Mediaboss Marketing

Maryland is a high-income state. But it's also got a big share of defaulted mortgages, delinquent loans of all sorts and outsized credit-card debt, according to a new study by the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

What gives? Some of it is probably housing costs. Two-thirds of states have a smaller percentage of "house poor" homeowners, people spending 30 percent or more of their before-tax income on their mortgage, property taxes and other ownership expenses.

But we could probably do better. Sure, if you're between jobs, it's awfully hard to save. And if you've already locked in a high mortgage payment that strains your budget, your options might seem limited. Still, chances are there's something you can do.

Take the budgeting challenge with me: Figure out what you spent last year and on what -- something you might be able to do down to the item if you generally use plastic rather than cash. Then add up your various forms of savings and see how much bigger, or smaller, the grand total is compared with a year ago.

Some questions to think about when you're done:

Have you managed to save enough for at least six months of expenses -- or (considering how long unemployment can drag on these days) even more? Are you able to also set aside something for your life priorities, whether it's a down payment or a retirement nest egg?

Can you cut something out to save more? Or find a way to earn more money? Or both?

Sometimes revenue-raising possibilities are closer to home than you might think. Some homeowners are renting out a room or two in order to save or to help cover their mortgage.

My own trick for saving is to be extremely boring and limit entertainment outside the house to a few movies a year. (Hey, my $50-a-month Internet connection offers more entertainment than I'll ever get to the end of.) I bring leftovers to work for lunch, and I don't drink coffee. Those things add up over time.

What are your savings tricks? Inquiring cheapskates want to know.

If you're trying to save more and don't have a clear idea of where your money is going, here's one example of a budgeting worksheet.

And there are plenty of places for inspiration. The Get Rich Slowly blog has posts on avoiding "lifestyle creep," for instance, and having a baby on a budget. And, possibly of more interest to you if you're a regular, this piece by a schoolteacher who cut her spending 30 percent and saved enough to buy a house.

Oh, and if you're a single person making no more than $25,000 or in a family of two or more with $50,000 or less, remember that you're eligible for free tax preparation help from the Baltimore CASH Campaign.

Here's to more financial security.

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Real Estate Wonk: Decent income, little savings?

LONDON, January 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Leading digital marketing agency, Greenlight, is excited to officially announce that commencing today, its domain name changes from greenlightsearch.com to greenlightdigital.com.

"To reflect Greenlight's expansion into providing a full digital service offering to its current and future clients, we are pleased to announce we have transitioned over to a new domain: greenlightdigital.com. The new domain is more reflective of our current offering and gives Greenlight more room to expand," says Alicia Levy, chief marketing officer at Greenlight.

Over the past year, Greenlight has been adding new strings to its bow in response to constant changes in the search industry, and more recently, the announcement by Google of the arrival of relevant personalised Social Media references in search results pages. They include:

Evolving the pay-per-click (PPC) media offering into a 360 Paid Media service including re-targeting and performance display
A full service Social Media department which has developed a suite of integrated search and social services designed to help clients maximise their presence in their audience's increasingly personalised search experience
Launching the One technology platform from Hydra, an independent Greenlight Company
The development of a unique and revolutionary content management system - shortly to be unveiled, designed to allow global organisations to respond to search and social demands of the modern online business

About Greenlight:

Greenlight is a leading independent digital marketing agency, the largest of its kind in Europe and the fastest growing. With over 100 blue-chip clients including Santander, New Look, Sky and ghd, Greenlight is a leader in the digital marketing space, and is recognized worldwide for its commitment to delivering record ROI for its clients and investing in the future of search.

Greenlight is considered the premier thought leader in the sector, publishing widely read industry reports, original research, speaking at trade events, and delivering a highly respected digital marketing training programme via the Greenlight Academy. Founded in 2001, Greenlight is headquartered in London, with offices in New York. http://www.greenlightdigital.com

To arrange an interview or for further information please contact:
 
Krishna Rao                                                   
T: +44(20)3326-6232                                   
E: krishna.rao@greenlightdigital.com

SOURCE Greenlight

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Greenlight Announces Migration to new Domain, greenlightdigital.com

28-01-2012 14:54 http://www.bigscene.tv Subscribe ! Find us on FaceBook for more info and new releases and news! ------------------------- Facebook; http://www.facebook.com Twitter; http://www.twitter.com

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BIGscene.TV - Frontline S01E18 - A Dot F - Video

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Cook Associates Executive Search (www.cookassociates.com/executive-search), a leading retained executive search firm, today released its first quarterly East Coast Internet and Digital Media Jobs Index, which tracks job creation at almost 350 digital media companies in Boston and New York. Cook Associates found that these two cities employ approximately 30,000 individuals in the digital media sector.

According to John Barrett, a Managing Director in Cook Associate’s Digital Media Practice, “Silicon Valley is synonymous with venture capital, yet the East Coast has also attracted significant venture capital dollars, especially in the explosive digital media sector. Boston and New York have exceptional talent pools that are growing. In addition, many of the largest public players such as Google continue to expand hiring on the East Coast. We found a number of surprises in Internet and digital media employment in New York and Boston. We’ll be following digital media hiring trends as we benchmark industry growth in these cities.”

