When trying to figure out the social network sites, I always ask myself about the ‘motivation’ behind the site.  This motivation factor drives the social network sites, whether the site is focused on being a communication hub for friends (http://www.myspace.com), a business networking platform for new business (http://www.linkedin.com) or a place for college students to find a job (original business plan behind http://www.facebook.com).

Yahoo wants to focus on the college student eager to find a job with their concept web site called Yahoo Kickstart.   More than likely a response to the failed acquisition of Facebook, Yahoo researchers are busy polling college students to find out what they think of this new service.  Yahoo Kickstart connects college students with alumni at the companies they are interested in.  As you might expect, the student signs up and establishes a profile and starts network to find an ‘in’ at companies via the Yahoo Kickstart network.

With Facebook focused more on actual Social Networking and Linked In filled with established professionals, there is a good chance that Yahoo could find some traction with this product.   Is there a strategic fit with HotJobs jobs classifieds? Can Yahoo Kickstart keep the profiles professional for recruiting executives and human resoure managers?  The last few days have seen management shake-ups at Yahoo, maybe new leadership will produce some new products.

It’s that time of year…football season. College football in Colorado kicks off this weekend with University of Colorado vs Colorado State at 10:00 am. The NFL season is wrapping up preseason which means Fantasy Football drafts are being held in sports bars across the country.

Tonight was my fantasy draft, I only participate in one league and this is my 4th year. So far, I have made the playoffs each year never advancing beyond the semi-finals. Our league does not play a tight end and allows 3 running backs….so RB’s are taken early and often. I took RB in 4 out of the first 5 rounds selecting Willie Parker, Edgerrin James, and Ahman Green in the first 3 rounds from the 7th position.

I almost landed Steve Smith in the third round but settled for a 3rd running back. I could have selected Terrel Owens, Reggie Wayne, or another Top 10 receiver, but I opted for Green and selected Lee Evans in round 4 before picking up a 4th running back in the 5th round with Deshaun Foster. In round 6, I picked the top receiver available before selected back-to-back QB in round 7 and 8 with Phillip Rivers and Jon Kitna.

QB is the highest scoring position and I will rotate the QB to play either the hottest hand or the weakest passing defense. This strategy has worked very well in previously years and I hope to play it to my advantage again. I selected the San Diego DEF and Shayne Graham in round 9 and 10 to round out my starting team. For the rest of the selections, I focused on picking undervalued receivers in Greg Jennings, Ronald Curry, Troy Williamson, and Micheal Jenkins as well as picking up my 4th rated DEF in round 12 to round out the team.

So, here’s the team I hope to take to the playoffs for the 5th straight year:

QB - Phillip Rivers 07.07
QB - Jon Kitna 08.06
RB - Willie Parker 01.07
RB - Edgerrin James 02.09
RB - Ahman Green 03.07
RB - Deshaun Foster 05.07
WR - Lee Evans 04.06
WR - Santana Moss 06.06
WR - Greg Jennings 11.07
WR - Ronald Curry 13.07
WR - Micheal Jenkins 14.06
WR - Troy Williamson 15.07
PK - Shayne Graham 10.06
DEF- San Diego Chargers 09.07
DEF- Miami Dolphins 12.06

In an age where more and more jobs are completed remotely you need to have a great reputation that wins you clients and peers that trust you to do the job. A great solution to creating this reputation is an idea known as personal branding.

Personal branding is the art of influencing how others perceive you. Much like a company will invest in the image they show the world, you must do the same. If you focus on creating a professional identity that emphasizes your talents and skills, then you can communicate your value to potential clients.

There are many benefits to creating a personal brand. Perhaps most importantly it will set you apart from your peers. It also enhances your networking abilities and job opportunities as well as helping establish you as an expert in your field. Beyond that building a personal brand increases your confidence and communication skills. Finally, personal branding can help produce loyalty and respect in your abilities, helping you attract your ideal clients.

