@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Visibility Marketing

Your Book: A look at Publish America

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Publish America, or PA, is a Print-on-Demand, traditional royalty paying book publishing company. Since Publish America only prints books as they are ordered, they are able to extend authorships to many talented writers. PA believes that if one single book is worth being published, it only need have the idea of a market for it to be accepted by PA editors.

Publish America Facts

PA has nearly 40,000 satisfied authors. Every day, around fifteen of those authors ask PA to accept their subsequent works. This is an incredibly high number of return writers and one of the reasons why PA is known as one of the best print-on-demand companies available.

Although PA may have lower acceptance barriers than other publishing companies, they also have to be choosy in accepting manuscripts that meet the PA requirements. There are no contract fees with PA, ever.

PA authors have made appearances on FOX TV, ABC, MSNBC and CNN. Also the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Women’s World Magazine. PA authors have even been heard on some of the famous radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Oliver North and Don Imus.

PA is not a subsidy publisher, vanity press or publish on demand company. PA does not charge for their services. No catches or hidden surprises, and PA even regularly pays small advances to their authors to show their support. PA does not want an authors money, they only want rights to their books, and it stops there. The copyright, TV rights, movie rights, merchandising and audio rights will remain under the authors legal rights. Book publishing contracts expire after seven years instead of the life terms of many publishers.

Almost all of the biggest publishers use digital technologies for printing. The print-on-demand form of publishing is used by other publishers such as Random House.

They will assign a graphic designer to create your book cover, and also take suggestions and ideas from the author.

Publish America Issues

With such a huge amount of books and authors cycling through Publish America yearly, there are also a few problems.

  • Authors report that graphic designers are not always willing to take their ideas when it comes to their book covers, the second most important aspect of their creations.
  • Although Publish America does provide an editing service at no cost, it can be extremely time-consuming. If you do not plan to have your book proofread by an outside service, expect an average wait for editing of around 3 to 6 months.

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Twitter: A five year review

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Here is what everybody is talking about: Twitter. Twitter is a free social network, which enables its users to write what’s on their mind, at any given moment, at any given place, and share it with a group of their friends.

It is called micro-blogging because the “tweets”, as the messages are called, have a limit of 140 characters. People send and receive tweets through the Twitter website, or, with the help of external applications,  through cell phones (SMS), smartphones, iPad etc.  Users may subscribe to other user tweets and become their “followers”. An e-mail or other kind of alert is sent every time that member posted a new tweet. You can reply to someone and engage in conversation back and forth in real time (Just like SMS).

Users can post links as well. It may be a link to an interesting article or a link to their personal, more elaborate, blog. Posting a link is a little bit tricky since some of the URLs are longer than 140 characters. To make it easy, the Twitter button on many sites shorten the URL for users, or they can do it through an external website (Tinyurl.com) if they so choose.

There are many reasons why people use Twitter.com; some sign in to get updates from their friends, young adults sign in to get updates from their favorite star (Justin Beiber is the # 1 subject tweeted about). Newspapers use Twitter.com to spread the news fast, businesses use Twitter to keep in touch with their clients and let them know about promotions and discounts. Tweets about news may include a link to the whole article and blog owners tweet to let their followers know that a new post has been uploaded.

The idea for Twitter was conceived by Jack Dorsey when he was part of the board of directors of a podcasting company called Odeo. The first prototype was used at Odeo as an internal service. A few months after Twitter.com went public, some members of Odeo board formed a new company and bought Odeo and Twitter from the investors and shareholders. Twitter became its own company in April 2007.

It has been 4 ½ years since its launch, in July 2006. Today, Twitter.com is processing 65 million tweets a day – about 2 billion tweets per month.

Activity on the site spikes during International events like the 2010 FIFA World Cup, or the Lakers win in NBA 2010 finals. When Michael Jackson died, the servers crashed when users used the words ‘Michael Jackson’ at a rate of 100,000 tweets per hour.

Twitter is sometimes called SMS of the internet age or Facebook for the ADD age. It’s short, quick and simple. Users can also retweet –tweeting what someone else has said. It’s a way  others give credit to the person who produced the original tweet.

