How to hide Facebook Profile from Indexing on Search Engines like Google

Google, Yahoo and Bing integrated the real time search results on their pages. Before that as well they were showing the facebook profile page of facebook users on their search results for certain keywords. If you want to hide your facebook profile (for some personal reasons) from indexing on search engines like google, Yahoo, Bing etc then you can use the Privacy Settings properly to control that.

Privacy Settings to avoid showing your profile on Search Engines

1. Login to your facebook account and go to the Settings tab at top – right corner of profile page

2. Select “Privacy Settings” from the dropdown

3. Select “Search” from the list of security options

4. Click on “Change Settings”, a popup will prompt asking for your facebook password

5. Enter you password and then uncheck the box “Allow Indexing” under Public Search ResultsYou should complete this settings changes just after creating your account as it is difficult to avoid showing your profile after indexing is done. Your profile indexing may take at least 5 – 6 days for completion, so remove the check under this period only.

How to hide Facebook Profile from Indexing on Search Engines like Google

Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions by Mashable

For those who are not yet using Twitter effectively (silly you!), here's a great guide:

"Twitter is a social network used by millions of people, and thousands more are signing up every day to send short messages to groups of friends.

But where's the user manual for Twitter? Where do new Twitter users go to learn about Tweeting, retweets, hashtags and customizing your Twitter profile? Where do you go if you want to know all about building a community on Twitter, or using Twitter for business? How can you find advanced tools for using Twitter on your phone or your desktop?

To answer all these questions and more, we've assembled The Twitter Guide Book, a complete collection of resources for mastering Twitter. Happy Tweeting!"

- Pete Cashmore, @Mashup

Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions by Mashable

18 Essential Tools for Every Word-of-Mouth Marketer

By now, most consumer marketers know they could be using Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media platforms to boost brand recognition, engage customers, and drive sales. But getting a social media marketing program started – and keeping up with the rapid pace of change in the industry – can be daunting. The good news is that with the right technology tools, social media marketing programs can be managed at scale and can help the entire organization (not just the marketers!) find out what customers are saying, sharing, even feeling about your brand or business.

When thinking about the technology tools you need to launch, measure, and optimize your social media marketing and online customer engagement programs, it helps to organize your efforts into categories: listening and monitoring tools; editorial, publishing, and content syndication tools; and conversation measurement tools. There are hundreds of tools out there, but here are some of the more popular and effective ones that can be put to work for you.

18 Essential Tools for Every Word-of-Mouth Marketer here

Zoopy added to international video service TubeMogul - Zoopy Blog

We’ve got some exciting news. Exciting for us, our existing users and the many new users who are still about to discover Zoopy.

Over to the official press release for the juicy bits:

South African media sharing site Zoopy.com has entered into an international partnership deal with leading online video distribution and analytics service, TubeMogul. Zoopy is the first African company to partner with the Silicon Valley company, alongside media heavyweights such as YouTube, Microsoft, and MySpace.

Under the terms of the deal, Zoopy will be added as a syndication partner on TubeMogul, which allows users to upload a video once and then automatically deploy it to the Web’s top video sites. The partnership forms part of TubeMogul’s growth across the globe, with Zoopy being added to a select list of top video sites.

Brett Wilson, CEO and founder of TubeMogul, comments: “Zoopy provides advertisers and content creators a unique opportunity to reach the African continent, which is obviously exciting.”

Zoopy added to international video service TubeMogul - Zoopy Blog

6 Twitter Tips for Tourism Offices: How Destination Management Organizations Can Maximize Micro-blogging | Suite101.com

Destination management organizations are flocking to Twitter, the mobile social networking site. These marketing tips will help tourism offices maximize micro-blogging.

Twitter launched in 2006 and according to Quantcast, Twitter reaches 2.4 million Americans monthly (as of December 2008) which means tourism offices can send their marketing message to millions of potential visitors. As of December 2008, GoSeeTell Network, Inc. has identified 106 destination management organizations (DMOs) using Twitter.

According to GoSeeTell Network, a handful of tourism offices began tweeting in 2007 with the majority first posting in 2008. As Twitter gains in popularity and tourism offices look for cost effective marketing tactics, 2009 will probably see dozens, if not hundreds, of additional DMOs using the social networking site. The following Twitter tips will help tourism offices effectively maximize their tweeting marketing efforts.

