YouTube might just be the best thing

YouTube might just be the best thing that ever happened to old media.

Ever since Google (Charts) paid $1.65 billion for YouTube in October, plenty of pundits - from Mark Cuban to yours truly - have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, the hugely popular video service is stuffed with clips that users have uploaded with complete disregard for copyright.

For awhile, content creators like Time Warner (Charts), Disney and News Corp (Charts) had reason to think that YouTube's sky-high operating costs would cripple the infant site long before any ! judge could. Then along came Google, perhaps the deepest pocket in all of Silicon Valley.

This could get ugly, skeptics surmised. Rumors swirled that Google created a $500 million YouTube legal defense fund. Media titans, including Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons, were heard huffing and puffing. In early November, Google disclosed that it had already been sued - and the media world gasped.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse. Nothing. YouTube has not only held the threats at bay, but also shown it can be a revenue boon for old media.

Friend or foe? Ask CBS
The strongest evidence: An experimental "brand channel" YouTube launched in mid-October for CBS (Charts) in the hopes that it would become the model for other old media partnerships. The press mostly ignored the deal's ! announcement at the time, most likely because it fell on the s! ame day that Google bought YouTube.

It's worth circling back now. As part of the deal, CBS agreed to offer free video clips for downloading. In return, the media company gets to sniff around YouTube for any content bearing its copyright. CBS can then choose between removing the offending clips or getting a cut of the revenue YouTube generates from any advertising linked to the clip.

The result? By Thanksgiving, CBS had uploaded 300 clips that caught the attention of nearly 30 million pairs of eyeballs. More than 35,000 consumers have subscribed to the free channel. More importantly, the shows that CBS was pushing online suddenly became bigger hits on regular old television too.

Take David Letterman. The late-night talk show host gained an extra 200,000 viewers shortly after his YouTube debut. Craig Ferguson, host of The Late Late Show, saw his audience increase by seven percent - all in a little over a month.

Given that the month was November,! a "sweeps" month in which audience ratings determine how much a network charges for ads until May, YouTube gave CBS an early holiday gift. CBS, with a strong overall lineup, finished the month as the most watched network among all age groups and tied for second in the most coveted demographic, 18 to 49 year-olds.

Focus groups, ready-made
The Nielsen ratings did more than give CBS a lift. It provided key evidence in the war between copyright owners and freeloaders. Music buffs, for instance, have long argued that the free sharing of songs drives CD and other music sales. The problem is, they've never had the statistics to prove it.

But video-sharing proponents do. The CBS deal shows that a direct connection can be made when it comes to free-for-all TV downloads. Networks now have both YouTube figures and Nielsen numbers at their disposal. "CBS is learning about its audience as never before," said CBS Interacti! ve president Quincy Smith.

It won't take long for other ! networks to embrace YouTube. Witness how NBC, a General Electric (Charts) unit, and CBS jumped on the iTunes bandwagon after Disney (Charts)-owned ABC paved the way. So don't be surprised to see NBC, Fox and ABC launch their own YouTube channels. (This week British channel Sky, controlled by Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting (Charts), announced a deal for its own version of YouTube, built with Google technology.)

Google's head of business development Omid Kordestani, speaking at an investor conference in London this week, confirmed that "conversations have been going on with all the key p! layers" on developing and making money out of YouTube. He also hinted that old media partners would get the lion's share of advertising revenues.

YouTube could be a boon for the networks in unforeseen ways, too.

Spending millions developing sitcoms only to mothball them halfway through the season? Try developing a three-minute sketch first, rather than a whole pilot, and see if it flies on YouTube. Not sure who to cast in the lead role of your latest crime drama? Show online viewers the audition tapes and let them choose for you.

In the end, the prize fight we pundits have been expecting between Google and old media may rapidly turn into a love fest. While that may not score big ratings in the short run, it's sure to produce a lot more quality entertainment for TV viewers far into the future.

By Chris Taylor, Business 2.0 Magazine senior editor

Social networking drives European Web growth

Social networking websites are used by nearly a quarter of Europeans at least once a month, according to a new consumer survey.

The 2006 Mediascope research from trade body the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) reveals that social networking via VoIP, IM and and online forums will continue to drive internet growth as the medium becomes a more ingrained part of the consumer’s lifestyle.

The study showed that 72% of Europeans spend the majority of their time online for personal reasons, less so for work. The research also demonstrates that increased broadband penetration across Europe has positively impacted the numbers of hours Europeans spend online and has contributed to the increased use of price comparison, news and local information websites, blogging, online radio and music downloads.

The EIAA study finds that 45% of internet users in Europe now go online every day of the week, which demonstrates the increasing importance of the internet in our everyday lives and its growing role as an engagement medium among European consumers.

The average European internet user now spends 11 hours 20 minutes a week online compared to 10 hours and 15 minutes a week in 2005, an increase of 11%. With this increase, the average European is now online 5.4 days a week. "
Source: EIAA

Online Business Strategy

Just received an e-mail from Melvin Perry that I found useful. Here is a shortened version:

"This is a principle that governs a large majority of my business strategy. Every day, I am making an attempt to add more content to my business by either:

1. Writing an article
2. Posting a blog entry
3. Posting to a forum
4. Posting a blog comment
5. Creating a free online video tutorial 6. Writing a viral report 7. Submitting a press release

Everyday, I am trying to do at least 2 of the 7 content building methods I mentioned above. And as a result, I have seen trackable improvements to my traffic and business every week.

Therefore, if you do not have a workable marketing strategy, I highly encourage you to focus on building content in order to market and build your business."

Most popular Browsers on the Web

The most popular browsers on the web are:

November 2006
1. Microsoft IE 85.24%
2. Mozilla Firefox 12.15%
3. Apple Safari 1.61%
4. Opera 0.69%
5. Netscape 0.11%

The global usage share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 is 3.06 percent. At this moment 3.6 percent of all IE users is using IE 7. The total usage share of Internet Explorer decreased 0.61 percent since the beginning of October 2006.

Mozilla Firefox's 2.0 has a global usage share of 2.38 percent. At this moment 19.5 percent of all Mozilla users is using Firefox 2.0. The total global usage share of Mozilla browsers is 12.15 percent. The total usage share of Mozilla Firefox increased 0.66 percent since the beginning of October 2006.

The total global usage share of Apple's Safari is 1.61 percent which is the same as the beginning of October 2006.

Source: OneStat.com

‘Watch & chat’ video site launched

Online portal Lycos has launched a new site that lets users watch video content and chat with other users at the same time.

Initially available as a beta test, Lycos Cinema uses a patent-pending video platform which allows users to view and chat in real-time.

The site lets users host their own Screening Rooms, inviting others to watch high-quality video content, while the host of the room controls the video experience.

Screening Room hosts can pause, rewind and fast-forward video streams, and most importantly, chat with other Screening Room viewers. Users can view profiles of other guests in the Screening Room audience and build buddy lists for future watch and chat sessions. Users may also congregate in ‘virtual lobbies’, browsing lists of available screenings, conversing with other users with whom they can watch and chat. Screening Room hosts can password-protect screenings, making watch and chat sessions available by invitation only.

Digital rights owners, artists and content managers can release content to a VIP or general audience with direct interaction, providing screening and sampling opportunities, marketing and promotion and innovative opportunities for new revenue streams. Content is wrapped in Microsoft's DRM technology provided by Microsoft's Windows Media Rights Manager, to protect artists’ rights.

Brian Kalinowski, chief operating officer of LYCOS, said: “Viewing video online becomes much more engaging and enjoyable when you can create a social experience involving friends and family."

First interactive viral video released

Agent Provocateur releases first interactive viral video using coull.tv

New Miss X campaign featuring Kate Moss ad enables viewers to click on desired objects in video and be directed to commerce area

The new Kate Moss Agent Provocateur film, using coull.tv technology, is set to be the first viral film that allows viewers to click on objects within a moving video and be directed straight to the relevant sales website.

The viral trailer is being distributed this week by NovaRising via interactive video email, which opens directly within the receiver’s email application. Initial click through rates of up to 56% have been recorded so far in the campaign.

Viewers will be able to click on Agent Provocateur lingerie being worn by Kate Moss within the film to be forwarded directly to purchase the item.

WOW: Building a Brand

Building an Image for a New (Online) Brand.

I recently got offered a ticket for a branding seminar. The price seemed pretty reasonable since branding can be a pretty expensive exercise and usually is targeted at the 'heavy hitters'. (It did cost the ‘big guys’ millions to build their brands.)

However it just made me recap what I understand the essential in building a new brand to be. And I thought you might enjoy this brief recap too. So here it is:

I believe, in building a new (online) brand your ads, you should:

1. use the brand name within the first words (or ten seconds in a video)
2. repeat the name as much as possible without irritating the reader/viewer and
3. play with the name, spell it etc., make it memorable

The brand image or ‘personality’ of a product is a mix of the following: It’s name, it’s packaging, it’s price, the style of advertising, and above all, the nature of the product itself.

