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Find the Web Contrarian In You

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

In the beginning there were websites, and marketers looked upon them and said, they were good. Websites begot search engine optimization and the number crunchers looked upon it and said it was very good. Search engine optimization begot social media and everyone looked upon it and said, this is hot. MySpace begot Facebook that begot Linkedin that begot Twitter and everyone said, “I got a headache,” to which all I can say is remember Tulip Mania.

The Tulip Mania

In 1637 speculation in tulip bulb futures hit its peak. Contracts for tulip bulbs were selling for more than ten times the annual income of a skilled worker. And of course this was followed by a disastrous collapse foreshadowing what was to come some 292 years later.

In 1841 Charles Mackay wrote “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” that outlined how following the crowd can lead to unfortunate results. Such patterns of mass-behavior continue today without letup, and with dire consequences as can be seen in the recent economic meltdown.

Despite this continual repetition of behavior some have learned to use The Theory of Contrary Thinking as a marketing communication principle that avoids the lemming-like behavior of most people, and more to the point most businesses. By the way, lemmings do not commit suicide by running off the Bow River Bridge despite the 1958 nature film by Uncle Walt.

Just because everyone does it, says it, or promotes it, doesn’t make it right or effective. There is nothing wrong with participating in many of these social networking vehicles, but they are only one vehicle and should not be used to the exclusion and investment in other forms of marketing communication.

If you want your business to standout from your competitors in an overcrowded marketplace, namely the Web, then you have to think differently. No one becomes a market leader by being a follower. Finding the contrarian in you is not easy for most business people trained in technical skills, accounting, and strict bottom-line decision-making. But business is more art than science and unless you adopt a more creative approach to how you communicate to your audience you will be caught in the next version of tulip mania.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Find the Web Contrarian In You

Strategies for Effective Twitter Marketing

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Effective Twitter marketing strategies are NOT one size fits all. It’s important to consider your goals when planning your own Twitter marketing strategies.

Effective Twitter marketing strategies for a mommy blogger:

Imagine you are a mommy blogger and your Twitter participation goal is to increase readers for your mommy blog. Some of the steps you would most likely take are:

Use Twitter and third-party search functions to search for people tweeting about subjects you write about, such as childcare, home schooling, behavioral issues. You would then follow these people.
Include links to your blog posts in your Twitter updates.
Tweet links from other publications for articles on these topics.
Ask questions on Twitter as to what are the most pressing questions of parents raising young children today. (Then try to answer these questions in your blog posts.)

Effective Twitter marketing strategies for a book author:

Of course many of the strategies are similar to what a mommy blogger would do on Twitter. Except in this case you want people to buy your book – not just read what you’re written and made available for free. So in addition to following people who might be interested in your topic and sharing information connected to your topic, you might:

Tweet a link every so often to a chapter of your book.
Offer a discount on the book price to people on Twitter.
Do a joint project with another author in which a certain number of people get your book free when buying the other author’s book and vice versa – a certain number of people who buy your book get the other author’s book for free.

Effective Twitter marketing strategies for a business:

In your case we can assume that your goal is more than a one-time purchase. You want to create relationships with people who will hopefully be your customers/clientele over a long period of time.

For you, effective Twitter marketing strategies include many of the above steps plus a clear-cut demonstration of your knowledge base. This knowledge base can be demonstrated by:

Responding to questions asked on Twitter in your area of expertise. You don’t have to give away the entire store, but you do need to try to answer the question and/or provide a link to where the answer can be found.
Tweeting links to information provided by people in the same field as you are. This indicates a willingness to share while demonstrating that you are comfortable providing information from others in your same field.
Offering special discounts to people on Twitter.

In conclusion, you cannot follow these strategies only for a couple of weeks and then give up because the strategies haven’t produced massive results. You have to sincerely commit to consistently implementing your strategies long-term if you hope to have effective Twitter marketing strategies.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant. If you liked this article, you’ll love her FREE report on “How to Become a Twitter Marketing Expert” – grab your report now from www.millermosaicllc.com/free-twitter-report

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Strategies for Effective Twitter Marketing

7 Ways to Encourage More Blog Commenting

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Interactive blogs are the most successful and plenty of quality comments is a good indication that your blog is healthy and that it will be successful. There are many reasons why people may not make comments on your blog posts and we will cover a number of ways to make it easier or more attractive for people to leave comments on your blog. Of course this is assuming that you do have a steady flow of traffic to your blog and perhaps even a following of people that appreciate the valuable content that you share. Let’s get started on the 7 ways to get people to leave comments on your blog.

1. Ask for blog comments – Sounds too easy but a lot of bloggers don’t ask for comments and people are not sure they should comment, no one wants to be the first to comment or there is no value in commenting. We will talk more about making commenting valuable for people more in the following points. The end of your post include text or a blog comment icon to stimulate blog commenting or something else that will indicate the desire for leaving comments.

2. Attract numerous people with request – The way you request people to leave a comment will encourage or discourage people from leaving a comment. For example, people love to be a pro and let people know they have something to share because of their ego. Give them the opportunity, ask them to share and let them know when they do share that you appreciate their comments. You can try to leave text like, “What do you think?”, “Do you agree?” or “Are you for or against?” can encourage people to leave comments.

3. Dofollow blog comments – Not all links on the Internet are equal. There are “nofollow” and “dofollow” links. Dofollow links have more value to webmasters because dofollow links are backlinks that search engines will count as popularity to your site and will increase your page rank. On your blog you can change the code so that the links in the comments box are set to “dofollow”. This will attract people to leave comments to get the backlink. This will also attract spammers but if you have something like Askimet or other spam blocker you should not have any problems. The blog software will also allow you to set the criteria on comments so they will only be approved by keywords or other criteria.

4. Get the ball rolling – If you have a friend that follows your posts you can ask them to “get the ball rolling” by making the first comment on your blog post. Once people see the blog post comments they are more likely to leave more comments. Many people don’t want to be the first to leave comments on blogs.

5. Incomplete post - If you are so thorough to cover everything with your post then there really is nothing to share except to say, “Good job” or “Thanks for the post”. Leave something for someone to fill in. Develop the desire to share information and experience. Consider your post subjects as well. Some topics are not the kind that people have opinions about. Choose some hot potatoes in your niche to write about to get people commenting.

6. Blog comments hidden – Is your comments box obvious or do you have to hunt to find it. The layout of some blogs is counter-productive in this aspect and should be corrected.

7. Register to leave comments - If you force registration in order for people to leave a comment you may not get comments. People like to be free to comment and not comment to a registration. With so much spamming online people are hesitant to comment if they have to register.

Implement some or all of these ideas to increase commenting on your blog. Visitors really like to socialize and interact with each other and this will help. I wish you success.

Read more great articles at Bill Wynne’s blog. Get useful ebooks and other gifts for free. Bill has been a successful internet marketer for over a decade. Read articles on Add Comments to Blog and Online Article Marketing

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7 Ways to Encourage More Blog Commenting

Google Microsoft Yahoo Apple Corporate twistyturny things of value

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The murky diktats of the market have seen the four titans of technological social interaction resolve their coagulated visions of common sense into a battlefield. It is here that coalition leaders and party magnates pounce on minimalist twists of innovation that only serve to seep down into messy duplication. But, according to Lord Melchett, or perhaps Rorty, one day this could have genuine social utility.

Let’s take a look at recent events in the corporate world of the internet, mobile phones and social media; what I refer it to as corporate twisty-turny things of value. For a start, Google and Microsoft. This time it’s not the Chinese government but the unruly Microsoft that is being accused by the mighty Google of being the “invisible hand” behind the European Commission’s (EC) preliminary anti-trust inquiry into its practices. The US Justice Department and European regulators declared, much to Google’s irritation, that Microsoft’s partnership with Yahoo was fine by them.

