January 2008 - Posts
The Colation Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) this week released a study on
drop-catching - a process whereby a domain that has expired is released into the
pool of available names and is instantly re-registered by another party.
Historically, drop-catching is the first step to more serious abuses such as domain
tasting, domain kiting and typo-squatting.
Protect Your Domains. Seriously.
The real issue at hand is that large registrars and others with the means
to test (taste) domains on a mass scale have harnessed this technique to build a
business model that takes advantage of ICANN's Add Drop Grace Period (AGP) - where domains are registered to test their traffic value, ads are loaded on content-sparse pages and then dropped before the expiration of the grace period if the traffic performs poorly.
This behavior limits consumer choice, preys on consumers through criminal
schemes to defraud them and negatively impacts the experiences of all Internet
users. While legitimate domain owners may not realize the "traffic value" of an expired domain, domain tasters do - when these domains are bought in bulk.
This should act as a major warning call to renew
your domains in a timely manner.
Some interesting findings from the study include:
- CADNA tracked 17,000 randomly selected Dot-ORG, Dot-COM and Dot-NET
domain names after their scheduled expiration on September 18th, 2007, and found
that 100% of the Dot-COM and Dot-NET domains were instantly registered after
they were released.
- 39.8% of Dot-COMs and 32.2% of Dot-NETs were added and dropped again
throughout the study via a practice known as kiting. The initial
registration of all expiring domains and the subsequent domain tasting and
kiting that occurred points to a willingness on the part of drop-catchers to
continuously register domain names since they can be repeatedly tested and easily
returned with no monetary penalty.
- The results also show that 87% of Dot-COM drop-catchers use the domain
names for pay-per-click (PPC) sites. They have no interest in these domain
names other than leveraging them to post PPC ads and turn a profit.
Interestingly, only 67% of Dot-ORG drop catchers use the domains they catch
to post these sites - most likely because Dot-ORG names are harder to monetize
due to the lack of type-in traffic and because they tend to be used for more
legitimate purposes.
- The results of this study also show that the majority Dot-COM and
Dot-NET domains were registered by a limited number of registrars, namely
Enom, Domain Doorman, Capitol Domains and Belgium Domains. The practice of
drop-catching, which is aided by abuse of the AGP, has created a landscape
that significantly harms the integrity of the Internet.
Mobile commerce service provider mPoria
announced the launch of "GoLo™" -- a mobile consumer shopping service with some
interesting twists. What's unique about the GoLo service (besides that its
designed for mobile devices) is that mPoria drops the retail price of each
featured product every few seconds until the item either sells out or its retail
tag reaches zero. The service also allows consumers to locate featured
merchandise, monitor dropping prices, and make purchases.
"We are thrilled to introduce this one-of-a-kind interactive mobile shopping
service to consumers. GoLo gives consumers the chance to purchase popular
products at deeply discounted prices and possibly even attain them for free,"
said Hossein Mousavi, Executive Vice President at mPoria.
The GoLo service showcases products from more than 100 merchants offering
everything from electronics and apparel to designer perfumes. To participate,
consumers simply the mporia GoLo site
on their mobile phone browser to access the mobile shopping mall. Once there,
they will find a current featured item and associated discount pricing that they
can monitor throughout the day, set text message reminders or buy right away.
They will also find a schedule of upcoming products to be showcased. Consumers
can purchase all showcased items through GoLo using a credit or debit card, or
PayPal.
All in all, a pretty innovative service offering.
If you're struggling to come up with ideas to write about for your weblog or are
simply interested in building out your website with some additional content, you
might want to take a look at
DailyArticle.com, a website where professional writers post their
original articles for sale.
Everything from short quips to full-length feature stories are available on the
site. Articles that are selected for purchase can be downloaded directly off the
site and used on web pages, in newsletters, or in any manner the buyer prefers.
Purchasers buy the full rights of ownership from the writers (which means you
will not see the article you paid for somewhere else) and are allowed to use the
articles however they please without royalties. There is content in forty
different categories which are supplied by more than 300 writers. Available in
categories ranging from Academics to Entertainment, Environmental Issues to the
Supernatural, article prices range from as little as $1 for a short essay from
the site’s “Bargain Bin” to $625 for a 30-article bundle. There is even a
selection of free articles on the site, which can be downloaded and used
immediately.
On the surface, DailyArticle sounds like a pretty good idea - especially for
those that don't consider themselves exceptional writers and really do need the
content. The problem I'm having is that the article you pay for may not be an
article you really want. It's difficult to make an informed decision based
purely on a synopsis or summary. If money is no object and you're willing to
risk it, this would be a good solution to build out a website quickly.
PPC advertising network
ABC Search has chosen
Digital Element's NetAcuity
IP Intelligence technology to provide geo-targeting to online advertisers.
