Google, Craigslist Foundation, YouTube, FanFeedr and UCLA have partnered to launch a new site called All for Good, which is designed to connect volunteers in their local communities with charitable organizations. All for Good helps people find ways to get involved in their community, from being a mentor to helping design a website for a nonprofit. The platform allows people to sign in to Facebook or Google to share volunteer activities with others across social networking services. "By bringing together amazing service opportunities from existing volunteer organizations, we hope to amplify their efforts and share ways to do good across the web," said Paul Rademacher, a software engineer at Google and a tech lead on the project. "Built as a free, open-source project, the All for Good platform and search API allow the community-at-large -- from software developers to community organizers and local activists -- to contribute innovations to the site and drive the direction and growth of the platform." The All for Good platform and API allow community organizers and nonprofit leaders to each more volunteers. Developers who want to build volunteer applications can visit the site for more information. The All for Good Apps page provides examples and instructions. In partnership with All for Good, YouTube is launching "Video Volunteers," a platform aimed at connecting non-profit organizations with video needs and skilled video makers who can help communicate their causes via video. The All for Good initiative was part of a Google 20-percent project and the search on the site is also powered by Google.  

platform google community video quot organizations volunteers volunteer project across ways nonprofit organizers allow local nthe software search youtube nquot

Here's a simple fact: no matter what the industry, there are few things quite as nice as a lifelong customer.  Here's another: while attending college, students often establish patterns that they'll follow for the rest of their days.  Now, Microsoft and Google seem to be acknowledging both issues as they promote school-oriented software suites. Google Apps Education Edition and Microsoft Live@edu have been in competition for some time; they're both meant to be adopted by universities and then satisfy students' computer-related needs (email, online storage, etc.).  The rivalry recently reached a new level, though. A few days ago, Google offered a free Google Apps Education Edition webinar, and as part of a post on the Official Google Blog, named 15 schools that had started to use it.  Today, a post on the Google Student Blog also published a video of students describing how they use the suite. Microsoft did its part with a press release about universities all over the world adopting Live@edu.  The list includes Washington State University, the University of Sydney, Australia, Alexandria University in Egypt, and a whopping 11 universities in Sri Lanka. It's hard to declare a winner.  Let's just say that departments within both Google and Microsoft are doing a solid job.

google university microsoft live apps students blog post education days publish establish describing release school list customer patterns software satisfy

PayPal has launched a new site called "Do Stuff For Money," which the company describes as a way to get people to do stuff...for money. Mind blowing isn't it? "Need your roommate Susie to handle your laundry this week? Sweeten the deal by offering $20 to make sure she does it right," says PayPal Director of Product Marketing Heinz Waelchi. "Want your boyfriend to give you a foot massage after a long day at work? He may hate your feet, but it might be worth the extra $40." The site can be used for legitimate transactions using PayPal's send money feature, but Waelchi also encourages "prank" offers. Here are a few examples of what people have already used it for: PayPal is also playing up the site's integration with Facebook. You can send offers via Facebook (or email), and the offer will appear on the recipient's wall (or in their inbox with email). Their acceptance or refusal of the offer will also be posted on the wall. PayPal should be able to avoid any Craiglist-like Attorney General static. In the site’s legal section, it forbids users to “encourage illegal activity.” I assume that includes prostitution.

quot money paypal people offer offers wall npaypal facebook waelchi send email laundry integration static does give feet blowing director

Online Canadian teens are significantly more likely to have a social network profile than online Canadian adults, according to a new study from, Ipsos Reid. Over three-quarters (76%) of online Canadian teens ages 12-17 now have a social network profile up from 50 percent in 2007. The rate of increase is higher than that for the online adult population, which increased from 39 percent to 56 percent over the same time period. In the study "Online Teens: What's the Next Generation Doing Now," author Mark Laver said, "Teenagers are sometimes thought as societal barometers for new trends and embracing new technology." "Online teenagers' use of social networks has expanded rapidly in the past 18 months; however, their parents' usage hasn't kept up. Consequently, some parents will have little to no clue about what their children are doing online." Mark Laver Unsurprisingly, many online teens have social network accounts at more than one site. Among Canadian teenagers with social networking profiles, almost all (93%) have a profile on Facebook. The next most popular social networking sites for teens are Windows Live Space (29%), and MySpace (19%). Facebook is the only site to experience a significant increase in the last 18 months, climbing by 24 percentage points (up from 69%). "Facebook has clearly broken away from the crowd in terms of being the primary site for social networking," said Laver. "Businesses wishing to engage consumers through online social networks will need to do some research to understand the dynamics of each site."  "Clearly, the social networking phenomenon has been a huge success with the younger generation. The rapid uptake in social networking by Canadian teenagers may point toward slight shifts in how teens communicate with each other. The all night telephone call may be replaced through a variety of text, sms and im/chat messages, including those inside of social networks."  

social online quot teens networking canadian teenagers networks network laver profile facebook percent clearly parents nquot generation months increase said

Forbes and Google have released a new report called The Rise of the Digital C-Suite: How Executives Locate and Filter Business Information. It’s a fascinating read–mostly because it highlights the difference in internet habits of C-level executives,  based on their age. Why is this important? Because those executives that are under 40 will likely, in the next 5-10 years, be the ones taking over the CEO role. When they do, we’re going to see a dramatic shift in the way company executives research and contribute to the web. And there’s good news for search marketers too! Get your free copy of the report! Comments

executives s report under ones fascinating ncomments company information re marketers free suite important business highlights nwhen likely nand role

Facebook is charging hard toward hitting that $550 million in revenue number that was put in front of potential investors recently. Of course, their pay per click model of advertising is going to be a critical component of getting there. It seems that there have been some troubles with click fraud for the past month or so which as TechCrunch reports, has set off some heated discussion of Facebook and its inability to tell advertisers “what’s on their mind.” As initially reported yesterday there were click fraud complaints that up to 100% of clicks were fraudulent. While click fraud is nothing new to pay per click advertisers this was a bit different. Many Facebook advertisers were getting charged for clicks that simply never happened. In ‘traditional’ click fraud (if there is such a thing) the clicks are seen by advertisers but they are ID’d as not legitimate sources thus labeling them fraudulent. Facebook advertisers just were getting charged and there were no clicks. While there are always problems with pay per click models it was Facebook’s apparent lack of attention given to complaints until there was recognition of the issue with TechCrunch. Many complaints were found on WickedFire and there was some heated discussion including (in which I have replaced some of the wonderful language that these folks use to communicate) This is experienced by not just those that use 202. When in doubt, look at your raw apache logs – which I did. The result: 15% – 20% clicks never make it to my LP. Clearly a case of click-fraud going on. Tested on 3 different servers at 3 different DCs (not a network issue). Sucks how high the numbers are today. Its clear the problem is getting worse daily. I’ve moved most of my “%$#^” off facebook for the time being and magically my %$#^ is all positive again. Crazy how that works. There are lots of places to buy traffic, some that will even actually give you the traffic you are paying for. Facebook is never going to admit to whats going on. I can almost guarantee you that. Facebook is still reporting 20% more clicks than I actually get. This is bull$#%#. If I were at least getting bot traffic or something that would be one thing, but right now Facebook is simply stealing 20% of clicks that I paid for, which adds up to thousands of dollars. Someone should threaten legal action, this is straight up fraud on Facebook’s part. What really got under the skin of the advertisers is the response they had received from Facebook regarding their issues. According to the WickedFire posts, Facebook isn’t officially acknowledging the problem or giving any refunds so far. But they are asking some advertisers to send in logs to show the discrepancy. So far, advertisers who go to the trouble to do this aren’t getting the response they wanted: “I was asked to send in my logs so I spent over an hour compiling logs over the time period in question, and they replied with their &^#$ing scripted bull^%#$. I was sooo ^#$%ing pissed, since I took the time to do that and they churn out a 2 second response.” So if you are Facebook, what should you do once this becomes something that is more than a few compaints? Well, Brandon McCormick at Facebook chimed into the comment stream over at TechCrunch with This is Brandon on the Facebook communications team. I wanted to chime in to make sure that our voice was part of this discussion and to clarify how we are addressing this issue. We take click quality very seriously and have a series of measures in place to detect it. We have large volumes of data to analyze click patterns and can identify suspicious activity quickly. Over the past few days, we have seen an increase in suspicious clicks. We have identified a solution which we have already begun to implement and expect will be completely rolled out by the end of today. In addition, we are identifying impacted accounts and will ensure that advertisers are credited appropriately. TechCrunch has published an update for this post that outlines some aggressive (but apparently not real subtle) attempts to grab some business from Facebook. As with anything in life it’s actually never about the problem. Stuff happens and in the Internet space that is even more prevalent. What is most important is how a problem is dealt with. Had Facebook addressed these complaints differently from the start do you think the level of frustration expressed on WickedFire and elsewhere would have been as damaging? Online reputations are just like ‘traditional’ reputations (once again, if there is such a thing) in that the best way to handle any problems is quickly, head on and with transparency. Does it mean you will get a perfect solution every time? Absolutely not. It does, however, give you the best shot at making a bad situation better. So Facebook, remember that when you ask “What’s on your mind?” you have been cleaning up your side of the street. Comments

facebook click advertisers clicks fraud getting rdquo complaints logs discussion wickedfire issue techcrunch actually response traffic once brandon problems solution