Hence, Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner opined on the case: “This is the way that competition law agencies function: They look to competitors [and] the practices of dominant firms and the competitive significance of those practices … Ultimately what’s important is not … whether or not the challenged practices are anti-competitive.” The last bit he surely didn’t mean, did he, when he went on to admit that Microsoft had told the EC that Google’s behaviour “may be harming publishers, advertisers and competition in search and online advertising”, which although may not be “challenged” as anti-competitive practices, were most certainly declared to be so.

Yahoo must be mightily relieved, as it views this partnership as going a long way in its bid to cutting costs and raising its operating margin to 20% within two years from now. So, mysteriously, back in its silicon ranch and in tandem with the Commission’s findings, Microsoft is funding Yahoo’s internet search service as part of this “newly-formed partnership”, with the company commenting that Microsoft is to “reimburse us for the costs of running our algorithmic and paid search services,” with reimbursements in addition to the $150 million the company has already agreed to pay to help fund Yahoo’s transition under the partnership.

So, not only does Google have ongoing issues with the Chinese government and the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, Yahoo has now entered into an agreement with Twitter. Only six months ago, Carol Bartz, the president and CEO of Yahoo, announced: “We have never been a search company”, which at the time sounded decidedly bizarre as its core business was search. However, as competition in the search and mobile markets ratchets up, Yahoo has now entered into another bout of in-fighting, this time in the social media ring, which will allow tweets to be directly accessed within all Yahoo-related sites. It also comes at a time when the company announced a similar deal with Facebook, who don’t really do search either.

Not to be out-routed by these acts of corporate treachery, Google launched Android, an iPhone lookalike in direct competition with Apple, with its own services, of course. So that’s three of them ganging up on Google now. Further, Google has launched its own Twitter-based service, dubbed Google Buzz, which essentially copied most of Twitter’s social networking features in the hope it will tweet a verb into a buzz.

Twitter, of course, is far more buzzier, and Yahoo has said its search engine results will display tweets in real time with a marginally different approach to its results, announcing that there will be two tweets and displayed alongside related YouTube links. It is here that we can clearly see the culmination of corporate innovation at its zenith of awakening.

It certainly seems congested in those unscaled heights, with so many similar services being placed on competing platforms. Where, for self-reference, I concluded, could I find an rational description of this unromantic pragmatism? I liked Lord Melchett’s quip in the BBC’s Black Adder series, which was abstractly and drunkenly delivered as: “You twist and turn like a … twisty-turny thing”. That helps. A bit.

But if anyone finds no cogent correlation between Lord Melchett and the corporate labyrinthine muddle above, then good. If so, try Rorty. His vision was of an anti-representationlist transformation of common sense, where no real attempt whatsoever should be made to name any concrete instruments that could serve as the means for the realisation of it. Instead, he merely hoped for a lucky turn of history which could one day lead to idiosyncratic mutations that, once in a while, seep down into common sense. This is the realm in which the spin-offs of twisty-turny things hope to turn into genuine social utility.

Let’s hope he’s right, but I doubt it.

——————

John Sylvester is media director of V9 Design & Build (http://www.v9designbuild.com) and an expert in search engine optimization and web marketing strategies, and all this really doesn’t help his cause.

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Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple: Corporate twisty-turny things of value

Link Building Best Practices ? A Guide to Effective Link Building

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Just to cover the ground, lets go over what link building is quickly. Link building is the process of building backlinks to your site. The more backlinks (links from other sites to your site) a site has, the higher it ranks on the search engines. Link building therefore is a mission of all money making webmasters.

Link building methods have changed from time to time and a specific method that worked yesterday may not work today. This is due to changes in the industry over time and in some cases extreme abuse. If a specific link building method has been abused too much, then that method will not work anymore.

It is therefore very important to know which link building method works today so that you can spend your time in a most productive way.

There are many link building methods out there today that work with some working better than others. Below are some of the today’s popular links building methods:

Article Submission

If you are reading this article, then you know that you can publish your own article in article directories. Not only do you gain backlinks to your site from your published articles (see bottom of this article), you will get some traffic as a bonus. Think of you reading this article. There might be many reading your published articles as well.

Article submission is a great way of building backlinks as it provides you with 100% relevant contextual backlinks that Google loves.

Directory Submission

Directory submission used to work lot better before, but it is still a popular link building method that still works if done properly. How many directories are out there as of this date is anyone’s guess but one thing is certain: that most of the directories aren’t worth submitting to.

Google considers a Yahoo Directory link as a quality backlink so if you can afford and justify the cost, it is worth submitting to Yahoo Directory. Yahoo charges $300 for a yearly submission and there is no guarantee that your site will be approved!

DMOZ is another directory that is worth submitting to and can provide great benefit in your SEO campaign. It may take months to get the approval from DMOZ and the chance of getting approved is pretty slim. A lot of small directories use the DMOZ directory categories so getting listed with DMOZ would mean getting bonus listings on many other web directories.

Another good directory to submit to is the BOTW directory that costs $99 for a yearly submission and $299 for a permanent listing.

Other than the above, you should look for quality directories where you can submit your site. You can judge the quality of the directories by analyzing the number of sites listed, number of backlinks the directory has, PR, age of the directory, etc.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking worked like charm only a few months ago. If bookmarked on authority and quality bookmarking sites like Digg, Mixx, Propeller, etc, then you can still make good use of social bookmarking. Other than backlinks, social bookmarking also offers you some bonus traffic depending on where you submit to. If you can manage to put together or collect a good bookmarking site list, then social bookmarking can still be a useful link building method.

Blog Commenting

This is a link building method where lots of spamming has already been done so to make the best of it, you need to work a little harder here. It is best to find quality blogs related to your own category and make on-topic relevant comments. Not only do your comments add value to the blogpost, you now have a greater chance of getting your comment approved and your comments have greater chance of staying on those blogposts.

Press Releases

Submitting to press release sites can get you some backlinks as well. It is however hard to put together a list of good press release sites that are worth submitting to. If a good list can be managed, then this method can offer some quality relevant backlinks as well.

Social Media and Web 2.0 Pages

There are a lot of quality social media and Web 2.0 sites where you can publish your articles for backlinks. You should write articles that are relevant to your site and publish them on these social media and Web 2.0 sites with your keywords hyperlinked to your own site. Some of the authority sites are Squidoo, Hubpages, Blogger, Wordpress.com, etc.

Social media and Web 2.0 links are very popular these days because they work great. They offer quality, relevant contextual backlinks that Google and other major search engines love. There are lots of other link building methods out there, but if you can utilize the above ones to their fullest potential, there is no need for any other methods.

For more information on Link Building (http://www.seofocused.com/) and to learn on outsourcing your link building campaign, visit the author’s Link Building Service (http://www.seofocused.com/) site.

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Link Building Best Practices – A Guide to Effective Link Building

Online Brand Building ? Do You Need a Social Media Newsroom?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Curriculum vitae, work experience, references, skills inventory, resume: all describe a source of information where people can condense the vital information about themselves into a single document for interested parties to examine. The idea is giving people an overview they can sort through in order to weigh your merits and strengths against their needs, as well as to get an idea of how you present yourself.

This concept has been adopted for the web in a number of ways, but none more unique than the social media newsroom. A combination bulletin board and press collection, the SMNR is a one-stop location for people to find out critical information about you. Whether you have a new book you’re promoting, a lecture tour you want to draw attention to, or a business plan you wish to propose, the SMNR is the place you gather all the information about your venture together into a clear, concise summary.

SMNR Basics

As implied in the name, a newsroom is a page where you compile relevant press (your own and others’) about the relevant topic. It lists the basic information, quotations, summaries and news stories in question, but then it also goes a step beyond the basics.

In previous articles we’ve discussed the advantages of integrating your audience into the brand, and taking advantage of the web’s powerful communication abilities to bring their influences into the picture. The SMNR doesn’t just present good press, it includes communication venues for people using Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Digg and more. It includes a comments section for added communication, and options for instant messaging or blog connectivity. In short it is more than just a static page, and is an active communications hub.

Do You Need One?

