An important, if not surprising, item: Another Google/YouTube exec has voiced his opinion that YouTube will be profitable this year. More interestingly, an outside analyst has done the same, and also forecast a gross revenue figure of almost $1 billion.
Dutch web monitoring company WatchMouse has done a thorough analysis of uptime and performance of 14 major URL shortening services, with quite disheartening results.
As it turns out, only two of these (goo.gl and twt.tl) have had a perfect uptime record between 02/14/2010 and 03/16/2010; the rest of the pack mostly had minor uptime issues, while snurl.com and tr.im had uptime below 99%.
via mashable.com
Many of us in the SEO community obsess about Google algorithm changes, personalized search, Bing market share growth, and the myriad minutia that affects search engine behavior. But for all of the attention that we give most of the major players in search, it remains a mystery to me why the second largest search engine is routinely ignored. In case you hadn’t realized, in terms of share of search, YouTube remains ahead of Yahoo!, safely in the No. 2 spot behind Google, according to comScore.
A Facebook fan page and/or a Twitter account used to mean you were special. It meant your company was not only savvy enough to know about social media, but actually knew how to use it. Now though, just about every marketer out there is crafting the ultimate fan page or Twitter profile just because they can. When I saw a "Become a fan on Facebook" notice at my local diner, I knew the movement had hit critical mass.
The social media strategy for many companies is to "build it and they will come." But just as in life, simply showing up is not enough. You have to establish a business objective and a corresponding strategy to help you achieve that objective. Common objectives include building brand recognition and awareness, driving sales, finding new customers, and speaking to current customers. So what is the best tactic for social media engagement? Original content.
In honor of President’s Day, we’ve listed 25 of the best President’s Day quotes we could find below. Each quote comes from the mouth or pen of a US president.
1. I know only two tunes: one of them is ‘Yankee Doodle’, and the other one isn’t. -Ulysses S. Grant
2. I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world. -George Washington
3. If hard work is not another name for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it. -James Garfield
4. Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom. -Thomas Jefferson
5. You don’t get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier. -George W. Bush
6. Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. -Ronald Reagan
7. We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon. -Jimmy Carter
8. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. … Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. -Barack Obama
9. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. -Bill Clinton
10. History, in general, only informs us what bad government is. -Thomas Jefferson
11. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. -James Madison
12. Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education. -George H.W. Bush
13. The lesson of history is rarely learned by the actors themselves. -James A. Garfield
14. Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. -Theodore Roosevelt
15. Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die. -Herbert Hoover
16. When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. -Franklin D. Roosevelt
17. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -Harry S. Truman
18. I am rather in
Social networking now accounts for 11% of all time spent online in the U.S. http://bit.ly/a1eMK8
There are different options of recruiting samples and each Social Network Site (SNS) represents different key demographics, ie Facebook for US 18-24 year olds, MySpace for specific key markets (Music), and LinkedIn for SVPs of Human Resources from Fortune 500 companies.
Some networks are exploring selling sample directly to researchers, although banner ads and pop-ups are the most common way to source sample. On networks such as Facebook, purchasing traffic directly from application/widget developers is also possible (PeanutLabs was early in leveraging this opportunity). Others, including Anderson Analytics, have developed their own proprietary applications/widgets to survey or recruit sample.
The days of straight forward travel booking on either an OTA or supplier site are rapidly coming to an end. The latest PhoCusWright report on Online Traffic and Conversion deals in great detail with this ever more complex landscape of what is also called the pre-booking phase. While the booking focused sites still dominate the market in terms of visitor traffic, a growing number of their present customers are expecting to be better served in their search for the most suitable trip options. The resulting gap between higher customer expectations and service provider functionality offered, needs to be addressed. It already is the focus of attention by a number of new market entrants attempting to close that gap. These developments are a further sign of the steady evolution of the travel industry and the move to the Web for more complex tasks that in the past were handled offline.
Google has quietly gotten rid of PageRank in Webmaster Tools. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to a thread featuring an explanation from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa. "We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true," says Moskwa. "We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it." Search marketers are wondering why Google tells people not to focus on PageRank and removes it from Webmaster Tools, but still keeps it in the Google Toolbar. "Back in 2007, Google wanted feedback on removing PageRank from the Toolbar," says Schwartz. "I felt it was a good idea but the idea died out. Google cannot remove PageRank from the Toolbar, it is too much of their branding. No matter how much Matt Cutts and the Google search quality and webmaster trends team want it removed, I cannot see Google's executives allowing it." Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim says the role of PageRank has been reduced to nothing more than a "comfort blanket for SEO Noobs." He adds, "I say this, with a high degree of confidence that most experienced SEOs pour over the data in Google Webmaster Tools, whereas those new to the industry likely let the toolbar be their only guiding light." He also notes, however, that PageRank data can still be useful. For example, it can be a good indicator of a site's behavior in Google's index. "Any green means 'go.' No green, means there's something to investigate," says Beal. Despite this usefulness though, Moskwa pretty much closes the case on Google's position on it. In fact, she even points to a FAQ page about crawling, indexing, and ranking, which says that webmasters shouldn't even bother thinking about it. It also says that PageRank is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed, and ranked.What are your thoughts on PageRank? Discuss below.
One of the hot cyberlaw topics du jour is the legal liability of YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Friendster
Link: Technology & Marketing Law Blog: Social Networking Sites and the Law.
