Not exactly, it’s just on a temporary leave of absence.  We’ve got big plans in the works for AlbumCreative.com version 3.0 in late 2011, one of which is to integrate a more dynamic and visual blog-like feed on our home page.  Stay tuned.

This is a bit of a late introduction, but better late than never. Album has hired two new staff members! Marsha Clayton joins Album as Client Coordinator and Alyson Ben-Yehuda as an Online Marketing Associate.

As Client Coordinator, Marsha manages clients’ projects through the different phases of implementation. Marsha is originally from Henderson, Nevada where during high school she played basketball and ran track. She studied at Brigham Young University and earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology. Before joining Album, Marsha worked with InterCommunications Inc. Marketing and Communications Company in Newport Beach, catering to international resort and real estate development. Her past clients include Montage Beverly Hills, Three Creek Ranch in Jackson Hole, WY, and Plantation Village at Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico.

Alyson Ben-Yehuda is an Online Marketing Associate at Album. In this role she will be responsible for carrying out search engine and social media marketing activities to help clients and potential clients. She is an Orange County local with a long history of online marketing experience including an emphasis on social media. Before coming to Album, Ben-Yehuda was Search Engine Optimization Senior Analyst for House Hunt—a Huntington Beach-based marketing company specializing in real estate agents nationwide. She worked to develop marketing strategies and taught the fundamentals of using social media to top real estate agents representing Keller Williams, Century 21, REMAX, and more. In addition to her experience with House Hunt, Alyson is also the editor and founder of The Gloss Menagerie, a beauty website featuring product reviews and industry news.

“Adding two very talented marketing professionals to the team has been instrumental in the day-to-day interaction with our clients,” said Nathan Harris, Principal. “Our clients are benefiting from the level of service that we are providing.”

Bloggers, YouTubers, Tweeters, and Facebookers!

Tomorrow is December 1st, and in the midst of all the pre-holiday craziness have you remembered that the new FTC guidelines go into effect tomorrow? Don’t worry, it’s not that scary. Some important clarification has been made that makes the whole thing much easier.

The thought process behind these guidelines is to add more transparency to the internet reviews and endorsements we see almost everywhere. Have you ever seen a magazine ad with “paid advertisement” at the bottom? What about those endorsement ads with the “paid for by…” blurb at the end? That’s exactly the sort of transparency the FTC is aiming for us to have here on the internet.

The “$11,000 fine” that was talked about? Does not exist. The FTC guidelines are guidelines, not laws. They do however enable the FTC to pursue charges against someone and get a court order so that someone can be fined. Don’t fret, the FTC is much more likely to go after advertisers than bloggers. Think about it from their standpoint. The internet is saturated with bloggers. It is much simpler to just make sure advertisers understand the rules and expect them to communicate them to the bloggers they work with. Since without advertisers sending things to bloggers this would be a non-issue, I feel this is the much smarter way to go. The FTC does not have the time or resources to go after everyone in the blogosphere. This is not to say that you shouldn’t make an effort to comply! Just that you should not be freaked out that the FTC is going to come knocking on your door.

What needs to be disclosed:

1. Paid posts (that includes videos). If someone gave you money to post something, you need to disclose it.
2. Free services/product. If a company or its PR representative sent you something for the purpose of using it and then sharing it on your blog/YouTube, etc. you need to disclose it.
3. Affiliate links. If you use affiliate marketing (ie LinkShare, Commission Junction, or are partnered with one of the many companies that do their own affiliate marketing), you need to disclose it.

What does not need to be disclosed:

1. Free samples anyone can receive. If you bought a shampoo that had a sample size goodie taped to it and you want to review that free sample, you do not need to disclose anything.
2. Things you bought yourself. Likewise, if you want to review the shampoo itself.  Since you bought it, you do not have to disclose anything.
3. Gifts. If you bought the shampoo for your sister who wants to review it on her YouTube channel, she does not have to disclose anything.

I have also seen many ask if these guidelines are just for U.S. bloggers. Yes, they only apply to bloggers in the U.S. since the FTC is a U.S. entity and has no jurisdiction over bloggers from other countries. However, don’t go moving your servers to an underground bunker in the Ukraine any time soon – you are considered a U.S. blogger if your physical body is blogging from the United States. It is not determined by where your server is.

One last thing that came as a huge relief to me is that these guidelines are not retroactive. You do not need to go back through hundreds of blog posts and add disclosures. Thank GOODNESS.

The disclosures themselves do not have to be anything complicated. They do not have to be in legal jargon. In fact, it is best if they are not! They are meant to be read by your readers, not their attorneys. Simply putting a short blurb along the lines of “This post was paid for by _____.” at the bottom will suffice.

Bottom line, just use common sense and you will be A-O-K.

All of us at Album Creative Studios would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

Have you ever called a company with some problem, or for any other reason and got caught in an endless maze of electronic answering systems? Found yourself desperately looking for an operator in vain? How frustrating is it when all you want is an answer and you get is “if this is about a new account please press 3″?
A new website promises to solve those issues. The site is called Get Human (http://www.gethuman.com) and it tells you what to answer or choose to get to a human operator as fast as you can. The database is really extensive and has most of the big companies in it.
Sent from my iPhone .

Today the office had lunch at Wahoo’s and to our surprise we saw this posted on the walls of Wahoo’s. Yes, I had to do a double take. Big Bunny will be making a cameo appearance at the LA Zoo for Easter. Busy Bunny… well… breakfast in the OC will have to do for you.

for all those who didnt get a chance to check out the swarm of bees that had located themselves right outside our office here is a candid shot. so crazy. all you that are allergic can rest easy, at the expense of thousands of innocent bee lives the swarm was brutally massacred, by whom and how is still under investigation.

It’s not a joke. This is for real.

Here are some of the most interesting newspaper cuts I’ve seen in a while

“Hi I am a Mac”  ”and I am a PC” – this was the beginning sentence of a very good ad campaign apple ran for some years on TV. Now, the new Mac Os X is out and since Vista was such a huge “success”,  some people already made it possible to install it on a PC… and it didn’t take a full day to manage that   well, the full story on how to do it is here. We might just be getting to the point where there is no more barriers between macs and pcs… who knows?