Digital Element’s IP Intelligence provides patented technology which
allows businesses to perfect audience segmentation capabilities and targeting
based on a comprehensive set of parameters such as geographic location (country,
region, state, city and zip code); connection speed; area code; Internet Service
Provider (ISP); North American Industry Classification System (NAICS); domain
name; demographics; company name; proxies; Designated Market Area
(DMA)/Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA); language; time zone; and
longitude/latitude.
“
Geotargeting is an excellent way for ABCSearch’s clients to reduce
costs and retain a higher return on investment for their online advertising and
search programs,” said Rob Friedman, Executive Vice President, Digital
Element. “
By incorporating NetAcuity, ABCSearch is giving its clients the
solution that will help them achieve their online advertising goals by
delivering high conversion rates and ultimately a substantial return on their
investment.”
Snapbomb is a paid blogging service that looks to match advertisers with bloggers to create buzz about products, services, press releases ... just about anything. It works like this: Advertisers submit their message (announcement of a website, product press release, etc.) to Snapbomb, who then offer up the opportunity to their network of bloggers. The bloggers find advertiser information that is relevant to their blog content, write a post and get paid. According to their site, Snapbomb "... recommend[s] that all bloggers clearly disclose that they are writing a sponsored post."
Payment is based on a blog's value, determined by "... its popularity, expertise in a field, and their audience size and reach. Our
blogger value database is kept up to date daily and reflects how great an impact
a message posted to the blog will have." What factors are used to measure these parameters is unclear at this time.
For advertisers, Snapbomb offers their "buzzometer," measuring an advertiser's "... buzz activity across the entire Internet."
This is a new service - launched in beta Dec. 30, 2007 - so its unclear at this point how well it will work or the size of the stable of advertisers and bloggers. But it's a nice concept and could be worth checking out, and maybe make a few bucks or create some buzz for your company.
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The following are press releases that
caught our attention today, January 31th, 2008. If you have a news
announcement you would like to share with the Website Magazine
community, please
contact Website Magazine editors now or submit it to WM Share. |
New Study Shows 38 Percent of Information
Security Processes are Immature : The 2007 ISO 27001 Benchmark Study shows
many organizations have gaps in their governance of information security.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
KickApps Releases Version 3.0 : New
release extends market leadership with game-changing innovation; Invites expert
developers with Open API’s and everyone else with point and click customization.
Read the
release :
Comment in the forum
eLocal Listing Offers Online Small
Business Video Marketing Product : New online video product makes video
marketing accessible for small businesses.
Read the release :
Comment in the forum
Web2.0 Startup 99Polls.com Version 1.0
Officially Launched : 99Polls.com offers a simple approach to making polls,
which you can post nearly anywhere on the Web. 99Polls.com poll-creation tool
requires no knowledge of HTML or coding, and once made, the poll can be posted
on blogs, Web sites, and social-networking profiles.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
LogiXML Asserts Leadership in Web-Based
Business Intelligence with New Logi 9 BI Platform : New hybrid data engine,
new Logi Intelligence server, new widget support, new ETL capability, new Java
support, new ad hoc Dashboarding and more Web 2.0-style options distinguish
feature-rich Logi BI offering from competition.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
Zero Commission Affiliate
Marketing for Europe : Peter Bojanac Strategic Director of Viva9 explains
the rationale behind his company's Zero Commission move as 'a much needed
shake-up for the Affiliate industry' in Europe.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
My fellow condo owners and I had our annual association meeting last night. And besides the usual fare of "pick up after your dog" and "we're raising dues again," something stood out this year. Not once, but several times
Angie's List,
Craigslist and
LinkedIn were mentioned when we discussed improvements to the building, finding reliable workers and connecting with other neighborhood folks.
I think sometimes it's easy to brush off these online hubs because we figure that only the savvy Web users are interested in and using them. But several of the people that own condos in my building are very, very non-tech savvy. And they were all about using these online services. So it serves as another reminder - especially to those with brick and mortar businesses - to spread yourself out and get involved in these communities and directories. Craigslist is one of the most trafficked sites on the Web, so the potential is tremendous - not just for sales but for driving traffic to your site. Here are some tips to using the directory to your advantage:
- Use photos: A craigslist listing notes "pic" next to those with photos. People respond to images and it makes your ad stand out.
- Repeat your listing: Depending on the amount of postings, your ad can get pushed down the list quickly. So it helps to repost it occassionally ... but not too much.
- Don't spam: In recent years, craigslit has become better about removing spam and users are quick to report violations. Be careful that you don't repeat your ads too often.
- Use the appropriate category: Don't shotgun your listing across all categories. That's craigslist spam and the listings will be reported.
- Optimize your listing: Just like SEO, include keywords in your listing. Craigslist listings and categories show up in the search engines. I searched Panasonic Toughbook Chicago and a craigslist post was the third result.
