Legal Internet Marketing Blog

Have you ever wondered what Google does to improve search results and keep users happy with such a reliable and trustworthy search engine? So have we, and so does everybody else; and with good reason: the Internet is always evolving.

To stay ahead of the competition and effectively promote your law firm or business online, you need to know how the Internet is changing, especially when it comes to search.

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It may seem like top secret information, but a recent SearchEngineLand article discusses the most recent Google search results improvements made in December. Some of the highlights, with their respective Google codenames, are as follows:

• “Megasitelinks” – Sitelinks in search results are invaluable and help with SEO in that they provide additional links to your website by showing specific web pages. Google recently improved their algorithm (guidelines/processes that apply to search engines for ranking a site’s listing within its index) for selecting sitelinks so that results are more relevant. One example of how this improves search results is that sitelinks may be displayed based on precise geographic locations.


• “Foby” - Byline dates, the date connected with an online document/publication, helps search engine users skim the results to assess whether a site will be helpful to them based on when a site was last updated or when the content on a page was published. Google isn’t giving away much, but has stated that improvements have been made to establish what date goes with a document. As such, users should expect to see more precise dates being added to search results. So, even if a blog post is a few years old, a 2011 or 2012 byline date may show up in search results displaying the most recent updated dates.


• “Simple” and “Leaf” – To ensure that search results are displaying the most relevant images with regard to the inquiry and that images are being linked to the highest quality source pages, Google has improved quality sources with the “simple” image search update. In other words, the quality of a landing page now serves as an algorithmic flag for image search. The “leaf” image search upgrade expands algorithms used for main search results to spam detection. With better spam identification in Image Search, users shouldn’t have to do as much sifting as before when trying to find the right photo(s) or image(s).

Other Google search updates from December range from song lyric search results to live NFL and college football results, and from a +1 button visual display update to enhanced Vietnamese spell check.

Client Development Starts with Search
Want to net more clients? The place to start is with search results. For a free growth assessment of your law firm, contact Susan L. Sipe at SLS Consulting by calling (323) 254-1510 today. For over a decade, SLS has helped attorneys throughout the U.S. obtain high search engine rankings that last.

Over a month ago, Facebook announced the most expansive and innovative update to its site to-date: Facebook Timeline. However, the general public has yet to experience this new update for itself (at least those users who haven’t already gone out of their way to add the new layout to their profiles). While Facebook has hinted at multiple release dates over the course of the past month or so, the redesigned profiles have yet to become official, which has some people asking what the hold up is about.

For anyone who has kept on top of Facebook news since the social network’s f8 conference, it’s no secret that Facebook Timeline has fewer fans than the company anticipated it would. Given Facebook’s poor track record of user-pleasing platform updates though, it’s really no surprise that the general sentiment towards Timeline was less than positive. This time, however, it’s another web company that is possibly the most displeased opponent of Facebook’s new update.

Timelines.com is suing Facebook for the exact same thing that Facebook has gone after a variety of other companies for: using a term that it feels is directly tied to the branding of its company and is therefore off limits for all others to use. While it may be safe to speculate that Facebook will eventually make this matter fade into the past, a pending lawsuit could be the very thing that is tying up the release date of Facebook’s new profile layout. So, until this legal matter is cleared up in court or some sort of settlement is reached, Facebook Timeline will continue to sit on the shelf, waiting to be made available to the public, whether with open arms or not.

As far as legal Internet marketing campaigns are concerned, any updates to Facebook’s site should be examined, learned about, and utilized in whatever ways possible to help market one’s brand. In the meantime, the best strategy to maintain in regards to Facebook should be to maintain a complete and active profile. That is, if Facebook gives you an opportunity to reveal information about yourself, use it. That way, once the Timeline update does take place, you won’t have to worry about completing your new-look profile, but will merely have to embrace it, continue to be an active participant on it, and look for ways to help promote your company’s message.

According to Mashable, Google Realtime Search will be returning, and this time, it will include data from Google+, as well as other social media sources.

Back in 2009, Realtime Search was launched in which real-time search integrated into search results pages. The search would incorporate information as things happened around the Internet—for example, live tweets from Twitter, news articles, data from public Facebook Pages, Yahoo! Answers, and more, would be on the actual result pages for a search. Anytime a major current event was making headlines, Google Search would display Facebook updates, live tweets, and data from other social media services that discussed the recent news, making the search engine more relevant during these major events.

Also in 2009, Google’s main competitor Bing made deals with both Facebook and Twitter to integrate status updates into its search engine. Recently, Bing further expanded on Facebook integration in its search results, displaying much more data from Facebook profiles and the Facebook Like button.

Last month, Realtime Search was taken down after Google failed to reach an agreement with Twitter regarding continued access to Twitter’s data. Without a constant stream of live tweets, Realtime Search was nowhere near as useful. However, in a recent panel, Google Fellow Amit Singhal disclosed that the Google Search team is working actively on bringing back Realtime Search. He also said that his team was running tests that incorporated data from Google+ as well as other social media sources. It was not discussed whether or not a deal had been made with Twitter, or whether Google saw such a deal as being important for its new version of Realtime Search.

Interestingly, it was also announced at the panel that the Google Search team is working on creating a search engine exclusively for the Google+ stream.

Sources: http://mashable.com/2011/08/04/google-realtime-search-revive/, http://mashable.com/2009/10/21/bing-facebook-twitter/ and http://mashable.com/2011/05/16/facebook-bing-integration/

Recent data provided to Mashable by Cisco found that Internet traffic worldwide is estimated to quadruple between 2010 and 2015. By then, close to three billion people will be regularly using the Internet, which will be over 40 percent of the projected population for the world at that time. On average, there will be more than two Internet connections per person in the world, largely as a result of the explosion in popularity of web-enabled mobile devices.

In North America, a 26 percent increase in online traffic growth is expected, with other regions, notably the Middle East and Africa, seeing larger increases in Internet traffic. However, in North America the number of devices per person is expected to dramatically increase: It is estimated that there will be approximately 5.8 devices per person, meaning people will be connected like never before.

It is estimated that tablets will increase worldwide production by about 750% from 2010. Ereaders are in second place in regards to growth, expected to increase worldwide by about 550%, and smartphone growth expected to increase by 194%.

What does this mean? It means people all over the world will be accessing the Internet from not only their desktop or laptop computers, but via tablet, ereader, and smartphone as well. Whether they are at home, work, or out and about on the town; wherever they are, people can (and will) be online.

Will your law firm be a part of it? Now is the time to capitalize on the increasing Internet traffic by making your legal website easily searchable, engaging on social networking platforms, and sharing your message and news about your law firm with others online.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/06/09/global-internet-traffic-infographic/

Tech Crunch reports that shares of career-orientated social networking site LinkedIn (trading under the symbol LNKD) began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, May 19, and skyrocketed by 140 percent from its debuting cost of $83 per share, to a high of $122, to close at $93.86 per share. Originally priced at $45, it was expected the stocks would open between $78 and $82. Now, LinkedIn is valued at over $8.9 billion.

These numbers mark the biggest Internet company initial public offering (IPO) since shares of Google became public back in 2004. LinkedIn is one of the first social networking sites to go public, and rumors abound that other social media companies such as Facebook and Groupon are readying their own IPOs.

