While my team still actively uses Google Reader every day, I must admit, I’m one of those “loyal” followers who has almost stopped using the product to connect with other bloggers the way I once did…  While people like Mike Mueller are looking for alternatives, I’m still surprised no one has given me a slick web version of Zite or Flipboard.

The post End of the Google Reader era… Where’s my web version of Zite? appeared first on Dustin Luther.

This will be my first SXSW experience and definitely plan to immerse myself for a few days of fun.  My first memory of

If you’re also going to be at SXSW, make sure to stop by the TechZulu Lounge.  As sponsors of the lounge, I’m expecting the entire D&B Credibility crew to not only be spending a lot of time there, but also sharing lots of stories and recording tons of video on behalf of the entire #SBflock community!   (i.e. Silicon Beach Flock!).

Hope to see you there!

The post SXSWi: The #SBflock is Descending appeared first on Dustin Luther.

For those curious, for this particular video, we used the Lapse It app and added the “sketch toon” effect.  Fun stuff!

The post Time-lapse: Waffle-making morning appeared first on Dustin Luther.

A Handful

Hopefully you’ve noticed that I’ve been blogging more than a bit more over here lately!  (and you may have noticed that I moved the entire domain from 4realz.net to dustinluther.com recently!).

At the beginning of the year, Wendy and I decided to challenge ourselves to blog more often…  I took it a step further and decided to not only challenge myself to blog more, but my entire team to publish more often.   I’ve been spouting the idea of blog first to anyone who will listen and I think it’s working!

Here’s some great posts from the engagement team this week:

1) Our newest marketing intern showed us all how good a “weekly summary post” can be:

• An Intern’s Guide to the Galaxy: Start your week off with 5 fascinating “small business” stories

2) Our social media coordinator,  Lennon Cole, wrote this great post on building brand advocates for your brand:

• Don’t Just Build a Business – Build a Brand

3) Our event marketing manager, Catherine Mangan, has a fun post highlighting an upcoming event we’ll be going to in Houston!

•  If You Build It: Houston Build Expo 2013

4) I get to take credit for a few posts as well:

• Our Hackweek Developers Deliver… Again!
• Can You Generate Business Through the New Facebook Search?

In addition, RCG contributor Jillayne Schlicke was just named one of the most influential people in real estate by Inman News, so that’s awesome news!   and the little boy who wields one hell of a snowball, turned 7 today!  People around the office say he hasn’t changed a bit since his first internet photo!  ;)

All-in-all, it’s been a great week!  And we still have a Friday left to accomplish (and blog!) more!

The post Taking the Blog-First Mentality Seriously appeared first on Dustin Luther.

• Has anyone had any luck converting fans to subscribers?  

By way of background, early on in the the life of facebook pages, I created a fan page for myself and earned a decent number of “fans” quickly.  I really don’t want to continue to update this page as I find my profile is a better way for me to interact on Facebook, so hoping to move folks over there!

The post Can I Migrate Facebook Page Fans to Profile Subscribers? appeared first on Dustin Luther.

One of the points that I tried to drive home to them is that good social media and good SEO are completely intertwined and that neither good social media nor good SEO has fundamentally changed since google first hit the scene in the late ’90s.

• Good SEO Campaign = Creating pages that quality websites share
• Good Social Campaigns = Creating content that quality people share
• Greater quality sharing = more successful campaigns

With that in mind, I was so optimistic when I saw the title of this post on Search Engine Watch: Link Building the Right Way in 2013.

I thought to myself:  ”Ohh… Are they going to acknowledge that if you’re going to do link building ‘right’, then you’ll be focusing on creating campaigns that earn tons of inbound links???”

But no… instead Chuck Price offered a few bland ways to “safely” generate some inbound links…  or as he says: “Top 7 Link Building Strategies that are Penguin Approved and Require NO Outreach.”

And truthfully, the more I dive into the article, the more disappointed I am…   If his premise is that you should be looking to generate links that “Require NO Outreach,” then the premise of the article is kinda absurd.

It’s kinda like writing a post with the title:

• Top 7 Ways to Ride a Bicycle that are Penguin Approved and Require NO Pedals

Seriously, if you want to do SEO, but don’t want to take part in the “outreach” part, you really shouldn’t be doing SEO in the first place.

And because I should also be providing some helpful resources for those looking for good ways to do Link Building in 2013, here are two articles that show how quality SEO campaigns are somewhat timeless:

• Linkation, Linkation, Linkation, Dec ’05
• 21 Strategies for Generating Irresistible SEO Benefits, Oct ’10

The post Top 7 Ways to Ride a Bicycle that are Penguin Approved and Require NO Pedals appeared first on Dustin Luther.

Today, we were all treated to an arrival of the Trailer Park Truck, where they spoiled us with goodness like Trailer Park Burgers, Mac’n Bacon Melts, Chicken & Waffles, Shotgun Shells ‘n Cheese.   Yum yum yum!

…and if you know someone looking for a rock’n marketing or developer internship in the Malibu area this spring or summer, send them our way!

The post Welcome to @DandB… Enjoy your Trailer Park food! appeared first on Dustin Luther.

The post Lots of confusion about how the fiscal cliff deal will affect small business owners, so… appeared first on Dustin Luther.

However, @dustinluther.com is my primary account on google apps and a straightforward way to make this change seemed elusive until I came across this helpful article: iPhone and Google Apps – Sending emails from Gmail alias (nickname).

The author there was trying to do something a bit different in that they want to change a name alias (as in “a@dustinluther.com” to “b@dustinluther.com”), where as I want to change a domain alias (as in “c@dustinluther.com” to “c@dustinluther.com”).   However, the good news is that the solution is virtually the same.   Here’s where you need to change within your ios settings to make the change.

This worked the first time for me… and hope it does for you too!

The post Set up your iphone/ipad to send email from a google apps domain alias appeared first on Dustin Luther.

Happy New Year!

The post Some inspiring play to get us warmed up for an inspired 2013 appeared first on Dustin Luther.