*Note: Seasoned Skype veterans need not watch this video, just know that their skype username is freeconferencing.

Google trends are not really new (although they are still in the Google Labs). Neither is Hottrends which reports the top 100 search terms on Google in real-time. However, as of today, Google Trends data will appear on the Google SERP for it’s 100 Hottrends.

If you’d like to read more check out the Google post.

Or even better search a hot trend like Conan O Brien injured video. I wish it was at the top above news results, but right now it’s at the bottom. Check it out.

So, number one, I just thought that was cute, and I hope it made you smile – very gumby-esque (or bob the builder-esque for you new schoolers). But number two, I wanted to remind you that great work can be done with some very light lifting.

Not only is it so easy to find fonts to add to my collection, but it really is a special feeling to find just the right font for that application which actually brings me to my problem. As most of you surely have found, inside of software like word and photoshop there’s really no good way to search through your fonts in any intelligent way. Enter Myfontbook.com. This is a free online application which allows you to view your installed fonts, preview them in editable contexts, and also tag them so that you can organize an otherwise chaotic space.

It’s not really a huge thing, but it is yet another resource to which you can point your customers to learn about tats. Venture over there sometime, participate in a poll, write a comment, or at least sign the guestbook.

Please take a look Squidoo.com/tat.

Squidoo is basically a free web page service. However, their focus is definitely on information. They really remind me of fan pages, but Squidoo well predates facebook fan pages. They also offer some really cool tools that you might not find everywhere else. In my opinion, Squidoo really shines because of it’s ease of creation. Each lens (their special name for page) is constructed with discreet and powerful modules which makes it very, very user-friendly – especially if those users are computer-allergic. Feel free to venture over there and make your first free Squidoo lens.

I’d like to extend a huge thank you to Ellyn, our recent superhero, for putting this up for us. (Make sure to comment on her Wednesday Spotlight this week.)

Hi guys. I know Thursday is not my usual day for posting, but we recently received an interesting e-mail here at TatStore that I wanted to pass on to you guys. Before I get into this topic I’d like to express the two distinct reasons I’m sharing this post with you. One, I think this could be a great opportunity for our customers. Two, Visa’s marketing strategy is very interesting, and at least nominally, we received this because we blog.

As for the first point, the Visa Business Network is an application developed by Visa to cater to the needs of (small) business owners, specifically their networking needs. This program is unique in a couple of important ways. First of all, it is legitimately free and accessible. That’s kind of a big deal when information products and business networking services are fetching a pretty penny, many of which fetch it monthly. Also, they developed it to synthesize with facebook perfectly. I’m hesitant to call it a “facebook app,” even though they do, because it is not exclusively available on facebook to the best of my knowledge. It seems like the content is consistent no matter where you access it whether at visabusinessnetwork.com or apps.facebook.com/visabusiness. However, the app parts of it seems well executed.

Once within the program you will have access to several tools and resources that seem to include video training programs, forums, and networking tools. I would like to say that I only signed up yesterday and didn’t poke around a whole lot, but I felt like I looked around enough to know that at least it seems valuable. If you’re still not sure whether it’s worth checking out or not, Visa is willing to offer you a $100 credit toward facebook advertising. The one piece of advice that I have heard that I would like you to keep in mind is that you need to be very careful when managing your facebook advertising campaign. I have heard from several sources that you should be incredibly focused with your targeting, and also track it closely. Make sure that it’s making customers and making money for you, because people on facebook tend not to want to be advertised to.

Now the second larger point that I would like to make, is that this particular marketing effort pursued by visa is very innovative, and I think will be successful and become more common on our steady march into the future. Mark received an email from a real person containing the following opening paragraph.

“Tatstore Blog last week and I’m digging you guys. Kudos to you and your team for being a well-written and informative resource for your readers. I dig the hybrid of geeky tech reviews, tattoos and marketing. I’m hoping that you guys will find my information below useful and relevant to your readers. Hopefully, it will be another resource in making their business websites more search-engine optimized and a platform where they can show off their unique art work. Please don’t take this as spam. I’d truly love to get you and your staff’s feedback on our launch announcement.”

Now, for a very simple paragraph this tells me a lot of things. First of all, this may be spam, in the fact that I may not want the content (in this case I did), but it is definitely not spam in the sense that it was not written for me. This salesperson at least took a moment to quickly scan our blog and put together a pretty concise and pertinent compliment. But not only that, with her first comment she actually transferred to us something of social value, namely a digg. Not surprisingly, it seems that Digg was not particularly happy with her and banned her account, but the marketing principle is right on. And then, the most important element to any marketing campaign, is the quality of the offering, and she follows through with a wonderful form email which explains her program and her incentives. Keep in mind though, it could have been an even better offering, and we would have missed it if we didn’t have a blog for our business.

Like my grandpa says, “Let this be a lesson to ya’.”.

Read the press release from Visa here.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) which is the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer department, recently announced UV-emitting tanning devices including all tanning beds and tanning booths as “carcinogenic to humans.” In fact, according to the IARC research, “the risk of cutaneous melanoma is increased by 75% when the use of tanning devices starts before age 30.”

You can read their short press release on their website here or their more thorough findings released through The Lancet. This leaves little wiggle room for the tanning industry insiders still spinning the deadly truth about traditional tanning equipment’s cancer causing potential – that it is as deadly as arsenic and mustard gas.

Our Bahama Body Airbrush Tanning products don’t get much attention on this blog, but they probably should. As many of you already know, airbrush tanning is a great service with or without tats, and with this recent news, demand should be even more rapidly on the upswing. If I were in the airbrush tattoo business, I might be tempted to spend a few minutes googling around looking for some great quotes to leverage for my business.

Here’s some starters in addition to those above:

• Yahoo! News
• ABC News
• ABC News Video
• Fox News

I wanted to show you a great example which was implemented over on TatStore.com by our great tech team recently. Ellyn, who writes our awesome Wednesday spotlight pieces, was adding cross-links from our Power Systems to the products that it includes. However, Brad realized that there was a better way to do it, and I am really proud of their result from a usability perspective.

Check it out here and check out the details tab.

Recently they launched their newest tool called Talon. Talon is not as amazing as some of their other tools, but what it lacks in razzle-dazzle it makes up for with handy. Talon’s function is screen-capture markup, and it is very, very good at it. It allows you to take a screenshot of any webpage, and then write all over it, circle things on it, highlight it, draw stick figures, and then produce that for email or whatever you would like.

I thought this would be a valuable tool for this crowd because, the process of taking screenshots and produce them into usable jpg’s has come up on this blog several times, so I thought it would be a great accessible app. Also, it’s a great way to be precise when communicating with your design guy if you have someone who handles your webpage for you. Check out their handy firefox extension which takes Talon everywhere with you on the web.