After years of watching Sex and the City, idolizing the lives of the four women, one of the characters drastically stood out to me; Samantha Jones. She owns her own Public Relations company, rubs elbows with the best of the best in New York City, throws first class parties and attends her fair share of them. She knows all the best hot spots in the city and has a Rolodex overflowing with names and numbers of the biggest, best and most elite of New York.

For eight months, I studied at the post graduate level Public Relations, and I went into the program thinking that PR was more like a lifestyle than a career. Take Samantha Jones for example, she is her own boss, she is fierce and she makes a lot of money (and let us not forget about her amazing fashion sense either). All of these desirable things had been over shadowed by her age. This character was in her late 40s on the show, which would mean she had to work for everything she had and obtained in life.

On the first day of class for my Principles of Public Relations class, the students were instructed to write down what he and she thought Public Relations was, and what it meant to each of us. I chuckled to myself as visions of Samantha Jones briskly walked through my head in her $500 a pair Manolo Blahnik shoes. Five star parties: check. Elite guest lists: check. Raking in the cash: check, check, check. Samantha was living the (fake) life I so desired to be living, and I thought that this was an accurate portrayal of the average Public Relations professional.

Little did I know just how wrong I really was. All of my pleasant thoughts and dreams were suddenly put on hold as a sat dumbfounded in grammar class. Who knew that Public Relations involved such hard and dedicated work, long hours, time management skills and proper spelling and grammar at all time, among the extensive laundry list of dos and don’ts?  Certainly not me.

As classes resumed, I could not help but feel out of place. Was this really what I wanted to do with my life? Why had the media (but more importantly, Samantha Jones) forsaken me? I felt as though I was falling into a perpetual downward spiral. “I don’t remember signing up for this,” I would tell myself almost everyday, “Why isn’t this more glamourous? More fun?”

As weeks and months passes, I became more comfortable with what I was learning and somewhat willingly disregarded (at least some) of those silly hopes and dreams I had been building up since my younger years. Public Relations just was not about throwing and attending lavish parties, it was about networking and putting on events (see the difference?). We learned that not everything was going to come easy, we had to work our way up the ladder to success and recognition, it just was not going to be handed to us or have it dropped off in our laps. PR is about communicating with the public and the media, not hiding behind a “No comment” statement.

So much was to be taught and learned during my short time in the post graduate program. Computer skills needed to be refreshed and updated, intense sessions of grammar and writing could not be over looked, and not to mention, correctly planning and executing events played a vital role of my time.

The biggest wake up call to reality was learning that issuing a “No comment” statement is not only completely wrong, but that it also makes any PR practitioner look foolish and that he or she may be up to something. I don’t think that I have had anything drilled into my head more than this. All those celebrity publicists who have been using this statement since the dawn of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous have been doing it wrong. Who knew?

PR just is not about throwing and attending parties, rubbing elbows or even raking in the money. I am now able to take what I have learned and feel confident to go out into the workplace. I will be able to rub elbows through networking, put on fabulous events that everyone will want to attend, all while making a name for myself as I begin my ascent to the top of the ladder of success while looking fabulous, just like Samantha Jones. 

The constant flow of information from the feed on the Facebook main page is enough to overwhelm the busiest of minds. But is it necessary to update your relationship status on Facebook? Your friends should already know that you are currently dating someone, and I’m more than certain the people you just collecting as friends could really care less.

Maybe that’s it; it’s to show off to everyone your new boyfriend/girlfriend and that you - yes you - have the ability to be in a relationship. But when do you switch over your “Single” status to officially be “In a Relationship?” Do you discuss this with your new love first, or should it be done right away, or even after a few days? (A little personal side note: when my last boyfriend and I were an “official” couple, I waited a few days, as not to seem overly excited to be dating him.)

But wait, what if you and your sweetheart get into a big fight? Hey! You have an option for that too. Just throw your status to “It’s Complicated”, I’m sure nobody will wonder or question what’s going on in your relationship, I swear. If you use the “It’s Complicated” status, you are just asking for trouble. A friend of mine left that as her status for months, even though she and her boyfriend were perfectly fine and completely over their previous fight. I know if I were dating someone who left their status as that, I would feel a little insulted and question their motives, but that’s just me.