Yahoo has launched a new self-serve display advertising solution called Yahoo My Display Ads. The company says the solution is designed to help small and medium-sized businesses easily reach their target audience via Yahoo and its network of partner sites. "Yahoo! My Display Ads allows small businesses to build on their search marketing with display campaigns that reach a targeted audience on some of the Internet’s most popular websites," says Joanne Bradford, senior vice president North America Revenue and Market Development at Yahoo.  "This new solution provides an affordable and accessible option for businesses to run brand and performance campaigns that reach the local audiences that matter to them most." The solution comes with over 800 display ad templates. Advertisers can choose between CPM or CPC-based pricing. Yahoo says this caters to both branding and performance marketing goals. Advertisers can also track and manage campaign performance goals with daily reporting. Yahoo My Display Ads is powered by Seatle-based AdReady. "AdReady’s partnership with Yahoo! will provide advertisers with direct access to high value advertising inventory from the largest provider of display advertising in the world," said Aaron Finn, President and CEO, AdReady.  "With Yahoo! My Display Ads, we hope to make display as easy, effective and accessible as search." Some Yahoo Small Business customers were able to use Yahoo My Display Ads last year within a limited program. Yahoo says this program tested to positive results.

display yahoo quot business solution says reach advertisers performance advertising accessible adready program search marketing president target base goals campaigns

T-Mobile has announced that the sucessor to it's semi-popular G1, the myTouch 3G, will become available in early August. The myTouch 3G will be extremely customizable, unlike Apple's iPhone. Users will be able to choose menus, wallpapers, icons, themes and skins. Will being customizable be enough to lure iPhone users away? Has the myTouch 3G already lost to the iPhone, even before its release? Tell us what you think. The phone will come in three colors: black, white and maroon ... err... sorry, I meant distinctive "Merlot". (Why is Merlot a distinctive color?) A new exclusive app that T-Mobile is hyping is called Sherpa. Below is some detailed info... Created by Geodelic, Sherpa features GENIE (Geodelic ENgine for Interest Evaluation), a learning engine that automatically customizes itself to the user’s preferences. Through behavior and user feedback, the application learns a person’s likes and dislikes, prioritizing recommended retailers, restaurants and attractions. Seamlessly blending behavior recognition, a recommendation engine and location relevant information, this combination of learning is exclusive to Sherpa and unlike any experience currently on the market. Below are two lists, the specs and Google services offered on the new myTouch 3G... 3.2-inch HVGA touch-screen Virtual keyboard (portrait or landscape) 3.2 megapixel camera Music player (pre-installed 4GB microSD card) Enhanced video capabilities   Google Search Google Maps (with Street View) YouTube Picasa Gmail Google Talk Sure, the myTouch 3G sounds good on paper... but how, or will, it compete with the iPhone? Ali asked this question the other day, and got some pretty good feedback. This will be the true test for T-Mobile. If you're interested in the myTouch 3G, T-Mobile will begin taking pre-sales on July 8th. The phone itself will be released in early August.

mytouch iphone mobile google engine early sherpa feedback geodelic nthe learning interest unlike itself phone behavior customizable s exclusive august

The Shelton Group has released some interesting survey results showing that the majority of Americans would like to "go green," but not at the expense of their own convenience. It's not that the results are particularly surprising, but they are interesting in that they are broken down into what percentage of participants would be willing to give up what devices if they could help the environment. "Consumers don't want to give up the modern conveniences of life," said Suzanne Shelton, whose firm conducted the survey. "We're all basically saying, 'I'll be green as long it doesn’t make me uncomfortable or inconvenienced.'" Here's how many would be willing to give up each of the following conveniences: - iPod – 38% - Dishwasher – 35% - Microwave – 25% - Cellular phone – 21% - Air conditioning – 14% - TV – 13% - Computer – 7% - Car – 6% - None of the above – 21% - All of the above – 6% I find it interesting that more people are willing to give up their microwaves than their cell phones. I know these new smartphones are cool, but can they cook a meal in three and a half minutes? "For most Americans, what once were considered conveniences have become necessities," Shelton said. "That means the green movement has its work cut out for it: Convenience and comfort are big barriers for consumers going green." "It means a lot of people simply won’t take on green projects, or buy a green product if they have to go to a different store to find it or if it somehow takes away from their personal comfort," Shelton added. The survey polled 1,006 consumers from across the United States. 60% of them are looking for greener products, but when asked to choose between comfort, convenience, and the environment, they chose 36%, 38%, and 26% respectively. Would you give up any of the aforementioned items if you knew it would help the environment? What is more important to you, convenience, comfort, or the environment? Discuss in the comments.

ndash quot green give survey environment comfort shelton convenience conveniences interesting willing said consumers means people nquot americans above t

Eight percent of consumers in the UK, France, Germany and the U.S. have admitted to downloading content illegally from file sharing websites, according to a new study by Futuresource Consulting. When looking only at the downloader segment, the study found that 15 percent of all downloaders admitted to obtaining video content illegally, with France taking the lead at 25 percent. Users in the UK and U.S. watch the most online video on a PC or a laptop.  "When we asked respondents whether they ever watch TV, movies and video on their PC or laptop, two thirds of people in the UK replied either 'often' or 'sometimes', with consumers in the US not far behind," said Alison Casey, Head of Global Content at Futuresource. "But when we asked people if they connected a laptop directly into a TV to watch video from the Internet, the results were inverted, with Germany leading the field, closely followed by France. And those who have never connected a laptop to a TV, many didn't know how to or had never thought about doing it." In all of the territories surveyed, of those who watched downloaded video content online about 90 percent have never paid for news content or recently-missed TV shows, gradually shifting down to just over half that have never paid to watch new movies. However, the survey showed that among those who have never paid, more than half answered "yes" or "maybe" when asked if they would be willing to pay in the future. All respondents were also likely to pay or pay more often if they were offered online content in HD or if they could keep the downloaded content. "As content consumption continues to grow rapidly across the globe, driven by technological enhancements and content industry support, key to its long term success will be the development of strong consumer propositions and business models that resonate with the target audience across all platforms," said Casey.  

content video quot watch percent laptop download paid france online illegally ask people study germany said connect half respondents eight

Today at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference in Miami, Google released a new research paper that looks at building a web-scale landmark-recognition engine. This could lay the groundwork for some interesting advancements in image search. "To be clear up front, this is a research paper, not a new Google product, but we still think it's cool," says Jay Yagnik, Head of Computer Vision Research. The goal is to get computers to recognize landmarks (for example, the Eiffel Tower, the Lincoln Memorial, or the example Google shares - the Acropolis). This is no easy task when the engine has to rely on images of the landmarks, which are incredibly varied by angle, lighting, photo quality, etc. Google says it has managed to achieve 80% accuracy on over 50,000 landmarks. Google demonstrated how it did this with the Acropolis. Essentially, they began with an unnamed, untagged picture of it, entered the web address into the recognition engine, and the computer identified it as "Recognized Landmark: Acropolis, Athens, Greece." To make a long and technical story short, Google generated a list of landmarks based on GPS-tagged photos from Picasa and Panoramio, and online tour guide webpages. Google then found "candidate images" for each landmark using those resources as well as Google Image Search. These images were "pruned using efficient image matching and unsupervised clustering techniques, as Yagnik explains. Then Google developed an indexing system for fast image recognition. Here's what the clustered recognition model looks like: "Here, we build a world-scale landmark recognition engine, which organizes, models and recognizes the landmarks on the scale of the entire planet Earth," concludes Google's research paper (PDF). "Constructing such an engine is, in essence, a multi-source and multi-modal data mining task." There isn't really any mention of how such an engine could contribute to the improvement of Google Image Search in the research paper, but given that search, and "organizing the world's information" are what Google is essentially all about, it's not hard to imagine this technology being incorporated into how Google retrieves results for Image Search in the future.

