The Tampa Bay Local Search Engine Channel has been created. To add the Tampa/St Pete channel to your ButtonALL you can go to the customization screen and drop down on Cities:: Tampa Bay. Remember, in the customization screen, you can re-arrange, add, and delete your search engine preferences.  The inaugural search channels for Tampa are as follows:

• Tampa Tribune
• St Petersburg Times/TampaBay.com
• Creative Loafing Tampa Bay
• Tampa Bay Craigslist
• Tampa ALL**
  

**OK, so what’s Tampa ALL?  This is a new feature we are launching for all local city search channels.  Up until this point, it has been difficult to winnow the search candidates down to just five choices/buttons for each city.  Sometimes as in the case of NYC, we had to create two channels for the city.

All local channels will now incorporate a Google Custom Search Engine (last red button–”City ALL”) that only searches the local media of a particular town (newspapers, magazines, television, and bloggers).  In the case of Tampa, the CSE only searches the following resources:

• The Bradenton Herald
• Creative Loafing Tampa Bay
• Florida Sentinel Bulletin
• The Oracle (University of South Florida)
• Sarasota Herald-Tribune
• St Petersburg Times/TampaBay.com
• Tampa Bay Online
• Tampa Bay Craigslist
• Tampa Bay Newspapers (Seminole Beacon, Beach Beacon, Largo Leader, Belleair Bee, and Clearwater Citizen)
• Tampa Bloggers
• Tampa Tribune
• WFLA 8 NBC
• WFTS 28 ABC
• WTSP 10 CBS

By getting rid of the noise, this strategy allows for more of a refined search of local-only resources.  For example, type the term “best restaurants”, and you will only get results relevant to that city.  Pretty cool.

As part of our live search building feature on Twitter, we chose Cleveland, Ohio as our next search engine channel.

To add the Cleveland channel to your ButtonALL you can go to the customization screen and drop down on Cities:: Cleveland. OR just click here (click once, or it’ll continue to add this search row. Remember, you can always delete and re-arrange in the customization section).  The inaugural search channels are as follows:

• Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Cleveland Leader
• Cleveland Scene
• Cleveland Craigslist
• Cleveland Magazine

There is quite a bit of work backlog here at ButtonALL.  We have a number of search channels on our “to do” list.  How to prioritize?  Easy, just ask the customer.  About an hour or so ago, I asked our Twitter community if they wanted to see a search channel added.   Jordan Brown of Salt Lake City responded pretty quickly by asking for a SLC Search Engine…Well, Mr. Brown, here ya go…

To add the Salt Lake City channel to your ButtonALL you can go to the customization screen and drop down on Cities:: Salt Lake City. OR just click here (click once, or it’ll continue to add this search row. Remember, you can always delete and re-arrange in the customization section).  The inaugural search channels are as follows:

• Salt Lake City Tribune
• Deseret News
• Provo Daily Herald
• Standard Examiner
• SLC Craigslist
• Slug
  Would have loved to have included the City Weekly, In Utah, or Utah Stories, but we couldn’t work with their search strings.

THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!

Perhaps, my personal highlight of CES 2009 was the “Blogging in  Troubled Times” Q&A with Robert Scoble (Blog | Friendfeed | Twitter | Wikipedia) and Gary Vaynerchuk (Blog | Twitter | Wine Library TV | Wikipedia) on Friday January 9, 2009.  The room was cozy (half full, maybe 70 people, sign of the economy?) which made the fireside chat that much more intimate.  To have two “keynote” speakers in a small room dishing out priceless advice for two quality hours for no money is a treat indeed (see sponsor thanks below).  There were brief pre-ambles, but the session was dominated by Q&A.  A couple quick thoughts about each speaker (1) Scoble is much taller in real life (I think that heavy tripod makes him look smaller in the Scobleizer picture).  He’s also just as nice and genuine as can be. (2)  Vaynerchuk is as advertised and more.  He is like a modern day R-Rated business Confucius (straight shooting, entertaining, every sentence uttered a quotable quote)…Oh yeah, it’s pronounced VAIN-ER (rhymes w her)-CHUCK (rhymes w his favorite word).

