Most of you don't know it, but the Silicon Valley in Europe is not in Berlin, it is in the South West of Germany along the cities Saarbrücken-Kaiserslautern-Darmstadt-Walldorf-Karlsruhe and it is called "Software Cluster". The focus is on business software, but there are more and more web and mobile solution start ups coming up. It certainly does not have Berlin's sexiness, but the best developers live here. ;) We here at earthfaves are also happy to benefit from international university cooperations like the very successful DFHI, a joint venture of the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft des Saarlandes (HTW) in Saarbrücken/Germany and of the Université de Lorraine in Metz/France (formerly Université Paul Verlaine - Metz). Many of our developers come from France and wrote their Bachelor or Master theses here at earthfaves. 

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One of my most favored social media marketing authors is definitely Olivier Blanchard. He runs The Brandbuilder Blog which is a must-read for everybody who is involved in social media marketing - and in marketing in general. No kidding. ;)

Just like his book, Social Media ROI, which is now also available in German now - his blog is highly recommended for every marketer and business owner to learn more about why social media marketing - if done right - is the most cost-effective way to grow your business. Olivier's focus is on describing ways to measure the success of your (social media) marketing campaigns.

His new post gives precise data on how to research a topic in-depth. This is not a "ok, I flipped though it, it is interesting"-post - if you don't invest time, you won't get anything out of it. So get a cup of tea, sit down and READ "How to publish a proper list of Social Business ROI examples."

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In the next two weeks, we will have new interns here, Clément (F / Dev) already started this week, Alain (D / Dev), Laure (F / Marketing), Thomas (F / Dev), Morgan (USA / Marketing) and Christopher (D / Dev) will start beginning of February, so our small office is going to be a bit more packed again. Daniel and I are looking forward to it, and the future interns do so as well. I took some pictures of nice "real" wall postings from Annie, Moritz and the team. :) Annie, we miss you too! We will open up an office in Madrid one day! :)

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Yesterday we found out that there is a 1994 House anthem called "I love this place". The beginning is a bit boring, but the vocal part rocks! We have our hands in the air a few times a day. ;)

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OMG, time passes by so quickly! :) We wish you all an amazing year 2012! May at least some of your wishes come true!

We made our biggest dream come true! We built earthfaves, for End Users, Professional Experts, Business Owners! We built an iPhone App for End Users and soon we have the iPhone App for Businesses and earthfaves for Facebook ready, too.

earthfaves for End Users - a solution to always find the favorite places and insider tips from your social circles and experts, to support great businesses and to save some money there.

earthfaves for Business - a solution to grow cost-efficiently and sustainably by means of the most powerful advertising in existence: positive word-of-mouth in the social circles of satisfied customers.

We worked on it for almost four years. During this time, we could always count on the support from our families. You can imagine, doing this felt like being close to hell, more than once. But we used our talent, passion and our zen-buddhist-like patience to get through it. Friends stopped talking to us about it, external people thought we are crazy. But we knew we can make it, and we made it. We built earthfaves all by ourselves, with around 90.000 Euros from the founding team, from friends and family. All code was written inhouse, all designs were made inhouse, all ideas, decisions and features were made inhouse by:

Markus D. Schneider - Product & Project Management

Oliver Schneider - Art Direction, UI designs, Marketing

Daniel Stötzer - Development

Anna Roytburd - Web Design

Tim Klauck - Conceptual Design

Thomas Krämer, Barrett Conway, Markus Tetzlaff - Co-Founders & Legal/Concept/Dev/Sales

plus our numerous development interns, mainly from our great and beatiful IT-region SaarLorLux and from Madrid, especially:

Frédéric Klauss, Dorian Bauer, Rémi Sinicco, Markus Flesch, Pascal Jung, Fabrice Thiel, Moritz Strohm, Benedikt Kappes, Miguel Angel Escalona, María Lara Díaz, José Angel Garcia, Jesús Huerta and Diego Rubio.

So you might ask yourself, why did we do this? Here are some reasons.