google image engine recognition quot research landmarks search paper landmark scale acropolis computer world looks essentially images nquot says task

Baidu is big; its share of the Chinese search market is close to 60 or even 70 percent, depending on which statistics firm you favor.  And Baidu may be set to grow still more, as the company's CFO, Jennifer Li, seems to be rather open-minded on the subject of making acquisitions. The Internet "is at an early stage of its development, it's dynamic and we need to stay ahead," Li said in an interview with Mark Lee.  She also noted, "People approach us and we get to look at a lot of things." Li's words don't amount to a commitment to spend $50 million in the next five days, of course, and she didn't even indicate what sort of technology Baidu might be interested in getting its hands on. But the global recession has made right now a rather good time to buy a lot of weakened companies.  Baidu itself is about as financially stable as ever, too, as the stock chart below should indicate. Google China, meanwhile, continues to be in rough shape in all sorts of ways, most recently getting bossed about on the issue of censorship.

baidu quot acquisitions company getting rather indicate stable share technology making global internet statistics chinese five percent words recession sorts

LinkedIn is available in the English, Spanish, French, and German languages, although users can post their profiles in over 40 different languages. The company would like to offer its services in more languages though, and is calling upon its user bases to help it out with that. "Currently, we are investigating the best way to translate our site into more languages," says LinkedIn's Nico Posner. "Since this is a decision that will impact millions of our users, we wanted to hear from our members on what they thought were some of the most effective ways to make this happen." LinkedIn offered a survey to users, and over 12,000 people responded. The survey asked the question, "What type of incentive would you expect for translating the LinkedIn site?" Below are the results: As you can see, the largest number of people would be happy with upgraded LinkedIn accounts. Surprisingly, fewer people wanted money, which I assume was included in the "Other (please specify) category. Of course, had money been one of the listed options, it may have painted a different picture. "These options typify some of the value propositions that members often get from LinkedIn, and we were interested in hearing which ones would be of most interest," says Posner. LinkedIn is still in the process of evaluating its options, but the survey clearly shows that LinkedIn is looking to expand its offerings in terms of languages. Time will tell how they go about accomplishing this.

quot linkedin languages users options people survey offer nlinkedin posner upgrad money interest says members translate want fewer happen surprisingly

There have been numerous complaints from Facebook advertisers about click fraud, which has apparently been ramped up in recent days. Facebook has acknowledged the issue and claims to be doing something about it. A thread at the WickedFire forum highlighting the problem, which got considerably more attention once tech blog TechCrunch referenced it. Facebook's Brandon McCormick gave TechCrunch's Michael Arrington a statement on the matter, which said: We take click quality very seriously and have a series of measures in place to detect it. We have large volumes of data to analyze click patterns and can identify suspicious activity quickly. Over the past few days, we have seen an increase in suspicious clicks. We have identified a solution which we have already begun to implement and expect will be completely rolled out by the end of today (06/21). In addition, we are identifying impacted accounts and will ensure that advertisers are credited appropriately. Click fraud reportedly reached record levels at the end of last year, but began to decline early this year. Last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau released its click measurement guidelines to serve as a framework for identifying click fraud. Microsoft is currently trying to set an example by suing a few alleged click fraudsters for $75,000.  

click fraud facebook year advertisers identifying suspicious techcrunch days complaints acknowledg releas serve identify impact seen claims data advertising begun

A limited number of users may soon see pricing info and images of merchandise appearing alongside Google's search results.  The company is testing what it calls "product ads," and these should represent an interesting departure from Google's usual way of doing things.  Google started inviting advertisers to participate in a beta program late last week.  According to an email, product ads will appear in the Sponsored Links section and "complement" standard text ads.  Their pretty pictures and pricing info should appeal to consumers. Then, from an advertiser's perspective, here are the other interesting parts.  As stated in the email Philipp Lenssen obtained, "Unlike keyword targeted text ads, product ads appear when the user's query matches information provided in your product feed." Also, advertisers "pay only when users make a purchase on your site. . . .  You specify the commission rate for conversions that take place via clicks on Google product ads." So the use of Google Base is being encouraged (or really, made mandatory), but Google's not concerning itself with clicks that don't result in sales.  On the whole, this seems like something that advertisers may really appreciate. The timeline of the product ads program - along with specifics about those commission rates - remains unknown, however, so it might be a while before it comes into heavy use.

product google quot advertisers email appear users info pricing clicks interesting commission text program consumers company rate before user seems

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs received a liver transplant about two months ago and is expected to return to the company by the end of June. Jobs underwent the liver transplant operation at a hospital in Tennessee, according to the Wall Street Journal. He has been on medical leave from Apple since January and when he returns to the company he may initially work part-time. Steve Jobs "Steve continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there's nothing further to say," Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton told the Journal. Jobs, 54, had previously been diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004 and underwent surgery to remove it. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook has been managing the company in Jobs' absence and is expected to continue to do so until Jobs returns full-time. In a January letter to Apple employees, Jobs said doctors had found the cause of his weight loss "a hormone imbalance that has been 'robbing me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy." "The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I've already begun treatment," he said. "But, just like I didn't lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this spring to regain it." Close to 10 days later, he announced his health issues were "more complex than I originally thought" and he was taking medical leave, putting Cook in charge of operations. Apple has previously received criticism from some shareholders over what they have called limited disclosure of Job's health problems.  

quot jobs apple steve liver expect company journal june leave nquot said body weight receiv transplant medical returns doctors njobs

Okay, no, not really—but the encyclopedia anyone can edit is looking to add video to its offerings, according to Technology Review (via RWW). To launch in the next 2-3 months (by the end of the summer), Wikipedia’s new system will allow users to contribute and even edit clips for articles, posting the entire clip or only portions. Wikipedia itself will only allow videos from the Internet Archive, Metavid and Wikimedia Commons. No video editing software is necessary to post full or partial clips, but “One of the requirements for any video added to the site is that it be based on open-source formats.” The project also includes developing Web tools to create smooth methods for transferring and editing videos. When a Wikipedia editor finds relevant snippets, he will be able to preview them, and set the “in” and “out” points, without having to worry about file conversions. “Presently, the work flow is pretty atrocious” for people trying to download, convert, and edit video, says [Kaltura software engineer Michael] Dale, citing the notoriously confusing array of incompatible video formats now in use. With the new Wikipedia system, “people will be able to easily inject media into pages, in a way that wasn’t possible before,” he says. Kaltura, an open-source “video solution provider” (Sigh. Buzzwords.), which has been a partner with Wikipedia since January 2008. What do you think: a good move or yet another opportunity for spam on Wikipedia? Comments

video wikipedia edit ldquo source says allow able people formats videos software editing open rdquo clips encyclopedia trying base before

