One of the biggest challenges of maintaining a blog (or newsletter) is keeping your content fresh. It requires meticulous monitoring of the Internet and other resources to find the one idea worth sharing. And the energy to repeat the process every day (week, month). No need to stress. With a little artificial intelligence, you can just delegate the work.

Favebot, which is short for “favorite robot” is a content aggregation tool and very easy to use. Sign-up for a free account and create a “Tracking List” by entering keywords in the topic field. Choose any and all types of content you are interested in. Favebot will track local events, new music/dvds/books, news articles, blog posts, and media (photos, podcasts, and videos). With daily searches and multiple updates on blog and news content, Favebot can be relied upon to deliver fresh content.

You can browse search results in your personal “Discoveries” tab or subscribe to updates via RSS feed or an RSS-to-email service. Its an easy way to stay up to date without an army of interns.

We know it better than anyone else. Creating and sending out an email newsletter is a huge pain.

Luckily, there’s now a free replacement that can turn your blog posts into emails. It’s Feedburner email. It’s so absurdly easy, there’s really very little to tell. Just “burn” your RSS feed using
reliable Feedburner. Once you’ve done this and indicated a desire to enable email delivery, every time your site visitors subscribe, they’re provided the option of subscribing with an RSS reader or by email. You don’t have to do any more work. Your blog posts will be sent as emails to your recipients.

Your can even set it up so your users see a standard looking email signup. They won’t even have to know that you’ve figured out how to deliver email newsletters for free using your RSS feed.

If you’re spending a fortune sending email newsletters, why don’t you just concentrate on creating blog posts and just let your feed handle all of the work for you.

Sometimes the best investment you can make to grow your site traffic doesn’t come from investing in your site at all. It can come from creating a branch of it somewhere else.

You can create a widget or a min-site with a tool like Sprout. This system lets just about anyone create slick looking, dynamic, content-rich widgets or mini-sites. You can include slideshows, jukeboxes, and even web-services like Twitter as sources of data. Sounds impossible, right? Check out these examples to get a better idea of what’s possible. Once you’ve used the drag and drop tools to create what you need, you can simply get the code that you can then put on any website (like a blog or a social networking site).

If you’re looking for a great way to get your customers or fans to spread the word, here’s an easy way to make it happen.

With so many different places on the web to join, create or upload content, and then share - it’s almost impossible to keep track of everything.

But with Friendfeed, you have an easy way to keep everyone in your circle up to date with your latest Flickr photos, YouTube video, addition to your Facebook profile, and so on. First, you sign up. Then, you invite a friend. Then, this system will import anything that’s been shared from sites across the web. If your friend marks a video as a “favorite” on YouTube, you get a link and a thumbnail of the video in your feed. if your friend indicates that he likes a news story on Digg, you get a link in your feed. While this may be obtrusive for faux / online friends, it’s just right for family members, real friends, or. . . even your brand zealots out there.

If you’re looking for a way to let your most passionate customers follow your brand’s activities online (photos, videos, preferences), here’s a way to let them follow even more closely. For individual driven businesses (musicians, artists, etc), this tool makes a great way to keep your list of fans connected, no matter where you are on the web.

Remember the lowly trading card? If you were a baseball fan, it was a great way to keep up with players, statistics, and just stay connected to the game. Oh, and remember, they were for trading. I’ll give you this Thurman Munson for your Hank Aaron. Widgets are just like that, but they can live anywhere on the web.

Thanks to Clearspring’s widget ad network, sites like NBA.com have figured out that these modern day trading cards (check out all of these NBA widgets) can help fans stay up to date . . . with just about anything - photo highlights, video highlights, statistics, standings, etc. No matter what you’re selling, it pays to think about how you might break up your site content and distribute it.

Also, by delivering both ads and widgets in one little package on sites like Facebook and MySpace, you’ll have the chance to make your widgets value go even further. Give it a try.

Not everyone is hanging out in front of their laptop or desktop. They’re on the move. What good is a blog then?

