This article originally posted on Yahoo Sports

Written by Chris Chase

Melissa Adams tried out six times for the San Diego Chargers cheerleading squad before becoming an official Charger Girl. Compared to what else she overcame in her life, that was nothing.

Adams lost 85 percent of her hearing when she was 5 years old and wears a hearing aid in her left ear. It doesn’t seem to have slowed her down. She owns a web development business with her husband and is in her second season cheering for the Chargers.

Not being able to hear the music while on the field isn’t without its problems, but Adams has a system in place to ensure she’s not out of rhythm with the other dancers.

“Before every group routine we do in the end zone I have one girl, depending on what routine it is, give me a tap on the side with her pom,” she told Fox5 San Diego. “On my own time, I will go over the music and make sure I know exactly what speed that song is and know the dance so well in my head that once I get that cue from the girl, I know it completely from start to finish. If the music were to turn off it wouldn’t matter for me because I would just keep going.”

Melissa grew up on the East Coast and attended James Madison University before moving to San Diego in 2005 to start a marketing and web development company. Recently, she shared her story with the city’s Fox affiliate:

She hopes the success she’s had while managing her disability will be an inspiration to youngsters dealing with similar issues.

“I know growing up, people would say, ‘Oh you’re not going to be able to do that,’” Melissa said. “I would just be like, ‘What are you talking about? Yes I can.’”

Here is our quick review of SpyFu.com, an internet marketing, PPC and SEO platform. SpyFu has been around for a number of years but with each successive turn of the calendar it is growing in popularity and strength.

Have you ever wondered how your competitors are advertising? Ever wondered why your ads are failing? How about studying what works and what doesn’t? All of this and more is within SpyFu’s capabilities.

What is SpyFu?

At it’s heart is a SAAS (software as a service) that allows its users to take advantage of a number of different tools in order to perfect, analyze and compare various aspects of your PPC campaigns as well as your sites overall SEO.

What Tools Are Offered?

SpyFu.com offers a bevy of services.
Here is a list of the entire toolset below:

SpyFu’s toolset includes:

• SpyFu Kombat
• SpyFu Classic
• Keyword Ad History
• Domain Ad History
• Keyword Smart Search
• A Variety of Top 100 Lists

1. SpyFu Kombat

SpyFu Kombat allows you to see overlapping keywords for up to 3 websites. This would allow you to analyze your website against two of your competitors (usually high ranking competitors). It provides a graph which will show you what keywords you have in common and what is missing from your site that may be succeeding on another. A great tool for competitor analysis.

2. SpyFu Classic

This is the “flagship” product of SpyFu. They released this product first and it is the most comprehensive of all the services they provide. You enter one domain and are followed up with a ton of data including:

• Daily AdWords PPC Budget
• Links through to SpyFu Kombat
• Average Position of Ads vs # of Advertisers
• Estimated Value of Organic Traffic (estimated traffic with a variable of CPC factored in)
• Paid Traffic Compared with Organic Traffic Estimates
• Subdomains (useful for looking at how a site might break out parts of the main domain, perhaps a good spot to look for niche keywords???)
• Top Ten Paid Keywords w/ Keyword Ad History (links through to full Keyword Ad History tool)
• Total Paid Keywords
• Total Organic Keywords
• PPC Competitors (with a link to overlapping keywords)
• Organic Competitors (with a link to overlapping keywords)
• Category

The online community is now well aware of Google’s entrance into the social media scene with Google Plus. It is obvious from first glance that they are attempting to compete directly with the Facebook/Microsoft giants.

Within the first month Google Plus swelled to over 20 million users. The success of this launch is mainly attributable to google leveraging it’s 200+ million users that use Google for email, analytics, advertising, document writing and much more.

We felt this was the perfect time to write a quick review of how Google is doing in the social media circle. Google has tried, unsuccessfully in the past, with launches such as Google Buzz and Google Wave. Both were moderately successful but it seems Google hasn’t found the right formula to make their entrance into the social scene a success…until now.

With a social network like Google Plus it is no shock that their user base swelled to such large numbers so quickly. People are interested, it’s free, and well curiosity kills the cat with these situations. They are now reaching a lull and it will be interesting to see how the users interact with the system and more importantly, are they willing to give up a portion of their loyalty from Facebook?

