Customers are rewarded with percentages off, fixed price offers and/or free stuff! Businesses are able to offer one check-in special at a time to customers. You can redeem earned rewards by presenting a special mobile certificate (iPhone and Android apps) showing that you’ve unlocked a particular offer. Often times customers need to work to achieve a great offer by visiting the business several times and continuously checking in. After redemption you can start again and still get the same deal!

Businesses can go to the yelp.com and visit the offers dashboard. There they can offer up different rewards and specify the check-in and offer terms. The best part of all for businesses is that this portion is completely free. With this check-in businesses can now grasp an idea of how many people are frequently visiting their business, which not only gives them important data but also gives them the opportunity to build relationships with dedicated customers.

FourSquare, Gowalla and no Loopt all offer similar features to Yelps Check-In deal. However, I don’t believe that any of them will prove to be as successful. Yelp has quickly become the “go-to” place for local business reviews and with people, especially on the west coast, using yelp on a consistent basis it highlights the use of cloud computing. Why go somewhere else when you can get everything in one place?

The only major competition I can see in the future for Yelps Check-In offer would be Groupon, but if Yelp can really take this thing off the ground right now then they won’t have anything to worry about.

It will be exciting to see how this application goes for Yelp, but so far Yelp has already reported that check-ins have grown 50 percent month over month!

I think that it is the people involved in Women 2.0 who are truly changing the world for the better. Some can argue that my opinion is bias because I’m a women and they’re probably right, but I just find the entire project exhilarating and it makes me hopeful that there are programs out there who really can make dreams come true.

Women 2.0 work off of seed funding, which means that they help a business develop an idea, create the product, and market the product for the first time.

How does Women 2.0 do this? They do it through a variety of workshops and contests that challenge you to maximize your efforts to the extreme.

One of these workshops is called the Women 2.0 Labs, an intense five-week evening program that has you go through the notions of developing your idea and your business and presenting it to a panel of guest judges each week for review. At the end of the program people are rewarded with the beginnings of a company, a basic prototype in hand are ready to seek out funding.

That’s not all. Women 2.0 doesn’t just shove you out there in the cold with no ideas on how to gain funding. They show you multiple ways to raise funding, they introduce you to people who can connect with you to co-found your company and they give you the opportunity to meet with investors.

A more competitive approach is the Annual Pitch: Women 2.0 Startup Competition. This competition is open to startups in the early stages of development. All applying companies must have a female in the founding team, be in beta stage, and have received less than 3 million in funding.

Every applicant receives written feedback from qualified judges and the chosen applicants pitch live at the final event. The winner receives the total package including meetings with high-level investors and Web, business, marketing and legal services.

Shaherose Charania, CEO and co-founder of Women 2.0, states that “less than 5 percent of tech startups are founded by females. Five percent is not enough, Our goal is to be obsolete. When there are enough women starting companies, we won’t need to exist.”

Below I discuss 10 different strategies that can generate sales.

1) Don’t just try to sell with words, but engage with outside resources. Use video, presentations, podcasts, webinars or slideshows. Often, it makes a big difference to call and set-up an appointment with the marketing manager. Face-to-face presentations are an easier way to sell because you can read peoples body language and you have time to research more about the company.

When I was selling advertisements for a brand new magazine that nobody had heard of I was having a hard time. I would engage in great conversations with business owners but many of them needed more from me to really get the sale.  That’s when I had an idea. I borrowed my friends iPad and had the photographer email me clips of the magazine. When I pulled out the iPad people were so impressed with the device and with the different angles that I could show them that I made the sale.

2) Write and upload content onto your blog or website that addresses the specific markets you are targeting. Give people a place where they can go to look at your ideas. If you’re in the position where you are selling to whoever you can, then break up companies into categories. Then each week concentrate on a different group.

3) Spend time on your headline. Did you know that 8 out of 10 people will only read the headline of your article? That is why you MUST make your headline catchy and to the point.

