Constructing a high-availability application in the cloud can seem like a daunting process. The key is to assume that every component of a system will fail at some point and to prepare for that eventuality. Then you can build for failure and automate processes to handle it. Fault-tolerant systems designed for high availability - for example, 99.99% or 1 hour of downtime per year - are achievable in the cloud.

Here is a four-step guide to achieving high availability in the cloud.

Instances in the cloud - just as in a typical data center - are ephemeral. You need to be prepared for server failure. Building for server failure begins with designing stateless applications that are resilient through a server or service reboot or relaunch.

• Set up auto-scaling so that any given tier of your application - load balancer, app server, database, and caching servers - can maintain a minimum number of nodes or set of performance metrics.
• Set up database mirroring, master/slave configurations, and/or priming to ensure data integrity and minimum downtime.
• Use dynamic DNS and static IPs so that components of your application's infrastructure always have the right context.

2. Build for zone failure

Sometimes more than just single servers fail -- there are electricity failures, network outages, and lightning strikes. You need to make sure that your applications are prepared for zone failures. Zones (Amazon Web Services refers to them as "availability zones") are distinct locations that are engineered to be insulated from failures in other zones.

• Spread the servers in each of your application tiers across at least two zones.
• Replicate data across zones. Note that this is usually cheap, though not free.

3. Build for cloud failure

On rare occasions multiple zones in a region can fail due to system-wide issues -- the April 2011 Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage is a notable example. Each region is an independent system of resources with its own API endpoint -- which is how we define cloud here.

To achieve multiple 9s of availability, you will need to have a process in place for cloud failures. Building across clouds can be difficult: APIs, services, and configurations differ. You will need to design your architecture using generic concepts (durable storage) yet deploy using cloud specifics (EBS volumes).

Cloud management systems abstract away these differences and make it easier for you to implement a fault-tolerant strategy by providing reusable building blocks. These building blocks can be used to not only withstand moving across different regions of the same provider, but also across regions of different providers.

• Back up or replicate data across regions or providers. Make sure you secure and authenticate your communications across these regions because the traffic will traverse the open Internet.
• Maintain sufficient capacity to absorb zone or cloud failures, using reserved instances if necessary.
• Remember to crawl, then walk: Build high availability across zones and then expand to multiple clouds.

4. Automate and test everything

As you set up your infrastructure to handle server, zone, and cloud failure, you should be automating your processes in the event of failure. Cloud management systems allow you to execute pre-planned failover processes across servers, zones, and clouds. In an emergency, time is precious, so automate everything.

• Automate backups so that your data is ready whenever disaster strikes.
• Set up monitoring and alerts to identify and pinpoint problems as they occur because you may not receive timely information from your cloud providers.
• Your disaster recovery plan is only good if you test it to make sure it works. By randomly directing high loads to your production servers and disabling your various servers, services, and zones, you can test the ability of your infrastructure to withstand failure.

Cloud infrastructure has made disaster recovery and high availability remarkably affordable compared to other options. Despite recent highly publicized failures, many organizations successfully run critical services on the cloud when they architect correctly and use the right management tools.

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Think about it: Choosing the right printer is just like choosing a business partner. As smart entrepreneurs know, the right partner makes you (and your business) look good, pitching in where needed, never leaving you high and dry at 2 a.m. when you're finishing up an important presentation, and always performing at maximum potential.

The Epson WorkForce® Pro printer is a lot like a good partner.

It's the world's fastest two-sided inkjet printer and it's reliable. (Which you'll appreciate when you're printing those slide decks in the wee hours of the morning.) Thanks to a large ink and paper capacity, the Epson WorkForce® Pro requires less printer downtime to add paper and ink than competitive models. Even two-sided printing is practical and pain-free!

The Epson WorkForce® Pro is built to perform -- with technology that allows the ink to dry instantly, creating smudge, fade, and water-resistant prints that are half the price per page for color printing versus laser (not to mention the savings on paper). Better printer efficiency and value means more money in your pocket -- and a nicer pocket, too. That's why it's one of the easiest and smartest business decisions you'll ever make, allowing you to run your business at full speed.

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Skip to info about: Alcatel-Lucent: Application developer platform | Medill School of Journalism: Digital journalism programs | BTBuckets: Free personalization and on-site behavioral targeting tool | Zoho Creator: The easiest and fastest way to build custom applications on your own, online | Conduit: The fastest-growing network of web and mobile app publishers | Digital Media Skills Certificate at American University: Retool your technical skills, refocus your career goals, and reinvigorate how you think about Digital Media | RightScale: A fully automated cloud management platform | Skytap: Cloud solutions for enterprises and ISVs | Frequency: A personal video service that combs the Web to find and deliver the stuff you're interested in most | Clickatell: SMS provider | Toopia: Our iPhone app developer

Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry, is turning the network into a powerful platform for developers.

With the launch of the Alcatel-Lucent Developer Platform, the company provides service providers and enterprises with tools that enable third-party developers to build, test, manage and distribute applications across networks, including television, broadband Internet and mobile. Alcatel-Lucent's introduction of a radical new business model combines network APIs with other third-party APIs, and opens revenue sharing opportunities to support developers in their pre-revenue wallets and provides an additional revenue channel for service providers.

The developer platform is part of a larger push by the company to combine the trusted capabilities of service providers with the speed and innovation of the Web.

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Medill School of Journalism

The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University offers programs that combine the enduring skills and values of journalism with new techniques and knowledge that are essential to thrive in a digital world. You might have a passion for creating finely crafted prose, or for telling stories using visual tools. Maybe you are invigorated by the possibilities of interactive publishing, or by videography for the small screen. Maybe you are an experienced professional looking to renew and retool your multimedia skills. You can find your niche in Medill's graduate journalism program.

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BTBuckets

BTBuckets is a free personalization and on-site behavioral targeting tool that allows websites to increase engagement and ultimately maximize conversion rate optimization (CRO) by clustering and targeting specific user groups. With a simple installation process (a single tag implemented on your site's webpages just like Google Analytics), BTBuckets can update and adapt your website in real-time to create the best experience for that specific user segment without the need to change any HTML code on your website.

BTBuckets segmentation capabilities include behavioral, demographic, customer life-cycle, technographic and firmograhic. Install the BTBuckets browser extension to create segments from within the Google Analytics interface and target these users immediately.

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Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator is a web based platform that lets users build customized business applications on their own. Zoho Creator is completely non-programmer friendly. It's intuitive drag and drop interface makes it easy for anyone to build apps easily and quickly. It packs a wide range of features including Workflow, Extensive Reports, Analytics, Schedulers, Notifications and more. Sign up for Free!