Search Marketing Expo (SMX) just announced its current list of conference
sponsors, exhibitors and partners. A few Website Magazine staffers will be at
the event in late February so I thought we'd give you a run down of what we
think are the must attend sessions in case you have not set your schedule yet. I
won't personally be in attendance but if I were to be there I would split my
time between networking and the following sessions:
On day one, keynotes aside (which should always be a must attend),
Decrypting Quality Scores with Andrew Goodman,
Copywriting for Search Success with Heather Lloyd-Martin and Jill Whalen,
Online Retail & Blended Results with Liana Evans would all be worthy of your
attendance.
Day two looks as though attendees choices will be tough with
Search Engine Friednly Web Design and
Landing Pages & Multivariate Testing running concurrently in the morning.
Reputation Monitoring & Management Through Search,
Search Ads & Behavioral Targeting and if you really want to geek it up, I
would recommend completing your day with
SEO & User Generated Content.
The final day features an interesting sounding session in
Industrial Strength SEO with speakers Martin Laetsch of SEM Director and
David Roth of Yahoo. The
Analyzing the Competition session also has some great speakers including
Jake Baille of STN Labs.
You've heard the hype about how video can increase your brand awareness.
You've spent the time crafting a compelling, educational or entertaining video
which should in your opinion start sending traffic to your website and with any
luck increase sales or at least activity on your website. But now what? Where do
you upload your video masterpiece?
Website Magazine has covered the
top 50 video sharing sites back in August of 2007, but what we didn't
mention was that submitting that award winning video content to that many sites
would take about as long as creating the video. The solution? Perhaps its
HeySpread.com.
HeySpread, which launched in mid-December 2008, is a video promoting web
service which gives users access to a very professional, robust and scalable
video promotion service. Content creators can mass-distribute their video assets
over the Web to many of the top sharing sites simultaneously to save time.
HeySpread submits content to Sclipo, Sumo, Sevenload, YouTube, Google,
DailyMotion, Blip, Metacafe, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, Vimeo, Revver, Vsocial,
Photobucket and Putfile.
Some other interesting features of the HeySpread service are real-time
monitoring of video availability, watermarking, encoding, and an API for
developers. Heyspread charges a rather nominal fee - just five cents USD to
submit one video. Users buy credits, and for each video submitted the amount is
subtracted from their balance. Not a bad deal considering manually submitting
your content to ten plus sites could take hours.
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The following are press releases that
caught our attention today, January 30th, 2008. If you have a news
announcement you would like to share with the Website Magazine
community, please
contact Website Magazine editors now or submit it to WM Share. |
More SMBs Choosing iCIMS’ Talent Platform
to Manage Talent Initiatives : Rapidly-growing organizations cite
long-term value in iRecruiter’s breadth of services in decision-making.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
SMX West Announces Exhibitors, Sponsors and
Partners: Limited Opportunities Remain : Search Marketing Expo - SMX
West today announced its current list of conference sponsors, exhibitors and
partners. More than 60 businesses, media outlets and organizations representing
a wide range of specialties within the search industry will be represented at
the conference, to be held February 26-28 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.
Read the release :
Comment in the forum
EasyCGI makes Window Server 2008 Available to
All Hosting Customers : EasyCGI hosting customers now have the
flexibility of hosting their clients' websites using Windows Server 2008, which
provides better performance and greater security that Windows 2003, plus
powerful hosting features that will save programming time and make hosted sites
potentially more profitable.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
Expand Media Launches L-Train, a
Revolutionary, Easy-To-Use, Hosted e-Learning System : Expand Media
launches L-Train online e-Learning software designed to revolutionize
e-Learning. This subscription-based service is available anytime anywhere.
Administration tools are robust and easy to use, bringing the power of on-demand
learning to small business, educators, sales managers -- anyone who needs to
train a group of users.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
WorldAPP Announces Salesforce.com
Integration : One-click Integration provides seamless data flow to
effectively leverage customer relationship management.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
Raxco Software Introduces Breakthrough Family
of Performance and Storage Management Products for PC, Server, Exchange and
VMware Systems :
Suite of PerfectDisk 2008 disk defragmentation tools released in response to
high demand for all-encompassing solution.
Read the release :
Comment in the forum
eBay has announced a rate cut of up to 50 percent of what they charge sellers to list their products online, beginning Feb. 20. But it's not all rosy. They will increase fees on popular, selling items. eBay claims that sellers prefer this method because it lowers the risk if items fail to sell. Items selling for less than $25 will see a listing fee increase of 67 percent, up to 8.75 percent of the final sale price. And that's going to hurt some sellers. Take a look in any category what you can get for less than $25 and you'll see why. Also, recent postal rate increases for smaller items will add to the problem. (See an article about
last year's postage increase.)
eBay has seen better days. Over the second and third quarters of 2007, the number of listings on eBay declined, with a rise of four percent in the fourth quarter - due in large part to the holidays. Also, active users of the site has grown just two percent from a year ago. Add in the fact that Amazon has joined the online auction game - and does not charge a listing fee - and other, smaller online auction sites taking away business from eBay and it's clear that new CEO John Donahoe sees the need for change. Donahoe has said that major, sweeping changes are coming, including how their overall product, customer approach and business model.
