Brian McCullough - Organizational Internet and Marketing Consultant

If your like me your cell phone bill is about $300 a month, that was just becoming to much. I have had a Skype account for a few years now and have allows wanted to make the switch to more of a Skype dependent lifestyle. For about $60 a YEAR I went with Skype Pro, that gave me unlimited calls to landlines and cell phones in the US and Canada all year plus my own local phone number. To complete the deal I found a logistic cordless phone on clearance at Office Depot for about $35. Know for the topper I called my cell provider and lowered my bill  to a plan that is about $150 cheaper.

The quality of my Skpye calls are very good about 98% so overall I have no problem. Only thing is I need Skype to bring their cell phone/mobile  services to the US.

http://www.skype.com/mobile/ 
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P.S. International calls are super inexpensive too

Yeah thats right Yahoo said NO!, although I am a Google guy Yahoo is my number two with Microsoft being somewhere in the distant. I will deffenatlly will be waiting for the next move so fare the diolog has been as follows:

Yahoo to Microsoft :

“After careful evaluation, the Board believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo! including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments. The Board of Directors is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for all stockholders.”

Microsoft to Yahoo :

“It is unfortunate that Yahoo! has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies. Based on conversations with stakeholders of both companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties.

We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company. The combination also offers an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market.

A Microsoft-Yahoo! combination will create a more effective company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. Furthermore, the combination will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising.

The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.”

WebMovieNow.com carries many unique titles that can only be digitally purchased from their video on demand website. The website looks nice and I will undoubtedly be using their services quit a bit.  I am the type of person that really likes to look into a film and this is the place to get that, on some films they even have footage that cannot be found on the films DVD.

I will be watching this site and keep you posted on its progress.

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There are many news stories going around about internet speeds in the United States losing speed over the next few years due to heightened video usage online. The United States already has some of the slowest Internet speeds among other countries, I would guess that in a line up the US would fall number 8 or 9 behind counties with much faster Internet speeds. I was wrong, see the chart below, the U.S is 15th.

This whole thing about slow Internet speeds came to my attention when I realized that I could not view a new website because my connection was to slow. That website is http://www.thehdweb.com. The site looks interesting and have a nice feel to it, I also noticed that they are working on increasing their website viability with a bunch of lame banner ads, I am almost positive that they are going to be disappointed with the results.. Unfortunately I have tried to use the site in many different locations and yet the site always tells me that my connection is not going to cut it for a full experience. After continuing the site runs ok but lots of buffering time, nonetheless the nice wide screen makes up for it in some ways. Overall it seems like they have had slow growth, Stumbleupon users have given the site one star, they have a ton of inbound links, that does not really mean anything, I would guess that the site is having trouble maintaining users and at that not getting more then 5k a month…ehhh more like 4k users a month.

If you live in many parts of California there is no way that you would be able to utilize the HD web because no Internet service provider would be able to offer it to you. In doing some research I found that Time Wanner Cable does not even list their broadband speeds on their website. I occasionally work in a office out of Los Angeles that says they have a T1 connection and their speeds are completely up and down and can not really use Joost or the Web in HD. When I visited Tulsa, Oklahoma I found that with COX you get the option of under 1MbpsS, 7Mbps or something like 14Mbps, now thats speed. Anyway I will be following this. but for know if where going to waste bandwidth lets get some quality HD site up.

In light of my last post about Linkedin a friend, also named Brian, recommended viadeo.com so I checked’er out. Below is a widget Viadeo asks members to add to their blog. I may eventually add it to the side nav bar.

I need someone to answer this question for me because the linkedin website is bugging the crap out of me. Every time I login I feel like I am being unproductive trying to figure out how to get around and how this website is going to benefit me. It seems like the only way I am going to be productive on Linkedin is if I allow them to use my contacts to solicit myself and them. I can’t stop thinking, “why in the Hell would I subject my contacts to a website that I am not satisfied with, not to mention it is so confusing”, thats unfair. Plus I do not want to abuse the privilege of having my contacts emails, I take that very serious.

