January 2006 - Posts
There is a lot of discussion about advertising online - most of which is focused on website owners buying it and not necessarily selling space on a site. If you're ready to put those tired old Adsense ads to bed, read
Selling Ads Online; Not Just Adsense.
Technorati Tags:
ad sales, online advertising, sell advertising, adsense
An interesting post over by Derek Powazek at
alistapart got me thinking about the goals of home page design. As I am not a professional designer but work closely with web designers in my professional and personal life, much of what Derek said approaches site design in a way I have not neccessarily thought of previously. Most interesting to me was that he starts with the design of the smallest, deepest elemants and works backwards to develop their containers (i.e. section pages and indexes) and then the home page.
This is done to adequately set expectations for what it (the container) contains. This also means that by the time work begins on the home page, there's a lot of momentum (work/design elements) already complete. The advantage of this approach is that it increases user-experience satisfaction as the design is consistent across the site (primarily the home page) which means fewer drop-offs from the site due to confusion over navigation.
Technorati Tags:
web design, website design, home page design, alistapart
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Via Slashdot, The Register is reporting that ICANN has released a revised contract for all dotcoms. The new revision hopes to bring an end to the huge legal fights surrounding the core of the Internet.
Read about the ICANN revised settlement agreement.
|
From the Register article: 'Significant changes have been made to the deal - which will hand control of all dotcom domains to current owner VeriSign until 2012 - following widespread criticism from the Internet industry. Changes include limits on VeriSign's price-rising powers, reduced scope for VeriSign to sell personalized data to third-parties, and marginally increased control over VeriSign's ability to introduce changes to the existing dotcom business model.'"
The WSM Site-of-the-Day last Tuesday was
ScribeStudio, a resource which helps users create training, informational and on-demand content through a hosted-video solution. Well, it looks as though once again WSM is on the cutting edge. Via ArsTechnica, a Variety article stated that Amazon may launch a service to sell streaming movies by April. Apparently, reports from a variety of movie industry sources who say they have been working with Amazon to set up online delivery of movies for an upcoming launch.
"According to the uniformly unnamed sources, Amazon's vision includes a try before you buy model, where you could download or stream a movie for a fee, and apply that fee as a credit towards the purchase price of the corresponding DVD, should the content tickle your fancy. Another idea is to provide free downloadable versions along with regular DVD purchases, to draw in those who would rather swing by the closest Wal-Mart or FYE for their movie needs, because they just can't stomach waiting a couple of days for their DVDs to be delivered."
Can Amazon compete against Google Video? Without a doubt, yes they can - and here is why. Amazon has an established network and system to sell products (and collect payments), Google does not (although it may in the future). Google cannot afford to host virtually unlimited free content as is commonly believed. Amazon can because they have they have the existing infrastructure to do so. I'll take the underdog - Amazon wins in a nail biter.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
SUBSCRIBE FREE TO Website
Services Magazine!
Technorati Tags:
Amazon, Google, Video
Del.icio.us Tags:
amazon, google, video
Furl Tags:
Amazon, Google, Video
comScore Networks reports online non-travel spending is up one-third for the first three weeks in January 2006 compared with the same period in 2005. Online non-travel spending from January 1st to the 20th 2006 totaled $5.5 billion, representing a 33% increase over the $4.1 billion posted during the corresponding period in 2005. Online travel spending generated an additional $3.5 billion during the same time, up 8%.
“The 2006 year opened on a strong note, with solid growth of 33 percent in online non-travel sales versus the same period in 2005” said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks. “It’s clear based on what we’re seeing so far in 2006 that the strength in online sales will not wane anytime soon.”
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
SUBSCRIBE FREE TO Website
Services Magazine!
Technorati Tags:
comscore, travel spending, Internet statistics
Del.icio.us Tags:
comscore, travel spending, Internet statistics
An interesting post by Enid Burns at
ClickZ
regarding "Domain Threshold" or the maximum length of a URL that can be typed by a user into a browser. Burns has put
out a call for any information, research, etc. on the maximum for domains and whether there is leeway for brand names or more memorable terms used as domains.
While typing a URL can be difficult from memory, most people believe that it greatly depends on the user.
