New enhancements are already in place for improved performance.

Hyperlink Your GoGoPin Ad

You can now choose to make your GoGoPin Ad ‘click-able’ and hyperlink it to any public URL you wish. You will encounter the same Save/Export Dialog as before (Title, Keywords, and a Description) with an additional place to include any public URL or Web Address you wish. Essentially your GoGoPin Ad becomes a free clickable Banner Ad.

Note: The link you enter will only work when you post your ad using  HTML code.  For help posting your ad in HTML click here.

Additional Clip Art

Fresh customized clip art include designations for Better Business Bureau, as well as new professional designations for Real Estate, and pet policy badges for Property Managers. See picture below or click here for samples.

Change Background Color

Select a background color from standard color selections, or use slide bars to exact RGB specifications. Adjust the length of your ad, and the background color extends as well. These options are adjustable in the lower right portion of the workspace.

Improved Text Editing

Sometimes the best improvements are ones that you don’t even notice. Rich text editing is cleaner, and more stable than ever now. Get what you want on the page with fewer clicks.

Refreshed Tour Page

If it has been a while since you last logged in, or if you wish to share GoGoPin with others then you’ll want to visit the GoGoPin Ad Tour. The Tour includes a video introduction, samples, and screenshots for your own reference, and for easy sharing without signing in.

Complementary Trial of GoGoPin Business is Underway!

Extend the reach of your online marketing efforts by building your own unique business website. Connect, book appointments, or simply sell items live from your home, office, or third place. To request an invitation code to begin a complementary trial of GoGoPin Business click here.

Thank You!

Please continue to let us know what you would like to see in terms of GoGoPin Ad enhancements and we will do our best to deliver:  support@gogopin.com . Until the next newsworthy announcement, we always remain available for help via
support@gogopin.com as well.

We invite you to follow us on Twitter, and join our group on Facebook.

Sincerely,

The GoGoPin Team

Making Ads and Flyers Online Gets Better with Every Tweet!

Nowadays more GoGoPin Ads are being posted than ever before, and the following enhancements are by no means the last. GoGoPin Ad will now be presented in Microsoft Silverlight 3, as we continue to provide you with the most nimble online content creation possible.   Direct Distribution via Twitter! The main idea here is not to watch Twitter grow like a weed. Rather, we want to help your business flourish by ‘tweeting’ your GoGoPin Ad. Twitter is a perfect way to distribute a simple link to your GoGoPin Ad. It is not too late to start with Twitter if you haven’t yet. Both Twitter and GoGoPin Ad are free. Twitter is very effective for sharing links, and is a perfect fit for posting GoGoPin Ads quickly: Type your Twitter Username and Password Type 140 Characters that invite your buyers to view your GoGoPin Ad (include keywords). Include #[insert keyword1], #[insert keyword2] to help searchers find your ad on Twitter .New to the Twitter Idea? Read this blog post “The Era of Free Marketing” for a few words on Twitter. In our experience with Twitter it is best to learn by doing. That blue bird doesn’t bite.   What Else? Thanks to your loyalty and satisfaction, we have recently earned BBB accreditation and Verisign verification for your peace of mind and for that of people new to GoGoPin (we welcome your referrals). Besides posting to Twitter, what you’ll most likely enjoy is: Snap to grid : easily auto-align text, images, shapes, and tables within your ad. New alignment tool : easily align multiple elements all at once. CTRL + Click to select multiple elements on the canvas and group them, reposition, and etc. Maintain image aspect ratio. Add border and roundness to images and shapes. Various arrow types. More shapes (circle and triangle). More clipart (e.g. “FSBO”, “OBO”, “Hot!”, and etc). Switched from JPG to PNG format to improve image quality. Official support for Safari 4.0 or higher   Thank You! Please continue to let us know what you would like to see in terms of GoGoPin Ad enhancements and we will do our best to deliver: support@gogopin.com . Until the next newsworthy announcement, we always remain available for help via support@gogopin.com We invite you to follow us on , and join our group on Sincerely, The GoGoPin Team

Startup of the Day (September 1, 2009) – GoGoPin

Interview between Microsoft Startup Zone’s Julien Codorniou, and Jaeyoung Chun (Danny), co-founder and CEO of MotionCloud, Inc.

Who are you?

I’m Jaeyoung Chun (Danny), co-founder and CEO of MotionCloud, Inc.

How do you feel being the most promising ‘company of the day’ per Microsoft?

We feel much honored. And being recognized as a promising startup is a great motivation for all our team members. We will continue to strive hard to stay as one of the most promising companies.

