For the second year in a row

The award ceremony is being held tonight, January 12, at the Drexelbrook in Drexel Hill, PA from 6:00-9:00 PM. eZanga.com CEO and CFO, Rich and Beth Kahn will be attending. Check out what Rich had to say about eZanga  in SmartCEO’s most recent magazine featuring the Future 50 winners.

The service will be available to all who fly KLM, but both passengers will need to participate in order to guarantee the pre-emptive seating arrangement. No need to fret over the ambiguity of the mystery person who may sit next to you, now you can stalk them first!

It’s pretty ingenious if you ask me. The Meet & Seat app has the opportunity to eliminate some of the negative feedback received, putting control in the hands of passengers.

And consider all of the possibilities of new business connections or kindling romances? Speaking of romance, a survey by UK flight search company, Skyscanner discovered earlier this year that 45% of passengers admitted to flirting with other passengers during flights. Now imagine having the control to choose who you can flirt with in the air?

Do you think you would publicize your Facebook or LinkedIn profile to those you are flying with in order to sit next to someone you consider attractive or who has similar interest?

Start by asking yourself: Who can do a better job considering time, knowledge, budget and tools?

Time: Any type of search engine marketing initiative is never a ‘set it and forget it’ fix. Online efforts require constant care and time to guarantee that you are doing it correctly and your campaign is working properly. Considering search engine algorithms are continuously changing, it’s best to make sure the person in charge understands the shifts of online.

Knowledge: As stated above, search engine marketing is constantly changing and also a highly competitive market. Expertise is non-negotiable with your online marketing efforts. So the questions here are, can you find someone with the knowledge necessary in order to successfully maintain a campaign? Do you know what knowledge is necessary to hire this person? Whether you use a company or hire someone internally, they need to specialize in online marketing.

Budget: Obviously it’s a no brainer that you need to calculate cost, so start by comparing the cost of one or two full time employees, plus benefits, along with all of the other miscellaneous costs of employment, and the monthly marketing budget. Also think about the longevity of an employee versus a no contract SEM firm. Although SEM firms have set up fees (usually one time only) and management fees, it’s included in the monthly budget and taps into how your money is being spent to the penny with complete transparency.

Tools: Your in house expert can use different platforms, such as Google AdWords to track and report how well your campaign is doing. However, this goes back to the ability (knowledge) of using the tools provided and interpreting what it means, because you can’t really pick up the phone and ask Google. SEM firms work on platforms with real time reporting, call recording capabilities, and keep track of what you deem a call to action (web events, calls, contact us forms etc.), and they know the in’s and out’s of the system. If you outsource, you will still be able to check up on the performance if you wish.

If you do decide to outsource a company to take care of your online marketing efforts, make sure they have the credentials, expertise and proven results first.

Timeline has been available through signing up for developer beta access since f8 and over 1 million people got early access this way. The “Beta” label was officially removed from Timeline’s name on December 6, and now any Facebook user can opt-in to activate theirs now.

To opt-in, you can visit the Introducing Timeline page and click “Get it now.” Soon enough, you will also see an announcement about Timeline at the top of your profile when you go to view it.

To ease the transition from the old profiles to the new Timelines, Facebook will give you a 7-day review period where no one else can see your Timeline. This gives you one week to review all of the content that appears on your Timeline and customize it through hiding and featuring stories as you wish. To see what your Timeline will look like to someone else, click the gear icon at the top of your page and select ‘View as…’ and you can see how your Timeline looks to a Facebook friend or the public. But seven days after you upgrade to Timeline, it will automatically go live to all of your Facebook friends. Of course, if you don’t need or want the review period, you can publish your Timeline at any time.

Facebook Timeline is also now available on Android devices and on Facebook’s mobile website, m.facebook.com. While Timeline is now available for any individual user, it will not be available for brand pages yet. Facebook never actually confirmed that there would be Timelines for brands, but a rep told Mashable that “Consistency in both functionality and appearance is really important to Facebook…so we hope to make Pages more consistent with the new Timeline in the future.”

As per usual with any change to Facebook, many users are not happy. And where better to voice your opinion about a social network than on a social network? For most of this morning, “Facebook Timeline” has been a Trending Topic on Twitter as Facebook users rave, rant, and review their experiences with Timeline. Many people have expressed frustration or concern over the effects “frictionless sharing” will have on their privacy, others just don’t care for the new look. It will be interesting over the next few weeks to see how different types of tech adopters react to Timeline.

For more information on how to use Facebook Timeline, check out our introduction to Timeline and Open Graph.

Have you seen your Timeline yet? What do you think?

Free education will be offered throughout the day and will include over 30 quality information sessions covering sales, marketing, advertising, business growth, best business practices, social media and much more! You’ll be able to identify the latest products and services to meet your competitive challenges and discover the keys to financial success and stability. Check back for photos and updates on the event on our Facebook Fan Page!

The theme of this year’s Forum is “think big” and the keynote speakers are giants of industry, sports and the arts. They will join the more than 2,100 CEOs and senior executives from America’s top high-growth, market-leading companies at this year’s sold out Forum.

Also a monumental year, Ernst & Young will be celebration their 25th anniversary of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award. The national awards ceremony will take place on the final night of the Forum at a black-tie event hosted by Jay Leno.

Stay tuned for pictures from the event!

We held our annual Halloween Costume Contest and was also given free lunch courtesy of the Executive Team for keeping with the Halloween spirit!

We’ve tallied the votes and heard back from our eZanga Facebook Fans…and the Winners of our 2011 Halloween Costume Contest are:

Most Original: Brian Samson as  Bob Ross

Funniest: David Gail as Abe the Amish Man

“I can’t believe they showed up to work like that”: Dan Zitofsky as Tourist Man

Most Commited to their overall look: Lisa Quinn, Mike Pfeifer, Lisa Johannsen, and Catrina Sharp as KISS

Costume that matches their overall Personality: Rita Andersch as Jester

Best Overall Costume decided by our eZanga Facebook Fans: KISS

On behalf of the entire eZanga team, we hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween! Trick or Treat!