This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Dell is a shining example of a brand that has managed to turn their Twitter presence into both a customer service and sales outlet. Dell may be a big corporation, but the story behind the $6.5 million they’ve raised from their Twitter presence is one that shines a light on a road to success that any company, regardless of size, can learn from and emulate.

I asked Dell’s Senior Manager for Corporate Affairs, Richard Binhammer — otherwise known as RichardatDell — to elaborate on Dell’s Twitter success. The following are principles extracted from that email interview.

1. The Right Motivation is Key

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If you’re simply motivated to make money from Twitter, your heart is in the wrong place. Dell’s strategy is to turn Twitter into an opportunity to build better relationships with customers, which ultimately leads to stronger sales.

According to Binhammer, Dell didn’t initially approach Twitter with dollar signs in their minds, but instead as a listening outpost. “Dell first heard about Twitter at SXSW a few years back and got excited about the listening aspect of Twitter,” he said.

The businesses side of listening was an unintended but welcome bonus to their effective presence on Twitter.

“Dell’s goal has always been to be an online leader and connect with customers wherever they are. It starts with listening and connecting with customers across the Web. This has proven to be invaluable to our business through the years. We see social media connections as a means to further strengthen those direct customer relationships. The added revenue has been a welcome addition to being where our customers are and connecting with them.”

2. Approach Twitter With a Multifaceted Strategy

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Dell’s Twitter presence isn’t limited to a single account or purpose. Instead Dell takes a multifaceted approach to Twitter and attempts to serve niche customer communities and interests all over the world.

If you’re just looking for deals, they’ve got an account for that (@DellOutlet), if you just want breaking news there’s an account for that too (@Direct2Dell), and the list goes on.

In Binhammer’s own words, this is how Dell approaches Twitter:

- Direct connections between Dell and customers – listen, learn and engage in direct connections with customers (There are ~ 100 Dell employees using Twitter to connect with customers).

- Subscribe to Dell info – customers can subscribe and get Dell news from our blogs/Ideastorm Twitter.

- Dell offers from businesses – some of our businesses, notably Dell Outlet, publish their latest offers on Twitter.

- More about Dell businesses on Twitter: http://www.dell.com/twitter Here you will see various Dell business accounts such as: Small Business, Dell Canada, UK, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Dell Home Sales, Australia, Japan, China, New Zealand, DellOutletIreland and UK and more

If anything, Dell’s all-hands-on-deck approach to Twitter, demonstrates that you need to serve your customers how they want to be served.

For small businesses in particular, Binhammer recommends that you “Make it easy for your customer to talk to you. Do simple things to thank your customers for their business. Ask them for suggestions. Go where your customers congregate, whether it be Facebook or Twitter or elsewhere, and participate in those conversations. Also, listen to your customers in the blogosphere. What they have to say is vitally important to your business.”

3. Don’t Be a Spammer

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This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised by how many small and big businesses alike use Twitter as a one-way marketing channel with overly promotional tweets.

Spamming your customers on Twitter is a surefire way to get unfollowed and immediately ignored. Of course promoting sales and products is encouraged, but do so in a way that your customers can be receptive to. If you need help defining what that looks like, just ask your followers on Twitter for input.

Dell’s approach, as iterated above, is to serve customers’ interests. The dedicated Twitter account for deals means that they can promote Dell deals to only those customers who have opted in to the purely promotional tweets.

Binhammer advises, “Be yourself and avoid spamming. Making genuine, direct connections with your customers in meaningful ways can only help you deliver what customers want at the end of the day.”

More business resources from Mashable:

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- The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– 5 Tips for Creating a Successful Social Media Contest
– HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– HOW TO: Use a Start Page to Stay Organized
– HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, NoDerog

Tags: business, dell, List, Lists, MARKETING, money, small business, social media, strategy, twitter

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These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered—combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web—have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

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If you’re a nature lover you definitely going to like this collection. This post highlights 25 of the most stunning shots of nature photography. There are plethora of places and scenes on this earth we must at least see for once. Nature photography tends to put a more importance on the aesthetic value of the image than other types of photography. Most nature photographers prefer no human present in their photos, they want to attain pure, immaculate landscapes that are devoid of human influence. Below we present to you a collection of nature photography shots that would really took your breath away.

Here are more related articles we’ve previously published that you might be interested:

• Winter Photography: A White Escape
• Fireworks Photography
• Beautiful Nature Wallpapers

Full list after jump.

