Local search is fast becoming the most exciting search vertical on the web. Recent research by the Kelsey Group reported that 70% of Americans consult the web before making local buying decisions, while 36% of search engine queries now request local results.
By exploring local search, according to Daniel Bower, small business owners and marketers can benefit from both direct lead generation and general brand awareness. Brushing up your local keyword research skills is the place to start.
We offer local search for direct local leads. Call me today and let me be a lead generator for you.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
twitter, twitter whats a twitter?
Sharing pain of layoff in a connected world
EX-YAHOO WORKER DESCRIBES LAST DAY ON MINI-BLOG SITE
By Jessica Guynn
Los Angeles Times
Article Launched: 02/20/2008 01:36:05 AM PST
When Ryan Kuder lost his job last week, everyone knew it. That's because he chronicled the experience of his last hours at Yahoo through a stream of electronic dispatches laced with gallows humor.
Using Twitter, a service popular in Silicon Valley that allows users to broadcast short messages to an unlimited number of people, Kuder posted periodic updates of his final, caffeine-fueled day as a senior marketing manager at the Internet company, starting with his last commute to the Sunnyvale headquarters and ending with margaritas at Chevy's.
"Ironic that I just got my PC repaired yesterday. Won't be needing that anymore."
"This is a serious downer. Trying to drown it in free lattes. Which I will miss."
"Dear Blackberry, What great times we had. I'll miss you. At least until tonight when I stop on my way home and buy an iPhone. Love, Me."
Like so many other personal experiences transformed by the Internet, getting canned need no longer be endured in quiet, isolating shame. Technology is allowing people to turn a traditionally private trauma into a quasi-public event, drawing quick moral support and even job referrals. "This is something that used to be shared over the dinner table. Now the whole world can watch and participate," technology forecaster Paul Saffo said.
As the pioneering Internet portal wrestled with an unsolicited takeover bid from software giant Microsoft, Yahoo proceeded with previously planned cutbacks. It said goodbye
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to 1,100 employees, according to a notice the company filed with the state of California. The event transfixed the high-tech community.
"The appeal of this is that some people are watching with morbid curiosity, and all sorts of other people are wondering whether they will be next," Saffo said. "In the Internet business at times, there seems to be only two kinds of employees: those who have been laid off and those who haven't yet."
Twitter is a service that notifies users' contacts, by mobile phone, instant message, e-mail or on the Twitter Web site, what the user is doing at any given moment. These messages of 140 characters or less, called tweets, are sent to anyone who subscribes to or "follows" the user's Twitter stream. Although it hasn't broken into the mainstream, Twitter is popular among the technorati: Nearly 1.2 million users visited Twitter.com in December, according to ComScore.
Twitter, which is owned by San Francisco start-up Obvious, doesn't disclose how many subscribers it has.
Kuder, one of the laid-off Yahoos, began that fateful day, Feb. 12, as just a regular tech guy with 87 people tracking his "tweets." Soon, word spread of his brief but entertaining updates on meeting with human resources in a conference room called Lucy, bidding friends farewell and handing over his security badge ("Will I be able to get a latte for the road . . .?") By the end of the next day, he had become a minor celebrity, with a following of more than 400.
Self-broadcasting what usually is a private experience gave Kuder more than 15 minutes of Internet fame. It gave him solace, and, more important, job leads. The San Jose husband and father of two was flooded with "positive tweets" offering support as well as connections via social-networking services such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
"I thought the reaction would be a couple of, 'Hey, good luck,' messages, and 'Let me know if I can help' from people already following me," Kuder said. "Instead, it got picked up around the world. There were even blogs written in Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and Spanish. It was fascinating to watch how things spread like that. My wife keeps saying I planned this. I wish."
That sense of online community has become pervasive as more people have ventured online and the technology has advanced, said Vanessa Fox, features editor for SearchEngineLand.com and an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners, a venture capital company.
"The Web has given us a way to connect with others," Fox said. "We're bound to find others who have gone through and who understand exactly what we're going through, and many deem it worth the trade-off of putting ourselves on public display to become part of that."
For his part, Kuder is treating the job loss as an opportunity to start over, perhaps in brand marketing for a start-up instead of an Internet giant. Recording his observations of his final day at Yahoo helped him cope and move on, he said.