When you build a brand image – build quality!

Most people don’t choose products; they choose an image, even if we wouldn’t admit it ;-)

Google = 78% of all UK searches

"Google accounts for 78% of all UK searches - and it's market share is growing."

Google and Yahoo!’s share of the search market is growing and driving up the share of referrals from search engines to retail websites, according to new research.

Data from Internet research firm Hitwsie indicates that Google powered 78% of UK internet searches in the four weeks to 21 October 2006, up 9% year-on-year. Yahoo! took the number 2 rank based on share of executed UK searches with 7.7% of the search market.

Together Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com powered 96.6% of all UK internet searches, up 2% year-on-year.

Increasing Traffic with FireFox

I recently stumbled upon a great tool to increase your site traffic with a FireFox extension. (Some will by now already know what I mean ...)

Several 'experts' I trust swear by this tool and apparently it works differently from traditional social booking (like Del.icio.us ) and many report it will drive consistent traffic to your website.

What is this great free tool? Let me do a bit of promotion here: "Come and find out at my next Website Optimization Workshop in London on Sat the 11th of November." If you want to find out more how to get your site optimized, for traffic, list and sales, have a look at the workshop page by clicking here.

Meta Tags and Titles

A few hours spent writing unique titles and descriptions for each page of your site is insignificant compared to the increase in traffic that results.

Page titles tell the search engines what your site is about, and meta descriptions give searchers something compelling to click on in the search engine results pages.

Additionally, using keywords in your '<'Title'>' tags further boosts each page’s calculated relevance to a particular subject.

You haven’t done any keyword research yet? That’s no excuse. Do the exercise anyway and use your best judgment based on each page’s existing content. This is where writing for the “long tail” comes in handy. If you are unfamiliar with this subject, check out Matt Bailey’s article, Keyword Strategies – The Long Tail.

By the way, if your web developer proudly shows you a long list of keywords typed into the keyword meta tag, well, you know what I always say in these situations: Take your money and run.

Keyword meta tags were used and abused for years. As a result, most search engines don’t put much stock into them. Time is precious. Spend it on something useful.

Posted by Kar.ri Flat.la

Hyperlink Your Calls to Action

Hyperlink Your Calls to Action

The only reason I can think of that most websites don’t capitalize on this tactic is that it just seems too easy. Yet the simple act of hyperlinking a call to action helps you accomplish two very important goals:

(1) It increases interaction between your site and your visitor.
(2) It gives the search engines one more tip-off as to what your site is all about.

When visitors see a link that contains keyword rich text—text that is hopefully underlined or bolded in a contrasting color—they feel compelled to click on it. People on the web are searching for answers, solutions, or information. Make it as easy as possible for them to find those things.

So, instead of waiting until the end of your amazing sales copy to tell the visitor to “click here,” why not hyperlink the whole thing?

Posted by Karri Flat.la

Think you got it sussed?

Think you got it all sussed out?

Maybe yes - maybe no(t). I just developed a business card for a new product and I was pretty pleased with the result - until I asked some trusted friends what they thought of it... Really great feedback - I got which changed the face of that new card entirely.

Now why am I bringing this up? To reiterate the online marketers mantra: "Test everything." There really is no substitute for it. There is no better way of finding out than asking the 'the marketplace' (or some friends).

Wishing you insightful testing!

Karl

Watch 'The Secret' free

Hi everyone,

great inspiration for the week. Don't judge from the intro part - it's worth hanging on to get to the good stuff:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1713414398006481796&q=movie+by+prime+time+production

Below are a couple of bullet points from The Secret, hope they trigger your interest, too.

Make a list of things you are grateful for and go through that list everyday. Don't just repeat it – feel it.

Take a gratitude rock with you.

Visualise to materialise, dwell on the end result.

The how will show up in the commitment to the what.

Put up your vision boards.

Close your eyes for a couple of minutes and feel it. Then go out into the world and let it materialise.

Set the goal so big, that it would blow your mind if you would achieve it.

Declare it, believe it, release it.

When you have an inspired thought trust it and act on it.

Dis-ease.

Energy flows where attention goes.

If you believe it, you see it, you work on it, it will show up for you.

Everything in the universe is energy.

“Whether you think you can or you think you can't you are right.” Henry Ford

enjoy, Karl

Viral Video Chart

'Unruly Media' Launches First Independent Viral Video Chart

The first chart to compile data from YouTube, MySpace and Google Video, Viral Video Chart lets web users catch the hottest online videos at the very moment their popurlarity begins to skyrocket.

[ClickPress, Wed Sep 13 2006] Today sees the launch of the world's first comprehensive and independent online video chart, www.viralvideochart.com.

The brainchild of London-based company, Unruly Media, www.viralvideochart.com is an independent chart of the most popular videos on the world's top three video-sharing sites, YouTube, MySpace and Google Video.

While Google, YouTube and MySpace all publish lists of the videos most popular with their own users - rather like HMV, Virgin or Walmart might publish music charts based on their own sales data - no chart has, until now, attempted to combine data from all three sites in a credible way."

You are what you eat

Raw for 30 Days: Reversing Diabetes Naturally

Watch - Another digressing from the subject ;-)

Karl

Top of the Blogs

The popularity of online video sites is growing - video content on sites such as MySpace continues to expand and YouTube sold to Google for $1.65 billion earlier this month.

Now a new video chart is set to launch, www.ViralVideoChart.com, compiled by monitoring the ‘most blogged about’ videos on the internet.

Creator Unruly Media anticipate the chart will become an important tool for creative artists trying to generate a fan base, as well as advertising and marketing execs.

Scott Button, MD, Unruly Media, says: “We believe that the Viral Video Chart will offer the most up-to-date information possible on the videos that are generating the most interest on the internet. We aim to continue to expand our data sources to ensure that the chart becomes the definitive run-down of video blog buzz and offers a vital monitoring service.”

The service promises the most comprehensive chart of video footage ever to be gathered online. The independently compiled chart is intended to reproduce for online videos what the Billboard Hot 100 does for music.

Over 2 million blogs are checked daily for videos that bloggers have linked to or embedded as part of their latest entries. Instead of being an after-the-fact look at the most watched videos online, the Viral Video Chart monitors the videos that are generating the most ‘buzz’ in cyberspace in order to uncover the clips that are likely to be the next big thing.

This is achieved by regular data updates from weblogs.com, a monitoring service that tracks which blogs have been updated within the last five minutes.

Netimperative [article shortened]

Microsoft names Vista launch day

Microsoft has been showing off Vista for months.

Microsoft has announced the date on which Windows Vista will be made available to businesses.
From 30 November corporate customers of the software giant will be able to get their hands on the next version of the operating system.
Also on that date Microsoft will make available Office 2007 - its suite of business programs.
Home users will have to wait until January 2007 to get hold of a copy of the Vista software. "

"TV topples to Google"

It was only a matter of time.

In a landmark milestone of multi-channel media marketing, the word is out that advertising revenue at Google Towers has surpassed that of UK conventional terrestrial TV network provider, Channel 4.

With a staggering $1.6 billion in advertising revenues for 2006 (that's about £800 million) analysts now expect ITV to fall next, probably in early 2008.

Google's third quarter revenues topped over £390 million, despite an all-share acquisition of YouTube earlier this summer, which receives over 72 million hits a month to view its online video content.

The move away from conventional advertising media has been predicted for some considerable time, but as the wickets fall in reality, it comes as one of those seminal moments when we all stand for a moment to take stock and to realise that we are now in unchartered territory.

Many of the former newspaper media titles have ditched subscription-based services in favour of online advertising instruments, and, whilst some premium-content organs retain subscription for key areas, most of the attention is turning to where eyeballs are gazing - and that's no longer the 42" plasma or LCD picture frame device in the corner. That, it would seem, is being used for watching DVD movies and as a big screen add-on to the desktop or laptop monitoring device.

So, it makes rational sense that if eyeballs are averting from Big Brother reality TV and Countdown to Google, eBay, Amazon and the rest of interactive online virtual reality, that the advertising and marketing worlds should surely follow.

No rocket science there, in that respect. But what is odd, is the time it has taken for TV execs to wake up and smell the latté - they've been in virtual business denial for nigh on a decade and it comes as some surprise that they haven't made their moves a long time ago.

Paul Quigley, Internet World [article shortened]

YouTube goes 'moblogging'

YouTube goes 'moblogging'

The future Google unit has big plans to help consumers create and share video with their cell phones. But so do a lot of competitors.

First news broke that Cingular Wireless will launch a new music service on its cell phone network. Then YouTube said it would bring video-sharing to mobile phones.

That's two big announcements from two big companies. But which company is likely to have more success? YouTube, for reasons that have little to do with the company's $1.65 billion sale to Internet goliath Google.

