October 2007 - Posts
Google is scheduled to release OpenSocial in early November to "spread social applications across the Web," said the company. OpenSocial will include a set of common
APIs for building social applications across the Web for developers of social
applications and websites that want to add social features. The APIs will allow developers to create social networking apps to run on multiple websites, much like Facebook's release of several months ago.
The impact on the Web in general is wide in scope. OpenSocial consists of APIs for profile information, friend information (social graph) and activities, such as a news feed. For users, this will mean that more applications will be available to tap into their own and other user's data, social graphs, feeds and content across a variety of social networks. More of these social networks (micro-networks anyone?) will emerge and if the buzz is accurate, users will also see some data portability as this new network of social heavyweights push for some semblance of standardization. Developers, however will benefit the most as it will be exponentially easier (thanks to a formal standard) to use one application across multiple networks. Some of the partners involved with OpenSocial include Oracle, Salesforce.com, Hi5, LinkedIn, Slide, Ning, Friendster and Plaxo. Not surprisingly, Facebook and MySpace are not on list.
Google will incorporate their current struggling social network
Orkut, and no doubt use recent acquisitions of
Jaiku and
Zingku to bolster the network and plunge into the mobile social arena.
It looks like a social war is brewing - we'll soon see if all that Googles continues to be gold.
Microsoft has announced that its analytics offering named Project Gatineau
is ready for beta testing. Invitations are being sent to existing U.S. adCenter
advertisers now but all advertisers can
request
an invitation to Gatineau.
Features include click and visitor tracking reports, marketing campaign
reporting and conversion tracking, and even unique demographic and geographic
information about site visitors. There are some interesting questions in the
adCenter forums now. Here's a
quick roundup:
- There will not be a standalone version of Project Gatineau in the near
future.
- Gatineau will not work on Live Spaces pages as that system does not allow
javascript on their blogs for security reasons.
- Multiple domains will be supported through multiple profiles - the
maximum number of domains is in flux while the project is in beta.
The Web Design SEO Checklist (Part Two)
Welcome to part two of our Web Design SEO Checklist. Today we are covering all things related to URLs. So let’s begin:
A search engine wants to only index unique pages. So in an attempt at doing this they often will ignore URLs that appear similar. This is an issue often confronted by shopping carts, forums, and other database driven websites because they produce what are referred to as dynamic URLs. Dynamic URLs look similar because often the only thing differentiating them is one variable out of a long list of variables.
Re-writing dynamic URLs to create unique static URLs is a common way to correct this problem. A static URL doesn’t contain long strings of variables and stays the same even if the contents on a page are dynamically generated from a database. For example below is a common looking e-commerce product page URL,
Dynamic URL:http://www.SITE.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=39&products_id=3
By re-writing this URL (commonly referred to as a “mod re-write”) a cleaner looking more search engine friendly static URL is generated.
Static URL:http://www.SITE.com/KEYWORD-KEYPHRASE/
Also, creating static URLs provides an opportunity to rename the pages using a keyword or phrase. Using keywords or phrases in page names helps search engines understand what primary keywords should be associated with a page.
Canonicalization is also something to be addressed when speaking of URLs. Wikipedia defines
canonicalization as “the process of converting data that has more than one possible representation into a "standard" canonical”. When speaking of URLs an example would be how a typical website home page could be represented by all of the following:
www.SITE.com
SITE.com/
www.SITE.com/index.html
Because a web server can return different content for each of these representations Search Engines treat these as different URLs. Where this becomes a problem is with link popularity. Search Engines use link popularity (the number of links pointing to a webpage) as a means of determining a web pages importance. So multiple representations of a URL split the link popularity and thus divide your web pages importance.
To correct canonicalization issues simply decide which version of your URL is the primary one and set your web server to 301 (permanent) redirect the other versions towards the primary one.
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Next we discuss Internal Linking, Navigation and Site Maps.
John Fitzsimmons is a Search Marketing Manager with Spiderbait.com. He also consults on web development projects and social media.
There are a few
new features from Microsoft adCenter for campaign management.