A comment on ClickZs blog summed it up rather well. "You have to remember that in general, the average person is not very saavy when it comes to the Internet, so maming things as easy and intuitive as possible is best."
Take the "Instant WSM Survey"
What is the maximum number of characters in a
URL that a user could remember easily?
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Technorati Tags:
urls, domains, domain, website
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Services Magazine!
How to get other bloggers to link to your blog? There is a craze going around trying to find unique ways to go about it. It’s an easy concept but tricky to execute. For the most part you need to find a way to get noticed; your blog should have a special niche or hook to bait other bloggers. It seems like a cinch but of course its not. So the team at BizNicheMedia has realized this to be one of their issues and have decided to take matters into their own hands by holding a Link Baiting Competition! Check out the guidelines and submit your idea by January 31st.
Posted By A. GarciaTechnorati Tags: link baiting, blogging, website services
Website Services Magazine is sponsoring the
Ad-Tech Impact Road Show in the coming months. Attendees will receive a copy of our upcoming issue and can meet WSM staffers at our booth in Los Angeles and Denver.
Seattle - Feb. 28th, Phoenix - Mar. 2nd,
Los Angeles - Mar. 7th, Dallas - Mar. 9th, Atlanta - Mar. 14th,
Denver - Mar. 16th, Boston - Mar. 21st, Toronto - Mar. 23rd, Cincinnatti - Apr. 4th, Fort Lauderdale - Apr. 6th
Technorati Tags:
adtech, ad-tech, adtech impact, website services magazine
Threadwatch.org reports on an interesting
SpiderFood forum post on Google's study of Web page design. In December 2005, Google crawled (and analyzed) 1,000,000,000 (that's one billion) documents and broke the data into easy-to-read sections and made several remarks about which elements and attributes Website designers should and should not be using, both for search engines and compliance with future standards-strict clients.
Review Google's Web Authoring Statistics Now.Technorati Tags:
google, web authoring statistics, html usage
Emarketer is reporting on new quarterly results from PayPal which indicate that its user base and payment volume continue to increase. The number of PayPal accounts topped 96 million in Q4 2005, an increase of over 30 million from one year before. Payment volume increased from $5.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2004 to $8.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.
Invalid and Corrupted Email Addresses Hurt Retailers’ Sales & DeliverabilityFreshAddress, Inc., an email database services provider, released the results of its study “Email Address Validation Study of Fifty Top Retail Web Sites.” The results show none of the tested websites successfully blocked the most common email address registration errors, thus allowing typos and undeliverable email addresses into their databases. The average cost to each of these retailers is $6.7 million dollars annually in lost sales.
The results show that 98% of the sites tested failed to block at least two types of invalid email addresses, 96% failed to block three or more types, and fully 86% failed to block four or more types of invalid email addresses.
Request the report from FreshAddress.
The IAB Europe has relaunched the site
allaboutcookies.org to help both marketers and consumers understand issues surrounding the use of cookies and the relationship they have between websites and users' browers.
Via Adverblog
I had the opportunity to speak with Peter Cervieri, CEO of ScribeStudio.com about their products and I have to say the adjectives "cutting-edge" and "cool" just don't cut it.
ScribeStudio helps its users create training, informational and on-demand content through a hosted-video solution. Some companies are using ScribeStudio to author content, tests and assessments, others to upload videotaped speeches and presentations from conferences and seminars. Still others organize and publish multimedia packages such as PowerPoint with synchronized audio or important organizational white papers, policies and articles. As long as you can create the video, ScribeStudio will help you organize and share that content with the wider Web population.
This provides online companies (or any company for that matter) the ability to develop incremental revenue from a source that was previosuly unable to be monetized upon. Again, (and I can't say this enough) the possiblities for professional services are endless - think about watching video of an event (trade show) without being there in person,instructional video on how to play the guitar while sitting on your couch, the list goes on and on. With the rise of services like that of Google Video, it's a wise idea to get on board now. Enterprises such as Medline, Quantam and ibreakthrough are already using the service and it is probably safe to say that more will realize the possiblities sooner rather than later.