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Conduit

Conduit is the fastest-growing network of web and mobile app publishers with over 260,000 members and their 230 million end-users. The Conduit Network empowers publishers - from global brands to independent developers - to create, exchange and distribute apps, and to collaborate through business partnerships.

Conduit enables publishers to seamlessly encapsulate content and deploy it everywhere from web browsers and Community Toolbars to mobile devices across all platforms. Publishers can distribute and exchange their apps directly, or through the Conduit App Marketplace. Conduit-powered apps enhance engagement, retention and monetization beyond the boundaries of the publisher's website.

With Conduit, global brands including Major League Baseball, Time Warner Cable, Univision, the Chelsea Football Club, Fox News, iVillage, Groupon, Travelocity, and TechCrunch are marketing themselves online - along with hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized organizations in more than 120 countries around the world. Join the Conduit Network at www.conduit.com.

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Digital Media Skills Certificate at American University

American University's online graduate certificate in Digital Media Skills allows students to work full-time while taking challenging graduate-level online courses taught by experienced faculty trained to deliver superior content. In just 12 months, students will complete coursework in Digital Media Literacy, Web Development, Dynamic Content, and Video for Social Media. The final capstone project allows students to focus their interests in a particular area and to produce a professional portfolio that clearly demonstrates their skills, knowledge and digital vision. An optional on-campus session at the end of the program allows the opportunity to get one-on-one critiques from industry leaders.

Retool your technical skills, refocus your career goals, and reinvigorate how you think about Digital Media. The future is here. Don't be left behind. Learn more.

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RightScale

RightScale is the leader in cloud computing management and enables organizations to easily deploy and manage business critical applications across multiple clouds.

Why you'll love RightScale:

• Manage your entire cloud infrastructure from a single dashboard
• Use ServerTemplates™ for dynamic configuration at run-time
• Monitor and scale deployments to meet fluctuating demand
• Clone servers and deployments and modify as needed
• Launch deployments across multiple clouds

Once you create your free account, you'll be able to launch, monitor, and manage a server deployment in the cloud from the Web-based RightScale Dashboard. Try it free!

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Skytap

Skytap provides cloud automation solutions for enterprises and software vendors to develop, test, migrate, evaluate, demo, and train on new and existing applications in the cloud. Skytap Cloud is ideal for distributed Dev/Test, Training and Sales Demo teams. Teams are empowered to:

• Create multiple cloud environments in seconds
• Run existing applications without any code changes
• Deploy virtual data centers, take snapshots and collaborate
• Accelerate bug resolution cycles by 75%
• Reduce operating costs by 70% annually

Customers of all sizes can deploy Skytap in a day. Try Skytap for free.

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Frequency

Frequency is a free video discovery platform with over 1,000 channels of programming. Our users follow their favorite topics, channels, and videos posted to their Facebook and Twitter networks in one continuous, personalized stream. The Frequency engine also allows users to follow the video streams of their favorite blogs and websites, by automatically extracting videos from their RSS Feeds and assembling them on a personal video page. Even ReadWriteWeb has its own dedicated Frequency channel. With over one million monthly users, Frequency viewers have cumulatively watched over 28 years of video through their personal streams since the site launched in late 2010.

Thank Frequency on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Clickatell

Clickatell has over 22,000 customers utilizing our service from small mom & pop outfits to large Fortune 500 companies including Avaya, Oracle, Shell, Barclays, BP, CNN, BBC and more. Here's why you should trust us to mobilize your business: Our SMS gateway offers you wider coverage than any other SMS provider delivering messages to 600 network operators in 200 countries. Our gateway is not limited to SMS text messaging. You can also send a number of other message types including Ringtones, VCards, Binary, EMS, Unicode, Flash SMS, WAP Push, and more.

Clickatell offers you direct connectivity to its core SMS gateway platform via a number of APIs (application programming interfaces) including; HTTP (internet post), SMPP, FTP, XML, SMTP (email to SMS), SOAP and COM Object. Each API has full documentation with sample code where applicable. Learn more about Clickatell here.

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Toopia

Nicolas Koenig is the developer who made our beautiful iPhone app a reality. He runs an iPhone development shop from the Netherlands called Toopia. Toopia also created the Thermometer iPhone app, which enables your iPhone or iPod touch to get the current temperature based on your location. The RWW app lets you read us on the go, follow us on Twitter, share stories on Facebook and Twitter, and browse at your leasure using Read it Later and Instapaper. Download the ReadWriteWeb iPhone application here.

Thank Toopia on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

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The legacy IT model can no longer meet the requirements of today's agile development teams. Historically, the old IT model required at best two to four weeks to spec out a development and test environment, order the machines, network and storage gear, wait for delivery, rack it, and configure them. That procurement process is extremely time-consuming, inconvenient and costly. Today's development teams require a new approach to obtain much needed IT resources quickly for their development and test projects.

• Deliver a self-service solution portal. Developers can create, replicate, change or delete entire software dev/test stacks in seconds.
• Provide on-demand scalability and configurability. Developers can create new release stacks on-demand and in a consistent and dependable fashion as they go through release cycles.
• Provision multiple dev/test environments. Test engineers can run multiple copies of a release, build and test various OS/DB/Browser combinations and scale the environments up or down quickly, as needed.
• Enable constant time snapshots and rapid bug reproduction. Dev teams can recreate any complex bug scenarios (including production issues), rapidly snapshot those environments, make changes, run tests and compare the results to the original.
• Facilitate collaboration and parallel work streams. Engineers can collaborate and share access to those environments with other engineers and support professionals over the Web.

At the same time, IT professionals can get full visibility and control over cloud environments. In particular, they can:

• Set-up dev/test environment templates that are IT policy compliant.
• Create users, roles, access control lists and permissions.
• Establish hybrid cloud architecture to connect to in-house data centers.
• Assign group, project and individual level quota for machines, storage and networks.
• Track usage by month, by user, by project and implement charge backs if needed.
• Audit and ensure compliance policies are followed.

The result?

IT teams that adopt a cloud-enabled agile IT solution such as Skytap Cloud can expect to reduce their total cost of ownership by more than 70% while also reducing the release cycle time by more than 75% when compared to the legacy IT infrastructure. Agile IT empowers development teams to achieve the full potential of the agile model. In addition, IT will be able to retain full visibility and control over cloud environments and reduce operating costs.

