How to Optimize Your Facebook Ads for Event Conversions on Eventbrite

In preparation for my upcoming webinar on Facebook ads, I felt I would be a hypocrite if I did not use some of the strategies I’m teaching in the webinar on my own event for the webinar. In searching Google, I couldn’t find any good solution listed, but I did figure out a way to optimize your Facebook ad campaigns for when people buy, or sign up for your events on Eventbrite. That means Facebook will do its best to only charge you for your Facebook ads when people purchase your event!

The secret is simple. At the end of the Eventbrite event registration process, there is a confirmation page each attendee is taken to. You can actually edit this page, and it takes HTML. So all you need to do is get your Facebook conversion pixel in there and you’re good to go. Here are the steps:

First, get your Facebook conversion pixel

To start off, go to your Facebook Ads Manager. I’m not going to go into fine detail on how to do that – you can go buy my book, I’m on Facebook–Now What??? (the 2nd Edition) to learn how to set up a Facebook ad. Or register for my webinar that takes place in 3 weeks and I’ll even show you some really valuable techniques, just like this one, that will take your ads to the next level! (if you’re reading this after the webinar, you can also purchase downloads at that link)

In Facebook Ads Manager, on the left side column, there is a link that says “Conversion Tracking”. Click on that.

This is the page where you set up your conversion pixel. In the upper-right, you’ll see a big green button that says “Create Conversion Pixel”. Click on that.

A popover will appear, asking you to name your conversion pixel, and select a type. I called my “Eventbrite Ticket Sales”. You can name this whatever you want though. I also choose the “Checkouts” option, since I’m tracking sales. This is just to allow you to categorize different types of conversion pixels you might use. Here’s what mine looks like:

On the following screen/popover you’ll now be given code you can copy and paste into your Eventbrite page. This is what mine looks like:

Do NOT follow the instructions on this page. Instead, all you want for Eventbrite is the piece between the and the tag. In the above example, I would just copy the text, (the image tag) and nothing else. The reason for this is Eventbrite strips out all JavaScript from the code you put on their page, but they do support image tags! The image tag will be all you need. Click “Close”, and your conversion pixel will be set up. You’ll note that right now it says “Unverified” – this means no one has hit a page with your conversion pixel on it. That’s okay. Now we need to add this code to Eventbrite.

Add your conversion pixel code to your Eventbrite Event

To add the code you just created (again, just the image tag!), go to the “Manage” section of your event. This will take you to the Event Dashboard. On the left side of the Event Dashboard, you’re going to want to click the “Order Confirmation” link. You’ll be taken to a page that looks like this:

On this page, scroll down to the text area at the bottom that says “Message to be displayed on confirmation webpage:” (below “Customize order confirmation webpage”). This is the area you want to add your code. Below any confirmation message you add, copy, and paste the conversion pixel image tag you copied above. It will look like this when you’re done:

Now, click “Save”, but there’s one more thing you need to do. You want your conversion pixel to be verified. Once saved, click on the link, “View your current order confirmation page” below the final text area where you entered your conversion pixel code. This will take you to what looks like the order confirmation page. Don’t worry – your conversion pixel is invisible, so you won’t actually see it on this page, but you did want this page to load at least once!

Now that you’ve loaded your page, go back to your Facebook Ads Manager, look at the “Conversion Tracking” page again, and next to your conversion tracking link you just set up, it will now have a big, green “active” next to it if all worked well! This means your conversion pixel now works, and will load every time someone buys one of your event options!

So now you just need to add the conversion pixel to your Facebook ad.

Set up your Facebook Ad with your conversion pixel

In the Facebook Ad you created, at the bottom, you can set optimization options. You should have the option to “optimize for conversion”. Select this, and a drop-down will appear with your new conversion pixel listed in it. Select that conversion pixel. Now, Facebook will do its best to make what you pay only occur when an actual conversion occurs! This means real sales, for a fraction of what you’re paying in Facebook ads. That should be how every one of your Facebook ad campaigns runs.