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We had a chance to sit down with representatives from Skiff and Sprint to get a first-hand look at the new Skiff Reader, and came away suitably impressed.

In an increasingly crowded eReader market, Skiff distinguishes itself by taking a more platform-oriented approach than a device-specific one.

With a large, 11.5-inch form factor, the Skiff Reader is geared toward bringing newspapers and magazines to digital life more so than the primarily book-oriented approach of several of the other eReader devices out there (Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Spring Design Alex, for example). You’ll still be able to download and read books from its content store (which at launch will include an undisclosed volume from a variety of publishers beyond Hearst), who is heavily involved in backing the Skiff project.

A Platform Approach

Nevertheless, the Skiff project is primarily about bringing newspapers and magazines (and their advertisers) into the digital paper space. The Skiff Reader is merely the first such device in an expected lineup of devices that is by nature wide open and flexible. Skiff also showed off an early prototype of a color tablet-type device as well, and told us the company was eager and willing to be flexible with new device styles and form factors depending on how the market around digital content plays out and what consumers indicate they like.

It also showed off a prototype of a color Skiff device about the same size as the first Skiff Reader, featuring a color E-Ink display. The company acknowledges the importance of getting color screens to market as quickly as possible, particularly for magazines, and, to some extent, newspapers that would greatly benefit from color imagery and eventually video playback on these type of devices as well.

For even more platform rivalry, Skiff plans to launch a Palm webOS and a BlackBerry application at the same time as the reader. It acknowledges that the busy, on-the-go audience it hopes to attract is going to need to access their library from whatever device they have handy, whether it be a dedicated eReader, smartphone, tablet or other form factor that might emerge in the future. It has even announced a Reader Development Kit (RDK) in partnership with Marvell that would help third-party manufacturers build different types of devices that could talk to the Skiff platform. This flexible approach will serve Skiff well in its bid to play a part in pioneering the digital paper transition.

The Skiff Reader Design

In terms of the flagship device itself, The Skiff Reader looked quite impressive in the demo we saw. Screen refreshes were quick and responsive, layouts were clean and intuitive, and the user interface and navigation seemed intuitive and easy to use. Because it’s a touchscreen (unlike the Kindle or Sony Reader), a number of other control methods are opened up, including hand gestures. A simple swipe of the finger — iPhone users will already find this very familiar — can be used to turn pages.

A “My Skiff” dashboard comprises your home screen when powering up the device, which adds a nice layer of “what’s new at a glance” when starting a reading session. Pre-selected content can be downloaded overnight as you sleep, giving you a fresh slate of news to check in on every morning.

As the exclusive partner, Sprint will be providing the 3G connectivity for the device. Going with a persistent connection will allow updates to publications to be pushed out in real-time — another forward-thinking approach as mainstream publishers grapple with increasing their ability to serve a public that’s starting to take immediacy for granted. How frequently real-time updates roll out will depend greatly on how ready individual publishers are to gear up for incremental updates in an industry where the mentality is still largely deadline-driven.

Unfortunately, we were unable to pry the juicier details about when the Skiff Reader will launch and at what cost, but they were able to tell us that “within the next few months we’ll get much more specific.” How do you think the Skiff Reader is stacking up against the other umpteen eReaders out or coming out over the next year?

Tags: blackberry, CES, CES 2010, digital paper, ereaders, hearst, magazines, newspapers, palm, publishing, skiff, sprint, the skiff reader

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But, in my opinion, they are all going to make a splash in 2010.

Four new apps have gotten some press of late and I think all are worth a look. They vary in their approach: two are minimilistic and sparse by design, while the other two attempt to meet the needs of more strict GTDers. Let’s take a brief look at each one.

TeuxDeux

First off, there is TeuxDeux. The app has gotten a lot of press since it first debuted, partially because of the name(s) behind it. Designed by Tina Roth Eisenberg (Swissmiss), the design of this app will appeal to people looking for a simple solution.

Nice aesthetics combined with a simple feature set.

The interface basically makes this app a time sensitive digital white board. As seen above, you simply enter tasks one at a time and then click on them when completed. Like a whiteboard, the tasks is still there after completed, but is ‘scratched out’. Overall, it’s a nice look and feel, with excellent little touches (like the ellipsis for tasks with longer names etc.).

Available now, the app is currently free.

TaskFive

In a similar approach, TaskFive gives the same simple time based approach with a simple scratch pad style list.

The focus here is also simplicity, but with more emphasis on the team than the individual.