Growing your in-house database should be at the top of every marketers list.  Why?  When done correctly, it will house your most qualified and responsive prospects.  Though organic list growth may take time and effort, you will definitely see a high return on your investment.    Consider the following techniques to acquire new leads and grow your list with success.   Who is your ideal lead and how do you reach them? Create a profile for your best customer(s). This should include things such as age, gender, hobbies, job function, how do they shop (online or at stores), where do they shop, what they read, website do they visit, etc. Analyze your competition. Take some time to find out what your competitors are doing to generate leads.  If they have an e-newsletter, be sure to sign up to receive it.  This will help you find out what type of promotions they are running, any marketing alliances they have formed, and how they are positioning their product or service.  Then take some time to find out which websites and / or magazines they advertising in, whether they are running PPC campaigns and if so which key words they using, etc. Most of this can be accomplished with simple web searches.  Reach your best customer.  Once you’ve created your customer profile(s) and finished your competitive analysis, you are ready to develop your lead generation strategy.  Your strategy can include initiatives such as: banner ads on websites that your target audience visits, PPC campaign using relevant key words, direct mail or email campaigns to magazine subscriber opt-in lists, etc.  You can also approach other products or service providers for co-promotions or mutually beneficial partners.  If you have time to dedicate to creating editorial content, two other great lead generation and PR strategies are starting a blog or an e-newsletter.  Your offer is everything!  You must create an intriguing offer that will prompt recipients to willingly give you their information in exchange for something they want. Your offer should be something of great interest to your target audience. For instance, you might send an email introducing your company to a magazine subscriber opt-in list that you believe your target audience reads. By including a free downloadable document such as an industry salary guide, a list of the hottest bars in town, or a best practices whitepaper, you will be able to capture contact and demographic information for many of the recipients. Another approach is to ask them to answer a few short questions in exchange for movie tickets or some other premium. Once you’ve captured their information and they’ve opted-in to your database, you will be able to continue communicating with that lead on an ongoing basis.    Create a landing page. It is extremely important to guide the campaign recipient through the entire process.  By creating a landing page on your website that mirrors your campaign’s message / offer both from a design and copy perspective, you will encourage the recipient to follow through and fill out the form. In addition, you should give prospects the option to call you, in case they do not feel comfortable filling out the form.   Use a lead capture form. Your landing page can either link to a lead capture form or you can embed the form in the landing page itself.  Since, your prospects will be more prone to fill out a shorter form than fill out a long and drawn out questionnaire, limit the amount of information you are asking them to provide in exchange for their premium. Besides the basic name and email address, think of including one or two other demographic questions. These questions should be well thought out to provide you with information you can leverage for future campaigns.  In addition to the demographic questions, your form should include a check box giving people the option to opt-in to receive information about your company and future promotions. According to the CAN-SPAM Act, if people do not explicitly say that they would like to receive emails from you in the future, it is unlawful to send them commercial marketing emails. If you do not currently have a way to capture leads, an easy way to do this is by signing up for a web-based email marketing software. All of them will provide you with both the lead capture form and a database to house the acquired leads. They all provide you with the ability to download your list as well, so you can upload the new leads into your main database. Some are quite inexpensive with a monthly cost as low as $19.99.   Track your efforts. If you track your lead generation efforts, you will be able to pinpoint which initiatives are working the best and focus more of your energy on those. You might decide that others aren’t worth your time. Easy ways to track your initiatives are: Web Analytics: sign up for a free Google Analytics account. This will enable you to track how many people are visiting each page on your site and which campaign they are coming from. In your lead capture form, include one questions asking people how they heard about you with a drop down menu where customers can select from a list of your current marketing initiatives. Landing Pages: make sure you have a separate landing page for each marketing initiative. Each email, banner and PPC ad should have its own landing page so you can track page visits to these dedicated pages with your Analytics account. Dedicated 800 numbers: There are services that will provide you with a range of 800 numbers that redirect to your main phone number.  Including a dedicated 800 number on each landing page will enable you to associate each call with a specific campaign.   Remember, even if are accurately targeting your best customer, your campaign will only be a success if you get them to act on your offer and opt-in to your database. Be sure to spend enough time tailoring your message and offer to the people who will receive your campaign. 

form lead page landing list offer campaign information capture marketing database people provide email track leads questions dedicate customer create

 Rather then a big splashy make-over, YouTube has been rolling out an ongoing series of changes and improvements that marketers and uses should pay attention to. Download MP4 Files of Your Own Videos: You no longer have to panic when your computer crashes and you lose the original files of videos. Find the video you want in YouTube's "My Videos" and hit the "Download MP4" button to save the MP4 file of the video back to your new computer.  A More TV-Like Experience:  One new feature hides the player control bar when viewers are in full screen for a more TV-like experience. You can also "pop out" any video by clicking on a button and it will open in a new window, without any of the surrounding features or videos. This feature won't work when embedding has been disabled. Mobile App in Six New Languages: A few months ago, they launched a new YouTube Mobile Application for video streaming on Windows Mobile and Symbian Series 60 phones. Now they've added in 6 more languages: French, UK English, Italian, Spanish, German and Dutch. The Wonder of "Wonder Wheel":  The next time you search for a video on YouTube look for a link on the right-hand side of the page labeled "Wonder Wheel." This beta search option from Google let's you navigate through "also try" suggestions graphically. Wonder Wheel displays related searches rlike spokes on a wheel. You can click on any of the wheel's spokes to see a new wheel with more related topics and browse new relevant video results. Improved Advanced Search: Advanced Search allows you to specify many more details than our normal search, including when a video was uploaded, the location it came from, and its length.  Remaining Time Display on Upload Progress Bar: Just what it sounds like.Useful to us multi-taskers. Comments

video quot search wheel youtube wonder videos mobile spokes download languages button computer files relate sery changes experience upload advanc

With a global userbase of just over 200 million, there is no denying that Facebook is extremely popular. But, will the social sites popularity turn into ticket sales when the movie comes out? Facebook: The Movie, which is tentatively being called "The Social Network", is currently in the works. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't really see a movie here. What do you think? Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the film, plans to start production later this year and is currently in "advanced talks" with David Fincher to direct. (Yes, THAT David Fincher) For those of you not familiar with David Fincher's resume (shame on you) he's directed Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac and most recently The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. If Columbia is able to land Fincher, it will give the project instant credibility, more so than say if Brett Ratner was attached. Some moviegoers will see the film just based on Fincher directing it. Am I alone in thinking that this project doesn't really suit Fincher's style? Tell us. Variety gives the following description of "The Social Network"... "The film will focus on the evolution of Facebook from its 2004 creation on the Harvard campus by sophomore Mark Zuckerberg to a juggernaut with more than 200 million members." "The Social Network" was written by Aaron Sorkin and is being produced by Scott Rudin and Michael De Luca along with Trigger Street's Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti. Will you go see this movie if it comes out? Why or Why not? Just for fun: Here is an image of Mark Zuckerbeg, Facebook creator and CEO,  leave a comment below with your ideas for casting.  

fincher movie quot social the facebook networkquot david film nquot currently comes direct project columbia mark pictures million advanc casting

Google has begun an initiative to help webmasters all over the web make their sites faster, and in turn make the entire web faster for everybody. This would reflect Google Co-founder Larry Page's vision of people being about to surf the web as quickly as if they were flipping through the pages of a magazine. Google is embarking on what one Googler says will be "a series of difficult advocacy steps" to help companies, ISPs, and webmasters contribute to making the web faster. Google has started by launching a site at code.google.com/speed, which serves as a resource for webmasters with tutorials, tips, and performance tools. To emphasize what Google is trying to do, they have also released this video: In addition, one of Google's familiar faces, Matt Cutts, is also pointing to a video in which he discusses page loading times and how they relate to search. What impact do site load times have on Google's rankings? Cutts says the short answer is "none." If a site takes so long to load that Googlebot can't even get a copy of it, then that will hurt, but if it's a question of 1 seconds vs. 2 seconds, it is not a factor. Hear the rest of what Cutts has to say about it in the following clip: A few tips Cutts gives for faster load times include: - Don't include 40 different javascript files - Don't include huge images when you're image size is only set to something small - Gzip pages It's really about user experience. Cutts says not to look at it from a search engine ranking perspective "right now." There is always the possibility that this will change in the future. Getting the entire web to contribute to Google's faster-web initiative is probably impossible. I think it's a great concept, but there are simply too many people out there creating and abandoning sites, blogs, apps, etc. That said, I think there is plenty of room for Google (and all of is influence on the web) to make a huge difference. Read more about ways Google plans to accomplish its goal here. Of course they are open to ideas and discussion as well, and you can participate here. What do you think about the initiative? Share your thoughts with WebProNews readers.

google quot cutts faster load times initiative says include webmasters huge sites search seconds video people contribute pages page entire

Active Twitter users are more engaged with online music and are more likely to make purchases than non-users of the microblogging service, according to a new report from the NPD Group. "NPD's latest music-acquisition study shows that there are segments of consumers who are more actively integrating Twitter as a key tool for communicating and networking," said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD. "Based on their music-purchasing history, active Twitter users are simply worth more to record labels and music retailers than those who are not using Twitter." Russ Crupnick According to NPD's consumer tracking, 33 percent of Twitter users reported buying a CD in the past three months, and 34 have purchased a digital download, which compares positively to overall Internet users (at 23% and 16%, respectively). When Twitter users purchased music, they also spent more money than non-users. People on Twitter purchased 77 percent more online music, on average, than those not using the service. Twitter users are also much more likely than average Internet users to be engaged in online music activities - one-third listened to music on a social networking site, 41 percent listened to online radio (compared to 22% among all Web users), and 39 percent watched a music video online (versus 25 percent among all Internet users). Twitter users were also twice as likely than average Internet users to visit MySpace Music and Pandora. "Twitter has the potential to help foster the discovery of new music, and improve targeted marketing of music to groups of highly-involved and technologically savvy consumers, but it has to be done right," Crupnick said. "There must be a careful balance struck between entertainment and direct conversation on one hand, and marketing on the other. Used properly Twitter has the power to entertain -- and to motivate music fans to purchase more new albums, downloads, merchandise, and concert tickets."  