Want to focus more of your ad campaigns on conversions? I’ve got a webinar coming up where I’ll share how to build audiences on your Facebook Pages that you can optimize for conversions. My techniques aren’t well known in the industry, so you’ll be learning very unique strategies, just like this one, that can help take your Facebook ad campaigns to the next level! You don’t want to miss this – go sign up here!

Are YOU a Social Asset to Your Company? Are Your Employees?

One of the things I talk about in Google+ Marketing For Dummies is the importance of getting your employees and brand loyalists involved in social media. This is something I’m seeing has more and more importance with the emergence of Google Authorship and the affect a public profile on Facebook has for individuals. The truth is, our culture is evolving from a culture of brands to a culture of people. The focus is no longer on your brand.

For that reason, I think it’s more and more important that you get your employees, or if you’re an employee, yourself, involved more and more in social media. In the future (and to some extent, now!), your job is going to depend on this!

Let’s take Google Authorship as an example. For one organization I worked with, we implemented Google+ profiles for high ranking officials/executives of the organization, and tied those profiles, using Google Authorship, back to content they had written on the organization’s website. With no content whatsoever on the profile, and solely the link to that individual’s profile, the organization saw a 300% increase in traffic on the individual articles written by those individuals on the company’s website. Imagine what it would have been like with MORE followers and MORE content on those profiles! You can see why I talked about making your website more about people, with content written by actual people in your organization in my books.

Just yesterday, SEO experts started complaining that Google was no longer providing keyword data back to websites for identifying the keywords people are searching for when they visit your website. Google is making it clear that it’s not about keywords any more. It’s about people, and real, genuine content. Your employees and the people behind your brand are a critical part of your SEO strategy now. You see the same with Facebook as they try to penalize “memes” and other brand-focused spam in the News Feed.

Google Authorship is just one strategy though. If you follow me on Facebook, you know I don’t have a Facebook Page for just me. I have Facebook Pages for my books and other brands, but not myself. Instead, I use what’s called a “Public Profile”, and allow people to “follow” me there. I actually do this on purpose. There, of course, are disadvantages to not having a Facebook Page for myself – I can’t advertise as easily (I can do a Promoted URL or Promoted Post back to my personal profile, however). There are no Insights/Analytics for personal profiles.

However, the advantage using a Public Profile is it focuses on me as an individual. It allows me to show the person behind my brand. When people follow me they know they’re following a real individual. I can comment much easier on others’ posts. In addition, I show up in Facebook’s suggestion algorithms as a person, which in my opinion favors more highly than Facebook Pages do. All of this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s one example of why all that’s valuable: Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg changed his profile cover image on Facebook to an old graphic of all the relationships that exist around the world on Facebook which their data team put together back in 2010. Within minutes, he saw tens of thousands of likes on the cover image and I was seeing half my friends share it. I was familiar with this graphic because it hangs on the wall in my office – awhile back I blew it up and printed it out so I could show it off (If Facebook provided a way to purchase these they would sell off-the-charts!).

I commented on Mark Zuckerberg’s cover image stating that I had this hanging on my wall. All of the sudden that evening I started seeing friend requests from people trying to friend me, and new followers coming in like crazy! Within 12 hours I gained more than 1,000 new followers on my profile. It turns out Mark Zuckerberg liked my comment along with a few other of my friends that worked at Facebook, and that alone was enough to highlight the comment as the top comment on his cover image. Organically, 1,000 new followers in 12 hours is pretty good, and now I have the chance to build a personal relationship with every single one of those followers! Seriously, if you want to get some quick followers go reply on my comment that’s already highlighted there (only one reply right now!).

So as you can see, it wasn’t my brand, but my personal profile that provided the value. I couldn’t have accomplished that with a brand page, or bland brand website. You (the person, not the brand), and your employees need to be doing the same.

Next time you think about your presence on social media, stop thinking about Facebook Pages and Google+ Pages, and start looking at ways you can engage your employees and yourself as people on social channels. Make them “social embassadors” for your brand, and you should see ten times the success you are seeing with just one marketer and one team in your company focused on just the brand.

