1.866.840.3062

All of us at TMA E-Marketing are working with fingers crossed since being notified as a finalist for the Minnesota & North Dakota Better Business Bureau Integrity Award.  It will be tricky working on our computers in such a position until the October 28th awards ceremony, but we’ll do our best!

The Better Business Bureau presents the Integrity Award each year to companies who display ethics and integrity toward their employees, vendors, customers and their community.  Each year the BBB invites anyone to nominate a company they feel demonstrates exceptional ethics.

As a nominee, TMA E-Marketing had the opportunity to submit an entry which was composed of a summary of why we felt we were deserving of the award, and answering a number of questions posed by the BBB on how we conduct our business.  We are competing with other companies based on the number of employees.

The awards ceremony will be held at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul and features Bill George as the keynote speaker.  Bill is professor of management at Harvard Business School and author of three best sellers.  The event spotlights companies that are using ethical business practices as their secret advantage to overcoming a bad economy.

The TMA E-Marketing staff will uncross their fingers prior to the awards announcement to enjoy the great food, drink, and good company of the other nominees and BBB personnel in attendance.

We’re excited to be a part of this event and humbled to be a finalist.

“And the winner is………..”

A newer search engine made its debut this week called Leapfish.com.  Those that recall the launch of cuil a while back know that it wasn’t received well by many online critics.  Does another newcomer within the search arena have enough traction to become a mainstay?

As a search engine marketing guru, cuil did very little for me in the way of persuading me to use the search engine on a regular basis.  Although cuil’s search engine interface resembled many popular search engines, their search results were totally in a league of their own, which in my opinion was asking a lot from an average search engine user to switch over to.  Additionally, recent times suggest that relevancy is one of the most important key factors in winning the search engine wars over having the largest index, a portal like homepage, or more advanced search features.  So when I heard about Leapfish’s transformation from a former domain appraisal site into a search engine, my interest was sparked with a bit of skepticism.

Unlike cuil, Leapfish doesn’t rely on its own search technology and closely resembles a typical search engine interface.  Users should feel right at home with the ability to select search results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  But the real attraction lies within Leapfish’s unique interface that offers users more than search results such as news, questions and answers, videos, and more.  A search for “marketing companies” for example, included a couple of press releases, YouTube videos, images, and shopping results.  As such, Leapfish may be better classified as a universal search engine for its ability to aggregate related content into search results.

What’s more interesting than Leapfish’s search results however, is its monetization model.  Leapfish offers businesses the ability to permanently own sponsored keyword spots ranging from generic to long tail keyword phrases.  Pricing for keywords vary, but isn’t too dissimilar from the current supply and demand scenario. Typical registration fees are around $1000 and keywords can be purchased from a 1 –3 position.  From that point, sponsors may choose to sell their sponsorship to another company…much like domain name buying and selling.

For myself, Leapfish offers a unique experience, however I’m not entirely sure if and when I would make a switch.  After all, if it were all about great search technology and terrific add-ons, then AOL would likely be leading the race.  In any regards, I think Leapfish is definitely worth looking at.  Its unique but intuitive interface gives it an edge over recent search engine launches.

If you have been on the Internet scene for a while, you’ll probably have heard rumors of Google secretly working on a new web browser.  Well, its finally here in flesh and beta.  As from what I have gathered during my relaxing labor day weekend, Google announced when it would be releasing the browser yesterday afternoon.  That being said, it went live today and is ready for download.

The blogoshere has already lit up like a Christmas tree with news articles and blog posts a many.  Most of them appear to be positive, but some  concerns have been raised such as privacy, glitchyness, and webpage compatibility issues.  However, a quick download and a little browsing may change your mind when you realize the speed and the simplicity Google Chrome has to offer.

But whats most interesting about this release, is not the browser per se.  It’s speculated that this is the beginning of a cloud operating system that will allow you to reach more applications other than just surfing the web.  I guess it would kind of be like your iPhone for the web.

In any regards, the new browser is certainly a fresh perspective on a simple tool we sometimes take for granted.  It will be interesting to see how Google fares with their new creation in the upcoming months.

Its been a very busy week for us here at TMA E-Marketing…

iBizRadio- Thanks to our talented web developer, our business podcasting radio is back on the air.  Its been a rather bumpy road to get this back up and running since our server was attacked earlier this year.  Long story short, our podcasting radio station had to be relocated to another server and reprogrammed.  Its still in its beta format, but we plan on working out the bugs in the near future.

Radiospectives- We are pleased to announce that we are on our 3rd consecutive week and are thrilled with the response we have received.   So thrilled, that we have decided to more forward with more interviews in 2009.  If your a business that would like to be interviewed, please don’t hesitate to contact us.  As a side note, Radiospectives was recently approved and available via iTunes store.  (It’s free)

TMA E-Marketing- This week we were approved by the SEO Consultants Directory which only showcases 114 SEO firms (as of this writing) from around the world.  Each SEO firm is reviewed by a peer group from which only 30% of the submissions are actually approved.  In any regards, we are happy to be part of a great SEO resource.

That’s it for now!

Although it’s been a couple of months in the making and what seemed to always look like two weeks from launching, we are excited to announce the release of our new business talk radio website, Radiospectives. We started this project earlier this year and hired a local Minnesota radio talent, Dan Culhane, to interview businesses at our professional audio studio.

The audio series offers weekly 10 - 15 minute business interviews who share their insight into their industries, philosophies, and business’s. Most interviews have been recorded from Minnesota businesses, however the show has national appeal and doesn’t require participants to come to the studio.

A total of 30 business interviews are scheduled to air from now and into future months, but we have plans resume recording later this year. ( Click here if you are interested in becoming a guest.) Those that like to listen to business talk or public radio should will likely enjoy the programming that Radiospectives has to offer.

For more information on Radiospectives, please visit www.radiospective.com or contact:

Connie Krauth
Radiospectives Program Coordinator
e-mail: ckrauth[at]tmaemarketing.com (Please replace [at] with @)