What did you do before creating your company?

I was studying computer science in Boston. Prior to that, I was a senior software architect in a company developing video conferencing software and CTI solution.

How did you get the idea? What’s the genesis?

Nowadays, nearly everyone with a computer can easily have their own space or media online. You go to sites like Facebook and MySpace, provide two or three pieces of personal information, then ta-da! now you have your own space to express and put your creativity on the Web. It takes less than one minute to get your own space on the Web. Plus, you can have a unique URL for your space, for instance http://facebook.com/johndoe or even http://johndoe.com. Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, all of these services will certainly get you a space on the Web, “online presence”, but this does not automatically establish your identity, this does not tell who you are. Yes, now you do exist on the Web, but you are just one of the million people out there trying to express “you” on the Web.

Until now technologists have focused on creating a content “holder”. But we believe that what’s important is “content” in it. Content is conversations with your friends on Your Facebook profile page, your daily blog posts on WordPress, or pictures you stored in your Flickr photo albums. And the challenge people face these days is that it is still difficult to create one’s own content online, even tech savvy people have to spend quite long time to create something online.

We wanted to provide a dead-easy content creation tool for non-tech savvy people – a tool that doesn’t require any knowledge about HTML, CSS, and FTP, a tool that doesn’t require additional software such as Photoshop, a tool that works in all Web browsers so that all you need is the Internet connection and a Web browser, and finally a tool that lets you create rich and interactive content which is searchable.

So we created “GoGoPin”.

What did you do before creating your company?

I was studying computer science in Boston. Prior to that, I was a senior software architect in a company developing video conferencing software and CTI solution.

What do you sell? What is your company’s mission?

Currently, we provide three services:

GoGoPin Business (http://business.gogopin.com/)

GoGoPin Ad (http://ad.gogopin.com/)

GoGoPin Communicator (http://communicator.gogopin.com/)

Each service has its own mission, but in general, our mission is to provide small local businesses with everything they need to run successful businesses online. We believe that one of the keys to success in online business is to have up-to-date, rich and interactive, searchable content on the Web. As Herbert Simon said “the rapid growth of information causes scarcity of attention”. In today’s increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world, whatever you put on the Web must be something that attracts visitor’s attention. We’re trying to help them achieve this through GoGoPin.

What is your market?

Market? How about people? We’d like to help people who belong to these categories.

- People selling stuff on eBay, Amazon, and other marketplaces

- People running brick-and-mortar stores and planning to go online

- People posting ads to Craigslist and other online/offline classifieds

- People who want to send and receive multimedia messages with their friends and family

- People who want to create eye-appealing content in 3 minutes, but have no computer knowledge whatsoever

Funding history? VCs? BA?

We got funded by Neowiz Investment.

Growth? Internationalization?

We started GoGoPin Ad service in November 2008. We recently started GoGoPin Business and GoGoPin Communicator. We are fairly new.

How many employees do you have? How many developers?

We have total of 9 employees, 3 great developers and 2 amazing designers.

Are you hiring? If yes, what? Where?

We are always interesting in talking with creative and motivated people.

Which platform are you building on? Why?

We use Silverlight, ASP.NET, IIS, SQL Server, and few others. I have some experience with other vendor’s tools, but as far as productivity is concerned, nothing can beat Microsoft products. I’m dead serious.

Who’s your role model?

There are just too many great people.

Where do you see opportunities today in the Software/internet areas?

Where software meets living organisms.

Looking for funding? If yes, how much?

Yes, we are seeking $1.5M to expand our business.

What about the BizSpark Program? What do you think? Are you going to join? Why?

We joined the BizSpark Program fairly early. I think it is a great opportunity for startups to get together and share ideas through this program. I was at one event a week ago and met a lot of cool entrepreneurs and MS guys who are willing to help and give me good advice. On the top of that they offer great drinks and food at the event! And we enjoy accessing hundreds of Microsoft products for free.

Any advice to young Software entrepreneurs?

I’m not in the position of giving any advice, but I remember one of the Microsoft TV commercials, “People-Ready Business”. I’m sure there are a lot of meanings in this campaign, but I interpret it this way – the key to success is to ensure your people have the skills, tools, information, and resources needed. And most importantly, you need right people.

Using the latest technology and some tried and true rules, you’ll learn to create competitive ads and flyers from anywhere you have a compatible internet browser and an internet connection.

Fee:  

Free!