Below is a quick run through of the features included in Google Plus and why we feel they are a welcomed change or a diversion from what already works. Mainly we’ll be comparing these features to Facebook as the obvious control group.

Overall Design and Layout: They have stayed true to form on this with a minimalistic interface and highly logical placement of elements. There isn’t anything really overly impressive about the interface but that is what is most impressive to us. With Facebook, as the social network grew, so did the interface. It became increasingly difficult to navigate the interface. We found difficulty finding what we wanted but more importantly minimizing the clutter of all the options we didn’t want. Google Plus definitely has spent some time and research into making this not the case with their social network.

Usability: One of the best examples of usability we have seen in some time. Upon visiting for the first time we had a strong grasp of where everything was and how it worked. There wasn’t much learning at all that had to happen. On the flip side when first using Facebook for the first time it was not only overwhelming but a bit confusing as well. You really need to use the network a lot in order to learn all the in’s and out’s. Google Plus has clearly defined icons and lots of white space. The only negative is that you have less you can do with Google Plus but then again you have what you want and not anything you don’t!

Features:

Google Plus Stream: Not much new here. The stream looks a lot like Facebook however there has been one addition we really love, Priority Posting! No longer do you send a post to every friend’s visibility on your wall. Google Plus has made great use of “Circles” (Google’s version of groups). You can add users to groups and then post messages to these groups specifically really quickly and simply. Other than that we don’t have much more to say about the Google Plus stream.

Google Plus Circles: Like we mentioned above this is a way to create groups of friends and then post to those subsequent groups via your stream. This is a great feature and one of the most notable differences from Facebook and Google Plus. Groups have always been something of a mystery to most Facebook users. More so it has always been difficult to post status updates only to segmented groups of friends. With Google Plus they have made it drop dead simple and it is actually fun adding friends to your various groups.

Google Plus Profiles: Nothing extraordinary here. The best feature is that your profile is pulled from your existing Google Profile. We actually realized it was time for us to update our Google Profiles and we only noticed once the information was pulled into our Google Plus profile. It’s easy to add, edit and update your profile as well. Not much of a difference between this and Facebook in our opinion.

Google Plus Hangouts: Probably the most innovative and daring risk Google Plus has taken with it’s new social network. Hangouts allow you to create virtual meeting places where users can connect and interact with each other using a web cam. The hangouts are created by a user and then others can see it in their stream and connect or they can be invited. The only down side we see thus far (besides varying connection speeds and streaming video online) has been that the notifications for these hangouts aren’t the easiest to see. It has been difficult for us to actually facilitate a hangout however if we were to schedule one of these we could see this as a powerful potential business feature in the future.

Google Plus Sparks: Watch this feature grow into something that is much powerful than originally thought. This highly underrated feature is basically a recommendation engine. As people use Google Plus to share links and articles they like (much like the facebook like button) they are rating publishers up and down in the rankings. It will end up making those “Google Plus” icons actually go to work finally!

Google Plus Photos: This is very similar to Facebook photo up-loader but with an editor attached on to it. Very fast and easy to organize your photos. You can also import your albums from picasa. The editor is a bit primitive but with the online image editor technology on the rise we expect Google Plus to be adding these features in sooner than later!

Mobile: We have been using the Android version of the app and at first glance all we have to say is, “soooooo simple” in both positive and negative ways. Viewing all the different features of Google Plus (ie photos, profile, stream, friends, etc..) is easy however you can currently only take a couple of actions. You can post to your stream easily and they have come out with a new feature called, “Instant Upload”. This allows the user to take a picture and have it automatically upload to their page. The down side to this is that users will have to be weary of accidentally uploading all their phone pictures to the social network and learning an important security lesson right off the bat.

Google Plus Huddle: This group-texting feature is pretty cool and you can use it with different circles you create. It’s not that exciting but makes sense and we will have to wait and see if it catches on.