There are over 100 million users registered on LinkedIn, which was started just eight years ago. The company made only $15.4 million last year, yet was estimated to be valued at about $4.25 billion, which was almost one billion higher than initially estimated. According to Mashable, the new valuation of LinkedIn at $8.9 billion places the company’s worth higher than such established companies as Tiffany & Co., Chipotle, and Expedia, to name a few.

Many are skeptical, however, and fail to see the benefit of LinkedIn. Some have raised concerns that the high prices of LinkedIn’s IPO mirror the tech bubble of the 1990s, and the high values of Internet-based companies may be inflated, signaling another bubble. Others note that many of these companies attract millions of users yet have not demonstrated a business model that is sustainable. However, others are more optimistic, yet cautious, saying it is time for LinkedIn to take action and live up to these high prices.

While it remains to be seen whether LinkedIn will live up to the hype, there’s no denying the relevance of prevalent social networking sites. At SLS Consulting, we create unique legal Internet marketing plans for our clients, based on their goals. One of the important parts of these plans includes becoming involved on social networking sites. To learn how we can help your law firm increase its online presence, call us today!

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/19/linkedin-closes-at-94-per-share-with-8-9-billion-market-cap/;http://mashable.com/2011/05/19/linkedin-8-9b-valuation/

At the end of April, Facebook launched a new feature, its Send button, which will render the “email to a friend” button on most websites obsolete. The Send button is very similar to Facebook’s already popular Like button, which celebrated its first birthday recently and is installed on over 10,000 websites every week. However, this new Send button has a few differences from the Like button.

When a user clicks on the Send button, a pop-up box appears which allows them to send the page or article to a friend or group on Facebook or to any email address. A message can be added before sending the page or article to the friend’s Facebook inbox or the wall of the group. Facebook designed the button to make it easier for Facebook users to share content they like or find interesting with their close group of friends, with a focus on private sharing rather than public sharing.

One significant detail of the new Facebook Send button is that Send counts towards the total number of Likes a webpage or article has, according to Mashable. Now, the Like total is calculated by adding the number of Likes, comments, shares, and inbox messages that contain the specific URL. Over 50 major websites have incorporated the Send button, including People.com, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Anyone who wishes to include the Send button on their website can find the code on Facebook’s Developer website.

Related to Facebook’s introduction of the Send button is the relatively new start-up Likester, which is a database users can search to see what their friends have Liked on Facebook, as well as users across the globe. Searches can be limited to friends-only, or to a certain location. For example, at the time this blog was written, the three top Likes on Facebook for the Los Angeles area were pages for Star Wars, Good Fellas, and swimming. A search can also be done to see what is popular for the current day, as well as to see what people who liked a certain page were more likely to Like based upon their Like history. Results can also be filtered by specific categories. Users can also browse through a “Like log” which lists everything a user’s Facebook friends have liked, and when, which is convenient since Facebook typically hides repeat Likes from users’ newsfeeds. Likester may be the only platform on the Internet right now that gives both users as well as businesses an effective and efficient way of finding trends in Facebook Likes.

While it remains to be seen how effective Likester will be and its impact on marketers, there’s no doubt about the value of Facebook Likes for a business page. With Facebook’s users nearing 600 million, having the chance to connect and engage with these users is an almost invaluable opportunity for law firms and attorneys. Now more than ever, the impact Facebook has on the Internet across the world should be recognized, and if it is not something you or your law firm is a part of, it’s something you need to be considering, as well as joining other social networking sites.

Sources: http://mashable.com/2011/04/25/facebook-send-groups/; http://mashable.com/2011/05/04/likester/

The Daily Beast reports that Facebook has been exposed in a scheme that sought to plant harmful stories about Google in the press, with the help of a public relations firm.

According to the article, Facebook hired Burson-Marsteller, a highly respected PR firm, to pitch stories to newspapers with an anti-Google angle and urged them to investigate allegations that Google was invading people’s privacy.

The PR firm went so far as to even offering to help a high-profile blogger write an op-ed bashing Google, promising it would place the op-ed in such outlets as The Huffington Post and The Washington Post. However, the blogger rejected the offer and posted the email exchange on the Internet, coinciding with a story from USA Today that accused the firm of a smear campaign against Google on behalf of an unnamed client. While people pointed fingers at Microsoft and Apple, The Daily Beast discovered it was Facebook.

On May 11, a spokesperson for Facebook confirmed that the social networking site had hired the PR firm for two reasons. One, because it believes Google is doing certain things within social networking that raise concerns about privacy; and two, because Facebook does not appreciate Google’s attempts to integrate data from Facebook within its own social networking service, Social Circle. In a pitch to journalists, Burson-Marsteller claimed that Social Circle was “designed to scrape private data and build deeply personal dossiers on millions of users—in a direct and flagrant violation of [Google's] agreement with the FTC.” What may be the heart of the matter is that much of the information that appears in Social Circle is content that is actually pulled from Facebook, which Facebook claims is a violation of their terms of service when Facebook member data is used in that manner by Google.

This incident highlights the growing rivalry between Facebook and Google, as the two companies are essentially vying to see who will be able to have the biggest share of online advertising. Facebook uses member data to sell targeting advertising, making the site one of Google’s largest rivals. Last month, it was reported that Google’s CEO sent a memo to employees saying social networking was Google’s top priority, so much so that 25 percent of every employee’s bonus for the year will be based upon how well Google does in the realm of social networking.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110512/ts_dailybeast/14045_facebookbustedinclumsysmearattemptongoogle

Mashable recently released the results of a poll conducted in February of marketers in the United States and found that the majority of marketers view social media as an integral part of their marketing strategy for 2011, with 70 percent planning to increase their social media budget and activity by over 10 percent this year.

Overwhelmingly, the primary focus of the marketer’s social media goals was to increase Facebook fans and “Likes.” A whopping 35 percent said gaining more Facebook fans to their business page was their main goal for 2011. In response to the smartphone explosion, the second goal at 22 percent was to increase their business’ presence on mobile devices. The poll also found that 87 percent of marketers believed social media was either important, or very important, to accomplishing their biggest marketing goal for 2011.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that social media will continue to grow in popularity. In March of this year, LinkedIn surpassed 100 million users, and the number of Facebook users continues to increase, with the popular site now close to 550 million users. Whether you are a big name brand, a small startup company, or an established law firm, there’s no denying the power of social media in helping you to reach your target audience.

What marketing goals did your law firm set for 2011? With the year close to one-fourth over, are you on track to reaching those goals? If all this talk of social media marketing has left your head spinning, call SLS Consulting. For over 10 years, our Legal Internet marketing team has promoted law firms and attorneys from all over the U.S. using unique marketing plans, search engine optimization, customized content, and social networking. To learn how we can increase your law firm’s online presence, call us today at 323-254-1510.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/04/19/marketers-social-media-spend/

On March 30, search engine giant Google announced the +1 button, which will soon appear in Google search results next to links. When a user clicks the button for a link, Google defines this action as a “public stamp of approval,” as it recommends the link to all of their Gmail contacts. A user’s name also becomes associated with the link “in search, on ads, and across the web,” according to Google. In order to use the product, a user must have a Google Profile. The addition of this new tool from Google is one reason why having a Google Profile is important.