Location:

The Old Redmond Schoolhouse – Rm. 104
16600 NE 80th St.
Redmond, WA 98052

 Topics:  Real Estate and Entreprenurial Online Ads and Flyers

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Real Estate Workshop: 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Creating competitive and compelling Real Estate flyers both online and offline for entrepreneurial brokers and agents is the main topic of this engaging workshop. Ample space and lunch (provided) will enable brokers and agents, new and established to improve the flyers they use to communicate their properties and services to the community at large.Primarily for small brokerages and agents who create flyers for properties and self-promotion. Of course any ad and flyer creators are welcome.

OR

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Small Business and Entrepreneurs Workshop: 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Similar content, but primarily focused for small businesses or self-promoting marketers. Both online and offline promotional flyers will be demonstrated. Of course other ad and flyer creators are welcome.

Important Information:

Free Parking and Luncheon Provided. The maximum capacity of the room must be strictly maintained as per City of Redmond requirements, so please RSVP to adam (at) motioncloud (dot) net.

There is room for your notebook computer but no guarantee of WiFi connection – if you wish to upload photos to private Picasa or Flickr albums prior we’ll be demonstrating the use of those during the workshop from the podium.

Optional: Email a link to one of your current listings to adam (at) motioncloud (dot) net if you would like a customized sample to be part of the workshop.

Agenda

11:30 – 12:00 Sign-in and Networking
12:00 – 12:15 Luncheon – (continued during workshop)
12:15 – 12:45 Creating Competitive Flyers Online
12:45 – 1:30 Questions, Answers and continued Networking

You may also RSVP via Biznik:

Real Estate
http://biznik.com/members/adam-odnert/events/real-estate-workshop-create-competitive-flyers-online

Small Business and Entrepreneurs
http://biznik.com/events/free-marketing-for-small-biz-and-entrepreneurs-creating-competitive-flyers

The National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) includes consumer tips for back-to-school shopping. Why not take it a step further and sell what you no longer need – a Back-From-School Sale. The NFCC recommends: “Avoid the parking lot and shop online. Save time and money. Stores often put their best sales online and it’s a great way to compare prices”. [NFCC Consumer Tips] . Don’t depend solely on book-buy-back programs at the bookstore to get something back. There’s no end to the items in a dorm or apartment that can be resold to recoup some of the cost of the completed semester.

What Student Debt?

I couldn’t say it better than Michelle Singletary:

“The commencement speeches soon will be over, the graduation caps and gowns put away, the gift cards used. The one thing that won’t go away is the tens of thousands of dollars graduates owe in student loans. For most college graduates, the cost of their educations finally will be a reality. So now what?” [Consider Options for Student Debt]

Every semester ends and brings a new opportunity to take inventory and sell your unwanted stuff online for good reason – cold cash. The good news about converting stuff to cash is that a dollar gained today from unwanted items sold online can help to make the transition between student debtor and living on a cash basis – something everyone could aspire to, in school or out.

All Sold Out?

To suggest that selling your stuff online will quickly solve student debt problems would be tactless and insensitive – I am neither. The value in reselling unwanted items speaks for itself, and researching this post revealed a great deal more help for students and consumers in trouble:

National Foundation for Credit Counseling Tools

The NFCC Website provides a great list of interactive online tools to help with debt relief including:

• Budget Worksheet
• Calculators – (Home Ownership, Purchase Cost, Debt Payoff Scenarios)
• Consumer Tips (Thrift Actions, Credit Advice, Housing Info, etc.)
• Financial Fast Fact Videos – Short Clips with Long-term advice.

For most of us, living on a cash basis would be the ’Best of All Possible Worlds’ - out of reach for most.  The good news is that inventory can become cash with a little work online – and that little work online is what we are all about.

Premiere Ads Online Advertising Service will design and distribute classified ads and webflyers for you. GoGoPin Ad is a free marketing tool that Premiere Ads has put to work for their clients. Premiere Ads reminds us that: “Getting the word out about what you do or what you sell is the key to your business’s success.”

GoGoPin Ad provides free online webflyer creation, but the designing is still up to the advertiser. Thats where Premiere Ads steps in, and uses GoGoPin Ad among other tools to create and distribute your flyers regionally or nationally.

In her own words, proprietor Patricia B. wrote:

“I have made several flyers and now am able to create one in a relatively short period of time. I love the many choices for background colors and how easy it is to move around your photos and text boxes. Photo upload is very easy as well. Once you export your finished product, it is so easy to copy and post it into websites that accpet HTML.

I am enjoying using GoGoPin and really appreciate your free service! I highly recommend it to any0ne wanting to make a professional looking webflyer!”

GoGoPin Ad is at your service, free as ever., and the GoGoPin Team wishes Premier Ads the best of luck.