Conclusion:

So after a month of using the service we have determined that Google Plus definitely has legs and if we have learned anything from Google it has been that they have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

The best feature we believe that Google Plus offers is that you don’t have to be in the social network in order to interact with it. Whether your in Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, etc you will notice your navigation bar now will allow you to view notifications, post to your stream and interact with your network. The ease of use and integration into the existing Google platform is simply incredible and useful. It is the sole reason we believe they are going to be able to leverage their 200+ million users to at least try out the social network. The execution of the network will keep a good portion of that user base for the long haul. We would love to be using this network more and more so sign up today and let’s start a hangout!

Last night our e-cafe networking group took a tour with Brew Hop, an e-cafe member business.

Brew Hop owned by Summer Nixon, is a San Diego based company, whose entire business is designed for your beer enjoyment,consumption and enlightenment. Brew Hop has a very similar format as wine tasting but geared at beer breweries.

Our tour started out at Gordon Biersch where we were picked up in a Lincoln Navigator and started out on our journey.
Our first stop was at the Ale Smith. As we pulled up to Ale Smith it looked more like an office building rather than a brewery. After walking through the front room you enter into a large warehouse. With beer barrels for tables and one bar tender, the Ale Smith had a humble elegance to it. This highly unassuming place had some of the better micro brews I have had in sometime. Will definitely go back there again soon.

Summer started us off light and we worked down the beer list. With each successive drink we were educated on how that particular beer was brewed and helped us discover different tastes within the brew. Summer not only was extremely knowledgable of the beers specific to the Ale Smith but was also enlightening us on unique beer facts and knowledge. She gave us a lot of information and in a very relatable way as opposed to wine tasting where the wine pourer would tell me, “It has a nice Oakey taste to it” and immediately try to sell me a bottle. This was a much more comfortable tasting experience in my opinion.

We tasted a good amount of beer at Ale Smith for me to admit I walked out feeling pretty good!

Second stop was at Ballast Point.. I was really excited for this brewery as it is one of my favorite micro-brews. Ballast Point had a character all to its own. Brightly colored walls, a small tasting area, and a couple bar tenders on hand to serve. Summer’s knowledge of the Ballast beers was great as well. She even added in a few interesting stories on how Ballast came to be.

After trying a few select beers from the Ballast Point collection we then were taken on a tour of the whole facility. With our safety goggles on Summer took us through the entire brewing process from soup to nuts. Was a great experience, one I won’t soon forget!

Our final stop was back at Gordon Biersch where we traded funny stories of the night, had some more great beer with dinner.

Our group’s chair, Ron Marcus, was celebrating his birthday so we had some incredibly rich cake courtesy of Gordon Biersch.

The whole experience was great from start to finish. Summer kept us on schedule it encouraged ecafe team bonding.

I not only will be recommending Brew Hop to others but plan on doing another hop at a later date!

Nick Adams
Media Forest 8

Well, we have finished our first week with the new Google Chrome infused browser, RockMelt.

Upon our initial review we worried of the sluggish similarities between RockMelt and Flock (another popular social media browser). To our surprise we were welcomed with the same speed and efficiency of the Google Chrome browser.

So what does RockMelt have that we love…

1. From initial installation the browser experience was really smooth. We were able to import our bookmarks from our various other browsers. In addition, all saved history and passwords were transfered over as well.

2. Upon opening up our first RockMelt browser window we were equiped with 2 non-invasive sidebars on either end of the browser.

The left sidebar held all of our facebook friends online and the right sidebar held feeds and extensions (will talk about those later.)

3. We loved the instant search capability directly from the address bar (something we also praised about Google Chrome). One great addition to the chrome search bar is that now you can easily search your facebook friends by simply typing their names into the search bar.

4. Upon opening a new tab we were greeted with a thumbnail grid of most visited sites (once again a trait adopted from Chrome).

5. We all know how much Facebook has become a part of our everyday online lives. Many of us prefer it to email for communicating with friends, business associates and family. RockMelt makes it extremely easy to chat with friends. On top of it all, YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEAVE THE PAGE YOUR ON.