I've been on the FormSpring bandwagon for quite some time. A solution to help website owners and marketers create online forms and manage the data, FormSpring is one of the few tools I reccommend frequently to those getting started that don't have a lot of coding experience.
FormSpring today announced their new affiliate program. I think this would be ideal for an independent designer or developer to make some additional revenue. FormSpring will set a 30-day cookie which will be stored on the visitors computer and affiliates will earn a 25% commision from sales. The referral will be tracked even if the person referred signs up for a free account and does not upgrade to a paid account for several months. Affiliates will only receive commissions for the first year.
Privacy is of major importance for internet retailers and pretty much anyone else that aims to establish a trusting relationship with end-users on the Internet. P3P, the platform for privacy preferences project (
say that three times fast) enables websites to express their privacy practice in a standard format that can be retrieved automatically and interpreted easily by user agents. Essentially P3P is a protocol allowing websites to declare their intended use for the information they collect about website users and visitors. With users becoming increasingly concerned about how their information and their Web habits are being used by the sites they visit and third party affiliates, P3P is designed to give users more control over the kind of information that they allow to release. P3P enabled web browsers can decide what to do by comparing these policies with the user's stored preferences. There are many benefits and criticisms of P3P as a means to protect users privacy, but in the end, any effort you can take to be honest and open with how visitor information is being collected, used and stored will add to your credibility.
Here are a few online tools and resouces which will help create or review a P3P compliant privacy policy:Privacy Bot : PrivacyBot.com is a privacy seal program that helps web sites implement good privacy practices. Generates near-custom privacy policies, including XML versions based on the P3P specification. Includes online registration of sites to display the branded Trustmark.
P3P Builder : P3PBuilder is a P3P policy generator that creates privacy policies to the W3C specification. It is web-based, easy to use, and is provided with technical support to assist with installation.
P3P Display : P3P Display is a free web based utility that will read in a P3P policy file from a provided web-site, parse the contents, and display a human readable form based on the attributes in the policy and text definitions from the P3P specification. It will also display an equivelent compact policy that reflects the site policies.
While mobile projections continue to soar, there are many that are not believers yet - I consider myself one of them. But when you get review a case study from mobile luminaries like
mPoria on how well it worked for at least one company, it's easy to see how it could change the mind of many.
Second Act, an Internet retailer of electronics products, was looking for an edge up on the competition (sound familiar?). “
The typical Second Act customer is looking for the best deal and they’ll use any resource available to find it. This means their cell phone, computer, or PDA,” said Second Act COO Mark Redetzke. “
Our consumers use the Internet frequently for product and price research, and a lot of the time, they will even drive store-to-store to compare prices. This makes it all the more important for Second Act to be accessible to these consumers no matter where and how our customers are shopping.”
Enter mPoria. To date, there are more than 250 million wireless subscribers in the U.S. alone, with nearly 40 million accessing the mobile web on a regular basis. This presents a significant sales and marketing opportunity not only for Second Act, but for millions of other merchants nationwide. Second Act signed up to use mPoria’s GoMobile! service – an m‐commerce solution that enables merchants to build, customize and monitor an entire mobile shopping site from a web‐based interface. Using GoMobile!, Second Act launched its own mobile shopping site in less than 2 days. Redetzke continued, “
Site set‐up was simple, cost‐effective, and required zero in‐house development expertise, making this literally a no‐brainer investment.”
The results? Second promoted their new mobile store in a holiday marketing campaign (email) offering mobile shoppers rebates on merchandise purchased through the mobile site. The company also implemented a banner creative on the homepage of their e‐commerce site which included details about their m‐commerce site and the promotion. In the short 5‐week period Second Act ran their holiday campaign the company generated approximately 100 orders at an average order size of $1,350. More importantly, extrapolating out revenue to twelve months Second Act is on pace to generate approximately $1 million a year in sales. “Expanding to the mobile channel was one of the best moves we’ve made for our business,” reports Redetzke. “Within our overall marketing mix, m‐commerce has proven to be one of the most efficient channels coming in well below 5% cost as a percentage of revenue.”
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The following are press releases that
caught our attention today, January 29th, 2008. If you have a news
announcement you would like to share with the Website Magazine
community, please
contact Website Magazine editors now or submit it to WM Share. |
- Netelligent Corporation's Interact
Achieves AppExchange Certification : Netelligent's Interact Now
Connects Salesforce.com to IP Telephony, MS Outlook, MS Active Directory and
Customer Databases
Read the release :
Comment in the forum
- Lijit Networks, Inc. Acquires Comment
Search Engine BigSwerve : Lijit expands its ability to discover and
search user-generated content by acquiring technology to crawl and index
blog comments.