In these days, EVERYONE is a marketer! You need to be training your employees to be social assets for your company. If you’re an employee, your social presence, and even more than that, value (number of followers, etc), will be a defining factor of whether you, or the guy being interviewed next to you gets the job. It’s time to start learning to build audiences through social media, and build your own value for the companies you work for.

For companies and business owners interested, I provide a “Social Embassador” training curriculum as part of my “Everyone a Marketer” program. You can learn more about it here. Talk to me (jesse@staynalive.com) if you’re interested in training your own employees as social assets! I am also doing a webinar in 3 weeks that you and your employees can learn how to grow your brand through Facebook ads. Go here to purchase your tickets and learn more!

ANYONE Can (and Should) be a Marketer! My New Business and Focus

About 7 years ago I was sitting in a full-time job, developing software as a senior engineer for UnitedHealth Group. I loved writing software, and began writing a few tools on the side just for the fun of it. I couldn’t build an audience though! I was stuck – great software, with nowhere to go. I’ve heard this over and over again from other software developers, small business owners, executives, product managers, and the like, all lacking the proper skills they need to grow an audience successfully and do it without paying an expensive marketer or social media professional. I feel your pain!

I spent the next 7 years experimenting and trying new methods I learned from friends of mine and other marketing experts to where I finally think I’ve come up with the optimal process in growing audiences and revenue from those audiences. I ended up writing 6 books from my experience. I began to take some of my software development skills to take things I learned writing documentation for Facebook, Inc. and turn that into a concept I call “social design”. I learned perfect methods for Facebook, and Google+ Page growth. I learned ways to advertise on Facebook that many Marketers today still come to me asking about. In all honesty, I don’t share any of this to boast, but to show the learning process I went through.

You’ve probably seen me lately trying to figure out “my next thing”. Do I look for a job? Do I consult? Do I build a product? I’ve been meeting with a lot of people, and received some amazing advice. Today I’d like to announce what that next big thing is!

Today I’m announcing my “Everyone a Marketer” program with a series of webinars, online training curriculum, corporate retreats, and individual coaching all catered to showing anyone from the software developer, to the business executive, to even the marketing department itself how to grow significant audiences, and how to grow revenue from those audiences. The idea is that I want to show you, and every one of you how to become a marketer. I want to show you how to grow audiences. I want to show you how to sell to those audiences. I want to show you how to target to specific audiences. I want to show you how to learn who your audiences are. I want to show businesses how to engage their employees as marketers and social assets for the organization!

I’m kicking it off TODAY with the announcement of my first webinar in the program! I’m calling it, on this same theme, “Everyone can Learn Facebook Ads! How to Build Fans and Revenue With FB Ads”, or “Mad Facebook Ads!”. I’m spending 1, jam-packed hour to show you techniques I’ve learned with the organizations I’ve worked for, and clients of mine that will grow Facebook Pages using Facebook ads at a very low cost. Have you ever seen $.002 (that 2-tenths of a cent folks!) per like in your Facebook ad campaigns? I have! I want to show you how.

Registration is fairly cheap considering the value you’re going to get – for $150 you get access to the webinar and the Q&A for 1/2 hour afterwards (That’s half of what I charge for consulting!). This is potentially thousands of dollars in savings you’ll get from the knowledge you’ll receive in the webinar! My hope is for you to get much, much more out of this than you put in – I’m extremely passionate about this subject, and making YOU successful! If you don’t want to attend the live webinar, you can download for a reduced price the recorded version after the webinar is finished.

YOU CAN REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR HERE! GO NOW! 🙂

It doesn’t stop there! I need your help! If you want to join me in growing this webinar, I have set up a simple affiliate program for you to help me promote the webinar. Each affiliate gets 33% of any ticket sales they refer, which is pretty good for an affiliate program in my experience! Will you please SHARE this webinar with your friends and family? TO SIGN UP AS AN AFFILIATE, CLICK HERE! This is a great opportunity!

