Check out this time saving program called Anagram. If there is text on the web (like address and phone numbers) you can highlight it, click the Anagram icon, and it will fill it into your Outlook address book. No need to worry about entering it in yourself, Anagram fills it all in for you in the right places. It integrates with other programs too. Jason told me about it and it’s integrated into Jibberjobber now.

The world just got a little easier…ahhhh

I like to listen to entrepreneur speeches given for a BYU entrepreneur class while I do more of the mindless tasks of my day. Today it’s
John E. Richards, Managing Director, Rollins Center for eBusiness. Check out the entrepreneur newsletter for more speeches.

BYU is located in Utah county, the #1 county for entrepreneurship in the nation (I knew there had to be good reason that I’m still here!). He also talks about how it’s also the place with the least amount of money to start a business. Enthusiasm doesn’t equal good business sense or a marketable idea. He says out of a million ideas, only 10K are good business opportunities. Out of 1,000 that make it to VCs only 10 are funded.

Anyway, I had to laugh at quirky Utah county. I met Scott from out of town at Starbucks to hear about an affiliate network (I’ll blog more about it later). He said he didn’t see a single one as he was driving around. He’s used to seeing one on every corner. That’s Utah county. The funny thing is the rental car company ran out of trucks so he arrived in a mini van! So he fit right in, except no kids in the back.

Other things Utah County might be #1 or at least the top 5 on:

• Family size (hence all the mini vans)
• MLM companies (check out this movie about MLMs coming in April, (how do you spoof something that is already so over the top??)
• Chain restaurants per capita. Just try to get a seat at Outback steakhouse for dinner!

Are you a Utah blogger? Want to hang out with some of the most well-connected and social geeks around? Even if just Jason and Rob showed up, it’s more than worth your time. They are incredible networkers and friends – they are gold.

Come to the Utah Blogger’s dinner group, held every month, same time, same place:

February Dinner – Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007
“Gabbing and Blawging.”
Mimi’s Cafe in Sandy, UT
10470 S State St
Sandy, UT 84070
(801) 572-545

Like the rest of the country, I followed the shootings at Trolley Square the day before Valentine’s Day with a heavy heart. My friend’s husband was there right before it all started. It hits pretty close in this community. I felt also for the shop owners and read about their courage. There were a lot of courageous people. I even felt for the gunman who probably witnessed so much killing that he is completely numb to the meaning of human life.

So it’s good news to read Black Chandelier’s announcement that they will open a location at Trolley Square. Trolley Square announced a revamp, including a Wild Oats store underground parking, and more. Trolley Square has a lot of character but it needs some love. We needed something to help get through the tragedy. It’s great to see the owners step up and be committed to revitalize Trolley Square.

I just got off a call from Marc Harty about online PR. If you’re not constantly learning you are dead!

Here are the top 5 headline writing tips he gave:

1. Play up the underdog story: people like to root for the little guy – the David facing the Goliath. Think how FatWallet took on Walmart and how much media attention they got from it. Small business takes on bigger business – that gets attention.
2. Make a list (note: needs to be newsworthy too) like: 10 Ways To Stop Gaining Weight, 5 Surefire Tactics to Get Media Attention, The Two Worst Mistakes Internet Marketers Make, etc.
3. Controversy – your unique opinion can get you noticed.
4. Piggyback on current news or events – Like if Curves was in the news and you were Podfitness: Who will help more women lose weight – Curves or Podfitness? You can put yourself into a much bigger conversation by associating yourself with bigger names and news. People love doing this with celebrity names.
5. Solve a problem, make something more simple, save people time or money. A classic tactic.

Most of the time negative headlines (Do NOT do this) work better than positive ones. And lastly, he mentioned my favorite: PRWeb. However, he did say PRLeap is good for getting in Google News (and it’s only $30).

He mentioned if you have a podcast or video with the press release it can help you get media attention. If you present well, you give the media an incentive to interview you because they don’t have as much risk that they’ll get a bad interview.

Janet’s current thoughts have been centering on: PR in general and (for some reason) Curves gyms (for several weeks running, oddly enough)…

I was just explaining reasons why blogging is the best SEO there is. When you blog you are continually expanding the content on Yesterday I wrote about Gary and put the trackback to the blog entry where he left a comment. That means he got an email telling him I blogged about him. I linked to the blog entry too. It was an hour or less before he knew I wrote about him and contacted me through my contact form.

In real life we almost never know when someone is talking about us or what exactly they said. We may hear it second hand through someone else. With blogging you can know if you’re being talked about (you personally or your brand) and what is being said. You can give people reason to talk about you. What’s said is now on record. You can easily and quickly respond. You have an opportunity to have that person come back again and become a regular as a friend or a customer or both. To me, this is the power of blogging – that it can bring people to you. And thy in turn can bring value to your life or company. It’s a mutual benefit, which to me, is the definition of good business.