Read full article here: 6 Twitter Tips for Tourism Offices: How Destination Management Organizations Can Maximize Micro-blogging | Suite101.com

The copyright of the article 6 Twitter Tips for Tourism Offices in Guerrilla/Viral Marketing is owned by Jennifer Huber.

Gmail launched a feature that lets you import messages and contacts from other mail services like Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

In May, Gmail launched a feature that lets you import messages and contacts from other mail services like Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL. Google promised that the feature will be rolled out to all accounts, but it was only enabled in new accounts. The good news is that the feature is now available in all accounts and you can find it if you go to the "Accounts and import" tab from the settings page.

You may wonder if it's a good idea to use this service powered by TrueSwitch instead ofGmail's mail fetcher. Here are some differences between the two service:

* Mail importing saves to your Gmail account the existing messages from other accounts and continues to check for new messages only for 30 days. Gmail's mail fetcher downloads the existing messages and checks for new messages indefinitely.

* Mail importing saves to your account messages and contacts, while Gmail's mail fetcher doesn't import contacts (you can manually import contacts).

* Mail importing works for mail services that don't support POP3 (for example: the US version of Yahoo Mail), but the mail fetcher requires POP3. Mail importing supports a small number of popular mail services.

"Copying mail over usually takes a couple days, occasionally up to a week — but eventually it all arrives. And once it's done, you can forget your old account and enjoy having everything in one place," says Google, but I disagree. You'll import the old messages to your account, but after 30 days the service will no longer fetch new messages.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=117173

Importing contacts and mail

Print

If you're switching to Gmail from another email provider, importing contacts and messages from your old email account can help you make the transition without having to do a bunch of housekeeping.
To get started, follow the steps below. Before you dive in here, keep in mind that you'll need to have access to that email account for this process to work:

1. Click the Settings link.
2. Under the Accounts and Import tab, click the Import mail and contacts button.
3. In the new window that opens, enter the email address of the account you'd like to import contacts from. Click Continue.
4. Enter the password for your other email account and click Continue.
5. Select all the checkboxes that apply:
• If you choose to import contacts, the information in your contacts list in your old account will be imported to your Contacts section in Gmail.
• If you select the Import mail checkbox, your existing messages in that account will be imported to your Gmail inbox.
• If you want, you can also select the Import new mail checkbox so that messages sent to your old account for the next 30 days will be imported to your Gmail account. These messages won't appear in Gmail immediately once they're sent to your other account, but should update within a day or two.
• Finally, you can automatically apply a label to your imported messages to indicate that those were sent to your other account.
6. Click Start Import. The import will continue if you leave the Settings page or sign out of Gmail.
7. Your contacts and/or messages will be imported. It may take 24-48 hours before you see your imported messages, so don't worry if they're not there as soon as you click OK. You can check the status of your import by clicking the Accounts and Imports tab on the Settings page. Once the import is complete, you'll see a confirmation message at the top of your inbox.

Click here to see which email providers are supported

50 Tips To A User Friendly Website – Designing Interactive

Here is a list of 50 things that I keep in mind on every website that I build. Some of these are secrets I have acquired from the best designers in the world, and some of them are standard every day practices. Either way, these tips will improve your visitors experience on your website.

1. Clicking on the logo should take you to the home page;
2. Your logo/site title should be positioned in the top left of the page;
3. Duplicate your main navigational links in the page footer with links to additional, but less prominent pages;
4. Keep your navigation positioning consistent from page to page;
5. Don’t open links in a new tab/window, except PDF’s and embedded documents;
6. Highlight your current location in your navigation bar;
7. Use reasonable sized fonts (12px or larger);
8. Make sure font sizes are flexible (Use em’s or %, not px);
9. Sans-serif fonts are easier to read at small sizes;
10. Serif fonts are easier to read at large sizes;

Full list here: 50 Tips To A User Friendly Website – Designing Interactive

Facebook | Username

Starting NOW, you can choose a username for your Facebook account to easily direct friends, family, and coworkers to your profile.

To select your username, visit the link NOW:
http://www.facebook.com/username/

To learn more about usernames, visit the Help Center:
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=89

Online Marketing for Beginners - Online Marketing - Added Bytes

It is amazing how many people hire online marketers without the faintest idea of what online marketers actually do. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is fairly simple - SEOs will try and improve your site's performance, usually by trying to leverage their knowledge of how search engines work and tricks they can use to make sites seem more relevant than they actually are to specific keywords.

Marketing online, though, need not have anything to do with search engines. Search engines are irrelevant - good positions and traffic are a by-product of effective online marketing.

