WOW – @jack! From founder of Twitter, check out Square, Inc.

December 15, 2009  |  Tech Worth Talking About  |  0 Comments

I love when people have problems and then fix them. Sounds simple, right? It’s the part of me that loves tech and misses the Bay Area.¬† So this post is for you <insert local business here> who doesn’t want to navigate the murky waters of bringing credit card systems into your shop but still wants to be able to take plastic as payment.

Enter Square. This newly announced company/product is genius and founded by some of the backers of Twitter and other legendary Bay Area entrepreneurs.¬† The story goes that when a local glass artist Jim McKelvey couldn’t accept plastic as payment for his goods, he got busy thinking about how this could be easier and without the lengthy applications and hardware needed to secure the ability to accept credit cards.

Meet the Square team.

According to SquareUp.com, “today the team is focused on bringing immediacy, transparency, and approachability to the world of payments: an inherently social interaction each of us participates in daily. We‚Äôre starting with a limited beta and rolling out to everyone in early 2010.”

Square is backed by Khosla Ventures and a team of angels. Square, Inc. has offices in San Francisco (Product & Engineering), Saint Louis (Operations), and New York City (Risk & Partnerships).

The device is a square card reader that fits into any audio jack – so for example the iPhone. The software allows for photo recognition that in fact the purchaser is using their own card, then the purchaser gets an electronic receipt.¬† The business intelligence that this gathers in endless — for example, if Square is accepted at say Starbucks, you can do away with your “10 lattes, get one free card,” this would automatically be able to count that.

The security is the same as the a credit card processing machine and there are no pesty monthly charges.

Here’s an interview with Jack Dorsey about the product: (courtesy of TechCrunch)

The Tech Behind Cameron’s Avatar

December 14, 2009  |  Tech Worth Talking About, Today's Headlines  |  3 Comments

It’s rare here at 101 to 87 that we get to cover mainstream consumer topics. We try to stick to our niche and keep educating on technology innovation. Believe me, if I could write about Tiger Woods or Sarah Palin, you’d never get me to shut up. I could say a lot about their current PR efforts and comebacks gone wrong, respectively.

So the fact I get to write about a movie, a new James Cameron epic saga, well it‚  practically a holiday around here.

His newest movie Avatar, due this Friday, is a look at a group of human characters struggling to protect themselves from a distant planet‚ indigenous lifeforms made up of 12 computer-generated characters. The humans are transported between their world and the avatar planet. The storyline features all of Cameron’s typical cliches — war, love, struggling handicap soldier desperate to become useful again.

Ok back to tech.

The movie began filming back in 2007 in New Zealand with a $200 million budget.  It’s achieve absolute movie mayhem now with an estimated $500 million spent. But it is predicted to make profit during the holiday week and will most likely scoop all technical awards at the Oscars.

While James Cameron does admit to a god complex, and has quite the ego, you have to give him credit that he’s brilliant and passionate about making movies. This isn’t just his vision, he wrote and directed Avatar.

For Avatar, Cameron developed a new 3D camera system call FUSION with HD expert Vince Pace so that live action shows being filmed with human characters could also feature virtual ones too. No more old school green screen an Cameron will be able to direct his virtual cast members as if they are real people on a live action set, rather than making ‚ fake spots‚ for them in editing. The new 3D format is said to revolutionize the moving industry. It’s rumored that Spielberg and Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) are using the same 3D technology to do the new series of movies from The Adventures of Tin Tin.

The filming experience has been different than anything else on camera. See how Avatar’s filming will be the new Star Wars for the next generations.

There are numerous amounts of technology behind Avatar, some that will eventually change the way we watch all movies, what toys look like, video games etc. And while one trend this year was to self-animate ourselves into “avatars” Cameron gives us a real look at this type of conversion. Take my favorite girl Zoe Saldana for example.

Saldana describes the experience on filming Avatar here.

We’ll continue to cover the technology behind Avatar throughout the week.  For some unbias, user-generated reviews go here. Otherwise we’ll see you in the lines at Crossgates on Friday.

Wow Google, way to be a late adopter; are you scared of Bing?

December 8, 2009  |  Blunders, Tech Worth Talking About, Today's Headlines  |  1 Comments

If you Google Obama right now, give your search results roughly 10 seconds, you’ll notice some new things in your search window.