Here are some further resources

Writing headlines that get results

18 Resources to Help you Write Better Blog Titles

4) Ample your messages through the use of Social Media. Use sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin, and personal blog posts. Make sure you utilize all these sites. See How Many Social Media Channels Should Your Brand Be Using?

5) Maintain the relationships you do form. When you make a sale, maintain your relationship with that client by sending them information on how to better market their company or different links that are relative to what their company is selling. Don’t overload their email. Make sure you send only targeted information that you know they will appreciate and benefit from.

6) Continue. Make sure you continue to develop ideas and upload them onto the Web. This will make you more reliable and it will make your clients want to come back time and time again.

The emotions the device read include excitement, engagement, boredom, meditation, tension and frustration.

The expressions read are individual eyebrow movement, eyelid movement, eye positioning, smiling, laughing, clenching and smirking.

I’m guessing that the way you rotate your head has a lot to do with its sense of tracking.

One of the most amazing things about the device is that it is designed to read your individual brain, and learn the way that your brain works. The EPOC actually trains itself to recognize how your thought patterns equate to your actions.

Being in public relations I can’t help but wonder how you could use a device, similar in nature, to read an audiences thoughts about certain campaigns or advertising strategies.

I’m certain that in the world of video games public relations representatives are using this device to determine how players respond to certain obstacles in games, and what they like and dislike about a game all together.

However, maybe the ability to read peoples thoughts on such things would end badly because it might take jobs away. I mean, if all someone had to do was read peoples minds in order to determine how they should run an ad, then there would be no more need for people with an ad niche.

What does sound cool is a music device that could detect your mood and play the music that it feels suits best. Hopefully it would be smart enough to not play super depressing music when you’re already sad.

The EMOTIV EPOC Neual Headset is on sale now for $299, hooks up wirelessly to most PCs and its battery life is an entire 12 hours of unlimited use.

Lets all pray that this device isn’t cancer causing, as everything fun seems to be.

It allows the members of the group to engage in Facebook Chat, share photos or videos that they only want other members of the group to see, and assign the group a special email address to make it easier to keep up with what’s going on.

This application will encourage increased communication between members of select groups, ultimately allowing people to feel more comfortable sharing more information online.

It does make me wonder whether or not this is just a ploy to get people to put more information into the internet cloud. Either way, this does sound like a cool application for people who are on a sports team, planning a trip or have a close circle of select friends. However, the privacy setting options do make me nervous among young teens.

How do you set up the group?

Go to www.facebook.com/groups

Give your group a name and then decide on who you want to invite into that group. Then, select the privacy setting of your group.

Privacy setting options are closed, open or secret.

The closed option means  that your Facebook friends  can see who is in a certain group, but they cannot see posts, updates or any type of communication between the people in the group unless they are invited in.

The open option means that everyone can see everything.

The secret option means that nobody can see anything unless they are in the group.

In my opinion, the closed option seems like it can be used for bullying and ultimately depression among young teens. By allowing everyone to see who is in a group, many people who are not invited in will probably begin to feel left out. With the increased popularity of Facebook and the impact it can have on a teens life, I can’t help but wonder if this closed option is a recipe for disaster.

Zuckerberg seems to think that this is the future of social networking and that groups will one day take up 80 percent of activity on the site.

Who am I to argue with a computer genius? All I’m saying is that with all the bullying problems we have and with the way that young people treat each other these days, I just hope that this “closed” option doesn’t end up destroying the lives of vulnerable teens.

Adelavoice is a company who has been working to find a solution to this problem. The solution is called Starttalking, a new app that translates your speech into a text message. Your phone doesn’t have to have the screen on or even be anywhere in your line of sight.

How does it work? Simply say, “operator text message to (person’s name) and begin talking. When you’re done talking it will playback your message and then give you the option to send it, rerecord it, add to it, or erase it entirely.

Being able to erase it entirely is crucial, especially after reviewing the frustration iPhone people were having with Dragon Dictation.

When your phone receives a new message the operator will alert you and then offer to read it back to you. Other commands also let you listen to other messages in your in-box, clear a conversation log, read the time out loud, and even send out status updates to both Facebook and Twitter.