"I have gone back a couple of times to look at my tweets from that day to remember what happened," he said. "When you read coverage of layoffs, you don't recognize these are people with kids, families, who are going through a big change. This puts a human face on it."
EX-YAHOO WORKER DESCRIBES LAST DAY ON MINI-BLOG SITE
By Jessica Guynn
Los Angeles Times
Article Launched: 02/20/2008 01:36:05 AM PST
When Ryan Kuder lost his job last week, everyone knew it. That's because he chronicled the experience of his last hours at Yahoo through a stream of electronic dispatches laced with gallows humor.
Using Twitter, a service popular in Silicon Valley that allows users to broadcast short messages to an unlimited number of people, Kuder posted periodic updates of his final, caffeine-fueled day as a senior marketing manager at the Internet company, starting with his last commute to the Sunnyvale headquarters and ending with margaritas at Chevy's.
"Ironic that I just got my PC repaired yesterday. Won't be needing that anymore."
"This is a serious downer. Trying to drown it in free lattes. Which I will miss."
"Dear Blackberry, What great times we had. I'll miss you. At least until tonight when I stop on my way home and buy an iPhone. Love, Me."
Like so many other personal experiences transformed by the Internet, getting canned need no longer be endured in quiet, isolating shame. Technology is allowing people to turn a traditionally private trauma into a quasi-public event, drawing quick moral support and even job referrals. "This is something that used to be shared over the dinner table. Now the whole world can watch and participate," technology forecaster Paul Saffo said.
As the pioneering Internet portal wrestled with an unsolicited takeover bid from software giant Microsoft, Yahoo proceeded with previously planned cutbacks. It said goodbye
Advertisement
Click Here!
to 1,100 employees, according to a notice the company filed with the state of California. The event transfixed the high-tech community.
"The appeal of this is that some people are watching with morbid curiosity, and all sorts of other people are wondering whether they will be next," Saffo said. "In the Internet business at times, there seems to be only two kinds of employees: those who have been laid off and those who haven't yet."
Twitter is a service that notifies users' contacts, by mobile phone, instant message, e-mail or on the Twitter Web site, what the user is doing at any given moment. These messages of 140 characters or less, called tweets, are sent to anyone who subscribes to or "follows" the user's Twitter stream. Although it hasn't broken into the mainstream, Twitter is popular among the technorati: Nearly 1.2 million users visited Twitter.com in December, according to ComScore.
Twitter, which is owned by San Francisco start-up Obvious, doesn't disclose how many subscribers it has.
Kuder, one of the laid-off Yahoos, began that fateful day, Feb. 12, as just a regular tech guy with 87 people tracking his "tweets." Soon, word spread of his brief but entertaining updates on meeting with human resources in a conference room called Lucy, bidding friends farewell and handing over his security badge ("Will I be able to get a latte for the road . . .?") By the end of the next day, he had become a minor celebrity, with a following of more than 400.
Self-broadcasting what usually is a private experience gave Kuder more than 15 minutes of Internet fame. It gave him solace, and, more important, job leads. The San Jose husband and father of two was flooded with "positive tweets" offering support as well as connections via social-networking services such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
"I thought the reaction would be a couple of, 'Hey, good luck,' messages, and 'Let me know if I can help' from people already following me," Kuder said. "Instead, it got picked up around the world. There were even blogs written in Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and Spanish. It was fascinating to watch how things spread like that. My wife keeps saying I planned this. I wish."
That sense of online community has become pervasive as more people have ventured online and the technology has advanced, said Vanessa Fox, features editor for SearchEngineLand.com and an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners, a venture capital company.
"The Web has given us a way to connect with others," Fox said. "We're bound to find others who have gone through and who understand exactly what we're going through, and many deem it worth the trade-off of putting ourselves on public display to become part of that."
For his part, Kuder is treating the job loss as an opportunity to start over, perhaps in brand marketing for a start-up instead of an Internet giant. Recording his observations of his final day at Yahoo helped him cope and move on, he said.
"I have gone back a couple of times to look at my tweets from that day to remember what happened," he said. "When you read coverage of layoffs, you don't recognize these are people with kids, families, who are going through a big change. This puts a human face on it."
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The DVD is now officially dead!
Toshiba’s loss is rivals’ gain in video format battle
The Associated Press
With HD DVDs discontinued, the makers of Blu-ray discs and players will jostle for market dominance.