On Monday at a media event in Mountain View, CA, Google geeks unveiled search in real-time. So for example, when you Google a topic, you’ll not only see what is on the web, but you will also be able to view what is being written about in real-time on sites like MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. [Note: Facebook's FriendFeed property and public profiles only]

This notion of real-time search isn’t anything new. Niche search sites like Collecta and Crowd Eve currently offer the same thing, minus the robust Google search results. Microsoft Bing also has a Twitter tool that does something similar.

This development of course is nothing less than Google’s attempt to grow its market share that Bing has been eating away at. Google currently owns 65 percent market share and is fighting hard to keep it after new deals like the Microsoft and Yahoo partnership that gave Microsoft control of almost 30 percent of search.

Google users can click on “Latest results” or hit “Latest” from the options menu to view a full page of live tweets, blogs, news and other content scrolling right on Google. Users can also filter results to see only “Updates” from microblogs like Twitter, FriendFeed and Jaiku. Latest results and the new search options are also accessible via the iPhone and Android phones.

The look and feel of Google search is still the same, very simple and very mathematically complex. Real-time search results appear in the middle of the search results page in a small box with a scroll bar where users can go back to any tweets or other results that streamed by too quickly to click on. There is also a pause button to hold the stream in place.

A fun spin on real-time search?

I think this was expected of Google months ago, but my guess is these partnerships took a bit of negotiation.  I will say this greatly improves my Internet stalking results.  No, just kidding. But there are implications for both the PR and HR industry.  Now you can easily check just one site to reputation check a potential hire. And in that very same way you can also reputation-manage a brand or executive. Find out what is being said in real-time. For example, imagine if you Googled “Tiger Woods” right now.

The new features will be rolling out in the next few days and will be available globally in English only.

Trouble for VMware?

December 7, 2009  |  Today's Headlines  |  0 Comments

A not so startling but informative fall 2009 server study came out today from TheInfoPro* showing a depressed hardware market caused by the recession and the impact of consolidation and rise in virtualization. Like I said, not surprising.

What was an interesting component was the how the study shows threat to virtualization giant VMware hegemony as customers plan parallel deployments of Microsoft and other types of virtualization alternatives.

Does this spell danger for VMware, no. According to TheInfoPro, while just over 75% of users report having VMware in use today, nearly two-thirds have tested a hypervisor other than VMware, with Microsoft and Citrix most often mentioned. Of those who have tested an alternative, 27% plan to use the alternative, while an additional 20% report they use it.

The report also cites that when VMware customers were asked if they would switch to an alternative, only 2% cited firm plans, while an additional 9% were considering it. The analysis reveals that VMware users aren’t switching away from VMware, but are probably embracing competing technologies in heterogeneous deployments. Yeah, like Microsoft.

VMware is still the leading vendor in use and in plan for server virtualization, and few users report firm plans to switch from VMware to Hyper-V. However, this parallel deployment of Hyper-V, Citrix and Red Hat virtualization capabilities could signal a challenge to VMware’s dominance; this implies that heterogeneous environments will be commonplace, where VMware is used for production, and Hyper-V may grow through deployments for development and testing.

TheInfoPro’s Managing Director Bob Gill said: “Much of the strength of the VMware story is predicated on a homogeneous population of VMware servers under control of VMware management utilities. The more heterogeneous the environment, the less VMware is positioned in the central infrastructural layer in the data center.”

TheInfoPro’s Wave 8 Server Study is based on detailed one-on-one interviews with server professionals at 300 large and midsize enterprises in North America and Europe that were completed in fall 2009. It provides detailed plans about usage patterns for 43 server technologies. Check out more on the server data available here.

*denotes TheInfoPro is a client.

Welcome back Kodak! Meet the Zi8

December 6, 2009  |  Advice for local companies, Tech Worth Talking About  |  0 Comments

A friend of mine was a die hard Flip person and then the other day I realized she had a new piece of pocket camcorder bling. I was more stunned to notice that it was by Kodak.

Check out the new KODAK Zi8:

Like the Flip Camera, the Zi8 is all you need for camcorder fun and sharing. The details are stellar, and from what I can tell, the quality kicks my HD Nikon’s butt.

• Capture HD quality 1080p video with 16:9 aspect ratio
• Records up to 10 hours of HD video with the expandable SD/SDHC card slot that can hold up to 32 GB
• External microphone jack lets you record in stereo
• Takes amazing 5 MP 16:9 widescreen HD still pictures

This will definitely be making my Capital Region Tech Gift Guide this year.