The app gives you the option of sending and receiving audio messages. The messages can be up to 10 minutes long and the receiver does not have to have the Starttalking app in order to receive the message. Instead, that audio file is hosted and will play back in the recipient’s mobile Web browser.

With Starttalking your phone will actually save more battery because it takes less power to send a message because your screen doesn’t have to be on. According to AdelaVoice CEO Christopher Hassett, the app sucks up just 4 percent of your phone’s battery for each hour that it’s operating.

The service that allows user to text without looking will be free of charge. Future features would then be introduced as premium add-ons, which Hassett said would cost less than $10.

StartTalking can already be found in the Android market and early next year on the iPhone.

I need to get this on my blackberry.

A lot of data is beginning to be stored on remote servers and away from personal computers. The electronic privacy law needs to be updated in order for consumers to feel confident that their information will be protected. Electronic content must be protected in the same way that hard content is. People should need a search warrant to go through your electronic files and personal information.

I’m confused on whether or not Zuckerberg is feeling generous because he recently made the Forbes “Richest People in America” list or if he is feeling guilty because the movie “The Social Network” is depicting him as a backstabbing friend.

BUT, just because Forbes has recently announced Zuckerberg as a billionaire doesn’t mean that Zuckerberg has just recently become a billionaire. The question is, why did Zuckerberg wait until now to announce his generous donation to charity?

In my opinion, I think Zuckerberg finally listened to a public relations figure and is trying to tarnish his reputation by doing good toward the community.

However, I have no complaints since I am a recent college graduate and I know how badly our school systems need help, but I will say that I wish that this donation had a little more heart behind it.

These types of donations remind me of Cobe Bryant and his generous huge diamond ring donation to his wife right after he was accused of cheating.

Zuckerberg claims that “The Social Network” is nonfiction and that it isn’t based on the truth, but I’m guessing that the story is a little more truthful then he wants to admit. However, I will acknowledge that there are always two sides to every story.

Whatever the truth is at least the movie has done some good by forcing one of Americas billionaires to reach into their deep pockets and give a little back toward the greater good.

Due to these constant updates there have been numerous complaints about people’s tweets ruining the end of movies or the climax of a television show.

Well, I’m here to inform you that there are ways to avoid having to read tweets that spoil the ending of your favorite entertainment networks.

TweetDeck is a leading Twitter application that allows users to filter out words of their choosing. Any word that you choose to filter will be excluded from your incoming tweets. So, if you happen to really like a certain television show and you don’t want anyone spoiling any of the endings, all you would have to do is enter the name of the show into the TweetDeck application.

If you’re a constant Tweeter then you should consider downloading TweetDeck either way. The application helps you to organize your tweets into your desired columns, groups, saved searches and automatic updates. It allows you to see what people are saying about you and/or your tweets, and invites you into the conversation. Also, it allows you to directly connect with your friends on Facebook and Myspace.

In addition to TweetDeck, there are available scripts that can cleanse these words from coming in through Tumblr.

With more people joining Twitter everyday there will hopefully be some sort of content control application soon. Such as, an application that allows users to hide their posts unless clicked on. That way, people will have the option of viewing the post or simply choosing to not open the post.

I realize that this might not solve all your problems, but it’s a start.

As of August 2010, Facebook has launched Places, which is an app that people can use to locate where you are. I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m not entirally sure that it’s safe to allow people to always know where you are. What if you dated some psycho path and all he has to do is look at your Facebook page in order to find you?

Of course many can argue that all you would have to do is keep your Facebook page private except to selected individuals, but lets be honest people; for everyone who works in public relations or marketing they know and understand that you must keep your Facebook page open and accessible for companies and individuals alike.

According to Justin Rattner, who outlined the future of “context-sensitive” computing at his keynote address to the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco this week, we will soon have gadgets that will be using “hard” and “soft” sensors to determine how we feel based on our bodily reactions. I can’t help but wonder how similiar this technology is to mood rings.

With technology aimed at locating people’s location and determining their emotions, it really makes me wonder how close we actually are to having our world mirror the one in Minority Report.