I’m limiting this to just 100 people per day (2 different days, same webinar), so act quick – I’m predicting this will sell out quick! Again, GO HERE TO REGISTER! This will sell out soon!

Oh, and STAY tuned for more! I’ve got much, much more planned for this program! I want YOU to learn what I’ve learned! If you want to learn more, GO HERE AND SIGN UP TO RECEIVE UPDATES!

In the Collaborative Economy, Are Local Classifieds in Trouble?

I’m a big fan of my friend Jeremiah Owyang’s principle of “The Collaborative Economy.” The principle is thus (yet very hard to explain unless you actually experience it): the trend in social media, up to this point, has been the sharing of virtual content, goods, and services through close friends and family on social networks like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. The Collaborative Economy is a new phase of this principle, where instead of only sharing online, close friends, family, and some times strangers are now using online tools to find ways to share in real life. The idea, when applied to commerce is that instead of businesses being the source of the transaction from them to their customers, they will instead become the facilitator of the transaction between customer and other customers. The future of social media will be services like Uber, AirBNB, and others that grasp this concept and enable real life social transactions to occur in physical form, from customer to customer and not from big business to customer.

This is why I fear for local classifieds markets. Having worked for 2 media companies so far (and at one being responsible for developing new online classified experiences), I know how important classifieds are to the revenue of local news media. Classifieds are at the core of revenue for most news media outlets, outside display advertising, and as sites like Craigslist have taken over these markets you are seeing some of that result on revenue for local news around the world. It affects these markets so much that you see when local classifieds sites like Salt Lake City’s KSL Classifieds overtake Craigslist, it develops a sort of monopoly on the market in terms of classifieds revenue that goes to these news orgs within the local market.

A key element to good Classifieds is getting local auto dealers to sign on. On top of that, real estate is another big factor for revenue in modern classifieds sites. To get an idea of where that revenue comes from, just go down any classified site like Craigslist or KSL Classifieds and look at which ads they charge you money for. You’ll see the biggest are auto and real estate. There are other similar categories though.

This is where the trouble begins. Right now we know (Deseret News, KSL Classifieds’ own sister site declared the end of cars!) that automobile sales are in decline in favor of services such as Uber (for getting around town with a driver) or ZipCar (for getting around on your own) or RelayRides (for longer-term car rentals) that embrace the Collaborative economy. On the real estate front, you’re seeing more and more people embrace the collaborative economy in favor of renting through services such as AirBNB. All of this is so much so that businesses like Ford are reconsidering their sales strategy to provide similar type rental services of their cars as they recognize the recent decline in sales.

In fact, my friend Jeremiah Owyang, who is advising many of these businesses already, is seeing such great demand in this market that he recently quit his job at Altimeter in favor of advising these businesses full time on their collaborative strategy. This should have all classifieds departments in news organizations, as well as Craigslist and the like paying attention – their revenue stream from autos, real estate, and similar transactions is in trouble!

My hope is that local classifieds, Craigslist, Ebay, and other similar sites begin to recognize this. Person-to-person transactions are in, and business-to-person transactions are on the way out. Services such as the person-to-person trade service Yerdle (founded by a former Walmart exec Andy Ruben, btw), really get this. They’re finding ways to build business models without the businesses at the top of the model, focusing on platform the B2B relationship. They’re developing new business models unfamiliar to traditional e-commerce sites, and ways to get in the middle of those C2C (Customer-to-Customer) transactions. Local classifieds will need to take this same approach in the future to survive as their business partners stop selling, and start taking this same approach (essentially making those partners competitors!).

I mentioned before that local news orgs are competitors with Facebook and other social networks and they don’t realize it yet. Local news has the potential for a very strong, tight-knit community of individuals passionate about their community and growing that community. They are in the business of sharing, and getting people to share. When it comes to classifieds, this applies there as well – the future of classifieds is, and should be the collaborative economy, and facilitating transactions from customer to customer, not from the business to the customer. As long as the revenue comes from the latter, classifieds websites are going to suffer in the future, and those that get this will be the winners.