I’m going to teach an introduction to blogging class the first Wednesday in March (the 7th). It will go over the basics of what a blog is, why you might blog, and what it can do for you or your business.

I have started collecting a list of the benefits of blogging along with blogs that illustrate the different ways a blog can be an important tool for you or your organization. If this goes well I’ll teach more. I love talking about blogging and meeting other bloggers.

I’m trading my friend who is a professional massage therapist for massages. The class came about because of my coaching with her. There are other possibilities that keep showing up too, all thanks to blogging.

I’m up way too late writing an article on Yepic about my favorite business books and books that have influenced me.

Pieces of this are on my blog, but nowhere in one place. This will be a good reference for me. Unfortunately, I don’t get time to read as many books as I have in the past.

If you have anything to add about the article (more links or resources) let me know janet@affiliateflash.com or the contact link above. It’s the most involved article I’ve put on Yepic so far. Please rate me as an author or the article while you’re there.

Skip McGrath blogs about selling content on Ebay. He wrote a book about it.

Yepic is out of beta so anyone can post articles now. You can invite people to collaborate and give feedback. You can list your articles on Ebay (I want an article about people who make money on Yepic, since it’s very new I wonder if anyone is yet), or sell them on Yepic.

Try it out!

Until I became a recluse of late I used to talk on the phone A LOT. The month I quit my job and worked from home for a while over a year ago was a wake up call. Without a desk phone I just blew through my daytime minutes on my cell phone. My bill for one month just came to about $500 – and I just paid more than full price for that FREE cell phone that I got for $100 when I signed up with a 2-year contract for T-Mobile.

Burr blogged about this app at www.watchmycellphone.com and it’s a hit. It covers Cinuglar (not recommended by the way, the call quality is horrid), Vorizon, T-Mobile (still get a “bill” every month for a positive balance and they held my number hostage for months until I gave up on transferring it) and Sprint/Nextel. Download the app, put in your cell #, provider, login info and how many minutes are on your plan. Then choose if you’d like a text message or an email whenever you are close to your limit.

Cell phone carriers should’ve come up with this themselves and looked like heroes. Think of how many customers this feature would win them. Yes, they make money off overages but they also make enemies for gouging us. Any time your services put you at odds with a lot of your customers, there’s a problem. People will leave as soon as they can or find other ways to work around the problem. In my case I went to VoIP and later to Cingular. Now I have a landline too.

It’s my responsibility to not go over minutes (I found the solution – just stop talking!). This tool came about 8 months too late for me and T-Mobile! We could’ve salvaged our relationship and both been happy. Anyway, this doesn’t help my crackling cell phone problem with Verizon but it will come in handy should I start being more social again.

Richard wrote an article on what to write to on Yepic. It’s about Yepic in particular, but it has great ideas to help you write articles for any purpose (your web site, for press release ideas, affiliate site etc).

He suggests using Google Zeitgeist, Google Trends, Google Answers, and Yahoo Answers.

While you’re on Yepic, I hope you’ll look up some of my articles. I’ve been writing up a frenzy! Yepic is still in beta so it’s just getting off the ground. Help spread the word. Try writing something. For me, like my blog, it’s a way to organize my thoughts into one place. My articles serve as references for me too. I put my affiliate links in them and that means if I need them again, they’ll be in one place. You can embed affiliate ads into the articles you write.

Probably in a large part thanks to the 2000 blogger’s list and The Z-List (by the Viral Garden blog) my stats have improved significantly. I still haven’t done a Z-list but I want to have the time to. I was included on someone’s list a while ago and still getting link love every day.

Viral Garden is doing pretty well
Rank: 5,676 (1,601 links from 463 blogs)

My old site at www.newspapergrl.wordpress.com now has 124 links and this new one has 110. Newspapergrl.com, which I’ve had for a month, ranks: 31,446 (182 links from 110 blogs) in Technorati.

I’m working to get my page rank back. I would delete the other blog but it now has a life of its own with unique comments.

Thanks for the links and for reading. I love being part of the blogging community! Reading blogs and writing them recharges me and is a fulfilling part of my life.

I love that people read my blog, but even if no one did, I still enjoy searching to find an article or link that I need – quick! I started this blog almost two years ago on Blogger. Then I moved it to a WordPress hosted blog. Recently I migrated it to my own hosted WordPress blog. I wish I would’ve started here!

I started blogging to chronicle my career change from web development and marketing to internet marketing. I haven’t tired of it. Internet marketing is such a dynamic field – it’s great fun to write about.

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I have to follow this up with clarification about the Z-list. It is NOT to increase my or anyone else’s Technorati or Google juice (even though it probably will). It IS to help people find blogs they might not otherwise know about. Thanks to Doug for his comment about this on Gary’s blog.