Privacy – why would you like to be private? The whole purpose of tweets is to let people know what’s on your mind. Well, you might not want all your tweets to be seen by all your contacts on your ‘following list’. Once you choose the option ‘private’, you’ll have to approve all those that the tweet is meant to reach.

Since micro blogging became very popular the last few years, people started to think how to make money using Twitter. Today there are several companies with which users can sign up and sell advertising space on their Twitter profile or tweet stream.  Advertisers will pay the owners of a Twitter page to let them promote their business on their page, but the users allow them access to their accounts. In one model, the company places an advertisement on the profile page, and on others it will insert advertising directly into the stream of conversation. Many people however find this to be offensive.

Smart use of Twitter.com

Newark Mayor Corey Booker, got $100 million for Newark schools through keeping himself visible and in the conversation. In the recent snow storms he turned himself into a one man snow patrol by asking people who are stuck in the snow to tweet him. That is how he keeps in touch with the residents of his city.

For businesses, there are a few ways to utilize Twitter:

  • Creating a buzz: Tweet about events you are going to participate in. Talking about a new product, a launch, etc. The simple fact that activity is news in real time means that there is value in knowing where you are, what you’re doing, or even who else you see doing it.
  • Develop On Demand Promotions: One company that is very successful on Twitter is the San Francisco based ModCloth.com, seller of vintage clothing. They are in constant contact with their followers, even asking them what they would like to see on sale. Businesses can tweet about sales, specials etc.
  • Tweeting Teams or Teaming up with another account holder:  If you see an event coming or an important launch or promotion, you can help them by tweeting about it, and they agree to do the same for you. The best could be by leveraging employees as people and their own social networks, after all everyone always promotes themselves first and always to the people they know best, get your employees or clients to promote themselves and you for a big win!
  • Public Relations: Imagine the ability to counter public opinion by creating the next trend! A new company or new product is out, it may be the next success, but others are waiting trying to get a feel for the product or company. Using twitter to show the overwhelming trend of others that are buying, talking or investing into that product or company might seem mediocre on a local level at 2 to 3 sales a week, but if you can combine the reach of hundred or so local markets into one location the twitter feed would run at 5 – 10 sales an hour during a business day, how’s that for creating the next hot trend!

Info: Twitter.com ranks # 10 in the world in traffic, and # 8 in the USA, according to Alexa.com. The users tend to be childless, disproportionately highly educated. High income women ages 25 and 45 who browse from work are the majority of the users, but only by a little (48% men to 52% women). About 29% of users come from the United States.

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Facebook: A Seven Year Review

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What has not been said and written about Facebook?  Articles, numerous books and a movie -“Social Network”, which is nominated for this year’s Oscar awards. Mark Zuckerberg, the name and the face of Facebook was the subject of exposes and studies; how did a 20 some year old managed to create a company from his dorm room that is now estimated to be worth 50 billion dollars?

Facebook is a social network website, launched almost exactly 7 years ago (Feb. 4, 2004). This free access site is privately owned and operated by Facebook Inc. Each registered user gets a profile page on which s/he can write, post links and share experiences. Users can upload pictures, links to website they found interesting and stories they found fascinating. They can share it all with members of their circle of friends.

Users can join networks organized by businesses, workplaces, schools and connect and interact with other people. They can find friends from the past and make new connections.

Facebook has distinguished itself from its rivals partly because it offers a Spartan design ethos and limits how users can change the appearance of their profile page. This cuts down on visual clutter and threats like spam which plagued social sites. Many analysts see Facebook as the default platform of a new age of information organized around personal relationships.

Throughout the years, this social network has transformed from a college only social club to the most popular website in the world. With over 500 million users it overtook Google as the most visited website, and is a broadly popular online destination, used by teenagers and adults of all ages. In country after country Facebook is cementing itself as the leader, often displacing other social networks, much in the same way it overtook MySpace in the US.