With HD DVDs discontinued, the makers of Blu-ray discs and players will jostle for market dominance.
Are you a fan of the Blue Ray disc now that the format battle is over?
Yes, now I'll start collecting my movies on Blue Ray disc
No, I was fine with the current DVD format. I'll stick to what I have.
It doesn't matter. Eventually we'll all be downloading movies anyway.
Your vote has been counted, thank you for voting.
TOKYO | Now that Toshiba Corp. has officially pulled the plug on its HD DVD format, analysts expect competition to heat up among manufacturers of Blu-ray players and recorders.
Toshiba’s HD DVD format had been losing ground to Sony Corp.’s rival Blu-ray high-definition technology, which was endorsed by more movie studios and last week won over Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Blu-ray manufacturers include Sony, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Sharp Corp. of Japan and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea.
In making the announcement, Toshiba’s president, Atsutoshi Nishida, said he wanted to avoid confusion among consumers.
The decision was relatively quick, coming several years after the competing technologies arrived.
In the last video format battle, between VHS, backed by Matsushita, and Sony’s Betamax in the 1980s, it took a decade before Sony stopped making Betamax products.
“We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Nishida said.
Nishida said he realized Toshiba had been beaten when it failed to win Hollywood’s backing.
Last month’s decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format was the definitive blow, he said. Warner’s action followed similar moves by Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox.
“If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win,” Nishada said.
Nishida tried to assure the estimated 1 million customers, including 600,000 in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines, by promising that Toshiba would continue to provide product support for the technology.
Neither Sony nor Matsushita would disclose the global sales numbers for Blu-ray machines. But the shift in Blu-ray’s favor became more decisive during the holiday shopping season.
Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither format works on older DVD players.
Nishida said it was uncertain what would happen with the Hollywood studios that signed to produce HD DVD movies, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation.
Toshiba said shipments of HD DVD machines to retailers would stop by the end of March.
The Associated Press
With HD DVDs discontinued, the makers of Blu-ray discs and players will jostle for market dominance.
With HD DVDs discontinued, the makers of Blu-ray discs and players will jostle for market dominance.
Are you a fan of the Blue Ray disc now that the format battle is over?
Yes, now I'll start collecting my movies on Blue Ray disc
No, I was fine with the current DVD format. I'll stick to what I have.
It doesn't matter. Eventually we'll all be downloading movies anyway.
Your vote has been counted, thank you for voting.
TOKYO | Now that Toshiba Corp. has officially pulled the plug on its HD DVD format, analysts expect competition to heat up among manufacturers of Blu-ray players and recorders.
Toshiba’s HD DVD format had been losing ground to Sony Corp.’s rival Blu-ray high-definition technology, which was endorsed by more movie studios and last week won over Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Blu-ray manufacturers include Sony, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Sharp Corp. of Japan and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea.
In making the announcement, Toshiba’s president, Atsutoshi Nishida, said he wanted to avoid confusion among consumers.
The decision was relatively quick, coming several years after the competing technologies arrived.
In the last video format battle, between VHS, backed by Matsushita, and Sony’s Betamax in the 1980s, it took a decade before Sony stopped making Betamax products.
“We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Nishida said.
Nishida said he realized Toshiba had been beaten when it failed to win Hollywood’s backing.
Last month’s decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format was the definitive blow, he said. Warner’s action followed similar moves by Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox.
“If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win,” Nishada said.
Nishida tried to assure the estimated 1 million customers, including 600,000 in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines, by promising that Toshiba would continue to provide product support for the technology.
Neither Sony nor Matsushita would disclose the global sales numbers for Blu-ray machines. But the shift in Blu-ray’s favor became more decisive during the holiday shopping season.
Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither format works on older DVD players.
Nishida said it was uncertain what would happen with the Hollywood studios that signed to produce HD DVD movies, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation.
Toshiba said shipments of HD DVD machines to retailers would stop by the end of March.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
update your web site frequently!
A tip from John Alexander (web search guru):
What does Google have to say about Web sites that contain little
or no original content?