Just as useful as when you’re at your PC, as it turns out. Thanks to Pimp My News, you can get your favorite blogs delivered by voice. Here’s how it works. Simply visit pimpmynews.com/m on your phone to get to their mobile-based site. Choose a story or a category, and then you’ll receive the feed content (that has been converted to voice) as a downloaded file. It just works, meaning that now you can stay on top of everything from politics to Paris Hilton’s latest antics. You can get more customization (like a personal playlist) by signing up for the service, but feeds are also available if you don’t.

So, how can this help you? Make sure that your feed gets converted by sending an email submission to the service. Then, make sure that your fans know all about it. This system works particularly well on the iPhone (I tried it). It’s a little strange at first, but would be a great way to stay connected with your favorite feeds (Yahoo! News, TechCrunch, Perez Hilton). Or, a great way for your customers to stay connected to your news.

What’s great about RSS and syndication, as we discussed in Bring it on, is that it’s a great way to put your content anywhere on the web. However, just having a feed isn’t enough. You need to create a widget, so your RSS feed can sit in places like iGoogle, Facebook, or the Vista or Mac dashboard. Problem is that creating a widget is hard to do.

Or at least it used to be. Yourminis has changed all that. Here’s how they describe what they offer: This platform offers a set of re-usable components and an advanced API framework to enable rapid development of widgets, ranging from simple badges to complex miniature applications. Here’s how we describe it: they make making widgets easy. While you will need someone with technical ability to develop the widget (meaning we can dispense with the gory detail), it can be done in less than an hour. Once you have a widget developed, you can put it just about anywhere.

How do we know? Well, we built one just to show you. If you would like a feed growth! widget, here are some options: fg for facebook, fg for iGoogle, fg for Vista, fg for Mac. While this one is quite simple, we’ll be adding sex appeal over time.

If you’re looking for a way to take your site content and evangelize, it’s going to be hard to beat this option for making it happen quickly.

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you know that there are low cost service providers offshore. However, while the price may be right, can you really rely on someone you’ve never met, thousands of miles away?

Odesk may be able to put your mind at ease. The online service connects you with web developers and designers across the globe. Here’s how it works. Create a profile, and then create a project description. Then you can either bid out your project or peruse the database for workers based on their abilities, work history, or prior client feedback (similar to the reviews on eBay). The system mediates the entire process, letting you engage and interact with qualified applicants / partners before you pull the trigger.

You can outsource the nuts and bolts of an entire project or complement your existing workforce with specialized talent on a project basis. What are you waiting for? Try it this year.

As we discussed in Freshly Squeezed, Joost is a big player in internet based or IPTV. Once TV programming is available online, advertising options go well beyond the 15 second spot.

Just one example can be found in Coke Bubbles. This sponsored service lets users share Joost clips and send commentary through widgets known as bubble messages that carry the Coca-Cola brand. In the same way that you can send an e-card today, so can you use Coke Bubbles to send a snippet of any TV program on Joost. Now when consumers want to share a cool scene, they can, while also carrying your brand.

This is what happens when TV and the web get married - everything gets turned upside down. Try not to be a wallflower at the reception because these advertising opportunities won’t always be so easy or accessible.

For so many companies, the sales force represents the only real window into the customers’ world. The problem is that sales people move constantly and don’t really have the time to stop and write things down.

Now they don’t really have to. Gabcast lets you call a toll free number, record a message, and then post it to a blog (when you add audio to a blog, it’s an audioblog). Simply sign up with the system, record something by calling and 800 number and then publish to your audioblog. A sales person or a group of salespeople could use this type of service to keep a broad community up to date with what’s happening in the real world, products they might see, reactions to new products … just about anything.

There’s no reason that desk jockeys and road warriors can’t be in synch. Gabcast can be the key.

For anyone who’s trying to grow a business, there will always seem to be much more to do than there is time to do it. One of the newest ways of tackling challenging tasks that can be done on the web is called crowdsourcing (the Wikipedia is an example). It essentially means that you hand a difficult task to an undefined, large group of people. Remember that old screen saver (SETI@home) that harnessed your computer to help search for extra-terrestrials? It’s sort of like that, but instead of harnessing your computer, crowdsourcing harnesses other people willing to work for a per-task fee.

The easiest way to put this power to work for your company is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. This somewhat strangely named service gives you the power to crowdsource almost any task you might imagine. To get started using the service, you’ll need to first create a HIT (human intelligence task). You will probably need some technical help, especially if you want to build this capability into a web-based application.