Aside from the obvious fact that the +1 button is another way for Google to compete head-to-head with Facebook, the company’s official reason for the product is that it will make search results on Google more relevant. Jim Prosser, Google’s representative, said that people typically consult with their friends and other people regarding their decisions, so integrating what users recommend to their contacts is an easy way to make Google search results more useful.

The +1 feature won’t be seen en masse for a few months, but for those who are interested in experimenting with the button right away are able to by visiting http://www.google.com/experimental. For now, only a small percentage of sites and searches will have the +1 button, according to Google. However, merely one day after the announcement of the tool, there were already reports that it had popped up on the web.

At this time, Google says the amount of +1s won’t affect search rankings on its search engine. However, according to Prosser it’s something Google is interested in integrating in some form at some point in the future.

Besides the invaluable fact of showing up in search results, Google has stated it plans to offer publishers a version of the button to allow readers to +1 something without leaving the site, comparable to Facebook’s like button, which is already installed on over 2 million websites. In spite of this similarity, Google’s button will likely have a large amount of appeal, particularly since the company says data from +1s will directly influence its market share dominating search rankings. Additionally, it is without a doubt that the new feature will spell bad news for content farms, as their content is far less likely to be shared by users.

Are you worried about the affect the +1 button may have on your website and its content? There’s never been a better time to invest in improving your law firm’s presence on the Internet, with the +1 button addition and Google’s recent algorithm change, to make sure you are doing the best you can to reach your target audience. Contact the Legal Internet marketing team at SLS Consulting by calling 323-254-1510 today for a free growth assessment.

Sources: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/03/31/google.plus.one.mashable/index.html?hpt=Sbin, http://mashable.com/2011/03/30/everything-about-google-plus-1/

You’ve probably heard the stories of Facebook scams and fraud that have been circulating recently. While it’s important to be aware of these potential scams and acts of fraud through Facebook, there is no reason to delete your profile or fan page!

A recent article posted on Yahoo! highlights a few ways that some groups and individuals have been using Facebook to run scams. Over the past year, social networking sites such as Facebook have risen to fourth place from 17th for “most treacherous web terrain,” right behind sites for software-sharing, which most of us already know to avoid.

With over 500 million members, Facebook has become one of many targets for scams and fraud. A Facebook profile connects hundreds of friends, and most of us are so trusting that we’ll click any link, video, or status update a friend posts. As a precaution, even if a post or comment was made by a friend, read the entire message before clicking any links, as malware software could be installed on your computer by clicking links posted by scammers. Current security software can combat this, so it’s a good idea to always have the latest technology to protect yourself.

The article notes that Internet users have a tendency to use the same password for everything; from work computers to bank accounts to Facebook. Scammers know this, and try desperately to get the password to your Facebook account because it’s likely it’s your password for everything else. An obvious fix to this problem is to have separate passwords for things. However, some scammers are even more cunning and go even farther, getting at you through a variety of phishing attempts that appear to be games or widgets.

You should always be careful about what applications and games you allow access to your Facebook profile, and it’s definitely worth a few minutes to see what exactly this access entails. Often you will find by reading their terms and conditions that you are giving them permanent access to your profile and even your friends’ profiles.

There are other ways scammers try to get information from you or about you in an attempt to gain access to your profile, bank accounts, and more. Always be on alert for possible scams. If something looks like it could be harmful to your account or your computer, it probably is.

It is important to remember that Facebook offers users a lot of flexibility in regards to what information they want shared, and with whom. You can update your Facebook privacy settings so that only certain people can view your photos, you status updates, and certain parts of your profile. You are also able to control what information about you Facebook shares with search engines and gaming apps and other apps on the site. You can also block apps from accessing your information and contacting you. Being careful with what information you share can help protect you from scammers.

With so many benefits to social networking; like connecting with friends and potential clients; you shouldn’t discard social networking out of fear of possible scams or fraud. While the chances of your Facebook profile being affected are slim, it can’t hurt to be aware, not only in relation to your Facebook account, but in regards to any other online account as well.

On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey sent the very first tweet, which simply said, “inviting coworkers.” Now, five years later, the social media “microblogging” site has become an integral part of the world’s culture.

Considered to be an experiment in microblogging since it limits users to writing no more than 140 characters at a time (called “tweets”), Twitter asks a simple, yet vital question: “What’s happening?” And on an almost daily basis, its 200 million users respond, from luminaries in the technology field, to popular celebrities, to the president of the United States.

At first, Twitter’s growth was slow. In 2007, only a year after it had begun, there were only about 5,000 tweets per day. Three years, two months, and a day later, over a billion tweets had been sent in total since the site began. Now, there are over 140 million tweets every day, at a rate of about 1,600 every second, which adds up to over a billion tweets per week.

The power and reach of Twitter is undeniable, and has become a broadcast channel for major news events around the world. Highly publicized incidents such as Michael Jackson’s death and Charlie Sheen’s problems with CBS have set the Twitterverse a-tweeting. However, other important happenings have also found a communications source in the social networking site; during the political uprisings in Egypt, Iran, Moldova, and Tunisia, anti-government protestors used Twitter as a hub for communications, coordinating plans and broadcasting their message to the world through their tweets. Even more recently, Twitter’s importance to worldwide communications was solidified after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. On March 11, Twitter says a record 6,939 tweets were sent per second immediately following the earthquake, and over 177 million tweets were sent that day. Twitter has also become a major marketing tool for businesses across the world. Many major companies use Twitter to advertise special deals and get their consumers talking about their products, capitalizing on the power of word-of-mouth marketing.

Last month, it was estimated that Twitter’s worth was between $8 to $10 billion. There is no doubt that Twitter has forever changed the way we communicate online, and it is a powerful force that is here to stay. Using Twitter is an essential part of a legal Internet marketing plan, and if you aren’t taking advantage of the opportunities that this social networking site and others offer, you should strongly consider doing so. Social media provides another way for you to connect with potential clients and others in your field, and also offers you an avenue in which to communicate news about your law firm and other relevant issues within your field. Twitter has shown that the modern consumer desires information that is immediate and transparent, and from a source that is seen as friendly and approachable. If you have yet to create a Twitter account for your law firm, now more than ever is the time to join the conversation.

The Internet is always evolving, which makes staying on top of your legal Internet marking game all the more important. If you have a web site that contains unique and useful content, the most recent Google algorithm update should work in your favor.

A New York Times article reports that Google has announced a significant change to its algorithm. The alteration is being made to help boost the rankings of high-quality web sites in Google search results and decrease the visibility of low-quality web sites. The update is said to be partially aimed at alleged content farms such as eHow and Answerbag. These sites create articles from popular search queries and put them on their sites to rise to the top of rankings and attract visitors. After receiving complaints from some users about allowing irrelevant and useless articles to garner high search results, Google decided it was time to update its algorithm.

Many Internet users out there may not realize that Google carries out almost 500 alterations to its algorithm each year. The majority of these changes are so minor that Google does not make it known to the public. The most recent algorithm update, however, is expected to affect 11.8% of search queries. Internet users will not miss this one.

Amit Singhal of Google stated, “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites -- sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other Web sites or sites that are just not very useful.”