Unfortunately, after educating a client on what online marketing is, they usually assume that if they pay you a few hundred pounds, you can make their site compete with the very best out there.

See full article here: Online Marketing for Beginners - Online Marketing - Added Bytes

Online Marketing training for tourism professionals - ORC Educational Exchange

The vision of Online Revealed Canada is to provide a unique venue to facilitate hands on education within the travel industry from a grass roots perspective. We are pleased to announce the dates and locations of 7 Regional Online Revealed Canada Educational Exchanges.

What is an ORC Educational Exchange?
The ORC Educational Exchange is a hands-on Regional one-day workshop for hospitality suppliers, vendors, hotel groups, individual hotels, tourism operators, travel intermediaries, agencies and other Canadian travel professionals. Upon conclusion of the workshop, attendees will have working knowledge of topics such as Search Engine Optimization, Social Media and Revenue & online distribution Management.

To ensure we provide quality and relevant content for each community, Online Revealed has identified known professionals in each destination who have a passion for providing education, identified as Destination Educational Leaders. These leaders assist Online Revealed in identifying a relevant local keynote speaker, provide insights into hot topics important to the community and assist in facilitating the 'Idea's Market'.

These one-day Regional workshops are your opportunity to have your organization's first "Web Max" Meeting. Affordably priced to bring in numerous members of your team, you will be able to experience hands-on e-marketing workshops tailored toward your region and how to promote travel online!

City	Date
Montreal	September 13, 2007
Ottawa	October 30, 2007
Edmonton	November 13, 2007
Calgary	November 15, 2007
Toronto	January 17, 2008
Halifax	January 24, 2008
Vancouver	March 13, 2008

Price: $249.00 plus GST $14.94 Total Cost: $263.94

With a local relevant keynote, the Educational Exchange continues with 4 unique workshops mirroring the tracks of the annual Online Revealed Canada Conference: Organic Search, Paid Placement, New Media and Travel. The "Ideas Market" brings together ideas and best practice sharing between participants wrapping up the day with a Technology Update!

Don't miss out on this opportunity for a hands-on experience that will educate you about the online tools available to your organization for increased site traffic and more importantly INCREASED REVENUE!

Yours in Quality Online Travel Education,
Steve Nardi, Managing Director
Alan Young, Event Co-Chair
Alicia Whalen and Patricia Brusha, Co-founders

Online Marketing training for tourism professionals - ORC Educational Exchange

Travel 2.0 and e-tourism analysis and insight. Internet travel research and web analytics from online visitor behaviour experts Highland Business Research

The Internet is no longer the new kid on the block in terms of travel research and planning - it is absolutely mainstream amongst travellers of all ages and backgrounds. Even those who book offline are likely to have used the Internet to formulate their plans. (See our Tracking Tourism article for more).

Are you able to tap into existing social networks of potential visitors online, to ensure your marketing efforts are both more effective and extensive?

Do you know:

• How people are finding you online?
• The factors that are influencing tourists research and conversion decisions?
• The propensity of your target market segments to research and book online?
• The ability of the suppliers in your destination to meet the increasingly sophisticated expectations of visitors?
• Whether your social media, paid search and online marketing activity is working?

Understanding visitor behaviour online

Methods Highland Business Research utilise in our Travel 2.0 and e tourism research include:

• Consumer and supplier behaviour research
• Website measurement and online campaign analysis
• Competitor destination and trends research
• Online social network analysis
• Destination and supplier readiness research
• Consolidation, analysis and insight from online comments and feedback

From ground-breaking research like our recent online social network analysis of the Scottish Diaspora worldwide, advanced web analytics, through to tourism e-business surveys and online visitor feedback analysis, Highland Business Research is focussed on meeting the intelligence requirements of the modern travel and tourism industry.

What are your critical questions?

Whether you are looking to improve online competitiveness, identify new prospects or transform marketing and communication strategies, your unique circumstances will drive the questions you have and the insight you require.

To discuss the questions you are trying to solve, please contact Stephen Budd or call on (44) 01463 729314.

For the latest tourism research thinking and discussion visit Tracking Tourism, our tourism industry research blog, recently named as one of the top 10 business blogs by Travel Weekly.

Travel 2.0 and e-tourism analysis and insight. Internet travel research and web analytics from online visitor behaviour experts Highland Business Research

14 Serious Mistakes of Your Tourism Brochure Marketing Strategy

This is a long article with many parts of interesting skills and knowledge and up to now is the best article about brochure marketing in the world; In fact, it's the first chapter of Advanced Tourism Brochure Marketing Package published by T-IM.com ; therefor, its content is also great for any businesses which have a marketing brochure.