Without further ado and in true Scoble “sharing” fashion, here are the highlights of the talk:
(please note: I took furious notes, but there’s probably some paraphrasing here.  I saw about 5 bloggers (including Pelotonics) videotaping the session, so look out for those transcripts. S=Scoble, V=Vaynerchuck)

The Economy

• Blogging was born in the last recession.  Unemployed software engineers built platforms for themselves and friends to rant about the state of their “f*d company” world.  They started blogging just for fun, but it unwittingly started the next revolution in media and direct to consumer communications. S
• Everything is cheap right now: labor, real estate, bandwidth.  ROI is easy when the expenses are nominal.  “Real Money” and “Real Good Sh*t” gets made in the next 2-3 years of this downturn.  While the other bears are in their caves hibernating, you should be out foraging for food (sure, less food but a lot less competition).  Anyone willing to work and hustle during this period will gain marketshare. V

Corporate America

• Blogging/Twitter is changing everything.  Many companies just don’t get this “real-time feedback” world and are getting their “asses kicked” because of it.  Best Buy executives were following Scoble around that day and seemed awe-stricken by his constant communication with his readership and friends. S, V
• Best Buy being surprised is “f’ing awesome.”  While the slow moving corporations figure it out (”it’s phenomenal they don’t understand”), the nimble little blog can jump on opportunity….However, the gap is closing.  “When I see FoxNews talking about Twitter, I get sad.” V

Virgin Blogger Advice

• Get to know how traffic gets to your website.  (for Scoble, 2% comes from Twitter, 60% Google). How do people find you? Use Google’s Keyword Search tool. Basic SEO is a prerequisite but don’t be consumed by it.  The best SEO strategy is simply making a useful site for your community. S
• Try a niche. Don’t try to be Michael Arrington (all things to all people).  Become a market authority/trusted source about your particular market. S, V
• Read everything/get obsessed about the subject matter you’re interested in blogging. (When Gary decided to go into wine blogging, he tore down the Pamela Anderson posters on his wall replacing them with K&L ads :-)). Join communities (be part of communities by interacting, not just sending one way links).  If you are a real two-way contributor, other members will be linking to you unsolicited. V
• Write about what you love.  You must have pure passion/emotional attachment for your subject matter for it to work in the long term.  In the end, if it makes you happy, then that’s really the only thing that matters (traffic, monetization be dammed). V
• Follow best practice blogs for ideas, networking, and a blueprint.  Suggests popurls.com (bloggers with the highest RSS subscribers) to get a lay of the land. V author’s note: Take Wine Library TV as the perfect example. Create a WLTV equivalent for your niche blog.
• Empower your community.  Building a community and audience takes a “sh*tload of time but so does making money.” V
• Treat everyday people with courtesy (cites a Tim Ferris anecdote). S If you treat people differently based on their level of influence, then “you are broken.” V

Monetization

• Get sponsorship (a la Seagate and Scobleizer), Leverage advertising (affiliate ads, Adsense, etc), or vertical distribution (a la Wine Library TV) S
• The only way to maximize any of these strategies is to gain readership, and that’ll be a seemingly slow process, initially.  Eventually, good blogs rise to the top and a traffic “tipping point” occurs. S
  • I’d rather have a business that slowly double pennies rather than an early large payout for something that starts quick then fizzles. V
• Leverage new tools like Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter, and Mobile Apps to get the message out. Build brands around new paradigms.  S
• Don’t worry about money.  When people care about you and you become relevant, the money follows naturally.  V
• Once blog relevance is established other avenues of revenue automatically open up like public speaking, consulting, books, etc. S, V
• Takes margin over volume anytime.