Have a similar story? Email your testimonial to support@gogopin.com , and we’ll share your story, too.

For me, getting Twitter was like learning to swim – something that everyone seemed to do so readily yet I waded at the shore just a little scared.  I felt like I would publish something regrettable or that I would have some accidental ‘Reply to All’ email nightmare on my hands. As it turns out I should hope for so much attention. Nothing could be more casual than Twitter in terms of broadcasting a message. In composing this post, when I typed ‘unfollow’ I had to ‘Add to Dictionary’. This won’t be necessary for long. But unfollowing (added again) is important and not rude in the least. But to what end? I’m swimming in Twitter now though I am no Michael Phelps.

Twittering requires business focus.  I finally dunked my head in and took a stab at phishing for followers, which actually worked. However at first the followers that reciprocated weren’t qualified leads at all. Rather, they were just polite reciprocators. Correcting my stroke, it didn’t take any extra work to follow the same number of accounts, but strictly accounts that appear relevant to my business: Online Content Creation.  Interestingly, even following accounts willy-nilly generated direct messages asking about my business objective. These inquiries would have been more welcome from qualified prospects!  So I did some Twitter laps and got follow-focused. It just took doing. There was no harm done in awkwardly getting in the water, but there were respectively few visits to our website originating from Twitter until learning to follow with focus.

Tips for effective freestyle and butterfly twittering:

• Follow like mad, but do it judiciously. Follow relevant prospects that stand to benefit from your value proposition.
• Reciprocate followers judiciously with business objective in mind. It does no harm to have followers of any kind.
• Always respond to personal direct messages about your business. If the question is relevant to your business, answer it. If not, simply move on. Treat inquiries with the Golden Rule, not prejudice.
• Unfollow without looking back if you realize that you’ve inadvertently followed an account that is not a good match. It’s not synchronized swimming – it’s Twitter.
• Retractions won’t be required from authentic blurb. You only owe Twitter your level best. Move on if you’ve swallowed some pool water. An accidental ‘Reply to All’ in email is much more painful.

The next post in this series, “Focused Social Networking” provides more painless free marketing tools.

Opinions about marketing by way of social networking are are all over, and yes, I have one too. The book of social networking etiquette is unbound and without a standard. Do’s and Don’ts are bounced about and as we recently implemented the ability to post directly to Facebook from GoGoPin Ad, I have been getting my feet wet with social networking toward business objectives. GoGoPin Ad’s  business objective is to provide online content creation tools to people who post items or promote their services online. Recently, Bernice Ross from Inman News wrote an article titled: “Do’s and Don’ts of Social Networking“. Ross is quite right in stating: “The younger your potential client is, the more likely he or she is to search you out on Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.” But internet adoption continues to rise across all age groups, and to reach them requires getting your feet wet with social networking (see previous post).

Personal and Professional Profiles: Who Are You?

GoGoPin’s business objective using social networking is becoming more effective with practice, and I haven’t lost any friends in the process. Navigating to the right audience is a challenge, as Jeremiah Owyang stated in his Web Strategist post entitled “The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras” According to Owyang: “Today’s social experience is disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they visit.” He goes on to describe a very useful model of social networking done by Forrester Research in April of 2009 called “Future of the Social Web in Five Eras” . Forrester has come up with a diagram of how social networking is changing the ecommerce landscape over time.  As seen in the following diagrams provided by Jessica Tsai in Social Media: The Five-Year Forecast:

Forrester April 2009

Commerce online moves in time from top to bottom in the diagram above, and the Eras overlap as seen below:

Forrester April 2009

 
The conceptual eras ring true. Social networking is not only changing the way we present ourselves as consumers, but the way that we actually transact – as buyers and sellers. It is not only consumers that have separate identities in each social network but companies as well. Agents, Brokers, and businesses of all kinds have depended on referrals from personal and professional networks prior to the Industrial Revolution and earlier. How does a small business present itself in a social network of individuals? Over time the Era of Social Commerce is nigh, where brands will remain strong, but only in as much as they are part of the social networking community at large. That is done by individual marketing professionals, and it is in this capacity GoGoPin will continue with the next post in this series: “Our Space and Phasebook”.

Continuing the discussion from the last post regarding social networking etiquette, I disagree with the following quote from Inman News’ Bernice Ross (Do’s and Don’ts): 

“A foolproof way to ruin your business is to post pictures of yourself playing the role of the party animal doing stupid pet tricks.”