Any organization interested in creating and maintaining a vital web brand will find the SMNR an incredible, vital tool toward this purpose. If you have any good press, such as a positive review or mention from a SM group, consider putting up an SMNR page to centralize further promotion efforts.

The value of the SMNR lies in its convenience for your audience. As we have discussed, the web has allowed people to develop an incredibly short and discerning attention span. If you centralize your relevant information so that people can browse easily, they will be more likely to stay and peruse your content than if they had to hunt down the information themselves. Instead of looking for reviews of your company’s quality, they can find it all right at hand in your SMNR.

Which Social Media?

Given the sheer variety of social media networking sites, there is no one design of SMNR that will work in every situation. There are of course the broad guidelines already discussed, but these are not specific to any situation and for good reason. Applications such as Twitter or Digg are fairly universal, serving as conduits rather than direct sources of information. However services like Myspace and Facebook have differing user bases, and one may be more appropriate to your organization than the other. You must do the research to see what suits your business needs.

The most important piece of advice is to make your SMNR its own distinct element. We have discussed the importance of giving your online marketing efforts their own focus, rather than simply getting to them as you have time. The SMNR is no different. It will not replace the draw of a good blog or video series, just as an author’s webpage does not replace the act of actually reading his books.

Instead, find the social media networks that tie most organically into your usual web branding efforts, and build from there. If you’re focusing on a smaller audience, include instant messaging service so people can drop into the page chat room for quick input. If you’re going for a wider audience, Twitter is still an excellent way to quickly link your newest article or bit of press.

The Press Release

An integral part of any newsroom is the press release. This is not strictly speaking a traditional news story so much as it is a formalized announcement using the news style. As an illustration of the difference, a news story is when a journalism organization covers an event and relays the information. A press release is when the organization itself gives out information they feel is important, usually through a news channel. A good press release keeps to the basic facts, and is short and punchy.

The press release is therefore an outstanding tool for any SMNR. Brief and concise, it explains why your newest venture or change in policy deserves attention. It can be linked through your preferred social media tools and disseminated quickly, bringing people to your page for the full story. From there they can be directed to other materials, and you have your audience at hand.

Extra, Extra

Once again, the focus of the SMNR is as much about drawing in user commentary as it is about distributing information. Take the time to analyze the comments and usage figures from your newsroom against your chosen metrics. Listen to what people are saying, and engage them about these comments. Many good ideas have been lost simply for lack of communication, so take advantage of the fact that your audience is literally right there, in the newsroom with you, and ready to have a dialog.

Enzo F. Cesario is an online brand management specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat. We are social media consultants. Make your site more findable and your brand more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

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Online Brand Building – Do You Need a Social Media Newsroom?

Social Media and Conan O?Brien

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The way I see it, NBC has little chance of survival in the next ten years. They’ve proven themselves so caught up in the normal TV schedule way of thinking that they fail to understand their audience, what little of it is left.

Their lack of knowledge about social media, how it’s formed and how it can control the conversation is part of their failure in this situation and may very well be part of their failure as an organization.

Conan O’Brien on the other hand was able to harness the internet and social media to make a stand and, in the end, become more famous than he ever was before.

I’m going to explain this slowly, for the folks at NBC, if they are reading this. Let’s think of Conan O’Brien & Jay Leno as a brand, and that the internet is the next big media thing, where there will be millions and millions of Americans making decisions about their life based on what they read on the internet. When people run a search on this website called GOOGLE, they get thousands of pages of choices that they can read about the topic in which they are interested. That perhaps in the future, someday, consumers and people who watch television (aren’t they the same?) will be able to type in “Conan vs Jay” and get real time results that help shape their thinking about the subject, and therefore create brand identification and/or brand alienation depending on what happens.

Now for the rest of us, who understand Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and a bunch of other three word phrases with Affiliate, Marketing, Search and Interactive in them, here is some more high level explaining.

NBC, as a company, is still very much focused on Television being the predominant source of entertainment in the next ten years and hasn’t done much thinking beyond that. Despite paying people like Jay & Conan ridiculous amounts of money, their audience base plummeted each year as more and more people turned to independent internet entertainment. So they never considered exactly what might happen, if they started to make changes in their schedule, move Jay Leno back to his previous slot and basically kick Conan to the curb.

Jay Leno, as funny as he might have been, isn’t exactly a representative of a young, fast-paced, growing generation. He might get some people to stay up and watch the news before falling asleep during his monologue – but on the whole, no one can say he has his finger on the pulse of… well… anything.

You say, and perhaps the executives of NBC say, “we need to prop up our affiliates and their news shows, before we lose them.” So what? Television as a medium is on the way out, or at least changing. I don’t know anyone who actually watches the news at 11, let alone cares that Jay or Conan are right after it. The news has no relevance, since most of us have already learned about it 6 hours earlier from some blog or websites. As for humor and jokes, we’ve already spent most of the day on YouTube instead of doing our job, watching some kid falling down five flights of steps while eating a cheeseburger. Jay Leno isn’t going to keep our attention for more than one minute, while we wonder what his chin would like in 3-D.

So, what does this have to do with marketing? First of all, Conan O’Brien has managed to come out looking cleaner than a toothbrush at a Palin family reunion. When you google results regarding his dispute with Leno, you find tons of commentary and articles supporting him, putting him out there as the champion of the people, the underdog, the teabagger of comics.

While it’s more than likely he will just appear on another network, there is also a chance that he will take this momentum and create something completely unique on the internet. Anything he does on the internet will immediately be covered with millions of links, tweets and AIMs – all pointing to his new project. With the NBC money that he is walking away with, he could easily just make his own website, his own comedy channel, his own comedy network and become very wealthy on just the buzz surrounding his name.

I sincerely believe that Conan knew exactly what was going to happen, and used the internet to his advantage. Many of his writers and publicity team are very young, having grown up on the internet. They knew that if they needed good publicity they would only have to turn to the internet in order to get the point across.

They used social media to secretly create “I’m with CoCo” groups while at the same time constantly making sure there was new “buzz” to pass around on twitter. From posts on Craigslist of Conan selling himself to the highest bidder for favors to late night tweets from the writing staff to their fan base, they knew that they could always win the war with an audience – that frankly is a lot more internet savvy than the Leno fan base.

Anyone engaged in social media marketing, needs to look closely at how Conan did this, how he made it seem to be organic and natural and then allowed it to seemingly take its own course. He knew how to create buzz, but more importantly content for internet buzz fodder. He knew that the one-liners that could be posted on Twitter were a thousand times more powerful than any ten minute monologue that could be spoken by …urhmm… that other guy.

In perhaps the fastest growing industry ever, one person has made a name for himself as a leader and innovator. Pace Lattin, the publisher of the top newsletters in new media and online advertising, is one of the inventors of many of the technologies and methods that have become standards in the industry. He has been called many things, including a rabble-rouser, a guru, an innovator and a watchdog — but one thing stays the same: he is one of the most interesting leaders and commentators in the online advertising industry. Marketing Sherpa, a leading marketing research publication called him the most influential journalist in online media for a reason. IndustryPace.com

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Social Media and Conan O’Brien

Marketing Results 7 Crucial Stats You Need to Track Your Marketing Success

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

You may feel as though you’re on a hamster wheel when it comes to measuring your marketing. You run, run, and run some more, but don’t seem to be getting anywhere. That feeling is perfectly natural if you’re not measuring your ROI (Return on Investment) with your marketing. For years, I’ve been on this hamster wheel myself, without a system that I liked to help me measure my marketing results. Numbers and statistics have never been my strong suit, and even though I got A’s in most of my math classes, it took every brain cell I had to do so.

Late last year, I finally determined what was important for me to track in my marketing, and now have created a system so that I can track my marketing from week to week. Whether you set up your system in a document or spreadsheet, you’ll be amazed at the power that you feel when you view the numbers from week to week and can spot trends developing or problem spots that need a solution. I was amazed to discover that when I started paying attention to my weekly stats, I actually found myself engrossed, fascinated, and excited! Now that I am tracking these numbers, I know exactly where to spend my time and efforts to receive the highest and best rate of return.