Here's the reason: Consumers want to share content more than they want to listen to songs on their cell phones. At least that's what they told In-Stat, a technology research firm, this summer. Sending a clip of Junior's soccer match to Grandma, it seems, is much cooler than watching the latest 'mobisode' of "Desperate Housewives" on a two-inch scr! een.

At the tone, leave a video-mail

"It was striking to see how strongly people feel about using video to communicate," says David Chamberlain, the In-Stat principal analyst who conducted the consumer study.

On Wednesday, YouTube CEO Chad Hurley told attendees at an advertising conference that the video-sharing site will allow users to send clips to other YouTube members within a year, according to a Reuters report. YouTube users already can upload clips from their phones to the company's site and then watch from their personal computers.

Hurley told the advertising execs that video-sharing via mobile phones is an obvious next step for the company. "[I]t's going to be a huge market," he said.

'Moblogging' - the industry term for the nascent mobile user-generated market - is expected to reap $13 billion a year in advertising and subscription revenues come 2011, according to Informa Telecoms & M! edia, a research firm.

YouTube's push into the mobile market is both good and bad news for entrepreneurs like Alex Kelly, the CEO of San Francisco startup Veeker.

On the one hand, it validated Kelly's vision. So far mobile operators have had a hard time offering inexpensive, easy-to-use and fast services that consumers can use to share images and videos captured with their cameraphones. Only about 50 percent of U.S. mobile phone subscribers with built-in cameras actually snap photos. Even worse, a meager 3 percent shoot videos.

In late October, Veeker rolled out a free service that lets users publish short video clips, which the company calls "Veeks," taken with their cell phones. Registered users can then send their output, via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), to Veeker.com and other sites that accept HTML embed codes, including MySpace and Blogger.

Veeker members have used the service to leave "video voicemails" for friends and to create personal video diaries.

"Mobile video is very immediate, and that's what people are looking for," says Kelly, who's betting the advertising revenues, both on Veeker's website and embedded in videos, will sustain it. "I think [demand] is going to grow a lot faster than people predicted."

YouTube: the kiss of death?

YouTube's move into mobile video could be a boon for startups like Veeker. Rivals could start scouting for their own mobile video service - and that's always good news for smaller players looking to be acquired.

The biggest risk of all? Mobile video will never live up to expectations. That's the prediction from Ken Hyers, an ABI Research senior analyst. Hyers estimates there will be a scant 655,000 mobloggers worldwide at year-end. He expects that number to quadruple to 2.7 million by 2011. That's just a fraction of the estimated 3 billion mobile phone users around the world.

By Michal Lev-Ram, Business 2.0 Magazine writer-reporter

BLACKOUT LONDON

"BLACKOUT LONDON" - 4th November 2006, Starting at Sunset, 4.30 pm to 7.30 pm.

Hi everyone! Once in a while I am putting some - I believe - important issues into this blog, that have hardly to do anything with Internet Marketing. So please bear with me if this is of little interest to you.


"You are invited ...

to take part in a demonstration of People Power in London, UK on Saturday 4th November 2006, by turning off all your lights, and switching off all your non-essential electrical equipment at Sunset.

CLIMATE CHANGE is already compromising the water supply, crops, habitat and livelihoods of millions of people worldwide, and threatens to undermine the Global Economy within a few decades, as well as creating waves of Climate Refugees, and driving countless animals and
plants to extinction.

The principal cause of Global Warming is the rising Carbon Dioxide emissions into the atmosphere from the burning of Fossil Fuels, for electricity generation, transport, manufacturing, industry, space heating and air conditioning.

REMEMBER, REMEMBER, THE FOURTH OF NOVEMBER !

For one day in November, we are asking everyone who receives this message to think about what they can turn off, switch off and unplug, to show support.

We want the power demand in the United Kingdom to reduce so much that the newspapers are obliged to report it.

We want the lights to go out in London, so that on the evening of 4th November 2006, the dimming effect will be visible from space."

And if you don't live in London please take this as an invitation to start a 'blackout initiative' in the area where you live. Let's see which city or area can make the biggest difference, shall we?

For more info please click on this link.

New UEFA online video service

"UEFA launches online video service"

European football body UEFA has launched a video service for broadcasters providing live Internet coverage of Champions League matches.

Available in 96 countries, UEFA Video Service (UVS), has been developed to enable its broadcast partners to extend their rights and provide live match coverage on the Internet.

Over 20 broadcasters around the world are using UVS to make every UEFA Champions League match from the 2006/07season and every UEFA Cup match from the quarter-final stage in April 2007 available live on the Internet.

As a result, more than 125 matches will be offered in over 100 countries. As well as the live coverage, UVS also provides an archive of over 5,000 videos and 1,000 matches from UEFA competitions dating back over ten years.

The archive features a search function that allows users to find videos by season, club and player. Fans can access live coverage by visiting uefa.com at http://video.uefa.com. Based on their geographic location, users will be served with the live matches available in their territory."

AOL drives searches to video sites

"AOL drives high proportion of searches to video sites."

AOL drives the highest proportion of its UK search engine users to online video sites, according to Internet research firm Nielsen/NetRatings.

The research indicates that AOL Search is 39% more likely to be responsible for a click-through to a video/movie site (11%) than it is for a click-through across the entire Internet (7.9%).

MSN/Windows Live Search however is 64% less likely to be responsible for a click-through to a video/movie site (1.5%) than for a click-through across the entire Internet (4.2%).

Searching for online video

"Who actually is searching for online video?"

The young guns you would think - wouldn't you.

Hoewever UK family households make up most of the people searching for online video from the home, according to new research!

According to Nielsen, in September 2006, 2.3 million UK households clicked-through to a video/movie site from a search engine, racking up over 6.7 million click-throughs in total.

Thus family households accounted for over half (53%) of all these click-throughs, but , young couples without kids are twice as likely to be responsible for a click-through to a video/movie site (4.8%) than for a click-through across the entire Internet (2.3%).

‘Empty nesters’ are 40% less likely to be responsible for a click-through to a video/movie site (16.2%) than for a click-through across the entire Internet (27.1%).

In Sept 06 younger couples with no kids accounted for 4.8% of all click-throughs to video/movie sites but only 2.3% of all click-throughs across the Internet.

Source: Nielsen, Sept 06

Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, comments: “Contrary to popular perception, search click-throughs to online videos aren’t coming from twenty-somethings. In fact it’s the opposite.

Almost three-quarters of online video search click-throughs come from family households or households comprising couples over 35 with no children.”

Mobile Internet popular in EU

"Mobile Internet ‘more popular with Europeans than Americans"

Who would have thought that? The US - a nation where people move thousands of miles for their job and even commute by plane - according to new research are not picking up the 'mobile Internet' as quickly as their European counterparts.

Europeans are far more likely to access the Web on their mobiles than their US counterparts, according to new research from comScore Networks.

The results, form part of the research firm’s new Mobile Tracking Study, which examines how consumers across six countries in Europe and America (US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK) access Internet content from their mobile phones.

The research shows that 29% of European Internet users regularly access the Web from their mobile phones compared to only 19% in the US.

Of the countries examined, the highest mobile Web penetration is seen in both Germany and Italy (34%), followed by France with 28%, Spain with 26% and the UK with 24%. The U.S. figure of 19% is the lowest of the set.

The study also shows that men are somewhat more likely to access the Web from their mobile phones than women. Across all six countries, although the Internet penetration is split evenly between men and women, 55% of those who access the Web from their mobile phones are men.

Microsoft launches IE7

"Microsoft launches IE7 with tabbed browsing."


Microsoft has updated its popular Internet Explorer web browser, with a number of new features, including tabbed browsing.

Initially launched as a beta test in February this year, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 has now gone public and is available for download on the Microsoft web site.

The browser requires Windows XP with SP2, Windows XP Pro 64-bit edition, or any version of Windows Server 2003 to run.

A new tabbed browsing feature, similar to that offered by rivals Opera and Mozilla, lets users sort their tabs into a group, which can be opened with one click. This negates the need to have multiple tabs displayed at the bottom of the screen when surfing several websites simultaneously.

ITV broadbands Champions League

"ITV selects Premium TV for Champions League via broadband."

ITV.com has chosen digital rights company, Premium TV, as its commercial and technology partner to work on its high-profile Champions League broadband project, following a competitive tender.

Under the terms of the deal, Premium TV is streaming live all of the matches broadcast on ITV 1 and 2.

In addition to live games, users of the service are also able to access Premium TV’s Searchable Video Archive (SVA), which allows subscribers to access video highlights and goals from other Champions League matches, as well as player and manager interviews.

The next game to be shown will be Manchester United v Copenhagen on October 17. A 36-hour pass will cost £1.99, while a season pass will cost £19.99.

A Star Is Born

Not entirely Internet Marketing but if you enjoy music you might enjoy this!

Just click on the headline link and turn up the volume (if you're not at work ;-).