NY ranks near last in being entrepreneur friendly

December 5, 2009  |  Blunders  |  2 Comments

This month, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, based in Virginia, ranked New York as one of the least friendly states towards entrepreneurs.  Joining us at the bottom of the list is ironically California which has one of the largest populations of entrepreneurs and therefore start-up companies than any other state. The report evaluates things like taxes, various regulatory costs, government spending, property rights, health care and energy costs Рmany of which are clearly in the benefit of the state and not in the best interest of small business.

In the December 1 media release, SBE Council chief economist Raymond J. Keating, the author of the study, notes: It’s hard to find any good news at the national level for entrepreneurs, small business and their employees. The U.S. economy slipped into a recession in December 2007, with matters getting far worse late last year. Congress and the White House have not offered positive solutions to help the job-creating sector. In fact, most of their actions will hurt, not help, small businesses. But what about the states? The Small Business Survival Index helps business owners and investors understand the public policy burdens placed on entrepreneurship and small business, with the states ranked accordingly.

You would think that with these state’s large fees and penalties towards small business, New York and California would be in better budget situations versus, well, practically broke.

In case if you’re wondering, the top ten entrepreneur friendly states are: South Dakota, Nevada, Texas, Wyoming, Washington, Florida, South Carolina, Colorado, Alabama and Virginia.

Creating an environment that encourages business development and making it easier for individuals to strike out on their own is definitely a risk to most states. And as a small business owner, I do recognize all states have their own versions of trying to encourage affordable small business. For New York, I find their healthcare policy called Healthy NY to be ideal and I remember California having excellent maternity leave.  But it’s still not enough. So for now SMBs, it’s going to be an uphill battle, at least in these two states.

So until a purple elephant crosses the road, (in other words, never gonna happen), here’s what we can learn from Entrepreneur.com’s list of Effective Ways for Entrepreneur’s to Save Money:

Insurance Intelligence

1. Save by association. When looking for insurance, check with your trade association. Many associations offer competitive group insurance.
2. Be prepared. Buying appropriate insurance upfront saves money in the long run, says Jeanne Salvatore of the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit organization in New York City. Consider what situations would be catastrophic to your business and protect yourself with adequate insurance. “Disaster recovery,” says Salvatore, “is one area where business owners shouldn’t scrimp.”
3. Make a foul-weather friend. By arranging for an alternative place to run your business in case of a major disaster, you may be able to save on business interruption insurance, advises the Insurance Information Institute. For instance, you could arrange with a firm in the same industry to use their facilities in case of damage, and vice versa.
4. Check up on your medical insurance. Before choosing a medical insurance carrier, ask for information on past claims and the loss ratio of paid claims to premiums, advises the Council of Better Business Bureaus in Arlington, Virginia.
5. Raise your deductible. Raising the deductible on your insurance usually lowers your premiums. Even if you end up having to pay the deductible, it’s likely to be less than the amount you save.

Employee Economics

1. Aim to lease. Employee leasing-in which you turn over your work force to a professional employer organization that leases your employees back to you-can save you substantial cash on employee benefits, says Bruce Steinberg at the American Staffing Association (ASA). For referral to a leasing company near you, visit the ASA online at www.staffingtoday.net.
2. Go with the flow. Rather than paying for employees who sit idle when business is slow, consider hiring temporary employees to handle surges in business.
3. Make experience count. Get free or low-cost help-and give local college students a chance to learn the ropes-by hiring interns.
4. Use independent contractors. Employers generally don’t have to withhold or pay any taxes on payments to independent contractors. But be very careful that your independent contractors fit the definition provided by the IRS or you could face penalties.
5. Commission your sales force. Overhead, salaries, incentives, training costs, fringe benefits and expenses add up when you’re hiring your own sales representatives. Contracting independent manufacturers’ sales reps, paid on commission only, is less expensive-and often equally effective.

Shipping Savings

1. Clean up your mailing list. The U.S. Postal Service will clean up your mailing list for free, correcting addresses, noting incomplete addresses and adding ZIP+4 numbers so you’ll be eligible for bar-code discounts.
2. Prune that mailing list even more. The Direct Marketing Association offers this checklist of cost-cutting ideas. Eliminate non-responders and marginal prospects; print “Address Correction Requested” on the face of your mail; investigate co-mingling your mail with that of other small mailers to take advantage of discounts available mainly to large mailers; and stockpile mail to build up larger volumes.
3. Be an early bird. Send mail early in the day, and you can usually expect to get one- to two-day delivery for the price of a first-class stamp.
4. Shop around for an overnight courier. Overnight delivery rates for the major couriers are competitive; however, if you’re willing to wait a few hours-or even an extra day-you could save.

