Etsy, an online marketplace for for buying & selling all things handmade, celebrates Etsy Day today. 

Since its launch in 2005, Etsy's community has grown to over 100,000 sellers from around the world.

Etsy's mission:

• Enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.

Etsy's vision:

• Build a new economy and present a better choice.

On Etsy's blog, the Storque, members are creating their own marketing campaigns by posting pictures and videos can be posted to Flickr, Etsy's Facebook Page or Etsy's Twitter.

Get the Etsy name out there in the brightest, sparkly-est, boldest way you can think of!  Make sure to record your efforts with video or photos (if you upload photos to flickr, making sure to tag them "Etsy Day 2009"). We'll be highlighting the funniest, weirdest, most attention grabbing efforts here on Etsy's Blog and on our social networks and we'll make sure to link back to you.

This event illustrates how Etsy users are creative and efficient with online tools.By empowering the user, Etsy has strengthened its own brand and reached new customers, without any extraordinary effort on their own part. Now that's cost-effective marketing.

For every iPhone and Blackberry that's sold, there's one less consumer who needs a GPS device.

Obviously, the phone's feature isn't as user-friendly as a hands-free, talking GPS devices such as Garmin (NASDAQ:GRMN), but it supplies the same fundamental service- plotting your route.
I don't advise anyone to navigate with their iPhone GPS in one-hand and the steering wheel in the other, but we're all guilty of it from time-to-time. It's just as dangerous as texting-while-driving, but in America, we've convinced ourselves that time is money, and saftey is often sacrificed as a result.
For a personal example, I was searching for one my favorite restaurants in Winter Park, when I handed my iPhone to the passenger, because I didn't want to risk an accident. Unfortunately, I must admit that there have been plenty of other times when I was driving alone, and I took the risk.
Safety aside, consider the other ramifications, especially for GPS manufacturers. I started to wonder if the increased sales of Blackberry phones and iPhones decreased sales of GPS devices such as Garmin and Tom-Tom (Public, AMS:TOM2).

Obviously, there's no concrete proof to provide a definite answer, but I figured it was worth taking a look at the stock performances of those two companies.
Garmin's stock was at $53.94 on June 4, and the iPhone debuted nearly one month later, July 11. Today, it's priced at $21.94. Tom-Tom was priced $25.77 on May 19 and is currently priced at $4.41.

To be fair, the vast majority of stocks plunged in August, so the decline can't be directly attributed to the arrival of the iPhone. Regardless, GPS device manufacturers must find new ways to market their products as a safe and thorough alternative to hand-heldnavigational devices.

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past six months, you've heard about Twilight or Trueblood: Twilight,the book, was written by Stephanie Meyer and published in 2005, but the movie's screenplay was written by Melissa Rosenberg.The Sookie Stackhouse book series written by Charlaine Harris became a hit miniseries on HBO (The second season is slated to start this summer). A creative viral marketing campaign was used to promote the show.

Since the premier episode of Trueblood and the premier of Twilight, vampires have replaced pirates as the "in" movie or TV characters. For example, check out the movie section of your local Wal-Mart, and you'll notice an end cap devoted strictly to the vampire genre.
I just hope this isn't an indication that Goth is making a comeback.

Earlier this week, we announced our plan to phase-in local business to spotlight on Marketing Shift. We compiled a list of several successful companies to feature, but we want YOU to choose the first businesswe profile. Here's your chance to play editor. VOTE NOW!

As our readers already know, Marketingshift features hundreds of profiles of companies, marketers,business leaders and celebrities.
Thanks to our Search Engine Optimization, many of these personalities and companies appear among the top results in Google Search. As a result, our profile pages are occasionally mistaken as the primary contact page of the company or celebrity. Once they see comment section or contact form their eyes light up and they pass rant or rave vent their frustrations via our comment section or contact form on the profile page of the respective personality or company responsible for their frustration. We decided to publish some of our favorite rants and raves. Here are some Gems:

Intended for Southwest Airlines
 I was shocked to find that you are sponsoring rodeos and the cruel and abusive treatment by the cowboys. You must really do your homework before sponsoring and supporting such a vile event. I will never fly your airline and will see that everyone I know hears about this.


Intended for Joe Babiasz, founder of Boycottalabamanow.com

Hey Joe,I have a monkey that looks better than your yankee wife
Hey Joe, Please boycott GA also. I do not want to see anymore MI license plates on I85 or I75. Thanks. Dick

 

 

Directed to Irving Azoff, CEO of Ticketmaster
Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks are my favourite band and I am embarrassed and ashamed that you represent them!


Be careful what you wish for. Azoff "threw a dog a bone" removing the convenience fee for the EAGLES band (His). Now you'll pay through the nose for your favorite tickets with the "Bait and Switch" tactics of the Ticketmaster scam!

Azoff, I think you're a major "ADAM HENRY"and I believe you are the culprit behind the Ticketmaster scam. i see that Ticketmaster bought your "FRONTLINE" for millions and now you you're probably screwing with the ticket system. I also observed that you, as CEO of Ticketmaster, lifted the convinience fee for THE EAGLES....Gee what a coincidence.

News bloggers, A.K.A "Citizen Journalists" have revolutionized the news media with the help of platforms such as NowPublic and CNN I-Report.

We knew it was only a matter of time before media tycoon Rupert Murdoch integrated MySpace with Fox News and/or the Wall Street Journal, which are divisions of  the media conglomerate:News Corporation (NASDAQ:NWSA).

MySpace users can become uReporters by uploading video and photos tagged by specific news categories, including national and international stories, entertainment and politics to myspace.com/ureport.  The user-generated content could be featured in relevant programming on FOX News Channel and foxnews.com, with FOX News maintaining editorial control of the MySpace page.  The community will also feature profiles of FOX News anchors, allowing members to link to their favorite network personalities. 