Email marketing equal post

"Email marketing volumes set to equal post this year."

The number of email marketing messages being sent are set to equal that of direct mail by the end of this year, according to the latest research from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

The DMA’s National Email Benchmarking Survey also indicates that email acquisition click through rates have risen from 6% to 8%.

Overall, the first quarter of 2006 has shown a 30% year on year increase in average mailing volumes and volumes in the first quarter of 2006 have risen by 13% on the last quarter of 2005.

Despite increasing volumes, response rates such as click though rates are remaining static and retention figures still stand at approximately 10%.

Actual payments per 1000 email addresses vary from ‘up to £1’ to ‘over £5"

Bebo catching eBay

"Bebo catching eBay as most searched-for brand."

UK social networking site Bebo looks set to overtake eBay as the most searched-for UK brand according to new research.

Internet research firm Hitwise reports that since May, Bebo has been the second most searched-for brand in the UK after eBay, measured as a share of UK internet searches.

However, Bebo’s rapid rise is narrowing the gap with eBay. The market share of UK internet searches for “bebo” has increased more than three-fold in the past six months and 17.6% in the past three months.

The gap in the share of searches for “ebay” and “bebo” was only 5% in the four weeks to 30th September 2006, down from 25% three months ago and 80% six months ago, according to Hitwise. Social networking sites Bebo, MySpace and YouTube have joined Faceparty among the top 20 most searched-for brands in the UK, comparing September 2005 and 2006.

"Google Signs Agreement"

"Google Signs Agreement with SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT to Give Users Access to Expansive Catalog of Music Videos"

Ad-supported video models give users unparalleled access to SONY BMG
MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT's content online and creates new monetization
opportunities

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT and Google announced a
strategic business relationship designed to make the music company's
expansive music video collection available for online streaming at no
cost to users.

[WOW - that is great news.]

Starting this month, users can watch thousands of
videos from SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT on Google Video. In the coming
months, users will also be able to access content from SONY BMG MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT artists through Google's partner websites in its
AdSense network.

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, Google and web publishers will now be
able to monetize professional video content while respecting copyrights
through these video distribution models.

YouTube goes for $1.65bn

"YouTube goes from zero to $1.65bn in two years"

The twenty-something founders of YouTube have become millionaires hundreds of times over, after their video-sharing website, one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the internet, was sold to Google with a $1.65bn (£880m) price tag.

Less than two years ago, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen began work in Mr Hurley's Silicon Valley garage on a way to allow them to share footage of a dinner party with friends.

But today, visitors watch more than 100 million video clips on the site every day, from television clips, sporting highlights, and millions of home-made videos from webcam users across the world.

Depending on who you ask, YouTube is responsible for turning the internet into the most powerful entertainment medium since television, or for creating a never-ending episode of You've Been Framed. Both sides accept the YouTube phenomenon is set to keep on growing.

Google's executives said YouTube represents 'the next step in the evolution of the internet' and that Messrs Hurley and Chen reminded them of the young Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who created the search engine pioneer in a garage of their own less than a decade ago. Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, said: 'Chad and Steve have created a team that has been innovative and visionary and successful, exactly the kind of people we love to work with.'

Mr Brin said YouTube 'reminds me of Google just a few short years ago'. He said having revolutionised the way people search for content on the internet, Google would now be able to shape the way in which video is delivered to viewers.

By Stephen Foley in New York

Google acquires YouTube

"Google acquires YouTube - $1.65B deal for video site"

YouTube's Chad Hurley, 29, (l.) and Steve Chen, 27, have a lot to celebrate as their web site got a blockbuster bid from Google yesterday.

The Google guys have swallowed YouTube for $1.65 billion. Marking its biggest deal ever, the Internet giant agreed to snap up the red hot site in a major push for video supremacy on the Internet.

'Google has taken the first step toward being more of a media company than a technology company,' said Joe Laszlo, senior analyst at Jupiter Research. 'They bought the idea that social networking is big business - and they bought the leader.'

The Google-YouTube match-up marks another stunning story for an online start-up that didn't even exist two years ago.

YouTube's twenty-something founders, Chad Hurley and Steven Chen, started the company just 19 months ago, with the idea of giving regular folks a shot at uploading their own short videos onto the Web. In short order, YouTube became the Internet's No. 1 video-sharing site.

The YouTube-ers and their 67-person staff - now overnight millionaires - will join Google but remain largely independent in Silicon Valley headquarters.

On a conference with analysts yesterday, Google chairman Eric Schmidt compared YouTube's Hurley and Chen to Google's fabled founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Brin and Page are only a few years older than the YouTube founders.

Both sets of leaders, Schmidt said, built sites that lured mass audiences while the deep pocketed corporate giants just stood by.

That could be a message for all of us. Smaller companies can be more innovative and move much faster. So the question is "How creative can we be?"

Optimize Your Website In A Day

We have developed a new one-day workshop to optimize the performance of web sites.

Workshop participants get the latest and most successful Online Marketing Strategies, Techniques and Resources to apply to their websites.

We start this facts-packed day with basic but often overlooked Site Elements that can increase sales by up to 200%! We then go through the most important, second most important and third most important Part of each Website to show which techniques can be used best.

The next three sections cover how to increase Web Site Traffic, how to build a profitable Customer List and how to turn Site Visitors into Lifetime Customers.

In the last Knowledge Section participants see how to use Tracking, Testing and Automation to keep optimizing their sites' performance even further once they left the workshop.

Participants learn which Methods to use with their own Websites to increase their Site's Performance.

For a full description of the Benefits of this Workshop please see The Website Optimization Workshop

Online firm reveals keyword data

"Online research firm Hitwise UK has launched a new tool that lets online marketers monitor their competitor’s paid and organic search strategies at a keyword level.

The firm has added paid and organic search term data to Search Intelligence 4.0. This new feature lets search marketers view and export website search term information, which details the percentage of traffic a competitor receives from paid and organic listings across the key websites featured within Hitwise.

The paid and organic search term data is based on the search behaviour of 8.43 million UK internet users across all major search engines. Gavin Appel, Hitwise SVP of product development, said:

“With our new paid and organic keyword data, we are now providing our clients with even greater clarity and ultimately, a better competitive edge when planning their search marketing campaigns.”

“This is the latest example of our leadership position in the industry when it comes to keyword research and measurement. With this new data, clients can strike the right balance between search engine optimization and search engine marketing campaigns."

Duplicate Internet Web Site Content

Duplicate Content Issues: These have become a major issue on
the Internet.

Because web pages drive search engine rankings,
certain 'black hat' SEOs (search engine optimizers) started duplicating
entire sites' content under their own domain name, thereby
instantly producing a ton of web pages (an example of this would
be to download an Encyclopedia onto your website).

As a result of this abuse, Google aggressively attacked duplicate content
abusers with their algorithm updates. But in the process they
knocked out many legitimate sites as collateral damage. One
example occurs when someone scrapes your website.

Google sees both sites and may determine the legitimate one to be the
duplicate.

About the only thing a Webmaster can do is track down
these sites as they are scraped, and submit a spam report to
Google.

Yahoo snaps up video-sharing site

Yahoo has acquired Jumpcut, a video-sharing site that provides web users with online editing tools for creating their own movies.

The San Francisco-based start-up will become a part of Yahoo's Social Media group, which includes photo-sharing service Flickr, and bookmark-sharing service Del.icio.us.

Jumpcut was created by MiraVida Media, and lets users publish and remix video clips using a suite of editing tools. Jumpcut will be working with Yahoo media and advertising partners to offer more content that subscribers can use in remixing movies. "

Netimperative 29-09-2006

YouTube becomes fastest growing UK online brand- research

User-generated content websites such as YouTube, Flickr and MySpace have been the biggest Internet success stories of the year so far, according to new research.

A report from Internet research firm Neilsen//Netratings indicates that the three fastest growing online brands in the UK highlight how generating and sharing content is this year’s online theme, with half of the ten fastest growing brands fall under the “Web 2.0” umbrella.

YouTube, Flickr and MySpace all focus on technologies that allow users to define the content that their peers are looking at online.

Commenting on the findings of the report, Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, said:

“The idea of the user in charge through these so called “Web 2.0” technologies is now a reality. The audience to video sharing phenomenon YouTube is testament to this, having grown by a factor of almost five during the year, meaning that more than one in eight Britons online now visit this site.”

Top 10 Fastest growing brands of 2006 Top 10 brands in 2006
by UK Unique Audience (UA)

Growth * RankBrand % Growth Jan-July 2006 (000’s) July 2006 Nature of Business

1 YouTube 478% 3,585 Video sharing
2 Flickr 131% 1,008 Photo management and sharing
3 MySpace 98% 3,502 Social networking
4 American Express 97% 1,178 Financial services
5 Photobucket 91% 838Image / video hosting and sharing
6 Mozilla 91% 1,202 Web browsing software
7 Vodafone 86% 1,340 Telecommunications
8 Bebo 85% 2,784 Social networking
9 Odeon 82% 985 Cinemas
10 B&Q72% 1,370Home and garden retail

Netimperative 14-09-2006

UK Web users more responsive than most to online ads- study

Online marketing and advertising affects French and British Internet users the most, according to a new European Internet study.