On a similar note, Matt Cutts has said that the new algorithm will give better search engine rankings to web sites with original content, information that reflects “research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis” and more.

Interestingly, Google recently presented an extension to its Chrome browser allowing users to block specific web sites from showing up in search engine results. The point of doing this was to evaluate which sites users blocked to determine which web sites annoy users the most. Google did state that it did not use the results to change the algorithm. Nonetheless, the new algorithm did catch 84% of the most-blocked web sites.

Relevancy is why we use the Internet. We are looking for accurate and informative material that we can access easily and quickly. With Google responding more to user complaints about useless sites being on the first page, users can expect higher-quality sites to become more accessible. This is not to say, however, that high-quality sites do not currently have high search rankings. The point of the new algorithm is to filter out – and keep out – sites that contain duplicate content and material that does not really help a visitor.

If you doubt the power and reach of social media, think again. The Washington Post reports that some potential buyers of Twitter have marked the social media site at being worth a staggering $8 to $10 billion. The question that has surfaced throughout the Internet is whether Google or Facebook will make Twitter offers to become its new owner. The article plays with potential new names for Twitter if either of these acquisition deals takes place: Goowit, Twoogle, Twitbook, and Facetwit. While these prospective names could use some work, there also may never be a chance for them to be used at all.

Twitter, Facebook, and Google have become the most dominant and widely used sites on the Internet. This is not to say that other competitors aren’t right behind them, but Google, Facebook, and Twitter serve many purposes for businesses and individuals all over the world. And while these sites often play off of each other and offer similar tools, they are also competitors striving to find ways to knock these sites out of the water.

According to the story, email use among younger generations has decreased by about 59 percent due to an increase in time spent on social media sites such as Facebook that provide ways for users to message one another. The other striking statistic that highlights the prominent use of social media is that 10 percent of page views in the United States are claimed by Facebook.

While it’s not certain whether Twitter will ever sell to Google or Facebook, one thing’s for sure – these sites make waves. If you are a business and do not have a profile on Facebook or Twitter or do not have a Google local listing, these are things you should strongly consider. Social media is an expansion of your website and provides a way for you to spread news about your business as well as main issues of concern within your field. Social media has a reputation for being more casual, but these sites can transfer serious information and bring people all the more closer to the help they are seeking by finding your business. But it’s not just about being found. It’s about making an impression and being approachable so that visitors to your sites become potential clients or new contacts.

It is not too late to join in on The Daily Post, the challenge presented by WordPress for users to write and publish one blog post a day (or a week) throughout the course of 2011. Mashable notes that WordPress announced their challenge over the New Year holiday, catering, in a way, to the likelihood that various writers and bloggers have been looking for something to help keep them motivated to blog more frequently in the New Year.

The Daily Post is a guide that provides blog topic suggestions on a daily basis to help inspire, encourage, and even give advice in regard to blogging. It can be difficult to carve out the time to write for your blog, especially if you can barely find time in the day to eat! However, if that is your situation, it may be a good idea to explore resources to help you manage your time and workload. In any case, blogging on a daily basis may not be your cup of tea, but blogging at least once a week could be a great start towards boosting your business’ or law firm’s online presence by sharing your knowledge and helping spread your unique experiences.

Any WordPress user who would like to participate in The Daily Post challenge only has to write about their intentions, then tag posts with “postaday2011” or “postaweek2011” through the year. Even if you do not want to join in on The Daily Post challenge, you can still take on this dare and make it your own. Why not devise an editorial calendar or a list of topics that you would like to cover in January, February, etc.?

Wetting your appetite for creating more online content will only help your Internet marketing endeavors. It is important to remember, however, that more content does not mean any content. You want to write blogs that are pertinent to your area of expertise, informative, and helpful to your target audience. The same goes for adding new content to your website. Make sure your content is relevant and that appropriate search engine optimization (SEO) is properly integrated.

What are your blogging goals for 2011?

It would appear as though the competition between Google and Microsoft is not a thing of the past. It would also appear that one man is trying to inform the public about something worth knowing. USA Today reports that Google researcher Michal Zalewski has publically disclosed a fresh security flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser. This is the second time this has happened within four months. In September of last year, another Google researcher, Chris Evans, discovered a fresh Internet Explorer vulnerability and announced it publically before Microsoft could prepare what is called “a security patch.”

Apparently, over the weekend, Zalewski denied Microsoft’s request for him to postpone revealing the discovery until the company had time to launch a patch. Microsoft argues that Zalewski has heightened the chances of cyber criminals finding a way to abuse the browser flaw before a patch can be developed, tested, and circulated. While this claim has not been proven, Microsoft is attempting to find out if hackers could potentially take advantage of the flaw. No known attacks due to the flaw have been reported.

Google’s Chrome web browser contends against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the most dominantly used browser worldwide. On the other hand, Microsoft has made significant efforts to convert Internet users from conducting searches through Google to Bing instead.

Zalewski claims that he disclosed the discovery of the Internet Explorer flaw since he believes that Chinese researches have already recently discovered the same issue. To detect the flaw, Zalewski stated that he used “cross fuzzing”, which is a technique that involves submitting unanticipated data to the Internet Explorer browser until it breaks, thus allowing the ability to take control of the browser.

The Microsoft browser problem exposed by Zalewski and Evans brings to light the potential risks of cybercriminals and hackers alike to dominate Internet-connected computers. On the bright side, now that this potential problem has been made publically known, a solution can be found. Flaws in Internet browsers and other applications just go to show that staying informed and being prepared go a long way in ensuring that online “property” is secure.

The United States Department of the Interior has been sued by Google, Inc. in regards to bidding over the agency’s e-mail contract. According to an article in The Los Angeles Times, Google claims that the Interior Department excluded its bid and deliberately favored Microsoft to supply the agency with its e-mail system. As a Cabinet-level agency, the Interior Department employs about 88,000 individuals working to sustain and manage natural and cultural resources throughout the U. S., making it a desirable customer for large corporations like Google and Microsoft.

Based on the lawsuit, which was filed on October 29 in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the Interior Department stated that it would take offers into account from systems that utilized Microsoft’s business e-mail software. Google referred to this limitation as “unduly restrictive of competition.” In seeking to stop the Interior Department’s process of initiating an e-mail contract with Microsoft until it adheres with the law, Google alleges that the agency has violated federal law mandating that government agencies use open and competitive procedures when soliciting contracts.

The article states that Google has been up against Microsoft on a national level to better establish itself in a $20-billion office software market. And yes, you did just read “billion.” It seems as though every business, whether it employs 5, 50, or 50,000 people, interacts with employees, existing clients, and potential clients through e-mail. And many of us know that a business e-mail may seem like a dead end to some without a website.

Microsoft has been in the lead in the race of office and e-mail software worldwide with its Outlook and Office products.

In its lawsuit, Google claims that the Interior Department’s chief technology officer told Google executives that “a path forward had already been chosen” and that Google wouldn’t be able to compete due to a lack of its product complying with Interior security requirements.

Whether the Interior Department officials showed favoritism to Microsoft and limited Google’s ability to bid on the e-mail contract or not, one thing stands true: the Internet plays a key role in the functionality and accessibility of a business, no matter how big or small.