This article is so comprehensive and has 2 parts:

Part 1: The first 7 serious brochure marketing mistakes

Part 2: The second 7 mistakes more to be revealed.

Due to the length of the whole article make difficult to read and remember for reader , I just supply the part 1. At the end of this article, there will have a link to the part 2 and Friendly print version of the whole article.

Keep reading.

Part 1: The first 7 serious brochure marketing mistakes

A well- planed and carefully-designed tourism brochure will indeed increase the services business; especially it is the business of tourism. But many tourism marketers don’t make effective use of their brochure and leave out important elements. That is a cost, a real damage for your business.

If you have a marketing tool to use, you must ultimately exploit its profit; if you can not take advantage of the promotional tool, the money and time of publishing the tool is one of the biggest costs. The second cost is the lost prospects caught by your competitors who use this same tool at its most power. And the third created by the weakness of your integrated marketing plan – you do not know how to use one among many of your marketing tools effectively, how can you use the rest to get the most benefit of your marketing mix.

Read full article here: 14 Serious Mistakes of Your Tourism Brochure Marketing Strategy

About the author:

David Kan is the CEO of T-IM.com

T-IM.com is the largest global Free tourism internet marketing resources with 57 & more online tools and forum to help tourism industry enhance their internet marketing result.

Website URL: http://www.tourism-internetmarketing.com

Click this link to quickly join in the Tourism Internet Marketing Forum to enhance your internet sale as well as receive the great forum benefits.

http://www.tourism-internetmarketing.com/parent_page/Frequently_Asked_Question.htm#benefit

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Kan

Kan, D. (2005, September 22). 14 Serious Mistakes of Your Tourism Brochure Marketing Strategy. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from http://ezinearticles.com/?14-Serious-Mistakes-of-Your-Tourism-Brochure-Marketing-Strategy&id=74612

Viral Email Marketing Tips Resources

The money is in the list is the cliche term you often hear the internet marketing elite utter. Building an Email marketing list can be a very daunting task for someone new to the internet.

The advantages of email marketing is undoubtedly powerful. The question is how to build an opt-in email marketing list fast without spending a whole lot of money? The answer to that question is viral marketing.

In this lens I will provide you with the tips and resources to grow your email list fast using viral marketing strategies.

Viral Email Marketing Tips Resources

YTB - World Travel Network

Here you will find very useful information on YTB products and services. There is a wealth of information about YTB and we don't want to labor you with a lot of reading material. With that said, we're going to touch upon a few links that will provide you with enough information about this well designed home based travel system.

Once you've had an opportunity to touch upon the below links, send us an email or give us a call, and a representative will be more than happy to answer any questions relative to YTB. So let's get underway.

YTB PowerPoint Video Presentation

Here is a PowerPoint presentation that provides a wealth of information relative to YTB products and services.

Conference Calls

Get valuable information from key note speakers. Dial-in, listen and learn! Hot Topics -

• Leadership with "Coach" Tomer
  
• Getting Started with YTB
  
• How to Use a Marketing Site
  
• Association Division Travel Training
  
• "Ladies Only" Call
  
• Weekly Travel Training
 

Travel Booking Engine

This is what your Travel Site will look like but with your personalization. Take time to review all of the links. This is the hot-spot for your 60% commissions.....

Marketing Site

This is what I call my management or back-office site. This is where potential RTA team members come to join. Not only is this where you come to join but all sorts of general accounting takes place here as well. I get excited every morning I log into this site

Benefits of Referring Travel Agent

Enjoy the Benefits of a Referring Travel Agent.

Benefits of a Home Based Business

Enjoy the Benefits of a Home Based Business. Before we bring closure to this brief overview, let's go over the difference between a Referring Travel Agent and a Representative.

YTB - World Travel Network

All-Travel Ad Network: Drive More Qualified Travelers to Your Website

For your next campaign, stop testing and start attracting more qualified travelers. Why not work with the best? Travel Spike is the first and largest All-Travel Ad Network. With over 500 million Travel page views per month, we are the Travel and Tourism Experts who are Travel 2.0 Pioneers. 

Our sites cross many segments of the travel sector including: leisure travel deals, luxury travel, golf, destination guides, social networks & community websites.