The thirteenth annual NetObserver Europe study, published this week, revealed there are significant differences between the behaviour of European Internet Users.

The study found over half of French internet users declared having participated in an online competition organised by a brand or e-commerce site in the past 3 months, which is significantly more than other European internet users.

Also, French and British internet have clicked on advertising links featured on the results pages from search engines in the past 3 months.

Furthermore, 2 out of 5 British internet users declared having visited a brand or company site just several days after having seen its advertisement on the internet.

This confirms that only the direct click rate is not sufficient to measure the effectiveness of an online advertising campaign.

According to the study, Spanish Internet users make most use of new information and communication services offered by the Internet, such as blogs, Internet telephony, and podcasting, while Germany was the slowest adopters of these new formats.

Meanwhile, Germany comes out ahead in the use of paid online services making the most of sending SMS messages, playing video games (online or downloaded), developing digital photos and are – together with the UK Internet users - amongst those who pay the most to download music and also logos and ring tones for mobile phones. The German Internet users also use more paid practical services, such as auctions, classifieds ads, meeting services, than other European Internet use"

Netimperative - 27-09-2006

Blog sites join forces

Shiny Media has partnered with UK entertainment site Hecklerspray to expand its ad-funded blogging network.

Under the terms of the joint venture, Hecklerspray will become a core part of the Shiny Media stable creating a blogging network with a monthly reach some 1.9 million unique visitors. Shiny Media will manage advertising sales for Hecklerspray.com, which currently attracts about 550,000 unique users and 850,000 page impressions per month.

Hecklerspray is a UK-based entertainment blog that was launched on 1 May 2005. It focuses on music, movies, TV, videogames and celebrity news, as well as gossip and reviews. Advertisers on Hecklerspray have included CNN, Turner, VH1, 4AD Records, Variety Magazine, MSNBC, PETA, and AT&T. 'Shiny has developed a portfolio of original and innovative blogs,' says Hecklerspray's Editor, Stuart Heritage.

'We have always admired Hecklerspray,' says Shiny Media's Creative Director Ashley Norris. 'It is the best UK entertainment blog by some distance.'"

Netimperative 09-2006

The Future: Online Video Ads

I believe that the online video market (ads etc.) is one of the most exciting areas and it will take the Internet by storm. Here is a good article to quickly get-up to speed on what's going on in this market:

The Future of Online Video Ads

The online video ad market hit $225 million in 2005 and is expected to reach $385 million this year, $640 million in 2007 and $1.5 billion by 2009 (eMarketer). Other projections range as high as $2.5 billion in 2010.

There is no doubt that as broadband penetration multiplies, and both video technology and ad serving technology advance, most major advertisers will want to use this branding strategy because of its ability to engage viewers.

Online Video Engages Users

A study by F. N. Magid Associates for the Online Publishers Association shows that consumers engage with video advertising as follows:

5 percent of consumers view online video daily
24 percent view once a week
46 percent view once a month

While many are attracted to humor, video news clips are most popular, with each genre being viewed by more than 25 percent of visitors at least once a week.

Online video ads have great potential on the web and are particularly appealing to a young, wired demographic. As online videos become more popular on user-generated sites like YouTube, the audience for video ads will increase, as will the number of video ads created. "

By Bruce Clay - September 18, 2006

Read the whole article here.

Your Own Wikipedia Page

Most savvy SEOs know that Google is placing an increased weight on links from “authority” websites.

Wikipedia, a free internet encyclopedia that can be edited by any user, is certainly one of the top authority websites in the eyes of Google and I´m certainly not the first SEO to observe that an awful lot of Wikipedia pages are currently ranking quite highly in the SERPS.

By Todd Mintz - September 15, 2006

Read how to create your own Wikipedia page here.

Have Your Company Listed Free in Google Maps

Watch out 'local search is going to become big - I believe. So here is a great article about how to set-up your own local listing on Google for fr.ee:

"Do you want to advertise the physical location of your business for free and get a little extra Google exposure? Thanks to Google Maps this is possible and not many people seem to know about it.

Why Should You Bother With Google Maps?

If simply getting more exposure on an emerging Google tool isn’t enough here are the frills that Google provides freely with this map listing:

Google allows you to offer coupons to visitors of your map listing. These coupons are touted as a way to “reward loyal customers and attract new ones”. At this time, coupons are only available to businesses located in the US.

Once your address is fully verified you have full control over your listing. You can add or delete non-address information at will.

You can add all of your business locations from a single account.

Finally my personal favorite; all that your client or prospective client has to do to find your office is click on a link on you"

Article by Ross Dunn - September 14, 2006

MSN begins testing YouTube rival

"MSN has begun testing a video sharing service in the US that looks to rival the likes of YouTube, MetaCafe and Google Video.

Available as part of MSN Video, the Soapbox service lets users upload, search and share personal videos with community members. The service will be integrated throughout Microsoft’s portfolio of online services, including Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Messenger.

Viewers can search, browse through 15 categories, find related videos, subscribe to RSS feeds, and share their favourites with their friends without interrupting whatever video they’re watching. Soapbox users can also rate, comment on and tag the videos they view, share links with their friends via e-mail, and include the embeddable Soapbox player directly on their Web site or blog.

Rob Bennett, general manager of Entertainment and Video Services for MSN, said:

“Soapbox delivers on a critical component of the MSN growth strategy of deepening audience engagement by enabling people to participate in the content experience. By adding a user-uploaded video service, we are rounding out our existing investments in commercially produced and original content on MSN Video.”"

"Google helps you increase sales"

Google has launched a new merchant program called 'Checkout' which processes sales for free when you advertise with Google.

Every online merchant has two goals: sell more and spend less. Google Checkout™ is a new way to process transactions that helps you achieve both. Checkout works with Google's search advertising program, AdWords, to increase your sales and minimize your expenses throughout the online sales and marketing process.

Attract more leads.

Shoppers who see the Google Checkout™ badge on your AdWords ads will more easily find you when they search.

Convert more leads into sales.

A fast, secure checkout process helps persuade shoppers to buy on your site and buy more often.

Process sales for free.

For every $1 you spend on AdWords, you can process $10 in sales for free. For sales that exceed this amount or if you don't use AdWords, you can process them at a low 2% and $0.20 per transaction.

Protect yourself from fraud.

Google's fraud prevention tools stop invalid orders from reaching you. And their Payment Guarantee policy helps protect you from chargebacks."

More information:

The Official Google Checkout Blog
News and updates for sellers using Google Checkout.

Available so far only in the US.

Alert: "Extremely critical" Word flaw

Alert: "Extremely critical" Word flaw - Breaking Business and Technology News"

Published: Tuesday 5 September 2006

An 'extremely critical flaw' in Microsoft Word 2000 is currently being exploited by malicious attackers, which could lead to remote execution of code on a user's system.

The vulnerability affects systems running Windows 2000 and occurs when processing malicious Word 2000 documents.

Security company Symantec, which several days ago detected the exploit, Trojan MDropper.Q, noted that it uses a two-step attack.

Trojan MDropper.Q exploits the Microsoft Word vulnerability to drop another file, a new variant of Backdoor.Femo, according to a security advisory by Symantec.

Symantec's advisory stated: 'As with other recent [Microsoft] Office vulnerabilities, documents incorporating the exploit code must be opened with a vulnerable copy of Microsoft Word 2000 for it to work. As such, it makes the vulnerability unsuitable for the creation of self-replicating network worms.'

Microsoft has not yet issued a patch for the vulnerability, and users are advised to forgo opening untrusted documents.

"See your site's Inbound Links"

"See your site's 'Inbound Links' with Yahoo! Site Explorer"

Yahoo! launched a useful tool called Site Explorer, which provides information about your site's visibility in the Yahoo! search engine.

Yahoo! recently announced that Site Explorer has been updated, and if you're not yet familiar with Yahoo! Site Explorer, then I would recommend trying it on your web site.

It's a good resource for web site owners to gain insight into their site's presence in Yahoo!.

The tool shows which of the site's pages are indexed and which pages are linking to the site (inbound links).

If you go through the process of verifying that you are the site owner (authentication), then additional information is available, including what subdomains of the site are indexed by Yahoo!, when the Yahoo! web crawler last visited the site, and additional site metadata such as language.

Detailed information about Site Explorer can be found in the Yahoo! help area. Note that Yahoo! also recently announced that normal queries on their search engine using 'site:', 'link:', 'linkdomain:' will be redirected to the Site Explorer results page.

Karl

Instant Google Analytics access now available!