Now, what if you and your partner break up, what happens now? All of your friends, including your significant other’s, will now see that you two have split. That’s pretty embarrassing if you ask me. Something like a break-up is a private matter, people need time to heal and cope with the new changes, and the last thing I would want would be my friends leaving me messages on my wall asking if I was OK.

So is there a Facebook relationship status etiquette? I have always wondered what the grace time would be to changing back your status from “It’s Complicated” or “In a Relationship” back to “Single” and vice-versa. I’m not completely innocent, I have changed my status a few times during the course of a relationship, but the constant feed of information has made me see the light. Now with the introduction of the non-collapsible mini-feed, I can see all the information I have missed throughout the day as I snoop through people’s profiles and get a lot of juicy details about their lives that I really have no use for.

It has become more of a nuisance than anything else, the constant flow of information overwhelming my main page. That’s why I opted to completely remove my relationship status from my page. It’s no business of anyone’s really to know whom I’m dating or whether or not I’m single or in a relationship. The relationship status is just that, a novelty status and a “Look at me! Look at me!” cry for attention. Serial status changers should really get with the program, because nobody wants to have their main page updates flooded with the manic back and forth of single/taken. But then again, that’s just my opinion.

If we are to believe dnScoop's estimations, Facebook and MySpace are each worth $1.2 billion, with Google at only $1.7 billion. Seems a bit out of balance. Yes, you're all wonderful companies hell bent on world domination, but Facebook is NOT in the same league as Google, is it?

Oops! Sorry, Google. Yahoo is worth $2.1 billion and MSN.com is worth $1.9 billion. Those damned portals! No worries. If it's any concession, Ask.com is only worth a supposed $51 million. Take THAT, you supposed innovators of search! 

So what are the factors that go into this farfetched estimation? 
That's a great question. Let's take a quick look at the publicized factors.

1) Domain Age
The older the domain is, the stronger search value it is likely to have as well as resale value.

2) PageRank
Yes, despite how many SEO "experts" say pagerank is meaningless, it still plays a factor here.

3) Inbound Links
The number of (quality) inbound links directly affects your website's ability to rank well in search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Live.

4) Alexa Traffic Report
Yes, only certain types of people use the Alexa toolbar and thus the numbers are guaranteed to be inaccurate. Still, it's one of the only ways to guess at a third party site's traffic.

5) Domain Name IP Report
Though we don't know exactly what dnScoop pulls from this, it is probably the fact that a large number of sites on the same IP indicates a lower quality score. 

6) Link Value Report
Ironically, Text Link Ads is the enemy of Google, yet somehow both search AND TLA values are combined to determine the values. Perhaps it's just a ploy to make affiliate revenue by referring a bunch of people to TLA. 

7) Site Category, Domain Keyword Popularity, and Number of Domain Name Occurrences on the Web
These were not mentioned in more detail, but are fairly self-explanatory. They're also looking at how often people mention the words in your domain name. This indicates either direct brand popularity or topic popularity. 

Now that we understand the criteria a little better, let's look at a few more popular websites worth mentioning:  

ESPN.com comes in at $658 million.
Craigslist.org is purported to be worth $614 million.
Amazon.com at $1.1 billion.
Ebay at $866 million.
Digg at $1.1 billion
Twitter at $43 million
SearchEngineLand at $2 million
NYTimes at $691 million
DoshDosh.com at $2 million

Heck, even Mark Cuban's own BlogMaverick is quoted at more than $2 million. Stinkin' billionaires.

Well, for now, we're keeping our twelve thousand dollar website and adding even more value. And don't even consider offering to buy. We won't sell 'til we're worth at least $14k

So, if you dare do the research, what's your site worth? We want to see too. Post your website name and dnScoop value in a comment below.  

