Traveling. A luxury of the rich? A splurge when you retire? An adventure when you graduate? An anytime past time that can be cheap, affordable and easy. Yes, yes, yes,and YES! I recently fell on a website that can completely change your traveling habits and it has to do with CouchSurfing. Never heard of it? You are not among the few.

Most of you are familiar with the term “back packing,” used to describe the practice of extended travel carrying not much more than a single bag of belongings and staying wherever a bed can be found. Hostel are a common way of traveling especially in Europe. A hostel is a community bedroom and bathroom that can be rented by the night, cheaply, by any traveling individual. It brings together many who are traveling under similar circumstances and who are in a similar state in life. It’s very social for that reason, and many find traveling companions from such places.

The website www.couchsurfing.org is a similar traveling style, except that you get to stay in a fully furnished home! This website is an online forum of sorts where one can post a “couch” or bed they have to sleep on in their home that anyone can come a stay at… FOR FREE! Not only can you post your couch, you can find a couch. The website connects the renters and the rentees of these free accomodations based and dates and number of beds needed and by place. It’s a social network of sorts where people can meet online and help each other out. Many of the beds offered are by college students and young people, and the same is true of the travelers.

It’s pretty impressive by my book. However, not something I’m brave enough to try. My trust has yet to extend from the internet to face to face. I wouldn’t feel safe staying in the home of someone I hadn’t met. If I were a strong male, I may perhaps feel safer and have seen many guys using this forum for traveling throughout the United States. I don’t know any girls who have taken advantage of the opportunity, but I’m sure there are plenty. It is a risk that one takes in any of these cheaper forms of travel that brings the luxury of exploring the world to those who may not otherwise be able to afford it. So for the brave, surf the couch and have an adventure!

For many marketers arriving to work this morning it came as a shock that Microsoft had joined together with Yahoo in an effort to collaboratively move to take more of the market share from Google. Last year Microsoft bid just under 50 billion dollars to buy Yahoo. The offer was immediately withdrawn and we saw Microsoft reconstruct their search engine in an aggressive attempt to be a realistic Google competitor both in algorithm and appearance.

This new deal is effective for ten years. In order to incorporate all of the changes the two engines will undergo to comply with the agreements made in the deal, the companies will have to put in about two years of work.

The advertising efforts will be split, Yahoo taking the more prominent and premium advertisers while Microsoft will be used for the smaller customer whose budgets are much lower. Together the two engines will incorporate about 28% of search for their users. The biggest change will be algorithmic as Bing’s new formula for search is proving to be extremely beneficial and user friendly.

So what happens now from the online marketer’s perspective? The questions, for me, mostly lie with Pay-Per-Click.

What platform should I use?

Will I get equal ad distribution between the two search engines now?

Will Bing’s algorithm use on Yahoo be effective?

If I do PPC on both Bing and Yahoo, will the results be the same as if I only used one engine?

Will this affect my marketing strategies at all during the two year transition?

There are lots of questions and, as with a lot of big ideas that move fast, not a lot of exact answers. I don’t anticipate massive marketing changes from the back end of the search engines in the immediate future. But it is very exciting to see the competition that Google’s massive hand has made upon its two main competitors. For now I wait in the hopes of seeing more users for Bing and better ad serving for Yahoo, two much needed pieces to both platforms.

It’s over. You go one way, and he goes another. Or do you? You’re both still friends on MySpace and Facebook. You still have him in your chat list. Email address still reachable. Phone number still in cell. Bluetooth still programmed to his laptop. Your music still sits in his ipod. You talk still on one of the previously listed technology platform. It’s worse when one or both of you still care about each other but broke up for the so-called “sensible” reasons.

What’s the number one cure for a break up? To get away from the person who’s been your other half. To move on and meet a new half. Afterall you can only have one… right?

Wrong.

It’s too easy to keep in touch. It’s too easy to stay friends. It’s too easy to casually talk. It’s too easy to send pictures. It’s too easy to check up. It’s too easy to send an email. It’s too easy to type out a quick text. It’s too easy to hit the familiar speed dial. It’s just too easy.

There is no moving on anymore. Distance helps. Not seeing someone helps. Those who don’t care about you anymore, obviously thats an easy one. But for those of us who remain cordial and friendly with our ex’s, it becomes an all together new struggle not to slip back into old habits.