Campaign management changes include the addition of a daily budget option,
the inclusion of dynamic text by default and the ability to import campaigns
from Google Adwords Editor. Several reporting features were also added. adCenter
advertisers are able to access recent reports and report templates from the
reporting tab, reorder custom report columns through drag-and-drop functionality
and see the total and averages of their account.
Most significant however are the editorial updates. Advertisers will now
receive immediate editorial feedback as they create and edit advertisements.
This will help advertisers get campaigns live more quickly as they can make
adjustments to a specific ad before it goes live and ensure it does not get
bogged down in the editorial review process.
Accoding to new estimates by the
Direct Marketing Association, email return on investment (ROI) is down and will continue to drop. In 2005, email marketing returned $57.25 for every dollar spent. Last year that figure dropped to $51.58 and is predicted to fall this year to $48.56 and to $45.65 in 2008.
These figures can be explained in some part due to more companies sending non-revenue generating emails, such as order confirmations, which may help in the long run. As users become more accustomed to email marketing tactics, the key to success will lie in opt-in messages, transparency and targeting. As Richard Gibson, chair of benchmarking hub at the DMA Email Marketing Council explains, "Relevancy, segmentation, targeting and analysis are most definitely in the
direction where email marketing has been headed for some time. Many suppliers or ESPs - email service providers - have the ability to work
with the marketing function within a small company and show how their tools can
be used effectively to increase response."
Last Friday, Eric Lander over at
Search Engine Journal noticed what could be a big problem to Google advertisers. The problem involves Google's ability to serve search results and ads based on a users previous searches (behavioral targeting). Today, Tamar Weinberg at
Search Engine Roundtable provides some excellent examples where a user first searches for "florida ford dealers" and then searches for "new york yankees". The "Yankees" search results include "New York Ford Dealer" ads. And as of writing this I get those same results.
An advertiser whose ads are served under these conditions may find that the quality of this traffic converts at a sub par levels because the ad is irrelevent to the search. This can have the effect of lowering an advertisers ROI.
So far there has been no word from Google about how to resolve this issue. Hopefully, in the near future they will provide a way to opt out of behaviorially targeted ads. For example, currently Google provides a way to filter your ads with broad match, exact match, phrase match, and negative match. How about a behavioral match option?
What do you think about Google's Behavioral Ad Targeting?
(Login or sign up to leave a comment!)
The Web Design SEO Checklist (Part One)
A new client comes to me. We review his site; images used for page headers, the same title and meta tags on every page, “borrowed” content, and a java navigation. He paid thousands to have the site developed and he doesn’t understand why he’s not ranking well.
This is a common situation almost every SEO comes across with a new client. And there always comes a point during the conversation where the client asks in a somewhat disgruntled tone, “Isn’t this SEO stuff something the web designer should have done?” And to a very real degree it is. But typically SEO isn’t taught to designers. So who is really to blame? The designer? The design school?
In reality, everyone is a little to blame. But since blame doesn’t fix websites here’s a more productive approach. Below is one part of a series of posts dedicated to creating an SEO design checklist for web developers. These simple brief overviews, if followed, can aid designers to create websites more likely to index and rank well in the search engines.
This weeks post will cover
Content Organization.
The first thing to realize is that search engines don’t see “web sites”. They see interlinked documents. Having too many topics covered on one page dilutes the theme relevancy of the document. So the idea is to try to have one main topic or keyword theme per page.
But just as having too many topics per page can affect the theme relevancy so too can having a disorganized structure to your site’s pages. For example, imagine a page about dog collars located in a folder on your server that has a cluster of pages about everything from cars to dishwashers (Folder A). Then imagine a page about dog collars located in a folder on your server called “dogs” that contains other dog related documents (Folder B).
The second arrangement groups similar content together and thus reinforces the relevance of your pages’ themes.
Another way to reinforce the relevance of a pages’ theme is to actually interlink similar content. So when possible add cross links between similarly themed content.
Obviously, content organization is just one variable of many to consider. But when initially conceiving a website’s layout and organization taking a few extra minutes to group similar content can make a difference in the long run.
Follow The Web Design SEO Checklist Series - Subscribe Today!
