Ben Tremblay

I would like to share two videos featuring two well-known persons: Seth Godin and Steve Jobs. The first video is an interview with Seth Godin in which Seth talks about when to quit and why choosing the right moment is extremely important. It is of course related to his book “the dip” that you might have read, but even though you did, it’s a great video.

The second video is a speech from Steve Jobs in which he talks about a lot of things and it is somewhat related Seth’s interview. There’s a part in the video where Steve talks about the fact that he never graduated from college, but what looked like a bad decision at the time, turned out to be one of the best decision in his life: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect looking backward”. (more…)

Personal branding is going to be huge in a couple of years as everyone is at least very good at one thing and also because it is going to be even easier than today to start a blog, run your own TV show and things like that. This post is going to be more a discussion and some thoughts about whether or not businesses and companies will have to deal with personal branding and if it will be an issue for them.

The impact of social media and personal branding

With social medias and personal branding, each and everyone of us is an “expert” in a field. If not an expert, you’re talking/blogging about something you feel comfortable with. Some are extremely lucky, have a day job they really enjoy and blog and tweet just for fun. On the opposite, some have a boring day job or a job they hate and this personal branding/blog stuff is what keeps them alive during the evening and at night. It is for some, just like a double life: working as a regular receptionist during the day and running a popular show on the web at night. (more…)

I want to share with you what makes me follow someone on twitter and I also want to know what makes YOU follow other people. I see people following 1,000 persons and only getting followed by 30 persons and I also see the complete opposite, so there must be different priorities for different persons. While I agree that reputation and popularity plays a big role in the “follow ratio”, there must be something. (more…)

Most of you guys will be with your family today, celebrating Christmas. I am no different and I would like to take the time to wish you and all the ones you love a Merry Christmas! I know there are probably some of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, but this makes no difference to me, I still want to thank you and wish you at least a very nice day.

This is also a great opportunity for me to say thank you for being part of this. Every single time I wasn’t too sure if what I was writing or talking about was a little bit too much “on the edge”, you guys always gave great feedback and I thank you for this. Or is it because you guys jump to the comment section directly?

Have fun with your family and your friends and enjoy every single moment, because I will too!

Again, happy holidays!

Ben.

It is with a coffee, in this cold and full of snow Monday, that I am reviewing Rarst.net. I feel like this was planned because Rarst always complains about how he hates cold and how winter is usually a very depressing time. I must agree with him as I don’t really enjoy snow/winter and I just think Rarst sent me some snow today to make sure I’m stuck in the house, can’t go out, and write his review. So, after winning the contest the other day, here is my review. (more…)

Today,  my friend Rarst who I am going to review on Monday because he won my quick contest the other day wrote an interested tweet. He basically recommended the following presentation by Google themselves:

Google For Webmaster

The guy/girl doing the presentation are a little boring, but honestly it covers A LOT of things and also answers A LOT of the most common questions. It covers topics such as PageRank, duplicate content, ranking, Google Webmaster tools, etc.

Have a look, it’s worth it. The presentation is divided in topics so you can just have a look at the topics you’re interested in.

OK, sarcastic title here, but just to express how I am so not surprised. This week, three Internet Marketing blogs went on sale: The University Kid, LinkersBlog and Slyvisions. To be fully honest with you guys, it’s not true that I wasn’t surprised: I was a little bit surprised. I am expecting major shifts in this business in the coming months and that shift starts to happen as more and more bloggers will realize that blogging about Making Money Online is a freackin’ dead end. The shift is just happening a little faster than I expected. (more…)

Would you read the newspaper if there wasn’t any titles? Would you read the newspaper if there wasn’t any sections? would you read the newspaper if it was a single block of text? Would you read the newspaper if the presentation was different everyday? I don’t think so. Then, tell me why so many bloggers don’t structure their posts? (more…)

The most common question I get when I explain to people what I do online or blog about is: “Why do you give away your tips and tricks? Doesn’t that give you more competition because everybody knows how you do things?”. It is easy to think this way, but the reality is that sharing your tips and tricks is not a problem, most people are watchers, ideas gatherer or simply don’t really care about what you say. (more…)

Here it is, the new method from Danny Cooper to get backlinks: offer a review copy of an e-book to get backlinks from a couple of selected bloggers. There you go Danny, you got your backlink and here’s one more for your Blog Comment Blueprint. Now that we’ve done the dirty stuff for that link hungry Danny, let’s get to the content. (more…)