• Because from the start, we believed in earthfaves.
• Because we believe that we all have the talents to do something special in our lives if we only believe in it - and put it into action.
• Because we believe that excellence can win over big advertising budgets if the right technology is in place.
• Because we want transparency about the good things in life so that we can all benefit from the talent, passion and creativity of those people who really provide exceptional products and services.
• Because we traveled a lot, and we know that every country has nice places and nice people to see and visit.
• Because we believe that together, we can chance the world to the better. This can work if we all share the best places and let others know why we love this place. This way, more and more people will visit these "earthfaves". Non-loved places will have to improve even quicker if they want to survive as positive word-of-mouth travels fast.
• Because we think that companies waste a lot of money on worthless advertising instead of investing in their most important people: their FAVERS and their FAVER FRIENDS.

We just updated the website with our new designs and all the information and tools about "earthfaves for Business", see footer menu. The direct link is www.earthfaves-prm.com .

Remember, it is all in D.I.Y. beta mode which means Daniel, Olli, Anna and Markus build earthfaves actually in their spare time, supported by our interns. So don't expect everything to work perfectly or to be superfast. Because of this DIY-Beta mode, we also never advertised earthfaves. We start to talk to investors now so that we can offer earthfaves to a broader audience.

If you are interested in trying out "earthfaves for Business" for free, send us an e-mail to info @ earthfaves.com . We are happy to get you into our "Pilot Program".

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We are very sorry that we were soooo lazy during the last months! No news in our blog, we know! We promise to change this in the future, get ready for more to come soon. Check out our current team, Leah (USA), Youlia (USA), Rick (France), Carles (Spain), Daniel (Saar/Germany), Jocelyn (France), Markus (Saar/Germany), Markus (Saar/Germany), Necco (USA) - not in the picture Olli (Berlin), Yves (Saar/Germany), Dorian (France), Rémi (France), Pascal (Saar/Germany), Raafi (India) and Anna (Saar/Germany). We are still working hard to get our social favorite places network ready to change the world, to make it easier to find the best places from our social circles and support the businesses that really matter to us. Necco is leaving us today, thanks a lot for your contributions!

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What really counts if it comes to social media, and how to measure it, read it here.

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This is a great speech for all the CEOs and marketers out there.

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We shot this nice picture some weeks ago and now found the time to finally put it online (aaaawwww, sooo much to doooo ;). Lena studies Geography at the University of Augsburg, she stayed with us two months and left us at the end of September and helped with our marketing collateral. Jay, engineer from the University Paul Verlaine, Metz, France, to the right of her, joined us in September and now works on our business solution. Rémi and Dorian, computer science students, also from the University Paul Verlaine, Metz, France, wrote their Bachelor Thesis developing our iPhone App. Thanks, guys, it was great to have you on the team and we hope you can come back soon ;)!

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Hey, we are a bit lazy recently in terms of blog writing. Forgive us! We are still working hard - as usual!

To help you to have a great time until we release the next news update, listen to this great nudisco/balearic mix from The Beat Broker out of San Francisco. And chill.

The Beat Broker - Classy Dancer III (the VIP Lounge) by the Beat Broker

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We're all sure of it: the world needs earthfaves. Wouldn't it be just too cool to have all the great recommendations from your friends on a device with you, everywhere, overtime. You can! It's so much fun to browse our map showing an ideal overview of the best places in the world. Our idea and our product are worth to be used and loved, we at earthfaves are serious about sharing our passion of the good life, tasty food, wonderful experiences in nature with great people from all over the world.

My girlfriend and I went to wonderful Sardinia this June and I would like to share our experiences on this beautiful island with you so that you might go there as well when visiting Sardinia. I picked three of our most compelling places to give you an idea what our trip was like.

After arriving in Olbia we went to "Agriturismo Saltara" (those are former farms now serving as guesthouses with great local food) close to "Capo Testa" in the North of Sardinia. For stressed-out city folks like us,  staying in wooden houses in a wonderful parklike ambience for a few days was the perfect start for our 12-day trip. The food was excellent: home made pasta, various very delicious and self-produced sorts of meat and vegetables and seriously the best bread I've tasted in my whole life. Think of the best possible pizza, but even better: crispy but soft and covered with coarsely grounded salt, homebred in a classic stone oven. Very nice people, great food and a cosy environment, recommended!