users music twitter online percent quot internet nquot crupnick average likely purchas consumers service said among engag marketing listen entertainment

Bing is - at least at this early point in its existence - starting to look somewhat like the Energizer Bunny.  New stats regarding both click shares and brand recognition are in, and they seem to just keep going and going (up). Let's start with Efficient Frontier's analysis.  As stated in a post on the company's blog, "Bing expanded its share of paid clicks for the two weeks post launch.  Bing's share of paid clicks is up 13% for the second week post launch as compared to pre-launch.  And, it represents an incremental 5% lift over the first week." Photo Credit: Efficient Frontier If this trend continues, Bing may soon start receiving a lot more attention from advertisers. Bing's already got the attention of a fair number of normal people, though.  Nicholas Carlson reports, "As of Monday, 25% of US adults over 18 have heard of Bing, according to the YouGov BrandIndex.  That's up from 7.9% on June 8." And since Google's brand recognition registers around the 55 percent mark, that potentially puts Bing just a month or two away from catching up. Microsoft - along with ad agency JWT - is sure to do its best to keep these numbers rising.

bing quot launch post efficient start clicks share attention week frontier keep recognition brand paid yougov risebing nmicrosoft agency company

As reported earlier, Yahoo! has launched a new self-serve display advertising solution called Yahoo! My Display Ads. A Yahoo spokesperson was kind enough to answer a few questions about the service for WebProNews. Chris Crum: Are there templates that support video and rich media? Yahoo: At this time My Display Ads does not support video or rich media, but they may be considered for future product releases.  CC: What Yahoo!/partner sites will users be able to display their ads on? Yahoo: Advertisers will be able to display their ads across Yahoo! properties and select partner sites, rather than having to make specific buys per site. Furthermore, advertisers will be able to target by site content category - i.e. Shopping, Travel, Education to name a few - across these sites. CC: Is this in any way integrated into Yahoo Search Marketing? Yahoo: Yahoo! My Display Ads runs on Yahoo!'s Right Media Exchange. It is not integrated with search and offers only display solutions to advertisers  across the Yahoo! network.  However, we will continue to enhance this product and identify key areas of integration across the Yahoo! product suite. CC: How quickly can an advertiser get an ad displayed throughout the network from the beginning of the creative process? Yahoo: Advertisers can quickly create banners ads (in a matter of hours - or even minutes) and once a campaign is submitted, it will take 1-4 business days for review and approval before it can be displayed across the Yahoo! network. I'd like to thank Yahoo for answering these questions. It should be noted that while Yahoo! My Display Ads aren't integrated directly with search, campaigns from both the display ads and search ads can be tracked together. Matt Lillig with Yahoo! Search Analytics left the following comment on the first WebProNews article about the service: Hi Chris, Thanks again for staying on top of the latest Yahoo! news! This is a great program because it gives everybody a chance to run cost effective display campaigns. Any Yahoo! search advertiser should also be aware that if they sign up with Yahoo! My Display Ads, they'll now have an opportunity to track both their Yahoo! My Display Ads and their Yahoo! Search campaigns under one roof using the Full Analytics solution within their Yahoo! Search Marketing account. As you dicussed in one of your previous posts, running display ads along with search has shown to provide a better ROI than running either display or search by themselves: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/11/05/search-ads-vs-display-ads There are also recent independent studies that back up this search + display theory: Online Publishers Association Study Shows Consumers Exposed to Display Advertising Are More Engaged and Spend More Money Online http://64.13.250.16/newsletter.php?newsId=531&newsType=pr Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Advertising Integration Study http://www.iprospect.com/about/researchstudy_2009_searchanddisplay.htm Using Full Analytics, advertisers will be able to take advantage of the Assist metric and measure how well their Yahoo! My Display Ads perform at driving conversions for their other ads, such as search. Using Full Analytics, display advertisers no longer have to rely on the direct reponse (last click conversion) method of measuring the success of a display ad. They can now attribute credit to display ads that drive conversions for their other ads (down the conversion funnel) due to their branding power. Matt Lillig Yahoo! Search Analytics  

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Near the end Adobe's latest financial results presentation they discussed some upcoming Flash Platform advances. Adobe said they planned on releasing Flash 10 for smartphones at their MAX conference in October. Adobe's Max conference runs from October 4th through October 7th, so we can expect the release sometime between those dates. Most of the "big boys" in the smartphone world are mentioned in the presentation: Android, Palm, Windows Mobile, WebOS and Symbian. Wait, there seems to be two smartphones missing... you know the one just sold over 1 million phones in three days. The other is very popular with business people, including the President of the United States. They both have fruit in the name. If you haven't figured it out by now, it's Apple's iPhone and RIM's Blackberry. Neither of the two seems to be getting Flash. It seems that Apple doesn’t want to lose control of the app marketplace, which would definitely become more crowded if they began getting Flash & AIR apps. As far as the other smartphones are concerned, Flash support is actually coming along a little faster than planned. Initially, the goal was to bring Flash to smartphones sometime in 2010... but with October release date, things are looking good for smartphone owners. (Except for the iPhone & Blackberry owners of course)

flash smartphones october iphone seems plan owners getting smartphone apple sometime conference blackberry release presentation coming adobe except phones goal

I have been making a conscious decision to use Bing as my default search for about 2 weeks now. We made a Bing video at this year’s SMX Advanced (where Bing was almost as buzzy as no-follow) so I was interested in the changes and wanted to take some time to see how Bing performed in the ‘real world’. Chris Crum has an article about some of the SEO implications of Bing, so I went ahead with just a side by side comparison. More WebProNews Videos There are lots of new phones coming out right now so I decided to compare Bing and Google results for queries based on a couple of the new phones.  Specifically, I was looking for information on the Blackberry Tour 9360 and the MyTouch 3G.  Yes, I know there is a new iPhone, and no, I don’t want one - so back to your holes Mac people. Search results: Both search engines provided a nice set of results in their normal index search.  I really expected this to be the place where I noticed more Bing goodies, but likely due to the fact that neither of these phones is actually for sale yet, there wasn’t a lot in there that Google didn’t have in terms of decision helpers.  For example, if you search for an existing product, like a Canon digital camera, Bing gives you all kinds of handy links in the left column.  Do you want to shop for one?  Are you looking for reviews? Do you need a case?  Accessories?   - Those kinds of things are right there organized for you.  It’s really pretty cool and handy once you get used to them being there. When they are there that is. In my query for the 2 new phones, there wasn’t anything.  They are new phones though so I can excuse it. If I just type in iPhone into Bing the cools stuff returns.  So all in all, I really like the decision making tools they are providing - when they are there. Even when Bing doesn’t have decision tools in the left column for me, they do have the page preview on everything in their index results.  Page preview is my new favorite thing. Just hover your mouse to the right of the result you are looking at and Bing gives you a nice snippet/preview of the page you are considering.  It may not seem like much but I have found many times, that this little added tidbit of information saves me a click then a immediate click back to the search results page to find a better alternative.  Love this option.  It’s going to be especially handy for weeding thru crap results you find sometimes on popular queries like ringtones and things like that.  This is an area where Bing could do even more to tell us about the site we are thinking about clicking...  do they have pop ups? Are there videos? Are they a security risk? Some of the previews have an ‘Also on This Page’ section that basically has the same kind of links you’d find in a google onebox result, but I’d like to see some other info about the target page make it’s way in here. All in all, I have to say I was really impressed with some of the cooler features in the Bing web search.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see a lot of them in my queries for the Blackberry or the MyTouch, but they are there and when they show up they can be very handy. Image results: Image results were not a shining moment for Bing.  I wanted to find some images of the new Blackberry Tour 9360.  Seemed like a reasonable enough request.  Sadly, Bing fell flat on it’s face with that query, returning me exactly ZERO pictures of anything that even remotely resembled a phone. I have stared at that result page for a good long while trying to figure out what exactly they took out of my query to give me ANY of the images they gave me...  I got nothing on that one. Google did a better job here.  13 of their 21 results for Blackberry Tour 9360 were at least cell phones. Both engines had decent results for images of the MyTouch, but Google gets the edge on that one too... Theirs were a little bit better. News results: Bing only gave me one result, (from E Canada Now).  It was from June 19th, which was in fact newer than Google’s top result (from June 17th)...  But Google did offer me links to 345 other articles about the new Blackberry.  I also missed the hover preview I like so much from Bing’s regular results.  Not sure why they don’t have that in their news search also, but they should. Bing does have some interesting things in the left column (they call it the table of contents).  In their news search they offer several little decision helping options, like location and category links.  Unfortunately, there were no more articles or information available in the Kentucky area for the Blackberry Tour 9360.  The good news is, they did provide me with a link to some news about Megan Fox being single to help me take my mind off that Blackberry Tour 9360.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have much in the way of images incorporated into their news results. The clicking of the image tab for their suggested Megan Fox query did however provided a much more rewarding result than my image search for um, whatever phone thing I had been looking for... goodness gracious.   Isn’t she something?  Thanks Bing. So that was my side by side experience with Bing and Google.  I was able to find adequate information in a web index search on both engines for information on the phones I was looking for.  Bing makes it nice to find the best page for you on their results page without actually having to click away from the page with their page preview box.  That’s really really cool. Google won on images hands down.  They gave me images of the phone.  Bing gave me images of everything except phones.  I still have no idea where they came up with those images. Bing has a WAYS to go with image search. Another example: I was looking for a Bing Icon to put in this article...  Here's the query on Bing (I had to go to Google Image search to get a bing icon...  That's not cool is it?) Bing kinda sputtered on the news query compared to Google.  They did give me a fairly recent and informative news article about the Blackberry, but there was only one.  The local coverage option is a nice touch, but it doesn’t help much when there isn’t anything in it.  Of course, Bing being a decision engine they did eventually help me decide that looking for news and images of a Blackberry was not as cool as looking at pictures of Megan Fox. And that, as it turns out, was a pretty good call I’d have to say.  So, they do get extra credit for that one.