Travel Spike has helped over 400 travel & tourism clients drive more traffic to their destination or CVB’s website with our Web 2.0 technologies that apply directly to your travel business. We can create an exclusive email to qualified travelers and promote your travel deals directly on our all-travel network. This is the best way to get extra travel clicks through our network for your travel website.

Read full article here:

All-Travel Ad Network: Drive More Qualified Travelers to Your Website « Interactive Travel Marketing Online Tourism Digital Strategy Destination Marketing

YTB-Your Travel Biz-YTB-Online Travel Franchise-YTB Travel

YTB brings you the perfect opportunity to transform your life through combining the fun of travel with the speed of the Internet, multiplied by the power of referral marketing to provide YOU with the ultimate home-based business solution. YTB is taking the industry by storm!! By combining an advantage-rich, home-based business (built around the Internet) with an extremely lucrative (and copyrighted) compensation plan, YTB has become "The Choice" for thousands of opportunity seekers. In today's marketplace, myriads of companies seek your time and attention, each claiming that their opportunity is the best. By combining the powerful information handling capability of the Internet with the world's most dynamic product (TRAVEL) and the personal touch of independent, home-based business people, YTB has joined these three trends together in a flawless combination. The Internet is opening the doors to the riches of travel as never before. By utilizing our simple strategies and proven techniques we can show you how to leverage your time to generate a residual income 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. YTB Offers You top A real, tangible home-based Travel Agency Business you can run from anywhere in the world or from the comfort of your kitchen table! Huge discounts on hotels, car rentals, luxury cruises, upgrades, exotic vacation packages and many more travel perks Personal travel agent photo ID card and credentials State of the art travel agency in greater St. Louis Up to 60% paid commissions on your personal website Online booking engines Affiliate marketing program Company familiarization trips Total service and support And so much more!

http://www.travelfranchise.net

http://www.booktravelnow.net

YTB-Your Travel Biz-YTB-Online Travel Franchise-YTB Travel

Tourism as social network

While "Science & Technology Parks" (STPs) were born in the States some 50 years ago (previously inside large companies, suddenly as autonomous centers)in order to support the development of industrial companies,
Torism Business & Culture Park was born as a nonprofit organism in Florence some 3 years ago, in a club of Florentine friends, with the aims of supporting the developmentof local companies operating in cultural tourism.

Actually there are roughly 200 Science & Technology Parks in 53 Countries in the world.

Our Project is a Virtual Park over internet that support the new protocols for Tourism and Culture

Tourism as social network

Interactive Travel Marketing Online Tourism Digital Strategy Destination Marketing

Why is Web 2.0 so important in the travel and tourism industry? Because travelers operate in a circle as they start to plan trips and book trips. They dream about a Destination or Activity. They plan and research their trip or vacation. They book their travel, hotel, resort, tour, or attraction. When they return home from their trip, they share their travel stories, travel blogs, travel photos, pictures, and travel videos from their vacation. If you are a hotel operator, then travelers are blogging about your hotel online. If you are a tourism board or Destination or CVB, then tourists and travelers are blogging and podcasting about your Destination when they get home.

With our Digital Strategy, Email Marketing, Online Booking Engines, Destination Marketing, Travel Ad Network, Travel Packager, Internet Reservation Systems, Online Hotel Booking Engines, Travel Podcast, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Online Gaming, Digital PR and Social Networking experts, your CVB, DMO, Tour Operator, Resort, Hotel, Cabin, Cottage or Attraction will see additional traffic.

Users love to tell friends about where they just went for vacation. They share photos with friends and swap stories about their trip online in social networks and social networking communities. Online communities are perfect for sharing travel blogs and travel stories with photos. If a user had a positive experience then they will tell their friends and family about their trip.

If you put a social network on your own site, then you can benefit from social media and viral marketing. Tourism boards and DMOs and CVBs should all consider building their own social networks and online social communities for travelers and tourists. To do this right you will need the best social networking software as well as a digital strategy. You need a partner that understands the travel and tourism market as well as Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0 and social networks. You need a firm that can implement a social media strategy to help you launch your new travel community online. With the right partner and social networking tools on your website, you can start to build your own Internet community.

Social networking software for the travel and tourism industry is different than other industries. Social networks and social networking for your travel business, CVB, DMO, resort, hotel, cottage, cabin, B & B or travel organization can help your online business grow. Travel social networking software and social networking tools for travel companies will build a solid foundation for your users to share content.

Use travel social media marketing to help move your travel business ahead of the pack.

