lauren clementine.

time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life.

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UberVu launches Compare

 so we all know that google ranks as the #1 most-visited website and surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) - facebook recently snagged the #2 spot (bumping out Yahoo!) but is it fair to continue using website analytic tools like compete.com and alexa to rank popularity based solely on global visitors in a given time frame?  from an advertising standpoint, it’s not a fair comparison to go into a client and fight for budget against a social media site.  online advertising and driving traffic via social media platforms are two completely different avenues for companies/agencies to consider and advertising dollars need to be split and allocated accordingly.  fortunately, for those in my shoes, there’s a new player to bring to the table as uberVu launches Compare…

Small businesses have slowly begun to turn to social media as powerful avenues for gaining exposure for their products/services.  Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook or a blog - advertising dollars have kept the most popular social media sites alive.  As an Account Executive who’s clients are exploring the online world of branding their company name - it’s often a challenge to to go head to head with someone who is comparing the traffic on a social media platform against their own ROI (return on investment).  Obviously, a niche demographic is a huge selling point to any client and while the ‘traffic’ might be less than appealing - it’s the target audience that should be measured but how can we measure a client campaign on a social media site with 3,000,000 unique visitors a day against a local blog with a key audience but only 6,000 visitors a day?  

UberVu has just launched Compare.Com which measure a ad campaign (by phrase or campaign message) against all social media platforms to determine relevancy and performance. 

Here’s an example I had today:  A client is working on a new product which will be used in conjunction with built-in automobile GPS systems.  The relevancy of the word “navigation” performed better on certain social media sites than the keyword “GPS” so that the keyword used on each ad campaign - would differ by each platform being used to market the message. 

Check it out! http://www.ubervu.com/social-media-comparison/navigation-vs-gps/

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lasagna.

i’m not usually a big hearty dinner kinda gal but i made lasagna for the first time last week and i think it truly was the best lasagna in this world - hands down :)  in case you have a TON of time on your hands and want to impress some dinner guests.  here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

  • 1 pound sweet Italian sausage
  • 3/4 pound lean ground beef
  • 1/2 cup minced onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
  • 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
  • 2 (6.5 ounce) cans canned tomato sauce
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons white sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
  • 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
  • 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
  • 12 lasagna noodles
  • 16 ounces ricotta cheese
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced
  • 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

  1. In a Dutch oven, cook sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic over medium heat until well browned. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water. Season with sugar, basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons parsley. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
  2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
  3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
  4. To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese slices. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.
  5. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

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salesforce.com rolls out Chatter (easy now social media bandits, it’s only in the beta period) at the november dreamforce conference, salesforce.com announced it’s attempt at jumping into the social media ‘ring’ with Salesforce Chatter - “a facebook for the enterprise”.  today, salesforce.com rolled out the beta version of Chatter which will be tested on 100 companies before officially going live later this year.  So, we’re all thinking the same thing, right?  We’ve seen how many attempts of re-creating the Mark Zuckerberg phenomenon?  And why should we believe this attempt to jump on the social networking bandwagon is any different?  So here’s what makes Chatter unique: any pre-existing salesforce.com users, the program builds itself into the existing user platform. anyone currently using the Cloud concept (SalesCloud or ServiceCloud) will be able to incorporate chatter into their existing interface… seamlessly.  it makes perfect sense for small and large businesses alike to take the facebook technology (which, let’s face it, we’re ALL addicted to) and have it integrated directly into your current crm system (duh?).  I found the interface to be extremely user-friendly, albeit without the addicting apps (adios farmville addicts) (click on the picture for a demo)

salesforce.com rolls out Chatter (easy now social media bandits, it’s only in the beta period)

at the november dreamforce conference, salesforce.com announced it’s attempt at jumping into the social media ‘ring’ with Salesforce Chatter - “a facebook for the enterprise”.  today, salesforce.com rolled out the beta version of Chatter which will be tested on 100 companies before officially going live later this year.  So, we’re all thinking the same thing, right?  We’ve seen how many attempts of re-creating the Mark Zuckerberg phenomenon?  And why should we believe this attempt to jump on the social networking bandwagon is any different?  So here’s what makes Chatter unique: any pre-existing salesforce.com users, the program builds itself into the existing user platform. anyone currently using the Cloud concept (SalesCloud or ServiceCloud) will be able to incorporate chatter into their existing interface… seamlessly.  it makes perfect sense for small and large businesses alike to take the facebook technology (which, let’s face it, we’re ALL addicted to) and have it integrated directly into your current crm system (duh?).  I found the interface to be extremely user-friendly, albeit without the addicting apps (adios farmville addicts)

(click on the picture for a demo)

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listen up, gmail users… Google plans to add filtering components to Google Buzz. After a recent intense user-testing was completed for various forms of Buzz - the results are in and according to valuable user feedback (you’re welcome) this product is far from being completed (duh?!?!).  No one’s life is private anymore - that’s where we’re all at, right?  Between tweets, status updates, away messages, bbm availability, etc - everyone know’s where we are, what we’re doing, who we’re with, and so on an so forth.  For those of you being a bit too ‘public’ - I could personally do without the nightly dinner menu rundown or your daily trips to your local coffee establishment; along the same lines, no one probably cares when you are cleaning your dishes or taking your car to get it washed.  Nonetheless, our status’ have become addicting and often in an uncontrollable way, especially to the many who search through the facebook newsfeed’s on an hourly basis.  Google has realized that not all of our gmail contacts should be privileged to our minute-by-minute thoughts/actions and not everyone we’ve ever sent or received or been cc’d on correspondence with, is our ‘friend’ - hence the new filtering option need and the recent ‘off switch’ to the auto-following feature and auto-link to Reader and Picasa albums.  social media enthusiasts are impressed, that goes without saying, but it needs some cleanup and organization from the currently cluttered feel as well as privacy preferred capability.  A sneak peak for what’s to roll out next would be the ability to collapse comment threads as one of the priority tweeks.  rest assured, google has confirmed the new functionality and platform will be rolled out shortly. what WILL they think of next?

listen up, gmail users…

Google plans to add filtering components to Google Buzz.