bing search t page images google query blackberry news looking phones s result decision preview tour side information handy links

More than half (55%) of IT professionals say the economy has changed the role of IT and 51 percent say that budget limitations are the biggest barrier to their innovation, according to a new study released by Microsoft and conducted by Harris Interactive. "Businesses that focus solely on reducing IT costs in this economy will not be as well positioned as those that develop new capabilities and solutions," said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of infrastructure server marketing at Microsoft. "IT is uniquely capable of not only delivering bottom-line cost savings, but also providing innovative solutions that will help organizations weather the storm and thrive. Now, more than ever, IT is a strategic asset." Among the four countries included in the study, the economy has the biggest impact on IT innovation in the U.S. IT managers in Japan and the U.K. indicate they will put 41 percent of their budgets towards innovation. IT professionals in Germany plan to invest 35 percent while those in the U.S. plan to spend only 29 percent on innovation. On average, IT professionals in all four countries say they will allocate 37 percent of their budgets to innovation in 2009. Only 22 percent of IT managers cite giving the business a competitive edge as their current top priority. "Companies that make smart investments in IT will gain a foundation for their business that empowers innovation, boosts productivity and, ultimately, helps improve the bottom line," Kelly said. "Investing in IT is a path to success, now and in the future." Though the economy is affecting IT's ability to innovate, more survey participants are focused on driving business efficiency (48%) than on simply reducing IT costs (30%). Nearly two-thirds will increase their planned investment in at least one infrastructure technology, including virtualization, security, systems management and cloud computing.  

innovation percent quot economy business professionals plan reducing bottom focus four country biggest line study solutions kelly microsoft costs said

Google is traditionally the main area of focus when it comes to search engine optimization. With the search engine giant so far ahead of the game in terms of search market share, it's not hard to understand why. Search is changing though, and there are always new elements coming into play. Since social media has come into its own, more opportunities and questions have come along with it. Now Microsoft is going for Google's throat with a new search engine and an aggressive marketing campaign. What this means for the future of search market share is yet to be determined, but there's no denying Bing is capturing some attention, and that means there are people searching with it. Altered your SEO strategy for Bing? Tell us why. SEO for Bing Microsoft's stance on search engine optimization really doesn't appear to be all that different from Google's. You're not going to get the same results on both Google and Bing in many cases, but that is after all why the two can co-exist. The real difference is in how the results are presented, and not as much in how the two determine quality and relevancy. Bing and Google have separate algorithms, but both like quality, relevant links and good content, as opposed to deception and spam. Bing in fact, hasn't really changed much (from Live Search) in terms of crawling. "There have been no major changes to the MSNBot crawler during the upgrade to Bing," Microsoft says in a Bing white paper for webmasters (pdf). "However, the Bing team is continuously refining and improving our crawling and indexing abilities. Note that the bot name hasn't changed. It will still show up in the web server access logs as MSNBog." Sidenote: Webmasters will want to acknowledge that Microsoft has increased the size limit of sitemaps from 10,000 URLs to 50,000. Google is also now supporting up to 50,000 "child sitemaps" of sitemaps index files. Like I was saying, the biggest difference between the two search engines is in the presentation. Bing of course separates (some) results into categories. This has worried some search marketers, but Microsoft says good SEO will work just as well with this set up. Bing also has the explore pane (navigational menu on the left-hand side of search results), which corresponds with the categories in the SERPs. In some ways, this is similar to Google's recent addition of "search options." I discussed what Google's search options would mean for SEO here. Basically, I just broke it down section by section, and you could do the same thing with Bing I think. Look at the keyword phrases you want to rank for, and see how Bing breaks it up. Let's say "cell phones" for example. Bing gives you categories like shopping, brands, buying guide, providers, accessories, images, videos, and local. This tells me that you want to play up the appropriate categories on your site, so that it shows up in the relevant categories on Bing. If you sell accessories, place emphasize that, and you'll probably have a better shot ending up in that category. With Bing, it's not about getting to the top of the SERP. It's about getting to the top of the right part of the SERP. I'll let you in on a little secret. Having quality and relevant (to that part of the SERP) content is the best thing you can do. Incidentally, this will probably help your cause in Google (and other search engines) at the same time. "Ultimately, SEO is still SEO. Bing doesn’t change that. Bing’s new user interface design simply adds new opportunities to searchers to find what the information they want more quickly and easily, and that benefits webmasters who have taken the time to work on the quality of their content and website design," says Microsoft. Curious About What Bing Looks for in Links? Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center recently posted a pair of blog posts looking at what makes some links good and some bad. You may find some of these things familiar: - "If you don’t feel you can endorse the quality of the content at another site, you shouldn’t be linking to them." - Don't seek links from sites whose content isn't worthy of your endorsement. - Links to and from your site should be relevant to your site (or at least the page you’re linking from/to) - Focus on quality, not quantity. Few highly relevant links are better than a bunch of crap links - Avoid "bad neighborhoods" like dedicated domains or IP ranges that do nothing but set up meaningless link exchanges. - Avoid hidden text You can't stop bad links coming to your site. "We take the approach that bad inbound links won't adversely affect your site ranking unless most or all of your inbound links are from bad sites," explains DeJarnette. But in a nutshell, that's essentially where Microsoft stands on SEO practices, or at least what they are giving to the public. Social media Really Is Important to SEO Social media definitely enters the SEO equation. "Effective social media management can be a tremendous source for generating buzz, those all-important inbound links and just plain direct referral traffic," says Mike McDonald of WebProNews, as he discusses a recent interview he did with SEOmoz CEO Rand Fishkin. More WebProNews Videos Facebook Copyblogger has an interesting article about how Facebook is "killing SEO." I think that's a bit sensationalist, but the points made by author Mike Wasylik are valid, nonetheless. "The rise of Facebook creates a growing segment of the web that's completely invisible to search engines - most of which, Facebook blocks - and can be seen only by logged-in Facebook users," he says. "So as Facebook becomes ever larger, and keeps more users inside its walled garden, your web site will need to appear in Facebook’s feeds and searches or you will miss out on an important source of web traffic." "What's the best way to keep your links in front of Facebook users?" asks Wasylik. "The ever-more-important linkbait strategy." The term linkbait sometimes carries a negative connotation, but generally, again, it's just good solid content that people want to link to. Twitter Twitter has gone from a confusing (to many) communication tool/social network, to that plus a way to  find information in real time. This means that it is a good idea to tweet regularly. When someone performs a search on Twitter, they are searching right now. The fresher the tweet, the more likely they are to see it. But Twitter's search implications are not limited to its own search. "Although Twitter is a social media tool meant to create community and relationships, it does have an SEO value," says Mihaela Lica at Sitepoint. "For example, Twitter can affect positively your Alexa rankings by sending visitors to your pages. Usage data is a sign of quality for Google and all the other search engines. If you can make people come to your site via Twitter, then this is an SEO advantage you cannot afford to miss." With both Twitter and Facebook, good content that you create will be shared. The links within the social networks may not boost your rankings, but they can lead to more links outside of them. Either way, it is added exposure. Wrapping Up The roots of search engine optimization really haven't changed that much. Creating great and fresh content is still your best bet. That's what people will share, and that's what will be considered relevant for searches it pertains to. For some great SEO tips and items of note, check out these recent articles: What's the Future of Search? SEO Checklist with Vanessa Fox SEO Ranking Factors for 2009 Could Comments Hurt Your Search Engine Rankings? Google Improves Flash Indexing Capabilities Google Changes to No-Follow on the Horizon? Are SEOs the "Bad Guys?" Google vs. Bing - Side by Side What changes have you made to your SEO practices as a result of Bing's release? Twitter? Facebook? Tell us what tweaks you've made.

