December 2010
32 posts
12 tags
Why One Absolutely Beautiful Woman Should Come to...
There are many reasons you should come to San Diego if you’re a beautiful woman. Here are the top 10 in reverse priority order:
10. Women secretly call it, “Man Diego” It’s true. With Miramar Airforce Base, Coronado Naval Station, Oceanside Marine Base, UCSD biology and medicine schools and Qualcomm Engineering Headquarters all in San Diego, you’ll find every...
8 tags
Quaint Hotels in Boston: How to Travel New England...
Let’s face it. Boston is right in the heart of New England. If you’re going to train or bike or even foot-marathon New England, you’re gonna wanna do it from Boston. No matter how much you dislike the current state of affairs in America (0 being nobody and 10 being French), if you stroll across the cobble stone streets, smell the Authentic Tuscan Cuisine, taste the Irish...
3 tags
London to Scotland on the Caledonian Sleeper:...
I love Scotland. Every single time I’ve been to Scotland I was literally swarmed by gorgeous glowie Scotish Lassies. No. Not the dog. Girls. Scotland for me… umm… never mind. *runs off to Kayak.com to book flight* Continued: http://blightytraveller.com/london-to-scotland-putting-the-bargain-back-into-…
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How to Get a Pimp-Ass Rental Car for Your...
Travel Tip #37 for Broke-Ass Lovers: Don’t ever rent a car. If you need a car on vacation, walk up to a dealership. Try an Audi (because I like the A8). Then take it for a 2 day test drive. Yes. Dealers will actually let you take new cars off of the lot for 2 whole days if you have good credit. If they ask you how you’re going to transport it back to where you’re from,...
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Broke-Ass Traveler: Where to Take a Nap and a Bath
Last time I traveled from Paris to Barcelona on a train, I took a couple of days to do it. I got off at every stop along the way to enjoy the regional wines while simultaneously picking up a phone number or two. This is tiring and there’s nowhere to take a shower unless you get a hotel for the night. If you’ve ever been without sleep and a shower while you’re traveling,...
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What To Do When You're Broke in a Foreign Country?...
It’s happened to most all of us. You finish a big project for a client right before you jump on the plane happy about all the zeros in the bank account (to the right of an integer). You arrive in some exotic foreign land ready to explore the culture, the food, the art, and maybe even fall in love. As soon as you try to pay for a coffee, your card gets declined. You call your bank and no,...
6 tags
Top 100 Travel Bloggers Hotels and Airlines Should...
If you run a major airline or hotel chain having graduated with an MBA in the 80’s, you probably don’t have a full picture of how powerful travel bloggers are. And you’d mostly be right. On their own, a single travel blogger with 273 Facebook friends and 131 Twitter followers doesn’t have much, if any, impact on your business.
But when you get no more than a couple dozen...
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Top 5 Most Romantic Cities for Broke Ass Lovers...
(but not necessarily with each other)
The other day, I heard the dumbest comment from an American traveler, “I could live with the natives in the rain forest or the surfers in Costa Rica.”
“Of course you can. You’d be the richest person there (you idiot).”
If you’ve ever seen “The Gods Must Be Crazy,” I think we can generally agree that not...
Why Hard Rock Hotel San Diego Is Still Hip
Yes. I know. It’s the devil of establishments. It’s not obscure. Not a single hipster would be caught dead there. It’s corporate. Some dude in a suit calls the shots. But it’s the only hotel bar with an Elena, Psychology Major. It’s the only hotel and bar that could double as a Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Issue of Vogue. I’m going to ask about pricing on a...
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Top 100 Hotel Managers On Twitter
Not many careers are as competitive as ones in the hospitality industry. Of these careers, not many roles are as tough as that of the hotel manager. You’ve got to have eyes on the back of your head and eyes 50,000 feet in the air. You’ve got to see what’s coming up and manage your staff and expenses predicting feasts and famines. One of the most advanced yet simple ways the...
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Top 100 Boutique Hotels - NYC SF London Paris...
Let’s face it. In today’s economy, who has the money to own and maintain five houses anymore? This is where boutique hotels back you off of that ledge, my friend. They are intimate, like your home. They don’t have that cold sterility of a major hotel like a Hilton or Hyatt. The staff tends to be there longer. They remember your name. Even the rooms tend to differ from one...
15 tags
Top 100 Bed and Breakfasts In The World (Who You...
I remember when I was in school. My favorite thing to do was to hide in a corner of the history library and flip through the world atlas. Whenever I got that rare and spare moment, rather than go watch a movie or go out drinking, I sailed through a thick leather bound world Atlas that smelled of rich mahogany.
As fast as the world is moving today, I decided to hand pick 100 of the most timeless...
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Romantic Travel Tips #37: Chauffeur vs Cabbies
People carry blind spots with them. People used to think that sailing off into the sunset was dangerous. They thought you’d fall off the edge of the flat earth. So nobody did. People used to think that the 4 minute mile was impossible. So they’d get as close to 4 minutes as possible without going under. It was the opposite of the Price is Right. And people think Towncars are more...
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Top 100 Vancouver PR Pros. Why You Should Buy Them...
I was up in Vancouver a few weeks ago. I love Canada (I’ll periodically just intersperse that statement in or out of context). I ordered a Scotch at Chill Winston. Behind me was a birthday party. But it looked more like a bachelorette party. Were 23 girls and two guys (yes, I counted (I love Canada)). Both of the guys had girlfriends. Before I get halfway down my Johnny Walker black, 8...
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The Top Programmers In The World (Who Will Still...