Next week we discuss URLs: Static, Dynamic, Page Names, and Canonicalization.
John Fitzsimmons is a Search Marketing Manager with Spiderbait.com. He also consults on web development projects and social media.
It appears that there is a Google PageRank update happening right now and is
affecting sites some very high profile sites (and of course they are making it widely known). The verdict is out however on
whether the penalty was imposed on those that sell links on their
Web properties (paid linking) or those that were interlinking their blog networks (which seem to have bore the brunt of the negative update) heavily.
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Instant Survey: Were you negatively affected by the October 2007 Google PageRank update?
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It should come as no surprise that this was going to happen. Google has been
indicating they would begin penalizing paid links for some time but I was tipped off a few weeks ago by one
of our writers who contributed a story on the the paid link debate for our
November issue. Needless to say, many who are seeing a lowered PageRank are not
very pleased at all. There are
extensive lists floating around about who has been affected by the update.
Website Magazine has not suffered any reduction in PageRank - whew - must mean
we're doing something right!
Just as a reminder, here are
Google's guidelines on linking: Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking
or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods"
on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
JupiterResearch has released a report, "US Online Retail Holiday Forecast, 2007" that states online retail sales will increase 20 percent from last year, to a total of $39 billion. Accounting for some of that increase will be a projected 126 million people shopping online, an increase of 6 percent from last year.
The report also states that over half of onilne retailers will boost their search marketing efforts and discounts will be a big factor this year, with the biggest discounts expected in the computer and consumer electronics fields.
"Online retailers have an opportunity to gain market this year because of the
resilience of online shoppers, in spite of a relatively soft off-line holiday
season," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. "Aggressive use of
cross channel messaging and promotions will be key to capturing undecided
customers."
Website Magazine staffers have been putting the finishing touches on our
upcoming anniversary issue which is slated for arrival in early November. Now
that I have a few minutes of downtime before the next issue, I thought I would
share a few links that caught my attention today that I am positive readers will
appreciate.
Image Flip Corner For Your Website: You know you've seen them and
wondered how you can do the same. Well, all you had to do was ask. The link goes
to a tutorial so you can learn how to create an advertisement flip corner to the
top right of your website.
New
Window Generator: Creating pop-up windows might not be your idea of a
fun Tuesday evening, but it is for me. The link goes to an incredibly easy
online generator to customize pop-up windows with a variety of properties. Be
careful - with great power comes great responsibility.
And you'll definitely want to check out the top stories submitted to Website Magazine Share today (it's what WM staffers are reading and what you should probably be reading as well):
If you're looking to build out your domain portfolio with some recently
expired domains, make sure to check out
DeletedLive.com. The service enables users to search for domains by keyword
and returns a list of domains that have already expired or are expiring that you
can scoop up on the cheap. DeletedLive does a nice job of displaying the Google
PageRank of these sites, along with its expiry date, the Google links, a link to
the Archive.org Wayback machine and quick access to the domains Whois
information. I found a few domains while testing out the service - see if you
can buy them before me.
Facebook seems to have launched a rather innovative advertising offering on
its immensely popular social networking site.
Facebook Flyers, according
to the site, are used to "Promote your upcoming event, marketplace listing,
or favorite candidate in the networks of your choosing, and target your Flyer at
undergraduates, graduate students, alumni, or any combination of the three."
There are two versions of the Facebook Flyers program - Flyers Basic and Flyers
Pro.
Under the Flyers Basic program, advertisers (for just $10) will have their
"flyer" - which is essentially just an online display ad - posted to the
Facebook Flyer board and
displayed 5,000 times on Facebook pages. Advertisers select a theme and upload a
photo, and then provide a title, body text and link. Advertisers are then able
to determine who sees the flyer (males, females or both), the age of those
seeing the ad, and any network affiliations (all networks or specific networks).
The Facebook Flyers Pro service is a little more sophisticated. The
self-service advertising option enables marketers to generate awareness through
a PPC (pay per click) campaign. With Plyers pro, advertisers determine their
maximum cost per click (starts at $0.01) and their daily budget, determine who
they want to target (age, gender, political views, relationship status, current
education) and add a few keywords. A higher maximum CPC will increase the
chances that the flyer advertisement is seen by users. Depending on the demand
for your ad, Facebook may discount clicks meaning you will pay less than your
maximum bid amount.
It should go without saying that search engine optimization should be part
of your online marketing efforts. If you choose to outsource your SEO campaign
to a qualified service provider, you should know that there are options
available to you outside of flat-rate pricing alone. I have personally
seen a modest increase in the number of
SEO firms
offering performance-based pricing to their clients of late. While most
serious SEO's will not consider performance-based SEO, it doesn't hurt to ask.
The challenge to selecting a vendor in the performance based SEO space
however is that you are more than just a client; companies (for all intents and
purposes) become a partner of the SEO vendor. If you're ready for that, read on
below.
While pricing of this nature may sound attractive to you as a website owner
looking for SEO services, there are many problems with the performance based
model. SEO is not a one-time effort, but instead requires the consistent
development of content, and an equal dedication to having others notice your
efforts and recognize them through linking, partnering, etc. The time it often
takes to achieve high rankings on popular search engines within competitive
industries dissuades many SEO's from even thinking about such a payment model.
For those SEO's that do engage clients in this manner, they frequently tread
lightly and often require a monthly retainer and then and only then schedule
performance-based incentives with the client based on rankings for a list of
pre-defined keywords.
Another way to work with SEO's on a performance based model is for clients to
pay for actions taken (leads, clicks, etc.) that were generated by the SEO's
efforts. I've seen this done successfully in a few different instances. The
problem however is that once the SEO stops "optimizing," traffic seems to fall
off. Some performance based SEO's offer a "percentage of profit" model which may
keep them engaged. Personally, I would highly advise against this type of
relationship as they could tend to become strained and as you can imagine,
negatively impact your bottom line. If you've got the guts and want the glory
however (and don't mind partnering), this has the greatest amount of potential.
Enquiro research of 100 high-level B2B purchasers reveals some interesting
information about the effectiveness of graphical and contextual advertising and
purchasing intent.
- Non-relevant ads had a significantly higher ad recall than contextually
relevant display ads.
- On average, Contextually Relevant B2B Ads can lift purchasing intent up
to 36% more than non-relevant ads.
- Contextually Relevant B2B Ads can lift Aided Messaging recall by up to
52%.
- The use of Contextually Relevant B2B Ads can make you 28% more likely to
be shortlisted as a preferred vendor.
- Contextually Relevant B2B Ads can lift purchasing intent 40% higher than
their B2C counterparts.
Submitting to Local Directory Listings is important to any brick and mortar based business. Literally, getting listed puts you on the map – the Google Map, Yahoo Map, etc. And not only that, it can put you at the top of the search engine results too.
But before you start let’s gather all your company information. Doing this will make the submission process quicker! It’s even better if you have all this information on an Excel sheet ready for copy and pasting.
Information to gather:
- Short Description of what your company does and services offered. (Standard is 200 characters)
- Keywords/key phrases for services
- Complete Address
- Main Phone number, Fax, Toll Free numbers and alternative numbers
- General company Email
- Business Name
- Know your companies general category/label for services offered i.e. Marketing, Web Design, Travel
- Hours Payment types
- Specialty
- Prices
- In business since
- Languages Spoken
- Minority or women owned
- Professional associations
- Contact Person
- Contact Persons Title
- Alternative Contacts
- Preferred form of Validation Postcard/Phone number (have direct number of person to contact)
- Photos (some of these sites allow photos for free, others charge for photo inclusion)
- Areas served
- Credentials
- Certifications
- Customers served (commercial, residential)
Now it’s time to submit. Here is a quick list of some of the Top Local Listing Directories.
Major Destinations to Submit to:
Most of the directories listed above do have free submissions but for a fee you can upgrade your listing. Upgrade options include: promotional text, logo inclusion, additional pictures, font & color enhancements or preferred placement. And if you prefer the small extras the upgrades are relatively cheap. Fees start as low as $9 monthly but typically range from $23-$100 per month (depends on the upgrade and directory). But for the most part the free submissions seem to be more than enough to get started.
Keep in mind that a large number of local search sites use 3rd party databases; what this means is that if you submit your information to, lets say, InfoUSA or Localeze it will get fed into Yahoo Yellow Pages, MSN Local and AskCity just to name a few. So why bother submitting to these or others individually? Because time is money and it could take awhile for the information to trickle down. By submitting your business listing to all of these local directories your chances of getting indexed where it really matters will definitely be increased.
Technorati Tags:Local Listing, Google Local, Yahoo Local, MSN Local
Google announced a few important upcoming enhancements to its
Analytics offering this week that are worthy of note (if you're into that kind of thing).
Track Site Search Activity: Users can edit their profile to enable "Site Search" and find out what people are searching for on a site but more importantly where they end up. The report will show you the keywords and search refinement keywords people use, and where the searches began and ended. According to the official blog post, you'll also be able to see how search affects site usage with information such as conversion rate and related e-commerce activity presented.
Event Tracking: Google will begin a limited beta test of reports which detail how people use and interact with Ajax, Flash and multimedia on your site (without those nasty artificial pageview inflations) using a seperate javascript file. It's been a long time coming and will be a major enhancement.
Outbound Link Tracking: It's every Web professionals dream. Google will soon be releasing a report which shows what links website visitors clicked on that directed them to an outside site.
Do you have a domain name you'd like to sell? Why not trade it instead! I came across
Zuho.com this morning, a free marketplace to barter and trade domain names. Sounds like a great idea and it looks as though they have quite a few domains.
I have to admit that domain name trading is a very creative idea. There are opportunities for domain name owner currently to unload their domains but they are typically 'free-for-all' marketplaces which typically produce few if any results or auction houses to sell domains. According to the release, Zuho.com is determined to make domain name trading a mainstream alternate productive tool for the domain name industry.
What inspired this idea? Apparently, the concept of domain name trading was inspired by Kyle MacDonald (the guy who swapped one red paperclip for a different item, and continued trading up his items until, 14 trades later, he owned a house). "I knew that this industry was really in need of a platform for people to do exactly like what Mr. MacDonald did. The difference is, this time, it will be for virtual pieces of properties: domain names!" said Mr. Koay, the founder of Zuho.com.
All website owners, at least the savvy ones, are in constant pursuit of one thing: user engagement.
JargonFish is pioneering a new, and very deep level of in-text engagement with a clever in-text (often called in-line) widget. The free, customizable content application enables web publishers to offer access to video, image and text search results from YouTube, Flickr and Yahoo, as well as ecommerce access through eBay and Amazon via highlighted keywords. There are also social bookmarking tools, Wikipedia results, display advertising inventory and related sponsored search revenues, all accessible from a single keyword-activated JargonFish window.
It would be a stretch to call it a reinvention of the often advertising-centric in-text medium, but it looks as though it's an easy way to enhance the user experience and is done simply and elegantly by providing quality resources, access to valuable information and creative functionality to the end user. The company has just added a few publisher partners to its network of in-text content application users.
Google just released its Mobile Google
Docs service. While only iPhone and Blackberry devices are currently
supported, users can search and view (as an HTML document) their recent word
processing, spreadsheet (iPhone only) and presentation files. Editing those
files for now however is not available.
There is some conversation happening that these mobile documents might make
for a good Google
Gadget. And there is also some chatter that
Google is being evil as Nokia is set to make an announcement today, possibly
about an mobile office environment of its own.
From an August 2007 press release, a
Maritz Research survey polled 1,062 Generation Y (ages 18-30) adults and found that 65% of them would be unlikely or definitely would not subscribe to a retail offer delivered via mobile phone or PDA. But a
WebVisible and
Nielsen/NetRatings survey found even worse news - a whopping 92% of respondents said that local business ads sent to their mobile devices would "irritate" them.
If that's not enough, according to June 2007
Harris Interactive study of 3,595 respondents owning a mobile phone or smartphone, 80% said that a text message from a company would be totally unacceptable. Also in the totally unacceptable category were a sponsored text link as a result from a mobile search (74%), an audio ad instead of ring tone while waiting for an answer (79%), a pre-recorded voicemail from a celebrity or spokesperson (82%) and an ad appearing on a cellphone screen when turned on (84%).
Not great news for mobile advertisers. Although, because of the relative infancy of mobile advertising, users have not become accustomed to these ads yet. It seems that the best route so far for mobile advertising is offering something instantaneous in return for an ad. A
study of college students found positive results with that strategy.
Google has finally committed to protecting content producers from mass piracy on YouTube. Amid several complaints and a massive lawsuit from Viacom, Google has capitulated - but not without leaving the window open for copyrighted content. Content owners will be given the option to promote or even monetize these videos when they appear in YouTube's index, or they can simply block the videos.
"The best we can do is cooperate with copyright holders to identify videos that
include their content and offer them choices about sharing that content," YouTube said of
the new program.
Rumor has it that Viacom will likely now drop its lawsuit in response to Google's action.
The DMA Conference & Exhibition is this week in Chicago and
Website Magazine will be there. Get over to McCormick Place West along Chicago's beautiful Lake Michigan and attend the myriad of informational sessions or walk the exhibit hall floors. The exhibit hall is open now until 7p.m. on Monday, October 15 and until 5p.m. on October 16.
Don't forget to stop by the
Website Magazine booth for a free copy of our latest issue, to enter for your chance to win a new iPhone and to talk with our staff and editors!
The following are the top voted Web news stories on
Share.WebsiteMagazine.com for
the week ending October 12th, 2007. Share the news (industry articles, blog posts, tutorials and more) that you find important and noteworthy at WM Share.
Comparison/Social Shopping Engines & Web Rankings:
A list of fifteen
comparison shopping engines that at one point or another have crossed my radar.
I've also included Web rankings from Quantcast.com, Ranking.com and Alexa.com.
Email Marketing Departments Heavily Fragmented: A StrongMail/JupiterResearch executive survey reveals
that only 38 percent of email messaging efforts are centralized in one location
Analyst says Yahoo worth more if broken up: Yahoo Inc would be worth far more to shareholders if it
broke up its Internet businesses or embarked on a major overhaul, including a
departure from Web search, but management is unlikely to do either, according to
an analyst note issued on Friday.
Rush to build ad networks reveals declining influence of Internet hubs:
The recent rush by major
Internet portals to buy advertising companies and extend their sales networks is
a sign that the business of being a one-stop shop for information and
entertainment isn't what it used to be.
$1 Billion Invested in 35 Virtual Worlds Companies:
Virtual Worlds Management
has announced findings from a comprehensive study of accountable transactions
that venture capital, technology and media firms have invested more than $1
billion dollars in 35 virtual worlds companies in the past 12 months.
Google Upgrades Search Appliance for Enterprise:
Google Inc. will upgrade
its Search Appliance with native support for enterprise content management (ECM)
systems like EMC's Documentum, IBM's FileNet, Open Text's LiveLink and
Microsoft's SharePoint.
HitTail Mashup from Content Spooling Network: We are pleased to announce the first HitTail mashup!
For all the HitTailers out there who have accumulated writing suggestions but
don’t have the time to write about them, you’re in luck.
Ban on Internet Taxes Seems Safe: After hours of debate over the appropriate length of
time to ban Internet access taxes, members of a House committee on Wednesday
approved a bill that would extend the Internet tax moratorium for an additional
four years.
Shoppers Look to User Reviews, Search: US online shoppers researching products are turning to
user reviews more than expert reviews, according to a study by Avenue A |
Razorfish.
Facebook Traffic Tanks - This can’t be real?:
comScore is about to issue September 2007 user
engagement and page views data, and it seems like the SVFurby, I mean Facebook
unique visitors took a little dip.
IAB Sets Standards for Rich Media, Games: The Interactive Advertising Bureau has released a new
set of guidelines for rich media ads.
New languages crack Roman alphabet's Internet address dominance:
The roman alphabet will
lose some of its dominance of the Internet beginning Monday when the
organization overseeing website addresses starts testing 11 new languages for
domain names.
AP sues VeriSign's Moreover news aggregator: The Associated Press filed a lawsuit against VeriSign
over its Moreover news aggregation services in a case reminiscent of a dispute
between news services and Google News.
Google buys social mobile startup Jaiku: Jaiku, the Twitter (and Pownce)-like service from
Finland, has been bought by Google.
EBay launches Social Features: Hoping to woo shoppers who say eBay Inc. has lost its
folksy appeal, the world's largest online auction plans to launch its own
version of a social networking service Wednesday and is promising other
customer-friendly features by year's end.
MSNBC buys participatory news site Newsvine: MSNBC Interactive News LLC has acquired Newsvine Inc.,
operator of a Web site that encourages users to link to their favorite news of
the day, submit comments, and write their own stories.
CoolSW: Digg for software: Intel has launched a new website called CoolSW that's
basically a Digg-clone focused on software and tech companies.
Google on Using a Knowledge Base of Articles to Make Searches Smarter:
A recent paper explores
how a knowledge base of articles, like the pages of the wikipedia could possibly
be used to identify different named entities.
Mozilla and Mobile:
Short summary: we are serious about bringing the Firefox experience and
technology to mobile devices.
Website Magazine is all about community. That's why we've recently launched a
separate weblog to highlight some of the many wonderful companies that are
listed within our Who's Who Directory. There are currently over 1,000 Web
related companies in the directory - from designers and developers to
professional SEO's and bleeding edge advertising agencies - all available for
you to review and find out more about who's behind them.
Stay up to date on these directory additions with the Who's Who Weblog
Feed (RSS).
Subscribe now - it takes
less than one minute!
More about the Who's Who Directory:
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 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
accommodates 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
Magazine's Who's Who Directory.
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organization
which oversees website addresses will begin testing eleven new languages for
domains names.Arabic, Persian, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Hebrew, Japanese,
Tamil, and both simplified and traditional Chinese.
“This evaluation represents ICANN’s most important step so far towards the
full implementation of Internationalized Domain Names. This will be one of the
biggest changes to the Internet since it was created,” said Dr Paul Twomey,
ICANN’s President and CEO. “ICANN needs the assistance of users and application
developers to make this evaluation a success. When the evaluation pages come
online next week, we need everyone to get in there and see how the addresses
display and see how links to IDNs work in their programs. In short, we need them
to get in and push it to its limits.”
The evaluation is made possible by today’s insertion into the root of the 11
versions of .test, which means they are alongside other top-level domains like
.net, .com, .info, .uk, and .de at the core of the Internet. Next Monday, 15
October 2007, Internet users around the globe will be able to access wiki pages
with the domain name example.test in 11 test languages — Arabic, Persian,
Chinese (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish,
Japanese and Tamil. The wikis will allow Internet users to establish their own
subpages with their own names in their own language. The evaluation is being
done in the 11 languages of the Internet communities that have shown the most
interest in moving IDNs from concept to reality.
The House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved H.R. 3678 which extended
the ban on Internet access taxes. The bill will now be sent to the House for a
full vote.
The issue at hand is the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), a bill enacted in
1998 that prevented states and localities from imposing taxes on Internet access
services which enables users to connect to the Internet. The law was renewed in
2001 and 2004 and the moratorium will now be extended until November 1st, 2011.
eBay is hoping to take advantage of the social networking storm with their new "Neighborhoods" feature. Users can post photos, reviews and responses, taking eBay from a huge, faceless network of sellers towards a more intimate merchandising community. Neighborhoods will group categories in an effort to give the user a better way to find what they are looking for and like-minded sellers and buyers - using data aggregated from eBay blogs, guides and reviews.
This is a big step for eBay, which has seen its user base decline recently while other social networking sites integrate e-commerce into user profiles. The number of listings by "power sellers" is down 25 percent from a year ago. This is essentially a way for users to streamline their shopping experience and eBay hopes it will encourage users to spend more time on the site and make connections with each other much easier.
"People who are passionate about certain brands, trends, celebrities or
products have been discovering and trading with one another for years," said
Jamie I