The biggest difference here is that you can add multiple users. This would allow for management of several team members or employees by one person. There is also the ability to get an overview of the progress of the entire team or to allow a mentor to view the status of tasks by the user.

Overall, the interface is not quite as nice as TeuxDeux, but the usability is about the same.

Nirvana

In a different direction, the app titled Nirvana is a more feature intensive approach to task management. Featuring concepts like a Someday and Waiting For list, this app is built with the GTD zealot in mind.

A slick web based application, Nirvana appears to borrow its interface from the desktop.

Now, if you’re at all familiar with Things for the mac, you’ll see a striking resemblance in this web application. In fact, there has been some controversy over the approach taken here.

But whether you consider it inspiration or ripoff, there must be some happy Windows users who would love to use a tool like Things, and can now use a close approximation on the web.

Scraplr

Last, we come to Scraplr. Another more robust, perhaps more complicated, approach to task management, Scraplr also attempts to appeal to those who adhere strictly to the GTD process.

Scraplr appears to be a massive undertaking, but it's too early to judge its effectiveness.

Seeing as this offering is still early on in development (alpha), it’s hard to judge just how good the app may be. It clearly has potential, but good looks do not mean much if the usability is poor.

Choose Your Flavour

Whether you prefer a simplistic approach or a more robust and flexible tool, the four applications listed above look to be solid options. It’s exciting how much variety the web has to offer, but it can also be daunting.

If you’re looking for a task management tool to help you be productive, be sure to identify how you work first. Then you’re more able to make the right decision for you. Enjoy getting things done in 2010.

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Love the combination of low-fi media with hi-fi communication efficacy. Check out Chris’ site for an extended discussion of animating paper prototypes. It’s particularly impressive that this type of animation apparently only takes 15 minutes to produce. I’ve used Flash and OmniGraffle Professional to do the same thing and it took a heck of a lot longer than 15 minutes.

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Mobile applications are the new Shangra La for software development shops. This article in the Washington Post reports that more than 800 million iPhone applications have been downloaded and there are now more than 25,000 apps in the iTunes store. Clearly, there’s an enormous market for mobile applications. But, when it comes to choosing the best method for developing iPhone apps, it’s not always obvious which approach aligns with your business goals. This article outlines three different development methods for building mobile apps along with pros and cons to help you choose the development approach that’s right for your business.

Build In the Browser

The easiest option for creating an iPhone, Blackberry or Android application is to build it in the browser using Web development languages like HTML and JavaScript. There are some solid reasons to take this approach. For starters, if you’re a Web developer and are familiar with HTML and JavaScript, but not versed in the native iPhone app development language of Objective-C, you can build an iPhone application in the browser using the skills you already have. Second, browser-built apps are easier to build and distribute. They’re portable and accessible from multiple devices, which helps to spread the application’s popularity. Also on the upside, browser-built apps update instantly, generally load faster, are easier to read and update and offer more flexibility for future feature updates. Popular browser-built iPhone apps include Gmail and SlideShare.

The simplicity of browser-built iPhone apps attracts many developers, especially Web developers, but there are problems with this method. A major setback is that applications built this way can’t access native iPhone features like accelerometer, GPS, camera, contacts, etc. That’s a significant handicap when users are clamoring for applications that make the most of iPhone technology.

Create a Native App

Native applications built in Objective-C make full use of all the iPhone features: GPS, accelerometer, local storage, camera and more. This approach works especially well for robust applications, like 3D games. If your goal is to sell a complex, full-featured application, building a native application is your best bet.

So, why doesn’t every development shop build native iPhone apps? Because they’re built in Objective-C, an obscure programming language that can be difficult to learn. Not only are Objective-C developers hard to find, their skills don’t always transfer to other Web development projects. Finding and hiring a team of Objective-C developers is costly and not very practical, unless you plan to focus entirely on iPhone application development.

Take the Hybrid Approach

If you’re not ready to take the Objective-C plunge, there is a hybrid method that combines the browser-built approach with the benefits of native development. Hybrid development tools, like the open source PhoneGap framework, provide a set of tools and libraries that enable Web developers to build iPhone applications with HTML and JavaScript, but also provide access to native iPhone features. The obvious benefit here is that there’s no need to learn yet another programming language. Your JavaScript team can build these hybrid applications with ease.