Too much to cover in one blog post... learn more at
ScribeStudio.com
Technorati Tags:
scribe studio, internet video, on demand content
Del.icio.us Tags:
scribe studio, internet video, on demand content
Furl Tags:
scribe studio, internet video, on demand content
Interesting research from
Twelve Horses about RSS uptake in South Africa in January of 2006. 2000 consumers who receive email communication reguarly were surveyed and of that total only 9% knew what RSS or Blogs were and only 7% preferred RSS to email. It looks as though RSS has a long way to go to overtake email and newsletter advertising. The report suggests that companies should retain their current email marketing strategies but RSS and Blogs should also be worked in to the overall marketing mix. Twelve Horses is a global provider of multimodal communications solutions for email, fax, voice, web (RSS) and mobile text (SMS) messaging through a single platform.
Posted by Pete Prestipino
Technorati Tags:
rss, rss research, blogging
Del.icio.us Tags:
rss, rss research, blogging
Furl Tags:
rss, rss research, blogging
Website Services Magazine's new
Who's Who Directory
has moved out of beta this morning and into the real online world.
Companies that focus their products or service offerings to the wider
Internet community can list their enterprise free of charge, and since
it is a directory of "who's who" on the web, are also encouraged to list
the people behind that company - from the CEO down to customer support
staff. Within the Who's Who section of Website Services Magazine
you can express to our readers and website viewers why your company is
the best solution in your Web industry and how its employees help
you achieve your corporate mission.
For enterprises seeking additional exposure, the Who's Who Directory
also accomodates paid listings (pay-per-click) for searches on
categories and niche keywords. It's an exceptional opportunity that
provides your company with immediate access to people looking for the
products or services you and your company offer. You can learn more at
the
Website Services Magazine's Who's Who Directory.
Best Web Wishes,
Pete Prestipino - Managing Editor
P.S. - One more thing
Subscribe to Website Services Magazine today for FREE!
I have been waiting for what seems like a millennia for a resource to help me generate tags
without hand-coding for use in blog posts. Thanks to
Steve Rubel, I finally
found it at ICE -
Improving Customer Experience. It is amazingly simple and requires only that
you type in keywords, select from Technorati, Flickr, Del.icio.us or Furl tags
and that about does it.
Posted by Pete Prestipino
Technorati Tags:
site of the day, tag generator, folksonomy
Del.icio.us Tags:
popular sites, tagging, blogging
Furl Tags:
blogging tools, website services magazine
Is software piracy prevalent? According to an IDC study commissioned by
the Business Software Alliance the answer is a definitive...YES. The report
estimates that 35% of programs used worldwide in 2004 were pirated and says that
cutting that rate by 10 percent over four years would result in 2.4 million new
jobs and about $400 billion in economic growth. Analysis shows that lower piracy
rates stimulate software product and purchases.
Get your eye patches ready. If you are wondering what constitutes
software piracy you probably already know. When someone copies software without
buying the appropriate number of licenses, it is considered copyright
infringement. This means that if your business is underreporting the number of
computers using a specific software program or even if you are sharing software
programs with a friend you are in danger of walking the plank.
Check out the Software & Information Industry Association's "Ten
Commandments of Software Use" (PDF - opens in new window) or risk losing
your treasure.
I have been reading "The
World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" by Thomas L.
Friedman recently and was pleased to see mention of Firefox as an example of
open-source technology that is making the world flat (you'll have to read the
book to see what Friedman means). Firefox, in case you do not already know, is
the Internet browser that is slowly gaining market share from Microsoft's
Internet Explorer. Surpassing ten million downloads months ago, Firefox has
partnered with big names like Google to bring them even further into the
mainstream. While Firefox has sparked innovation on the Web with an intuitive
and simple user interface as well as an architecture that supports extensions to
the core browser, it has a long way to go to overtake Internet Explorer. So, you
tell us:
Instant Survey: What Internet browser do you use?
courtesy of
SurveyPopups.com
Post By Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Firefox |
Internet explorer |
Website Services
I have been a little rough on the concept of pay per call in the
past. Why? Well, costs are high now and I like to think of myself as an advocate
of the little guy. Essentially, there are cheaper outlets to obtain new business
but it does allow those with a limited or non-existent web presence access to an
enormous audience. I still believe that there is the possibility of fraud but
they say it is less of an issue than pay per click fraud - which I believe.