**Disclaimer**
No, we're not going to actually sell CultureFeast.com for $14k. It's called "humor", people. 

There has been a lot of buzz of late about “information diets”, and I never really understood until now.  In order to swim in this surging information stream, you have to be able to tame the currents.  I have begun to find my own ways of taming the currents:

1) Prune, and prune often. 
This is possibly the simplest way to cut the fat when it comes to your information intake.   Not only should you go through all of your bookmarks on a regular basis, but also cut out unnecessary friendfeeds, twitters, and RSS feeds.  In order to not be overwhelmed, I recommend doing this every two weeks or so.   You will be surprised not only at the amount of worthless links that have accumulated, but also the amount of online gems that are buried in amongst  all the fluff.  

2)  Use specialized searches. 
Finding a couple of specialized search engines for specific types of research can significantly reduce your “sifting time”.  A few of my favorites are Google scholar for work or school research, and Addict-o-matic for researching current events. 

3)  Organize your information simply and consistently.
Your RSS feeds and bookmarks should both be maintained in a streamlined form that makes it easy to file your new links, as well as easy to find the information when you need it. I also recommend finding a new way to store links to stories that you just want to read and discard. You can use a app such as Google notebook, or if you’re lucky like me you can try out the new Evernote beta. 

My current favorite is using the read it later add on for Firefox. Of course this is by no means the only way to get things organized.

The simply point is this:  in order to be the information guru that we all want to be, one needs not only to be able to get into the infostream, they need to tame the currents!

I came across this really cool yet different idea on several social networking sites that I participate in on a day to day basis.  Somethingstore.com is a fun, new website that operates quite simply: they send you something which is selected randomly from their inventory for $10.00 (free shipping) and you will find out what that special something is when you receive it in the mail. Their website says that this "something" could be a cool gadget or a table game.  It could be a set of kitchen knives or a magazine.  The fun of this idea is you don't know what you bought until it arrives packaged on your front door. Yes, it's $10.00 but the point isn't about cost.  It's about getting a group of people interested in a new idea, on the web, and then spreading the word in the ever-so-social Web 2.0 way.

Granted, the idea of purchasing something online isn't new and isn't necessarily "Web 2.0."  However, the creativity and the social networking piece to this (spreading the word via social mediums) is why this website and it's business model match the Web 2.0 standard.  You spend $10.00 on a random and unknown gift for yourself, you then blog about it and talk about it over social networking sites and then your friends do the same and start the process all over again.  It's brilliant and fun.

So, check it out.  Go buy something at the somethingstore.com.  You never know why you may get!  Once your gift arrives, make sure you let us know what you got in the comments below!



Luckily, the social media realm seems to have grown up and has taken on a life of its own. Thanks to my good friend A.D.D, I have since healed from the shame of Myspace and moved on to other time consuming means of socializing… namely, Twitter!



I joined Twitter earlier this year but I didn't start really exploring its features until just recently. It took me a little while to get passed the initial concept. I mean, who wants to read about what someone is doing 24/7? It seemed a little childish. 3 months later (after committing to the idea of giving it a real, honest chance) I have to say, I am hooked!

So what exactly is Twitter anyway? Twitter is where instant messenger, blogs, and crack join forces to play online! It’s a habitat perfect for meeting new people & sharing information in real-time. You are allowed 160 characters at a time to say your piece, a 50×50 space to display your mug, and you see only the conversations of those you "follow". No photo folders, no redundant "about me", no music players, and most certainly… no surveys!

The thrill of filling out surveys, comments, and dealing with countless spammers may have since passed me but I still have a few friends who haven't jumped the gun and joined the bandwagon. There seems to be a great divide among Myspace users and Twitter users. The psychologist in me can’t help but wonder why. Perhaps the inability to share more personal information is what keeps most at bay. Unlike Myspace, it’s not as easy as a simple comment here and there to maintain healthy activity.

Twittering requires an equal amount of give and take but worth the time. The opportunity to meet new people and learn something new is only a chance away. Sign up, put the surveys down, and join us.