Of course, every method has its drawbacks. In this case, achieving JavaScript performance can be a challenge. But, if your developers are already well-versed in JavaScript and HTML, a hybrid approach is the fastest, most effective way to add iPhone app development to your roster, especially if you’re building social networking applications, simple games and companion applications to websites. This avenue opens up options for cross platform development because iPhone applications built with PhoneGap also run on Blackberry and Android.

To find out more about using the hybrid approach with PhoneGap visit www.phonegap.com.

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To best describe it you double your chances ten fold if you have some groovy skills in using the Internet to your advantage. Namely social media. Companies are more and more looking through your Facebook profile, your Twitter feed and also your Myspace profile in order to see what kind of person you are. If you’re a social magnate or a Saturday party flyer. As statistics show companies have turned to Twitter to check out your influence in the field you are in. They value professional approach as well as your willingness to grow within the area of skill you specialize in.

So if you for example are looking for design work then it would be a good idea to share your work, preferably through an ever growing portfolio, but also through the willingness to help others. Your skills also shows through the way you interact with people, how you position yourself to new trends and so on.

So, if you’re looking for a new job then just start acting like it. Take the precautions necessary for you to look professional and open to new challenges and you are well on your way of being noticed by the companies looking for people in your specific genre. Go get them!

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Typekit takes a cloud-based approach to fonts on the web, serving up an extensive library of designer fonts that be incorporated into a site simply by dropping in a line of code. We first wrote about it back in May when the project was first announced, and now the service is live.

What that means is web designers can get easy access to creative fonts without having to spend the time preparing images or Flash files to render them, ideally resulting in time and cost savings in the design stage. It should also provide a more lightweight experience for your web server, because it won’t have to serve up the comparatively heavyweight image or Flash files to render a variety of design-quality fonts.

It also means all that text will be searchable and indexable by Google instead of locked up in an image or Flash file. That means a search engine optimization boost could be in store for sites that opt for Typekit, as well as better accessibility which makes for improved user experience.

The caveat attached to all the benefits is that only browsers that support the CSS @font-face rule will be able to serve Typekit’s fonts. That means support is limited to Firefox 3.5 and up, Safari 3.4 and up, and Internet Explorer version 5 and up. That could rule out its adoption by webmasters whose sites must support older and legacy browsers.

Typekit is employing a freemium business model, with a non-expiring “Trial” tier you can access for free with certain limitations (5 GB monthly bandwidth, smaller font selection, only 1 site and 2 fonts per site supported, and a Typekit badge required). Personal plans start at $24.99 per year with two more tiers above that and negotiable enterprise pricing available as well.

What do you think of the cloud-based approach to font serving? For the web designers and developers in the house, is this a service that tempts you? Why or why not?

Tags: accessibility, cloud computing, CSS, fonts, typekit, web, web design

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The company uploaded the new commercial to its (Google-owned) YouTube channel. Accompanying the video is a short description:

"When you’re looking for a restaurant that is family friendly, romantic, or maybe something with an otherworldly atmosphere, use Bing’s reviews to stop searching and start deciding."

You also may be seeing this ad on a television near you.

What do you think of the latest Bing commercial? Is it good or does it "suck"? Ah Ah. (That was supposed to be the Count). Share your thoughts here.

Related Articles: 

> Have You Seen Bing’s Commercials Yet?

> Bing Commercials Infringe on Patent?

> Microsoft Seinfeld Ad Not Exactly a Hit

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Yast is a new approach to time tracking. You don´t even have to sign up to try it. On the front page, click, drag and release your mousebutton in the timebar below the blue boxes. Love it or hate it, you need 1 minute to decide for your self.

http://www.yast.com

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It works very similar in nature to animate, except it’s based on distance instead of time. As the user’s cursor approaches an element, more of an animated style’s value is applied, proportional to the radial distance.

He has fun demos that show that lighting up the world is as easy as:

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This is ideal for freelancers and businesses who want an easy way to manage, create and send their invoices. It’s great for anyone who has a service or product to sell.

You can create new invoices in a snap. Set options like currency, taxes, shipping, discounts, language, notes and more and can see which invoices have been sent, paid or are due. You can filter your invoices by period, client or status. This will help you to send invoices directly to your clients. You can attach the invoice as a PDF file to an email.  The Invoice Machine comes with a billing timer. Just let the timer tick in the background while you do your work.

Yes, you can impress your clients with professional looking invoices. You can customize your invoices with colors and logo. There is an option to customize your emails. You can have The Invoice Machine automatically send out thank you and reminder emails.

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