Here are some interesting Twitter Statistics I found online today:

■ 21% of Twitter users are actually using the service-meaning that have at least 10 followers, follow at least 10 people, and have tweeted at least 10 times.
■ 74% of Twitter users have less than 10 followers! However, that number is improving with a 30% increase in the number of users with 10+ followers (since June 2009)
■ 60% of Twitter users follow less than 10 people
■ 34% of Twitter users have more followers than others they are following, showing an 70% increase from 20% in June 2009
■ 73% of users have less than 10 tweets, as compared to 79% in June 2009.
■ 49% of Twitter users joined between November 2008 and April 2009-the period when many celebrities jumped on the Twitter bandwagon
■ Twitter’s growth spiked at 21% in April 2009\

Recently Google announced the unleashing of Google’s “Real-time search” in the search engine results. Matt Cutts covered it in his blog. This is a new feature that will facilitate Google to provide up-to-the-minute updates (”freshness” and “relevance”) on any search inquiry/subject a user researches.

According to Amit Singhal of Google (responsible for Google search algorithms), “Light can travel around the world in 1/10th of a second, and we won’t rest until the speed of light is the only barrier to getting good search results to you.”

How to use the Google Real-Time Search Feature:

Matt Cutts said in his blog that Google processes billions of documents per day for their real time search. Google has really enhanced considerably in speeding up the crawling and indexing procedure, which is exceptional even with the already-enormous and mounting size of the web.

Step 1: Go to www.google.com

Step 2: Type your query and press “search.”

Step 3: When the results load completely, find “Show options” under the search box. Click it.

Step 4: Under “Any time,” click “Latest.” This will let Google give the latest results (real-time search results).

It is very extraordinary that Google is still able to grant updates as early as “1 minute ago.” This is very fast, and is really “real-time.” You can even observe that Google regularly adds updates even when the browser is not refreshed as indicated: “New results will appear below as they become available.”

One feature I noticed that was neat was the Twitter updates included in the Real-Time Search Results as seen below:

To stop receiving frequent updates, you can click “pause.”

Reputation Management Firms

I came across a new website that lists almost all Reputation Management Firms and allows users to post a review about the companies listed. The website features about 50 or so Reputation Management Companies and the list is surely to grow as the industry grows. It appears the site was just created over the holidays, most likely by a reputation management company. Either Way it is a good idea to have a review site for this industry, there is a lack of reviews online about Reputation Management Companies.

If you are in the reputation management industry or want to review a reputation management company, check out the site here: http://www.iReputationReviews.com

Yahoo! Inc might be pulling the plug on the “blogger” social networking service MyBlogLog.

ReadWriteWeb reports MyBlogLog will be closed down by Yahoo! in January 2010 (Next Month)
MyBlogLog is a social-network service for the bloggers that enables them to connect with other blog writers and readers visiting their sites. The website lists the profiles information of the writers as well as the blogs for the same.

MyBlogLog was a wildly innovative service that grew fast after launching in 2005. It was originally developed by Cloudspace, a Florida-based web applications development organization and was acquired in January 2007 by Yahoo! for around $10 million. There were over 45,000 blogs subscribed at the time.

Chris Yeh, Head of Yahoo! Developer Network (YDN) says, “Frankly, it’s no secret within Yahoo! that we’re actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog. However, it’s also true that we have not made any final decisions at this point. Is a shutdown on the table? Sure, that’s an option. But there are other options as well. We know this creates some uncertainty for current MyBlogLog users. While we aren’t quite ready to share more details, we promise to keep you posted.”

Yahoo! has shut it’s a variety of products in the past year, with the objective to cut-costs and be more focused on its “core” services. If MyBlogLog shuts down, I see a lot of MyBlogLog users being very upset. There are a lot of paid users and avid users of MyBlogLog.

Our blog (SEOFRIENDLY.COM) is on MyBlogLog and we get a fair amount of traffic from our listing with them. In my opinion, Yahoo! Inc. should stick with this project or at least transfer ownership to another company that could keep the site alive.

Here is a list of my favorite Press Release Distribution Sites with their PageRank details. All of these press release distribution sites have served me well this year and should continue to do so. Enjoy!

1. PRLog.org - PageRank 6 

2. PR-Inside.com - PageRank 4

3. PR.com - PageRank 5

4. Merinews.com - PageRank 5

5. 24-7pressrelease.com - PageRank 4

6. BigNews.biz - PageRank 5

7. ClickPress.com - PageRank 5

8. NewsWireToday.com - PageRank 5

9. OpenPR.com - PageRank 5

10. PR-USA.net - PageRank 5

11. free-press-release-center.info - PageRank 5

12. PowerHomeBiz.com - PageRank 5

13. TheOpenPress.com - PageRank 4

14. USPRWire.com - PageRank 4

I ran across a great blog post (List) on TopRankBlog.com this morning when looking for some SEO blogs to read, and found something worth blogging about myself. If you are in the internet marketing, SEO, or web development industry you will love the BIGLIST of Search Engine Marketing Blogs. The list has over 400 blogs listed and this list includes some of the best blogs online. A few that I recognized included ShoeMoney.com, MarketingPilgrim.com, SEOMOZ, and many others.

This is by far the best list of useful blogs that I have ever found online. It is worth a look and a bookmark.

The list is maintained by TopRankBlog, a blog that has been online since 2003 and covers all aspects of SEO, Internet Marketing, Social Media, and more.

Google endorses reputation management and tells people “Publish positive content about yourself” and “get stuff that you want people to see to outperform the stuff you don’t want them to see.” This has always been the foundation of a reputation management campaign.

The advice is basic: Create a Google Profile (free and easy also not effective for pushing down stuff). Ask happy customers to review your business online (may create more negative items). *Publish positive content about yourself (*this is the good advice is our opinion).