After a recent intense user-testing was completed for various forms of Buzz - the results are in and according to valuable user feedback (you’re welcome) this product is far from being completed (duh?!?!).  No one’s life is private anymore - that’s where we’re all at, right?  Between tweets, status updates, away messages, bbm availability, etc - everyone know’s where we are, what we’re doing, who we’re with, and so on an so forth.  For those of you being a bit too ‘public’ - I could personally do without the nightly dinner menu rundown or your daily trips to your local coffee establishment; along the same lines, no one probably cares when you are cleaning your dishes or taking your car to get it washed.  Nonetheless, our status’ have become addicting and often in an uncontrollable way, especially to the many who search through the facebook newsfeed’s on an hourly basis.  Google has realized that not all of our gmail contacts should be privileged to our minute-by-minute thoughts/actions and not everyone we’ve ever sent or received or been cc’d on correspondence with, is our ‘friend’ - hence the new filtering option need and the recent ‘off switch’ to the auto-following feature and auto-link to Reader and Picasa albums.  social media enthusiasts are impressed, that goes without saying, but it needs some cleanup and organization from the currently cluttered feel as well as privacy preferred capability.  A sneak peak for what’s to roll out next would be the ability to collapse comment threads as one of the priority tweeks.  rest assured, google has confirmed the new functionality and platform will be rolled out shortly. what WILL they think of next?

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booklamp.org (pandora.com for books??)

CanGoogleHearMe.com introduced the beta version of BookLamp.org back in 2008 and the growth in the past 2 years alone has been quite impressive. This system will match it’s users to books based on a full-text analysis of the novel, like how Pandora matches music. BookLamp offers the capability to measure elements like action, dialog, and description - then graphs them for you scene-by-scene, and uses the end data to find other books that have similar writing style.  Although the site has a lot of growing left to do before it’s more widely recognized as ‘valuable’, it does help bring aspiring authors (underdogs of the book world if you will) recognition and accolades.

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mohr and mcpherson opens up new cafe this saturday - 2/13/10 - 460 harrison ave harrison ave in the south end is known to many as the inspiring artist’s mecca of boston.  mohr and mcpherson features a bi-level collage of eclectic and conservative pieces made right here in the city and then more exotic antiques, artifacts and decor scoped out from hidden cities around the globe.  any nomadic souls searching for an ancient egyptian camel saddle?  this saturday marks the opening of the new cafe on the lower level of the store!  come cozy up with a latte and scone or a locally-made MEM TEA (Cambridge, MA).  what makes this cafe stand out? i had the privilege of a sneak-preview tour yesterday and can assure you that this will become boston’s coziest little “coffee shop”. the sitting area of the cafe is comprised solely of mohr and mcpherson chairs, stools, tables and cushions; Local artists/decorators and store owners can use the elongated bamboo table in the center of the floor for weekly client meetings/discussions.  my favorite perk?  all residents that live above 460 harrison ave can simply throw on their slippers and take the elevator down to the first floor for a morning treat… talk about convenience (be on the lookout for an increase in rent!)

mohr and mcpherson opens up new cafe this saturday - 2/13/10 - 460 harrison ave

harrison ave in the south end is known to many as the inspiring artist’s mecca of boston.  mohr and mcpherson features a bi-level collage of eclectic and conservative pieces made right here in the city and then more exotic antiques, artifacts and decor scoped out from hidden cities around the globe.  any nomadic souls searching for an ancient egyptian camel saddle?  this saturday marks the opening of the new cafe on the lower level of the store!  come cozy up with a latte and scone or a locally-made MEM TEA (Cambridge, MA).  what makes this cafe stand out? i had the privilege of a sneak-preview tour yesterday and can assure you that this will become boston’s coziest little “coffee shop”. the sitting area of the cafe is comprised solely of mohr and mcpherson chairs, stools, tables and cushions; Local artists/decorators and store owners can use the elongated bamboo table in the center of the floor for weekly client meetings/discussions.  my favorite perk?  all residents that live above 460 harrison ave can simply throw on their slippers and take the elevator down to the first floor for a morning treat… talk about convenience (be on the lookout for an increase in rent!)

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love south boston’s rush to save parking spaces… some space holders noticed on this morning’s commute (have i mentioned that it STILL has not started to snow??) 1.  kitchen table 2.  kitchen chairs 3.  wheelchair 4.  can of paint 5.  dog bed 6.  a 12 pack of bud light - empty bottles in the box 7.  a pan/skillet - a nice one too! 8.  pack-n-play …  I could go on but you get the idea…

love south boston’s rush to save parking spaces… some space holders noticed on this morning’s commute (have i mentioned that it STILL has not started to snow??)

1.  kitchen table

2.  kitchen chairs

3.  wheelchair

4.  can of paint

5.  dog bed

6.  a 12 pack of bud light - empty bottles in the box

7.  a pan/skillet - a nice one too!

8.  pack-n-play

…  I could go on but you get the idea…

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boston's valentine's day events (boston magazine)

quite an assortment for the cost conscious to the uber fancy love birds.  some great packages around the city for you to indulge in alone or with your special someone.  my favorite would be the ‘guys only’ gourmet cooking class… nothing gets my heart pounding more than delicious food (…and wine). 

get on that, boyfriend. ;)