You may need to order another shot of espresso to keep up with Google’s new indexing system, Google Caffeine, which was officially launched on June 7. The new way for Google to index sites on the web makes having a solid and focused legal Internet marketing strategy more important than ever.

As anyone familiar with search engine optimization (SEO) knows, Google recognizes relevant and properly placed keywords on a site. But this is not all. Google looks for several different factors when “indexing” a website, or making a website show up in search results for specific keyword phrases. With Google Caffeine, Google can index a large amount of content in a shorter amount of time than ever before. Considering how fast-paced our society is, which is reflected in the quick and efficient results we expect when entering a search, Google has created a way to provide us with even more updated material in a matter of seconds.

With Google Caffeine comes an emphasis on adding new content and design to your law firm’s website, building quality incoming links, keeping blog posts current, properly utilizing social media, and making sure that keyword positioning is done properly in addition to several other SEO tactics. Google Caffeine’s quick indexing also makes having a website with sufficient loading time extremely important.

Don’t let Google Caffeine give you the jitters – while it’s valuable to act fast in order to keep up with your competition and the ever-changing ways of the Internet, your actions must be deliberate and not rushed. Don’t neglect quality to get the job done faster. This does not create results that last for your law firm’s web presence. It is important to take your time, while being efficient, with the optimization, design, and structure of your legal website.

Facebook, the wildly popular social networking site that began as a way for college students to interact with one another, has reached a significant milestone. As of July 21st, Facebook now has 500 million users, a number that increases on a daily basis as more and more people use the social networking site to reconnect with old friends, foster new relationships, and discuss topics that they find most interesting and relevant in their lives. What does this mean for law firms, you ask? Plenty. But it doesn't necessarily mean obtaining new clients - at least, not immediately. Due keep in mind, though, that 500 million Facebook users is a very large audience in which to market your law firm, and it shouldn't be ignored.

For any law firm looking to utilize social media platforms in its marketing campaign, the most important thing to remember is that you're not going to create a profile only to send friend requests to a bunch of people you don't actually know, and influence those new "friends" to retain your services. That's simply just not how it works. What your end goal should be, however, is getting your message out there, conveying your law firm as an authority on the type of law that it practices, and gaining trust amongst "friends" and others who stumble across your profile.

For Facebook, creating and maintaining a firm "fan" page is a good way to get your message across, as well as display a variety of information about your firm and its attorneys. This process, at least the creation portion of it, sounds fairly easy, and actually is for the most part. However, like all business matters, if you want a strong return on the time you've invested in your page, you have to put in a significant amount of effort. You can't simply create a page, leave it alone, and expect it to attract fans and potential friends. You wouldn't treat your website that way, so why should you treat your social networking like that?

Ultimately, any strong Internet marketing campaign is going to include time and effort devoted to social media marketing. To do so requires effectively utilizing your resources to establish your online identity as authoritative, reaching out to fans and friends in a manner that is genuine, not sales-pitchy, and relying on those fans and friends to spread your message to others. Remember, social networking sites are not run by businesses. They're run by everyday users who through word of mouth discuss topics that are most relevant or interesting in their lives. Be interesting, be yourself, and word of mouth may end up securing your law firm a few clients along the way.

Regardless of which search engine you use, chances are you refer to the actual action of searching as "googling" something. The word "Google" (used as a verb) has entered the lexicon of speech as a reference to searching for something online. Similarly, when "social networking" comes to mind, Facebook is generally going to be one of the first sites that you think of. In their respective fields, both Google and Facebook are leaders amongst their competition. As a result, it may be easy to assume that both companies are content: one company being the king of search, while the other is tops in the social realm. But Google and Facebook are locked in battle, seeking to stake out a claim in the other's respective field, and neither seems willing to concede defeat at this point.

According to an article on mashable.com, the question of whether or not Facebook is becoming bigger than Google is being debated, particularly since Internet users are now tending to use social networking sites more often than they do search engines. In fact, in March of this year, Facebook actually overtook Google in terms of overall web traffic in the United States. Statistically speaking, this recent victory for Facebook was relatively inevitable. That is, given the more static growth of search engine use versus the ever (steeply) increasing use of social networking sites, a close on the traffic gap was bound to eventually happen. However, neither Internet giant seems content with their place on the Internet, which could spell increased exposure for law firms and other businesses that market themselves using these two Internet sources.

Facebook, in partnering with Microsoft's Bing, has ventured into the world of search, currently ruled by Google. Likewise, Google, in hoping to secure some of Facebook's users, has entered into the social networking realm with its own such service known as Google Buzz, connected to Google's ever popular Gmail service. Interestingly enough, both companies are essentially in the same place when it comes to growth in their new ventures: Google Buzz has generated little if any buzz, and Facebook search is hardly a rival for the search behemoth known as Google. However, the fact that each company is attempting to secure market share from the other is an interesting notion, particularly when you take marketing businesses, such as law firms, into account.

At this point, marketing your brand on Google is still a must, and having a presence on Facebook is becoming more and more mainstay as the Internet, according to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, becomes a more social place where people want to interact with one another and share ideas. With Facebook and Google both venturing into each other's respective fields, this simply adds two more places where companies would be wise to establish a presence: Google Buzz and Facebook Search/Bing. Now, those two places may not be terribly beneficial at the moment, but the Internet is an unpredictable place, and new developments are changing the face of search and social networking every day. Had you asked someone a few years ago whether or not Facebook would eventually experience more web traffic than Google, even a less tech savvy person would have probably said you were crazy. Similarly, had someone told you that Google would soon create its own social network, you may have laughed it off as nothing more than a fad that would hardly be able to challenge Facebook for web supremacy.

Ultimately, by keeping tabs on the latest trends in social networking and search, businesses such as law firms should be able to adapt their legal internet marketing strategies accordingly. Law firms are able to maintain a web presence not only on the Internet's hot spots of today, but also on the sites of tomorrow that may eventually gain market share and supplant the current industry leaders.

Regardless of what happens, it's important to be prepared for anything. As the battle for the Internet ensues, law firms would be wise to keep up on the latest trends, especially given the latest speculation presented in the article. That is, according to mashable.com, "…while social networks such as Facebook don’t pose an immediate threat to search engines for their core functionality — organizing the web and helping people find content — they do pose a large threat to search engines’ largest revenue source - advertising." The topic of advertising revenue is a topic for another day though.

People with an insider’s knowledge of Microsoft say that the company will make an announcement soon that Facebook posts will appear in Bing’s search results in the near future. Microsoft has said that posts from Twitter users have already been integrated into its new search engine’s search results. It’s also possible that posts from other social media sites will also be included in the future.

The president of Microsoft’s online services division, Qi Lu, was expected to make the announcement about the integrated search results at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. The senior vice president for Microsoft’s online audience business group, Yusuf Mehdi, is expected to conduct a demonstration of the new capabilities of the Bing search engine.

Microsoft’s deal with Twitter, which is expected to be nonexclusive, has reportedly been included in the company plans for many weeks. Microsoft engineers had already included Twitter posts into Bing in anticipation of the announcement. The terms of Microsoft’s deal are not expected to be disclosed, but a person inside the deal who wished to remain anonymous said that negotiations included a payment from Microsoft to Twitter.