Tax Tactics

1. Mind some petty pointers. Don’t get careless about your petty cash account. “Though you don’t need receipts for expenses under $75, you should still track these expenses since they can add up,” advises Holmes Crouch, author of 18 tax books.
2. Hire your children. If your children are at least 14 years old and pay their own taxes, it pays to take advantage of their lower tax bracket. “You can essentially transfer income from your business to them [to save money],” says David L. Scott, author of The Guide to Saving Money (The Globe Pequot Press).
3. Take a stand on taxes. If your business is new in the neighborhood, you may be at a higher tax rate than those who have been there longer. “Go to city hall to determine what your neighbors are paying, and use this to negotiate a better rate,” says Pete Collins of New York City-based PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. “Expanding businesses can often negotiate with community authorities, who want them to stay in town rather than move and take jobs elsewhere.”
4. Homebased? Don’t overlook crucial tax deductions. In addition to being able to deduct a portion of your rent or mortgage interest and utilities as a business expense, you can also deduct a percentage of various home maintenance expenses, along with a portion of the cost of services such as house cleaning and lawn care. Check out the IRS’s Web site, or check with a knowledgeable tax advisor for more information.
5. Get out on the town. If much of your business is conducted at restaurants or you find yourself driving to clients’ offices, make sure you take those deductions. If you entertain clients or potential clients to discuss a current or future project, you can deduct a portion of your entertainment costs. To qualify for this deduction, you must maintain a log of entertainment-related expenses you plan to deduct. For mileage, you can deduct 37.5 cents per mile in 2004. This figure usually changes annually, so check with your accountant at the beginning of each year.

Financial Focus

1. Make credit comparisons. If you tend to run unpaid balances on your credit cards at the end of the month, shop for a card with a low interest rate. If you pay in full, it’s more important to avoid an annual fee and look for a longer grace period. “Often credit card issuers waive the annual fee or reduce the interest rate if you ask,” says Scott. “Just tell your credit card company you’ve had several solicitations from other companies with more favorable interest rates or no annual fees, and ask if they will reduce yours.”
2. Avoid cash advances. “Credit card companies usually charge an upfront fee of up to 2 percent of the advance, with interest accruing immediately,” says Scott.
3. Bank on an early deposit. Make bank deposits early enough in the day so you get credit (and start earning interest) that day.
4. Get checks in the mail. Ordering your checks from a printing company often costs less than getting them from a bank. Options include Checks in the Mail and Designer Checks.
5. Form a buying alliance. Join with another business or a trade association for bulk purchasing discounts.
6. Take it with you. If you’re near your suppliers, pick up your order yourself-or perhaps have a friend or family member do it for you, suggests Sarah Williams Steinman, president of Casco Bay Herb Co., an herbal soap manufacturer in Cumberland, Maine. For example, Steinman’s husband travels throughout the Northeast. “He keeps me updated as to when he might be near one of my suppliers,” she says. “He often travels through the town where my olive oil supplier is, and he’ll pick up a few hundred pounds of oil on his way home. That saves me about $75 in shipping.” Caution: Pick up supplies yourself only when it truly saves you money. If it’s taking you away from a revenue-producing activity, you’re not really saving.
7. Be reluctant to give credit. If you do extend credit, thoroughly check the client’s credit background, says Collins. For less-than-creditworthy accounts, Collins advises considering the following actions: Collect cash in advance; send partial shipments; request letters of credit, personal guarantees and a pledge of assets; take out credit insurance; or think about factoring (see below).

Professional Policies

1. Query your consultants. The professionals you work with regularly are often easy to bargain with, thanks to the rapport you’ve developed with them. Ask your insurance agent, accountant or attorney how you can cut back on their costs. You’d be surprised at the suggestions they might offer on ways to cut your premiums, reduce billable hours or avoid huge retainers. You might also barter your services.
2. Be a legal eagle. When hiring an attorney, make sure you have a written fee agreement to prevent surprises. It should include an estimate of the time to be spent on your case and specify what’s covered in the fee-including typing or copying-and what is not.
3. Learn something new. Rather than pay a consultant to write your press releases, for example, hire one for an hour or so to show you how to do it yourself.
4. Run from the law. “Avoiding lawsuits is a big factor in business success,” says tax book author Crouch. “Even arbitration can get expensive.” The best alternative: Try to work out any problems before they grow to the point that attorneys get involved. “Don’t ignore any written or phone complaints.”