Followers

• Definition of blog relevance is the power to make sh*t happen (you could have a million followers or just one, ie, Bill Gates).  S
• “There are people with zero followers that can move more people than this room combined”. S
• Rather have 1500 quality followers over 30,000 any day.

Facebook

• According to Scoble’s sources, 5000 friend limit is going away. S
• Facebook weakness = closed system.  Difficult to share with the outside world. A “walled garden.” S
• Facebook strength = closed system.  “Normal people” want a closed private environment. V

Robert Scoble

• Dubiously claims 8 hours of sleep. Ha!
• How does he keep up with followers? Media snacking (like a newspaper, don’t read every page or every word).  When you have time, interact.  Always appreciate the effort.
• Built his brand because all he wants to do is share. “Shine flashlight away from me.”
• Goal in life is to have one meaningful conversation every day.
• Tipping point was when he got a coffee shop to show up on Google via his blog.

Gary Vaynerchuk

• Spends an hour a day working on blog content/video.  Spends most of his days answering emails and interacting with his customers.
• Uses Search Twitter and Google Alerts to track his company’s coverage.  Proactively will reply.
• Sure, he’d love to be LeBron James, but (know thyself) he’d rather execute and leverage his own DNA.
• When he wakes up, he asks himself two questions (1) What do I want to do every day for the rest of my life (2) What is my legacy?
• Chose wine blogging over the NY Jets because he wanted to go after the “big nut.”
• De-emphasizes stats.  It’s more a feeling.
• Tipping point was literally when he got his first comment on WLTV.

UPDATES!

• ?Fouroboros: Blogging was born in a recession. Good ideas always are.
• Pelotonics: Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuck - a great pair to learn from (VIDEO)
• Woot!: CES 2009, Day 2: Scoble and Vaynerchuk Speak!

Monster

• Special thanks to Monster Cables (Twitter) for sponsoring this talk.  Kevin “Little Monster” Lee and his team were on hand giving out free gifts to the audience (”Best in CES Show” Schwag: Monster Outlets to Go 3 USB Power Strip, Monster ScreenClean, and tickets to their Diana Ross concert party!).
• The Outlets to Go will be my new favorite traveling companion. A super compact/portable multi-strip outlet with a USB charging port.  As someone mentioned in the audience, you will make instant friends in the airport with this cool  little device.
• Kevin was also demoing a “Fettuccini” inspired headphone set.  Fettuccini doesn’t tangle up, and neither do these headphones.  Really nice concept.  Can’t really confirm the sound quality (just not comfortable demoing earbuds, yuch), but, hey, it’s from Monster and Dr Dre…

These online shopping sites allow experts and community members to share deals, reviews, comparable products, ratings, and recommendations.

To add the Community and Discovery Shopping Search channels to your ButtonALL you can go to the customization screen and drop down on Shopping :: Community and Discovery 1 and Community and Discovery 2. OR just click here for channel 1 and here for channel 2 (click once, or it’ll continue to add this search row. Remember, you can always delete and re-arrange in the customization section).

• Community and Discovery Shopping Channel 1
  • Fat Wallet (Wikipedia | Crunchbase) All of us are smarter than one of us, so why not raise your shopping IQ? Share deals, money-saving tips and more.
  • Kaboodle (Wikipedia | Crunchbase)  Kaboodle is a social shopping community where people discover, recommend and share products. Kaboodle’s powerful shopping tools allow people to organize their shopping through lists, discover new things from people with similar style, get discounts on popular products and find best prices.
  • ShopWiki (Wikipedia | Crunchbase) ShopWiki is a guide designed to help consumers find specific products on the Internet with ease. Our consumer-written wiki helps you decide the best products to buy and where to buy them.
  • TheFind (Wikipedia | Crunchbase)  TheFind.com is a shopping search engine dedicated to searching all the stores on the Web to find just the right products shoppers are looking to buy.
  • Wishpot (Crunchbase) Wishpot makes it easy for you to shop anywhere, keep all your finds in one place, connect with friends, and discover the hottest deals.
    
