Matt Mullenweg in Salt Lake City

Today I had a fantastic day!

We had the great opportunity to go have lunch with a bunch of great folks from Utah, and Matt Mullenweg the founding developer of WordPress. It was awesome, a very informal get together with friends who share a common interest.

Chatting with Matt was quite an enjoyable moment. I mean, let’s face it the guy developed a blogging software that runs thousands of sites all around the world and most importantly has contributed tremendously to a major behavioral shift – from the way people do business to the way they communicate. [Plus, he’s cute] 🙂

Matt Mullenweg, Shahar, Nashlah

Matt Mullenweg, Shahar, Nash

We also finally met a few people whom we only knew via the web and their blogs. Chatted with Sheri who has a cool picture of her dog on her business card and gave her a copy of Engage Magazine since the cutest dog on earth has a column in it! Briefly spoke with Charlie who was wearing a cool t-shirt. Had a good conversation with Newspapergirl. Finally met Thom Allen who is really cool, and who’s organizing the first PodCamp in Salt Lake City. Conversed with Laura Moncur who likes to crochet. Said hi to the real Brad Baldwin and met Jennifer the Scripty Goddess. I must say that we chatted with a whole bunch of other cool people, but my memory is failing on me – must be my old age.

Wordpress Meetup

Wordpress Meetup

Apple The Cutest Dog on Earth
Apple aka Cutest Dog On Earth

Engage Magazine Online

I’d like to invite you to two very good opportunities.

The first is to get your complimentary copy of our new magazine:

Engage – How to Win Big at The New Marketing Game at: http://www.engagemag.net

And then to be part of our next teleseminar: Learn How To Achieve Instant Celebrity Status By Starring in Your Own 30 Minute Television Show, on Feb 6th Register at: http://www.buzzbooster.com/YourTVShow.htm

Dreamhost Nightmare

So I went to check my websites and e-mail this morning like I do every day and found out that Dreamhost, the company I use to host my websites had incorrectly charged me in 3 bank accounts. Let me tell you, this is not a good way to start the day.

My first reaction was to yell: Nashhhhh, help! Get in touch with Dreamhost… but before we were able to write them an e-mail, we saw in our feed 2 notices from them reporting the problem.

We went to their blog and there it was, a very humorous post talking about their big mistake and stating that they were going to take care of everything.

In the afternoon we got some e-mails saying the money was refunded, although at this point we can’t see that in the bank statement. They had to refund $7,500,000 to their clients.

Their blog right now has over 1600 comments. Some people mad that they tried to explain what happened in a light way, but several glad that they were communicating and being transparent about what was going on, and the fact that they could interact.

I hate that companies can incorrectly bill you and take money away from you, but every time they are transparent about the mistakes and take action to correct the problem, I think it is a lot easier to forgive them, and as far as I could see in the comments, most people feel the same way.

Much better approach because you feel you are not being scammed and you won’t need to spend days trying to prove it was their fault. Like for example, with Pre-paid legal.

Remember?

They took money from my bank account and after 4 months, I’m still waiting for the refund that never happened. No communication from them either. Maybe I need to make one more phone call or send one more fax.

See the point? With one company i didn’t have to lift a finger to have the problem I didn’t cause solved, with the other…..

Which one will I keep being a client and will keep referring to my clients? Any guess?

I’m in love with my Flip camera

Usually I’m all for professional equipment when you are talking about photo and video cameras. I like the control and the quality these cameras offer. But since I got my Flip Camera, everything changed.

The Flip camera is a simple video camera that you shoot the video, connect to the computer and upload the video to YouTube. It is so easy to do, it is amazing. No cables to transfer, no hassle.

I thought it was a real pain to render films and this was keeping me from having more videos online. Now, it is a piece of cake. The sound quality of the camera is not the best. Had some hiss sound I didn’t like. I put a piece of tape over the mic however, and now it has a great sound.

Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Pink)

More traffic for websites

The real secret to making money online has nothing to do with your site or the product you sell……Fact!

What really makes the difference as to whether you make money or go bust is all dependant on how many people see your site each day.

If you only get 10 to 100 people per day visit your site, you might as well give up now.

What if you could get 1 million visitors in the next 30 days? Would that make your sales increase?

What if you could guarantee that all these visitors were real people, and they would be on your site for at least 10 seconds each? And what if you could get all this completely free?

Would your bank balance be able to take the strain as the sales poored in?

There’s an incredible new marketing system that can easily and very realistically send you over a million guaranteed real visitors to your website, and it won’t cost you a thing.

All you have to do is check out http://www.t2000ultra.com/?rid=24083

This is going to change the way you market forever.

The time to change your business

The best time to change your business model is while you still have momentum.

A lot of small business owners are really scared to make shifts in their business. They fear they will loose what they have, they think people will see their changes as lost of focus etc.

Any good business needs to make corrections and sometimes even change the whole business model. Sometimes, your current strategy is just not attracting the right kind of customer or even revenue.

The thing is, you cannot come and make changes when things are really bad. you need to do them when your business is doing well, when the market perception is good. So you need to always keep an eye in the horizon to see what is coming and take action before the storm is too close.

Meet the Expert Call

Our meet the expert call is this Wednesday, 9th at 6pm mountain time.
The topic is relationship marketing.
Register here!

New Look at BuzzBooster

First of all, happy new year to all.
We took a break for the holidays to be able to work on some of our sites.
During this break we have updated the look at BuzzBooster.
We were a little tired of the old look.
I’d like to know what you think about this new look, leave me a comment.

Death on MSN

This morning, after my daughter and I woke up, we got ready for the day and went to our computers.

We do this everyday, check the messages before breakfast. It is just another bad habit we have. Since we work online, we need to know if any type of emergency happened overnight and needs our attention right away. Yes, it could wait until after breakfast, but we do it first.

Suddenly, she calls me to see something in her MSN instant messenger.

Beside the picture of one of her high school best friends was the phrase: Carol, deceased today – 12/21/2007

After the shock and knowing how close my daughter was to this girl during their high school years I could only think: My, is this the way to know about someone’s death? Through IM? How harsh! It did upset me quite a bit.

Shortly after that a flood of e-mails started. Other classmates asking: do you know so and so’s phone number? What about this person? Where is this person living now?

No one had anybody’s phone numbers.

They had their IM, gmail, orkut, MySpace profile, but no phone numbers.

My daughter and her friends went to an American school in another continent and today at 22, they are all scattered around the world working in a global marketplace.

As hard as it is to get the message of such tragedy through this media, the truth is, it was the fastest and most effective way to reach everybody. After all, it is instant.

And the internet is the one common place where her generation meets.

What is hard to grasp is the way and pace we have to adapt to such a form of communication when dealing with such a difficult topic.

Fact is, there is no easy or right way to communicate death, there is no easy way to receive this message either. On the other hand, it goes right to the point, no room to prepare a person for the message.

My daughter kept using the IM to communicate with her peers and get informed about the car accident that killed her friend.

I asked myself a hundred times: death through MSN? But I understand, it is just another media. A media we need to adapt to, understand and learn how to use.

Like the mother that in her darkest hour, this morning, had to turn on her daughter’s computer and change the message in her IM in order to reach Carol’s friends, and let them know what had happened with their friend.

News in the mail

Got home today, got the mail and found the Insider’s circle newsletter.

This is the newsletter for Glazer Kennedy local chapter. BuzzBooster was highlighted there. Great way to end the day!

Dan Kennedy is my favorite marketer. I like his style a lot.

To give you an idea, how much I like his marketing strategies, in our way back from Vegas- 8 hour drive- we listened his cds the whole trip. It is that bad!

 The group meets locally once a month. You learn every time and meet some amazing people.

Check it out here