One of the reasons I find this social medium to be exciting is because of it's social networking power.  You don't necessarily have to have 4,000 friends to create influence on Twitter.  If you can grasp the concept of sending a text message on your cell phone, you can understand the functionality of Twitter.  Twitter only allows you to write 140 characters within each message (or tweet) you send out to the "twitosphere".  This not only makes those who enjoy brevity and simplicity happy, but it also gives each person the opportunity to follow and actually read a lot of people's "what are you doings".  There's no long blog post to read, no video to sit through and no gallery of pictures to sort.  There are just short and brief announcements from your followers/friends that can range from what you're currently doing to the world's latest breaking news event.

Just last week, Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell from Geekbrief.tv decided to host a birthday party for their intern, William.  Instead of organizing this birthday party with paper invites or even sending out an Evite as most would do, Neal and Cali decided to invite friends of theirs that are on Twitter.  What better way to announce this than on Twitter?  It literally became a Dallas Twitter party within a couple of hours.  This is what I find so appealing about this medium.  It's social!  It's live.  It's always updating on the lives of your friends. The birthday party was a success and we had a great time getting to know our Twitter friends in real life (attached are two pictures from the Dallas Twitter birthday party).

Another reason I particularly like Twitter can be summed up by a personal example.  Daniel Dessinger from Culture Feast sent out a tweet last week asking anyone who was interested in writing for his blog to message him back on Twitter.  I pounced upon this awesome opportunity.  Within minutes he had sent me another reply giving me the guidelines, details and instructions and thus I began writing for Culture Feast.  I can't think of another social networking site that gives you the opportunity to meet so many people in such a quick amount of time.  The ability to keep up with 100 people's lives and current situations is so much easier than it is on other social networking sites, in my opinion.

If you still aren't convinced, I would love to suggest you watch a quick film made by the geniuses at CommonCraft titled "Twitter in Plain English".  They give an excellent explanation of why you should start using Twitter.  If you're on twitter, please follow me @jeffmccord.

Here’s the concept, call a 1 866 number, tell the automated voice system you want to post to WordPress, and then start talking, clearly. In about two minutes it’ll show up as a post under your author name on your blog with a link for users to listen to your post. It’s that slick. Total setup time is about 15 minutes and there are some things you can do to set it up further. Don’t like texting into twitter all the time? It can update your twitter account too as well as a host of other online utilities.

Here’s a brief tutorial on how to set it up for your WordPress Blog:

- Go to http://www.jott.com and set up an account, it’s free and quick

- Enter in your info and agree to the terms of service

- Verify your email address

- Enter your phone number (you can add more numbers later)

- Call 1 866 JOTT-123 and it will activate your phone with your Jott account and start you on your first jott, to yourself.

- Go to the “Links” page in your Jott account and add WordPress

- Fill out the info for your blog and blog author and hit “Save”

- Now call 1 866 JOTT-123 and say “WordPress” when it asks you “Who do you want toJott?” Then Start your message.

Remember to speak clearly and in a place without a lot of background noise. Jott does a good job of picking out the right words but it’s a good idea to check the posts when you get back in front of the comp.

There's a ton of usage with this web utility and voice posts to WordPress blogs is just the tip of the iceberg. I'd love to hear about how you're using it.

CultureFeast has done the research for you and found two excellent and easy-to-understand resources for you:

RSSDay.org is an excellent place to fill in your background and foundational knowledge on the subject. Would you rather just subscribe to some RSS feeds and figure out the what, where, and why on your own? Visit this Men with Pens post for simple step by step How To instructions on subscribing to feeds with Google Reader.

As always, you can ask us questions in the comment section below. We're sold on the value of getting to know our readers, and if we can help in the process, that's even better!

What is it about freebies that delight me so? I get warm fuzzies just thinking about how I will spend my coupon. It's a feeling akin to that warm, cuddly, 3 drink buzz feeling I used to get when I had the time to drink (whenever that was).

I should do a reputation management case study on Zappos.com. Everything I hear about them tells me that they'd serve as a stunning example for most of my ORM clients. In fact, I just referenced Zappos yesterday during a client meeting. This multi-billion dollar company we were talking to needs some online reputation management and I referenced Zappos several times during the conversation as a company dedicated to connecting with their customers. 

That said, I'm just glad to know that there are companies out there who really focus on people because they know that people are the source of their fortune and success. Companies like Zappos give me hope that ecommerce (or any commerce, for that matter) doesn't have to be a heartless, moneygrubbing enterprise.  