Here are 7 statistics that I track in my weekly marketing tracking system:

Number of marketing activities. I now list by name and amount of the total number of marketing activities in which I engage each week. This number includes article submissions, direct mailings, direct contacts (in person or by phone), press releases, and programs given. I’ve noticed that the higher the number, the better the rest of my marketing results for the week.
Web site stats. I’m primarily seeking the number of unique visitors to my web site each week. However, it’s also important to know what keywords visitors used to land on your site as well as what sites referred the visitor to your site. I don’t keep a separate log of this info, but do have a weekly Google Analytics report emailed to me with this information. Google Analytics is a free web tracking program that’s easy to install on almost any site.
Blog stats. I want to know the number of people who read my blog this week. Now, this is a difficult stat to measure, as blog readers use any number of RSS readers to view blog posts or subscribe to my blog via email. So, I have also installed Google Analytics on my blog and look at those results to determine the number of unique visitors to my blog in any given week, which I interpret as number of blog readers.
Ezine stats. My weekly ezine serves as my primary connection to my list. I track how many new subscribers I gain each week on that list, my open rate for each issue of my ezine, the number of clickthroughs for each issue, and my total number of ezine subscribers.
Social networking connections. I’m not in a contest to acquire the most connections possible for all of my social networking sites. I believe it’s the quality of the connection (i.e. relevance to your target market) rather than the quantity of connections that will be most useful for you. What I’m primarily tracking here is that I’m making a slow and gradual increase in the number of my connections on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.
Product and service sales. I note how many product sales I have made each week as well as how much revenue I have earned in the services and consulting side of my business. Because my primary product is my membership site, I probably have many more product sales (i.e. memberships) than many of you who sell information products as an income stream in your business.
New clients. I get a number of requests from potential clients each week, but never tracked those in any meaningful way. Now I know how many inquiries have come in, how many have become new clients, and which inquiries need follow up at a later date. This system always keeps me in motion and in front of new client prospects.

Measuring the results of your marketing activities is crucial to your success, and anyone can do it. Start to evaluate your marketing activities to empower yourself to make those strategic decisions about how and where to focus your efforts going forward so that you can achieve the level of success you desire.

Internet Marketing Automation Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals create prosperous online businesses that make more profit in less time. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==> http://www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

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Marketing Results: 7 Crucial Stats You Need to Track Your Marketing Success

Article Marketing Tip When should you use a pen name?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

One of the interesting options you have when you start submitting articles is the author name under which your articles will appear. You have two options when choosing an author name:

1) You can use your real name. Using your real name is has several advantages:

*It allows you to become known as an expert in your field. Why is it beneficial to become known as an expert in your field? The more confidence a person has in your knowledge and ability, the more likely they will be to:

=> use your services

=> buy the products that you recommend

=> recommend you to their friends

If you would like to build a reputation as an expert, then use your real name. Being regarded as an expert can carry the benefit of increasing sales and referrals.

*Using your real name conveys authenticity, which promotes feelings of trust. On the internet, it is very easy to hide behind a mask, to say you are one thing when you are really another. Sometimes people will come to your article with a wall already up, wondering, “Why should I trust this person?”

If you can show that you are real, that you are not hiding anything, that you are a legitimate person who truly has great information to offer, that goes a long way toward building trust with a potential customer.

Obviously your decision whether or not to use an alias depends on your purpose in submitting articles. I would advise that you should use your real name if you have no good reason for changing it.

2) What would be some reasons for using pen names?

You have a very common name and you want to be more memorable.
Because of your subject matter, you think your articles would have more authority if they sounded like they were written by someone of the opposite sex.
Perhaps you are marketing different websites on different topics and want to differentiate your writings on each topic by using a different name.
Maybe your real name is the same as a well known person in your field. In that case, you might want to make your name appear different (or use an alias) to avoid confusion.
Or perhaps you have a very good reason for wanting to keep your real identity a secret.

In any case, when you’re submitting articles for article marketing it is acceptable to use a pen name if you like. If you do use an alias, here are 5 guidelines to help you come up with a good one:

Even if the name you’re using is not your own, it is beneficial to make your name sound like a real name.
Your pen name should have a first and last name, just like a real person’s name would.
Steer clear of obviously fake names that play off of your topic. For example, if you’re submitting articles about car racing, don’t call yourself “Mr. Hotrod”. Using a silly made up name makes it hard for readers to take you seriously.
Keep your business name out of your pen name. For example, if your business name is Ocean Breeze Realty, don’t make your alias “Ocean Breeze”. Not only is that not very subtle, but it may get your article rejected for being promotional. (Yes, even an author name can be considered sales oriented).
Don’t try to use your URL as your author name. Sounds obvious, but some people try that!

If you’re using a pen name, your best bet is to keep it real (or real sounding). Use a first and last name that sounds like something a real person would have. If you don’t have a good reason to use an alias, just use your real name.

For more info on how you can use article marketing to reach thousands of potential prospects for your website, go now to http://www.submityourarticle.com/report. Steve Shaw is an article marketing expert and founder of the popular article submission service http://www.submityourarticle.com used by thousands of business owners.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Article Marketing Tip: When should you use a pen name?

Link Building in Online Marketing Tougher Than It Sounds

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

You probably don’t need to read the latest advice from the online marketing consultants to figure out the basic idea behind link building. Without links, your site won’t develop authority. Without authority, it won’t move up on the search engines. But even the most savvy online marketing consultant would have to admit that doing that is just not as easy as it sounds.

More Is Not Better In Link Building

Just going out and getting a bunch of links won’t necessarily help your site. You need quality links to get higher search rankings. But sometimes figuring out what makes one link better than another is tough. This is where you do need to keep up with what the online marketing consultants are recommending or you may just be wasting your time.

Targeted Anchor Text Is A Must

When you start pursuing links on sites, you need targeted anchor text. However, you don’t want to use the same text everywhere. Google will notice that in a bad way. You want to use two or three different phrases and the proper name of your website. If you can’t get anything but an image link, make sure the site owner puts your anchor text or the name of your site in the ALT tag of the image.

Pay Attention To Links In And Out

Google looks at the site where your link appears and decides how much benefit your site gets back. A site with a lot of inbound links passes more authority to your site. At the same time, being linked on a site full of low-quality, outbound links probably won’t help you much.

PageRank Isn’t Everything

Don’t be one of those site owners who sees nothing but PageRank. A site with high PageRank can still have low link value. This is especially true of sites that sell links. Steer clear of sites that use phrases like “sponsored by” or “paid for by.” Google may not let that site pass PageRank at all. Move on. They’re not worth your time.

Concentrate On Site Relevance

Let’s say your site is about red widgets. You get a link on a site about purple doohickeys. That link isn’t worth as much as one on a site about red widget management. Make sure you’re pursuing links in relevant places and look at how those places are optimized. If a site owner gives you a choice of having a link on a page titled “About Us” or one with the title “About Red Widgets,” which one do you choose? The link on the optimized page, “About Red Widgets,” has more value.

An Online Marketing Consultant Checks What’s Not Obvious

Take your cue from the pros and check sites in ways that aren’t obvious. For instance, in any search engine, you can type in “cache:” followed by a site url and find out if the site has been indexed and when it was last crawled. But what do those dates mean?

Chances are good that if the site hasn’t been crawled in 30-45 days, it’s not a good place for a link. But some domains have more value than others. For example, links from .edu domains are better than from a .com, but .info is worth less. All these factors should be weighed in judging a site’s worth in your link building efforts.

Does Social Networking Matter?

We’ve all seen the little link bars under blog posts and in forums asking people to Digg or Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon. Do you need to try to get links in places where social networking can happen? Yes. Alone those links may not have a lot of value, but Google is increasingly looking at the “active Web” in determining site authority.

It’s time consuming, but participating in forums and social sites and getting blog owners to run your articles with your linked anchor text included can be worth your time. But remember, relevance is a basic rule in online marketing consulting.