Index data indicate that New York is home to a larger number of newer companies that have emerged in the past five years. While Boston’s hiring trends will continue to be favorable, Internet and digital media headcount in New York City in the future will likely grow at a faster rate given the current venture investment trends favoring that city. Another proof-point of New York City’s surge in start-up activity is that only 50 percent of NYC-based employees work for a publicly-traded company, whereas 59 percent of Boston-based employees work for public companies, reflecting that many of the older start-ups in Boston have been gobbled up by larger enterprises.

Barrett noted, “Our study focused on identifying those Internet and digital media companies with 10 or more employees. We tallied more than 10,900 digital media employees in Boston while there are over 19,600 in New York City. Despite Boston not being known as a large consumer-driven town, we were surprised to find over 6,400 people employed in consumer Internet companies, about 59 percent of the total for the city. By comparison, New York City has approximately 13,500 employees, or 71 percent of the total, in the consumer Internet sector. Not surprisingly, large national players such as Google, Yahoo and AOL, each have large offices in both cities. Up-and-coming employers in New York include Gilt Groupe, Etsy, Yodle and Ideeli while Boston has Wayfair, Hubspot, Rue La La and Carbonite.”

New York data:

230 Internet and digital media companies who have 10+ employees in New York City

50% of companies are consumer-focused vs. 50% business-focused Top 20% of largest employers in NYC employ 68% of the headcount

Approximately 19,600 NYC-based employees among those 230 companies

50% working in public companies vs. 50% in private companies 71% working in consumer-focused companies vs. 29% in business-focused companies

Boston data:

116 Internet and digital media companies who have 10+ employees in Boston

46% of companies are consumer-focused vs. 54% business-focused Top 20% largest employers in Boston employ 67% of the headcount

Approximately 10,900 Boston-based employees among those 116 companies

59% working in public companies vs. 41% in private companies 59% working in consumer-focused companies vs. 41% in business-focused companies

Cook surveyed only pure-play Internet and digital media companies. Based on its research, the company believes that the businesses surveyed represent more than 90% of the Internet and digital media employees in New York and Boston. Virtually all companies in the survey are currently or were previously financed by venture capital investors. Major digital sub-sectors covered include media/content, social networking, advertising, mobile media/commerce, e-commerce, video, local, analytics and marketing software. Excluded from the survey were digital-focused employees of “traditional” companies and digital ad agencies. Cook’s East Coast Internet and Digital Media Jobs Index is current as of January 1, 2012.

For more information about Cook Associates’ Digital Media practice, please visit http://www.cookassociates.com/executive-search/practice-areas/digital-media---entertainment/ Follow Managing Director John Barrett on Twitter at @jbarrett.

About Cook Associates Executive Search

Cook Associates provides retained executive search services to multinational corporations, early-stage entrepreneurial companies, midcap, privately held and family-owned businesses, as well as venture capital- and private equity-backed firms. The company’s reputation as a trusted business advisor is built on decades of successfully identifying and guiding clients to the right solutions to drive performance and gain competitive advantage. For more information, visit http://www.cookassociates.com.

Online:
Web: http://www.cookassociates.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/CookAssociates
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/20163

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Internet and Digital Media Jobs Index Shows Significant Job Creation by East Coast Digital Media Companies

You did it! You got an interview at the SEO agency of your dreams! Since you’ve started reading this series you now know the main things they are looking for in a SEO , you’ve mastered the SEO skills that most are lacking, and now you just need to nail the interview. A big fear for most people being interviewed is getting stumped by the questions they ask.

Well fear no longer!  We asked our panel of SEO experts what questions they ask the most when interviewing people for SEO positions.

Ash Buckles        Google + | Twitter

I like to ask SEO candidates to explain how search engines work and to get into as much detail as possible. How they describe servers, crawlers, bots, sites, content, links, etc. tells me a lot about their core knowledge and their perception of the industry.

Tom Critchlow     Google + | Twitter

If you could get an SEO tool built that doesn’t exist right now what would it be?

Bonus follow-up question: why hasn’t anyone built that already?

People don’t have to be technical to answer this but it shows great critical thinking as well as a good knowledge of the industry as it is right now.

Ian Lurie    Google + | Twitter

Define canonicalization- 90% of applicants say “Something that happens at the Vatican?” or “a meta tag?”

Cyrus Shepard    Google + |Twitter

What SEO ideas do you have for (site XYZ.com)?  Hopefully the site of the company you are interviewing for.

Wil Reynolds        Google + | Twitter

My favorite SEO question on an interview-probably this one: “When is last time you did something for the first time?”

Rand Fishkin        Google + | Twitter

I asked Rand of SEOmoz to participate in our SEO series, but he politely declined because they are a software company these days. Which means they don’t hire SEO’s much anymore, but I was not going to let that slow me down. I found this great video of Rand explaining what questions he would ask in an interview for a SEO position.

Your Thoughts?

What questions do you think are best to ask in an SEO interview?

Stay Tuned- Next time we’ll hear examples of what not to do during an interview.

Link:
How To Get Hired At A Top SEO Agency Part 3: Rocking The Interview