Social Networking Web 2.0 Travel Industry Social Media Marketing Destination Organization Podcast Tour Operators SEO « Interactive Travel Marketing Online Tourism Digital Strategy Destination Marketing

Social Media Dos and Donts

Some might say there are no rules of conduct within the realms of social media. And they’re right. Hard and fast rules haven’t been adopted.

At the same time expectations of etiquette clearly do exist. 57% of the people attending Week 4 of the Lawrence & Schiller Social Media Boot Camp webinar series say they consider etiquette every time the post online. The remaining 43% think about it occasionally.

What are the behaviors to avoid? What things must you do? And what workplace considerations should you take into account? Click on the player below to view the recorded archive of “Social Media Dos and Don’ts”. Or scroll down for a brief recap along with poll results collected during this webinar.

Whole article here: Social Media Dos and Don’ts | L&S Unscripted

Greening-Tourism

Welcome to Greening Tourism. It is dedicated to professionals, academics, students and tourism lovers, who want this industry to become more environmentally friendly and more sustainable.

Greening-Tourism

StumbleUpon Breaks Free from eBay - Founders Buy it Back - ReadWriteWeb

Want a geeky way to chill out after a long work day of focus, focus, focus? There are few better ways online to keep the synapses lubricated than through the semi-serendipity of social sharing service StumbleUpon.

Now you can Stumble outside of the shadow of the mega-corporate overlords at eBay - two years after Stumble founders Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith cashed out and handed their baby over to the ecommerce giant, they've come back with a team of investors and bought StumbleUpon back from eBay. It's pretty exciting.

News of the buyback comes from MG Siegler at TechCrunch, who has published the press release in full. The company blog post about the move is short but here.

Why is this such a big deal? For three reasons.

StumbleUpon is Back in the Game

Earlier this year we wrote about StumbleUpon hitting 7 million registered users, which was at the time 50% higher than most estimates of media darling Twitter's users. Twitter's numbers have shot through the roof this year, leaving StumbleUpon in the dust.

Some people told us that Twitter and Stumble are like Apples and Oranges. Both, though, are tools of discovery, sharing and social connection. They are different in some ways but similar in others. There's a special kind of magic to StumbleUpon, though, and we're very glad to see its founders back in the driver's seat. A web where Twitter and Facebook are the only social discovery games in town is a poorer web.

Some Suspicion is Mitigated

Dave Winer wrote last week that the reason everyone wants to know how Twitter is going to make money is because eventually they'll come up with something - and we as users might not like it.

There was always a similar kind of feeling with regards to StumbleUpon at eBay. Just what was eBay going to do with Stumble and was it going to be creepy? Did you really want to share your serendipitous discoveries, your likes and your dislikes, with the arguably dysfunctional eBay?

Somehow Camp and Smith, as founders, feel more trustworthy. Who knows though - last time they thought it would be a good idea to sell the company to eBay! Many innovators from the beginning of Web 2.0 quickly grew skeptical after their startups were acquired, hopefully they'll be more careful next time.

Innovation Coming Again

Remember what the last wildly innovative thing StumbleUpon did was? Adding the awesome video section of the site, we'd argue, six months before the eBay acquisition. Now that Camp and Smith are in charge again, we hope to see the same spirit of awesomeness that built Stumble in charge again. The team already says they've got "several new products and features to be released in the upcoming months."

We've got high hopes for this deal, just like we do for the rumored founder buy-back of Skype from eBay.

Founders are where the innovative juice is, often, and if a big conglomerate that buys those startups can't figure out how to make effective use of these incredibly disruptive technologies - then they should get out of the way.

StumbleUpon is one of the handful of services launched on the consumer web in the last few years that can truly be said to have significant cognitive benefits for the people who use it. Give yourself an evening to peruse and explore the web using Stumble, if you haven't. It makes the brain feel good and it's a great way to learn - through play and personalization. It's a whole lot of fun. It's not something that needed to be turned into a way to jump from eBay listing to eBay listing. Stumble is smart, it's useful and we're very happy to see it independent again.

StumbleUpon Breaks Free from eBay - Founders Buy it Back - ReadWriteWeb

Matava - Fijis Premier Eco Adventure Resort

Matava is the genuine eco-adventure lodge, beautifully set off the beaten track, on Kadavu Island. We have beautiful, comfortable bures, outstanding cuisine and a full range of adventure and cultural activities. No roads, solar power, low carbon footprint make Matava the ideal, environmentally responsible location to relax and unwind.

read more | digg story