The headquarters moved to Palo Alto from Harvard University in June 2004. In September of that year the Group Application was added and the Wall made its debut. By the end of this first year, TheFacebook, as it was called then, had 1 million users. The photo application was added in 2005 and at the end of that year Facebook had 5.5 million users.

In 2006 Facebook mobile debuted, the Facebook Platform was launched, Note Application and News Feed. By the end of the year it has 12 million users.

2007 saw the launch of Ads, apps and Platform. Facebook invited third party software makers to create programs for the company and to make money on advertising alongside them. The announcement drew many programmers and hundreds of new features or social application were creates. From games to music and photo sharing tools, which turbo charged the site.  But users were complaining about the privacy settings that were visible to all.

In 2008 Facebook adds privacy controls to ‘friends’ lists, launches Chat and Facebook Connect. In

2009 it introduced the “Like” feature and acquired FriendFeed.  By the end of the year Facebook had 350 million users.

2010 – Facebook Places was launched and Messages arrived in an attempt to expand from a social network into a full-fledged communications system. E mails, text messaging and chat through a single point is what Facebook was after. Time magazine names Mark Zuckerberg “Person of the Year” and the movie debuted.

At the beginning of 2011 – Facebook is valued at $50 billion, when it raises 500 million from Goldman-Sacks and a Russian investor.

Facebook policies, more than those of any other company, are the ones to define standards for privacy in the internet age.

Many companies tried to buy Facebook and were met with a tough refusal. In 2006 Yahoo tried to buy the company for $1 billion. The company earned $335 million on 1.2 billion in revenue during the first nine months of 2010, but that is only a rumor, Zuckerberg keeps those numbers close to the vest.

Facebook built its lead not only through savvy design but also by rapid deployment of features that increased the site’s appeal. And indeed as statistics shows, 88% of people around the world are aware of Facebook.

As for active users,  males make 46% of Facebook users, and it is spread almost evenly between age groups; 11% of the users are 13-17 olds, 29% are 18-25, 23% between the ages of 26-34, 18% 35-44 and 12% between 45 and 54. It is also spread evenly between levels of education.

This goes to show that the success of Facebook lies in the fact that it reaches all ages and all nationalities. Their constant innovation and additions in the form of apps and programs is what keeps the company ahead of the game.

Well established companies have been using Facebook in different and interesting ways; As a promotion tool; a campaign by Gap for a giveaway of 10,000 pair of jeans was announced only on Facebook. The pants were gone as soon as the stores opened. Calvin Klein regularly announces sales and posts coupons. As of Nov. 15 they have 332,521 ‘friends’.

As for brand engagement – Taco Bell is responsive to fan comments and has generated strong positive feedback when it posts promotions. Zara, the clothing chain, has 1,581,000 fans; Target has 588,300 fans and engages its audience with votes about charitable donations. MTV has 1,146,737 fans and engages its audience with a fast moving page and consistent fan engagement. So does Pizza Hut with its over 1 million fans.

With so many active users Facebook has established a new way of communication, a new way of maintaining relationships and a new way in advertising. The company still turns down offers to buy them and plan, as the speculation goes, to go public in 2012.

 

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Social Brand Visibility: OldDogg.com

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Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a company called Netscape. Founded in 1994, it was a US computer services company known for its web browser.  Netscape was once dominant in usage share, had some interesting and vital improvements, like JavaScript that enables users to see the result of coding. Unfortunately it lost the war to Internet Explorer, in what is called The First Browser War.

Netscape became a subsidiary of AOL after the giant purchased the company in 2007. It was acquired as a bargaining chip, people believed, against Microsoft, trying to show the big company they can spread their wings and be less dependent on web browsing.

AOL later filed a law suit against Microsoft which was settled out of court with Microsoft paying $750 million to AOL. A month later Netscape was disbanded. What was left of Netscape evolved into Propeller.com, a Social Media aggregator, similar to another social network, Digg.com.  In both cases, users submit stories and members can vote them up or down. The most ‘liked’ stories make the front page. It also enables other users to comment on the story and create a conversation chain.