My good friend Ryan puts it best he said, “Brian the reason you are so bothered by this is because your profile is at a 60% thats a D” Well I graduated college a fews years ago, but I guess I still have the school mentality, good point Ryan.

So I guess I am asking the question “Why do you Linkedin?” because If I am not convinced that this website is useful soon, then I am going to have to peace out. Today Is 01/21/2008 I will give linkedin till 02/20/2008 to prove that it is a productive business savvy website. As for me I will go back into linkedin and try filling in as much info as possible, however, out of respect to my contacts I will NOT upload all my them, but I will weed through a find people that MIGHT find this service helpful.

My Profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/bpmccullough

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I Just added Shareaholic to my Firefox toolbar and now I feel like my toolbar is a mess. My problem is that Shareaholic combines all my favorite social bookmarking icons all into one drop-down menu, I still have all my old social icons spread out along the top of my toolbar, now I have no need for them. At this point all I can wish for is time to re-organize my toolbar.

Ok guys its been a few months since I first wrote about personal SEO and now it is time to reveal my result. The results you are about to see have been up for several weeks, however, I am just now getting around to recording them today. What I did to impove personal SEO and SEM for Brian McCullough “bpmccullough”

1. Setup & Posted a few blogs ( This is one of them ; ) )
2. Created accounts on several networking web
   1. http://my.mashable.com/bpmccullough (One of my Favs.)
   2. MY BAD!!! My accounts will not be as affective because I did NOT fill in all the info in my accounts. I plan on filling in all the info and using the services, however, some just make it too hard to conveniently use them. A good example is twitter.com I can update my twitter account (twitter.com/mccullough) through their website, the normal way, on my phone via SMS, through Google Talk and one of the most unique ways is, via my URL field in Firefox, those are just a few ways that I twitter. A poor example of user convenience is Vox, I hate posting this about Vox because I really like their website and business model but, why would I use their service if I already have a blog? Few other blogging website have answered that question by allowing you to syndicate your primary blog on their blog section allowing you to utilize their services. Vox does do this, however, they only let you syndicate Live Journal and TypePad. WHY? I mean just allow me to use my RSS feed, come on guys. Again this is why I like Mashable because they let you include a small part of every network I us, all in one place and although I wish for more interaction at least I am reminded that I have an account with like 20 networks and need to fill the accounts with information about me.
   4. A Few of My Accounts (Time to work on filling em-up)

   5. COMMUNITY

      Myspace

      Bebo

      Hi5

      Imeem

      MEDIA SHARING

      YouTube

      Flickr

      Veoh

      BLOGS

      Vox

      MUSIC

      Uber

      EVENTS & REVIEWS

      yelp

      NEWS

      Newsvine

      DIGG

      MISCELLANEOUS

      Twitter

   6. All of them have custom URLs i.e. myspace.com/bpmccullough
3. Personal Website bpmccullough.com
   1. I have been working on interloopmedia.com and have not had the chance to complete bpmccullough.com, none the less I have a landing page up with tags and all.
      1. About BrianMcCullough
      2. Resume
      3. Company’s
      4. Video Page ?
      5. Contact
      6. Other (fun pages ect.)
   2. Many people have used Uber for a personal website or Wordpress Software.

My Results Besides the multiple keywords that my name and/or blog come up on my “name” itself indexes on the 3rd page of Google, whereas before you would have never found my name on Google. Results For Brian McCullough

1. “Brian McCullough” comes up on the 3rd page of Google (in Quotes)
2. No Quotes SAME! 3rd page of Google (This surprised me)
3. McCullough - No where to be found on Google (Went to page 33!!)
4. bpmccullough - I own the 1st page (There is one bad post, from my SEO experimental college days)