Continue reading "Microsoft's Bing Browser Integrates Twitter and Facebook Posts in Search Results" »

Many Internet users don’t know that some Internet service providers allow certain sites to load faster than others do. However, the debate over “network neutrality” is gathering momentum again in Washington and e-commerce sites may finally get to compete on a level playing field if legislation is passed to make access to all websites equal. ISPs and Arizona Senator John McCain lead the opposition to this legislation. Whether the debate will favor e-retailers is still very much in doubt.

The Federal Communications Commission recently proposed new rules that would prevent giant Internet service providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and others, from allowing the transmittal of web traffic of some websites at faster speeds than others allow. These ISPs claim that they should be able to charge more to send some traffic at higher speeds since streaming content for television shows and videos are chewing up large chunks of bandwidth and straining network capacity.

Many Internet companies and retailers favor network neutrality, arguing that allowing Internet users equal access to all online content promotes innovation and growth of the web, especially smaller companies that can’t afford to pay more for faster transmission.

Continue reading "Online Retailers Wish for Online "Network Neutrality" and May Get It" »

Yahoo’s chief executive has warned investors to expect a steep decline in the company’s business since she took the job in January 2009. Carol Bartz called Yahoo’s results "a solid third quarter" recently, but industry analysts were less impressed with its recovery. The company has cut costs since Bartz became boss and sold some of the company’s assets, but the biggest revenue gains by far have come from better-than-expected cash flow from the company’s display ads. Those three factors led to a tripling of Yahoo’s net income for the third quarter of 2009, much better than industry analysts had predicted.

The positive income report sent shares of Yahoo’s stock sharply higher in after-hours trading. However, the company reported that its revenue dropped 12 percent during the quarter, an indication that many advertisers are skittish about the pace of the country’s economic recovery. An interpretation of the drop in revenue was that Yahoo did not benefit from the nascent economic turnaround as much as its chief rival, Google, did. Some analysts said that the results were encouraging, but tempered their optimism by saying that Ms. Bartz’s plans for recovery remained a work in progress.

“The patient is off life support and back in the recovery ward,” said an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “But it is certainly not out playing soccer again.”

Continue reading "Despite Sales Decline, Yahoo Profits Triple" »

After four decades, the Internet heads for the biggest change in its history. Participants in a meeting in Seoul, Korea, are expected to approve the use of international domain names written in languages other than English. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization that monitors domain names around the world, is considering allowing Internet addresses in characters other than Latin letters. In the not too distant future, it may be a common sight to see URLs expressed in lettering as diverse as Greek, Japanese, Korean, Arabic and other languages on advertising in sports stadiums and other common advertising outlets.

"This is the biggest change technically to the Internet since it was invented 40 years ago," Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the ICANN board, told reporters, calling it a "fantastically complicated technical feature." He said he expected the board to grant approval for the change on the conference's final day.

The birth of the Internet began with a transmission of data from UCLA to Stanford University in 1969. In the early 1990s, its availability and purpose grew from military, scientific and academic applications to the boundless purposes it serves today. If the changes are approved as expected, a spokesperson for ICANN said that the organization would begin accepting applications for non-English domain names very soon, and the first entries of the new URLs would probably be implemented sometime in mid-2010.

Thrush said that the creation of a translation system that allows conversion of multiple scripts to the correct address was the single largest development that enables this change.

"We're confident that it works because we've been testing it now for a couple of years," he said. "And so we're really ready to start rolling it out."

Continue reading "International Domains in Languages Other Than English on the Way" »

An article published recently in the Los Angeles Times reports that Yahoo, parent company of venerable website hosting giant GeoCities, is closing down the site that allowed people to create their own pages a decade ago. Then GeoCities sites created by users ranked well in search results and were a social networking hub of sorts for hundreds of thousands of users. Though rudimentary and generally unsophisticated, these pages allowed users to create fan sites, talk about their hobbies, share their political views and a myriad of other topics. They could create pages at no cost, take advantage of a modest amount of storage for images and documents and stake out their own little corner of the Internet when there weren’t many options to do so.

Yahoo was scheduled to pull the plug on the domain and millions of pages on October 25, 2009, and one of the most common domains in the young history of the Internet was expected to cease to exist except in fond memory. In early 2009, although GeoCities stopped accepting applications, current users were allowed to update their pages and save their sites to their hard drives. Compared to peak traffic and users in the late 90s, comparatively few users remained. Yahoo is urging those remaining to transfer their accounts and pages to Yahoo’s web hosting service for $5 a month.

Continue reading "Yahoo Closes GeoCities Site" »

A group representing Chinese authors has accused Google and their digital library of violating copyrights. Google disputes the claims saying that their online library service is in full compliance with international laws. Google has reportedly digitized at least 10 million books and many publishers and authors have filed lawsuits against the search giant for digitizing their works and copyright infringement. The China Written Works Copyright Society claims that Google scanned thousands of books written by Chinese authors without getting their permission and without providing compensation.

Chen Qirong, spokesperson for the CWWCS, said, "Whether you are a small company or big company you still need to respect the copyright of the authors."

Google said that it had received permission to digitize more than 30,000 books from over 50 Chinese publishers to provide this content in search results and in previews.

"We believe the book search complies with international copyright law," said Google representative Courtney Hohne.

Google’s ambitious plans to create a huge digital library has been praised by some and condemned by others here in the U.S. and abroad for copyright, antitrust and infringement of privacy. The alleged copyright violations are the latest in a series of controversies—real and imagined—that have made headlines in China for Google. The negative publicity has made it hard for the company to gain market share in the country where numbers of its users are well behind Chinese search giant Baidu.

Continue reading "Chinese Authors Say Google Violated Copyrights" »

Google’s innovative telecommunications service, Google Voice, allows easy management of multiple phone numbers, blocks telemarketers, makes inexpensive global phone calls and even provides voicemail transcription. However, these conveniences came at a steep price that many people were unwilling to pay: it required users to get a new phone number. In a move to entice more users to the service, Google is offering a less comprehensive version of their services that allows users to keep their existing phone number.

Google says that participants in the new program will be able to use the company’s online voicemail service instead of their cell phone provider’s voicemail. This service is central to the services, as users will be able to read their voicemails online, save them, play them back, forward them to a designated email in-box or receive them as a text message on a mobile device. They will also be able to save these massages, search them and forward messages to others.

Continue reading ""Lite" Version of Google Voice Allows Users to Keep Their Phone Number" »

Google Labs has just launched a new search function called Social Search, which allows users to enhance their search experience by providing them with search results that are more personally relevant. Google announced that it is working on implementing Social Search at the Fall Web 2.0 Summit, but doesn’t expect to make it available until later in the season. The personalized search function utilizes a user’s social network profiles to display relative links as well as status updates that members of the user’s social network have shared at the bottom of a page of search results.

People interested in checking out Social Search will need to point their browser at Google’s experimental section and activate the new search feature that is only available to users in the U.S. and only in English. Social Search creates personalized searches utilizing Google Talk, Gmail, Google Reader subscriptions and social networking profiles that a user has added to his or her Google Profile. While participation in Google Profile is not mandatory, based on information in a user’s Google Profile, Social Search can automatically detect a user’s social networking profiles and friend lists on BrightKite, Digg, del.icio.us, YouTube, FriendFeed, Flickr and other networking sites.