Agriturismo Saltara
www.agriturismosaltara.it
www.earthfaves.com/AgriturismoSaltara

See the full gallery on Posterous

Our second stop was the small town San Teodoro, situated in the Northeast of the island and famous for one of the most beautiful beaches in Sardinia: "La Cinta". Knowing that the city is very busy in summer, we were happy to be there in springtime. The whole island is blooming at that time of the year, it is sometimes overwhelming to have some of the finest beaches in Europe very close to the impressive mountainside and right next to a sea of blooming flowers. We were heartily welcomed at the guesthouse "Villa Minda" in San Teodoro, where Barara and Martin make it easy for you to relax immediately. If you are as lucky as we were you'll get one of the 2nd floor rooms with a breathtaking view from your balcony at / of the seaside with the golden stretch of "La Cinta" right in front of you. Your are really be part of their family in the best sense of the word possible, giving you advice where to eat (like the fantastic seafood restaurant "L'Artista" in San Teodoro) and where to go (like the two best beaches around: the incredible caribbean "Spiaggia Brandinchi" and right next to it: "Lu Impostu"). Definitely worth a visit, we didn't want to leave ever again!

Villa Minda
www.villaminda.it
www.earthfaves.com/VillaMinda

L'Artista
www.earthfaves.com/LArtista

See the full gallery on Posterous

I really don't want to compare, but by that time we were not thinking to find even more welcoming people, tastier food or better beaches. When we arrived at "Villa Mercedes" in Siniscola and first went into our spacious room in this beautiful house we were stunned. Mercedes and her husband Paolo are very nice people and did a wonderful job renovating the tasteful house Paolo's father had built. They are great hosts helping you out with whatever you need and always have tips about places to go or where to eat. Close-by is another very good italian seafood place called "Albero Maestro" and be sure not to miss the long, almost mystical beach called "Spiaggia Berchida".

Villa Mercedes
www.bedandbreakfastvillamercedes.com
www.earthfaves.com/VillaMecredes

Albero Maestro
www.earthfaves.com/AlberoMaestro

See the full gallery on Posterous

We are passionate photographers and took tons of pictures on our wonderful trip. Hopefully we picked the best pictures and collected them in a book to participate in Blurb's "Photography Book Now" competition. You can have look at the book here:
www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1473668

For more of our photos please have a look at our photo blog here:
www.actualcolorsmayvary.com/blog

If you'd like to receive my updates about the great places I've been to, send me an friend request, just follow me at earthfaves or drop me line, I would be thrilled!

Here's my profile:
www.earthfaves.com/user/oschneid.html

Oliver
 

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Please notice there's a new video about earthfaves online:

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Recently we had a nice launch party with a lot of the people who worked for us in the last months to celebrate the go-live of our new version. One more time thanks to all who made this possible, we love you! Now we fix the last bugs, then we finally let the world [...]

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Olli just sent me the link to Top 10 Best Social Media Presentations, a great collection for all you marketers out there.

This is a great one: "What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later" by Marta Kagan.

http://huge7.com/top-10-best-social-media-presentations

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Last week, we didn’t have access to the internet for a whole day, so we went the 54 meters down to the St.Johanner Markt and had a good time there in the sun, saying farewell to Lenaïg and Sebahate, the two marketing interns from the University of Metz, France that left us a day later.

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earthfaves can now be auto-posted to your wall on Facebook! Every time you add a new earthfave, it will be automatically shared with your friends on Facebook. Just go to earthfaves.com, click the "Connect with Facebook" button, then edit your "Auto-posting to Facebook" settings under the My Account tab. Give it a try!

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Olli, Normen and myself, Markus, we attended ITB last week, the worlds largest travel industry fair in Berlin. It is great to see how many regions have started to “emotionalize” their regions with “i/we love/like/heart you/our region”-like slogans – dozens!!! This shows that destination marketers learnt their lesson: “normal” advertising does not work as good as [...]

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Inbound Marketing is a new book written by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot. It deals with Social Media Optimization, SMO – the actions business owners and marketers need to take to make sure that potential customers run into, interact and communicate with their brand as often as possible to win more customers that [...]

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Hey, next success – we made it to the finals of the Gründermarkt at Forum Kiedrich in Wiesbaden! Markus and Daniel went there to present earthfaves in a 5-minute pitch, people loved it. The whole event was great and we made many interesting contacts for the future.

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“When companies think of WOM, many times they will create attention-grabbing stunts to get noticed. That stunt may create buzz, but the buzz doesn’t last. It’s a one and done blip of marketing gimmickry. A longer-lasting way to create buzz is to foster advocacy relationships with customers. Which leads me to an important WOM TRUTH: [...]

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