Read the release :
Comment in the forum
- Mobile WiMAX will undergo
198% Compound Annual Growth Rate Between 2008 and 2012 According to New
Report by WTRS : Robust growth of Mobile WiMAX ahead, while
significant competition still seen between WiMAX, LTE and HSPA in mobile
broadband market says new WTRS Telecom Application Report 2008.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
- ChicagoCon 2008s - World Class
Security Training & Ethical Hacking Conference : ChicagoCon 2008s
from May 12 - 18, 2008 features all new keynoters, additional security boot
camps, exams on-site followed by two days of ethical hacking presentations
and breakout sessions. And without an exhibit hall full of sales pitches,
you're free to learn from the pros, network with peers and advance your
infosec career.
Read
the release :
Comment in the forum
- Webjam Launches New Flavour in
Social Networking : Strawberry release of award-winning new social
network Webjam makes social publishing for groups easier and faster than
ever before.
Read
the release :
Comment in the forum
- eVergance Chooses Jive Software
to Bring Enterprise Web 2.0 to Service and Support : Leading CRM
consulting firm and award-winning collaboration software company expand
their partnership, and announce that eVergance is now certified to deliver
Jive's Clearspace solutions.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
- Maponics Announces Release of
Neighborhood Boundaries 1.8.1 : Highest quality neighborhood map
data has been updated and is now available for companies serious about local
search. Read the
release :
Comment in the forum
- Listrak Takes Steps to Ensure
Positive Reputation and Deliverability : Leading email marketing
service provider improves handling of hard bounces due to invalid email
addresses.
Read the
release :
Comment in the forum
- Tilana partners with
Hostway to Offer Powerful Online File Protection and Storage :
Partnership leverages Tilana’s advanced application and Hostway’s
exceptional infrastructure and support services.
Read the
release :
Comment in the forum
It looks as though
Zvents will be the first local search engine to provide a localized version of Google's Universal search. Zvents will provide users with a blended local search (akin to
Google Universal Search) which will integrate traditional business listings with local events, movies, store sales, performances, spots, venues and resaurants.
"
Our objective is to help users find what they need quickly and effortlessly," said Ethan Stock, Zvents CEO and co-founder. "
Federated Local Search will enhance the user's search experience by instantly providing one convenient list of local search results for a more accurate response to a search query for everything to do."
Zvents currently powers search and local content for more than 200 media partners such as LA.com and Boston.com, as well as newspapers including the Detroit News, Denver Post, and the San Jose Mercury News. Federated Local Search will roll out to media partners in the coming months.
AdMob may be a relatively new kid on the block, founded in January 2006, but they are already making a big splash in the mobile marketplace and their expansion signals a big shift in marketers' focus on the mobile ad market.
AdMob sells and serves mobile ads for more than 3,000 publishers, including big clients Accuweather, ESPN and CBS, as well as smaller, niche publishers in the mobile space. They have now announced the opening of a new East Coast headquarters in New York City.
"Marketers are increasingly extending their campaigns to mobile and we want to
be available to guide them through best practices," said Tony Nethercutt, AdMob
Vice President of Sales. "We are deepening our presence in New York to better
support agencies and brands as they ramp their mobile marketing efforts."
Clearly mobile is on the minds of marketers and all indications are that it's just getting started. Especially this statistic: Since their founding, AdMob has served over 15 billion ads - more than 2 billion, or roughly 13%, in December 2007 alone.
JangoMail announced some enhanced reporting features to its Web-based Email
marketing services. Some of the new features include the ability to search
reports based on any number of criteria, the ability to view domain-based
deliverability reports, graphical representations for campaign statistics, and
campaign performance analysis by time period. Most interesting however is that
the new reporting system includes the capability for users to assess and confirm
email delivery by searching and viewing Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
logs - one of the few ESPs (Email Service Providers) to offer direct access to
log files.
Nearly one year ago Website Magazine covered what we then called a "Fascinating
New Local SEM Feature at Google". Google Maps (and a great deal of
specifically local information) was starting to be integrated in the search
results pages on popular queries. It looks as though Google has extended that
effort recently and increased the number of results from 3 to 10 for some
queries. This signifies (or should) a major change in how PPC advertising will
be handled by professional SEM's and the importance of getting involved in
fostering a socially active local community.
January 31st, 2007
When end-users search for something like "mexican
restaurant in chicago" today, Google displays a OneBox that includes up to
ten results at the top of the page or in another prominent position (apparently
they are
testing the right sidebar as well).
January 28th, 2008
Approximately eight months ago I mentioned the Google Local OneBox to a
conference speaker addressing some specific SEM strategies. He had never heard
of it, and he was not alone. As Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)
become more universal and attract content from a variety of sources, it's
crucial to adapt as quickly as possible. I did a quick video capture of how the
enhancement actually looks.