Not every search will yield Social Search results at the bottom of a search results page. When it does, however, socially relevant search results will appear at the bottom of the user’s page labeled as "results from people in your social circle." Users will also be able to start Social Search from the search options panel currently embedded in the search page, and Google will provide a list of the user’s friends that it decides are the most closely related to the search terms. If a user clicks on a name, they will be able to confine search results to see results from that friend.

Continue reading "Google Labs Launch Social Search" »

Managers and employees at Internet payment giant PayPal envision a future in which cash is an obsolete form of currency. We will order drinks through a touch screen at a bar and buy movie tickets by touching a movie poster on the side of a building. In PayPal’s forward-thinking future, software developers working for other companies will be able to create these alternative ways of purchasing the products we want by using PayPal’s technology. These visions of our possible future got a lot closer when PayPal announced that they would open their platform on November 3 to developers who want to build payment applications.

While innovations in many other industries have changed the way we live, work and play, there has been significantly less innovation in new and alternative means of making online payments. PayPal President Scott Thompson said as much recently at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. He said that the industry has been resistant to change, but legitimate concerns about fraud and security have been the largest impediments to innovation in the field. He also said that payments are a highly regulated business and require a great deal of cooperation and coordination between senders and receivers.

Still, “there’s a clear sign in the market that people want something better than they have today,” Mr. Thompson said. “Cash and checks are dying a slow death.”

PayPal, an integral part of Internet auction giant eBay, has primarily been driving the growth of the popular auction site. Now, the company is keenly interested in becoming the way that people pay for everything online, on their cell phones and in the course of their daily lives. Mr. Thompson said that the company has been working with software developers at big hardware and software companies, start-ups, mobile telecommunication device manufacturers and other companies. “Payment innovation needs to move from the hands of a few big entities to the hands of many,” he said.

Continue reading "PayPal Open Platform to Ignite Innovation" »

Dell’s founder and chief executive, Michael Dell, said recently that people who purchase a new computer with Windows 7 installed and then buy Office 2010 when it comes out next year would experience a “computing catharsis.” While speaking at an event hosted by Silicon Valley’s Churchill Club, Dell said, “You will love your PC again. We have not been able to say that for a long time.”

The well-documented problems of Microsoft’s Vista operating system created a marketing nightmare for the software giant and personal computer manufacturers that pre-installed the Vista OS on their desktops and laptops. After Vista’s release, its shortcomings were shared around the world online and both Microsoft and PC makers went into damage control mode.

Dell knows firsthand how customers’ relationships with their PCs suffered during the Vista years. Around 80 percent of Dell’s business customers requested that Windows XP be installed on their new computers instead of Vista. Since Vista’s release, Dell has resorted to extraordinary measures to distance itself from the flawed operating system. Surprisingly, the company has been an aggressive advocate for Linux—an up-and-coming and far more secure and stable OS than Microsoft’s products.

Continue reading "Founder of Dell Says Windows Users Will Love Their PCs Again" »

Microsoft is hoping to end its 3-year Windows Vista nightmare with the release of Windows 7 in late October. When Microsoft released Vista, that operating system (OS) quickly developed an unenviable reputation for its slowness, intrusiveness and incompatibility with many gadgets. Microsoft altered its operating system many times to make it less dependent on high-end computers since its release, but Vista’s reputation as an overly gimmicky and flaky OS was hard to shake.

As recently as this past summer, at least two-thirds of corporate computers were still running the less flashy, but far more reliable Windows XP OS. However, early reviews of Windows 7 are positive. According to several reviewers, Windows 7 keeps the best of Vista, like security, stability and lots of eye candy and addressed most of what Vista users disliked, such as:

• Sluggishness
  Microsoft says Windows 7 offers “faster, more responsive performance” than its predecessor.


• Hardware requirements
  Users with older computers cried foul at the time about Vista’s higher-end hardware requirements. The standard edition of Windows 7 only requires 1 GB of memory and 1-GHz processor at the minimum to run, well under the current standards for new computers.


• Less alarmist than Vista
  Vista users reported that the OS freaked out anytime any real or perceived security threat occurred. With Windows 7, no less than 10 different categories of warnings accumulate in a unified Action Center and don’t interrupt processes.

Another aspect of the new OS that some users aren’t wild about is the fact that there are five different versions of Windows 7: Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. Each version comes with a different set of features and ranges from $120 to $320 in price.

Continue reading "Windows 7 to Atone for Microsoft's Vista Flaws" »

What started only two years ago as a messaging service with few bells and whistles has evolved into a company with worldwide recognition, millions of Tweeters and the fans who read their tweets. Twitter founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, had the business savvy to outsource ideas on how to grow and improve their service to the people who use it on a daily and hourly basis. The company monitors how users use the service and which ideas become popular. Then company engineers transform these ideas into features.

The company has announced that two new features will be rolled out sometime in the next several weeks called Lists and Retweets from users’ ideas.

“Twitter’s smart enough—or lucky enough—to say, ‘Gee, let’s not try to compete with our users in designing this stuff, let’s outsource design to them,’ ” said Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management at MIT and author of the book “Democratizing Innovation.”

Professor von Hippel said that economists have thought that the people making products and running the companies are natural sources for new ideas and innovations. However, technology companies have turned that model upside-down successfully by allowing others to innovate for them. This works primarily because the Internet lets people around the world share ideas in real time and software allows users to design new products inexpensively. A good example of this is photo-sharing giant Flickr that started out as a small part of a game. When Flickr founders discovered that the photo-sharing aspect was more popular than the game, they shed the game and focused on building Flickr.

This shift favors young start-up companies as older companies tend to rely on proven ideas and techniques, and the structures of their companies may discourage outside-the-box thinking intentionally or unintentionally. Nevertheless, that may be changing somewhat as older companies now try to emulate the methods of new companies after watching how new companies grow to success. One good example is Ford Motor Company—it noticed that users were modifying the voice-activated entertainment and GPS system, Sync, and so invited college students to create new features for the system.

Continue reading "Twitter Evolves and Grows Successful by Listening to Customers" »

Google’s innovative telecommunications service, Google Voice, allows easy management of multiple phone numbers, blocks telemarketers, makes inexpensive global phone calls and even provides voicemail transcription. However, these conveniences came at a steep price that many people were unwilling to pay: it required users to get a new phone number. In a move to entice more users to the service, Google is offering a less comprehensive version of their services that allows users to keep their existing phone number.

Google says that participants in the new program will be able to use the company’s online voicemail service instead of their cell phone provider’s voicemail. This service is central to the services, as users will be able to read their voicemails online, save them, play them back, forward them to a designated email in-box or receive them as a text message on a mobile device. They will also be able to save these massages, search them and forward messages to others.

Continue reading "'Lite' Version of Google Voice Allows Users to Keep Their Phone Number" »

Branding consultancy giant Interbrand released its 2009 list of the best 100 global brands recently. Sysomos, a social media monitoring and analytics firm, looked at Interbrand’s data from the perspective of the top 20 brands’ social media presence on blogs, forums and news sites. This led to some intriguing differences in positioning. For example, Google, which placed seventh on the Top 100 Brands list, ranked first in social media mentions. Coca-Cola, the top brand on the Interbrand list, slipped to eleventh on the Sysomos list.