Two major changes I've noticed include:

1. The move of all KKITM blogs to the WordPress server
This was not exactly what I recommended, but Kidd's tech crew might have decided that adding PHP WordPress to their server was an issue, so I'll give them a pass. But just for the record, owning a blog on a .blogspot or .wordpress domain is lame. But NOT as lame as the non-blog blog format KKITM was using previously. So the move gets a B- for improvement. There are still many downsides to hosting your blog on WordPress' servers. You can't use all the awesome plugins available which give WordPress so much of its flavor and functionality. 

2. Enhanced updates
Each daily update to the site is now significantly more attractive, with rounded edges and contemporary graphic styles. This does NOT make up for the unattractive and unusable platform that the rest of the site is built upon, but at least the user experience is now somewhat better due to appealing graphics. 

And now, for the changes still desperately needed:

3. New webdesign and backend structure
Sorry, Kidd, but it's so outdated, it gives your show the feeling of cutting edge 2001. Which would have been great in 2001. Just because other radio stations use a sucky template doesn't mean you have to. Show them up by being on the cutting edge of web design. This is key to building your fanbase online. I absolutely refuse to click on your "drop up" subnavigation because it looks so bad popping up in hideous gray above the main link and not even connected. I won't say more. 

4. Update background colors
At the very least, lose the AWFUL blue background and convert it to white. Everyone who's anyone is utilizing white space to brighten up the space and to make focusing on content easier on the eye. Just get rid of the two hideous blues (at top and on either side of your primary content box) and you'll do a LOT for the experience of visiting your site. 

5. Take Twitter seriously
I can't say this enough. Kidd needs to utilize Twitter.com. At least ESPN Radio has a "text toy" that allows listeners to send comments to the show via text message from their mobile phones. Twitter solves that problem by giving your followers the opportunity to contact you via text, IM, or web. Twitter is not some fad. It WILL be as big as Facebook. It makes networking too accessible to be ignored. If Kidd would use Twitter, he would find a whole new medium for reaching his fans and strengthening listener loyalty (not to mention promoting listener evangelism). 

6. RSS Feeds
Okay, here's one extra. I couldn't leave without mentioning RSS feeds. Now that the cast of Kidd Kraddick in the Morning has WordPress blogs, put links to RSS feeds ON THE WEBSITE. People aren't all as unsavvy as you might think. Besides, if you cater to the web savvy listeners, you'll find that they will do far more for you in brand evangelism and promotion because of how ridiculously well connected/networked they are online. 

That's it for now. I hope you're reading this. I want to see KKITM become all that it can be. And the future of EVERYTHING is Web. That's just the facts. 

1.    Pandora Radio (www.pandora.com)
Pandora is a favorite because it is like falling into pandora’s box of music.  Type in a band you like and it will create a radio of bands sharing similar sounds in a spread of different genres.  It gives you the ability to fine tune it with a thumbs up, thumbs down for each track it plays.  You can find Facebook friends who are listening to similar things and share stations.  This is what is playing in the background of my computer whether I am writing, chatting, or searching out new music and I wish I had enough time to download all the new stuff I find while listening to Pandora Radio. 

2.    Musicovery (http://musicovery.com/)
Musicovery has a different approach to finding new music.  Choose any combination and degree of entergetic, calm, positive, or dark music and the types of genres you want to include and Musicovery creates a web of music with similar moods. I like the ability to mix genres.  For example, my search included music from Iggy Pop to Alice and Chains.  If you register, you can ban bands from playing in the future.  A single click will get you to Itunes to download the song.  If the words happen to be in French when you get there, you can change to English at the top by clicking the flag. 

3.    Project Playlist (www.playlist.com)
Project Playlist allows you to easily search for music by title, artist, or both and add them to a playlist which you can then add to your MySpace or MySpace equivalent.  You do have to sign up for an account but it’s completely free.  You can have multiple playlists saved, but you can also add music to all of them at the same time.  I wish it was easier to connect to other people and see what they have on their playlists.  I also wish it would suggest more music to me.  When I find music on Pandora and Musicovery, I end up saving it here to one or all of my playlists.  On rare occasions the links don’t work or it doesn’t have the music I am searching for.  There are definitely better places to find music, but if you are looking for a place to play and save music without having to pay for it or download illegally, then Project Playlist is a good place to go. 

