Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of SOPA, made a statement today that he is pulling the bill “until there is wider agreement on a solution.”

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith (R-Texas) told Reuters. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

The move came only 2 days after a widespread protest took place on the Internet. The protest included a host of major websites like Wikipedia and Reddit going dark to signal their displeasure with the bill.

The protest resulted in several Congressmen making statements that they were no longer supporting SOPA or its Senate counterpart, PIPA. The PIPA bill has also been pulled for the time being.

Eric Schmidt is stepping down from his role as CEO. The move will take effect April 4, as he will be replaced by one of Google’s co-founders, Larry Page.

Early reports are saying Larry Page will take charge of day-to-day operations as CEO. Co-founder Sergey Brin’s focus will be on strategic projects including development of new products. And, Schmidt will be assuming the role of Executive Chairman, with his focus being on business relationships, partnerships, government outreach and technology. Given Google’s global reach, it appears Google believes Schmidt’s focus and thought leadership in these areas is becoming increasingly important.

Well, you can. I am about to show you how to find out EXACTLY how much traffic your competitors are generating through specific links, and even what sources the traffic is coming from.

If you spend any time using Twitter, you probably already know bit.ly is one of the most popular URL shortening services out there. But what you might not know is that they also provide a number of very valuable traffic reports. Even more, they provide this reporting data not only for your own links, but for any and all links in their system.

To get a look at these reporting statistics, you simply need to add a “+” sign to the end of a bit.ly URL. For instance, http://bit.ly/2MHiQS would become http://bit.ly/2MHiQS+. This page provides a full link traffic report including the number and time of clicks, location, referrers, retweets, Facebook Shares, Likes, Comments, etc.

Would you like to see exactly how much traffic Mashable generates using Twitter? Simply access their stream at http://twitter.com/mashable and do this with any of their tracking links. Please note that they have their own custom version of bit.ly so the links might look a little different, but the traffic reporting is the same.

A sneak peek at these types of traffic reports for your competitors could give you a real leg-up when preparing your own marketing efforts. The true value comes down to you, and what valuable insight you can gather from data you’re probably not used to seeing.

In your search for business internet service, you’re probably learning pretty quickly that the telecommunications sector is in a continual state of change. This not only includes provider options due to mergers and acquisitions, but also services offerings that are being driven by constant innovation and a wide array of new products and services being introduced almost daily.

Understanding Your Business Internet Service Options?

So, how do you figure out who provides business internet services at your location and what are your product options? Well, you can either start researching and studying, or you can simply use the form below and rely on industry experts who do the work for you.

Here’s how the process works:

Truly Free Business Internet Quotes & Preferred Pricing

The service is absolutely free to you (paid for by the providers) and there’s absolutely no obligation. And I know what you might be thinking, but you never see these costs and even receive preferred volume pricing in alot of cases.

In your search for Business Voice service, you’re probably learning pretty quickly that the telecommunications sector is in a continual state of change. This not only includes Voice provider options due to mergers and acquisitions, but also voice services offerings that are being driven by constant innovation and the wide array of new products and voice services being introduced almost daily.

Understanding Your Business Voice Service Options?

So, how do you figure out who provides business Voice services at your location and what are your Voice product options? Well, you can either start researching and studying, or you can simply use the Voice form below and rely on industry experts who do the work for you. Simply enter your information below and receive free business Voice quotes directly from the providers. Then choose the best fit for you and purchase directly from the Voice provider.

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The service is absolutely free to you (paid for by the providers themselves) and there’s absolutely no obligation. And rest assured, you’ll never see these costs and even receive preferred volume pricing in alot of cases.

In your search for Integrated Data & Voice service, you’re probably learning pretty quickly that the telecommunications sector is in a continual state of change. This state of change not only includes Integrated Data & Voice provider options due to mergers and acquisitions, but also from a Integrated Data & Voice services offering perspective being driven by constant innovation and the wide array of new products and Integrated Data & Voice services being introduced almost daily.

Understanding Your Integrated Data & Voice Service Options?

So, how do you figure out who provides Integrated Data & Voice services at your location and what are your Integrated Data & Voice product options? Well, you can either start researching and studying, or you can simply use the Integrated Data & Voice form below and rely on industry experts who do the work for you. Simply enter your information below and receive free Integrated Data & Voice quotes directly from the providers. Then choose the best fit for you and purchase directly from the Integrated Data & Voice provider.

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The service is absolutely free to you (paid for by the providers themselves) and there’s absolutely no obligation. And rest assured, you’ll never see these costs and even receive preferred volume pricing in alot of cases.