6. How about check out your friends recent activity, WITHOUT LEAVING THE PAGE YOUR ON.

7. Or, view your Facebook Live Feed, once again, WITHOUT LEAVING THE PAGE YOUR ON.

8. Finally, view your facebook profile, post messages, and update your wall all WITHOUT LEAVING THE PAGE YOUR ON.

9. With RockMelt you can access all your favorite Google Chrome add ons as well. Even access them easier than you would in Google Chrome.

10. Now we have found one bug we have to report with regards to the feeds. Unfortunately the feeds are opening the actual feed page which is unreadable.

11. Finally, easily share any links or images with your friends with a simple drag and drop action.

Overall, Media Forest 8 gives RockMelt two thumbs way up. It gives us the speed we require with the effortless multitasking like no other browser like it. Our favorite aspect of the browser as a whole is being able to interact with our social networks and apps without ever leaving the page we’re on. A truly brillant concept!

We were recently accepted to receive an early invitation to try out Rock Melt a new internet browser based off of Google Chrome. The browser boasts of its social integration linking up your social networks and allowing you to interact with them while navigating other sites. We will be giving this browser a good once over and will be writing a review in the coming week.

Oh yeah, we have one extra invite left too. Anyone who is interested can leave a comment below and we’ll hook ya up!

Check out the Rock Melt Demo Video:

Don't Drink And Tweet

Well, we’ve all been there. Millions of us wake up on any given Saturday or Sunday morning in horror after reading last nights drunk post on any number of social networking sites. With social media becoming increasingly available to people wherever they are it can cause a problem after some of us have a few too many drinks.

Webroot, an internet security firm, recently launched a firefox plugin that aims to fix this. The Social Media Sobriety Test prevents you from being able to log on to your favorite social media accounts unless you can prove you are sober.

Some of the various tests include spelling the alphabet backwards, keeping your mouse pointer in a moving circle for a given time period, and other popular road side tests. The Social Media Sobriety Test will even post for you if you would like notifying your community that you are currently too intoxicated to post (some may say this is just as bad as the drunk post itself).

Below is a video that will walk you through how the Firefox plugin works:

Charger Girls 2010

A little known fact about one of Media Forest 8′s Co-Owners, Melissa, is that she is a proud member of the 2010 Charger Girl’s Cheerleading team. Melissa, a born entreprenuer, has danced all of her life and after 5 missed attempts made it as a member of the team this year. In addition to her crazy life as a web developer, entreprenuer and activist, Melissa is proud to be a part of the Charger Girl’s organization. She’s excited for the opportunity to cheer her team on to victory as well as inspire other girls to chase after and accomplish their dreams.

Melissa was interviewed last night by Esquire Online.

Here is a link to the original article however we have included it below as well:

Read as Melissa Adams is interviewed about all things Chargers from their poor play in the first half, their comeback in the 4th quarter, oh yeah, and personal thoughts on Tom Brady’s hair do.

Monday Morning Cheerleader: Melissa of the Chargers

San Diego came within inches of the week’s biggest comeback, but a lovely Charger Girl has good news on dirty hits, bubble teams… and Tom Brady’s haircut.

By Steve Mazzucchi

Down 20-3 entering the fourth quarter, a lot of teams might start daydreaming about hot showers, cold beer, and women not unlike the one pictured above. Especially against Tom Brady and the Patriots. But after finding innovative ways to give away a game — easy turnovers, dropped passes, ill-timed penalties — the Chargers somehow rallied to within 23-20 and lined up for a game-tying field goal with under 30 seconds to play. Then came another penalty, and a thunderous clang off the post: this year’s 2-5 Bolts in a nutshell.

And yet, if this troubled but talented team possesses half the electricity of rookie cheerleader Melissa, a playoff run may still materialize. The Brooklyn-born, 100 percent Sicilian runs half-marathons, started her own web-solutions company in 2005, and is developing an online community for people who are deaf or have severe hearing loss like herself. “I would love to be an ambassador to kids, to show them they don’t have to let a disability get them down,” she explains. Consider us inspired.

ESQUIRE: Let’s start off positive. Is the weather at least nice in San Diego these days?

MEL: You know what’s funny, finally the sun came out today, but it’s been raining for the past two weeks. Every home game, the weather’s been gorgeous.

ESQUIRE: Ever seen such a combination of brilliance and ineptitude in the same game?