quot bing search links facebook google twitter content quality says engine relevant microsoft category media social engines share important people

Remember those rumors that certain tech companies had agreed to not poach each other's employees?  Well, it looks like Microsoft's accusers might owe the corporation an apology, as it's gotten a person each away from Yahoo and Google. According to Todd Bishop, "Microsoft said this morning that it has . . . hired Yongdong Wang, the former Yahoo vice president of international search, into an unspecified position reporting to Harry Shum, Microsoft's corporate vice president for search product development."  Which represents a pretty impressive catch. Then, "Microsoft also confirmed this morning that it recently hired Knut Risvik, a former Google engineering director, as a partner architect focusing on Microsoft's search platform and infrastructure."  And in fact, Risvik spent about two years as a chief architect at Yahoo before going to Google, so his hire is almost doubly interesting. Indeed, these moves prove that Microsoft is quite intent on catching up with (and presumably, surpassing) its rivals in the search industry.  Hiring competing talent seems like a simple way to do it, too. You have to wonder if Google and Yahoo won't decide to lure a few people away from Redmond just for the heck of it in response.

microsoft quot search yahoo google hire away former risvik president employees vice architect morning naccording represents todd platform surpassing bishop

Google's DoubleClick is presenting findings from a new study it commissioned with Dynamic Logic,  this afternoon at the ARF Conference. The study, titled, "The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads (pdf)," analyzes image (gif/jpg), simple Flash, and rich media (with and without video) ad formats. "The study addresses challenges facing advertisers and agencies about which ad format to use, offering data to help them pick the ad formats that best match their branding goals," a representative for Google tells WebProNews. "All of this allows agencies and advertisers to extract the most brand value from their online display advertising campaign." "This report is for advertisers, and the agencies that support them, who want to make informed decisions about the best ad formats to use for online branding campaigns," says the intro to DoubleClick's report on the research. "In online advertising, you're likely to hear goals defined as 'branding,' 'brand response,' or 'direct response.' We go a level deeper to explore he impact of ad format selection on specific branding goals in the upper and lower purchase funnel" A few highlights from the research include: - Rich Media formats are the most successful at driving purchase intent - Rich Media without Video is unique among the formats in its ability to positively impact all five brand metrics (online ad awareness, aided brand awareness, message association, purchase intent, and brand favorability - Simple Flash is the least effective of the ad formats studied - For brand favorability, aided brand awareness and purchase intent metrics, Rich Media with Video provides a statistically significant improvement over Simple Flash at a 90% confidence level While rich media may be the most successful format for purchase intent, only 6% of ad-serving volume last year was made up of rich media. It will be interesting to see what the percentage for 2009 turns out to be. Google has been offering rich media formats with its AdWords Display Ad Builder for a little while now. That is likely going to give the number a bit of a nudge. Yahoo just released a new Display Ads service, but it does not currently support rich media formats.  Source: AdRelevance, 2008. Impressions by Technology for Simple Flash, GIF/JPG and Rich Media only. I'm not going to get into every aspect of DoubleClick's 22-page document, but here are a few interesting graphs that speak louder than words: Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms®, 2008. Fixed frequency level of 1. Campaigns using online display advertising of any format N=547-765 Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms®, 2008. Fixed frequency level of 1. Campaigns using Rich Media with Video N=47, Rich Media without Video N=267, GIF/JPG N=50, Simple Flash N=340 Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms®, 2008. Figures are deltas (exposed minus control). Fixed frequency level of 1. Campaigns using GIF/JPG N=33, Rich Media with Video N=37, Rich Media without Video N=193, Simple Flash N=262 Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms®, 2008. Figures are deltas (exposed minus control). Fixed frequency level of 1. Campaigns using GIF/JPG N=33-52, Rich Media with Video N=37-47, Rich Media without Video N=193-275, Simple Flash N=262-344. *Denotes data points that are statistically significant at a 90% confidence level or higher Source: Dynamic Logic MarketNorms®, 2008. Fixed frequency level of 1. Campaigns using GIF/JPG N=33-52, Rich Media with Video N=37-47, Rich . Media Non-Video N=193-275, Simple Flash N=262-344

rich media video level simple flash formats brand quot logic dynamic campaigns online fix marketnorms without nsource frequency purchase display

When someone clicks on an ad, well . . . we all know he or she's not exactly making a binding show of interest.  When someone tries to read a 10,000-word nonfiction text document, on the other hand, he's committing a fair amount of time to the author.  So LinkedIn is implementing the somewhat clever idea of making white papers act as ads. Erick Schonfeld points out that LinkedIn "knows what industry you work in and your job title, making it easy to guess what kinds of white papers you might actually be interested in."  Then, "LinkedIn members can get white papers for free, and in return sponsors get qualified leads." If all goes according to plan, this could turn into a very efficient way of connecting companies to interested parties.  LinkedIn might also make a fair amount of money off the move, since Schonfeld reports that each lead should net it somewhere between $40 and $100. The one problem would be if people ignore the white papers because they use LinkedIn while off the clock.  It's not exactly brilliant to be surfing a professional networking site when your boss can pop in at any moment, after all, and when the workday is over, most people lose the desire to do extensive research. But we'll see what happens.  As the above picture shows, VMware, with its market cap of $10.68 billion, apparently has enough confidence in the idea to become involved.

linkedin papers quot making interest fair try schonfeld company connecting people someone amount idea exactly author clicks party picture market

The German High Court ruled on Tuesday that students my rate their teachers online, rejecting a case of a woman who maintained her rights had been infringed by pupils who gave her bad grades on a popular website. Astrid Czubayko-Reiss, said her privacy was violated by the site, spickmich.de (roughly translated, checkmeout.de) where she received unfavorable ratings from students. "The right of students to exchange opinions and communicate freely outweighs the right of the teacher suing to determine information available about her," the court in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe said. "The opinions expressed are neither abusive nor insulting," the court said. "The plaintiff did not show that she had been harmed in any specific way." The website allows students to rate teachers anonymously in categories including "cool and funny," "popular," "motivated," "relaxed," and "teaches well." Czubayko, had received an overall grade of 4.3 or a "D." She had lost two previous cases before lower courts and appealed to the German High Court. The German Teachers' Association was critical of the ruling. "It is inexplicable that the BGH values the personal rights of teachers less than an anonymous assessment of teachers by students on the Internet," Association president Josef Kraus said, referring to the federal court.  

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Some time ago, an instructional video demonstrating speedy shoe-tying made the rounds.  The idea was that, over the course of a lifetime, saving five or ten seconds a day would make a real difference.  And some new, neatly organized Gmail tips may free up a whole more of your future. A total of 38 pieces of Gmail-related advice are available for your consumption, and as Google's Victoria Katsarou explained in an email to WebProNews, "We've organized the tips by ninja belts in order to cater to people with all levels of Gmail savvy." Some of the beginners' stuff (white belt) is extremely basic - surely you've thought to "search your mail instead of sorting."  Then, on the other end of the scale (Gmail master), a suggestion about what to do if you forget to sign out of a public computer seems odd since a real master probably (a) wouldn't forget and (b) would be using some fancy netbook or smart phone, anyway. But a lot of the info, like the diagram of keyboard shortcuts seen below, should come in handy. A printable version of the Gmail ninja guide is available if you feel like keeping all of the tips close at hand.  Google's also making laminated versions available (free to the first 1,024 people who sign up for one, $1.25 each for anybody who feels like buying one afterward) if you feel like getting something a little more durable.