Hi. The following 97 people are the top 100 Programmers in the World (who will still return your phone calls and take your project). I’ve spoken with a several of them. I’ve worked with a couple of them. None of them are on staff at http://sparkah.com . I’ve compiled this list as an internal document of who to turn to when we’re overloaded internally. But since there...
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The Single Biggest Social Media Marketing and...
Hi. So I realized that Staples doesn’t blog. If they did and had Twitter friends too, office managers and business owners would much more frequently be reminded to buy coffee and donuts for their Monday am production meetings. They’d buy paper before they ran out. They’d definately buy toner before hand. So, I decided I’m going to launch a blog just for office managers....
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How Much Money Is Your Social Media Campaign Worth...
Starbucks garnered a media-buy purchase equivalent of $67.8 million in free brand exposure through online news media, social media and Twitter between September and November 2010 — http://www.mediapost.com/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=140885
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How to Get Press Online. Actually, How to Not.
Recently, we listed the top Global 100 Top Bloggers to contact for a write up. Sure, you’ll get thousands of people who read their review of your product, site, or service, but just as, if not more important, you’ll get instant Google placement for what you do. @Jason is one of the top bloggers on earth. Actually, he’s not. He sold his #1 ranking blog to a Major Media house...
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New Social Media Sites: How to Build an Online...
Can we all agree that if you were the first Mormon you’d be rich. Well, let’s back down a bit. Let’s say you were one of the first. Hell, if you were among the first Brits to hit the New World via the Mayflower Compact, you’d get a free ride to Harvard. If you were among the first to start a McDonald’s franchise; If you were among the first to invest in Apple; If...
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DIY PR: Suck Up To The World's Top Design...
If you’ve ever released a new product or service you know how quickly the blog world can just light up with mention, photo, quote, and hearsay about your product. Whether the review is good or bad it’s always good. The more bloggers write about you new products and services, the higher Google will vault you in your category. But since Google has lost a great deal of it’s...
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Top 100 San Francisco PR Public Relations Firms...
By now, you already know why I think bloggers are much more influential than print and even TV media PR people. But what if you could get both the personal relationships bloggers have with their readers and the professional heavy moving power of traditional PR firms? What if you could get the big picture nation wide publications like the NYTimes and NBC to cover your story and get into Google?...
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Google: Why Displaying 100 Results In Search...
There are countless reasons why you’d want to show 100 search results in Google. Probably the most common reason is to see where your site appears in a key word search. Once you’ve done it, well, you just CMD-F or CNTRL-F so you don’t have to visually scan. But if you’re doing this, the results will differ from just clicking through 10 pages of 10 search results each. So...
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New York's Top PR Public Relations Firms and...
So, we all know that there are only 2 ways to get yourself attention and 2 subsets of each. In both cases, the relationships you build will make the difference between an uphill climb vs a heated ski lift ride. You decide how you want to go to market. 1. PAID A) Ads In Legacy Media Magazines, TV, Billboards, Ads in Journals, etc. B) Ads In New Media Blogs ads, Google Adwords, Buying Twitter...
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Why Your URL Sucks: How To Get a Good Domain Name...
I was going to write you a long blog on how to pick your domain name url. But I didn’t have time. So here’s a longer one by @jason Calacanis: Think of Google, Yahoo, EBAY, Mahalo, Meetup, Yammer and Mint — are all six letters or under, generally easy to spell and certainly unique. This is not a coincidence. Landing a short dotcom domain name in 2010 isn’t easy, but it’s...
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Top Los Angeles Public Relations, PR and Media...
So, we all know that there are only 2 ways to get yourself attention and 2 subsets of each. 1. PAID A) Ads In Legacy Media Magazines, TV, Billboards, Ads in Journals, etc. B) Ads In New Media Blogs ads, Google Adwords, Facebook Ads 2. ORGANIC and UNPAIDC) Blog Buzz, Facebook Pages, Facebook Buzz, Google Search Results, Twitter Trending Topics, Forum Building, Community Building, etc… ...
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Overheard By Griffith Feeney-Kleinfeldt at an...
In Dark Bar: “No Bob. They’re not hot. You’re wishfully filling in the details with your subconscious.”
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How to Rapidly Multiply the Number of People Who...
People are just not randomly going to subscribe to you because you’ve got a “like” page. When’s the last time you randomly gave a dollar to a bum on the street who didn’t ask for it? You’ve got to ask for the “like.” You’ve got to present the value proposition and ask repeatedly. If one value proposition doesn’t do it. Try another...
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An Insider Facebook Pages Marketing Trade Secret:...
This is an excerpt of an email I just sent to a well known race car driver. He is working on developing more sponsors and building a larger fan base outside his already big network. This is what I recommended when he told me that he already had a Facebook “fan” page. As far as collecting contact with potential sponsors, we’re going to need far more “FAN” pages...
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An Open Letter to Bad Ass PR People
Hi. I, like you, am a Bad Ass (wait, is that a compound word or hyphenated?). And, I like you. So, I only selected a hand full of PR people from around the world to openly propose that we refer each other work. If we support each other, build a coalition, become allies, and take turns giving a leg up, we can get much farther much faster. I don’t do PR. I don’t have friends who...
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Marketing and Branding Strategies: Sparkah's...
Nobody will tear out your ad, take it home, unfold it from their pocket, turn on the computer, and type in WWW.BLANKer.com Ironic. Frustration and heavy drinking doesn’t happen when your efforts fail. Misery strikes when you run out of ideas. The following list is a collection of the most effective and ingenious marketing/pr methods used by the most successful people on earth. ...
How to Build a Cult Following via Support and...
Brand loyalty is a function of two factors. Service support and the bandwidth of that support. Do you have both?