I love my iPhone. Well, most of the time I love it. And I carry it with me everywhere. I check email, get on Facebook, play games, write blog posts and of course take pictures…lots of pictures. And frequently I post them to my Facebook profile to share with my friends. Little did I know until today that I am endangering myself and my family by posting those pictures from my iPhone. The same Geo-tracking feature that allows us to check in on Foursquare and Facebook Places is attaching itself to my photos.

Take a look at this video -

I changed my settings as soon as I finished watching the video. Be sure you do too.

Have you seen those crazy little square boxes on websites and catalogs and wondered “what in the world” they are?  Me too!  They are QR Codes or Quick Response codes.

According to PCMag.com the definition of QR Code is:

A two-dimensional matrix bar code that is used to identify products. It can store up to 4,296 alphanumeric or 7,089 numeric characters. Depending on the level of error correction applied, it can restore from seven to 30% of the missing data.  Read the rest of the definition at PCMag.com.

So basically it’s a new code that businesses use to help their customer locate them.  Mobile phone users can snap a picture of the code and be taken to a specific product or service or to the businesses website.  On my iPhone, I installed the QR App and when I access the app, it automatically brings up my phone’s camera for me to snap a picture and then uses the code to take me to the site that the code is directing me to.  It’s pretty cool!

You can also get a custom QR code for your business at Google Places.   It is a great way to show off your website or products in advertisements, catalogs, flyers or emails.

Here is my code for Tasting The Internet -

Give it a try, take a picture and see what happens.  But remember you might need a special application to make it work on your phone.

If you have been listening to online marketing folks I bet you have heard the phrase, “viral” or “going viral.”  But do you really know what that means?  Some people might think of a virus, the thing you get for 24 or 48 hours that makes you feel yucky and you are supposed to stay away for other people so they don’t catch it.  We that’s sort of the same as viral for your marketing.  But you want to give it to people and have them give it to other people!

According to Wikipedia viral means, an object or pattern that is able to induce some agents to replicate it, resulting in many copies being produced and spread around.  So basically if you have something (like a video) and you share (or give) it to your online friends, there’s two ways to make something go viral.  You can ask your friends to share it with their online community, or your video can be so good that they automatically share it and those people share it, and so forth.  The latter would be a perfect example of something “going viral.”

Here’s an example of how quickly things can go viral. (and a shameless promotion of my newest grandchild, Connor) 

My 5th grandchild was born on October 11th.  I was privileged to be in the room for his birth along with his other grandmother, my daughter-in-law’s sister and of course my son, the Daddy.  Connor was born at 5:10 pm and by 5:15 pm most of our relatives on both sides had a picture of him, along with how much he weighed, his length and that everyone was doing great.

Also, I posted a sweet, sweet picture of my son, holding his son for the first time (you can see it here) on my Facebook profile and I received more comments on that picture than anything else I have ever posted.  Plus all my Facebook buddies saw it and other people tagged the picture and shared it with their friends.

So we had the birth of Connor “going viral” before he had his first bottle!   With smart phones it makes it very easy to snap a picture or video and push it out to your social media sites.  Give it a try and see how fast your information goes viral.

I love my iPhone!  I knew I would before I even got it.  It has SO many functions that enable me to manage my business when I’m away from the office.  Being the “social media diva” that I am, I’m always checking in on Facebook, HootSuite, Foursquare and my WordPress blog using my iPhone.  However, I was struggling to send emails from my iPhone while I was away on business trips or even at a meeting in town.  It was driving me crazy.  I could receive them just fine, but when I tried to reply, it just gave me error messages.

So I finally contact AT&T and they helped me out and I wanted to share the solution for anyone having problems sending emails from their iPhone.

What I didn’t realize was that when I was in my office and I tried to send an email, it was picking up my WiFi and sending it just fine through my email provider Outgoing Mail Server SMTP. (psst. if you don’t know what SMTP or WiFi is, you probably won’t understand much in this post, sorry )   However, when I was away from the office it was still looking for my WiFi and trying to connect. Thus the errors.

The simple solution was to set up the outgoing server to use the AT&T Outgoing Mail Server.  All I had to do was type in cwmx.com as my Host Name and leave everything else blank.  Next I turned off all the other Outgoing Servers so that this will be the only one used to send my emails, no matter where I was sending if from.  And Voila!  It’s working like a charm.  I had struggled with his for a couple of months and all I had to do was make one small change in my settings.

I hope this post will save you some time if you are having trouble sending emails from your iPhone.

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Being successful in any venture means offering a product or service that is not only exceptional, but offers value that your competitors cannot. This, of course, can be difficult, unless you’re offering something truly unique. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go out there and put your product or idea on the market – consumers are always on the lookout for new and better things. With over 6 billion in the planet, you’ll be able to find someone who will want to buy your product. The key is finding that group of people – is your niche.

A niche is defined as a narrowly defined group that has the same interests and will want to buy what you are offering. A niche market is that group who will have a reason to want your product or service and are compelled to do business with your company for one reason or another. What makes it different from a regular market group is that they are often small enough so that your competitors will miss them, but they can produce enough business to sustain your products. Niche Marketing is hot business these days and more and more marketers are turning to niches to sustain their business.

The key to niche marketing is to be specific. Don’t just target a broad audience – but look for your audience within an audience. For example, merely targeting “retirees” is too wide. There are many types of retirees, not just based on age or location. There are people who may have retired to start their own business, or those who love activities like gardening, traveling or cooking. The possibilities can be endless, just from this market alone.

So how can you find this niche market? There’s no exact way to do it and it’s not always easy, but if you follow some simple tips, you’ll be closer to defining the niche that’s right for you:

1. Find out what you have to offer – make a list of the advantages your product or service has. If you have to, create a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to find out how you size up against your competitors. Then start thinking of which groups of people can benefit from these.
2. Get out there – you have to pound the pavement and knock on some doors to find out what people need. You don’t literally have to get out – join various groups and gatherings related to the general group of people you want to target. Talk to people and try to get a pulse of what’s happening.

The best way, however, is to come up with a great product or service and one you enjoy providing. Finding your niche market will help you focus your attention and maximize your resources (particularly your marketing dollars) towards getting ahead of your competition and increasing your sales and profit.