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The following are press releases that
caught our attention today, January 28th, 2008. If you have a news
announcement you would like to share with the Website Magazine
community, please
contact Website Magazine editors now or submit it to WM Share. |
Two statisticians from the University of Maryland have calculated that eBay buyers saved $7 billion than what they might have been willing to pay in 2003, $8.4 billion in 2004 and a projected $19 billlion during 2007. The savings is determined by calculating "consumer surplus" or the difference between what top price buyers were willing to pay and what they actually ended up paying. On eBay, winning bidders pay the next highest increment after the second highest bidder was willing to pay. The difference between each winning bid and what the buyer ends up paying is the consumer surplus.
Most of the data was taken from
Cniper.com, operated by Bapna. Cniper allows consumers to automatically bid in the closing minutes of auctions to help get the item at the lowest possible price.
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The following are press releases that
caught our attention today, January 25th, 2008. If you have a news
announcement you would like to share with the Website Magazine
community, please
contact Website Magazine editors now or submit it to WM Share. |
Benchmark Survey to Measure Strategic
Importance of IT in Midsize Companies
Survey to provide business and IT leaders with insight into how peer companies
use Information Technology to drive business performance.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
New Facebook Application for
Effective Goal and Project Management
On Track (apps.facebook.com/ontrack), a highly effective goal and project
management Facebook application, is publicly launching today in an attempt to
make the social operating system as useful as the computer operating system.
Read the release :
Comment in the forum
BlueHornet Networks Enhances SureSend
Email Optimization Offerings
BlueHornet Networks, Inc., a leading provider of email marketing solutions and
subsidiary of Digital River, Inc. (NASDAQ:DRIV), announced that it is expanding
its SureSend(TM) email deliverability enhancement platform with mobile device
email capabilities from Pivotal Veracity.
Read the release :
Comment in the forum
Domain Monetization 2.0 - EVO Landing
Announces Public Launch and Series A
Have you ever registered a domain name from GoDaddy or Register.com with the
intent on building a website? Chances are that you never found the time or money
to actually make that website a reality. A new company out of Seattle is looking
to change what you do with your registered domain. EVO Landing ('EVO') has
announced the release of its domain development platform, which aims to create
value and traffic for your domain while making you money.
Read the release
:
Comment in the forum
New Ruby on Rails Resource
Launched: Information Portal for Web Application Developers
A unique information portal, designed for web application developers who use
Ruby on Rails, was launched this week.
Read
the release :
Comment in the forum
The Planet just announced the expansion of its partner offerings with the
addition of an affiliate program. This generally would not warrant an
announcement but
The Planet
is one of the largest and most influential dedicated hosting companies around.
If you're interested in earning commissions from The Planet by making referrals
read on.
When affiliates refer a new dedicated hosting customer, they will receive a
one-time, 65 percent commission based on that new customer's monthly recurring
revenue after the third full month. That means earning referral commissions
start at $44 and go up to $1,000 or more. This is quite the generous payout so
if you're a designer or developer looking to build out your own revenue stream
this could be a great solution.
Just to sweeten the deal a bit, The Planet also announced a celebratory kick-off
promotion for the new program. For the month of February, the company will pay
an additional $1,000 to the affiliate member who generates the largest volume of
referrals. Another $250 has been designated as a bonus to the member who refers
the month’s largest single transaction.
Learn more about the
affiliate
program at The Planet.
(At the end of the post is a "quick hack" to find the number of RSS Subscribers
a feedburner-powered weblog has)
When it seems that every company on the Web and every individual within that
company has a weblog, many readers may be interested in venturing into RSS
advertising. Marketing within the feeds of others can certainly be a viable way
to drive traffic, increase brand awareness and of course make some product
sales, but the challenging part is finding out if the blog's feed you want to
advertise within is worth the investment. Analyzing the quality of the content
within those feeds is important, but so analyzing the quantity of subscribers to
that feed.
Blog Perfume has an amazingly
helpful tool to analyze Feedburner powered weblogs.
Blog Perfume's Feed Analysis tool shows
the numbers of subscribers for each month presented elegantly on a chart and
even the number of subscribers, hits, views and clicks for every single day.
There is also a best/worst day of the week pie chart which could be useful in
determining when you need to blog more often. BlogPerfume also provide a the
estimated value for a one-month banner advertisement and the estimated blog
worth. Keep in mind that the data is only for the feed itself and does not
indicate how much traffic a weblog minus the feed receives so valuations may be
a bit off.
Quick Hack To Find RSS Feed Counts (Feedburner)
Don't want to do all the blog advertising analysis? If you come across a feed
that you may be interested in advertising within and want to know how many
subscribers they have it's actually incredibly easy to do by inserting "~fc"
before the feed name and after the feedburner URL - example below:
Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Website-Magazine/
Feed Count URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/Website-Magazine/
Google is ushering in a new era of targeted advertising for the masses, demographic bidding for AdWords users. With the new system, ads can be targeted to only reach certain age groups or specifically men or women, for example. Naturally, certain groups can also be excluded. In addition, you can set your bids higher for certain demographics to make sure your ads appear to the selected group.