I believe transparency is increasingly important. With the proliferation of sites like Facebook and Linkedin my name shows up in Search Results like it or not. The line between my personal and professional profile is there, but for me it is perforated.  I have grown my Facebook network considerably since crossing over some contacts from other more professional sites like Linkedin (see next post). I have had meaningful interactions with people that I have only ‘met’ on Linkedin or Facebook. Up until recently I have always had all media open to everyone. As far as appearing unseemly to business contacts, I can lock my videos and party animal photos down if I want to. I can also remove posts from my status page at any time.  I believe that people who accept my friend requests do so based on what they see – and if they don’t like it they pass me by.

Ideally, I would post only personal stuff to my Facebook profile, and only business stuff to my company’s group page. The problem is my company’s group and business pages get far fewer page views than does my profile. When I post about a new blog post it goes to all my contacts’ feed immediately. The distribution is so much greater, and what’s more my work is 42% of Monday through Friday for me. It is a significant part of my life, and don’t mind sharing it. In fact, I do post marketing messages to my personal profile on Facebook, and the results have been great without censorship. You can see me with birthday cake on my face if you want to (of course you would have to seek that out). It could be that those party animal pictures actually humanize what otherwise might be a cold suit and tie that wouldn’t garner as much interest.  A balance must be achieved. For Facebook, my voice is business casual, and for Linkedin my voice is more like it would be for a seminar or presentation.

Marketing Results from Facebook Profile:

Visitors to GoGoPin Ad in April 2009 originated from a large variety of sources. Visits originating from Facebook ranked in the 93rd percentile of visitor origins. Sorted by average time on GoGoPin Ad, Facebook visitors were in the 83rd percentile of longest time spent on site. This cost nothing but the time it took to post simple hyperlinks and ‘check it out’ comments posted to my profile. One can also post directly to your Facebook profile using GoGoPin Ad (see previous post) which increased the visits as well.  You can imagine what these visits would cost in paid advertising dollars and cents.

Business objectives can be met without censoring every iota of personal images and information. Would anyone turn down a referral from Facebook who loved seeing birthday cake on your face? I doubt it.  Mind you cake on the face does not a marketing plan make. Both Facebook and Linkedin require a balance of lending your authentic voice, experience to engage in a meaningful encounter. The opportunity for your elevator pitch and hyperlink will come.  The last in this four part series is to follow: “Linkedin – The Chain Gang of Profiles, Connections, and Groups”

As a big fan of Linkedin for years my objective on the site has changed considerably over time. Job seekers and recruiters are a vital component to the whole LinkedIn show. That’s how many of us began creating professional profiles on Linkedin. However your connections comprise your professional network, and they are the source of your recommendations and credibility. Groups are a whole different game, and the greatest opportunity beyond job searching. Groups are where the story of your business objective gets heard. But consider this: If you only join groups that match your own skill set and business sector, then you may very well be preaching to the choir. Seek to join groups where your experience and value proposition solve others problems.

 For example, I happen to have some knowledge of a specific enterprise software program that has very little to do with what my present company has to offer. I belong to groups of people with my own qualifications or better for advice. To market my present business objective on Linkedin, I seek to join groups that are in need of what GoGoPin offers: Online Content Creation.

Regardless of what group you contribute to, spamming LinkedIn at every opportunity with hyperlinks to GoGoPin was not effective. So I asked myself: What can I contribute to this Group that authentically reflects my experience, and GoGoPin’s value proposition to qualified prospects?  I found that GoGoPin’s marketing message was simply out of context in these groups. I am much better off now posting my experience and GoGoPin links to groups of people to who have a problem that GoGoPin can solve. As a result LinkedIn has become a regular source of visits to GoGoPin, and some convert to repeat customers.

I still engage in my alumni groups and such, but refrain from diluting the discussion with pitches and hyperlinks out of context. Engage authentically in LinkedIn and you’ll find the right place to get your marketing message to the right audience. If you peak interest with a meaningful post – the reader will visit your profile in turn, and the links to your business should be there.

Network Socially – The Etiquette is Unwritten

I recommend a balance of authenticity and transparency with business objectives in mind to provide a human value proposition.  Ease up on boasting and slogans. Pour on the stories and useful content. For most of us, our business is our baby and it takes a village to raise it. Take a stroll to Town Hall: Social Networks. Be authentic and transparent. Your business value will shine through if you humanize the message and share it in stories with people who stand to gain from what you offer. You are cordially invited, and most welcome to present your wares. Your customers need you to be there.

• Where: The Internet
• When: Ongoing Throughout the Era of Social Networking
• Attire: Twitter: T-Shirt and jeans. Facebook: Weekend and business casual. Linkedin: Presentation and seminar-ware.