Read it here:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66361
Today's tip is just a reminder tip that there are genuine benefits
to updating your site frequently with fresh, original content that
has genuine value for your readers.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Tipping point
This has little to do with web pages but I am a very big believer in alternative energy so I am going to post this:
February 4, 2008
The Final Tipping Point
by Christopher Flavin, President, Worldwatch Institute
There are good reasons to think that the world may be on the verge of a major transformation of energy markets. The powerful interaction of advancing technology, private investment and policy reform have led to a pace of change unseen since men like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford created the last great energy revolution a century ago. But is it enough? Will the coming years bring the accelerated change and trillions of dollars of investment that Nicholas Stern estimates is needed to reverse the tide of climate change?
The answer to that question will likely be found not in the messy world of economics but in the even messier world of politics. Can the enormous power of today's industries be set aside in favor of the common good? Time is growing short. In the United States alone, 121 coal-fired power plants have been proposed. If built, they could produce 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide over their 60-year lives. China is building that many plants every year.
There were growing signs in 2007 that the years of political paralysis on climate change may be coming to an end, spurred by the warnings of scientists and the concerns of citizens. One sign of the changing times is that many of the planned coal plants are under attack by local and national environmentalists, and some have already been scrapped. Germany recently announced that its centuries-old hard coal industry will be closed by 2018.
Several potentially game-changing political developments in 2007 are worth noting:
- Twenty-seven major U.S. Companies — from Alcoa and Dow Chemical to Duke Energy, General Motors, and Xerox — announced support for national regulation of CO2 emissions.
- The European Union committed to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and member states are ramping up their energy efficiency and renewable energy programs in order to achieve these goals.
- China announced its first national climate policy, pledging to step up its energy efficiency and renewable energy programs and acknowledging that earlier policies were not sufficient.
- Seventeen states in the United States moved toward adopting regulations on CO2 emissions, increasing pressure on the U.S. Congress, which was considering national legislation.
- Brazil recognized the threat that climate change poses to the country's economically crucial agriculture and forestry industries and signaled a new commitment to strengthening international climate agreements.
As negotiations begin on the international climate agreement that will supplant the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, the world's political will to tackle climate change will be put to an early test. The politics of climate change are advancing more rapidly than could have been imagined a few years ago. But the world has not yet reached the political tipping point that would ensure the kind of economic transformation that is required. And the divide between industrial and developing countries over how to share the burden of action must still be resolved.
As people around the world come to understand that a low-carbon economy could one day be more effective than today's energy mix at meeting human needs, support for the needed transformation is bound to grow. Urgency and vision are the twin pillars on which humanity's hope now hangs.
Christopher Flavin is President of the Worldwatch Institute. This piece was excerpted from the WorldWatch State of the World 2008.Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
More on Yahoo sale!
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer 46 minutes ago
SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp.'s proposed $42 billion purchase of Yahoo Inc. would establish the world's largest software maker as a "strong No. 2 competitor" against online search leader Google Inc., Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday.
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Speaking to a group of analysts in New York, Ballmer said the acquisition of Yahoo would raise competition, rather than eliminate it, in the Web search and advertising market.
"Google's clearly got a dominant position. They've got about 75 percent of paid search worldwide," Ballmer said. "We think this enhances competition. Anything else would be less good from that perspective."
On Sunday, a Google executive said Microsoft could use the acquisition to gain too much control over the Internet, underscoring the online search leader's queasiness about its two biggest rivals teaming up.
Google's opposition isn't a surprise, given that Microsoft views Yahoo as a crucial weapon in its battle to gain ground on Google.
"This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation," Google chief legal officer Michael Drummond wrote in the company's blog.
Yahoo so far has had little to say except that its board will carefully examine Microsoft's bid — a process that "can take quite a bit of time," according to a message posted on the Sunnyvale-based company's Web site.
Also Monday, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said he expects a deal with Yahoo to be completed by the end of the year.
Yahoo shares jumped 77 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $29.15 in Monday morning trading, while Microsoft gained 5 cents to $30.50. Google shares fell $10.27, or 2 percent, to $505.63.
Since announcing its unsolicited bid early Friday, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft has been trying to depict a Yahoo takeover as a boon for both advertisers and consumers because the two companies together would be able to compete against Google more effectively.
But Google is painting a starkly different picture, asserting that Microsoft will be able to stifle innovation and leverage its dominating Windows operating system to set up personal computers so consumers are automatically steered to online services, such as e-mail and instant messaging, controlled by the world's largest software maker.