Chris DeWolfe, CEO and Co-Founder of MySpace, said

This synergy with FOX News reinforces what MySpace is all about-providing users the ability to share, explore, connect and consume.  Time and time again we’re inspired by the creative, original content that the MySpace community produces and shares online-I look forward to seeing what they come up with when presented with the opportunity to be featured on-air.

Ureport may breathe new life into MySpace, which has seen its archrival, Facebook, emerge as the fastest-growing social network. I'm curious to see the percentage ofusers who utilize this new feature to contribute their unique content.

Marketers at Warner Bros decided an overhaul was in order for resistorbeterminated.com, a site designed to generate viral buzz for Terminator Salvation , which opens nationwide May 21.

 Originally, Resist or be Terminated had a very amateur and generic WordPress layout. Now, it features sharp and detailed graphics, along with new pages. Enhancements to the site  include  new videos,a forum and  Tactical Simulator, a role-playing game similar to iMob. Warner Bros must have anticipated a heavier stream of visitors following the Extended Look promo.The site's premise is to spread awareness about the hidden danger behind Skynet Research and skynetresearch.com.

The latest video on the resistorbeterminated Youtube Channel features a dire warning about a war in 2018. Obviously, each successive video is ramping-up the drama for the movie premier and adding to the storyline.

There's an old saying: "All politics is local", and the same rule applies to business.

Whether it's in our business or our personal life, some of the best opportunities and partnerships spring up in our own backyard. Consider all of the businesses you drive past on your daily commute to work. The best relationships in life and in business are mutually beneficial. Our "flat" digital world tempts us to focus on the biggest names in the biggest cities, but the best business partner may very well be in our own neighborhood. For example, we're based in Merritt Island, Florida, 45 minutes east of Orlando. When telling people where we’re from I often find myself saying “45 minutes east of Orlando and 10 minutes west of Cocoa Beach”. The 45 minutes east of Orlando is the part that usually gets them. Then I’ll go on to say that we’re 5 minutes from Cape Canaveral, you know: where the Space Shuttle goes up, and by that time they still don’t know where Merritt Island is but they have a general idea of where we are in respect to their mental landmarks. For those not from Merritt Island, please read the next paragraph so we can introduce you to our home on the Space Coast of Florida. Merritt Island residents can skip a paragraph (it’s a local thing, tourists wouldn’t understand).

Merritt Island isn’t a one-light town yet certainly no Manhattan either. The town’s motto, “Where dreams are launched”, is a tribute to the Kennedy Space Center (think NASA). KSC (as we locals know it) is the biggest employer and the rest of the workforce includes some large businesses (like Harris Corp) but mostly hundreds of small businesses.

Why are we telling you about Merritt Island? In part because we want others to know about our little slice of heaven situated in between the Indian and Banana Rivers. But more importantly, because there are quite a few very cool little businesses in the area that we’re just now discovering ourselves. These businesses range from local shopping cart system providers to trophy fish mounters to local newspapers and even a skate shop or two. Yes, even our own seo firm.

Since Marketing shift was launched 5 years ago, it has become a staple in the marketing community known for exclusive interviews and keen insight into seo and marketing. Whether we’re interviewing Kevin Ross of Digg or giving you behind the scenes info from MySpace we always break down complex topics into real world language anyone can understand. We have prided ourselves on our straight speak, and even snarkiness, and will continue to produce this type of content.

However, a couple of weeks ago we came to the realization that we’ve been living in a glass bubble in our local community. Our founder, Jason Dowdell, has always called Merritt Island his “bat cave” because he could be nearly professionally anonymous in Merritt Island one day and the next be delivering a speech to hundreds of marketing experts in Silicon Valley. But as he and I were talking a couple of weeks back, we realized that we’re doing local businesses in Merritt Island and the Space Coast a real disservice by not reaching out to them at least to say hi and show our support. In light of this we have decided to begin showcasing some local businesses that we have recently come in contact with thanks to Twitter and other social media outlets and good ol fashioned word of mouth. We’ll post real interviews with real small business owners and hopefully bring a little more exposure to our hometown during the process.

Now don’t worry, it’s not going to be all local all the time. We'll still cover the major movers in technology and social media, but we’ll also cover several little guys you will have never heard of that reside in our local community. Hopefully, this mix of national and local companies / stories / people will spark some ideas for you and your business. As always you can follow us on Twitter twitter.com/marketingshift or grab our rss feed. If you have a local company you think we should spotlight then fill out our contact form and we’ll respond shortly.

As the Cincinnati Bengals contemplate which former college football star to select for the upcoming NFL Draft, one player, Dhani Jones, is already in mid-season form.
Only this time, Jones isn't chasing down elusive running back, he's pursuing a second season for his new show, Dhani Tackles the Globe, on the Travel Channel.Since  Dhani's series premiere on March 16, tens of thousands of new fans flocked to his pages in the social networking world. His  Youtube, Twitter and Facebook pages have each enjoyed remarkable growth throughout the first four episodes and continue to draw new fans, and his Youtube Channel recently hit the 80,000 milestone on April 10, despite the fact that the channel's overall growth rate slowed after episode 5.

Below are the Dhani Jones social network stats, compared to our last check 10 days ago, which are listed in parentheses.

• Facebook page 6,730 (5,778 fans)
• Twitter 3,510, (2,659)
• Dhani Jones Youtube channel subscribers: 1,684 (1,500)
• Channel views: 84,339 (80,000 on April 10)
• The Dhani jones sports challenge video on YouTube has 447,136 views.