us, is a social bookmarking web site for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Web users can register a free account with at Delicious and immediately start saving their favorite web pages as they browse the Internet. They can choose to make their bookmarks private or available to other Delicious users to either refer back to later or share. A majority of blogs and web sites feature a Delicious icon to help users bookmark their site or articles to the user’s Delicious account. There are also an increasing number of browser add-ons that have been developed to make saving and sharing bookmarks even easier.

Why is it useful?

Delicious and other social bookmarking web sites can be a very powerful source of information and reference on any number of topics. Rather than relying on computers (search engines) to find links and web sites relating to your topic of choice, the sites that are bookmarked on delicious are actually cherry-picked by human beings who have found use and value in that information. Delicious also allows users to add descriptions and categorize links by adding multiple tags (keywords) that make the information much eaiser to sift through. As a web site owner, you should ensure that your site bookmark-friendly by adding a Delicious bookmarklet.

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Top Alternatives

Digg
Redditt
Newsvine
Google Bookmarks
Windows Live Favorites

I remember the first time I heard about Skype… I was in college and the word “free” always made my mouth water. It sounded almost criminal that anyone could call anywhere in the world for free over the internet. So I set aside the two or three hours it would take to download and install Skype using my dial-up connection. But when I was all set, I realized that I had a few issues to deal with. One, I had to buy a headset, which wasn’t cheap. Two, it was only free if I was calling someone who had also made the commitment to download and use Skype. Lastly, and most importantly, the quality of the call was hardly worth the effort. So I uninstalled Skype to make room for Napster.

Its been several years now, and Skype has matured. The call quality is as good as any landline or cell phone call. A lot more people in my address book use Skype, and the equipment is less expensive and far more advanced. But questions still remain for people who have not used this technology or have not given it another try since those dark days of dial-up.

What is Skype?

Skype is software that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet. This technology is also known as Voice over IP or VoIP. Calls to other Skype users are free, while calls to other landlines and mobile phones around the world can be made for a fee. Additional features include instant messaging, SMS messaging, file transfer and video or teleconferencing.

You may have been hearing about a new technology called QR codes. It’s a scannable barcode of sorts that can contain all sorts of information within the code. The codes can be scanned with a number of different applications on all major smartphone platforms, to pull information to the user’s phone. Recently, the code is most often used alongside print ads to lead the user to an online deal, or a mobile app of some kind that is associated with the print media. When a user scans the code, they can either view the contact information or the text within the code, or they have the option of following a link to an application for purchase on their phone, or a regular website.

The Advantages

According to Nielsen Wire, smartphones are 25% of the U.S. mobile market, and that number continues to grow. This means that mobile technology, as well as advertising through this form of medium is only going to grow over the coming years.  The codes are small, simple, and easy to create. They are simple black and white, and can be used very easily with all forms of print media, and even online. They are free to create, and the apps that smartphones use to scan are often free so it does not cost consumers to pull information from the codes.

How to Use Them

Make sure that whoever handles your online/social media and marketing is aware of this technology and will use it. Ensure that where it’s feasible, your print ads contain a QR code to your website, or an online deal. Don’t post the code without any explanation of what it is for. Most people don’t know what they’re for, and won’t know what to do with the image itself. It doesn’t have to be fancy, in fact even a bit of text as simple as “scan this code with your smartphone to visit our website” will work. Just so your consumers know what to do with it. Be prepared to answer some simple questions about the codes and what they’re used for. Have someone on hand who is knowledgeable with the technology to answer questions, and direct people in the right path.

Some Top Apps for Barcodes

ScanLife
ScanLife has a popular barcode scanner for all the major smartphone platforms, and is free.

RedLaser
RedLaser is predominately built for the popular iPhone platform by Apple.

Photo viewing/sharing site Flickr (by Yahoo) got a major update this week; changing and implementing several new features. They added a dark preview mode to dim everything from the background of a picture, as well as faster easier to use controls for photo navigation. According to the site’s blog, they’ve “made it easier to find when a photo was taken, it’s location, camera/exif info and your name in one location to the right of the image.” They have an expanded focus on the story, (who, what, where, etc) of your photos, in an effort to increase the social aspect behind image-sharing as well.

Check out the blog straight from Flickr, and don’t forget to tell us what you think of the new design.