4.   Songza (http://songza.com/)
Songza will search for music and video by band name and recommend similar music.   You can save the bands you like to a playlist or buy from amazon.com.  What makes this site a little different is that you can also share the music through twitter or email and watch the music video through youtube.  Beyond the ability to find music at Songza, this is also a good website to go to if you want to find everything on the internet by or about a particular band.    

5.    Last.fm (http://www.last.fm/)
A search for one band on Last.fm will get you a long list of similar artists, a detailed bio of the band, videos and updated concert events.  If only it didn’t open almost everything in a new window when you are clicking around.  Nevertheless, you can download Last.fm so that it will send you new music regularly, or you can play it online.  The online radio features a shoutbox of comments people are making about the music.  You can also create a wiggit to add to your myspace or website, or play the radio in a small popup - in case you’re at work when you need your fix.   

Yes, Reputation Watchdog is coming soon, though how soon has yet to be determined. It will benefit the growing online reputation management industry, which is a combination of SEO and PR for the Web. I'm sure many of you are wondering what the heck "online reputation management" is. Put simply, reputation management is PR and guarding your image/reputation online, where anyone can say anything about you in thousands of different venues. Each of these negative statements about you can cost you that new job, a quality new hire, a client, or potentially thousands of customers and millions of revenue.

There are plenty of places you can read more about the ORM industry, such as here and here and here. 

Credit goes to the ever awesomer Ben Jordan for creating and enhancing my logo vision.  

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a web application that you can access at www.Twitter.com. You join and create a small profile. Then you search for whatever or wherever interests you and you start following other users who share the same interests or specific geographic locations.

Is Twitter a dirty word?
Of course not. A Twitter is a beautiful thing, and a terrible thing to waste. Clear as mud?

Explain Twitter to me in simple terms.
Okay, here we go. Imagine if Instant Messenger were public to all your friends. You send up to 140 characters per entry and submit. Anyone following you can read it. The original idea was to tell everyone what you're doing. That worked for a solid 2 months until we got bored and decided to mix it up. Everyone was telling everyone else what latte they bought from Starbucks (when they're NOT taking off 3 business hours to build publicity), what they ate for lunch, or whether traffic was bad on the way to work. As you can imagine, that got old quick. 

A day in the life of a Twitterer.
We still tell each other what we're up to, but best of all we talk to each other, holding massive threaded public conversations. I always check to see what @doshdosh has linked to lately and then give relaxation tips to @pratt. Then I see @cshel respond to @sesparza and I have to go back in the time line to get the context. Then @suggarrae spouts off some drunken wisdom at @graywolf and @leeodden gets interviewed for yet another news piece. @andybeal offers a new contest/bribe for reading his website and @lordalf tells me about some wine tasting or scrumptious Dallas restaurant I'll never have the time to visit. Everyone flirts a little with @lisabarone while @jertronic drops the f-bomb a few dozen times. @parislemon keeps me updated on what Apple is doing this week/month and @seocracy makes me laugh with some off the wall comment. @nathanholman keeps me abreast of how he's lovingly tickling the underbelly of the web. And last but not least, @dazzlindonna gives me tips on why my stupid sites load so slowly or get labeled dangerous by stupid Google. There are simply too many conversations to cover them all here.

See?!?!?! Doesn't that sound ridiculously fun? If so, pop on over and join Twitter. And once you've joined, add @danielthepoet as your #1 friend. Yes…(rubbing hands together greedily)… this is an excellent plan. 

Our primary concern is assistance with designing quality website comps. Basic HTML and CSS is a major plus, but not required. The position will be tailored to suit the right designer. 

For more information contact Ben Jordan at bjordan(at)netsuccess(dot)com. Tell him you read about the opening on CultureFeast.com so he can keep track of which method of job posting is most effective.

Thanks.