Twitter is a fun and productive tool that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates. This free social networking service has grown so exponentially that, unfortunately, it is often times plagued with bugs and server time outs - frustrating to say the least. The latest bug that is tormenting Twitter users worldwide is the inability to upload a background image. A Twitter background has to be 800 kilobytes in file size and must be in a JPG, GIF or PNG format. But even if you abide by these rules, many users are still getting the dreaded “There was a problem with your picture. Was it an animated gif? We don’t support those!” error. No Twitter, I was trying to upload a JPG that was 700 kilobytes in file size. Seems like Twitter already knows about this bug but there has not been a fix yet… until now that is.

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Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening to John Tsang, Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary, speak about business opportunities for Canadians in Hong Kong. The full day forum took place at the new Vancouver Convention Center. One memorable remark was that in 2008, Mr. Tsang removed the alcohol import tax in Hong Kong. This lead to a 400% increase in Canadian wines being exported to the now alcohol import tax free country. That is definitely great news for businesses, Canadian or otherwise, that export alcohol to this part of Asia. To the right is a photo of John Tsang speaking at the HKCBA (Hong Kong-Canada Business Association) luncheon.

Thanks to Shirley Wong from Invest Hong Kong for the invite! It gave me the chance to meet some very interesting contacts like:

• Jeremy Godfrey - Hong Kong’s Chief Information Officer
• Lee Kane - Canada’s Trade Commissioner, North Asia Commercial Relations
• Tatsuya Nakagawa - President & CEO of Atomica Creative
• Kenneth Wong - BCIT’s Major Gifts Officer

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For those who missed last week’s AdSpace / AdTech San Francisco 2009, panel presentations are available for downloading. There are some very useful PowerPoint files made available, including my closing keynote where I shared tips about generating traffic to HealthCastle.com and monetization methods used to increase overall revenues. Looks like audio podcasts will be made available soon too. Download presentations here.

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In addition to sharing and learning, one of the best things about attending conferences, for me, is making great connections. I attended AdSpace last week and was glad to have met a bunch of great people including my fellow panelists from the day-ending keynote “The MasterClass for AdSense Rock Stars“:

• Leora Bloomberg
• Chris Raimondi
• Kim Kaplan
• Barbara Feldman

To the right is a photo of me standing beside our session stand.

It was also fantastic to finally meet, in-person, a few of the Google team members that we have worked with. A shout out to Sunil Subhedar, Arlene Lee and Cherie Yu. Thanks for inviting me to be on a keynote panel and for putting on a great show! See everyone at a future event!

Conferences are much more than just presentations and seminars. It’s also about connecting with like-minded individuals and learning from them. So the next time you attend a conference, prepare ahead of time and come up with some goals before booking the show. Be sure that one of those goals is to connect with others who are as passionate about your interests as you are. By following this one tip, you could literally turn a good conference into a great one!

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Last week, I spoke at AdSpace San Francisco about how we generate traffic at HealthCastle.com and about how that traffic is effectively monetized. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing our successes and learning from others on the AdSense Rock Stars panel. So what was the take home message from my presentation?

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The results are in for the 2009 Glam Network Awards. Thanks to everyone who supported HealthCastle.com. Your votes made us the winner in the Lifestyle category!

Here are the winners.

• Beauty: Temptalia
• Fashion: The Fashion Police
• Celebrity/Entertainment: The Celebrity Cafe
• Lifestyle: HealthCastle.com
• Living: Making It Lovely
• Shopping: The Purse Blog
• Family: A tie between Black and Married With Kids AND Honest Baby

Judges Categories

• Best Newcomer: Stylemaven
• Best Design: V Magazine
• Best Use of Photography: Chubby Hubby
• Most Creative: Fafarazzi
• Most Humorous: Guanabee
• Best Tagline: Adventures in the Stiletto Jungle
• Judges Pick: Makeherup

Congrats to all the winners and a big thank you to all supporters!

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I’m excited! I have been invited to speak in a keynote event at the debut ADSPACE conference co-held with ad:tech San Francisco 2009. ADSPACE is the first and only conference and expo dedicated to AdSense and contextual advertising. It’s geared towards small to mid-sized publishers looking for insider tips on how to maximize AdSense revenue. Thanks to Sunil and Arlene from Google for nominating me for the panel!

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Ever since I was introduced to the idea of behavioral targeting, I have always wondered why no one single entity has taken this powerful advertising driver and run with it. I guess Tacoda did try and then got bought out by AOL. It was in 2007 that I predicted marketers would more utilize this type of one-to-one advertising technique and sure enough, it took a little time but it’s here. Google announces Ads Preferences - otherwise calling it Interest-Based advertising.

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There comes a time when some websites must decide whether they must charge users to increase revenues or close up shop due to insufficient funds. This is particularly true for many non-profit websites as they just do not bring in enough advertising dollars to sustain the cause. But when a website with 150,000 members, whose reach is 60,000 (daily) and one that boasts 1.8 million targeted photographers on a monthly basis decides to switch to the pay-to-play model, operationally, something does not measure up.

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For those who remember the buyout of Be Free by ValueClick in 2002 will remember that the total cost of that transaction was in excess of $100 million dollars. The oddest thing was that shortly after that purchase, ValueClick shutdown Be Free and moved all clients over to Commission Junction, their other affiliate marketing platform. So why pay $100 million and then close the shop? It probably has something to do with the fact that the real value of Be Free was not its affiliate platform but the two behavioral targeting patents that it holds.

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After a few hours of testing (& hair pulling), I was finally able to use an iPhone to view YouTube videos on a Wi-Fi connection without the dreaded buffering problem. For those who are also suffering from slow YouTube connections on your iPhones over Wi-Fi, here is a fix.

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There seems to be a glitch on the iPhone 3G when it comes to deleting emails. Through one of my IMAP accounts, when I try to delete an email, I consistently get the error “Unable to Move Message”. When the email account was setup on the iPhone, it was already selected to move deleted emails to the local trash folder of the phone. If you are also unable to delete emails on your iPhone, try this. Go inside:

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendar > Email Account > Advanced > Deleted Mailbox

Then tap on Trash - even though you may already have a check mark beside it. This should allow you to start deleting emails.

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