Buying Brainpower

1. Stretch your budget with barter. Swapping one product or service for another is a good way to avoid cash outlays-and unload slow-moving inventory. If you’d rather not bargain with other businesses directly, hire a commissioned barter broker (listed in the Yellow Pages under “Barter”), or join a commercial barter club or exchange. The National Association of Trade Exchanges (NATE) is a clearinghouse for member exchanges across the country, allowing business owners to swap just about anything with anyone. Participants typically receive “trade dollars” for their goods or services, which are brokered across cities nationwide with the help of NATE. Visit NATE at www.nate.org.
2. Time your payments. Ask suppliers if they give discounts for early payment. If not, it’s to your advantage to pay your bills-including utilities, taxes and suppliers-as late as possible without incurring a fee, advises Scott. “The longer funds are under your control,” he says, “the longer they’re earning a return for you rather than someone else.”
3. Join an association. Many trade and business associations have reasonable membership fees and offer discounts on everything from insurance, travel and car rental to long-distance phone service, prescriptions and even golf course fees.
4. Seek at least three bids on everything. Even mundane purchases merit shopping around. If you quote a competitor’s lower price, a supplier or vendor will often match that price to win your business.

Thanks to the contributors on this article: Jacquelyn Lynn, Ivan R. Misner, Chris Penttila, Guen Sublette and Laura Tiffan

Apple Tablet and Kindle – changing the face of Sports Illustrated

December 3, 2009  |  Tech Worth Talking About  |  1 Comments

It’s rumored that Apple is coming out with the Apple Tablet however nothing from the company officially confirms such an innovation.  This would most likely be a hybrid of the Amazon Kindle and Tablet PCs. The debate is strong about the future of magazines and newspapers. Devoted fans to hard copies of either say there’s no way that they can let go of their folded New York Times for subway rides and the like. But technology and the rise in printing costs suggests something has to give.

With the rise of mobile apps, I just assumed that the future would be mobile delivery. At some point, the advertising model would correlate to online strictly, supporting low subscription costs and every morning I could get a downloaded customized way of reading the news I want. Skeptics to my predictions are spot on though — do you really want to read an entire article on your iPhone? Even at full screen, it’s awkward.

If this is true, readers will turn to devices like Kindle or the Apple Tablet for reading. I see Kindle’s everywhere now.

Today, Time Inc. demonstrated a future look and feel for Sports Illustrated on the Apple Tablet. The functionality is cool, the graphics are amazing and the interactivity is like nothing you’d get over a browser. But by the time this happens, browsers might suggest otherwise. Either way, this is a novel concept to the future of magazines. Conde Nast announced a digital version of Wired coming soon too. Take a look, tell me what you think:

If I’m a tech geek, who do I follow on Twitter?

December 3, 2009  |  Advice for local companies  |  0 Comments

As you unravel Twitterville Capital Region and contemplate how to engage with this mass eco-system, consider starting with your passion for tech. Tech enthusiasts are all over Twitter and following them will in the very least educate you on the happenings of our industry.

Here’s my list:

Smart entrepreneurs and execs who tweet valuable things:

Jack Dorsey (@Jack) started Twitter, now CEO of Square

Padmasree Warrior (@padmasree) CTO of Cisco

Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) Founder of Digg

Jason Calacanis (@jasoncalacanis) Founder of Mahalo

Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) Google engineer

Thought leaders

Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) analyst

Michael Arrington (@techcrunch) TechCrunch

Om Malik (@om) GigaOm

Humor and intelligence

Sarah Lacy (@sarahcuda) Author, social media writer

Natalie Del Conte (@natalidelconte) Loaded on CNET and CBS Early Show

Taylor Buley (@taylorbuley) Forbes and comedy relief

Tom Merritt (@acedtect) Top Ten Lists on CNET

Veronica Belmont (@veronica) Revision 3

OH WAIT — insert shameless plug here @nmessier or @101to87

Am I a Mac or PC?

December 2, 2009  |  Advice for local companies, Tech Worth Talking About  |  3 Comments

Clearly, I’m a Mac.