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Editor's note: We offer our long-term sponsors the opportunity to write posts and tell their story. These posts are clearly marked as written by sponsors, but we also want them to be useful and interesting to our readers. We hope you like the posts and we encourage you to support our sponsors by trying out their products.

Running a small business is never easy. There are too many things to do but too little time, manpower and finance at your disposal. While cleverly juggling smart moves and a bit of luck can take care of the time and manpower, being cash strapped is one thing that needs more than just that. And most small businesses are cash strapped.

For two reasons:

• Spreadsheets and files are not nearly enough to manage the different aspects of your business efficiently. The world has moved on to the cloud. Tweets have replaced emails, and chats are the new phone calls. Why, then, would you lug around files after files containing sensitive and important data?
• You don't have to hire IT guys to build and manage your business applications.

A Mexican standoff? Not quite. Get around both of these with a stroke of brilliance. Build custom business applications - yourself. Yes you - with limited or absolutely no programming expertise - can build a complex looking application all by yourself, in minutes.

Zoho Creator is just what you need. Zoho Creator is a database software that lets users build customized business applications online. Building a customized business application is not rocket science. No really.

Here's a checklist that can help you decide if you can build your own app.

• You own the business? Yes.
• You know what you need to manage a particular department in your business? Yes.
• It will be your decision to hire an IT guy to develop the custom app for you? Yes.
• You will be briefing the IT guy on what your application needs to do? Yes.
• And when he comes up with an application, you'll be the one testing it out to see if it is really what you ​need? Yes.

If you answered yes to at least three of the above questions, then congratulations. You have what it takes to build a full-fledged customized application, all by yourself.

With a simple platform like Zoho Creator, you don't have to look any further. Zoho Creator's intuitive drag and drop interface lets anyone build customized applications easily and quickly. Include all the business rules and workflows you need, throw in some reports and spice it up schedulers and email notifications without breaking a sweat or burning a hole in your pocket.

When it's all done, stand back and take pride in yourself for being such an awesome craftsman.

Welcome to the world of creators!​

Photo by mjw

Beginning a new social media program or demonstrating to senior management its value can be a challenge. While social media is becoming established in marketing, many still struggle to prove its value to the bottom line.

Perhaps one of the most important of all metrics, engagement with users is likely one of the main reasons your social media program was started. Measuring where, how and why it's happening and increasing its effectiveness and frequency across channels is vital to program success.

Measuring engagement is much more than simply measuring how many people have opted in to receiving your content. You might have 50,000 Twitter followers or 5,000 Facebook fans, but are they really interacting with and listening to you, and if so, what can you learn about that audience that can help you hone your messaging?

There are four steps to consider when answering this question.

Step One: Determine where it's happening

Most social marketing programs include multiple platforms, and activity can vary from one platform to the next. It's important to understand where your activity is happening and what type of activity that is.

Let's say you have comparable sized networks on Twitter and Facebook, but you're getting more of the key signs of engagement on Twitter (retweets, replies, mentions) than on Facebook (comments, likes, shares). There's something going on there that's worth looking into.

Looking at each platform you're using and comparing it to others will tell you where your fans or customers are the most engaged. If a clear front-runner emerges, that information will help to inform where your efforts should be concentrated, and where you may need to work on growing your audience.

Step Two: Determine how and why it's happening

The next step is to measure the "how" and "why" parts of the engagement question. To do this, we recommend taking a broader look at your data to identify trends. For instance:

• Choose a larger date range, for example the last six months, and compare that data to the first six months.
• Compare month to month, especially if your program is relatively new and you don't have many months of data.
• Look at specific pieces of content, and identify the ones that are creating the most engagement.
• On a daily or weekly basis, determine whether there are specific times when your audience is more engaged, whether it's a particular day of the week, or a time of day.

This allows you to see trends in active users - how many of your fans visit monthly, weekly, or daily and what they're doing when they visit.

It also allows you to see trends in interactions - how often and when are you creating buzz in your user community, how many comments and likes do you get on average, what content has generated the most feedback, etc.

You'll begin to see clear spikes in interactions where your content was really successful.

• Compare those spikes in interactions to the piece of content you posted that generated that feedback, and use that information to inform future posts.
• Think about your active base, how much real engagement you're getting as opposed to just getting in front of your audience. In the case of Facebook, a high number of page views compared to a low number of actual interactions means that you have a small active base and room for improvement.

You'll develop a sense of the interactions your audience is making with you, and you can begin to answer the question of how and why. This is a valuable addition to where and how much.

Step Three: Find your most engaging content and hone in

Using this information, you'll be able to clearly identify what engagement levels your content is eliciting. For instance, certain kinds of posts may get more feedback, while other kinds of posts garner little to no attention at all. Is it the title? Is it the type of post? Was the content posted at a certain time of the day or week?

By honing in on the content that people really respond to, and reducing or eliminating the efforts that aren't working, you can begin to refine and replicate the types of content that most engages people, that people find the most valuable.

Step Four: Put it in perspective

It's also important to remember that engagement can be a very broad term. You want to make sure you're looking at it not just by itself, but also in terms of your total audience. If your level of engagement is high in a very small part of your overall community, you need to consider whether that's moving towards your goals.

How many overall followers do you have in a given network, and of those, what percentage are actively responding to you, interacting with your page and sharing your content? The higher the percentage, the higher your engagement.

By putting these steps together, you'll be able to better understand how effective your content is at creating an engaged and interactive audience, and how well it's helping you achieve your business goals.

For more information on Measurement, check the Awareness whitepaper, The Top 9 Social Media Metrics Marketers Need to Know, or our latest e-book, The Social Funnel: Driving Business Value with Social Marketing.

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1. Loving a cloud before determining the problem you are trying to solve. Just move to the cloud. It's easy right? As they say on TV... "To the cloud!" The fact is, moving to the cloud as an SMB can be both advantageous and overwhelming. Adopting cloud computing technology within your organization should only be done if it solves an immediate problem not because of popularity trends.

SMB Cloud Tip: Determine the problem you are trying to solve. Moving to the cloud should make sense for all specific requirements of your business.

2. Spending dev test resources getting your apps to run in the cloud.

Some clouds won't look so white and fluffy once you realize that you have to rewrite your code or applications to work on that cloud provider's platform. Assuming that you can just sign up for any cloud service and then experience nirvana is a very real and painful lesson that businesses of all sizes have experienced.