The Interbrand list put Coca-Cola, IBM and Microsoft as the top three in their list, while Sysomos’ top three included Google, Apple and Microsoft. Sysomos found that the fastest-growing brand this fall was Gillette from a social media standpoint. Sysomos determined that most of the mentions that drove the results for Gillette arose from the marketing campaign for its new Fusion razors. Curiously, 13 of Sysomos’ top 20 brands saw their social media mentions drop over the last two months with BMW down 31%, Honda -25%, and Toyota -24% as the steepest declines. Google registered a 13.45 drop for the same period.

Continue reading "Google, Apple and Microsoft Top Three Brands in Social Media" »

Not so long ago, small business owners had to be very selective about their advertising with their limited marketing budgets. Google AdWords and Internet marketing have leveled the playing field for small businesses substantially. However, unless owners or their Internet marketing expert plan their AdWords campaign carefully, they can quickly find themselves spending thousands of dollars with little return on investment.

First, determine if a Google AdWords campaign is the right choice for your business. For example, if your company produces a new product with very little name recognition, an AdWords campaign centered on a keyphrase like “organic turkey pastrami” might result in very inexpensive clicks, but little traffic to your site.

Next, establish an affordable budget and stick to it. Regardless how competitive your target keywords and keyphrases might be, unless you set a daily and monthly budget and stick to it, you’re setting yourself up to pay an expensive tab for pay-per-click. Instead of focusing on the quantity of clicks on your ad, concern yourself with the quality of those clicks.

Third, consider modifying your selected keywords and phrases with the names of nearby cities or your county. Also, bear in mind that AdWords will let you select a defined geo-specific area where your ads will reach local customers. If your snow plowing business is in Manchester, New Hampshire and you’re trying to attract qualified traffic with a PPC campaign for “snow removal,” it doesn’t do you much good if a user eighty miles away sees your ad. Select Manchester snow removal, Bedford, NH snow plowing services or another nearby community.

Continue reading "Small Business Guide to Using Google AdWords" »

Internet marketing professionals are taking a wait-and-see attitude towards Bing, Microsoft Corporation’s recently released search engine. The company is reportedly spending $100 million on marketing for their new search engine in an effort to gain market share for Internet searches as well as the lucrative advertising revenue that a larger market share would provide. For many years Microsoft’s Live Search was the company’s search engine and, while it was the third-most popular search engine in a fairly crowded field, the company steadily lost market share to industry heavyweight Google. But now the company has thrown its considerable resources behind Bing in the hopes that the new search engine will attract more users and advertising revenue.

“They've added a few nice things, and I think the shopping comparison stuff with reviews is pretty compelling,” said Rich Dettmer, director-digital strategy at b-to-b agency Slack Barshinger, Chicago. “As far as paid search is concerned, we're going to be on it. Our clients will use it. But, of course, I will tell you that the lion's share of the budget still has to go where the lion's share of the searches are, and that means Google.”

Before Bing launched, Microsoft’s Live Search came in third behind Google and Yahoo for market share for total searches. But with only 8 percent of search market share, a percentage which gradually and continually eroded and lost users to Google, it became a source of embarrassment (and far more important, lost revenue) to Microsoft. According to the latest available search engine statistics, Google logged 64.2% of all search queries in the U.S. in April 2009, with Yahoo at 20.4% and Live Search, Bing's predecessor, at 8.2%.

But some Internet marketing professionals are keeping a close eye on Bing’s market share, how it presents relevant search results to users and how Bing might fit into the Internet marketing strategies they craft for clients.

Microsoft has unsuccessfully tried to reinvent its search engine several times in the years since it launched MSN Search in 1998. As Internet marketing and advertising have grown in popularity and relevance since then, MSN Search has morphed into Microsoft Search, then Windows Live Search, then Live Search with each iteration failing to attract the desired number of users.

Continue reading "Internet Marketers Taking Wait-and-See Attitude towards Microsoft’s Bing" »

Around twenty years ago, a Cornell graduate student wrote a simple software program that was intended to be a harmless prank. He wanted it to be a trivial bit of digital graffiti, but a programming error allowed the program to move from one computer on the network to another with unexpected speed, which brought the precursor to today’s Internet to a halt.

Since that prank occurred, the security of the Internet has grown much dicier. This point is reinforced and illustrated by the amount of anti-malware software that is sold each year around the world and the amount of computers and networks that are infected with viruses and other malware every day. Security on the Internet has deteriorated to the point that many engineers and security specialists now believe that the only way to fix it is to start over.

What the new Internet might resemble is still fiercely debated, but one proposed model would resemble a gated community of sorts where users trade anonymity and some freedoms in exchange for network safety. This model already exists for many users who access the ‘Net while working for some governmental and corporate entities with restricted access. As this newer and more secure Internet emerged, the network that is such a big part of many peoples’ lives might resemble a rough neighborhood where users enter at their own risk.

“Unless we’re willing to rethink today’s Internet,” says Nick McKeown, a Stanford engineer involved in building a new Internet, “we’re just waiting for a series of public catastrophes.”

The validity of this assertion is reinforced each time a new virus emerges and infects computers and networks around the world. The latest piece of malware, called Conficker, is an especially pernicious program which has infected more than 12 million computers and derailed the computer networks of the French military, a surgical ward in England and countless others. Unlike other viruses that require a user to click on an executable file of some type, Conficker can install itself via banner advertising while a user views the content on a favorite site. Most versions masquerade as a form of anti-virus software with pop-ups warning users to provide credit card numbers and other contact information to buy the ‘upgraded version’ that will remove the malware.

Continue reading "Is a New Internet in the Works? Malware May Force the Issue" »

Microsoft is sparing no expense and thinking well outside the metaphorical box in its efforts to market its new search engine named “Bing.” The corporation is buying prominent placement in television programs and the online video hub Hulu.com as part of their efforts to raise awareness about their new search engine. In fact, Microsoft plans to air an hour-long “Bing-a-thon” on Hulu.com, matching the new search engine with the old marketing standby - the infomercial. Tired of having its old search engine a perennial afterthought to the undisputed champion of the search engine Google, the Microsoft Corporation is believed to be spending between $80 million to $100 million on advertising to give Bing a running start on the competition.

Microsoft is willing to invest in all this Internet marketing in their new search engine because Internet marketing has become such an effective way to build brand management, attract targeted, qualified traffic to a Web site and drive sales. In addition, search engine market share has become increasingly coveted because online ad spending has held up much better than most other types of media in a tough economic climate. It’s fair to say that Microsoft is implementing all this Internet marketing for Bing to get a bigger chunk of Google’s share of ad revenue.

Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president for the online services division of Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, said, “It’s a very tall marketing challenge and a very tall product challenge…It’s going to take multiple steps to get where we want to go,” he added, “and this is the first step. The key will be whether we deliver a product and connect with people emotionally in the advertising.”

Mr. Mehdi added that to achieve the second point, “You have to do something a little bit more surprising.”

Continue reading "Marketing for “Bing” Search Engine: Microsoft Thinking Outside the Box" »