Let people say what they want about Twitter and the impact of Social Media on websites, but there is a real impact these sites can have on your blog or website.

Last weekend I created a Twitter account for That's What She Said.  I then configured the site to post quotes as people post them directly to Twitter.  That alone I saw a 14x increase in traffic over the next few days. Next, I created a hourly job that searches Twitter for relevant hash tags and follows the users that have posted with the hash tag. This step bumped up my traffic an additional 4x. 

Starting two days ago I also began seeing my natural search clicks increase by 20x.  The new "real time" search on Google has been sending me a good portion of that traffic.

It's also worth noting that you shouldn't be "spammy" with how you post your links.  You need to do it in a controlled manner, as in, 1 or 2 tweets an hour.  You want to give your site presence to your followers without spamming them.

All and all I spent about 4 hours on making the changes to that site and reaped pretty huge rewards almost instantly.  From an ROI standpoint that is very promising, I've seen about a 50% bump in clicks on ads as well.

Today, the wall street posted an editorial "The Microsofting of Apple"
Claiming that Apple has become an organization obsessed with strategy rather than good products.  The Apple iPad being an example.  Now, I'll admit that I am a huge Apple fan.  However, the headline does provoke thought, the meat of the article just doesn't resonate with me.  I disagree with the premise that Apple is obsessed with out-strategy-ing their competition instead of making the best products.

One parallel between the two companies that I immediately thought of was the anti-trust claims against Microsoft because of the inclusion of Internet Explorer and no other browsers being bundled with the Windows operating system.  Now, consider the iPhone.  How do we browse the web? Safari, any other options? No.  The reason?  In accordance with the iPhone developers programs terms, you can't release applications to the App Store that compete with Apple's core applications.  Applications such as Safari, iPod, Mail, etc...

Today, Opera announced a beta version of their Opera Mobile browser for the iPhone, but will it ever get released to the public?  The browser claims to be 6x faster because there is a compression and caching layer causing much faster load times.  If it doesn't get approved, I'd imagine there will be an outcry similar to when Google Voice didn't get approved.

Another interesting point is what Apple is doing to keep iTunes relevant and growing.  I see Apple's iTunes as Microsoft's Office, it is the market leader and is the standard for that type of software.  Instead of simply just revving on iTunes, which they also do, Apple designs complimentary products to expand iTunes.  First it was tv shows with the iPod Video, Movie rentals and purchasing with the Apple TV, Apps with the iPhone and iPod Touch, and now Books with the new iPad.  Each product builds on the previous release.

Now, think of Microsoft Office, what have they done in the last 10 years to the flagship office suite?  Not a whole lot except for UI enhancements.  They are mostly unchanged.  The new 2010 version is supposed to be a lot better and has an online version of a lot of the applications within Office.  This was done out of necessity because of competing products from Google, Apple, and OpenOffice.org.  Microsoft doesn't innovate, the look at the lay of the landscape and do just enough to keep up with the competition. Microsoft is like a tenured professor, they've put in their time, they arent going anywhere, and they're not going to go the extra mile.

A guy at work had this link in his status.  It is spot on.

Check it out on The Oatmeal

I have a lot of friends classified as Gamers, Quiz Takers and one "The Rash"

Let's be honest. There are about 1001 different ways you can screw up your career and relegate yourself to just being average.  If you look at successful people they have a lot of things in common.  In my opinion the most crucial trait you must have to be successful is how you deal with problems.

Leaders don't complain, leaders identify the problem and seek a solution.  Complaining about things will do 3 things that are extremely damaging to you.  First, complaining wastes time, your time is valuable, and if you can't see that you'll never go anywhere.  Secondly, complaining about a problem only distracts you from solving the problem, often times making things worse.  Lastly, complaining could potentially label you as the whiner in your team, which discredits any amount of knowledge you may have in an area.

This whole post comes from sitting in a meeting the other day and having someone complain and complain about something.  I'm not going to share exactly what he/she was complaining about, but it had to do with adopting a new product.  This person hates the new product for whatever valid/invalid reason and whined about it, over and over.  What will the outcome be? Probably pigeon holing yourself into projects that don't use the new product and stagnating in old projects.

Instead, this person's approach could have been offering help to the team in implementing it in a way that minimizes the products downsides.  If you have experience in something, whether you like it or not, offer your help.  You've already learned how not use it, pass on that information and become the person who saved your team a bunch of time.

At the end of the day, both approaches will cost you the same amount of time. The latter however, will take you places.