Mediaboss Marketing

PUBLISHED: 18:22 EST, 18 June 2012 | UPDATED: 18:22 EST, 18 June 2012

Waiter Albert Sola claims King Juan Carlos of Spain is his father, and met his mother during a trip to Barcelona in the 1950s

A Spanish waiter and a Belgian housewife have joined forces in an attempt to prove they are the illegitimate children of the King of Spain.

Albert Sola, 55, has already had DNA tests done which show there is a 91 per probability he is the half-brother of a woman whose mother pointed at Juan Carlos on the television and told her: 'Hes your dad.'

Belgian Ingrid Sartiau met Albert for the first time 10 days ago in a hotel in north east Spain after contacting him over the Internet.

The pair are now said to be considering legal action to force Juan Carlos to accept they were born to mistresses and recognise them as his children.

Dad-of-two Albert, who used to run a successful metal firm in Mexico, has already sent several faxes addressed Dear Father to the 17th century La Zarzuela palace near Madrid where the King lives with his long-suffering wife Sofia and their family.

He said: 'Im convinced Im King Juan Carlos son. Ingrid and I are going to send a fax to La Zarzuela to inform them of the results of the DNA tests and see where we go from there.'

Albert, who lives and works in a small village outside Girona, was adopted as a child and grew up in Ibiza before moving to Barcelona.

He claims the Spanish King, said to have bedded more than 1,500 women in a Don Juan-style romantic career, met his birth mum during a trip to the Catalan capital in the fifties from a military academy in Zaragoza where he was studying.

Original post:
You are our Dad: Spanish waiter and Belgian housewife attempt to prove King of Spain is their father

Were you one of the businesses that thought the 'Internet concept' was overblown? Did you scoff at the notion of 'electronic mail?' Today these are indispensible business tools. Face it, so is social media marketing.

While seasoned digital marketers know better, several small business owners are just beginning to develop an online presence and may be pondering these five social media myths that simply refuse to go the way of the dinosaur. Let's clear a few things up, shall we?

Myth 1: Social media marketing is free.

Yes and no. It's true that you can sign up and create a profile on popular platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, and Pinterest for free. However, a monetary value must be placed on the time spent to develop the platform and the creation and implementation of an online social media strategy.

A strong plan will include assigning responsibility, creating content, exploring productivity tools, monitoring your outreach, building relationships, putting in place and measuring key performance indicators, etc. Social media marketing must be nurtured, grown, picked, and pruned -- shaped and reshaped to deliver the highest yield possible. That takes time, and time is money.

Myth 2: I'll get a neighborhood teenager to handle my social networking, they know the 'net.

Sure, it might be a good idea to recruit a youngster to show you the ropes -- how to develop a profile, some tips and tricks on how to get the most from the many platforms available, and how to search for an audience but after that it is your responsibility to shape your brand and your message. After all, you're running a business not a high school dance.

Your social media communications plan must be as carefully crafted as any of your other marketing efforts. Not only should you not cede responsibility of your social media messaging to some young hipster that goes to school with your kid, you should tightly monitor all social media messages that come from your business or your brand.

Myth 3: If I get involved in social media marketing the 'haters' will hijack my marketing message.

Guess what, whether you are using social media or not, people are talking about their experience with your business. Creating a social media presence allows you to monitor what's being said and offers you the opportunity to publically respond to less than favorable comments, winning the customer (and others that may have been swayed by the negative post) back.

See the rest here:
Evanne Schmarder: 5 Social Media Marketing Myths: Busted!

Google says government requests to take down content are up compared with last year.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Western governments, including the United States, appear to be stepping up efforts to censor Internet search results and YouTube videos, according to a "transparency report" released by Google.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google, wrote in a blog post on Sunday night.

"For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn't comply with either of these requests."

In the last half of 2011, U.S. agencies asked Google to remove 6,192 individual pieces of content from its search results, blog posts or archives of online videos, according to the report. That's up 718% compared with the 757 such items that U.S. agencies asked Google to remove in the six months prior.

Overall, Google received 187 requests from United States law enforcement agencies and courts to remove content from its Web properties from July to December, up 103% from the 92 requests the Mountain View, California, company received in the previous reporting period.

In one incident cited in the report, a U.S. law enforcement agency asked Google to take down a blog that "allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity." The company did not comply with that request.

In another, a separate law enforcement group asked Google to take down 1,400 YouTube videos (Google owns YouTube) because of "alleged harassment."

And in Canada, the passport office asked Google to delete a YouTube video "of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet," according to the report.

Read the original post:
Google sees 'alarming' rise in censorship requests

Google says government requests to take down content are up compared with last year.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Western governments, including the United States, appear to be stepping up efforts to censor Internet search results and YouTube videos, according to a "transparency report" released by Google.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google, wrote in a blog post on Sunday night.

"For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn't comply with either of these requests."

In the last half of 2011, U.S. agencies asked Google to remove 6,192 individual pieces of content from its search results, blog posts or archives of online videos, according to the report. That's up 718% compared with the 757 such items that U.S. agencies asked Google to remove in the six months prior.

Overall, Google received 187 requests from United States law enforcement agencies and courts to remove content from its Web properties from July to December, up 103% from the 92 requests the Mountain View, California, company received in the previous reporting period.

In one incident cited in the report, a U.S. law enforcement agency asked Google to take down a blog that "allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity." The company did not comply with that request.

In another, a separate law enforcement group asked Google to take down 1,400 YouTube videos (Google owns YouTube) because of "alleged harassment."

And in Canada, the passport office asked Google to delete a YouTube video "of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet," according to the report.

The rest is here:
Google reports 'alarming' rise in government censorship requests

Google has had its run-ins with China over government policies, but now it's pointing the finger of blame at the U.S. and some other Western nations. "Comparing the U.S. government to China in terms of censorship isn't the best thing to do politically," suggested tech analyst Rob Enderle, "... But Google has never been savvy in terms of politics. It just isn't one of their strengths."

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced Monday that it had received more than 1,000 requests from authorities to take down content from its search results and YouTube video service during the past six months. Google has characterized this as an "alarming trend."

The company also released its twice-yearly Transparency Report, noting noted that the requests were aimed at removing some 12,000 items overall. This is an increase of about 25 percent from the first half of last year.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," Dorothy Chou, the search engine's senior policy analyst, said in a blog post. "We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Google's response maybe as much about holding firm as it is about addressing every request.

"There are two reasons for Google's response," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "When they give in to censorship they look weak. The second is that it is damn hard to manage. It requires a substantial number of folks who can manage the process, and moreover any law or edict is open to multiple interruptions."

The requests were not limited to countries with strict censorship policies, either. While Google refused to delete six YouTube videos that mocked Pakistani politicians and military officials, the company also refused to remove a video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport.

"They've been involved in this issue for a while," said Daniel Castro, senior analyst for the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. "As an organization that has been put in this situation, they've been very upfront about how they'll address the requests to have the content removed."

The discussion may move to whether the content involved is even appropriate or not, Castro told TechNewsWorld.

Content that was deemed inappropriate was removed: 100 or so YouTube videos in Thailand that allegedly insulted the monarchy, which is a crime in that country; a video that contained hate speech in Turkey; and YouTube accounts that posted threatening and harassing content in the United States, following complaints from U.S. law enforcement agencies.

See the article here:
Google Sounds Censorship Alarm in Free World