Are You Getting Clean Links?

When you get a link on a site, do you go look at the page’s source code? Is there anything extra in the “href” tag on the link? Is the site using redirect code? Is there a “nofollow” in the site’s meta data? If there is, the link is useless to you. It won’t pass any authority to your site because that code tells the search engines not to follow the link. Make sure you’re getting clean links.

When you’re on a tight budget and trying to develop your site and get higher search rankings, it can be a tough decision to work online marketing consulting into your thinking. The Web used to be pretty much a do-it-yourself place. That all started to change in 2004 when people began talking about “Web 2.0.”

It’s harder than ever to judge quality link building in the new world of Web applications and social networking. You can do it, but try to stay up to speed on what the online marketing consultants are recommending as good strategies. The Web is changing all the time. Good link building takes time and effort; you don’t want to waste those any more than you want to waste money during hard times.

Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s an Online Marketing Consultants expert offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Paul Marshall

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Link Building in Online Marketing: Tougher Than It Sounds

Sky 3D Uncovered

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

We put on our 'groovy' 3D glasses and take a close look at Sky's take on 3D.

JVC DLAHD950 DILA Projector

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

If it's as superb as the HD750 home cinema projector, the HD950 should be a corker.

Toshiba Regza 42AV635DB 42in LCD TV

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Here's an LCD TV with a budget price that's certainly worth an audition.

Manchester presses ahead with smartcard rollout

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Angelica Mari, Computing, Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 12:06:00

Transport authority serves notice for IT services underpinning ticketing rollout

The Greater Manchester passenger transport executive (Gmpte) is seeking a vendor to provide the core technology supporting its planned smartcard scheme.

Gmpte wants a managed, hosted platform to run and deliver the region’s public transport smart ticketing services under a contract that could be worth between £5m and £30m.

The project encompasses tasks that include systems design, hosting, back-office hardware and software, and integration to the authority’s host operator processing and card management systems.

Provision of validators and handheld devices to read the smartcards is also mentioned in the tender, as is the supply of retail systems integration to ticket vending machines and other retail systems.

According to the contract notice, Gmpte reserves the “unilateral right” to extend the scope of the scheme to cover the bus and rail network in Greater Manchester, as well as parking and cycle schemes, and any other ticketing related activity.

Interested parties must submit proposals by 25 March.

Social media in business

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Computing, Thursday 25 February 2010 at 11:51:00

Logica fullyear results meet expectations

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Angelica Mari, Computing, Wednesday 24 February 2010 at 12:20:00

But firm could face further slowdown owing to the election

IT services firm Logica met market expectations with its financial results for 2009 but warned of a sluggish recovery this year.

Operating profit reached £272m for the year, while revenue was £3.7bn. This was a decrease of three per cent year on year, in line with analysts’ expectations.

The decrease was blamed on slow client spending as belts tightened owing to the recession, and the company expects 2010 revenue to follow the same pattern as 2009.

Chief executive Andy Green was quoted as saying the company could face a lull in UK public sector work – one of the core areas of business for Logica – following the general election.

"In the short term there could be a hiatus, but in the medium term all European countries will need to invest in automation to get spending down," Green told the Financial Times.

"For most of our clients, life hasn't returned to the sunny uplands of 2006 and 2007. There will be slow improvements," he said.

Activists to build database of political candidates policies

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Tom Young, Computing, Wednesday 24 February 2010 at 12:16:00

Responses to be compared with actions after election

A new group called Democracy Club is attempting to build a publicly accessible database of candidates and their opinions, according to the BBC.

The group is recruiting volunteers to draw up lists of issues that are important to voters and then putting those issues to MPs.

The MPs' responses will be recorded and kept in a database to see if they keep their promises after the election.

Seb Bacon, the co-ordinator of Democracy Club, told the BBC it was set up to become the place people turn to for neutral information about MPs.

"It gives people an insight into the politicians they are voting for rather than just relying on information from the party machine," he said.

The club now has around 3,000 volunteers spread across 98 per cent of the UK's constituencies.

Many of those involved are connected with MySociety, the e-democracy group responsible for sites such as theyworkforyou.com.

Tom Steinberg, founder of MySociety, told the BBC that the club would help improve the transparency of government.

"If you have an opaque regime, where people can get away with things, they will try to get away with them. This will give them the incentive to do right in the first place," he said.

Siemens staff at BBC threaten industrial action

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Nicola Brittain, Computing, Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 15:10:00

Move follows a pay freeze, redundancies and restructurings initiated by Siemens

IT staff working for the BBC’s contractor, Siemens, are currently balloting for strike action as a result of the broadcaster’s decision to introduce a pay freeze.

Siemens signed a 10-year contract with the broadcaster in 2005 to deliver an enterprise integration architecture layer and other key technologies.

The deal was struck after the BBC closed its BBC Technology division; most of the staff currently working on the Siemens contract were originally employed by BBC Technology.

The ballot for action follows a rejected claim for a £1,200 pay increase per Siemens employee submitted by broadcasting union Bectu in October, although Bectu national official Suresh Chaula said its members would have accepted £450 per head.

There are currently 600 staff working on the Siemens account and 200 of those are Becta members.

The IT company rejected the pay claim but said it would consider performance-related pay increases. This was unanimously rejected by Bectu’s members.

This move comes when relations between the contractor and its employees at the BBC are “at an all time low” according to Chaula, as it follows 70 redundancies made in the Projects and Media Systems division - the consultation period for these redundancies was completed in January.

There are a further 50 jobs at risk in the Network and Server Operations division, which is being outsourced to Romania.

“The pay freeze comes on the back of a series of redundancies and restructurings initiated by Siemens and so adds insult to injury," Chaula said.

Chaula speculated that relations between the IT supplier and the broadcaster were strained when the former was unable to take ownership of the Digital Media Initiative, a project that includes digitising media capture, post production, and the digitising of the BBC's archive. The initiative has since been in-sourced to the BBC's Future Media and Technology (FMT) division.

“FMT is growing on a weekly basis, and we would not be surprised to see further Siemens staff moved from that account and back into the BBC.”

In a statement the BBC said: "As the BBC's technology partner, Siemens are responsible for keeping our services on-air and online. They have kept us informed as talks have progressed and assured us that, in the event of strike action, contingency plans are in place to ensure there will be no adverse effect on audiences."‬

HSBC ramps up online banking security

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Angelica Mari, Computing, Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 15:06:00

Bank offers security software to customers for free

HSBC is providing a security system to its internet banking customers in an attempt to fend off malware attacks and fraudulent phishing web sites.

The Rapport software is expected to protect customer data and prevent fraudulent activity by "locking down" browsers to prevent unauthorised access to web sites and prevent the flow of confidential information.

The system, which is to be used as an additional defence rather than to replace existing anti-virus or firewall software, is PC and Mac-compatible and can be downloaded from the bank’s web site for free.

Some of HSBC’s peers have been offering security systems for its online customer base for years. Barclays, for example, started distributing Kapersky Lab’s software to its clients back in 2008.

Parliament gives goahead for preparation of epetitions system

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Parliamentary reporter, Computing, Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 13:05:00

Details will be subject to approval after the next general election

MPs have given the go-ahead for the preparation of an e-petitions system that could result in parliament being forced to debate popular but embarrassing issues because they have secured widespread support.

The Commons has approved a motion without any debate that authorises preparation of a revised scheme on which progress was previously blocked by deputy Labour leader and Commons business manager Harriet Harman.

Details will be subject to approval after the next general election, but may be subject to further radical amendment if the Conservatives gain power.

David Cameron recently made a commitment to allow members of the public who secure a million e-signatures to introduce a Bill, and any petition that secures 100,000 will require a debate.

The scheme now under official consideration is limited to an e-petitions system for parliament and a trial of debates in Westminster Hall - not the main chamber - on suitable petitions that cross a minimum threshold.

Politicians have been wary of the issue following the Downing Street petition, which killed off the policy of road pricing for a generation after securing 1.8 million supporters online.