Hi everyone,

The below is great news. Google finally reopened 'Analytics'! If you don't have an account yet. Go and get one. It's a must have.

Read below what Google says.

happy analysing,
Karl

Brett Crosby, Sr. Manager, Google Analytics:

"We're open! Instant access now available

I'm happy to tell you that we've just removed the wait to receive a Google Analytics account. Now anyone with a website can instantly create one for free by simply by visiting google.com/analytics or by clicking on the "Analytics" tab within AdWords. After you create an account, we suggest reading the Installation Guide to get it set up quickly and correctly.

When we founded Urchin we actually had an ad-based business model where we were able to give the product away for free. It didn't last and we eventually went with a paid model. But when our company was acquired in April 2005 we worked with Google to determine a way to give it away for free again, this time with no ads. By doing this, we're able to give all websites -- large and small -- the tools you need to better serve your customers, make more money, and improve the web experience for everyone..."

Business Building Video by Rich Schefren

Hi, make sure you don't miss Rich's (Schefren) video! Highly recommended.

For example Gary Ambrose put out a 'recommendation' (about Rich Schefren's coaching program) on his blog which my RSS reader unfortunately missed ;-) and

the rest is: "Add Me To Your Waiting List!"

Karl

You Now Have One More Chance…

is what the ShopTalk Blog said (on the 25th of July 06) about Rich Schefren's coaching program but actually you don't.

Since unfortunately we are all too late. Well 2 hours and 14 min wasn't exactly a big window to get in but I am sure we will hear and see more of Rich and his material pretty soon.

Am I wrong?

Karl

p.s. Michael Valiant has written the article on ShopTalk. If you wanna know more just scroll down here to see his article.

Forum Discussion about Rich Schefren

Hi Guys and Dolls,

over at John Reese's Marketing Secrets Discussion Forum there are several posts about the 'Rich Schefren Manifesto'. If you want to find out more about Rich's Internet Business Manifesto have a look what people like you and me think.

Karl

Rich Schefren's program sold out!

Hi everyone,

please note that Rich's program is indeed totally sold out! So please don't be disappointed when you are clicking the links to his coaching program sign-up page and they just say "EXPIRED".

Rich has told that he will be releasing more of his brilliant fr.ee material like the Internet Business Manifesto soon.

Karl

Rich Schefren's coaching program

This is in brief what Michael Valiant said about Rich Schefren's coaching program:

"People banged down the doors of his [Rich Schefren - obviously] elite Coaching Club like shoppers besieging a store on Black Friday.

The entire program sold out in JUST two hours.

In a flash there were 115 people in that elite group and hundreds more wanting to get in. Rich took down the offer after 150 were in, but amazingly orders continued to pour in (apparently the page was saved in their browsers).

Clearly, thousands missed out, and still want a solution.

…Rich promised, before this all started, that he was not going to offer another 11 week group or a homestudy. But what I’m about to tell you, will probably put a smile on your face.

When the dust settled, there were two kinds of upset people:

The first group planned to join the coaching group. They didn’t care about the price. They just wanted in but they missed it. Some had their credit cards in hand ready to pay but the program was already sold out.
The second group of people came intending to buy until they saw the price and figured they couldn’t afford it.
Get the HomeStudy Version Today! >>

I’d like to respond to both groups with some incredible news…

You now have a second chance to grow your business.

Starting on July 25th at 12 noon, Rich will be introducing his brand new Systematized Version Of His Elite Coaching Program, The Strategic Profits "Business Growth System"

Remember, his elite coaching program sold out in just 2 hours! It is that good!

We highly recommend signing up for this program, as we mentioned before, it just may be the single best investment you ever make in your business!"

Somebody not happy with Rich Schefren?

Here is even somebody who initially wasn't too happy with what Rich schefren has to offer. It's Stephen Bray from lovely Amos Bay in Turkey. Here is a small excerpt of what he wrote:

"Rich is, I believe, an incredibly talented young man and I am not so much ‘pissed’ as disappointed. He has made several fortunes both in conventional and on-line business. Recently he has been selling an elite coaching based upon his knowledge of business systems. The free stuff he’s been giving away is wonderful. So why am I disappointed!

Quite simply for several days he’s been very publicly stating that not only is his current coaching program the last he will be running, but also that he’s no intention of building a home-study course for those who can’t get on it."

(If you want to know more, visit Stephen's blog.)

Featuring: Rich Schefren - a new Internet Marketing star

Apparently there is a new star on the Internet marketing skies, so I wanted to let you know what information I found on him. It's quite a bit of information and will come in several posts but it should give you a good picture of what the new star Rich Schefren is about.

I will blog information clips from different sources to give you an idea what other people think.:

Let's start with the Internet Marketers Network, they write:

"After his coaching program sold out in 2 hours and 14 minutes, Schefren released an Internet business building video on his blog. He discusses how to properly create a business. He's also offering a report of his favorite resources and a signup for any future opportunities as he expands his coaching opporturnities.

Rich Schefren opened the doors to a 12-month coaching program for the first 1,000 people who respond. This new program does not have any one-on-one coaching time with Schefren (unlike last week's program) but does have monthly Q&A sessions. In addition, the program is a monthly membership program and includes two live seminars. Cost is $397 per month and registration is available at StrategicProfits.com.

Rich Schefren, the author of the highly acclaimed Internet Business Manifesto, will be starting his coaching club on July 18th. It is an eleven week program that starts out by "identifying strengths with which to build a unique (and VERY profitable) advantage." The course will deliver one module per week and includes a personal one-on-one session with Schefren every other week. The cost of the program is not yet known. For more information on Rich Schefren, visit his blog at Strategic Profits."

A List of blogging terms from - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you would like to see a list of popular blogging terms, click the link above.

What the industry experts are saying about blogging

'Blogs are changing the way we do business.
Those businesses that have engaged in the conversation -- either with their own blog or with comments on their customer's blog -- have developed loyal enthusiasts for their brand.
They've seen their business increase because of their proactive approach.'
Mike Sansone
AOL Community Program Manager

'Skillful blogging can boost your company's credibility and help it connect with customers.'
Harvard Management Communication Letter

'Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out.
Our advice: Catch up now... or catch you later.'
Business Week "

Step 11 - Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 11: Set up an automated ordering process

• Accept credit cards, other payments options (e.g. paypal) and international orders on your site
• Find the shopping cart, that can potentially double your sales
• Decide how to deliver your products
• Automate your escalating customer service as much as possible, yet provide an option to get one-on-one support.

Step 10 - Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 10: Test and survey regularly

• Increase your sales with testing
• Track your success through statistics
• Survey your customers and subscribers

Step 9 - Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 9: Convert Traffic

• Use tools to create ‘credibility and trust’
• Be in consistent contact with your newsletter subscribers
• Run promotions, competitions and time limited offers
• Provide more value than money worth
• Write effective e-mail promotions to increase your sales
• Take advantage of the lifetime value of your customers

Step 8 - Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 8: Analyze Traffic

• Use your All-In-One pack's analysis tools to understand what visitors do on your site, where they enter, purchase and leave
• Use the No. 1 technique to find out what visitors where looking for on your site, even when they leave the site. Send us an email here with "analysis technique" in the subject line if you want to know how this technique can easily be set-up on your site?
• Evaluate what promotions work.

Step 7 - Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 7: Build Traffic

• Find quick sources of affordable traffic for your site
• Join your All-In-One pack’s links program
• Get free advertising by giving away free content
• Spread the word through viral marketing
• Be an active expert in popular newsgroups
• Get bonus traffic by posting classified ads
• Use press release to capture free media exposure

Step 6 - Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 6: Deal with search engines and directories

• Know the search engine (SE) giants you need to focus on
• Formulate a linking strategy
• Understand how the search engines rank your business
• Let your All-In-One package professionally submit to search engines
• Submit manually to major directories, decide whether to pay for inclusion
• Monitor your ranking

Step 5 - Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 5: Prepare to collect your visitors’ e-mail addresses

• Start your own online newsletter
• Collect e-mail addresses from visitors via opt-ins
• Manage your opt-in addresses
• Grow your opt-in database.

Step 4 - Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 4: Create trust and credibility

• Provide a strong guarantee and honor it
• Publish testimonials to show what kind of person you are
• Add a feedback page and act on feedback
• Send a regular newsletter with interesting content
• Publish your Anti-Spam and Privacy Policy
• Know the difference between spam and opt-in email
• Add an About-Us page
• Prevent chargebacks through superior service and content
• Deal with refund requests immediately
• Soothe the nervous buyer

Step 3: Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 3: Prepare your content

• Decide what kind of sales copy you need
• Understand the essential elements of any web site
• Develop a keyword strategy
• Write valuable content
• Get feedback on your content and the site from others

Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Step 2: Design your site and build your online business

• Get a proven All-In-One Online Business Package, that

- has all the necessary technical programs to manage your site,
- is easy to use and provides extensive support o lets you design a great site,
- provides hosting
- has a links program in place


• Research keywords for a domain name

• Choose and purchase a telling domain name

• Choose your web host (better: have it in included in your pack)

• Design your site, so it compels visitors to subscribe, click, and buy

• Decide who is going to build your web site.