Are old habits always bad? Is an old relationship meant to remain an old relationship just because you once decided it should be? Maybe not. It could be a great gift that technology has given us to remain in touch. It could be an advancement in our social capabilities and emotional threshold. It’s hard I think. Once you have those feelings for someone, do they ever truly go away? Not for me. I think for many those feelings have taken on a different face, hate, but that there is definitely no feeling of indifference to anyone that I have dated post the age of 18.

Why do we allow ourselves to remain in contact with those who we decided should no longer be around us? If I didn’t make an effort to cut you out, if your phone numbers still in my phone, if we’re still friends on Facebook or MySpace, if you’re still in my chat list, if I still listen to your music, if I still look at pictures you send me, and most of all if I’m still talking to you… I never wanted to cut you out in the first place. Whether or not I had to for those “sensible” reasons is another story. Maybe I did. Maybe it was best. But that doesn’t mean I wanted to, and it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t take it back.

New opportunties present themselves, always. There’s always the chance to leave behind old relationships and dive into new ones. But to be quite honest, sometimes, I just can’t. No matter how great the new. There’s still a tie to what’s comfortable, what I know, and what I’ve loved.

Breaking that tie would be so much easier if it just wasn’t so easy not to.

So I’ve said a million times that we’re obsessed with facebook, myspace, twitter and all the other platforms of social media. You know we are. I know we are. So does everyone else. It’s starting to become a running joke amongst many people, especially those who are already in the marketing field. We’re poking fun at ourselves and the relentless addiction we have to these running social mediums.

I made a previous post examing a facet of online dating: DateTwit. Well people aren’t just meeting on Twitter, they’re meeting every where online.  This video portrays its reality, but also pokes fun at everyone who is caught up and encircled by the ever ramping success of online social networking.

The number one complaint I hear amongst the social media guru’s and filanthropists is the time it can take to be devoted and seriously involved in multiple platforms of social networking. I agree! I Tweet, I update posts on MySpace, I chat on multiple instant message tools, I have a Facebook page, I’m LinkedIn, I’m on youtube, and I’m sure there’s more… orkut? Yes I believe I’m on there too. How can I possibly manage and pay attention to all of these platforms?? I can’t! But what I’m here to ask, and more importantly, are those that find not only time to track their own progress through these mediums, but they’re watching others as well. And not casually watching, but critically analyzing posts, comments, people, and even time and day. Why? They’re insecure. Simple as that.

See where I’m going with this? How easy has technology made it to monitor everything your girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, friends, husband-anyone- is doing? It’s almost horrifying once you realize how many people are actually insecure enough that they actually are pulling their facebook posts, stealing passwords, sending messages as someone else, pulling text messages, going through phones, g chats, and much much much more. Not only is it pathetic for those who aren’t trusting to behave in this way, but how awful for those who aren’t trusted.

Are the multiple social mediums and internet platforms available to us a hinderance or a help? I suppose it depends on the person. But for some the tempting availability of the loved ones profile page, social details, and friends is too easy for them to obsess over. So what if there is something to be suspicious about? What if the obsesssion is justified? I can’t be the one to answer that question. But in my life, I will gladly do without the feelings of jealousy, betrayal, and distrust that can be caused by such behavior. Social networking was not created to enhance those feelings which are already natural in all of us. They were created to grow friendships, relationships, families, and many other relationships. They were created to increase mind share, knowledge, and understanding of those who live around us. But there is always an abuse to everything good that is created. To me, it’s sad.

It’s another MySpace page! Can you handle it?? Another profile page to maintain? Character pieces to update and fit to display your personality?

I began my youtube profile today, and the first thing I realized is that I need to take some video of my life! I’m bad enough at taking picutres, it’s time to get on top of this! Despite my desire to look up this new form of interacting and sharing lives across technological medium, I find I cannot. It’s usable, it’s fun! I’t definitely MySpace on steroids, but I think that’s what makes it work. There’s nothing new to learn, not a new social media management style, no new tools to understand, it’s perfect.

Snowboarding videos, homemade firework bombs gone awry, and oh the gala of the amateur music video! So go and check out youtube’s new social network. It’s worth it.