Corporate sabotage is another issue entirely (I keep having nightmares of people
calling and tying up the business lines).
Personally, I think it was a mistake to market the product to
the wider Web community as opposed to the more high-end audience that it
actually caters to - at least at this point in time. But the wider net that was
cast certainly caught the attention of most online marketers. It looks
attractive to those that can spend a little more for a lead (lawyers, doctors,
etc. - which I have never looked online for, but I digress).
There are several pay-per-call providers but Ingenio seems to be
leading the pack at the moment. There are too many variations of the
concept to explain it in a simple way but as people search online they
are presented with your advertisement or search listing (which includes
a toll-free phone number) and calls are tracked so that you can be
charged. The ad model is truly in its infancy but with the ability to
target service areas and specific business categories (especially
highly competitive markets on a local level) it certainly has a future.
I am starting to see the value if you are a call center or sell a
high-end product. You can learn more at
Ingenio.com which
currently works with AOL - a nice relationship which could certainly pay big
dividends if applied correctly.
pay per call | Ingenio | Website Services
We're starting a new feature at Website Service Magazine we're dubbing
Site-Of-The-Day. I know, real original. So what does everybody website
need, but few know how to create? Favicons - those little images you
see in the address bar when you are visiting a site. Visit WSM's
Site Of the Day and create your own Favicon.
According to Verisign. At the end of the third quarter 2005, there were 85.6
million domain names reflecting a three percent growth over the second quarter
of 2005 and a 28 percent increase year over year according to the Domain
Industry Brief from Verisign. In terms of total registrations, .com remained the
largest Top Level Domain Name (TLD). The next largest TLD was the German Country
Code TLD (ccTLD), .de, followed by .net and the British ccTLD, .uk. This has
remained unchanged since second quarter 2004.
Top ccTLD Registries by Domain name base, third quarter 2005
1. .de (Germany), 2. .uk (United Kingdom), 3. .ar (Argentina), 4. .nl
(Netherlands), 5. .it (Italy), 6. .us (United States), 7. .cn (China), 8. .br
(Brazil), 9. .jp (Japan), 10. .ch (Switzerland)
Let's be honest, ClipArt just does
NOT cut it - especially if you're trying to put forth a professional image. WSM periodically uses
Photos.com
for its websites images and it is certainly worth the yearly fee to get
quality images for the Web. For the magazine, we go with Getty Images,
Comstock and some others. There is an excellent post at
Presentation Zen
about some inexpensive (but good) images and several free sites for
images. What I found most interested and had really not considered
before was using
Flickr's Creative Commons pool of images.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
images | website images | Web images | Website Services.
An interesting article from Monday (1-16-05) in the New York Times suggests
that Adsense Publishers are earning a whopping 78.5 percent of advertisers bid
prices. Read
the NYTimes article. Is it true? Hard to say. The quote was not attributed
to anyone in particular but according to the
Jensense blog, she believes it is accurate based upon the information given
in the SEC filings. Personally, if I had to venture a guess the percentage would
be a little less for the general Adsense user. DigitalPoint, featured in the
NYTimes article, is a high-profile forum with a large, dedicated and active
community. It is, or would be, wise for Google to give an online property such
as DigitalPoint a higher percentage and smaller publishers (read unproven Web
property) a lower percentage. Just a thought.
Hailed as the "Oscars of the Internet" by the NY Times and the BBC, The
Webby Awards is the preeminent honors for Web sites and the people
behind them. With 67 business, consumer and culture categories, here's
your chance to be recognized. The benefits of winning are immeasurable;
simply by entering your salute to your team. Extended entry deadline
January 27th. You can learn more at
webbyawards.com.
Does your webpage code look as if you had a few cocktails while writing
the HTML? There are several tools which can help you validate the
coding of your website. Why validate? Well, it is pretty simple really.
Using validation tools ensure your website is viewable through various
versions of HTML and browsers. These validation tools help you analyze
the size of images, check spelling, test browser support, find HTML
parsing errors, help you verify integrity of hyperlinks and find table
and form structure errors. There are advantages to posting clean code -
primarily (and many SEO experts agree) that your chances of appearing
higher on a search results page are directly proportional to whether
your code is without formatting or structural errors.
