We feel this package offers great value at a more introductory level price for individuals and SMBs interested in getting involved with just the most essential and popular social networks.  The new package is a complete one-button turnkey solution for not only reserving your name, but also completing all the profile information, images and links required to create a full presence on the top 25 social media sites.

KnowEm has identified this list of 25 essential social networks via several different metrics — page rank, compete score, alexa traffic rankings and media mentions.  All profile creation orders are still completed 100% manually by our U.S.-based in-house staff, so just like all our other plans you can rest assured your data and information is safe with us.

So from the small business owner just getting their feet wet in social media to the new parent that wants to be sure their child’s name is reserved and waiting for them when they want to start tweeting, we have the package for you.

In addition, KnowEm is currently working with a few other companies to develop custom packages for their client base.  Keep your eye out for these other new packages launching within the next few weeks!

As much as I have been hesitant in doing posts like this, because I really don’t like to help out the clones competition with cleaning up their databases, I figured I might as well for the end of the year. It is a request we get from people who visit our site and people we speak with on the twitter, so why not? Here is a little Christmas present for the hacks competitors that haven’t updated their database all year.

Recently announced and one of the largest sites to shut down in 2011 is Gowalla. Now there has been a lot of speculation and rumors that have popped up about this service shutting down, mainly in the realm of investors getting ripped off or not getting any cash yadda yadda, but we don’t care. The matter of the fact is that – BAMMMMM – Facebook just bought the only true competition of foursquare. Why they would shut it down and not keep it open, like they did with friendfeed, is kinda beyond me.  I mean it might not be that big of a service, but it did have a pretty large user base as well as traffic. Granted the traffic was slowly dropping, but hey, at least they had traffic.   So the team from Gowalla are packing their bags and moving out to Cali, where they will sit at nice new desks, sip their Java outta cool coffee cups  and work on making facebook’s location based services more kick butt then anything those New York hipsters at foursquare could ever think of.  I am actually excited how this will play out, because as Zuck has said, he never acquires a company for the “company” but more for the people.  So lets hope the gowalla team can kick some butt and make their system totally kick ass. Congrats guys.

Next site was another biggie, Mixx. Now my partner in crime used to jones on this site. “I am a top mixer! I be submitting all sortsa stuff to Mixx!” – Yeah, that stuff paid off.  Mixx was acquired by Uber Media, which went on a bit of an acquisition frenzy,  buying a bunch of Mobile apps & topped off their list with Mixx, rebranding and renaming it to “Chime.In” – again, removing the entire user base and all the content.    Why they would do this? Not sure. But now Barry’s top mixing status is gone and he will have to try and become a top “Chimer(?)” in order to have something that he can brag about.  Good luck buddy! Lets hope this one stays around a bit longer. [Editor's Note, a.k.a. Barry Wise: I am actually re-focusing my efforts on Google Wave Google Buzz Google+, since I am assured that will be around forever.]

Yet another site shut down that I initially thought had a very good chance to take a bunch of market share with the sale and/or rumors of delicious shutting down was “TagFoot”  - this site was a tagging based site where you could share content with the community and comment back and forth on links etc etc.  Think of it like delicious with some prettier web 2.0 graphics.  But their traffic was  on a STEEP decline, so (I am guessing) the owner of the site just decided to call it quits and say good bye. Again, sites like this with user data are valuable to someone and shouldn’t be just shut off.  Instead put the thing up on flippa.  There is usually someone out there that would want the site, and who knows maybe one of the users of the site would have purchased it if the price was right and he/she thought they could take over running it.

Skribit went to the dead pool back in July.  This site was self described as “Skribit aims to cure writer’s block by helping bloggers and other website owners receive suggestions and topics to write about. Bloggers customize and install a widget in their sidebar or a suggestions tab, allowing their readers to make suggestions.” So basically it was a pumped up contact form widget for your blog where your blog readers could make suggestions for what you should blog about.  They wrapped this into a social media site that would show suggestions so everyone would always have a topic to blog about! Yay! Another site that was listed as a competitor also hit the dead pool – Askablogr.com.  The only other service that seems to still be around and doing this service is SuggestionBox.com, so if you’re lacking ideas for what you should blog about take a gander over there.  Seems they actually have some pretty big clients that are using their platform, so hopefully they will be around for a bit.

So here was a selection of 4 sites that went the way of the titanic. What sites were you a member of or used that hit the dead pool this year?

Attempting to navigate the USPTO trademark registration process is a headache – anyone who’s ever tried it will tell who how much time and effort it takes.  Even searching the USPTO government website for a mark can be difficult – so we wanted to make both processes easier for the brand owner.  Our trademark search is uniquely simple – just enter a brand name, and we’ll show you if it’s available for registration or if someone has already trademarked it.  If it is available, for only $158 (plus the standard $325 USPTO Filing Fee) our partner TMarque will put their professional attorneys to work for you, saving you hours of time and effort wrangling with the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office).

With the addition of our Trademark search and registration, KnowEm now offers a complete suite of branding tools – including our Domain name search and registration service along with our original Social Media username search and registration service.  So if you have a brand you want to secure and keep consistent on the web, all you have to do is visit KnowEm.com.  We’ll secure your brand name on up to 300 Social Media sites, any Domain extensions you want (over 150 to choose from), and now we’ll even trademark your brand for you.  We think that’s pretty easy, but if we can make it any easier for you, just let us know — we’re still listening!

Sarah (@PRSarahEvans), a longtime friend and supporter of KnowEm, is everything from a PR entrepreneur to one of America’s “Tweethearts,” but it’s her personal mission to engage and employ the use of emerging technologies in all communication that connects her with a rapidly growing base of more than 60,000 people.

Sarah created and moderates #Journchat, the first-ever weekly live tweetchat for public relations professionals, journalists and bloggers. She runs her own blog at PRsarahevans.com and shares a daily resource for public relations professionals called Commentz.

In recognition of Evans’ role on the advisory board, here are five tips from Evans and KnowEm to keep your identity safe on social media:

1. Avoid malicious links – Be careful when clicking on links, particularly if receiving a direct message (DM) with a link – even if it’s from a trusted source.

“Of the shortened URLs leading to malicious websites that Symantec observed on social networking sites over the three-month period in 2010, 73 percent were clicked 11 times or more, with 33 percent receiving between 11 and 50 clicks. Only 12 percent of the links were never clicked,” according to the Symantec study.

2. Monitor third-party app access – Check in Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts for third-party apps that you may or may not have granted access to your accounts. If you don’t trust or recognize the connection, revoke the apps access.

3. Strengthen your passwords – To help prevent cyber attacks and phishing scams, make sure your password is at least six characters long and contains a series of numbers, letters and punctuation marks if possible. Facebook advises not to use words found in the dictionary and select a password that’s different from any other password you select on the Internet.

4. If your Twitter account is hacked – If you notice unexpected tweets or DMs sent from your account or receive an email that you recently changed your email address associated with the account without taking any action, most likely, you have been hacked. If this happens, log out of the account, clear your browser cache and your browsing history. Once done, open a new browser window, log in and change your password and revoke access to any unrecognized third-party apps.

5. If your Facebook account is hacked – If status updates or comments appear on your account that you didn’t write, you might have been hacked. Reset your password (if able to access your Facebook login, hit “forgot your password” link to switch). After, clear your browser cache, delete your Internet history and monitor your access to third-party apps on Facebook.

Please help us in welcoming Sarah to the KnowEm family!

KnowEm was originally born from an off shoot of our site CheckUsernames.com which launched in February of 2009 after the original concept site by Jon Sykes was taken down. I was at IM Springbreak in Florida when I began to speak about the service of KnowEm and what we planned to do with a few other marketers.  One of the first people I spoke to was Brian Chappell (@BrianChappell).  When I told him what we were debating to do with username signups he thought it was a great idea, as did everyone else I spoke with.  We started development right away.

Partnerships and New Features

I have always believed that products need to evolve and adapt to keep fresh, new and useful. With that in mind it’s with great pleasure I announce a new feature that we are launching today:  Domain searching on over 200 tlds and gtlds, thanks to our new partnership with United Domains.  Now with one simple search you can look at over 200 domain names and social media usernames, all from one interface.

Where to Next?

Our company is at a bit of a turning point.  We have two more products on the burner for launch and are looking forward to releasing them to the public shortly. To give you an idea, we have always received the same request over and over again, “Now that I have all these social sites, how can I update them all?”  We are working on a dashboard solution to solve this problem, as well as a first-of-its-kind dashboard for businesses or agencies with small business clients to manage their local search information, social media presence and reputation from one centralized place.   As always both of these platforms will be available for white label.

Often Imitated Never Duplicated

We are still proud to be considered the number one trusted source for helping individuals, brands and companies secure their username across the ever growing social media landscape. We are still the only company that uses our own in-house on-shore staff to do this. Security and quality has always been our main focus.

On behalf of Myself, Barry, Richard, James and everyone else – thanks for a great 2 years and here is to exciting times ahead!

Since Twitter has a policy against name squatting and selling usernames, you have to wonder what Twitter thinks of this deal.  Their policy states “attempts to sell, buy, or solicit other forms of payment in exchange for usernames are also violations and may result in permanent account suspension.”  Israel Meléndez says they didn’t violate this clause because he was just relinquishing his own personal account, he didn’t create the account for the purposes of making a profit.  Other reports state Twitter actually helped facilitate the sale, but Twitter hasn’t confirmed that.