The Future of Local News WILL Disrupt Facebook

I am often asked, “will Facebook ever go the way of MySpace?” The truth is Facebook has been very good, like it or not, at not looking at current users’ needs, but instead anticipating the needs of future users, therefore fixing the Innovator’s Dilemma and ensuring their survival. There is one thing Facebook is overlooking right now, and with what I have seen in the news industry, I think Facebook may be blind-sighted at what I think is going to happen. The answer lies in the local news orgs.

The truth is, the current state of local news is in trouble. Revenue of news orgs is at the same level it was back in the 50s. People are seeking their news online. People are replacing their TV watching habits with Youtube, and Hulu, Netflix, Xbox, and Apple TV. At one news org I worked with, the term, “side door traffic” was brought up over and over again, as something to strive for. The fact of the matter is, people have stopped having the news open all day, in favor of sites like Facebook and Twitter and Google+. Homepage traffic is at a meager low right now for all local news orgs.

Print Media is going the way of the dinosaur. Newspapers are dying. Magazines are dying. So as a result, news is going entirely online. Now we find both print and video orgs, especially at the local level, competing against each other in a market where they previously did not compete. The sad thing is many of these former print and former video news orgs don’t realize they are now in competition with each other (much due to the fact that Nielsen ratings still exist and ad revenue is still going towards different sources like TV, but that won’t last for long).

Here’s what I predict will happen (and is already happening, to an extent): the TV and the Print organizations will be forced to merge, or compete in the very near future. Local TV and local Print news orgs will no longer be Print and TV orgs, but just “Web orgs.” The same reporters that serve print will also serve TV, and video will, more and more, move towards the same online source that print is located. Ad dollars will all go towards the web. Youtube strategies will become more important as more people use Youtube to get entertainment and news. It will no longer be a TV or print strategy, but a “multi-media strategy.”

This is all just the beginning though. Once print and TV at the local level all merge, local news orgs will be unified again. Print won’t be competing with TV, and the same for vice-versa. Sales teams will all be selling for a common goal, and new ad technologies will be developed. Social technologies will be integrated, allowing ordinary citizens to provide news and video, and targeted ads will be built targeting the user and their friends at the local level, where they are (through mobile technologies). People will be able to follow their friends on these websites and mobile apps.

This is when Facebook should feel threatened. At this point, news orgs will begin to realize that Facebook has been doing this for years now. Facebook now becomes the competition for them. The competition will go from getting “side door traffic” to getting “front door traffic” as Facebook does. The fight will be to get the user to have YOUR website open all day, not rely on them to congregate at places like Facebook to get their news.

The difference between now and before though is that local news orgs have a monopoly on their local markets. It won’t be like Washington Post and their “social reader” that targets a global audience and their friends. It will be a much more localized, personal audience of people much more devoted because it represents their culture and information they are much more familiar with. This puts local news orgs at competition directly with Facebook.

At KSL.com, owned by a former employer of mine, they had the market on classifieds, perhaps the only market in the USA to overtake Craigslist in traffic and community. They did this through following the devotions and loyalties of a passionate local audience and culture. The same can, and will be done with social. I saw similar passionate cultures and niche communities in the many communities that Media General served when I worked there. This can be repeated.

The biggest disruption to Facebook is going to happen when these local news orgs are forced to reinvent themselves, and utilize their passionate, niche local audiences to take advantage of circles of friends that are very tightly woven in the areas they serve. It’s not ready yet, but desperation and disruption in the local news industry is going to force this as soon as they realize Facebook is actually their competition – mark my words. Facebook is local news’ biggest competitor – they just don’t realize it yet.

Sample Proposals for RootsTech Presentations – Which Would You Choose?