Unfortunately Propeller did not live up to its promise and failed to attract enough following.  In 2010 this massage was posted on their site:

“As of October 2010, Propeller will no longer be active. To the loyal users of this site, we extend our thanks. Keep talking about the news that matters most to you, and share it with your friends, both online and off. Team Propeller”.

But one man’s misfortune can be another man’s gain, if you can read the map correctly and the stars are aligned:

Digg.com came out with a disliked Version 4 at the beginning of October, which created a user revolt. Users really did not like the new version. Propeller was gone, leaving more users looking for a new platform.

BigDogg.com was launched. The site got 27,000 votes and 1,500 comments in just 25 days. Former Digg.com users are now top users of OldDogg.com.

OldDogg.com was created by a 27 year old graduate student from the UK, after a Twitter conversation. It took him 4 hours to put it all together and upload it, and it went live. 20 hours later the site had an active user base.

It basically works the same as Propeller did; users submit links to stories, images and videos from all around the net. The links are voted up or down by popular voice and communication between users in available in the form of comments and conversations.

This sets the stage to the biggest competition: Digg.com or Olddogg.com?

Looking at both home pages you’ll find that the new guy – the Old Dogg – is much more user friendly and more visually appealing. The stories are well defined and easy to read.

Its audience tends to be those of childless men, with a moderate to high income, who are browsing from home.

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Social Brand Visibility: Ning

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Ning is another kind of social network. Subscribing to the network allows user create their own social networks around specific interest, with their own design, choice of features and members database. The central idea is that anyone can create his own social network.

Founded by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini, the site went public in October 2005. In 2007 Ning.com raised $44 million in venture capital, and an additional $60 million a year later.

Ning labels itself as a place where content intersects with conversations to inspire action. Every social network created through Ning comes with social integration tools, community features, design tools and monetization solutions which are ready for use.

It can create a virtual office for supporters and volunteers and empower citizens to become organizers, raise money, or mobilize votes.

Ning’s categories include: politics, entertainment, consumer brands, small business, non-profit organization and education, among others. The site connects about 80 million people around the world talking about the things they are most passionate about.

The biggest competitors to Ning are Facebook, MySpace and other social media platforms. Unlike Facebook, for example, which gives its users a template of how the site should look, Ning has no templates and allows the users freedom to create the look and feel of their site just as they want it to be. It also provides all the analytics and data they might need. This is especially important for businesses.

Since April 2010 there has been a change in Ning.com. The site which was up till then a free service had ceased being free and is now a fully paid site. It has three levels of paid services with different features, viral tools and different levels of customer support.

In June 2010 Ning was recognized as one of the hottest Silicon Valley Companies. In October of that year it launched Ning Everywhere and has mobile apps monetized and integrated with cloud services in a matter of a few clicks.

Most of the traffic for Ning comes from the US (39.2%) followed, with a big dip by India (5.7%) and the UK (4.2%). Most of the users are between the ages of 35-44 with the next age group, 45-54, closely behind. The majority of the users are women, with no children, using the site from work.

The word NING in Chinese means “peace”.

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How to Protect Copyrighted Work for Social Media Week

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There are many ways to copy protect your original works. It may depend on how much convenience you require, or simply how much funding you have to invest in it. Here are a few great options for protecting your original works.

  • Declare it! Make a Statement!

Add copyright notices to all of your work. Be sure to use the format of Copyright OR ©, the copyright symbol itself. Followed by the year the item was created as well as the name of the creator. An example for me would be ©2011 Basil Puglisi.

  • Register with the US Copyright office.

Register your copyright. This will immediately establish public records and is imperative in case you ever have to bring a copyright infringement case to a court. You will need to send your completed application form that relates to the works you are copyrighting, along with any fees required, as well as two copies of the work to the US Copyright Office. You have up to 5 years to do this, but it is highly suggested to do it as soon as possible to avoid red tape in an infringement case.

  • Other Paid Services

With Click & Copyright, you have a more wrapped up package. They do start at around $79 USD but can provide you copyright options on all forms of media, as well as help you monitor for infringement issues.