MEL: This one was really crazy. We were night-and-day from the first quarter to the fourth quarter. I guess it takes a while for the guys to get warmed up. After the first half, they start to come together as a team. You can see when it clicks, and they start to play really good football.

ESQUIRE: Had the fans bailed by then, or did they stick around?

MEL: They stuck around! This was the first home game that wasn’t blacked out, the stadium was the loudest I’ve heard it, and it was completely packed the whole four quarters. A girl near me was holding up a sign that read, “True Charger fans never give up.” Even when we’re losing, they still support the team.

ESQUIRE: How big of a factor is LT leaving, Shawne Merriman hardly playing, and Vincent Jackson not playing at all so far?

MEL: Going into the season I was a little bit worried. LT was the first Chargers jersey I ever bought. But I think we have a great mix of youth and experience. Antonio Gates is incredible. He’s like 10 of me, but he’s fast. He now has the sixth-most receiving yards ever for a tight end. Philip Rivers is phenomenal and a great leader. Darren Sproles, Patrick Crayton, Mike Tolbert, Ryan Mathews, Malcolm Floyd, who was out today — all those guys as a team can make it work.

ESQUIRE: Any encouraging signs from this game?

MEL: Well, yeah, the fact that we did come back in the fourth quarter. Our defense did great, sacking Tom Brady four times and hitting him a lot. We had twice as many yards as the Pats did. Silly mistakes are costing us games, but I think it’s something that’s fixable and that we can overcome. We have the number-one offense and defense. We’re the best 2-5 team in the NFL.

ESQUIRE: Plus, your quarterback doesn’t have girl hair.

MEL: Oh, right. I had never seen the Patriots play in person before. I was expecting Tom Brady to be dominating, such a hot shot. And they won, yes, but I don’t think he played very well. Rivers was the better quarterback. Brady’s hair might be slowing him down.

ESQUIRE: The 2008 Chargers started 4-8, then won their last four games to capture the division. Think something similar could happen this year?

MEL: We always seem to start slow, and we always seem to come back at the end of the season. I would love to be cheering at a couple playoff games. Of course it’s disappointing when we lose, but we’ve won the AFC West the past four years. Until that doesn’t happen, you’ve gotta believe.

ESQUIRE: Last week, the NFL announced it would suspend players for dirty hits. Did this game look any different to you?

MEL: I don’t think players were being any less aggressive. I can understand the frustration of players to be fined and suspended for doing what they know, but safety should be the top priority, and it’s not like this is a new rule, it’s just being enforced. They’re still playing football out there. No one got hurt during the game, so maybe it’s having a positive impact already.

ESQUIRE: This is your first year on the squad. Have you made any rookie mistakes?

MEL: We have this thing where if you forget to bring something to practice, you have radio duty. You have to lug around this big boombox that plays our music. I forgot my warm-ups the second practice, so I was the first rookie to have radio duty. Fortunately someone else forgot something the next day.

ESQUIRE: You do half marathons. Does a guy have to be able to run that far to impress you?

MEL: Fitness is important to me, but I like to be able to run circles around him! So I guess he can’t be so out of shape that I can’t because it takes too long. He doesn’t have to look like he’s on Jersey Shore, but yes, he should be fit.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/cheerleaders/chargers-cheerleader-102510#ixzz13OLOOtFW

In a day and age where information is passed from person to person at lightening speeds we often take for grant it where it all came from. We can now talk face to face with relatives across oceans, interact with business in virtual meetings and shop in online mega malls such as Amazon.com. Websites like Facebook and Google have changed not only how we, as human beings, get our information but more importantly how we live our lives.

Technological advancements on the internet are occurring faster and faster and too often we forget to stop and wonder, “Where did it all come from”.

If you are talking to Al Gore, you may get the impression that it all was his idea. According to CNN Gore claims to have “took the initiative in creating the Internet”. Both as a Senator and as Vice President of the United States he actively promoted the development of the Internet and was a big proponent of the new technology.