Validate Your HTML now:
validator.w3.org,
doctor-html.com,
netmechanic.com
Personally, I can't stand hand-coding anything. But that does not stop
the need I have to build databases and create applications for
reporting and forms. Luckily, I came across a tool for developing
sophisticated user interfaces, interactive reports, advanced data grids
and extensible class hierarchies with SQL and stored procedure
generation. It is called Iron Speed Design and it enables developers to
"quickly create visually stunning, feature-complete Web applications
with database access and security" according to the website. Looks very
interesting from a newbie development perspective - but you tell us -
IronSpeed - Comment below.
Link Exchange Forum LinksToYou today releases survey results of its members which reveal a majority (72%) believe that the number and quality of links pointing to a website are an integral part in garnering top search engine placement. Of the 335 respondents, 72% believe links are "extremely important" in gaining top search engine placement, 17% believe links are somewhat important, 7% were undecided and only 4% believed links were not important.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
links | link exchange | build links | Website Services.
The nature of sitemaps is to give users (website visitors) access to all the
different areas of your website on one easily accessible page in an organized
fashion. If you do not have a sitemap then you should most certainly create one
as it helps to improve the overall visibility of your URLs in search indices.
Since it is obvious that fast, proper indexing of your pages is essential,
failure to create sitemaps often results in slower indexing of new pages you
have added to your site - and no one wants that, right? Google, certainly the
most competitive marketplace for the search engine optimization community,
provides their Google Sitemaps feature to help webmasters/website owners
communicate page updates and additions.
Google Sitemaps provides more thorough crawl coverage and fresher search results
to help people find more of your web pages. It's also a "smarter crawl" as it
allows search marketers to tell Google when a page was last modified (how
frequently it changes) and its importance in your site. If that were not enough
to motivate you to create a Google Sitemap immediately, they are also featuring
some very detailed reports:
- Query and query click stats (under what keywords Google returns pages from
your site and the top search query clicks on your site)
- Crawl stats (whether pages were crawled successfully) as well as any HTTP
errors, unreachable URLs and the PageRank of pages in Google distribution
- Easy access to advanced search techniques to determine the number of indexed
pages, the pages that refer to your URL, the pages that link to your URL and the
current cached page.
So if you simply cannot figure out how to upload your sitemap to Google there
are some very nice tools that Google recommends. I tried a product from
SiteMapBuilder.net yesterday and I have to say it was pretty easy. I am still
waiting to have my sitemap verified by Google, but the process of building the
sitemap was painless. SitemapBuilder allowed me to extract links, prevent the
crawling of certain URLs, edit and delete link properties, generate a Google
Sitemap, save it in the proper Google Sitemap format and generate reports. I
highly recommend SiteMapBuilder
if you do not have the technical know-how to create a sitemap on your own -
best of all - it's freeware.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Technorati: Sitemaps | Google Sitemaps | Sitemap | Website Services Magazine
I came across an interesting tip via
About
regarding the HTML title attribute. Always interested in advanced
accessibility and search engine optimization I thought I would give the
title attribute a go. Not only is it easy to implement, title
attributes provide a great way to annotate existing links without
disturbing the user experience with long text links. For example, if a
user mouses over your link and your hyperlinked text is vague they can
learn more about what they will find when they go - added encouragement
if you will - to click through thanks to your title attribute. I am
sure that the search engine optimization effects are debatable but if
the only benefit is enhanced usability and more refined accessibility,
then I say give the title attribute a try.
HTML Code for the Title Attribute:
<a href="http://www.websitemagazine.com/" title="The Magazine For Web Success!">About Web Website Services Magazine</a>
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Title Attribute | Web Development | Website Design | Website Services Magazine
Are the bigger 'Net players neglecting the Hispanic market? With 40
million Latinos in the U.S., if they are they are not doing enough to
cater to this important audience. 17 million Hispanics are online in
the US representing 750 million in buying power and that number is
expected to double in five years.
Yahoo does have an online property in Spanish as does
MSN but neither seem to be catering to this burgeoning Web audience as does
QuePasa.