I’m putting together a proposal for a presentation or two at RootsTech, a conference put on by FamilySearch.org around family history technologies. The focus will be on Social Media. I have a few ideas – what else do you think would be interesting in terms of interesting uses of social media for family history?

Opening the Web for Humanity (This would actually make a great Keynote if they’re interested) – This would cover ways to make our human data more open, more searchable, and easier to find. I would talk about ways to help Google recognize individual ancestor records better, and ways to help Google and other search engines traverse the social connections available for each family history record on the internet.

Facebook – It’s Not Just for the Living – In this presentation I’ll show how to use Facebook as a way to not only connect living individuals to each other, but ways people can use Facebook Pages, Events, and Groups to connect people around historical records. I’ll also show ways people can turn their own individual records on their own websites into Facebook Pages and store timelines of information about each individual in history.

Facebook for the Living – I’ll show unique ways people can use Facebook Timeline and Groups for storing records about living individuals. I’ll share experiences I’ve had with storing my own personal history on Facebook, tagging old friends, uploading old photos, and getting back in touch with my past as a result.

Connecting the Living to the Dead Through Social Media – This will be a much broader presentation on all the different means of using social media for identifying living connections to identify dead connections. I’ll show examples of ways companies have identified the dead through the social graph of living connections we have. I’ll show other companies and products that are using social media in unique ways to collaborate and identify dead ancestors through social media.

What do you think? Any other presentations you’d like to see? I will likely only pick one, but I’m going to submit a few to see which they prefer.

Ok.com – The Perfect Movie Resource for Parents (Read This for a Free Kindle Fire!)

My friends at Ok.com have given me a Kindle Fire to give away to one of my readers in the Staymates community on Facebook. All you need to do is join Ok.com, share this article with your friends, and join the Staymates Facebook group. I’ll take it from there! See below for details…

As a parent it is impossible for me to stay on top of what’s ok, and what’s not ok for my children to watch when it comes to movies. I love movies – they teach creativity and culture and history and get my mind thinking in ways it is not used to. However, some of these movies, while great for me may not be good for my 13 year old. And what may be good for my 13 year old may not be good for my 8 year old. That’s where Ok.com comes in – it’s a resource for families to know, and contribute to what ages are most appropriate for each film you watch. It’s a crowd-sourced age-engine (yes, I invented that term) for your family.

The site is extremely simple. Visiting the site at first, you can see the most popular movies at the time, and what the average age appropriateness for that movie is. Immediately you can start making decisions on the movies you want to go see as a family, or which ones you might just want to save for that date with a loved one later in the week.

You can contribute yourself as well. To get started, just click the sign in or join buttons, and log in with your Facebook profile (they also support a native login, but I think the experience is better through Facebook). Click on the movie you want to rate, and select the age range for what you think is appropriate. It also gives you the ability to add your own review, and see the reviews of your Facebook friends if you’ve attached a Facebook account.

In the upper-right, there is a “recommendations” button that will give suggestions based on the movies your friends have rated favorably. This is a great place to, at a glance, find out which movies will be best for you and your family.

I’ve found that, at a glance Ok.com is a terrific resource for when I want to know which of my kids can watch a movie. At the same time, there are times I want to know if I really should be watching it as well – if it’s rated for adults, I can quickly check the reviews and see if it meets my own standards for movie watching or not. If you have a family like me, or just want to make sure the movies you watch are living up to your own standards, this site is the best site out there for an all-in-one rating on the movies you watch. Go check it out now!

One more thing: Ok.com has offered a Kindle Fire for me to give away to one lucky reader! Between now and this Saturday at 11:59pm MDT, just follow these steps to be entered:

• Join Ok.com
• Share this post (the URL to this blog post must be in your post!) on Facebook or Twitter or Google+
• Request to join my StayMates Facebook Group at http://facebook.com/groups/staymates – I’ll approve each request as soon as I’m available!

I’ll do a post asking for everyone to post their Ok.com profile IDs and the URL for the post they shared in the StayMates Facebook group shortly – once you’ve completed the tasks you’re entered for the prize! Feel free to use the image above as you share online!

