Matt Skallerud

For startups, Christmas comes in November. Partners come back from vacation in September and deals start closing a few months later; since the credit crisis deferred fund-raising for most of the past year, November 2009 will probably end up being especially busy. - Matt Skallerud

There is an almost overwhelming number of options on the social web for businesses to create and participate in communities. You hear a lot about Facebook Fan Pages, Twittercommunities, and even LinkedIn Groups; but businesses have another option when looking to build a community online that’s often overlooked despite having nearly 40 million users: Ning. - Matt Skallerud

Reflecting a shift being pushed by Madison Avenue, the online display advertising marketplace is becoming more "audience-driven." That's one of the major takeaways from the latest edition of Rubicon Project's quarterly online display marketplace tracking studies. - Matt Skallerud

We've written before about hiring marketing gurus according to D.A.R.C. (Digital Fluent, Analytical, Reach, Content Creators), but I think we need to go even deeper into how you can use this methology to hire specialists to your team. - Matt Skallerud

A growing number of businesses are making Facebook an indispensible part of hanging out their shingles. Small businesses are using it to find new customers, build online communities of fans and dig into gold mines of demographic information. - Matt Skallerud

Because social media is a fairly new ballgame, there are still quite a few unknowns and discrepancies when it comes to determining standards and best practices. Blogger and Intel social media strategist Michael Brito discusses three realities he's learned about social media from his experiences with working in enterprise, including: Consumers already get it, but brands are still trying to figure it out; brands should focus on the people first and the tools last; and there is no such thing as a social media expert quite yet. - Matt Skallerud

It’s that time of year again:  Technorati has started to share content from their annual state of the blogosphere report.  They have spared no expense this year:  instead of polling bloggers in their network to get data (as was the case in the 2008 state of the blogosphere) they have engaged a research firm to add another layer of authority. - Matt Skallerud

Marketers Turn Savvy as Medium Turns Mainstream; Increased Spending Doesn't Always Mean Bigger Sales - Matt Skallerud

This really is much BIGGER than it sounds... the world of status updates and Twitters is going to hit the big leagues of mainstream search... trends will be analyzed, and search as we have known it will be changed forever. - Matt Skallerud

Former Speaker of the House of Representative Thomas “Tip” O’Neill famously said that “All politics is local;” and social media is making that more true than ever before. It used to be that most of us couldn’t point out our local representative, councilman, alderman, or public advocate if we tripped over him or her, but that’s starting to change, thanks to social media helping us raise our civic literacy levels and altering the way politics are done. We now expect our local representative for our state or town Assembly or Senate or Council to connect with us on a more personal level. And it’s happening. - Matt Skallerud