You may not remember or know about QuePasa but they have remained more
than just a viable online property the past few years, they are
actively engaged (with unique content and offers) in the Hispanic
online marketplace and have earned enough mindshare to be supremely
competitive.
Quepasa Corporation operates one of the premier bilingual Internet
portals and online communities primarily aimed at the United States
Hispanic market, and, has done so for several years - 1997 in fact.
QuePasa has built one of the strongest brands targeting Hispanics
online and now finds itself the fastest growing companies in the
sector. When asked how QuePasa has remained a player, Dennis O'Neill,
Director of Sales & Marketing for QuePasa said "We attribute our
success to understanding what Hispanics are looking for online and
delivering it. We have built a platform that is getting significant
traction both for users and advertisers and we believe this is the tip
of the iceberg. Our future looks bright and we are proud to be a leader
in the fastest growing demographic in the U.S."
The company’s Web site, quepasa.com, provides users with information
and content centered on the Spanish language and Hispanic culture. In
addition, it offers traditional portal services, including
performance-based marketing, email, and news in Spanish and English.
Quepasa Corporation also develops information retrieval and management
software technology products for publishers of interactive online
content offerings, certain specialized online communities, online
virtual product exchanges, and online advertisers that target Spanish
speaking users.
A look at the numbers:
U.S. Hispanics with Internet access at home are rapidly adopting
broadband, with half of online Hispanics going online over high-speed
connections at home, according to a recent AOL/Roper U.S. Hispanic
Cyber study. The survey also found that Hispanic online consumers have
quickly made the Internet part of their everyday lives; going online at
home an average of 9.2 hours a week, for example, compared with 8.5
hours for the general online population and they now heavily rely on
the Internet to learn more about products, to share opinions, and to
improve their lives. In fact, 70% now view the Internet as the best
source for comparing prices, making it the most powerful information
medium for influencing online Hispanics throughout the purchase
decision.
Online Hispanic consumers are younger and heavier users of the most
cutting edge features of the Internet as compared to the general online
population. 56% of Hispanics online are between the ages of 18 to 34
vs. 34% for the general online population. The survey found they use
the Internet far more frequently than the general online population to
listen to music (55% vs. 41%), download music files (37% vs. 25%), and
for instant messaging (59% vs. 48%). The survey also indicates that 47%
of online Hispanics have children under the age of 18 at home vs. 37%
for the general online population and that they are far more upbeat
about the ability of the Internet to improve the lives of their
children.
Are you ready for the HispanoBoom?
See what's happening at
QuePasa.com.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
QuePasa | MSN Latino | Yahoo Espanol | Website Services Magazine
If you were to design the very best advertising network (one where you
could select the users as opposed to the other way around) you very
well may select the new MSN Ad Center. What will make their network
(its currently private) attractive to search advertisers is the power
it provides to segment campaigns by demographics, geographics and, yes,
time of day as well. That means if you're interested in selling a WAHM
(work at home) opportunity to stay at home parents aged 18-35 in the
city of Portland - you can do it. Sell hearing aids to senior citizens
in Palm Beach - you can do it. While Google does allow geographic
targeting, they do not provide the degree of segmentation that is
coming shortly from the MSN Ad Center. Yahoo and Google are certainly
capable thanks to the immense number of users using their services
(which means more user data), but whether they can catch MSN, who
certainly has a leg up at this point, is anyone's guess.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
MSN | MSN Ad Center | MSN Advertising | Website Services Magazine
You can't work all the time. Well, you can work all the time but you will be
a dull boy (or girl), as the adage says. So, each evening after I finish up my
work of answering emails or making corrections to articles and weblog posts, I
like to listen to some Internet radio and play a few online games much to the
chagrin of my wife.
Both gaming and music are big business on the Web. More than just bandwidth
hogs, they provide me (and I am sure countless others) endless hours of
entertainment. And, both these entertainment options are increasingly being
filled with advertising.
With gaming its advergaming and it comes in all forms. Take my two
favorite free online gaming sites -
freeonlinegames.com and
addictinggames.com. Both regularly feature games that are sponsored;
embedded logos within the games as well as streaming video and flash before the
game appears.