In your search for Business Voip service, you’re probably learning pretty quickly that the telecommunications sector is in a continual state of change. This state of change not only includes provider options due to mergers and acquisitions, but also from a Voip services offering perspective being driven by constant innovation and the wide array of new products and services being introduced almost daily.

Understanding Your Business Voip Service Options?

So, how do you figure out who provides business Voip services at your location and what are your Voip product options? Well, you can either start researching and studying, or you can simply use the Voip form below and rely on industry experts who do the work for you. Simply enter your information below and receive free business Voip quotes directly from the providers. Then choose the best Voip fit for you and purchase directly from the provider.

Truly Free Business Voip Quotes & Preferred Pricing

The service is absolutely free to you (paid for by the Voip providers) and there’s absolutely no obligation. And I know what you might be thinking, but you never see these costs and even receive preferred volume pricing in alot of cases.

Last year Fast Company did a story on an Austin Bagel Company that offered a free bagel to each person that “Liked” their Facebook Page. Within 3 days they had over 330,000 fans, which is a great example of the potential viral publicity and publication that Social Media offers.

Facebook stated, “Einstein’s Bagels” is essentially the first example of a business offering an instant digital coupon for consumers to get something free, although there are probably some people who would contest that. One thing can be sure, Einstein’s Bagels knocked it out of the park with their promotion and intelligently parlayed that into an opportunity to get a great news piece published in a major technology publication. Being from Austin, it’s great to see our city being so well represented in the Social Media landscape by local business.

That said, this raises some interesting logistical questions about the use of digital and mobile coupons and how they can be tracked effectively. Many if not most of the web-based or mobile coupon applications require the coupons to be printed out (which is obviously inconvenient given the ease of carrying a mobile phone), or somehow requires the merchant to validate the coupon/offer at the point-of-sale. Even with the Einstein promotion, it was never made crystal clear how Einstein’s validated the users beyond the statement…they were working directly with Facebook to insure the campaign was successful.

The bottom line is that with a printed coupon or fan status validation, you won’t know who redeemed what, where, and when. You won’t know who your greatest champion is or who your best customers are, which takes away your ability to reward them. Companies like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and now Facebook are leveraging GPS and other check in features allowing customers to track and publish how often they visit a business. While this might be a workable avenue to develop coupon applications, loyalty programs, and other mobile application development platforms, other questions will arise with apps like Foursquare and Gowalla since they are game-based and require customers to actually use and play those games.

The #1 thing that digital and mobile coupons require is real-time validation and tracking. Stay tuned as a number of products near completion…including one that will not only allow you to tap your users social graph, it will support coupon redemption tracking, track viral coupon distribution by your userbase, drive customer loyalty, and even deliver rewards to your customers. I am betting on the leading applications being web-based and then having mobile compatibility, so they have the ability to be truly viral without any specific platform limitations.

Social media should be looked at as a 2-way street. And while this is a fairly simple statement, a lot of the time we are only leveraging the broadcast marketing tools to fully grasp what other benefits they have the ability to provide. I can tell you from experience that before you get to the point that you feel you are making headway, you will probably think you are social media marketing when, in fact, you aren’t. To be effective, social media marketing needs to be about bilateral communication between company and consumer to build customer loyalty and build and brand awareness for the rest of the market. It has to be about a lot more than just putting up a Facebook Page or setting up a Twitter account when there is no real voice behind them.

If you haven’t already, you will probably hear some overzealous bloggers say traditional marketing is dead, and Social Media Marketing is the be all end all going forward. Over-hyped statements like these may further confuse local businesses about where this new medium is headed and how it’s supposed to replace more traditional marketing means. Try to take this type of perspective in stride. Local business are still going to benefit from offline advertising, and in fact, can leverage these means to accelerate the growth of their social media following. These traditional means include email, print, TV, along with point of purchase marketing. Local businesses can use these avenues to let their customers know about their Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and other social media applications…and they should do so at any and every opportunity possible. A significant number of customers also use mobile applications for their social networks, so the opportunity to get their attention when they are on-the-go will become increasingly better as adoption rates rise. Those that put the work in now won’t be left behind as traditional marketing continues to lose marketshare to the web. Doing this will also allow you to build better relationships with customers, which ultimately results in a better product or service.

Remember, the true value of social media is that it supports having conversations with your customers about your company. It allows you to directly offer promotions, deliver news and content, run contests, run loyalty programs, test new products and services, and recognize your best customers. The most important part of this is that when someone makes an effort to interact with your business…you need to respond, because customers that interact with your company will become your most loyal patrons.