New funding available for hightech firms

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Tom Young, Computing, Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 12:26:00

Spin-offs from university projects and other pre-commercial firms to be considered

Innovative technology firms will be able to apply for funding from a new £200m innovation fund as part of an attempt to overcome the drought in capital lending, prime minister Gordon Brown announced yesterday.

The UK Future Technologies Fund will invest in technology-based businesses where there are significant growth opportunities, driving the economy forward and creating skilled jobs.

Brown said yesterday: "This fund, seeded by the government, is bringing private venture capital to growing enterprises. It is already providing £125m of funding to high-tech, low-carbon businesses. From today, a further £200m will be available for life sciences, digital and advanced manufacturing."

The fund will look to target small growing businesses, start-ups and spin-outs, including those at pre-profit and pre-revenue stages of development.

Richard Pelly, chief executive of the European Investment Fund, who will manage the fund for the government, said: "Evidence shows that venture capital-backed companies significantly outperform other companies in terms of their ability to create wealth and generate the spillover benefits, including export performance and the creation of high-skilled jobs that are vital to the economy."

Network Rail to upgrade train monitoring system

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Angelica Mari, Computing, Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 12:24:00

Transport firm publishes contract notice for prospective vendors

Network Rail is seeking to upgrade its train monitoring system as part of its IT transformation project.

The firm has served a contract notice for the improvement of its infrastructure monitoring a fleet of trains. It is also looking to revamp the measurement equipment on these and other fleet vehicles.

Measurement types covered by the equipment include drivers-view image capture, internal rail defects, rail surface cracks and video track inspection.

The contract may include the supply, support and enhancement of hardware and software, as well as installation and training. Responses from prospective vendors should be submitted by 31 March.

Last year, corporate development director Catherine Doran told Computing that a key project for Network Rail during 2010 would be the introduction of video-based inspection and asset monitoring.

At the time, Doran said the firm was looking at developing software that will enable it to compare video footage and look for discrepancies over different periods of time.

Highways Agency mobile app downloaded by more than 50000

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Nicola Brittain, Computing, Monday 1 March 2010 at 15:09:00

Among the most popular apps just a week after being released

A Mobile App released by the Highways Agency earlier this month became one of the most popular at the Apple App Store just a week after release.

The download is free and takes data from the Agency’s National Traffic Control Centre to provide live updates of traffic flow on England’s motorways and major A roads.

It also identifies the user's current location, gives a breakdown of any planned roadworks, displays live traffic updates and tunes into the Highways Agency's digital radio station Traffic Radio.

The Highways Agency provides data gathered by thousands of vehicle sensors buried in the road surface, CCTV cameras and reports from its own patrols. This information is then fed to web sites, phone lines, the media and overhead signs on the motorways themselves.

More than 50,000 people have downloaded the app so far, making it the fourth most popular download overall.

“By making our information freely available it will be much easier for people to plan their journeys,” said Highways Agency director of traffic management Simon Sheldon-Wilson. “Checking a route ahead of travel can help us all cut congestion, save fuel and reduce carbon emissions.”

People who do not have an iPhone can also get the latest updates using the Highways Agency’s mobile web site, which was launched last year.

"The mobile version of the Agency web site is proving to be one of the most popular ways of accessing our live traffic data,” adds Simon Sheldon-Wilson. “We are clear you should never use a mobile phone while driving, but we also encourage drivers to take frequent breaks and that is an ideal time to check the road ahead."

The Highways Agency web site itself shows where England's motorways and major A roads are flowing freely, including incident reports, traffic speeds and the view from CCTV cameras. There are also options for people to download widgets, a desktop ticker and RSS feeds.

The Agency does not currently use mobile phone location data to monitor traffic flow and said it "will only do so after full consideration of any concerns about privacy and the effectiveness of the technology".

ISPs may pay dearly for hole in BTs pension fund

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Dave Bailey, Computing, Monday 1 March 2010 at 14:36:00

Competitors livid at prospect of BT raising wholesale charges to make up for shortfall

BT's competitors are fuming over the likely result of a consultation launched by UK communications regulator Ofcom into how BT's pension fund deficit could affect wholesale charges to ISPs.

The consultation was launched in December.

Network infrastructure arm Openreach charges ISPs for wholesale services, which allows them to use the BT infrastructure to reach their customers.

The consultation, which was launched by Ofcom to "promote a broad debate", is due to close today, with BT's response expected afterwards.

ISPs including Cable &Wireless and Carphone Warehouse submitted evidence to the consultation, with C&W quoted in the Financial Times yesterday as saying: "Research produced by independent pensions adviser John Ralfe offered overwhelming ... evidence to support the view that BT has been the sole architect of the entire deficit.”

An initial consultation seemed to allow BT to increase wholesale charges for phone lines and broadband connections to other ISPs by four per cent.

Whether BT's alleged negligence in managing its pensions deficit will mean it is prevented from partially plugging the hole through wholesale charge increases to other ISPs remains to be seen.

BT recently announced third-quarter pre-tax profits of £209m, up from last year's figure of £81m, on revenue down four per cent at £5.2bn from 2008's £5.4bn.

Those financial figures were overshadowed by the hole in BT's pension scheme - £9bn as of 31 December 2008. That valuation and BT's 17-year recovery plan, which will balance the deficit, is currently being reviewed by the Pensions Regulator.

Does Facebook Patent Mean It Owns the News Feed?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Has Facebook patented the news, or at least the news feed, in social-networking environments? On Tuesday, the United States Patent Office granted Facebook a patent for "Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network." The patent is published and numbered 7,669,123.

Facebook's patent, which was filed in 2006, describes a "method for displaying a news feed in a social-network environment," including "generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social-network environment," attaching an "informational link" to at least one of the news items, limiting access to the item to a "predetermined set of viewers," ordering the news items, dynamically limiting the number of items, and displaying the news items.

How Broad?

That sounds pretty broad, and the social-networking world was all atwitter at the possible ramifications. Writing for ReadWriteWeb, Marshall Kirkpatrick proclaimed, "This could be very big. ... MySpace, Flickr, Yahoo, Twitter (?), the sharing part of Google Reader, and even Google Buzz -- do all of these sites have technology at the center of their social experiences that falls under this new patent of Facebook's?"

The patent may not be that broad. Nick O'Neill at the All Facebook blog wrote that the patent doesn't appear to cover status updates as used by Twitter. "It appears that this patent surrounds implicit actions. This means status updates, which is what Twitter is based on, are not part of this patent."

"Instead, this is about stories about the actions of a user's friends. While still significant, the implications for competing social networks may be less substantial," O'Neill wrote.

But Kirkpatrick disputed that conclusion, writing, "Implicit actions are a very big deal. LinkedIn contacts making new connections or changing their jobs would be the most immediate example that comes to mind. If offering a stream of updates of the non-status...

Relentless Twitter Attacks Focus on British Politicians

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Cybercriminals are relentlessly attacking Twitter. Over the past few days, Twitter has noticed an increase in phishing attempts and is working feverishly to reset passwords for affected accounts. British politicians are the latest to fall victim to the scams.

Twitter users who have received a direct message or see tweets with phrases like "This you???" or "LOL is this you" followed by a link are warned not to click through because the destination is a crafty phishing site designed to steal personal information.

"While simply receiving this message does not mean your account is compromised, if you do click through and enter your username and password, you'll want to change your password," Twitter said in a security update. "If you've received this type of spam from a friend, you may want to alert them to change their password."

British Politicians Targeted

The Twitter scams essentially take over a user's account and send out sexually oriented messages to followers. Cybercriminals hijacked British Energy Minister Ed Miliband's Twitter account and used it to distribute a racy message that mentioned his sex life. Miliband sent a tweet later that read, "Oh dear, it seems like I've fallen victim to twitter's latest 'phishing' scam."

House of Commons leader Harriet Harman said her account was also hijacked and used to send a message to opposition lawmaker Alan Duncan. The contents of the message were not disclosed. Intel U.K. and tech blogger Cory Doctorow also reported their Twitter accounts were hacked.