• Community and Discovery Shopping Channel 2
  • Crowdstorm (Crunchbase) Crowdstorm attempts to address this market fragmentation by aggregating content from experts across the web (buyers guides, reviews, blog posts) and blend it with content and question / answer style advice from people you trust (friends, family, colleagues, peers…).
  • DealCatcher DealCatcher is an online community that helps shoppers save money and make educated purchases. On the site you will find online coupons, products, sales, reviews, and rebates.
  • DeaLoco (Crunchbase) The DeaLoco team and our users search far and wide each day to deliver you the best deals available. While our primary focus is on consumer electronics, we are also a great source of deals on apparel, baby products and toys.
  • Pronto (Crunchbase)  Pronto.com is the ultimate place to shop online. With an active community of millions of shoppers, and over 70 million products, Pronto.com is a fun place to discover unique products and find great deals on everything from electronics and apparel, to sports equipment and home décor.
  • Smash Deals (Crunchbase) Smash Deals is a social network for sharing coupons, coupon codes, deals and sales news for online retailers.

I love the smell of commerce in the morning– Banky Holden, Mallrats

Black Friday has arrived.  You’re looking for deals?  We have meticulously created a “Shopping Deals” channel as well as a channel specifically geared towards “Black Friday.” Shoppers of the world unite!

Deals Search Engines:
To add the Deals Search channel to your ButtonALL you can go to the customization screen and drop down on Shopping :: Deals. OR just click here (click once, or it’ll continue to add this search row. Remember, you can always delete and re-arrange in the customization section).  I’ve added the business’ self-description as well as any Crunchbase or Wikipedia listings for further research…

• BradsDeals BradsDeals, published by Brad Wilson, finds and filters online shopping deals, online coupons and codes and in-store printable coupons. 
• Deal Comet ( Crunchbase)  Deal Comet is the hub for all us Deal Lovers out there!
• Deals.com Simply put, Deals.com is the answer to all your shopping prayers.
• DealNews ( Crunchbase)  Every day, dealnews Every day, dealnews brings you the best deals available on the hottest items on the Internet. We scour over 2,000 online retailers and tens of thousands of deals to deliver the best 100+ deals each and every day — the kinds of deals you’d normally only see on Black Friday. 
• Slickdeals (Crunchbase) The most frequently updated and complete deal site on the web! We provide you with the day’s hottest deals every day. We also have over 800 coupons for all your favorite online stores. Browse around and you’re bound to save more than a few bucks! 
• Some additional resources:
  • BensBargains.net Ben is a fanatical online shopper and an online shopping expert. He has run BensBargains.net since the beginning of the year 2000, during the heydey of the internet boom and bubble. 
  • DealStop DealStop is a social commerce site that allows registered users to earn money when visitors click through and purchase items from merchants links the registered users have added to the site.
  • GottaDeal.com Our goal is and has always been to provide you with the best deals and coupons for many of your favorite online and offline retailers.
  • Jellyfish.com (Crunchbase | Wikipedia) Smack Shopping is the Internet’s first live social shopping show. Each show features our unique dropping price format that allows the audience to actually set the selling price of each product, creating tremendous deals on the hottest online products. 

Black Friday Search Engines:
To add the Black Friday Search channel to your ButtonALL you can go to the customization screen and drop down on Shopping :: Black Friday. OR just click here (click once, or it’ll continue to add this search row. Remember, you can always delete and re-arrange in the customization section).  

• Black Friday Ads The Official Site for Black Friday.
• BlackFriday.FM BlackFriday.fm is for people to find Black Friday Online, Specials, Scans, Black Friday Com, Best Buy, and Walmart Ads.
• BlackFriday.info We are the official site for all of the 2008 Black Friday ads as they are reported to us during this holiday shopping season.
• TGI Black Friday Complete listings of the Black Friday deals and Black Friday ad scans, along with online coupons.
• TheBlackFriday.com TheBlackFriday.com is one of the most popular source of black friday sale information
• Some additional resources:
  • Black Friday Gear As the only Black Friday Gear web site, the gear is intended for fanatical shoppers and adds a hilarious twist to the holiday season that is sure to impress, amuse and entertain. 
  • iBlackFriday.com Welcome to iBlackFriday.com, the site that lets you view the 2008 black friday ads weeks in advance. 

Added! Coupon Website Guide
Get coupons and coupon codes for your favorite brands and stores.  The nature of these websites are not “search-driven”; therefore, we have not created a channel for this category.  We have included the biggest players in this space for your shopping convenience:

• CoolSavings At CoolSavings, we know how important it is for you and your family to get the most value for your money. Our goal is to make your life easier by being your free resource for valuable coupons, discounts and special offers from your favorite brands and stores. 
• CouponCabin Save with CouponCabin’s free coupons, coupon codes & deals. 
• CouponCode.com Welcome to CouponCode.com, where you’ll find great online discounts from over 1000 stores! And be sure to check in often as we are always updating this site with the latest coupon codes. 
• CouponMom.com The easiest way to save.
• Coupons.com (Crunchbase) Coupons, Inc. is the leading U.S. provider of consumer-printed coupon marketing and technology solutions.
• CouponWinner.com CouponWinner.com is an online shopping website that works with over 2,000 merchants and provides thousands of free coupons and promotional codes from top brand-names.
• Ebates Think of Ebates as your local mall with over 1000 different stores but with one huge difference. Online stores pay Ebates a commission on every sale and we split this amount with you.  
• RetailMeNot.com (Crunchbase) Search RetailMeNot.com, the world’s largest coupon source, by entering a store’s web address
• ShopLocal.com (Crunchbase | Wikipedia) Connecting advertisers and consumers. Online and in-store.

Tomorrow, we’ll aggregate all the shopping comparison search engines…

In preparation for Black Friday, ButtonALL will be releasing a new shopping search engine channel every day this week.  By the end, ButtonALL will be one of the most powerful shopping search tools on the planet.  The Internet’s universal remote control will become the Internet’s universal shopping mall (what does that mean?) 

For this installment and for the ladies, we bring you the Shoe Search Engine channel.  Though I may have thought Jimmy Choo was an anime blog, I’ve done the due-diligence and homework, and here are the inaugural five:

• Zappos If you’re looking for the best service and the best selection of shoes, clothes, and handbags, shop at Zappos.com!
• Endless.com Endless.com is an exciting new destination for shoes and handbags dedicated to providing the best prices, selection, and overall experience you’ll find online. 
• Piperlime Your insider’s guide to casual shoes, dress shoes, handbags and more for women, men and kids.
• Onlineshoes.com Onlineshoes.com offers the latest high quality footwear for men, women and kids in more than 33,000 trend-setting styles and over 200 premium brands.
• 6PM Welcome to 6pm.com, your online source for shoes, apparel, and accessories. (Zappos’ clearance site)

To add the Shoe Search channel to your ButtonALL you can go to the customization screen and drop down on Shopping :: Shoes. OR just click here (click once, or it’ll continue to add this search row. Remember, you can always delete and re-arrange in the customization section)

Hey, sorry, we haven’t blogged in a while.  With the success of ButtonALL Canada (Buttonalll.ca), we’ve been deep into working on further international releases in the coming months.  Also, “PROJECT 2″ is getting worked on.  You’ll love it!

Expect a flurry of news in the next couple of weeks.  Sleep?  Who needs it?

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while (patiently waiting for a fifth search engine to emerge).  Enter Tweetag (thanks TechCrunch!).

Here are the inaugural five (subject to change…any others out there?):

• Twitter (official)  There is an undeniable need to search, filter, and otherwise interact with the volumes of news and information being transmitted to Twitter every second. Twitter Search helps you filter all the real-time information coursing through our service. (author’s note: We love the fact that Summize came out of Virginia!)
• Twitter Troll A search engine strictly for indexing and searching Twitter posts.
• Tweetag Tweetag gives you a unique way to browse through all the public tweets published on Twitter.com  By selecting certain tags, you can also define the scope of your search and discover new topics related to them
• Twellow Twellow.com is able to assist you in finding real people who really matter. We’re doing the hard work of sifting out people who can help bring your vision to reality, whatever that vision might be.
• Twitter Scan In the innovative world of Microblogging, one site aims to organize it all. Tweet Scan searches Twitter, identi.ca and other Laconica-based sites with more being added all the time.

To add the Twitter Search channel to your ButtonALL you can go to the customization screen and scroll down on Blogs :: Twitter Search. OR just click here (click once, or it’ll continue to add this search row. Remember, you can always delete and re-arrange in the customization section)

Today we launched the Canadian version of ButtonALL (see press release below).  This is the first of many international releases.  I recently visited Toronto (an annual tradition + direct flights from Richmond via Canada Air…no joke!), and I just love that city.  In some ways, it’s actually better than NYC (Canadians sometimes jokingly refer to Toronot as Manhattan-Lite)…Actually, Toronto has a superior Chinatown and the Island Park Systems is better than Central Park in terms of an accesible urban getaway (though not as good our James River Parks :)).  The hipster Kensington Market does not seem as gentrified as the Village (feels like 80s Village).  Better beer.  Enough rambling, here is the press release:

ButtonALL.ca, the All-in-One Canadian Search Engine Launches

Richmond, VA (PRWEB) October 17, 2008 — 4What, LLC today announced that ButtonALL (http://buttonall.com), a leader in all-in-one, customizable search engines, is expanding to Canada (http://buttonall.ca).

ButtonALL.ca features a single-screen interface consolidating the most popular search engines used by Canadians. The ButtonALL default search buttons are organized topically by rows or channels: search, reference, people, shopping, Canadian news, and French news (Canadienne Nouvelles). Each channel features one search button highlighted by its red color. Rotated frequently, Red Buttons represent the hottest and newest websites. For ButtonALL.ca, Red Buttons will heavily feature homegrown Canadian websites.

“There is certainly a lot of crossover and similarities, but I think many American Internet companies take Canada for granted almost treating Her as an afterthought, a ’51st’ state,” said 4What, LLC Co-Founder Wray Mills. “ButtonALL.ca takes into account those websites that are most used by Canadians from British Columbia to Newfoundland, from Quebec to Ontario.”

In addition to the default search channels, users have the power to add, delete, and re-arrange channels based on their personal interests. Over 80 topical channels (400 search engines…everything from recipes to video game cheats) are available for users to customize their search panel (http://buttonall.ca/search/customize).

“We’ve made ButtonALL ridiculously simple to use. No logins are required. Once you’ve configured your search engine the way you want it, the preferences will be saved on your browser,” added Mills.

ButtonALL.ca features a number of add-on Canadian city channels where users can search the local newspaper or classifieds. The inaugural city search channels include Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg with many more in the pipeline.

According to the Canadian Internet Use Survey, 19.2 million Canadians (73% of the population aged 16 and older) use the Internet for personal reasons. Canada is the 16th ranked country in the world in both total Internet users and percentage of population using the Internet.*

*Source: internetworldstats.com

About 4What:
4What is an Internet startup focusing on innovative online products, applications, and systems solutions. 4What is the creator of ButtonALL, a one-stop search engine aggregator. 4What is headquartered in the farmlands of Goochland County, Virginia, with offices in Richmond, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland. Our corporate workforce currently consists of more horses, dogs and cats than software engineers. For more information visit http://www.ButtonALL.com.