A personal brand has four main elements – personality, appearance, differentiation and competencies. Your brand should take into account each of these elements when creating your central message. To make the most of each factor follow these tips:

1.Before you start think about questions such as: Who are you? What have you done in the past? What can you do for potential clients? What is your end goal?

2.Realize you are starting with a clean slate. This is your opportunity to define yourself as you have always wanted. Figure out what kind of persona you want to embody and use that. Don’t forget to include your philosophies and morals in this section. This will be a sort of code of ethics for your brand.

3.Think about your passions. Decide what they are and write them down. Use these as a basis for what you want to accomplish with your brand.

4.List your strengths and weaknesses. Once you realize what sets you apart from others focus on that and market it brazenly.

5.Put yourself out there. Write blogs, participate in forums, join your community somehow so that people become familiar with you, your ideas and experiences. Also, help others in your field. Your kindness will be repaid down the road.

Following these tips will set you on the road to building your personal brand. Above all, remember the brand of you must be strong and consistent to do well. Starting on this brand now is essential to you continued success long down the road.

Here are a few good notes from Shari Thurow from Omni Interactive that were given in the Duplicate Content session, :

Linkage properties of a particular site and page help the search engines detect unique content that is distributed via syndication.

Content Evolution looks at how often the pages change, a low average page mutation is expected on an article pages.

Host Name finds out how many host names point to a single IP.

Shingle Comparison looks at every document has a unique signature measured by shingles, or groups of words.

You can use robots exclusion to exclude pages that will create duplicate content in the search engine. This is important because you want to show the best content and have fewer, higher quality pages.

A couple notes about content: Use analytics to find what is working and feed this content to the search engines. Use Copyscape and Archive.org to watch for copyright infringment and report to search engines.

If you have multiple domains that are serving the same content. Choose one brand domain and 301 redirect to the front page or a relevant sub-page on your brand domain.

If you use a subdomain, make sure the pages can only be accessed on one of the subdomains. Be sure to redirect your non-www to www if you can.

Google thinks Local / Mobile is a huge opportunity going forward. There are 2.2 Billion Searches with some form of local intent. In addition, 82% contacted a local business and 61% actually went on to make a purchase.

Justin @ Local Launch shared the number that 93% of all conversions related to local search activity take place offline. Note: There is a 50 / 50 split between explicit and implicit local search, meaning that people actually typed the geographic modifier.

For SEM, local search has been challenging as local advertisers are confused and slow to adopt. And companies like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Infospace, AOL, IAC, YellowPages.com, etc have really fragmented the market.

Here are the recommendations to affect change for local search marketing:

1. Content Control and Dispersion
2. Empower Ratings and Review Channel
3. Ride the Coattails of Authorities
4. Understand the Google Reference
5. Simple and Structured Pages
6. Local Link Building and Strategies

A big point was that local search is definitely a small business product. Traditional SEO and well-monetized link building campaigns will help to improve these results.

Also mentioned was that Content Control should be done through all of the the media and local sites. This can involve thinking past your site on web sites like:

• Kudzu.com
• InsiderPages.com
• SuperPages.com
• Ask City
• City Search
• MOjo Pages
• Local Launch
• Google Local

Every piece of incremental content is a new opportunity to be found. Move to optimize profile base content in the core profiles, then optimize profile meta data. Make sure that all of these sites have the right information.

Then hopefully, your customers, friends, and families can add reviews for your site, leading to the opportunity to move into social network opportunities.

Another tip - ride the coattails on authorities and try to grab local long tails. For shorter terms, realize that the SERP’s contain the local sites… you may have to join the big sites to win the ‘money’ terms.

Also, empower the ratings and review. Go online, talk about a business, and you can improve a business reputation. Reviews can get pulled from sites like InsiderPages by Google. Note: Make sure you are monitoring your business reputation.

Don’t forget to study the Google References. Try to figure out why Google is putting someone at the top of SERP’s. Check out the numbers and where they get their links from.

Finally, Structured Optimized Web Pages are important. Use complete address and make sure to use single line and multiple pages. Use internal pages and global footers to optimize for geographic modifiers.