But for the past 15 years, I was a PC.

I never even thought of switching to a Mac until I went out on my own and my husband convinced me to convert. Yes, I was dazzled by how beautiful of a machine it is and the iPhone was of course the smartphone of choice once I left my BlackBerry behind. It took awhile to learn the new OS, but once I got the hang of it, we added our own Apple network and backup system, and starting managing multiple accounts – I became a devoted fan.

Start up companies often contemplate which direction to go and what the major issues are with each. This post is not to convince you to change over to Mac – which by the way as an average price point of $2500/pp.

Quite the contrary. Steve Jobs may be a god and I hear he runs a tight ship over there in Cupertino. If you want to read something great, learn how Jobs starting shopping the iPhone and told many wireless service providers to go jump in a lake.

While we‚Äôre all dazzled by the Apple Store and convenience of iTunes, we have to remember that Apple doesn’t make many products — six Macs, variety of iPods, two iPhones, and a debatable-even-worth-it, Apple TV. Oh, plus accessories. A recent Forrester analyst made this point: ‚ÄúIf Apple tried to build a car, it would take it three years just to design the dashboard. Now it would be an extraordinary dashboard, but Job’s fabled micro-management would stall the delivery of a finished automobile.‚Äù

There are limitations for BtoB companies if they’re thinking of turning into a Mac shop. And this isn’t even about cost. The biggest problems with piecemeal approaches to your IT infrastructure is that at some point these systems won’t work flawlessly together. We even have problems working with a “Mac-friendly” Brother printer, consistently resetting itself because of difficulty working with our network and the Mac OS. That’s ok for us small shops, but for larger companies a printer or network breakdown can mean major loss in productivity.

As I mentioned, I was dazzled by the branding and simplicity of the machine. I look at Dell and HP laptops today and think ‚Äì ‚Äúthose bulky things.‚Äù And the PC product lines are trying harder and harder to be like Apple ‚Äì take the Dell Adamo line for example. At the heart of it, Apple designs for the consumer and the creative. There don‚Äôt have complex systems or IT problems. I also know developers love their Macs, but let’s face it — even internally at large enterprises the dev team works their own rules.

Jobs runs a highly specialized, super focused business on design and speed. It’s why he packages so many software elements into each Mac – he knows it will work and work the way he wants it to. That might always be the best fit for an enterprise.

My beef with pointless Facebook Fan Pages

December 1, 2009  |  Blunders  |  0 Comments

A recent study by a social media analytics company called Sysomos evaluated Facebook’s nearly 600,000 “Fan Pages.”¬† Fan Pages are arbitrary pages anyone can set up to try to create a fan base for a brand, themselves, a company, product, whatever you would like…and quite frankly that’s the problem I have with them.

Most of the time, Fan Pages are sold to tech companies as the fundamental step to social media. But I insist they’re not for every company.

Common sense would say your Facebook Fan Page is successful when it reaches a fan base proportional to the audience you’re trying to reach. If that audience is everybody, well then this statistic should make my point.¬† According to Sysomos, 77 percent of Facebook Fan Pages have under 1,000 fans. If you can’t get a 1,000 fans, what good are you really doing besides sucking productivity from your marketing team or agency budgets.

I recently sat down with a company that creates a small but integral step to the fabrication of semiconductor chips.¬†¬† Important, yes. Facebook worthy, what for?! When done correctly, a Facebook Fan Page can do wonders for distributing your message, like say how TechCrunch uses their page and has a 15k plus fan base. TechCrunch’s strategy is content syndication and distribution and drives traffic back to the blog’s homepage.

While mega consumer brands like Starbucks can engage customers via Facebook,  some companies might want to reconsider. Remember that social media should drive business initiatives and engage audiences, some should consider the non-Facebook approach and be more strategic with a large LinkedIn Group or targeted e-newsletter. The options of plentiful.

When setting up a Facebook Fan Page, as a tech company, do a gut check:

1. Is our entire company on board to help populate the Facebook page routinely and with a conversational tone that engages the fan base?

2. Is our entire company willing to help spread the fan base to their internal networks to increase the base?

3. Do we put out enough news and create content that will continually engage this fan base?

4. Can our marketing team support an onslaught of wall messages and customer service questions that are public facing?

5. Do we have a social media crisis communication plan and is someone monitoring our brand online?

If you can’t answer yes to these questions with certainty, think intelligently before adding a Facebook Fan Page.