Next

1. Focusing on Yahoo Search
2. Many more personal Blogs
3. Join Nthebook.com
   
   1. They will be paying for my ad words
      1. Google
      2. Yahoo
   2. The site is organized but a work in progress when it comes to naturally coming up on the search engines.
   3. The site makes up for it by putting part of your monthly fees towards ad words (10 bucks a month)
   4. Nonetheless much more to the point then it’s competitor LinkedIn
4. Starting a few new blogs of interest
   1. tulsafoodblog.com/blog
      
   2. Blogs For Friends
      1. christiansesma.com/blog
      2. tinytinyblog.com/blog

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Well Maybe

I have personally setup over 40 Myspace accounts for individuals that want to grow their business, promote a product, film or album. I have seen many business fail at utilizing Myspace and many succeeds. I have also helped other media companies setup MySpace accounts for their clients and they think it will be clever to use a friend adding bot to invite friends to their Myspace and fail miserably. There are a few keys to making your Myspace a success that I will share with you today that will help put your MySpace over the edge.

1. Fill up you account
   1. Fill out all the information on you account, don’t be shy, this will help people find you easier.
   2. Make sure all your information stays up-to-date, again this will put your profile at the top of many Myspace searches.
   3. Most importantly USE YOUR MYSPACE BLOG!!!!!!
   4. Upload videos (Important too) Don’t forget the 100 other video websites out there.
2. Interact
   1. Myspace has other services for a reason, so use them, and do not forget to make comments when possible. (Many of their services are listed below)
   2. Few things to remember when you comment
      1. Leave your signature i.e. your name and website address
      2. Comment often
   3. 
3. Broadcast
   1. Ask you closer friends on Myspace to announce your Myspace via their bulletins
   2. Join other social networks to promote you Myspace and website
      1. Facebook (Great for networking, Create a Facebook Group)
      2. Twitter (announce ever update and get the Firefox URL poster) SEE twitter.com/mccullough
      3. Vox (Posts get pick up in Google news)
      4. Wordpress (Blog, great for SEO)
      5. Mashable (To stay up-to-date with social network news)
4. Non-Traditional PR
   1. Internet Press Release (Contact Interloop Media)
   2. Start a blogger campaign, meaning invite popular bloggers to blog about your MySpace experiences (Contact Interloop Media)
5. Inclusion
   1. Include a link to your Myspace on you current marketing materials
      1. E-Newletter
      2. Website
      3. Flyers

I hope this gives you insight on creating a Myspace profile, other then what I listed above I have a few legal trade secrets of my own for making Myspace profiles super popular not to mention good looking. I will be publishing more on social networks as the concept is huge on the Internet today.

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I sit here at my desk with multiple computer screens before me, not one of them an Apple Computer. One a Dell XPS notebook that is beginning to become unbearably slow, and the other a homemade machine that runs Windows Vista. My old school G4 Power Book is broken and my Mac Mini was so slow out of the box that I never really used it that much. Heck even my iPod is becoming outdated.

I have anticipated this date for many weeks wondering what Steve Jobs would pull out of his hat, and I must say this looks like one of the best, most surprising Mac Worlds in a while, for Apple’s computer sector. The Macbook Air is the single most exciting computer devices I have seen in many years. The iPhone was nice, however, expected. In my opinion this was a great jump for Apple and an even better start for 08. Although the Macbook Air may lack the power desired by users, such as myself, it is a great starting point, mainly with the optional solid state memory at 64 gigs. I also like how the CD/DVD drive is separate from the computer itself , I do not believe having this connected 24/7 is a necessity since most of our media is downloaded via the Internet. As far as the name goes, “Macbook Air”, I hope this does not effect the Apple/Nike relationship with the iPod Shoe connectivity, I am sure it wont, but I just had to say something. I think Apple could have been a little more creative with the name considering most people I asked think of Nike Air when they hear the word air attached to a new product. I also noticed that Apple used the word “Thinnovation”, boy would I love to own thinnovation.com…lol naaa. Well I am going to get the full scoop and watch the key note presentation by Steve Jobs himself at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/keynote/

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