Here's how it works: Certain partnerships exist with Google to provide demographic data based on user settings, from sites like social networks. These networks turn over information (said to be non-identifiable) such as age and gender. So, if you have a MySpace account, and you have agreed to the terms and conditions at sign-up, Google has your information and will use it to target ads based on your initial settings. Because of privacy issues, targeting the 18 and under demographic is not available. Some of the sites listed by Google that are available for demographic targeting include
MySpace,
Friendster,
HotOrNot,
BlackPlanet and
PlentyOfFish.
Bidding is available for both keyword-targeted and placement-targeted campaigns. According to the official AdWords blog, "beta test signups will be accepted soon." And it will essentially work like this:
- Sign up to create your first campaign
- Run a demographic report, after campaign is active for one week to test its performance.
- Modify your campaign based on performance data to better target high-return groups and exclude other segments.
Welcome news all-around. This will give further customization to advertisers and better ads to consumers resulting in, theoretically, better conversions. It also makes you wonder if its time you start collecting some demographic data from your own website visitors and users.
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The following are press releases that
caught our attention today, January 24th, 2008. If you have a news
announcement you would like to share with the Website Magazine
community, please
contact Website Magazine editors now or submit it to WM Share. |
WebAssist Delivers Cutting-Edge Text
Editing Solution For Dreamweaver
iRite by WebAssist achieves unparalleled cross-browser rich text editing in
Dreamweaver.
Read the release
-
Comment in the forum
New “Vocalix Direct” Affiliate
Program Speaking Volumes on Web Audio Growth:
Talking websites & emails generating new revenue for site owners & home-based
marketers
Read the release
-
Comment in the forum
Share Results and Hatley Nature
Collaborate to Launch Exclusive Affiliate Program
Share Results is kicking off 2008 with the addition of the Hatley affiliate
program. The affiliate program will be exclusive to affiliates generating
Canadian traffic and will be advantageous to those working in the niche apparel
and gift markets.
Read the release
-
Comment in the forum
Manta.com Wins Product of the Year Award
Manta.com, with 45 million company profiles and free contact relationship
management (CRM) tools, wins award for outstanding innovation.
Read the release
-
Comment in the forum
Open Enterprise 2.0 Mashup Summit
The Open Enterprise 2.0 Mashup Summit is Friday, 1 February, 2008 in New York
City, NY.
Read the release
-
Comment in the forum
Active Modules Announces New Features
for Active CRM to Enhance Your Business Productivity
Active Modules has released the latest version of their customer relationship
management application, Active CRM. This release includes enhancements to allow
small businesses to easily manage internal and external functions.
Read the release
-
Comment in the forum
B2B Self-Service Pricing Gaining
Popularity as Lead Generation Tool
EchoQuote budgetary pricing tool generates $92 million in B2B leads in first
year.
Read the
release -
Comment in the forum
FindADataCenter.com Launches with
800+ Data Center Listings
Easy web-based application helps organizations find offsite data centers.
Read the
release -
Comment in the forum
Innovative 'On The Fly' Defrag Technology
is Critical Step in Achieving Server Peak Performance
Diskeeper real time disk defragment software eases data center management by
automating defragmentation process.
Read the release -
Comment in the forum
BusinessWire is reporting on
Sapient's new annual Interactive Marketing Survey, comprised of 120 senior level respondents directly or indirectly responsible for managing digital marketing budget allocation across multiple channels.
One interesting note of the study regards social networking - the respondents cite social media as the least trackable digital channel, with only 12 percent saying they tracked social networking campaign performance in 2007. But these executives also see the vast potential of social networking marketing, claiming that in 2008, 42 percent anticipate using analytics to track social networking efforts.
"While marketers have developed an aptitude for tracking more traditional online
channels, the emergence of social networking further complicates the interactive
landscape," said Sapient Chief Creative Officer Gaston Legorburu. "In 2008,
marketers will seek the ability to seamlessly incorporate this medium with their
other channels, including search and email, and the capability to monitor and
measure performance to ensure they are achieving optimum results."
Juniper Research has released a report stating that the mobile entertainment market will will more than triple in the next four years, rising from $20 billion in 2007 to $64 billion in 2012.
Leading the way will be mobile music, with revenues predicted to rise from $9 billion in 2007 to $17.5 billion in 2012, followed by mobile games (from $5 billion to $16 billion) and the sharpest rise is expected to come from mobile TV - and increase from $1.4 billion to $11.9 billion in 2012.
What will keep mobile from reaching these figures, if anything? Mainly varied user interfaces, download speeds and the cost of data services.