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Close to half (45%) of online shoppers have abandoned their carts multiple times in the past three weeks due to high shipping costs, security concerns and lack of convenience, according to a new survey released by PayPal and conducted by comScore. High shipping costs was the most commonly given reason for cart abandonment with the average cost of abandoning U.S. shopping carts reaching $109. The survey found that providing shipping costs upfront might have led to 40 percent to complete the purchase. To help reduce shopping cart abandonment, PayPal has introduced an "Instant Update API," that allows merchants to show order details earlier in the process including shipping options, insurance choices and tax totals. Eddie Davis "To get shoppers to buy, it's critical merchants make the checkout experience easy and costs transparent," said Eddie Davis, senior director of SMB merchant services, PayPal. The survey also found indications that the economy still has shoppers wary about clicking the purchase button. More than one-third of respondents abandoned checkout because they did not plan for all of the expenses; while more than 25 percent left a site to search for a coupon. The good news is one-third of shoppers later returned to the same site to make a purchase. "Merchants who don't welcome back abandoners with open arms are leaving hundreds of dollars per shopper on the table," added Davis. "Merchants need to remember the items that customers abandon and make it easy for them to buy when they return. Sweetening the deal with free shipping, coupons and special discounts is also a great way to encourage online shoppers to complete their purchases." Breakdown on Why Shoppers Abandon At least a fifth of all U.S. survey respondents cited the following as very important reasons for cart abandonment: High shipping charges: 46 percent Wanted to comparison shop: 37 percent Lack of money: 36 percent Wanted to look for a coupon: 27 percent Wanted to shop offline: 26 percent Couldn't find preferred pay option: 24 percent Item was unavailable at checkout: 23 percent Couldn't find customer support: 22 percent Concerned about security of credit card data: 21 percent

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Facebook is now letting users have more than one name. This is especially helpful to those people who are actually known by more than one name, which is a fairly common occurrence. Users can adjust their settings to display one alternate name in addition to their current name: I can think of at least three of my friends right off hand that go by two different names depending on who they are associating with. A couple of them go by their middle names when they're with their friends, but they are listed on Facebook under their first names. One of my friends is Korean, but she goes by both her Korean name, and her English name. A similar situation is described by Sophia Huang on the Facebook Blog. "I grew up in Taiwan and all of my friends in Taiwan recognize me by my Chinese name, while the friends I've made after I moved abroad know me by my English name," she says. "Both are part of my real identity, but until now I could only show one name in my Facebook account," adds Huang. "This made it difficult for all of my friends to connect with me. I've even received messages from old friends asking who I was before they would approve my friend request because they didn't recognize my name, even though the profile photo looked familiar to them." This is no longer an issue for Facebook users. If you want to list an alternate name, you can go to the account settings page and check the box for displaying the alternate name.  

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Google has added a couple features to Google News that make it easier for users to find content from specific authors and journalists. This is ideal for readers who like the work of a particular reporter, but would otherwise be unsure of where to find just that person's articles. When users see Google News results that have an author name, they can click on that author's name and bring up other artices they have written. Doing so brings up the search operator author:"author name" and results for that query.     In addition to this feature, users can also search for articles by specific journalists under the advanced search section or by using the aforementioned search operator in the regular search box. Another convenient aspect of being able to bring up articles by specific authors is that you can subscribe to the RSS feed for them (just like you can with any Google News search). This makes it almost as if you are subscibing to that journalists own personal publication without getting author authors in the mix.  

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With Facebook talking about reaching their lofty revenue goals for 2009 you would have to suspect that Twitter has to address the issue as well. Bloomberg reports today that Twitter is planning to show revenue in 2009 from clients like Dell, Whole Foods and Starbucks. This is coming from Biz Stone himself but when it comes to the details, well, let’s just say they fall well short of the 140 character limit. “The idea is if they are getting value out of Twitter then we could add more value to what they are doing and we could get some revenue,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in an interview today. “We think we’ll get to something this year, however simple, that shows we’re making some money.” He declined to give sales estimates for this year. Not exactly the kind of words that you hang your hat on so to speak. Twitter is as much a lesson in hype as it is a lesson in the next level of social media. Sounds negative? Well, what do you believe anymore? If any other company did this “We’ll have revenue maybe, kinda, sorta” dance they would be pushed to the curb. Twitter gets a pass on these things because there isn’t much else to talk about apparently. Stone himself realizes that the window of opportunity could go away at just about any time. When asked how long the hype around Twitter could last, Stone said he’s realistic about Internet trends. “This kind of stuff doesn’t last forever and you have to have a healthy attitude toward it. Far be it from me to say when it would end, that would be a total guess.” Predicting Internet trends and the “time to live” on Twitter’s ability to capitalize on revenue opportunities apparently fall into the same category of being a total guess. His descriptions of how the Twitter bird would line it’s nest in San Francisco with cash is just as open ended. The San Francisco-based service could make money by verifying Twitter accounts, said Stone, so users “following” brands would know it was really Whole Foods or Coca-Cola Co. sending Tweets, or instant messages that can be 140 characters long. Twitter could also offer statistics to businesses detailing how effective their Tweets are and offer multiple accounts to large businesses with many branches, he said. I think people are ready to hear something a little more definitive than Twitter ‘could’ do this or that to make money. There is no denying that many are using the service as part of their marketing mix but how much does a company invest in putting together programs with a company’s service that is not making any money and appears to have no real plan to get there? In addition, Stone sounded resolute in the area of acquisitions. The direct quote is that “We’re not having those acquisition discussions, we’re not engaging in them.” OK, that one seems pretty plain and direct. So if that is the case where is the money going to come from to continue growth or to just make sure that the infrastructure doesn’t break under the weight of the new users coming on board? Ok, so let’s take off the gloves. What is the best way to monetize Twitter? Is real time search a real time possibility? Unless it was left out of the original article there was no mention from Stone about the thing that many feel could make Twitter a juggernaut. Are they able to deliver on that or are they just trying to redirect attention to other options because search isn’t quite there yet? Will companies pay for enhanced services? Is this all just chasing after the latest and greatest rumored ‘can’t miss’ Internet service? Do tell. Comments

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In a second wave of major restructuring, MySpace announced this morning that it will cut 300 of its 450 international staffers and close at least four overseas offices.. The moves on the heels of  Facebook passing MySpacein both visitors and page views in the US and worldwide and just a week after the social networker reduced it's domestic head count by 30% cutting 420 staffers. Upon completion of the proposed plan, London, Berlin, and Sydney would become regional hubs for MySpace’s international operations. Offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and Spain would be placed under review for possible closure. Locally owned and operated MySpace China and a joint venture in Japan would not be affected. “With roughly half of MySpace’s total user base coming from outside the U.S., maintaining productive and efficient operations in our international markets is important to users worldwide and our immediate financial strength,” said MySpace Chief Executive Officer Owen Van Natta in a statement.  “As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace's staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions. Today’s proposed changes are designed to transform and refine our international growth strategy.” Comments

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Google and Microsoft make no bones about wanting people's medical records; that's what Google Health and Microsoft Health are in large part about.  But since many folks still aren't ready to hand them over, both companies tried to take a reassuring step last night by endorsing the Declaration of Health Data Rights. The Declaration of Health Data Rights came about in response to technological innovations and recently introduced healthcare ideas.  You can see its main principles listed below. A list of supporters is also impressive to behold.  At this point, the Declaration of Health Data Rights has earned 311 endorsements from individuals including Clay Shirky, Deven McGraw of the Center for Democracy & Technology, and David Bergman of the Stanford University School of Medicine. Anyway, on the Google Public Policy Blog, Roni Zeiger, MD, and Missy Krasner wrote, "We hope the Declaration will help raise public awareness about the rights already protected under HIPAA and also help drive the public debate towards increasing patient access and control over their own health data.  Strong health data rights will help patients collaborate with their doctors in order to get better care and avoid medical errors." And on Microsoft's HealthBlog, Bill Crounse, MD, mostly echoed the official Declaration of Health Rights statement, but he also encouraged readers to "join the revolution."

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MySpace announced Tuesday it will cut 300 jobs from its international staff and close at least 4 of its offices outside of the United States. The move comes after an announcement last week that the social networking site was cutting its staff by nearly 30 percent. MySpace's international staff will be cut from 450 employees to about 150 with offices in London, Berlin, and Sydney becoming the regional hubs for the company's international operations. Offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and Spain are under review for possible restructuring. MySpace China, which is locally owned and operated, and MySpace's joint venture in Japan would not be affected by the proposed plan. "With roughly half of MySpace's total user base coming from outside the U.S., maintaining productive and efficient operations in our international markets is important to users worldwide and our immediate financial strength," said MySpace Chief Executive Officer Owen Van Natta. "As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace's staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions. Today's proposed changes are designed to transform and refine our international growth strategy." MySpace has been surpassed by Facebook on a global level in terms of users and in May it took a small lead over MySpace in the U.S., according to comScore.  

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