In a move that illustrates just how badly Google wants to torpedo the deal, Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt called Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang Friday to offer his help in repelling Microsoft, according to a report Sunday on The Wall Street Journal's Web site, which cited anonymous people familiar with the matter.
The assistance didn't include a counterbid, but may have included supporting other potential suitors, or a revenue guarantee in exchange for an ad partnership with Yahoo, the people said, according the newspaper.
AT&T Inc., Time Warner Inc. and News Corp. aren't planning to enter the bidding, the Journal said, citing the people familiar.
To help make its point, Google pointed to the way Microsoft previously used Windows to help extend the reach of its Web browser and other applications — a strategy that triggered a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit alleging the software maker illegally used its operating system to stifle competition. The dispute ended with a 2002 settlement that required Microsoft to abandon some of its past practices.
"Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?" Drummond wrote.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said preventing Microsoft from buying Yahoo would undermine competition by allowing Google to become even more dominant than it already is on the Internet
"Microsoft is committed to openness, innovation, and the protection of privacy on the Internet," Smith said. "We believe that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo will advance these goals."
If they get together, Microsoft and Yahoo would have about 16 percent of the worldwide Internet search market — still far behind Google's 62 percent share, according to comScore Media Metrix. But Microsoft and Yahoo already are far bigger in than Google in e-mail and instant messaging, and conceivably would be in a better position to squash rival services if they combined.
In its Web site posting, Yahoo has said its review of the proposal "will include evaluating all of the company's strategic alternatives, including maintaining Yahoo as an independent company."
Most analysts believe Yahoo will have little choice but to sell to Microsoft, with its stock price near a four-year low at the time of the bid and its profits falling since late 2006. When it was first announced, Microsoft's offer was 62 percent above Yahoo's market value — a premium analysts doubt any other suitor will be able to top.
If Yahoo accepts, antitrust regulators in both the United States and Europe are expected to begin an exhaustive review that some experts think could last a year. Microsoft believes it could get the necessary approvals to take over Yahoo late this year.
If nothing else, Google probably will try to raise enough alarms about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal to delay its approval for as long as possible. By doing so, Google would have more time to draw up plans to counteract the combination.
Google also is borrowing a page from Microsoft's book by urging antitrust regulators to take a hard look at the proposed marriage between its two rivals.
Just days after Google struck a $3.1 billion deal to buy online ad service DoubleClick Inc. last year, Microsoft began lobbying regulators to block the transaction. U.S. regulators blessed Google's DoubleClick acquisition late last year after an eight-month review, but the antitrust inquiry in Europe remains open.
___
AP Business Writer Rachel Metz contributed to this report from New York.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Is Yahoo going away?
Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 Billion
February 1st, 2008
From a Microsoft Press Release: (REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 1, 2008)
Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share
Transaction valued at approximately $44.6 billion in cash and stock; provides 62 percent premium to current trading price for Yahoo! shareholders; combined entity to create a more competitive company, providing superior value to shareholders, better choice and innovation for customers and partners.
This would be a huge deal if it happens. Microsoft made noises about buying Yahoo in 2006 & 2007, but with the recent drop in Yahoo! share price (until this deal bumped them up a bit) Microsoft might actually pull this off.
What does this mean?? It could mean the end of yahoo mail for one. It could mean the end of yahoo search for another. It could mean that there will be two big players in search Google and MSN. I believe if it happens you will see the smaller search engines further consolidate such as ASK and DOGPILE and maybe LYCOS be combined because they would need to at least be viable. We might even see anew player emerge. I will try to keep you posted.
Joe
February 1st, 2008
From a Microsoft Press Release: (REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 1, 2008)
Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share
Transaction valued at approximately $44.6 billion in cash and stock; provides 62 percent premium to current trading price for Yahoo! shareholders; combined entity to create a more competitive company, providing superior value to shareholders, better choice and innovation for customers and partners.
This would be a huge deal if it happens. Microsoft made noises about buying Yahoo in 2006 & 2007, but with the recent drop in Yahoo! share price (until this deal bumped them up a bit) Microsoft might actually pull this off.
What does this mean?? It could mean the end of yahoo mail for one. It could mean the end of yahoo search for another. It could mean that there will be two big players in search Google and MSN. I believe if it happens you will see the smaller search engines further consolidate such as ASK and DOGPILE and maybe LYCOS be combined because they would need to at least be viable. We might even see anew player emerge. I will try to keep you posted.
Joe
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