For Internet retailers, fraud represents perhaps the most significant and
growing cost for merchants regardless of their size.
CyberSource, an eCommerce payment
management solution, has released their
ninth
annual online fraud report and the findings are, well, frightening and
discouraging to say the least.
From the overview: Over the past few years the percent of
online revenues lost to payment fraud has been slowly declining from 1.8% in
2004 to 1.4% this year. However, total losses from online payment fraud in
the U.S. and Canada have steadily increased during this time as eCommerce
has continued to grow 20% or more each year.1 In 2007, we estimate that $3.6
billion in online revenues will be lost to online fraud — up from $3.1
billion in 2006.
Findings of the report include:
- The overall average fraudulent order rate (the percent of accepted orders
later found fraudulent) was 1.3% vs. 1.1% in 2006.
- Chargebacks understate fraud loss by as much as 50%
- International order risk 2 ½ times higher than domestic orders
- Manual review rates increased from an average of 23% of orders in 2006 to 27%.
- Efficiency gains (e.g. primarily in manual review) of as much as 20%
may be required.
The second virtual
conference for the Social Networking and Online Personals Industry will take
place online tomorrow, Thursday, January 24th, from 8:00 AM EST to 8:00 PM EST. The virtual event is
designed to help marketers schedule appointments for the actual (real-world)
event in Miami on January 31st through February 1st, or for those unable to attend, gain access to a variety of impressive sponsors and exhibitors like UserPlane, Pringo Networks and others.
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The following are press releases that
caught our attention today, January 23th, 2008. If you have a news
announcement you would like to share with the Website Magazine
community, please
contact Website Magazine editors now or submit it to WM Share. |
Online Videos
of Property Listings is Exposing Realtors to Targeted Buyers Using What I Want
Podcasting Services : Video podcasting is drawing targeted buyers to
interested properties and helping realtors spur sales with new, more appealing
listings of their properties.
Comment in the forum...
LinkConnector
Triples Its Market Share Among Internet's Top 500 Retailers :
LinkConnector continues to gain ground in the Affiliate Marketing space, as
evidenced by the Internet Retailer's Top 500 Guide.
Comment in the forum...
Ruby On Rails
Seminar Makes Web Application Development More Accessible To PHP And .Net
Programmers; Scholarships Offered : A two-day Ruby on Rails hands-on
seminar for web developers, web designers and novice programmers will be held in
San Francisco on Feb 20-21. Aimed at programmers with PHP and .NET experience,
there are also two scholarships for available for qualified full-time students.
Comment in the forum...
CRE Loaded™ Web
Store Software Maker Partners with MyStoreRewards to Deliver Online Customer
Loyalty Program in a Pay-for-Performance Model : Chain Reaction
Ecommerce, makers of the popular ecommerce shopping cart application CRE Loaded
announces the integration of the powerful pay-for-performance customer loyalty
program MyStoreRewards into all of their web store applications.
Comment in the forum...
Vizu Introduces Next Generation Web Polls : Vizu's Power Polls - the
Internet's most powerful online polling platform.
Comment in the forum...
Allbase, Inc.
Launches Webmaster Affiliate Program : Allbase Affiliate Program enables
webmasters to earn top commission for sales of the Allbase Suite software.
Comment in the forum...
Datran Media Announces Second Annual Marketing & Media Survey Results :
80% of marketers report e-mail is strongest performing media buy ahead of search
and display.
Comment in the forum...
AspDotNetStorefront ML/64 E-Commerce Platform Announced :
AspDotNetStorefront ML/64 brings cutting edge performance to .NET e-commerce
platform.
Comment in the forum...
Email
Marketing Solutions Firm MailChimp Triples International Subscriber Base
: Google, weak US Dollar, and the latest technology trends help Atlanta, GA
based email marketing solutions provider increase customer base.
Comment in the forum...
A Step Towards
Solving PPC Click Fraud Concerns Announcing: PPC Assurance from Enquisite Search
Analytics : Enquisite Search Analytics adds a fully automated PPC refund
submission process to its PPC Assurance product.
Comment in the forum...
You may recall that Website Magazine was recently approved to participate in the
Adobe Ads for PDF program, which features advertising in content PDF's from the
Yahoo Publisher Network. We've finally got around to implementing the solution on
various sections of the WebsiteMagazine.com site (just the November issue) and
wanted to give readers a heads up on how they look.
In my opinion the ads are attractive and unobtrusive (Adobe Reader 8 is required) and the targeting from Yahoo is actually very strong.
Creating the PDFs was also incredibly quick and easy - all around a great
solution which should attract a lot of attention once it goes public. Check the Adobe Ads enabled PDF for yourself by selecting one of the stories
on the WM home page or the article on Graphics Optimization below and let
us know what you think:
Graphics Optimization : An interview with Derek Tonn
Check out some other Adobe ad-enabled PDFs from the November issue: