AgWired

I don’t mean to complain but actually I really do. Since about 8:30am today our primary internet access has been down. We use the local cable company, Mediacom. I’ve spoken with their business account support staff at least 6 times. For half the day the reason was a loss of power from the utility company to their equipment.

The logical question was, “Do you have backup power?” They said they have generators but apparently weren’t using them. That’s not good. If you’re going to have business level accounts like ours you might want to consider that electricity is important!

Since then the reason has been that we’ve got line problems such as a low signal to noise ratio and major “packet loss.” I can’t believe we’re losing packets. Sounds bad. I’ve been promised a technician on the spot for the last 4 hours. It’s not looking promising.

So I’ve put in some serious work on my Sprint PCS card today. That’s my backup. I just wish the local Sprint had their EV-DO but it has allowed us to get our client work done. It’s just cut into my posting time in a major way.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest and expect more AgWired news soon.

They did say they’d pro-rate my service this month by a day. Ain’t that nice?

I know a lot of people who use Google Alerts. Here’s one I got this evening that I’ve had for a long time for the keyword “dairy.” I’ve been hearing about how Google is adding blog results and just started seeing them recently.

So how cool is it when your own blog shows up in your Google News Alert? This one contains a link to this post on World Dairy Diary.

Now the question might be, “What if I don’t use the alerts?” Well, I just went to Google and typed in the keyword “dairy” and clicked on News. It brings up the traditional news article links but at the bottom of the page is a choice to “Search blogs” and my post is the 4th result on the first page!

Of course if farmers don’t Google then I assume you really don’t care about this. . .

I know this isn’t a “farm” program but . . . it sure sounds like a good one that I’d like to find a way to get to. I’m not sure how that’s going to happen though. We’ll see.

If you’re involved in agricultural marketing today you just can’t ignore these types of professional improvement opportunities. Do you think you know all there is to know about using new media tools like blogging? Do you have a blog? If you don’t then how do you know what it can do or how to apply it to your company or clients?

One way might be to attend a conference like this one. It’s the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s annual event called the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit & Research Symposium. This is where you can learn all about WOM, Viral, Buzz & Blogs.

It takes place December 11-13 in Washington, DC. Here’s where you can register.