Disclosure: I am receiving no compensation for this post – just free stuff for my readers! I did work for the owners of Ok.com for a brief time, but currently have no relationship with the company. I’m doing this just to help them out and because I think it’s a really cool product!

SEO Link Farmers/Scammers are a Fraud – Don’t Take Their Money

This is the response I get when questioning an “SEO Expert” wanting me to get paid $50 per link for posting links on my Google+ profile. Seriously, who, of any klout takes these guys’ money? These guys are the scum of the earth – don’t take their business:

I’ll give him some SEO…

Here’s how you get traffic for your business – build a social profile on Google+, build a genuine audience, and play a part in the conversation. Purchasing links will give you no long-time ranking, reduces your credibility, and kills your authenticity.

Be real people – don’t be fake, and your search engine ranking will go up naturally, and long-term. The fact that this guy is trying to sell to me (instead of using the network he has built up on his own) shows that I at least know something about this.

Don’t fall for it.

Why I Returned My New Macbook Air and Replaced it With a Chromebook

As we enter the era of the server in your pocket, our habits of computer use are going to change. They already are. As I’m buying new products (I don’t get free stuff like some bloggers ;-)), I’m finding the things that used to be important in products just aren’t any more. The elements of the hardware ecosystem we each live in are constantly changing, and so are their importance in our lives. Yesterday I packed up the Macbook Air I bought last week and was so excited about, headed over to Best Buy, and returned it.

The thing is, I don’t hate my Macbook Air. I still love Mac products. They’re solid. They’re beautiful. The experience is smooth. The problem I kept coming back to however was for the price I paid (about $1300 with tax), the experience I was getting just wasn’t worth it. For that price I got the ability to run desktop apps like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite, but the experience was sub-par for what I paid.

As I visited the store, I actually tried out numerous other notebooks and tablet hybrids. The Macbook Pro – a little more expensive, better specs, but not much better, and from my past experience it still is no workhorse machine compared to the standalone desktop workstation I have at home. It’s also a bit heavy for my preferences.

I looked at the Microsoft Surface Pro (I didn’t like the RT, per my earlier review) – I was closest to buying this one. I also looked at a few other tablet/laptop hybrids, including the Lenovo Yoga and another one from Dell. The thing I kept coming back to though was that the only thing I really gained from a traditional desktop OS like Windows 8 or OS X was Microsoft Office, and the ability to record my Youtube movies and edit my photography.

I thought long and hard about those positives. For Microsoft Office, if I really need to do any editing that I can’t do in Google Docs (my publishers, including Pluralsight, all use Microsoft products for their templates), or even if I need to use Exchange and Outlook for some reason, Microsoft now has online products for that which support what I need fairly well. Even without that, I have a Windows 8 desktop at home that already has significant power to it (I built it myself), and I can run all of those at home, as well as do all my editing.

Trying to edit on a notebook or tablet, no matter what experience, I’ve never had a good experience, and that includes my Retina Macbook Pro that I had in a previous life. Notebooks just weren’t built for heavy publishing, video, photo, or audio editing capabilities. Heavily fortified workstations were built for this, and I’m willing to take that work home when it needs to be done. In fact, I may even switch to the new MacPro at some point to do this.

Which brings me to the Chromebook decision. For $250 (I got the Samsung model 303C12), I get a decent machine with almost the same specs as my old Macbook Air. It focuses solely on the web, allows me to add a SIM card for constant internet connection if I want to (I just use my cell phone connection for that), and comes with a 3 year warranty if anything ever goes wrong. Apple only gives me 1 year! Oh, and did I mention the $250 price tag? I’ll also add that so far, the battery life on this thing, even with the newest Macbook Air model, far out-paces my previous Macbook Air before dying (that’s because it only needs to connect to the web!).

Will Chromebook be for everyone? Remember, I also have a workstation at home that I’ll be using for my recording, editing and publishing tasks that the Chromebook can’t cover. It doesn’t solve everything. Also, my wife still has her Macbook Air if I ever need a Mac for something. So I have a fallback unlike others.