Do yourself a favor and learn from the mistakes of others. Most users are already familiar with the business and technical applications they use today, whether its email, training or sales demo applications. clouds that power these applications without any changes will deliver immediate value. At Skytap, we have learned firsthand that SMB users won't always wait for IT to build or rewrite applications for use in the cloud.

SMB Cloud Tip: Running your existing applications without changes is a huge factor in determining if a cloud is easy to use and cost effective, especially for SMB's.

3. Ignoring IT policies, security and getting enamored with self-service.

"I don't need IT anymore. I have a cloud, right?" Wrong... in fact very wrong! Moving to the cloud doesn't mean washing your hands of IT policies. You cannot assume that a cloud will manage itself. You must make sure that your selected provider allows the ability to enforce IT policies with cost controls and charge-back billing to internal groups.

The solution should have the capability to ensure quotas can be applied to individuals and departments to cap usage. Most importantly the solution should enable IT policies to be enforced globally, such as approved subnet ranges for virtual data centers and the ability to prevent assignment of public IP addresses to virtual machines.

SMB Cloud Tip: Your IT team should have complete visibility and control over anything and everything you do with the cloud.

4. Assuming the cloud will manage itself and not watching the meter run.

It is a common misconception that moving to the cloud will help your business realize immediate cost savings. The reality is that the cloud can prove to be a "free for all" system if not carefully managed. Most infrastructure providers offer no advanced and easy to use cost control capabilities such as auto-suspending resources when not in use to save cloud usage costs.

This often times can lead to cloud sticker shock. Solutions like Skytap Cloud can measure the value on a per user basis as well as offer distinct pricing for different usage levels. Having a solution like this in place can help you avoid paying the same fee for light and heavy users within your organization.

SMB Cloud Tip: Avoid spiraling cloud costs by choosing a provider that enables you to automatically manage usage.

5. Select a cloud that is not user friendly and a provider that offers no enterprise level support

One of the most painful things is not being able to get responsive support when you need help, especially when your business is on the line. Success in new technologies, such as cloud computing, requires responsive support. Determine if you can call your cloud provider directly or if you must work through an online form or email inquiry to troubleshoot an issue or resolve an open question.

Also ensure that the support team will respond to your inquiries within a few hours versus a day or more. Lastly, avoid long-term contracts with providers, especially if you are just getting started with the cloud. Stick to providers like Skytap who won't lock you into long-term contracts.

SMB Cloud Tip: There are several cloud options. Choose a solution that is easy to use and a provider that will support you well.

About the Author: Nate Odell is Director of Marketing at Skytap, a leading provider of cloud automation solutions. He is an industry veteran with a successful 11-year career in B2B marketing for Startups and SMB's. Follow Nate on Twitter @N8Odell or @Skytap.

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It can be difficult to stand out from the crowd as a startup, especially in the Bay Area. Startups are sprouting up every minute and begging for the attention of VCs and journalists alike. But who are the real success stories? Who will we see around in five or 10 years?

1. Aravo Solutions Inc.
2. Booyah Inc.
3. Castlight Health
4. ClairMail
5. Cloud Engines Inc.
6. Cloudmark Inc.
7. Clustrix
8. Cyan Optics Inc.
9. CyberArts Licensing LLC
10. Delivery Agent, Inc.
11. Ecast
12. Eightfold Logic
13. Engine Yard
14. Envivio, Inc.
15. Eventbrite
16. Flurry, Inc.
17. Glam Media, Inc.
18. Glassdoor.com
19. Healthline Networks, Inc.
20. Hi5 Networks
21. Involver
22. IPWireless
23. JiWire, Inc.
24. Joyent Inc.
25. Kontera Technologies, Inc.
26. LeadQual LLC
27. Lithium Technologies
28. Livescribe Inc.
29. Lookout, Inc.
30. LoopNet Inc.
31. Meraki Inc.
32. MOG Inc.
33. MuleSoft
34. NetShelter Technology Media
35. Okta
36. Pandora
37. Polarion Software
38. Prosper Marketplace, Inc.
39. Quantcast Corporation
40. Rapleaf
41. Reply! Inc.
42. richrelevance™
43. Scribd
44. Sensys Networks
45. Sugar Inc.
46. Tapjoy
47. Teachscape
48. TokBox Inc.
49. TRUSTe
50. Twilio
51. Twitter
52. Ustream TV
53. Workday, Inc.
54. Xobni Corporation
55. Xoom Corporation
56. Yola Inc.
57. Zendesk Inc.
58. Zoom Systems
59. Zoosk Inc.
60. Zynga

Just ask Lead411. The information services company has scoured through 2,200 San Francisco-based companies to determine which are the hottest in terms of growth and revenue for its annual "Hottest Companies in San Francisco" award.

Some of the top 59 companies are no brainers, like Twitter and TRUSTe. Others are companies in software, wireless, Internet, hardware, or media that are still under the radar (though maybe not for long), like Cyan Optics and Mog. Expect to see great things from the startups on this list in the not-so-distant future.

The Quiet Newcomers

"We were pleased to see so many companies not yet developed into startup superstars," said Thomas Blue of Lead411, "It's exciting to identify these companies so early in their careers. We fully expect them to become household names within a few years."

Take Glassdoor.com, the website destined to change how employers and employees interact. The career and workplace community, which recently received $12 million in funding from Battery Ventures, allows users to find and anonymously share reviews, ratings and salary details about specific jobs for specific employers.

Sensys Networks, which is on this year's Inc. 500 list, makes and installs in-ground, wireless sensors that detect traffic at intersections and on freeways to provide better data collection, control and aggregation and to manage traffic flow. The company has increased its revenues by 256% from 2007 to 2009 ending with $13.2 million in 2009.

Each of the 59 finalists for the "Hottest Companies in the San Francisco" award have a story to tell.

The Criteria

To qualify for the award, the companies had to meet certain criteria:

• Be in software, wireless, Internet, hardware, or media industry
• Be privately held and operate in San Francisco
• Have 150% increase in revenues over the past two years and over $3 million in yearly revenues; OR
• Have over $12 million in funding in the past two years

The Future Definitely Looks Bright

If the award winners are any indication of what to expect in the future in technology and media (and we think they are), we are going to continue to see innovations that change the way we work, play and connect.

Take Ecast, the hospitality network that delivers digital music, games, entertainment, information and interactive advertising to more than 10,000 bars and nightclubs across the United States. Its multimedia jukeboxes do more than play the latest Rhianna song: they can also suggest a drink based on ingredients, find local concerts and offer in-house promotions.

Or JIWIRE who is removing the difficulty of finding Wi-Fi hotspots by offering access to the largest multi-national hotspot directory encompassing 11,000 locations, as well as how-to guides for getting unwired.

Teachscape provides data-driven, outcomes-based software solutions and services that increase student achievement by improving instructional leadership and practice. In other words, it's a company that is helping both teachers and students succeed with technology.

All these are companies that are changing the face of our world. By supporting their efforts, we can be a part of the next wave of invention. To view the winners of the "Hottest Companies in San Francisco" click here.

This post was written by Susan Payton, owner of Egg Marketing & Public Relations. She also writes on Lead411's blog.

Interested in being a ReadWriteWeb sponsor? Our readers are smart, tech-savvy decision makers; 40% have a graduate degree or PhD, and over 45% play a key role in information technology purchasing decisions. More than 1 million people on Twitter follow us to stay abreast of the latest Web technology trends from around the globe. To find out more about our sponsor packages, visit our advertising page or email our COO.

Skip to info about: Temboo: Visual programming environment for rapidly developing applications | Site24x7: Online website monitoring service | Conduit: Customized components | Alcatel-Lucent: Application developer platform | Medill School of Journalism: Digital journalism programs | Skytap: Cloud solutions for enterprises and ISVs | BTBuckets: Free personalization and on-site behavioral targeting tool | Mashery: API management services | SES London Conference & Expo: Search and social marketing conference | StrataScale: Server and cloud hosting solutions | WatchMouse: Monitor Website Performance and Functionality | SendGrid: Cloud-based email delivery service | SES New York Conference & Expo: Search and social marketing conference | Crowd Science: Demographic data | Toopia: Our iPhone app developer

Temboo

Temboo's visual programming environment provides a framework for rapidly developing applications that seamlessly incorporate a myriad of internet apps and services. Try Temboo out with your databases, web service APIs, messaging platforms or even desktop applications. Your solutions are run on demand from Temboo's own secure web platform, freeing you to develop without worrying about deployment or hardware configuration. Total data interoperability has arrived! Visit Temboo.com to learn more. Temboo: Programming the Cloud©.

Sign up today for a free 30 day trial!

Thank Temboo on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Site24x7

Site24x7, an online website monitoring service which allows users to monitor their website, web application and online web transactions. Users can get instant alerts when their website goes down. Site24x7 allows monitoring from across 25+ global locations.

Site24x7 pricing starts from $1/Month/URL. Sign-up for a 15-day Free Trial!

Thank Site24x7 on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Conduit

Conduit enables Web publishers to distribute their offerings both directly and through its global network of 250,000 publishers and their 170 million users. The Conduit platform is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to offer the best of your site through apps or a Community Toolbar, sending desktop alerts to your users, and much more.

The Conduit platform opens a new world of content sharing. Your site visitors can add your content right to their browser by clicking on a branded 2go button that you place on your site. You can also share your content in the Conduit App Marketplace where all the publishers and users in the Conduit network can grab it.

The platform has been adopted by major brands such as Fox News, iWin, Major League Baseball, TechCrunch, and Travelocity, as well as thousands of small and medium organizations in 120 countries.

If you would like to Conduit your website, go to www.conduit.com.

Thank Conduit on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry, is turning the network into a powerful platform for developers.

With the launch of the Alcatel-Lucent Developer Platform, the company provides service providers and enterprises with tools that enable third-party developers to build, test, manage and distribute applications across networks, including television, broadband Internet and mobile. Alcatel-Lucent's introduction of a radical new business model combines network APIs with other third-party APIs, and opens revenue sharing opportunities to support developers in their pre-revenue wallets and provides an additional revenue channel for service providers.

The developer platform is part of a larger push by the company to combine the trusted capabilities of service providers with the speed and innovation of the Web.

Thank Alcatel-Lucent on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Medill School of Journalism

The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University offers programs that combine the enduring skills and values of journalism with new techniques and knowledge that are essential to thrive in a digital world. You might have a passion for creating finely crafted prose, or for telling stories using visual tools. Maybe you are invigorated by the possibilities of interactive publishing, or by videography for the small screen. Maybe you are an experienced professional looking to renew and retool your multimedia skills. You can find your niche in Medill's graduate journalism program.

Thank the Medill School of Journalism on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Skytap

Skytap provides cloud automation solutions for enterprises and software vendors to develop, test, migrate, evaluate, demo, and train on new and existing applications in the cloud. Skytap Cloud is ideal for distributed Dev/Test, Training and Sales Demo teams. Teams are empowered to:

• Create multiple cloud environments in seconds
• Run existing applications without any code changes
• Deploy virtual data centers, take snapshots and collaborate
• Accelerate bug resolution cycles by 75%
• Reduce operating costs by 70% annually

Customers of all sizes can deploy Skytap in a day. Try Skytap for free.

Thank Skytap on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

BTBuckets

BTBuckets is a free personalization and on-site behavioral targeting tool that allows websites to increase engagement and ultimately maximize conversion rate optimization (CRO) by clustering and targeting specific user groups. With a simple installation process (a single tag implemented on your site's webpages just like Google Analytics), BTBuckets can update and adapt your website in real-time to create the best experience for that specific user segment without the need to change any HTML code on your website.

BTBuckets segmentation capabilities include behavioral, demographic, customer life-cycle, technographic and firmograhic. Install the BTBuckets browser extension to create segments from within the Google Analytics interface and target these users immediately.

Thank BTBuckets on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Mashery

Mashery is a platform for Web services, allowing companies to manage their APIs using Mashery's expertise. At the "Business of APIs" conference, Mashery CEO Oren Michels explained to the audience that while APIs are a technology, their use is a business decision. He went on to say that Mashery has helped customers such as WhitePages.com, Thumbplay, Compete.com, and Calais. Check out the white paper "Five steps to scaling your business development using Web services" to discover how you can use APIs for your business.

You can find out more about APIs and their business use at www.mashery.com.

Thank Mashery on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

SES London Conference & Expo: 21-25 February 2011

As search continues to evolve in new directions and marketing is becoming more like conversations, marketers are being challenged to learn how to leverage all the new forms of media and technologies. SES London is taking the lead in dissecting the new search landscape and figuring out what it means for you. We're leaving conventional thinking behind and will bring together the brightest minds in digital marketing and the veterans of search to deliver you an entirely new perspective. Providing digital marketers with the foundational know-how and the latest industry techniques - commitments we are devoted to build upon.

Session highlights:

• Key Points in Launching a Global Website
• Content Marketing Optimisation
• Marketing to the European Union
• Augmented Reality Revisited
• Is Search Remarketing/Retartgeting Right for You?
• Local 2.0: The Evolution of Local Search

Thank SES London Conference & Expo on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

StrataScale

StrataScale offers innovative server and cloud hosting solutions to meet the IT infrastructure needs of today's growing and established businesses. Now IT professionals can obtain affordable hosting solutions that control costs, provide agility, and supply peace of mind. Whether your hosting needs are cloud, dedicated server, or a hybrid of the two, the StrataScale complete package of on-demand solutions is easy to buy, build, manage, and scale -- all within minutes via our web portal. Every hosting environment is backed by guaranteed uptime, financial-grade security, and 24x7 engineering support.

Thank StrataScale on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

WatchMouse

WatchMouse monitors website performance and functionality 24x7 from over 50 locations worldwide. Monitors for your website, server or API can be set up in minutes and provide valuable insight into how your users experience your site. Features include Multi-step Transactions, Real Browser Monitoring (including Javascript front-end), and Public Status Pages as used by ReadWriteWeb, Twitter, WordPress, bit.ly and more.

Thank WatchMouse on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

SendGrid

SendGrid is a cloud-based email delivery service that delivers email on behalf of other companies to increase deliverability. With SendGrid, you can rest assured that your email will reach your customers' inbox. Integration takes just minutes via SMTP or can be done through a simple REST API. SendGrid can take the hassle of sending email completely out of your hands, and allow you to focus on being awesome at your core business.

Thank SendGrid on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

SES New York Conference & Expo, March 21-25, 2011

SES New York Conference & Expo: Search, social media, behavioral targeting, mobile, and video are just a few of the areas marketers have struggled to keep pace with within the last year. Advancements like Google Instant, Yahoo's merger with Bing, and Twitter's launch of Promoted Tweets, are just a few of the technological advancements which marketers have had to absorb.

Helping marketers keep pace with a quickly developing digital landscape, the SES Conference & Expo series brings in experts from throughout the industry, providing insight, case studies, and tangible tactics for businesses to employ.

SES New York, one of our most comprehensive shows of the year, attracts up to 6,000 attendees annually from leading brands across the business landscape. Attendees join to connect with the digital community at large, looking to build in-house skills in an array of digital marketing fields. View our agenda to discover what this year's sessions will be covering.

Early Bird Rate: SAVE up to $700 plus an additional 20% now through January 21st. Enter RWW20. Register Now!

• Information Architecture for the Modern Website
• Analytics RX: Just What the Doctor Ordered
• PPC Beyond Search: New Ad Formats, Display & Social
• Crossing the Digital Divide: The Leap From Search to Display
• Website Usability, Testing & SEO

• Creating Social Media Strategies Using Audience Research
• How to Architect a Search-Engine-Friendly Website
• Getting Your In-House Search Program Up & Running
• Google AdWords Tactics to Improve Your ROI

Thank SES New York on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Crowd Science

Crowd Science gives online publishers reports on the demographics and attitudes of their audience. We at ReadWriteWeb have signed up to this new service, because demographic data is something we've struggled to get in the past. It's important for any online business to know their audience, so Crowd Science is a welcome addition to the stats armory that most of us in the Internet biz use.

Sign up to get demographic data from Crowd Science.

Thank Crowd Science on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Toopia

Nicolas Koenig is the developer who made our beautiful iPhone app a reality. He runs an iPhone development shop from the Netherlands called Toopia. Toopia also created the Thermometer iPhone app, which enables your iPhone or iPod touch to get the current temperature based on your location. The RWW app lets you read us on the go, follow us on Twitter, share stories on Facebook and Twitter, and browse at your leasure using Read it Later and Instapaper. Download the ReadWriteWeb iPhone application here.

Thank Toopia on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

The companies above pay our rents or mortgages and we appreciate it. We hope you'll stop by their sites and see what they've got to offer.

Have you got a smart company that could use some more visits by the sophisticated readers of a blog like ReadWriteWeb's? Drop us a line and let's talk.

Thanks to all our sponsors and our readers for your support!

Let's face it. As users, we all love the cloud model. Cloud enables us with self-service freedom, on-demand resources and pay-as-you go flexibility. In a matter of minutes we can get access to cloud resources without too many constraints. That freedom leaves users wanting more. The proof of this adoption is evident in both market growth estimates (Gartner¹ predicts cloud services to grow 49% annually until 2014) and overall usage growth. At Skytap we have seen our usage grow by 400% from last year).

Business and IT leaders, however, are worried about data security and governance issues. They want to ensure the transformative value of the cloud model does not come at the cost of having no visibility and control. This concern is the primary barrier to cloud adoption in user surveys.

The natural question is, can a cloud solution provide both security and freedom? Can users be empowered with self-service access while the business maintains full visibility and control? What is required to make that happen successfully?

Customers who are using the cloud successfully to transform their business typically organize their solution requirements under three Ps:

• People
• Process
• Platform Technology

Let's discuss individual solution requirements that make up the three Ps.

People

First and foremost, before you engage a cloud provider with your business applications and data, you have to be able to identify the right people with specific roles in your organization. Here are some questions to explore:

• What business problem is the user trying to solve?
• Does the problem require highly dynamic IT resources?
• Is this a cloud proven use case such as development, test, migration, training or POC type environments?
• Does the user have the functional skills to manage cloud resources on their own?
• Are they moving an existing application or creating a new application?
• If an existing application is being moved to the cloud, will the cloud require custom code? For example, a solution such as Skytap may be able to run your existing applications without modifications, while infrastructure services such as Amazon Web services may require you to fit a particular format. Knowing the difference will help you be clear about whether the user has the skills to leverage the cloud they are after.
• How will the data movement be handled? Will it be as easy to move out, as it is to move in?

By being clear about these questions upfront you can identify whom the primary cloud owner in your company is going to be. Successful cloud customers assign a primary cloud owner that has the day-to-day business and IT management responsibilities and individual users with specific roles. For example:

• In a development and test project, the dev manager may be defined as the primary cloud owner with lead engineers and testers defined as project users.
• In a virtual training project, trainers may be defined as cloud users and students may be provided only anonymous access to cloud resources.
• In an app migration project, the IT administrator will likely be the cloud owner with individual developers and business analysts playing a restricted functional role.

By being clear about the problem, the team, the cloud owner, the user roles and responsibilities, you can govern the security and compliance aspects of the cloud per your individual corporate policies.

Process

The next step is to be clear about the process of moving to the cloud and managing the cloud on an on-going basis. Defining an upfront process that is simple, easy and automated is necessary for consistent and successful cloud adoption.

If you are using a cloud-based application such as Salesforce.com, you have to be clear about the sales process it automates and define the rules of engagement. If you are using cloud resources to automate your development, test, and training processes, you must be clear about process your users will adopt.

Here are some best practice process tips:

• Create application and system templates that are policy compliant from a security, licensing and data perspective
• Organize different use cases by project
• Create users with project specific roles and provide project specific templates
• Provide user specific quota limits to align cloud usage with business needs

Once you define the process, it is easier to empower your teams with a self-service cloud solution.

Platform technology

The cloud solution you choose determines how well you can instrument your process and more importantly, how well your people can adhere to them. While cloud computing is about delivering self-service, scalability, and cost efficiencies, it is also about enabling your business and security processes.

Here are some important technology factors to consider.

Self-service solution - Does the solution you are considering implement the applications and business processes you already have? Can you manage your user groups as a team? Will your users require substantial training and enablement?

Visibility and control - Can the cloud solution deliver detailed visibility reports at the user level as well as at the project level? Does it give you granular control over user access by role and by project? Will you be able to avoid uncontrolled usage with pro-active monitoring?

Scalable and reliable architecture - Can the solution provider articulate how they can provide on-demand resources you need? How do they operate on a reliable basis? Do they allow you to snapshot and save an entire virtual data center as a template?

Security - It is important to cover with the provider how they will enable you to manage your application and data security. The security topic can cover many aspects including:

• Application and data transportability - How open and flexible is the cloud solution provider? Do they allow you to move in and move out easily?
• Data center security - Do they operate out of SAS 70 Type II data centers? Are their personnel well trained?
• Resource security - How are the physical machines and storage controlled and how is access to the machines managed?
• Virtualization security - Do they use virtualization? If so, how are the compute nodes, network and storage nodes integrated and secured?
• Granular access controls - Does the cloud solution enable you to define multiple groups, individual roles, granular role based access control for projects, proper password policies and data encryption (in transit and at rest)?

Cost efficiencies - How is the cloud architected to scale so that you get the benefits of volume discounts as well as a pay-as-you go model? Will you be required to pay upfront capital expenses? When you exceed your subscription level how are overages handled?

Up to this point, individual developers taking matters into their own hands have driven most of the cloud adoption. As businesses focus on getting visibility and control, factors identified through the people-process-technology framework can play a crucial role in how you will adopt the cloud model for your business. Of course, only a hands-on trial can help you decide that for yourself. Armed with this knowledge you can actively engage your business users, partner with them to define the right roles, process and select the right cloud solution that will transform your business.

About the Author: Sundar Raghavan is chief product and marketing officer at Skytap, a leading provider of cloud automation solutions. He is an industry veteran with a successful 18-year career in product and marketing roles at Google, Ariba, Arbor Software (now part of Oracle), and Microstrategy.

¹Cloud Infrastructure as a Service - Lydia Leong, Sep 2010

Photo by sundstrom

It happens to all of us. You hear from your support desk, call center, or customers via Twitter that there is a problem with your website. Servers crash, applications break, and/or networks slow down to a snail's pace. So, what should you do when it happens?

Don't panic! Here are five steps that can help you to hunt down the cause and ease the pain of your website woes:

Priority one: inform your website visitors before you do anything else. Let them know you are aware of the issues and that you are working on it. Read more on the benefits of transparency here.

Step 2: Inform IT

If you're not in the IT department yourself, let them know there might be something wrong. They have their own ways to find possible causes, and better still - they can fix them!

Step 3: See for yourself

Do what everyone does: open your website in your browser of choice. If the page doesn't show up, or the page is blank, unfamiliar, or loads slow, move on to Step four. Even if the website looks okay in your browser, you may still want to check it from another location outside your corporate network via a site like downornot.com.

Step 4: Collect More Information

There are a myriad of free tools that can help you diagnose website issues:

• Check for possible network issues with ping from over 50 locations worldwide: just-ping.com.
• Another way to see if the network is the cause is by using trace route: watchmouse.com/traceroute.php.
• If the DNS is not working, nothing works, so check your site with: intodns.com and just-dnslookup.com.
• Check if there are general Internet issues here: internettrafficreport.com.
• Your site might work in some browsers, but not in all. Find out here: browsershots.org.
• Slowness might be the cause of the problems, take a speed exam for your site: gtmetrix.com.

Step 5: Get it Fixed!

Now that you have a range of information about the possible cause and characteristics of the problem, contact the appropriate party and provide them with useful input. Depending on your organization you might just be the one having things fixed!

Mark Pors is CTO and co-founder of WatchMouse, a company that monitors websites and services 24x7 from over 50 locations worldwide and delivers detailed insight about their performance, uptime, and functionality. Inspired by the dashboards of Amazon and Google, WatchMouse introduced Public Status Pages (PSP) in early 2010. Companies like Twitter, Mozilla, WordPress, and many more use this product to be even more transparent to their customers, users and developers.

When Gmail is slow, Amazon trips, when there is a Facebook issue, or Foursquare's API crashes, people get upset, and tens of thousands reveal their anxiety on social networks.

Every time there is a major outage, security issue, or malfunction we see this pattern of raised anxiety, doubts, and questioning of services in the cloud in general.

This makes perfect sense of course, as Web apps and Web services have become more prevalent and are now an essential part of our daily habits and work. The advantage of Web apps is compelling: simply grab a PC, iPad, laptop or mobile phone and you have everything at your fingertips. But there is a downside too: we become dependent on the cloud infrastructure and our connectivity to the network.

The reality is that software and services break. Desktop software normally breaks with one user at a time, although millions will be affected over time. If a Web app breaks however, hundreds of thousands are affected at the same time. There is also a psychological effect: when software on a computer fails, people often feel (partly) responsible for it. With Web apps, the provider is the only one to blame.

So even if Web apps are far more reliable than local apps - and I believe this is often the case - the public outcry is far more extensive. Especially now, when typing "#fail" on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, is only seconds away.

What does this imply for the companies behind the Web apps we use every day? The single most important thing is to have the communication channels in place well before a 'crisis' strikes.

I personally suggest having the following at minimum:

1. A blog or status page that is hosted independent (and scalable!) from the main website and services. Easy, predictable, standard names should be used: blog.company-or-brand.com and status.company-or-brand.com, respectively. A good example: status.readwriteweb.com. Preferably these pages should include up-to-date, live, stats.
2. A Twitter name where one can post quick updates. If possible @company-or-brand should be used here too. Example: @rww.

This first level of transparency makes it easy for people to get informed and immediately results in lower anxiety levels. This in turn, helps to stamp out rogue stories in times of crisis, and reduces the load on the company's customer service contact center.

Many companies have set up public status pages already.

Next, when an outage or other crisis starts unfolding, these companies should make sure to cover the next points:

• Admit failure as soon as possible, preferably by someone high up in the organization
• Make sure the posts and updates sound human, no standard sound bites
• Explain in detail who and what is affected (which regions, percentage of customers, what services, etc.)
• Publish a detailed timeline of the outage, and start maintaining this immediately after the first event
• Share detailed post mortem reports and lessons learned after the crisis is over
• Read more here for a more detailed analysis of the psychology of transparency

If these guidelines are followed, the added benefit is that it actually induces and instills a higher trust in the company and its brand - not less. It also gets the message across quickly and efficiently, so it can then be relayed across social networks, instead of leaving it up to the guesses of the public or the media. Finally, it will save serious money in the company's contact center, as it sets the right expectations.

Companies that are transparent about issues regarding their services will actually gain kudos and trust.

So the next time there is an issue with your favorite application on the Web and www.your-favorite-app.com is not working: you might want to check out status.your-favorite-app.com to see if there is up-to-date information before you type "#fail". A Public Status Page may just be waiting for you there.

Stan P. van de Burgt is CEO and co-founder of WatchMouse, a company that monitors websites and services 24x7 from over 50 locations worldwide and delivers detailed insight about their performance, uptime, and functionality. Inspired by the dashboards of Amazon and Google, WatchMouse introduced Public Status Pages (PSP) in early 2010. Companies like Twitter, Mozilla, WordPress, and many more use this product to be even more transparent to their customers, users and developers.

Foursquare is a social network focused on connecting users and allowing them to broadcast their locations using mobile devices such as the iPhone, Blackberry phones and Android phones. Foursquare is especially unique and attractive because it allows marketers to tie programs to a physical point of sale activities - something that has proven to be difficult to accomplish in the broader social Web.

To help answer the question, we chatted with some brands, took a hard look at how some are currently using Foursquare, and came up with the list of five steps below.

Determine How Your Brand Stacks Up on Foursquare

Before diving into a full-blown Foursquare campaign, you might want to see if your business is even listed and how active users are engaging with it. First, find out how many check-ins your business has received over the past several months and how many of those were unique check-ins. If you have multiple locations, find out who your top mayors are and how many check-ins they have made in the past several months.

Using third-party social marketing tools such as Foursquare Perspectives, brands are able to derive valuable and useful insights on how Foursquare users are interacting with their physical locations. Foursquare reports deliver key statistics such as total venues, total check-ins, unique visitors and total mayorships, and they present that data through comprehensive charts, graphs and maps to help marketers easily visualize key market trends among Foursquare locations.

For example, here's Home Depot's Foursquare Perspectives report:

Are all your brand locations and venues covered? What locations are seeing the most check-ins?

Own Your Venues

It's your business, so take ownership of it! Venues on Foursquare are created by individual members as they check in to a location and are often missing important information or are inaccurate. Be sure to track your venue as each venue can be represented by categories and tags. By claiming your venue on Foursquare, you also gain access to extra data and the interface to provide special offers to your customers who are checking in. There is a link on your venue page where you can do this. If you have many locations, try the Foursquare Perspectives report to show you all the venues in Foursquare.

Utilize Tips

This type of targeted campaign helps to influence and drive awareness and traffic to your business to hopefully result in sale conversions.

Market Your Participation

Let your customers know that your venue is a part of Foursquare! Display marketing materials like the official Foursquare window stickers at each one of your venues. Promote your participation on your other social channels such as Facebook and Twitter, telling your fans and followers about any specials you may have for people who check in.

Encourage your customers to check in. Having users check in and share that check-in virally is a powerful marketing tool. Each check-in can be broadcast to that person's friends on Twitter and Facebook.

While some of your social media-savvy customers will already be a part of Foursquare and check in to your locations, the majority of them don't even know it exists. By marketing your participation publicly at your venue and across your other social channels, you are not only promoting your business and any special deals, but you are also helping to increase participation.

Give Them a Reason to Check In

Encourage your customers to continuously come back to your business and check in by giving them a reason to! The gaming features of Foursquare are fun for many users, but after a while, they will want to start receiving rewards for their loyal check-ins to your business. Don't leave them hanging. Develop and implement a Foursquare loyalty system for repeat customers that is similar to the punch cards many businesses give out. For example, award every tenth check-in with a free small coffee or offer the mayor of your location a lunch for free every week. You can get as creative as you want with your offers.

Foursquare also provides the ability to target first-time customers (well, customers that are first-time users of Foursquare). Your business can benefit by rewarding first-time check-ins to encourage new customers to visit locations for the first time. While most brands are focused on rewarding repeat, loyal customers, there is a big opportunity to reward first-time customers, too.

The thought of adding yet another social channel to your marketing mix may seem daunting, but the addition of Foursquare can be as easy as adding a few tips and promoting your involvement to the channels you are already a part of. Don't take a wait-and-see approach. With about 2 million users and 15,000 new users joining daily, Foursquare is a social channel that shouldn't be ignored; it's another way to generate a more loyal customer base and encourage more physical point-of-sale activities.

By David Carter, CTO, Awareness, Inc.

Clicking around the Allure Bays Corp. (ABC) site feels like visiting a real company online. However, ABC is a fictitious corporation invented by Microsoft to demonstrate the power and capabilities of Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, a program that allows users to collaborate with others and publish information to the Web.

Through videos, as well as visual and audio clues, ABC's "employees" act out scenarios that explain how they're using Microsoft's programs to increase their productivity in rather unconventional ways. For instance, if you want to progress from one video to the next, you'll have to uncover a few dozen Easter eggs hidden throughout the site.

By clicking certain items like a projector, or searching for terms like "information capture", you'll be treated to a series of rewards that allow you to progress through the entire site. For those who become registered users, it provides access to a leaderboard that keeps track of Easter egg discovery progress.

Pop culture junkies will recognize references to everything from The Wizard of Oz to Superman II. And here's a hint: If you keep an eye on ABC's Twitter feed, you'll pick up clues to uncover more Easter eggs, which will let you keep climbing that leaderboard. At the heart of ABC is one big commercial for Microsoft, but it definitely beats sitting through forced fed ads that separate you from content you want to view.