Money is ultimately the driver for the attacks on social-networking sites like Twitter. Criminal gangs can make money by stealing users' credentials and using their accounts to spam out revenue-generating adverts or spreading malware to create botnets, according to Graham Cluley, a senior security consultant at Sophos.

Sophos' research reveals that 70 percent more people are reporting that they have been spammed...

Please Rob Me Is SocialNetworking WakeUp Call

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

As more people reveal their whereabouts on social networks, a new site has sprung up to remind you that letting everyone know where you are -- and, by extension, where you're not -- could leave you vulnerable to those with less-than-friendly intentions. The site's name says it all: Please Rob Me.

Launched last week, Please Rob Me is exceptionally straightforward. Pretty much all it does is show posts that appear on Twitter from a location-sharing service, Foursquare. Please Rob Me puts these posts into a long, chronological list it refers to as "Recent Empty Homes."

Please Rob Me assembles its list by taking information that Twitter makes freely available so that many Web sites can show tweets. But the point of Please Rob Me could be made with data that flows on dozens of other sites as well.

People are comfortable sharing all kinds of personal details on social sites such as Facebook. And now people are flocking to location-based Web services, such as Foursquare, Gowalla or Loopt, that let them use their cell phones to alert friends to where they are.

Some people choose to show their whereabouts only to approved buddies. But plenty push these very specific updates through public Twitter profiles that anyone can see.

This phenomenon is what motivated the creators of Please Rob Me, according to one of them, Boy Van Amstel, 25. Van Amstel said in a phone interview from Holland, where the site is based, that technology has become so easy to use that people are sharing too much online without even realizing it. He and his co-founders want people to think twice about it.

To drive the point home, Please Rob Me's Web page shows a scruffy-looking, loot-lugging burglar. Below that, it indicates that the site is "listing all those empty homes out there."

It doesn't really show empty...

The Netherlands Sets a ServiceEconomy Example

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

How has a country with just 16 million inhabitants become the 15th-largest economy in the world? Answer: through a combination of resourcefulness, hard work, and acute foresight for what might make the nation rich. Since the 14th century, the Netherlands has played a major role in shaping the world economy. Now the country that brought us such major innovations as the stock exchange and the insurance industry has identified another big opportunity: the services sector.

Recognizing the need to steer the typical conversation about innovation away from technology and products toward services, Minister of Economic Affairs Maria Van Der Hoeven -- a power woman if I ever met one -- recently focused the country's prestigious annual Innovation Lecture on this topic. The audience comprised business leaders, government officials, and selected creative individuals who all play important roles in the Netherlands' various government agencies and business sectors.

Here are some highlights from the event, along with some ideas other nations might consider importing.

Service Innovation for Higher Growth and Productivity

A number of attributes about services are of particular relevance in driving economic growth. For instance, automated services delivered through information- and communications-technology platforms can attract significant revenues from outside a country's physical borders with relatively little incremental investment. Just look at Amazon.com or the Dutch GPS company, Tom Tom, each of which does considerable business outside its home base. Heightening revenue from abroad stimulates a country's trade balance and productivity growth. Today 60 percent of the Netherlands' gross domestic product is made up of exports; additional services could drive the figure higher.

Do, Don't Think

The U.K. Design Council set up the "Red" initiative to tackle social and economic issues through design-led innovation. They run a "Do Tank" to create prototypes of new ideas for government services quickly. (It is designed...

New Laptops Tinier Machines with Fancier Features

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

A rash of new laptops set for display at the CeBIT computing trade show underline the growing shift in the market to tinier machines with fancier features such as 3D graphics.

Taiwan-based Acer will be at the show with the Aspire 5740D, which will retail in Europe for 800 euros (1,090 dollars). Thanks to a special coating on its 15.6-inch screen, users who wear polarizing spectacles can see the third dimension when they play movies.

Experts say 2010 will be the year that 3D becomes widely available on notebook computers.

Thomas Rau, who writes for the German version of PC World magazine, says, "It's good for gamers, because they can sense distance better."

Users don't even need to buy movies and games made in 3D, according to Robert Perenz, Acer product manager. The Aspire can compute a near-3D image for games designed for DirectX 9 graphics and higher.

"It can also recompute 2D films, though it is not quite as impressive as a made-for-3D film like Avatar," he said.

In Germany alone, Europe's biggest marketplace, mobile computing is huge, accounting for 8.7 million of the 13.1 million computers sold last year, according to digital industry federation Bitkom, a sponsor of the CeBIT fair.

The overall figure was a jump of 900,000 from 12.2 million in 2008, proving this part of the industry is nearly recession proof. The March 2-6 fair is mainly directed at trade buyers of business software and computer componentry.

Convergence, the linkup of computers and home entertainment, is again visible this year with the release of laptops that can be used to play HDTV movies on televisions. Stefan Hollaender, Sony marketing director, says that is why notebooks need Blu-ray players inside.

That is why notebooks often have a jack at the back to connect to a big-screen TV.

Ulrich Jaeger, product manager at Toshiba Germany, says he...

Social Media Fluke or Future of Marketing?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Way back in the 20th century, "buzz" was the je ne sais quoi of the marketing world. Every company wanted it, but few presumed to know how to get it. Back then, corporations generally lobbed their products into the marketplace, bombarded consumers with repetitive messages and sat back and prayed that buzz would magically appear.

That, of course, changed as companies learned how to harness the Internet. And, as social media like MySpace and Facebook emerged, marketing became less of a monologue and more of a multiparty conversation. It suddenly wasn't enough for companies and their spokespersons to speak down to consumers from the mountaintop. The new challenge was how to get consumers to say good things about a product to one another.

The rise of social media has been part and parcel of the devolution of authoritative information and the flowering of a million cacophonous voices. It not only changed the way companies looked at consumers but how consumers looked at each other.

By 2005, surveys showed that when it came to the marketplace, Americans were beginning to trust their peers more than well-known authorities and experts. The following year, according to the Trust Barometer Survey conducted by Edelman, an international public relations firm, saw the emergence of "a person like me" as a credible spokesman for companies and products.

By 2010, nearly four in five corporations were planning to move money they once spent on television advertising to some sort of social media campaign. For example, Pepsi chose to forgo a high- profile TV spot at halftime of the Super Bowl for a social-media- driven charity campaign that will award the nonprofit organizations that muster the most votes through virtual social networks.

Could there be any better proof that social media is the future of marketing?

But hold on, now comes Edelman's 2010 Trust...

iPad Shortage Could Be Good News for Apples Rivals

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Apple's long-awaited iPad may be even more long-awaited as manufacturing glitches will limit the initial availability of the tablet computer, a Wall Street analyst has warned. Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said in a note to investors that the problems will limit initial availability to 300,000 units and could even push the launch of the product, currently scheduled for this month, back to April.

"The upcoming iPad launch may be somewhat limited as a manufacturing bottleneck has impacted production of Apple's newest device," Misek wrote. "An unspecified production problem at the iPad's manufacturer, Hon Hai Precision, will likely limit the launch region to the U.S., and the number of units available to roughly 300K in the month of March, far lower than the company's initial estimate of 1,000K units."

"The delay in production ramp will likely impact Apple's April unit estimate of 800K as well," he wrote. "It is also possible that, given the limited number of units available in March, the launch will be delayed for a month."

Delay Could Help Competitors

That puts iPad sales through the end of June -- the close of Apple's third quarter -- at just 550,000 iPads. Misek predicted sales of 1.2 million in fiscal 2010, which closes in September -- once all the production problems are worked through. He is still looking for 3.5 million units in fiscal year 2011.

At the end of the day, however, the delay shouldn't be a big deal. "We believe that the only material impact from the iPad delay could come in the form of frustrated consumers and some modest loss of lustre for the company's product launch," Misek wrote.