With Web Radio it is two different variations of advertising (I encounter audio
ad spots and contextual advertising most often). The contextual is regularly
poorly targeted but the radio ad spots are very targeted. My favorite online
radio station 3WK.com had a recent ad for car
manufacturer Kia. The ads were relevant because the cars are ideal (because of
price, features, etc.) for those within the age range of the majority of their
listeners: 18-35. Overall I was immensely impressed - not enough to advertise -
but only because I'm not selling anything.
PPC, SEO, Email, etc. get a lot of attention on the Web and for a good reason -
they work. I can say this for advergaming and online radio advertising
though - I remember the ads I saw when I played those games and maybe, just
maybe, I'll buy my wife a Kia.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Advergaming | Internet Radio | Online Game Advertising | Website Services
Imperva(TM), the leader in data security for the data center, today
announced that it posted record sales in 2005 as market demand for its
Web Application Firewall (WAF) and Database Security Gateway exploded
in response to the rise in organized criminal attacks on corporate data
repositories. The company increased sales by 300 percent year-over-year
and added 60 new customers to emerge as the market leader in the WAF
segment. Imperva customers include FFF Enterprises, Korea Life,
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, and the Government of Israel.
According to Andrew Jaquith, Security Solutions & Services Senior
Analyst at Yankee Group, "Imperva remains the only vendor that can
credibly offer an integrated 'vertical' stack spanning the web server,
database and web service tiers. The company's continued emphasis on
multitier protection, event correlation and automated baselining gives
it a strong vertical integration play." For more information, visit
www.imperva.com.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Imperva | Firewall | WAF | Website Services
I have been meaning to write a post about Skype for quite some time. If
you are not aware of Skype, it's a program for making free calls over
the internet to anyone else who also has downloaded the program -
computer to computer.
I was thinking last night when talking to a
friend in Germany using Skype that small online businesses (or small
businesses in general) can capitalize on the benefits provided by VOIP
providers such as Skype and greatly reduce their phone bills.
Personally, I have found that Skype has excellent sound quality and
have not had any security issues (knock on wood) yet. Skype developers
have also taken time to bridge the platform gap. That means it works
well for talking, sending IM's or transferring files between Windows,
MacOS X, Linux and PDAs using Pocket PC.
In addition, Skype is making
some inroads into the general consumer population and launching a new
service with Kodak (this week at the consumer electronics show - CES)
that combines live voice conversations and photo sharing. The
advantage
for many small business owners (especially international ones) is that
you get a regular phone number for people to call you at and all for
just a few cents a minute. It has become an essential part of my home
communication and I can certainly see numerous applications in the online business world. Take a look for yourself at
Skype.com.
Pete Prestipino - WSM Managing Editor
Skype | VOIP | Small Business | Website Services
Navigate to your website and place your mouse/cursor over an image.
What do you see? If your answer was a small box containing some
explanatory text of what the image was - this is good. If your answer
was nothing then, well, you are not using alternate image tags, or alt
tags, and the failure to include alt tags is considered by some as a
failure to provide a thorough user experience.
Image alt tags are an important part of your website design and
development. The Image alt tag is the text that is used to describe an
image if your website's visitor has images disabled or is visually
impaired.
<IMG SRC="your image.gif" ALT="description of the image ">
Because search engine spiders can't read text inside the image, it
reads alt tag as a way to understand what the image is about. The
verdict is out on whether search engines are penalizing for stuffing
alt tags with keywords so be careful not to overdue it. If an image
contains text, rewrite the text sparingly to simply describe the
contents of the image.
A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows how
men's and women's use of the Web has changed over time. Some of the highlights include
- 68% of men are internet users, compared with 66% of women.
Because they make up more of the population, the total number of women
online is now slightly larger than the number of men.
- 86% of women ages 18-29 are online, compared with 80% of men that age.
- 34% of men age 65 and older are online, compared with 21% of women that age.
- 60% of black women are online, compared with 50% of black men.
From the press release: "A wide-ranging look at the way American women
and men use the internet shows that men continue to pursue many
internet activities more intensively than women, and that men are still
first out of the blocks in trying the latest technologies. At the same
time, there are trends showing that women are catching up in overall
use and are framing their online experience with a greater emphasis on
deepening connections with people." Read the Entire Report:
How Women and Men Use the Internet (54 pages, PDF)