How did the Internet get started? Well, believe it or not, it was started with a tiny Soviet orb called, Sputnik (the first man-made satellite). At this time the cold war was at it’s worst and the US and Russia were looking to edge the other out on technological developments. We, as a nation, worried that if the Soviets were able to launch a satellite into orbit that they could for sure fire a missile at us.

Sputnik’s launch prompted Dwight D. Eisenhower to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in 1958. The purpose of the organization was to give the US a technological edge over its Cold War opponent.

Remember the first computers? They were mammoth machines that filled entire buildings. These primitive computers were exponentially larger then what we have today and were capable of but a fraction of the processing power of your PDA. These first computers either read magnetic tape or punch cards as a way of understanding data. At this time there was no way to network a group of computers together. ARPA set out to change this.

They enlisted the assistance of a technology company BBN to help them accomplish this goal. They set out to connect four different computers running on four different operating systems. This first primitive network was called, ARPANET.

With the absence of ARPANET we may not have the Internet, as we see it, today. ARPANET was not the only agency set out to accomplish this task but they established the protocols used by what we recognize as the “Internet” today.

Engineers were looking for a way to connect ARPANET to the packet radio network (PRNET). PRNET connected computers through radio transmitters and receivers. Rather than sending information through telephone lines the computers used radio waves. It took engineers about 3 years but in 1967 engineers were able to successfully connect two separate networks together.

By 1977, engineers had joined the Satellite Network (SATNET) to the other two networks. The term they came up with for connecting multiple networks together was inter-networking (Internet for short). Quickly following was the inclusion of USENET, BITNET, CSNET AND NSFNET (other computer networks).

Now that we have established a primitive version of the Internet it was still tough to navigate and sort through different types of data. In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee developed a way to navigate the Internet in a user friendly manner. This system became known as the world wide web. Don’t get confused, the Internet is not the world wide web. The world wide web is one portion of the massively expanding Internet.

The first true Internet users were government and military personnel, graduate students and computer scientists (This is probably why the first websites ended in .edu). With the addition of the world wide web the Internet became much more accessible to everyday people. Colleges were the first to truly connect to the world wide web for use in education. Businesses soon followed. By 1994 we see that Internet commerce or eCommerce actually became a reality!

The Internet today connects almost anything and everything including cell phones, pda, lap top, satellites, etc. This massive network of computers is millions of times larger and more detailed than the original ARPANET and has truly changed how most of us in the world communicate and interact with each other.

From the Media Forest 8 team we would like to thank ARPANET. Without them, we would not exist!

Google's Core Values & Mission Statement

Now we all can probably admit that Google has changed the way people get information forever. Their company is constantly on the bleeding edge of innovation and organization. I thought it poignent to post their core values as I feel they are not just a great company from the outside looking in but vice versa as well.

Without further ado…

Google’s Core Values

• 1) We want to work with great people
  We hire great people and expect a lot from them
  We create an environment where people can flourish and grow
  We treat people with fairness and respect
  We challenge each other’s ideas openly
  We value diversity in people and ideas
  We are a quantitative company that uses data to make decisions
• 2) Technology innovation is our lifeblood
  Build the world’s best technology and products
  We apply technology and creativity to solve important problems
• 3) Working at Google is fun
  We expect our people to know and enjoy each other
  We have a challenging/energetic work environment
  We celebrate our successes and each other’s accomplishments – both professional and personal
• 4) Be actively involved; you are Google
  Honor commitments
  We openly communicate and trust you with a great deal of information and we expect you to honor our confidentiality
  Understand when you are representing Google and act appropriately
• 5) Don’t take success for granted
  Think and act like an underdog
  Be humble with success; don’t be arrogant
  Be scrappy and resourceful
• 6) Do the right thing; don’t be evil
  Honesty and integrity in all we do
  Our business practices are beyond reproach
  We make money by doing good things
• 7) Earn customer and user loyalty and respect every day
  Create, enhance and maintain great products and services
  Sustainable long-term growth and profitability are key to our success
  Think scale and efficiency
  Every dollar is yours
  Do things that matter
• 9) Google cares about and supports the communities where we work and live
  We encourage and enable our people to support local community involvement and expect them to participate
• 10) We aspire to improve and change the world
  Aim high; think BIG, take risks
  A healthy disregard for the impossible