It is motivating to see Google offering tips on how to “get stuff that you want people to see to outperform the stuff you don’t want them to see.” Reputation management can sometimes be a controversial issue - some people think it’s disreputable to create and optimize content for the express purpose of displacing negative content surreptitiously. Google’s endorsing it in today’s blog post, and offering suggestions for how to make it happen.

Google seems to be trying to do some preventative customer service here also. You can visualize the quantity of emails (and maybe phone calls) Google gets from businesses and individuals who are displeased about what they see when they Google themselves. The blog post by Google basically says, would you stop asking us to clean up the search results you don’t like about yourself?

“Rather than immediately contacting Google, it’s important to first remove it from the site where it’s being published. Google doesn’t own the Internet; our search results simply reflect what’s already out there on the web.”

Not only is Google possibly trying to slim down the amount of email and phone requests but maybe they are also attempting to prevent any future law suits files against them for results they display.

In closing it seems that Google has endorsed reputation management and using reputation management companies to help you gain control of what people see about you.

A new way to protect your business online is sweeping the internet like a category 5 hurricane.  The newest and most rewarding marketing technique online is online reputation management or search engine reputation management. Online reputation management is used by many businesses off all types and sizes. The most frequent reason a company uses a Reputation Management company is to help them conceal or make online complaints less damaging. An example of a popular online complaint site is RipOffReport.com, which sole purpose is to allow consumers (anyone) file complaints against businesses and individuals.  Other sites that catch the attention of consumers to file complaints against businesses are Yelp.com and ComplaintsBoard.com.

These review and complaint websites provide an anonymous environment for consumers to file complaints. These types of sites pose a major risk for businesses because the fact is anyone can say anything they want, without verifying who they are or if the “complaint” is a real one. There have been hundreds of reports of businesses claiming that their competitors are the ones filing complaints in order to unjustly try to gain more business by discrediting others. Disgruntle employees, Ex-Lovers, Angry consumers, and simply anyone can make up anything they want on these sites and it will be published.  Many of these complaint and review sites rank extremely well (very high) within search results on search engines like Google, this guarantees that people will find these complaints. When someone searches for a business name or individual by name, if the search phrase is contained within the complaint chances are it will show up very high on the first page of search results.

Companies and individuals that are faced with these harmful listings will usually have the opportunity to reply or file a rebuttal to these online complaints. The problem continues, if a reply is added to the complaint (Good or Bad) it will rank even higher. Apparently Google and other search engines give complaints and reviews with comments a higher ranking.

There is usually only one option to fix a setback like this for businesses, hire a reputation management company. A reputation management company will in most cases commence an aggressive search engine optimization and reputation management campaign to displace, dilute, bury or hide these complaints and negative reviews. By publishing waves of new content about your company or several hundred websites and new domain names they in most cases can push these complaints lower within search results.

One Reputation Management Company called ReputionArmor.com states that there are numerous techniques and tactics used to suppress negative search results and sometimes you have to hurl everything against the wall and see what sticks. The majority of reputation management firms use the same methodology when trying to push down online complaints for their clients. For the most part their fees seem to be within the same price zone, although many reputation companies advertise different time frames of how long the course of action takes. Reputation Armor agrees that sometimes it takes longer than expected to get a complaint to fall off of the first 1-2 pages of search results, but it is worth the wait if you want lasting results.

In an interview with a client of ReputationArmor.com who wishes to remain anonymous we learned more on how the process can help a business. The client received 1 complaint but it was submitted to 3 different online complaint sites, ripoffreport, complaintsboard, and pissedconsumer. The complaints (all three versions) all ranked on the first page of Google’s results. After hiring Reputation Armor the client noticed a lot of online press releases, public directory and profile listings, blog articles and mini-websites about them popping up online. The complaints did not go down to far at first (the first week or so) but after about 3 weeks the fresh items start trickling above the complaints hence pushing them off the first page of results.

It seems that a reputation management company’s chief goal is to play the search engines and influence the search results in a clients favor.  The cost of reputation management can seem elevated when you get quotes from a company but when you factor in lost sales because of the complaints, it is a smart investment. In most cases a small number of sales will recover your reputation management investment.

With the internet and the anonymity of the World Wide Web inviting consumers to file complaints and reviews on just about everything, there is a very urgent need for the services a reputation management company can offer. The next time you plan your marketing budget you may want to factor in reputation management as a necessary ingredient to your online success.

Sources of information: Reputation Armor, Reputation Defender, Yelp, RipOffReport.com

Another IE Warning?

Microsoft Corp. has taken the rare step of warning about a serious computer security vulnerability it hasn’t fixed yet.

The vulnerability disclosed Monday affects Internet Explorer users whose computers run the Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating software.

It can allow hackers to remotely take control of victims’ machines. The victims don’t need to do anything to get infected except visit a Web site that’s been hacked.

Security experts say criminals have been attacking the vulnerability for nearly a week. Thousands of sites have been hacked to serve up malicious software that exploits the vulnerability. People are drawn to these sites by clicking a link in spam e-mail.

The so-called “zero day” vulnerability disclosed by Microsoft affects a part of its software used to play video. The problem arises from the way the software interacts with Internet Explorer, which opens a hole for hackers to tunnel into.

Microsoft urged vulnerable users to disable the problematic part of its software, which can be done from Microsoft’s Web site, while the company works on a “patch” - or software fix - for the problem.

Microsoft rarely departs from its practice of issuing security updates the second Tuesday of each month. When the Redmond, Wash.-based company does issue security reminders at other times, it’s because the vulnerabilities are very serious.

Read More Here and Find A Fix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972890#FixItForMe