Unlike previous Apple products that have defined categories, the iPad is entering a crowded market for tablet devices. A serious shortfall could inure to competitors' benefit. "It really depends on when...

Googles Chrome Browser Boosts Global Market Share

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Google's Chrome was the only web browser application to gain global market share last month, with all other major browser platforms showing month-to-month declines, according to Net Applications. Mozilla's Firefox browser -- which had been racking up steady gains at Microsoft's expense through November 2009 -- saw its global market share fall for the third straight month, the web metrics firm reported.

Microsoft's launch beginning this month of a new Windows browser ballot in Europe gives Mozilla a major opportunity to boost its market share. But as a recent Ipsos MORI survey indicates, European consumers still need to become educated about what the browser ballot means for them.

Nearly three-quarters of Internet users in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Poland and Spain are not aware of the browser-choice screen coming their way, the survey reported. To counteract this lack of awareness, Microsoft's rival has launched a campaign "to encourage people to make smart informed decisions about the technologies that they use," according to Mozilla CEO John Lilly.

IE's Market Slide

For Microsoft, the browser ballot mandated by its antitrust settlement with the European Commission threatens to further exacerbate Internet Explorer's market slide. According to Net Applications, IE has lost 6.19 points of global market share since last April. Data from Dublin-based StatCounter similarly indicates that Microsoft has lost nearly 6.5 points of market share during the period.

Beginning Monday, European browser users will be able to learn more about the alternative browser choices by clicking on the links that appear in the browser ballot's list, which includes Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. What's more, the ballot even provides European PC users with the ability to turn access to IE on or off.

The choices that European PC users now face are important because the browser platform they choose is responsible for providing the...

Consumers Graze News Online Ahead of Newspapers

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The Internet is gaining momentum among news consumers -- but 92 percent of Americans use multiple platforms to get their daily fix of news, sports and weather. So says a new survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The survey found the Internet is the third most popular news platform, behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers, and radio. Reading news online fits into a broad pattern of news consumption by Americans, the survey reported, with 59 percent getting news from a combination of online and off-line sources on a typical day.

"People are not replacing traditional media sources with the Internet -- at least not right now," said Kristin Purcell, an associate director for research at the Pew project. "The Internet is just another platform they turn to. People use the combination of platforms that's available and convenient for them."

Portable, Personalized, Participatory

According to the survey, the Internet and mobile technologies offer strong signals about how people's relationship to news is changing. In today's multi-platform media environment, for example, news is becoming portable, personalized and participatory.

Specifically, 33 percent of cell-phone owners now access news on their cell phones. What's more, 28 percent of Internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them, and 37 percent of Internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social-media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

The survey also reveals that people use their social networks and social-networking technology to filter, assess and react to news. They rely on traditional e-mail and other tools to swap stories and comment on them. Among those who get news online, 75 percent get...

iPhone Users Buy More Apps Than Android Users

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Users of both the iPhone and Android platforms are avid application users, but iPhone owners buy more apps. That's one of several conclusions about mobile users in the January 2010 Mobile Metrics Report from AdMob.

The mobile advertising network found that Android and iPhone consumers download approximately the same number of apps, and spend about the same amount of time using them. But about 50 percent of iPhone users buy at least one app per month, while only 21 percent of Android users do.

'Sheer Quantity and Variety'

The app-activity profile in the report could impact third-party developers and marketers, since platforms with the most-active and most-spending users could influence app-making decisions.

Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said one of the reasons behind the higher purchases by the average iPhone user could simply be "the sheer quantity and variety of applications" offered in Apple's App Store.

"Developers have had more than a year to develop for the iPhone," he said. In particular, he said, entertainment-based apps have gravitated first to the iPhone.

But Greengart noted that the "tremendous variety and quality" of the apps extend beyond entertainment.

He said that, while in Barcelona recently for the Mobile World Congress, he was able to find and download an app to help him with the Barcelona Metro. "In fact," he added, "I had several to choose from."

iPod Users Younger

The survey also looked at users of Palm's webOS devices. It found that they are also app-active, although they downloaded fewer free and paid apps.

Owners of Apple's iPod touch were the heaviest app users, downloading an average of a dozen apps monthly. This is 37 percent more than either iPhone or Android users, who download only about nine per month. Users of webOS had an average of about six.

iPod touch users also spent the most...

Palm Needs To Make Changes Or Find a Buyer

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

The reduced revenue guidance for Palm's current business year, announced Thursday, is suggesting to industry observers that the company will either have to make major alterations to its business plan or find a buyer. The slower-than-expected consumer adoption of the company's products -- which pushed Palm's annual projections well below its earlier forecast of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion -- was no big surprise to industry observers.

"Having an excellent product is not the guaranteed formula for attaining marketplace success," noted IDC Research Manager Francisco Jeronimo. "Palm has an excellent platform, the webOS, but the company's lack of a wider portfolio and the strong competition from Apple and Research In Motion has been impacting the business."

The smartphone maker needs to invest and invigorate its brand, Jeronimo observed. "The question is whether or not Palm has the money to do this," he said.

Losing The Value Proposition

Palm's webOS is "very gesture-centric" compared to rival offerings and thus may not appeal to the full range of smartphone buyers, noted Roberta Cozza, a principal analyst at Gartner Research. Moreover, other analysts pointed out that Palm has failed to educate resellers about the benefits that webOS devices offer consumers.

"Every time I go to a store in the U.K. and ask about the Palm Pre and what I can do with the device, salespeople struggle to explain," Jeronimo said. "A minute later, they are asking me" whether (I) have considered "the iPhone, or a Blackberry."

The Palm Pre's hardware, user interface, form factor, services and pricing offer nothing superior to what stronger smartphone brands such as Apple and RIM already offer, Jeronimo noted. However, if Palm's technology was backed by a well-known brand with global distribution channels, it would doubtlessly be doing far better, other analysts say.

"They need scale," and an "acquisition is the...

New patent hints at iPhone camera gesture control

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Filed under: iPhone

An interesting patent application came to light via PatentlyApple yesterday. The patent, titled "Camera as Input Interface," was filed by Apple in August 2008 and details a means of controlling an iPhone by swiping a finger across the device's camera lens. The patent proposes using the iPhone's camera, which is typically idle when the user is on a call, to control voicemail options such as rewind, fast forward, and pause while the iPhone is at the user's ear:

"In one embodiment, to access his voice mailbox, a user may tap the phone to cause playback of a message to pause, tap the phone again to resume playback, swipe his finger over the camera lens in one direction to fast forward playback, and swipe his finger over the camera lens in another direction to rewind playback. These actions allow the user to control functions of voicemail review without removing the device from over his ear."

The patent also describes using the iPhone's accelerometer to detect tapping input to supplement the finger swipes:

"In another embodiment, functions for controlling call features utilize similar user actions or motions. Features such as merging multiple calls, putting a call on hold, and switching between or among multiple simultaneous calls may be controlled by single or double (or any number of) taps of the device, as detected by an accelerometer of the device. These taps may be preprogrammed by a manufacturer, or selected and programmed by a user."

The patent application goes on to describe how the camera swipe could be used when the phone is away from the ear. It details how the camera swipe feature could be used to navigate web pages or applications while the user is looking at the iPhone's screen. Using the camera swipe method in this way would allow the user to view the full screen of the iPhone without his fingers obstructing the view.

This latest patent application shares similarities to a mid-January rumor by Bloomberg that Apple was working on an iPhone with a touch-sensitive backside casing similar to the Mighty Mouse. While it's not clear how much adding a touch-sensitive casing to the iPhone would cost, it might be cost-prohibitive if Apple wants to keep the iPhone margins high and purchase price low. This latest application could present a nice middle ground using the iPhone's existing hardware to mimic the functionality of a touch-sensitive backing.

Interestingly enough, this kind of functionality was one of the top ten hardware "wants" TUAW readers hoped to see in the next iPhone, albeit through a touch-sensitive casing instead of the camera.

[via AppleInsider]

TUAW New patent hints at iPhone camera gesture control originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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