However, if you don’t need to do serious photo editing, don’t need to do serious video editing (Google has solutions for both of these through Youtube and Google+ if you’re more amateur), and don’t have specific publishing needs (remember, even Microsoft has online versions of Office as well as Exchange, so even this isn’t necessary), this machine is just perfect. And for someone like me that just needs a machine “that works” as I go out on the road, this Chromebook is amazing, and only 1/20 the cost of the Macbook Air! I can proudly say so far that this is the best notebook I’ve ever owned. And for only $250 you should try it too.

Studio C – A Refreshingly Funny Alternative to SNL (Plus, Win a Free Roku Box!!!)

Hey guys – read through this entire post, and see down below to find out how you can win a free Roku HD box! Expect many more giveaways in the future on this blog!

As a long time SNL fan, as well as other sketch comedies like “Kids in the Hall”, I have to admit, the options for good comedy are slim these days. SNL, quite frankly, has gone downhill. It definitely caters to adults, shuns family-friendly humor, and in my own humble opinion, it just isn’t as funny as the Saturday Night Live I grew up with. That’s why when I was recently introduced (originally by my 13-year old daughter) to a little college-produced series called Studio C I grew excited again. Studio C is finally a family-friendly sketch comedy you can all gather around, watch, share, and enjoy no matter what the age.

Produced by BYUtv, a college-run TV station near me in the 3rd City to get Google Fiber, Provo, Utah, it definitely shows its Utah roots, but in such a good way. The shows are very funny, whether you’re from Utah or anywhere in the world, and they seem to take care that their audience is not just Utah, or BYU students, or the Mormon-devout audience that typically follows things out of BYU. They make their message funny for all. I’m sharing this here because I truly think this is something all of you will enjoy!

The skits performed on the show remind me a lot of the old “Kids in the Hall” series (“I’ll pinch his head!”) that ended in 1996 — A bunch of college-age kids, having fun, doing silly things only college kids would think of. If you’re a fan of the infamous Devin Graham’s Youtube videos (he too came out of BYU), these guys are just like the fun-loving kids from those videos, focused solely on comedy. It’s the type of joy and fun that Provo, Utah exudes!

One of my favorite skits, which the team at Studio C shared with me, is one of Shawn Bradley, formerly Center for the 76ers basketball team (and even before that Center for BYU’s basketball team). The 7 foot 6 inch man participates in a regular skit they share on Studio C called “Shoulder Angel”, a skit where a man dressed as an angel helps people with their moral decisions in life. The only problem is the angel has to find a way up onto the shoulder of the person facing the moral dilemma. In this episode, you can only imagine climbing onto the shoudler of a 7 foot 6 inch man! You be the judge – watch below:

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/PHM01zr1MuU&source=uds

Studio C is widely available no matter what your viewing preference. They sent me a Roku box to watch it on – it’s available via the BYUtv app on Roku if you have one, and the experience was great! You can also watch and schedule episodes on BYUtv’s own website, or you can subscribe to the Studio C-specific Youtube Channel and watch the episodes one-by-one, as well as most cable and satellite networks on the BYUtv channel.

Whatever your preference for watching, go check it out now, and schedule it with your family! I’ve found this very well could become a replacement for my regular Saturday humor. It truly is something you can sit down with the family and get a good laugh from!

Want your own Roku HD box to watch Studio C on? They gave me one to give away to my readers and fans. To get entered to win the Roku box, just do 2 things:

1. Share http://www.byutv.org/show/c68c4e4f-6322-4a23-8b8e-a5be75b70635/studio-c?CID=51242#studioc with your Facebook friends, then 
2. Go over and join my StayMates group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/staymates/ and let me know in the comments of my post for this there that you entered. 

I’ll verify everyone who enters and add you to the pool! Next Monday, July 1 I’ll pick a winner!

Now go watch Studio C and let me know what you think in the comments!