  • Free Services

Myfreecopyright offers many free resources and helpful tools to get your content protected as soon as possible, with or without upfront money. You simply need to upload your content to their server. A digital fingerprint of your content is captured, logged and stored. It is also emailed to you. This creates a safety net to protect your original work as well as register it. This service is entirely free and a great one.

Consider copyrighting all of your work, anything from eBooks, to pictures, to your personal blog content are all at risk until you do so.

 

Should you find that your work is being used elsewhere, be prepared to file or have someone file and enforce your rights under the DMCA.

©2011 Basil Puglisi

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Happening Right Now in NYC: Social Media Camp

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As this blog publishes the rooms in the “Social Media Hotel”, the Roger Smith (@RSHotel) in NYC are coming alive and broadcasting socially, both in traditional and digital form. The rooms are filled with the very enthusiastic, the curious and the talented Social Media Enthusiasts of New York.

The reason? Social Media Camp: New York (@SMCNYC). As part of Social Media Week 2011 (#SMWNY) the Social Media Camp intends to bring people together with the intent to engage and inspire the Social Media community.

The internet has changed the very essence of how we market, advertise and fulfill the promotional obligations of our products or services, no matter how large or small. While many aspects of our economy continues to suffer, social media is one outlet in which advertising, awareness and education is continually shared.

Marketing is no longer limited to trained and college educated individuals but has spread to those with tried-and-true experience regardless of their educational achievements. With so many social medias available, and free to use, this method of marketing is one that any business owner, organization or individual would be extremely unfortunate to miss out on. So what is all the hype? Do you need to understand every aspect of social media to be a player in this market? Do you have the time and capacity to learn what it takes? Or do you simply need to know ‘what’s what’ before you hire someone else to manage this aspect of your business for you.

Regardless of the reasons, Social Media Camp is a great answer for many. When you attend Social Media Camp you will learn:

  • What social media is
  • Whether or not social media is right for your career or business
  • If you determine that learning about Social media marketing would be of benefit to you, you will then be able to cultivate some invaluable skills that will help make a world of difference for you, your business and career

What Social Media Camp Offers

Social media camp will entail many aspects. Experienced guest speakers will cover such topics as:

  • Why social media week should be every week of the year
  • How to use social media as a free marketing tool
  • Learning to connect your social medias
  • Reaching parents and other large markets via online social media formats
  • Social media for small business owners
  • Social Media strategies
  • Finding the users, followers and friends that you need

And so much more. With plenty of food, camaraderie and common ground to stand on with so many others, you are sure to begin your social media networking experience the moment you walk through the door.

On Demand Happenings:

  • I will have more blogs coming to you during the day, stay tuned and stay “Social”!
  • Mention for the founder @SMCNYC  
  • Stay in the loop for social media week with #SMWNY
  • I will be checking in all day from @BasilPuglisi

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Plagiarism and Content Monitoring Review for Social Media Week

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Plagiarism isn’t always purposeful as any good writer knows. Commonly certain aspects or even particular content is used and reused. For example, when a user does a product review on an HP computer, specifics, and indeed specs, such as Intel Atom, 1 GB, 250 GB, 10.1 in TFT active matrix, Microsoft Windows 7 Starter are always doomed to be repeated. Of course any user can also arrange and rearrange them to make them original, at least for any available number of combinations. Although there are still many within the above listed specs, those, in fact, do run out as well. This could make the continued review of the above HP computer eventually show up as plagiarism.

That isn’t the only example. Some places, let’s go with Hawaii, are doomed to have the same common language used to describe them. Tropical paradise, clear blue ocean water, and so on. These items can eventually build up as well to where a writer will really need to pick and choose their words with fine tooth combs to beat the plagiarism detectors.

The goal of any good content provider should be to add something to the content. A blogger is more than justified in taking sections of articles by another writer so long as they provide recognition or credit to the original source and then provide an add on to the content. The add on can be an I agree but also…., or I do not agree and here is why. This form of copied content are provided to spark original thought or new direction, as such they are worthy of original recognition.