The complete Step-by-Step Guide is available free at www.website-traffic-resources.com

Step-By-Step Guide: "How to Build Your Successful Online Business"

Find the exact information you need right now to get your business up and running in record time. You will be guided through each step, allowing you to fastforward your online business.

The step-by-step guide has been laid out to give you a concrete understanding of the major steps involved in starting and growing a profitable Internet business.

If you already have your online business up and running you will be able to skip some steps to fastforward your business.

----------------------------------------

Step 1: Decide what you want to sell online

• Find a niche market and identify their “problem”

• Decide what you are going to sell to that market

• Consider combining profit streams to create a bigger income

• Research and monitor your competition

• Write a business plan to guide your success

• Decide how you will brand your site

• Determine whether you will need funding

to be continued ...

A powerful HEADLINE gets them to your Web Site

A powerful headline is 10% what you say and 90% what you prove.

Headlines can simultaneously create curiosity and skepticism. Until proven otherwise, your headline is an empty promise.

If the headline is what gets them there, then it's theproof that keeps them there.

It's important that you fully understand that the tidal wave of lies and deceit online have created a gap between you and your target market.

Bridge that gap with TRUST!

- Build trust by quickly and immediately proving your headline.
- Proof creates trust.
- Trust eliminates skepticism.
- Trust transforms the curious visitor into a customer for life.

The ultimate headline that can make you rich is the compelling headline supported by jury convicting undeniable proof that YOU yourself did what the headline promises.

This proof can eliminate all reasonable doubt.
Draw your visitors in with your headline, blow their socks off with the proof.
Prove the headline to be actual, factual and true and watch your cash flow explode into a magnificent mushroom cloud of profits.

Slick words do not build trust, they fuel skepticism.

- Proof makes your website read differently.
- Same words, but a different frame of mind.

Instead of a fast talking slick internet pitchman, PROOF transforms your website and words into a copywriting masterpiece where the visitor feels that you know what you are talking about.

That feeling can more quickly and easily move customers to your order page resulting in higher sales for you and a satisfying purchase for your visitors.
-------------------------------
originally from Stephen Pierce

Obstacles

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. - Henry Ford

Google's click-to-play video advertisements go on sale today

The click-to-play video advertisements go on sale beginning today, and will be available to advertisers in the US, Canada, and Japan at launch.

Visitors to sites in Google's network of AdWords publishers will have complete control over the video ad experience Google's AdWords team announced in its blog.

Only a static image will be loaded upon reaching a page containing a video ad. Once started, users can advance the video, pause it, and adjust the volume of the playback. As with other Google ad formats, users can click through it to the advertiser's website.

Google sees the product as one that can be used by smaller advertisers as well as powerful brand names. "This feature makes video ads much more accessible to all advertisers," the post said.

The dos and don’ts of Joint Venture marketing.

There is of course a second way of doing Joint Ventures which is to market your own product to other people’s customer lists and if you’re really clever you can help people sell their own products to their own list in return for a share of the extra profits that you help them make!

So, if you have a good list of loyal customers you should approach (email is fine) people with good products that you think your list will buy. Write a persuasive but short email that explains what’s in it for the person you’re writing to and why it will sell. Do all you can to make it easy for them to do the deal i.e. you need to offer to do all the work!

I would strongly recommend that you offer them at least 50% of the profits as most people will assume that to be fair, but will be mildly insulted by a lesser offer.


Similarly if you have a great product (that your proposed partner does not already have access to themselves) then email them with a suggestion to market it to their list and why this will work. Again 50/50 is the norm.

I would not try the idea of helping somebody to sell their own product to their own list until you have a lot of success and credibility to point to!

Normally it takes very little thinking on the part of the person you are suggesting a JV to realise that a proposal is good but often you will still not get an answer because it looks like it will take a lot of time to organise.

You can overcome some of this issue by demonstrating how much of the work is already done, include links to a sample website and sample sales letters to show you are serious and easy to deal with.

Lastly, since you need to build trust with your partner, unless it’s just too stupid to contemplate, go with whatever money collecting and order processing suggestions your partner wants as this can often make or break the deal.

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The posts on JVs come courtesy of Tim Lowe.

How to manage win-win-win situations using Joint Ventures.

There are many people who have made a great deal of money by selling other people’s products on a Joint Venture basis.

At first glance this can seem like an odd arrangement, the inevitable question that people ask is "why would the owner of a product let you sell that product and keep half the profits?" Why not simply sell it themselves and keep all of the money?

There are two good reasons why product owners do this:

1) If you are already so busy that you cannot find the time to sell anything else yourself you must employ somebody to help you, which costs money and leaves you with the burden of managing that employee and also the headache of what to do with them should sales tail off. Conversely JV partners cost nothing to run if there are no sales and are an awful lot more motivated to get sales than an employee is likely to be.

2) A Joint Venture partner often has access to techniques that the owner may not or a special relationship with his customers that will result in more sales than the product owner could otherwise achieve.

Just looking at point 2 in a bit more depth – imagine that I am going to try and sell a new product to new customers (say that I’ve already sold all that I can to my own customers). Supposing that I decided to rent the mailing lists of other people and send those potential customers a letter (usually referred to as a ‘mail shot’), I might reasonably get between 1% and 2% of those people to buy from me.

However if the person who owns that mailing list has looked after those customers and kept in touch with them, and THEY write to their customers and recommend me then I might sell to as many as 7% or 8% of those same people.

With a $50 product that can amount to $4,000 worth of sales per 1,000 customers shared equally, whereas the list rental would have gained the owner maybe $150.

I should mention that the product has to be good otherwise everybody’s reputation is tarnished.

But with that said, everybody wins, the customer gets a good product, the customer list owner makes an awful lot more money than he would otherwise have made and the product owner can easily make twice as much as he would do by renting the mailing list instead.

Of course the best thing to do is not only to find people with suitable customer lists to do Joint Ventures with, but to actively encourage and assist people in building those customer lists, sort of a win-win-win-win situation!

Knowledge

"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged and increased constantly or it vanishes."

Peter Drucker

Keyword Analysis - The Cumulative Effect Of Ignored Keywords

Getting traffïc from the search engines for competitive keywords is a tough battle. And it's getting tougher.

Find The Keywords Others Are Ignoring

Let's say you want to rank in the top three slots in Google for the keyword "chiropractor." (We're not even going to touch on how unlikely it is for a general keyword like that to convert!)

Do a Google search for "chiropractor."

At the time of this writing, there are 8,910,000 results. That number is NOT a real indicator of TRUE keyword competitiveness, but it's a start in the right direction. (We're gonna talk about how to do TRUE keyword competitiveness analysis in the next few lessons in this series.)
The first ten slots in the SERPs are very well-entrenched. They've been there awhile and they have high-quality link equity pointing at them.

Beating those folks in the top ten slots will be tough. A little too tough in my book. That is, it will require too much time, effort and monëy to knock them off their perch for the ROI I can expect from ranking for "chiropractor."

It's one of those high-voltage keywords that everyone in that market focuses on.
So, let's dig deeper for some less-competitive, undiscovered treasure.

Let's search Google for "california chiropractor" (use the quotes). Whoa, what a big difference. Now, we get 9,880 results. MUCH better! But, if I wanted to get into the top three, this keyword is still a little too competitive for my tastes.

With a bit of work, I can likely knock the 2nd and 3rd guys off their purchases. It'll take some effort, but I can do it. As for the guy ranked first... not a chance. He's entrenched.
So, let's dig deeper. Maybe there's some unexplored territory out there.

Search Google for "north orange county chiropractor" (again, use the quotes). Look at that! At the time of this writing, there are 0 (zip, nadda, zilcho) results.

Now, how easy would it be for you to rank well for THAT keyword?

Are people using this keyword in Google? Well, it may not jump out at you in Wordtracker, but think about this...

There are a LOT of people in Orange County, California. A lot of them look for chiropractors People are refining their search these days to get more relevant results from Google. Often, they're refining their searches by geography.

And not only will you easily scoop up folks looking for "north orange county chiropractor" but you should also rank well for "orange county chiropractor" (only 326 results at the time of this writing).

Cumulative Effect Of Ignored Keywords

Let's face it. Ranking well for "north orange county chiropractor" is not going to bring a flood of traffïc like ranking well for simply "chiropractor."

But, it doesn't need to.

First, "north orange county chiropractor" is much more targeted. If someone is searching for "north orange county chiropractor" it's a good bet that he's having problems with his back and wants to fix it fast.