Here’s a good example of what’s possible - the transcription service named CastingWords. This web-based service uses the Mechanical Turk service to transcribe MP3 files - for as little as 75 cents per minute.

Couldn’t you find a way to improve your current offering and sell more with the help of a cast of thousands?

Want to give your customers something interesting to read on long elevator rides when they don’t want to look at their shoes and want to feel important?

You can easily make your company’s blog available on most any phone, using Feedm8. Let’s use a slightly demented but occasionally interesting digital marketing site we know of as an example. Enter your blog/site in this signup form, make the ceremonial offering of your email address, and then you’re presented with options to promote the cell phone friendly version of your site.

As we described in Kiss the Problem, when you give users code for putting content into a site, it’s more likely to get use. In this example, by simply copying and pasting the HTML this service provides, you can create a handy service and make sure your content gets read.

Your customers or prospects who come to your site can see a simple link, maybe one that says Read on Mobile. Alternatively, you can just put in a nice button (try it!) :

Now, when they’re looking for something interesting to read, your customers will find your site on their phone in an easy to read format. Don’t they deserve a mobile version from you?

It’s easy to think that everyone uses or buys the market leader - Google for search, eBay for auctions, Craigslist for classifieds. Well, they don’t. These companies are leaders and have big shares, but you’re leaving dollars on the table or losing out if you don’t go that extra mile to capture all of the category leaders.

Take Oodle for example. It’s a different option for classifieds. It primarily carries classifieds from many, many other sites, usually category specific. For example, if you’re looking to buy a new puppy, there are several pet specific classified sites, such as Petfinder or Pluba. If you just look on Craigslist, you just won’t find the pets listed on these sites.

So, if you’re looking to sell something, the lesson is to create a classified in several places and to ensure that it’s listed on aggregators like Oodle. Alternatively, if you’re buying, make a visit to Oodle, if you don’t find what you’re looking for on Craigslist.

Many new salespeople have to learn a simple rule. Ask for the business. In the same way, so many display ads perform poorly because they’re unclear, they’re either intrusive or fade into the background like wallpaper. Most of all, they don’t really ask for the business. Not anymore.

Just take a quick look at Tailgate, an e-commerce system that fits an entire transaction right in a display ad. It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen. Yep, it’s a display ad. But, click on it and you can add an item to a shopping cart. Then enter your credit card number and close the deal (see this example).

Why make someone click over to a site when they can do a transaction right where they are. Time starvation knows no bounds. Don’t you think asking for the business more often will lead to . . . more business?

Social networking sites continue to increase in popularity. Across the board, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and many others continue to add users. So, with so many consumers congregating together, how do you put your brand front and center?

Any brand can reach Facebook’s 30+ million users by creating an inexpensive, shareable application, informally referred to as a Facebook widget. Facebook, one of the leading social networking sites, has turned its site into an “open” platform, making it easy for any brand to create and launch an application. Red Bull has created a branded version of rock-scissors-paper, called “Roshambull,” as a way to advertise its energy drinks. Facebook users agree to add the application, then they are welcomed and shown the rules, and finally, they can challenge a friend (and even bet available credits).

The key here is to create an application that users want to share. It might be a game, but could also be sharing preferences in music, or just about anything. Are you looking for a way to break through the clutter? This could be your chance.

It’s just not possible to research everything before you put it in front of your customers. When it comes to getting a quick reaction to something, there’s usually not many options between formal data gathering and “mother-in-law” research (just asking colleagues, family, or friends).

Consider Vizu as a new option for getting a quick read on just about any topic. It’s a research service that can syndicate a simple poll to over a 1000 different websites. In addition, the system automatically runs a series of demographic questions to gain insight into the audience of each participating site. So, when they present the results of your poll, they can also provide some demographic info as well. As you’ll see in these poll samples, you can also integrate graphics into your poll. This might be handy when it comes to evaluating any visual item (see these Vizu case studies).

Prices start at $99 for a standard poll that delivers 100 responses within 6 to 24 hours. While it’s not the kind of tool that should drive strategic decisions, it can give you some new data to draw upon when you’re really just looking to fine tune a tactic.

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