Plagiarism Detectors

Plagiarism detectors helps users to find copies of their pages online for free,

  • Copyscape

Ranked #1 in independent tests, Copyscape protects writers and content owners from having their valuable content plagiarized elsewhere online. Everyone from bloggers, to business owners who outsource their content creation, know what Copyscape is and are likely currently using it, or have done so in the past on projects that have required it. For paid, albeit affordable cost for most, Copyscape provides two other powerful detection tools. Premium allows a user to check their offline content against all online content Sentry provides protection for a users website by scheduling a scan for weekly, or even daily, and emailing you if any are found.

  • CopyGator

CopyGator is geared towards bloggers who want to be sure their original content remains their own. Duplicate content is gauged as ‘collisions’ with three levels that explain their possible issues. From pages that share small sections of similar text, to dual post that share more than one section of similar text, to outright exact copies, CopyGator provides a very helpful service to those who take their copywriting seriously.

  • FairShare

eBook writing and blogging are very lucrative businesses these days for many, and is the reason behind a program such as FairShare.  Throw your RSS Feed URL containing your blog or eBook text into this tool and watch it go to work. This valuable, and free, service, is a lifesaver for many bloggers or eBook creators who desire to create only the highest original content work on the internet.

There are many types of copy protection to utilize, however, the best method to practice at all times is the use of only user created original content. The copy protection should only be a means to ‘double-check’ content before posting it and then monitoring your content to see where and how it is being used.

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Basil C. Puglisi to present for SMC part of Social Media Week 2011.

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Feb 7, 2011 marks the beginning of Social Media Week 2011 in New York City, and as with every great week of events one organization sets itself apart from the rest.

Social Media Club is excited to be hosting Social Media Camp during Social Media Week NY 2011.

The event is open to people who work with small businesses, job seekers, and even those people in bigger businesses who do marketing and communications. We hope all of these people will come together to learn from each other.  Everyone who attends is a participant and hopefully a teacher too.

Basil Puglisi is joined by Amy Vernon of Blue Glass Interactive and Mardy Sitzer of Bumblebee Design & Marketing. The group will be facilitating the “Content is King…” session at 10:30am on Feb 9, 2011 at the Roger Smith Hotel.

The Session will examine how content is developed, executed and managed in the digital world of Social Media, as well as other digital medias. The session will look at how content is organized and tips for protecting your content while going viral. Expect this event to be fast passed and exciting as all three presenters have a rich history with Social Media including extensive blogging.

Basil C. Puglisi runs the blog Digital Media Marketing Educator which can be found at basilpuglisi.info or brandmarketingeducator.com. The blog looks at Digital Brand Management and how companies, organizations and individuals can maintain a proactive approach to brand through original content.

Social Brand Visibility: Faves

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Faves, formerly known as Blue Dot, is a social bookmarking and networking site that installs a browser button so that users can “fave” a page they are watching.

It is a site where information is aggregated by the users themselves. They post links to interesting stories they have found and add their comments. It is rated and organized by people, not machines.

You can choose topics that interest you, create a list of those topics, or choose individual pages from the web. Then you’ll get a personalized home page which is updated with the most popular websites on your favorite list. It has tags and ratings that will help you organize and prioritize the information.

As for the social aspect of this bookmarking service, you can interact with the whole community or build your own private network of friends.

They advertise it as the best way to find high quality websites on the topics you care about, you can save websites and find then again from any computer, you can share websites with friends and you can see what your friends are finding on the web, and stay in touch  with them using comments and messages.

To advertisers they offer a number of packages to meet every advertising needs.

Similar site to Delicious and StumbleUpon, they seem to be a bit behind. Even their name “faves” doesn’t appear on most of their pages, which are still called Blue Dot. The name change happened in 2007!

Faves.com has over a million unique visitors worldwide, and 2 million page views per month. They have over 100,000 unique visitors in the United States. Almost 50% of their traffic comes from India, with the US being second with 12%. Pakistan, Philippines and China come next with 3-9% of the visitors.

Users are mostly male, between 25-34, no children, with some college education.

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