At KnowEm we have clients inquiring every day about what they can do to get their company’s brand, trademark or username back if it has already been taken on a social network.  We always advise them to use the proper channels and contact the website owner to ask about their policy in reclaiming names, which usually requires some lawyers to get involved.  The truth is, however, that it can be a very difficult and time-consuming process.  And as this story shows us, you might not get the outcome you want.

If the nation of Israel had to pay a six figure sum to reclaim their name on Twitter, what chance do you have of getting your branded username back if it’s already been taken?  This is the primary reason a professional service like KnowEm is so valuable for brand and trademark owners who want to be proactive in Social Media.  Think of it as brand insurance – no one can steal or squat on your name on the next big social network if you have already registered it.

List of New Top-Level Domain Extensions (check for availability):

NET.BZ
NET.BR
COM.MX
ORG.AG
COM.BZ

COM.ES
NOM.ES
ORG.ES

FIRM.IN
IND.IN
ORG.IN
NET.NZ
ORG.TW
CO.IN
GEN.IN
NET.IN
CO.NZ
ORG.NZ
COM.TW
IDV.TW

Of course, we also still search over 400 social media networks to find the availability (or usage) of your trademark, brand, or personal username. And we still offer our unique Automated Username Signup packages, with which our local staff can secure your brand on up to 300 social networks.  (Every member of KnowEm’s signup staff is under strict NDA and has had criminal background checks to ensure your sensitive information is always protected).

KnowEm, the company working to help brands manage their identity across the social web, announced the public launch of a new Enterprise Dashboard designed to help brands protect their trademarks and intellectual property in the ever-changing social media landscape.

The dashboard gives social media and IP legal teams a centralized location to monitor and manage their social media identities. With just a few clicks a marketing manager or lawyer can see exactly where a certain trademark or name is secured, and where it’s still unclaimed and vulnerable. KnowEm takes the process a step farther by automatically securing names, even creating profiles, wherever needed.

KnowEm’s database contains over 5,000 social networks around the world  — from Mexico Diario to the Netherlands’ Hyves — and is growing on a daily basis as new social sites emerge. As a result, businesses can be sure their trademarked terms are reserved and protected in global sites today and tomorrow.

The enterprise dashboard was previously available in a limited invitation-only beta, during which time KnowEm collaborated with key clients, including Continental Airlines, Yahoo, and Flickr. For example, Continental has been using the dashboard to protect their brand trademarks and reserve their profiles on emerging social networks.

“While Twitter and Facebook are obvious places to check your brand identity, globally much of the social web is unchartered territory. It’s critical that we control our trademarked terms and brand identities throughout each network,” said Lora O’Riordan, Social Media Manager at Continental Airlines. “KnowEm’s service has become an important part of our social media strategy, ensuring we protect our property and opening our eyes to new opportunities for consumer engagement.”

In addition, the new dashboard enables brands to stay on top of the buzz surrounding their brand and industry on the social web. KnowEm’s brand alert monitoring system tracks each mention of a brand name, username, or keyword across 5,000+ social networks. The service breaks down the data into meaningful charts, such as social mentions by network, author, or geographic location, and reports can be emailed on a weekly, daily, or almost hourly basis. As a result, businesses can better understand who’s talking about their brand, where, and when.

To date the KnowEm team has helped to reserve over 500,000 profiles and reported back to clients on over 60,000 issues of squatting and misrepresentation of a brand, username or trademarked term.

We also made a little interface change to our initial search page.  Rather then search our entire database of almost 500 social networks right from the start, we have limited the initial search to the top 20 social networks as well as the top 8 domain extensions. You will notice the tabs at the top which will take you into deeper searches of both, over 400 social media sites and over 40 different domain types.

Things have been very busy with everyone at team KnowEm.  So far our second year in business has been a very interesting one – from sending out a cease and desist to a company that copied our site right down the meta tags to hiring our 30th employee. We continue to grow and build the best set of tools for companies, individuals and brands to make sure they are secure on the social web.

We have another big announcement coming soon, so be sure to check back, become a fan on Facebook, or follow us on twitter so you will know when our next big announcement hits!

To your success,

Michael Streko & Barry Wise

Founders,
KnowEm LLC

Yiid has long been recognized as a leader in the social media space, especially in Germany, where its parent company Ekaabo GmbH is headquartered.  Yiid’s service provides a central location for users to discover new social networks, connect with friends and manage their online identity.

Since both KnowEm and Yiid are highly recognizable brands in social media, a cooperative partnership just seemed natural.