If you're collecting and selling leads (we'll talk about how to do this in an upcoming series, so stay tuned) to a chiropractor in Orange County, you can unload 'em for a lot more cäsh than leads collected from people searching Google for "chiropractor."

Second, you're gonna have a bunch of these tiny keyword sweet spots sending search engine traffïc to you.

For example, you're not going to simply create one page for "north orange county chiropractor," call it a day and head for the beach. You want to create pages for...

"south orange county chiropractor" "laguna beach chiropractor" "anaheim hills chiropractor" "yorba linda chiropractor" ... and so on. You want to have lots of these pages scooping up people who are searching for these largely-ignored keywords. If you want to dig even deeper for keyword treasure, tack on the word "certified" or "board certified" to each keyword above.
The possibilities are endless. And cumulatively, these small traffic flows add up to a flood of highly-targeted traffïc to your site.

Last Thoughts

Avoid the high-voltage, ultra-competitive keywords in your space. The time, monëy and effort you need to spend to rank well for them will probably give you a rotten ROI (most folks don't have a business model that can yield a great ROI from these shark-infested waters).

Instead, go for the largely-ignored keywords!

They're much easier to rank for. And the traffïc they drive is more targeted and easier to convert.

The traffïc that only one of these sweet spots drives may not seem like a big deal. But, rank well for a LOT of them and the targeted traffïc can pile up quickly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------©Copyright / About The Author: Article by Damon G. Zahariades; Abstract only {article shortened}.

How to get great sales letters written for you!

One of the questions that I get asked most often is "How do you get your sales letters written?" or "Who writes your letters?".

Well, I write the shorter stuff myself and get a copywriter to do the longer letters. If you are tempted to use a copywriter be careful here because good copywriters can charge anything from a few hundred to many thousands of dollars.

I have found it best to always write the basics of the letter myself and then give it to a copywriter to turn into something magical.

Some have tried just giving a copywriter some tapes or DVDs to watch and then to write a letter but it has never been a success. Copywriters don’t have the same depth of knowledge or enthusiasm as the person who is going to make their living from that product.

So, how do you get that letter written without hiring a copywriter?

The solution is to try some of the software that does it for you. There are several good ones, The Internet Marketing Centre, Armand Morin and Marlon Sanders do ones. And you can find them easily by searching in Google for their names and ‘copywriting software’.

Don’t slavishly take the results of the software’s efforts but instead use it as a means of creating the right sort of structure and a workable draft. You will need to tone down some wordings and remove some of the "hypey" style but it will certainly give you something that will almost certainly be better than you could do on your own.

Good luck with training your copywriting skills!

P.S. Let me see some of your 'sales copy' examples.

Most important Keyword Campain Terms

Keyword Terms to your success

I have put a brief description here of the most important terms used in keyword research that you must understand to set up a successful keyword campaign for your site (for a longer version of this article, please see the end of this abstract).

Vertical Keyword Research

The term Vertical Keyword Research is fairly straight forward and describes the variations that can occur on one speficif keyword or keyword phrase.

Lateral Keyword Research

Lateral Keyword Research is the process of finding the keywords or phrases that are similar to your original keyword, but do not necessarily contain that word or words exactly.

Often you'll need to do this kind of lateral thinking yourself or hire someone who can do it for you, but many tools are smart enough to offer really useful suggestions.

Lateral Keyword Research also relates to building your list with a variety of keyword combinations or misspellings.

The more creative both your mind and the Keyword Research tools are, the better your outcome. SEO people and Niche Miners may find words they hadn’t thought of that are popular but have little competition.

In a similar way, PPC advertisers may generate a huge list of keywords that are overlooked and consequently inexpensive to advertise on. Lateral Keyword Research really is powerful in the right hands.

Keyword Density

This is one of the most talked-about subjects, when it comes to copywriting for search engine optimization.

Since keywords (or keyphrases) play such an important role in copywriting for search engines, it would make sense to have certain rules and regulations or formulas that should be followed. However, the latest take on SEO experts is that there are no unquestioned keyword density formulas.

But there are very successful online marketing companies who follow some keyword density formulas and text structures like using your keywords and -phrases in an hour glass like shape on a page. This means you would start with more density in the beginning of the text, whereas the middle part would have less keywords and the end would have more keywords again.

Digging

Digging is often automated or partly automated. It involves processing large lists of keywords to reveal the keywords that have the characteristics of terms that are going to make money! Often digging is done by keyword research software and will often involve both Vertical and Lateral Keyword Research.

It is kind of like having a big bucket full of coins and having someone sort through all the nickels to find the quarters. When digging is done right it can save you lots of time and make you lots of money.

Keyword Popularity

Keyword Popularity one of the easiest to understand yet most misunderstood concept's in Keyword Research. Simply it's the number of searches performed during a certain period - per day, per week, or per month. That's the easy part to understand.

What many people don’t understand is that this is only a relative indicator. If one tool says that there are 1000 searches a month for a particular keyword, that doesn’t mean this is an exact figure. You cannot then say with any sort of accuracy that during the past month throughout the whole Internet there were 1000 searches for that keyword.

What this figure means is that in the chunk or sample of data that was taken from this particular search engine during this month that keyword was found 1000 times. Sometimes this really is all of the searches that were done on this search engine, other times this is just a portion of all the search queries. The only time we could ever be sure that there were 1000 searches done a month would be if the sample data were taken from every single search engine on the Internet. No tool does this - not even close.

Keyword Research tools use only samples of data. This means that you cannot assume that your list is 100% correct. It’s really just a best guess based on the amount of data your specific tools looks at.

Firstly, you can get a rough indication of the search volume and fairly safely conclude that the actual search volume is going to be greater when you consider traffic across all search engines.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, you can get a relative indicator. By relative indicator I mean it allows you to be able to compare one keyword with other keywords in the same group of data (except if you were using the Overture suggestion tool due to the way it combines phrases).

Even though the actual volume isn't exactly correct, by being able to compare relatively you can still get some amazingly powerful information.

Keyword Competition

Another important concept in Keyword Research is keyword competition. This information can help you assess how well you will be able to do in a particular market, from both a search engine ranking perspective, as well as a business competition perspective.

There are a two common methods that Keyword Research tools use to give an indicator of competition. The first one is called the R/S ratio, which shows the ratio of searches (demand) to web pages containing that keyword or keyword phrase (supply).

Basically the tool compares how many times something is searched for against how many pages are found in the search engine with that keyword or phrase included in the page.

The second common indicator is KEI, which stands for Keyword Effectiveness Index. This is very similar to R/S.

However, it's weighted so the higher the keyword volume, the more tolerance it has to lots of competing pages. So keywords or phrases with lots of searches will have a higher KEI compared with ones that have fewer searches, even though their R/S ratio may be exactly the same.

In most experts opinion, both concepts are fundamentally flawed because they assume that the number of pages on the Internet for a given keyword is a reliable measure of competition.

This is not neccessarily true.

In reality, it doesn’t matter how many competing pages you are up against. All that matters is how good are the websites that appear on the first (and maybe second) page that a search engine returns for a query.

What really matters is how good the top 10 results on a search page are!

- Are they well optimized?

- Are they already popular, high traffic sites?

- Do these sites have lots of links pointing to them?

If you want to get a real competitive analysis, you should include factors such as Incoming Links, Keyword Density, PageRank, Alexa Rank and PPC competition data to name just a few. These provide a better way of assessing competition in real terms.

Also, consider other factors in the equation that a tool cannot tell you directly. For example, think about the conversion potential of the keyword area. If you’re niche mining, how easy is it to get your hands on a product to sell? Or is there a suitable affiliate product to promote? There's no point having lots of traffic going to a site that has no way to turn that traffic into dollars.

Keyword Case Studies

The best book on how to apply keyword research, with useful examples of ways to use your own mind as a keyword research tool was published recently by Wordtracker. It's called Keyword Research Guide and it's free.

Although the e-book appears to be aimed at beginners, it is full of insights, tips, and techniques on keyword research that you can apply to your own website, whether you're using Wordtracker or some other tool. For anyone serious about making the most out of keywords it is a must!

The book features contributions from some very knowledgable 'keyword gurus', like:

• Bryan Eisenberg - Convert more traffic using Wordtracker.
• B. L. Ochman - Understand your customers' real motivations.
• Kevin Lee - Combine thousands of phrases for an effective PPC campaign.
• Stephen Mahaney - Use Wordtracker to find the size of the market.
• Ken McGaffin - Discover the most important sites in your marketplace.
• John Alexander - Find inspiration in Wordtracker's Top 1,000 Words report.
• Neil Davidson - Learn how an ad agency uses keyword research to position a client.
• Robin Good - Use Wordtracker to identify niche opportunities.
• Nick Usborne - Incorporate keywords into your content and copy.

Related links: You can download Keyword Research Guide here.

For more information: Get in touch.
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by Jay Stockwell [article shortened and changed, please see full version at website-traffic-resources].