Television & Search - Contextualizing Out of Context
Posted by luke on July 31, 2008 at 10:51 AM
With the promise of greater interactivity and content capacity, a few television networks have begun to pull from the online marketing playbook.
Comcast recently acquired social networking site Plaxo, with the intent of allowing family and friends to share programming in a viral way and through various media devices.
Meanwhile, Turner Entertainment Networks has announced it will be indexing content within television shows in order to serve contextually relevant ads during commercial breaks. If you're familiar with Google AdWords, then you understand this is exactly how contextual targeting works when serving text ads within Google's content network.
While it depends on the client, it can be quite difficult to achieve the same metrics and success in Google's content network when compared to Google Search and the search network. Clearly, users within the content network may be in the earliest stage of the consumer purchasing decision process; however, serving ads on relevant content pages is the primary concern.
While I commend Turner Entertainment on attempting to apply search relevancy to television advertising, all I can think of is the potential for inappropriate contextual matches based on such an automated system. Michael Boland, Senior Analyst with The Kelsey Group provides a great example:
Seeing an ad for United Airlines after the crash scene(s) in "Lost" probably isn't what you want.
Furthermore, Boland points out that:
Albeit, low volume/high margin television advertising makes this easier to police than the billions of long tail contextual ads served online. But for the same reason, when a mistake is made, a whole lot more people get to see it.
Probing even deeper, the use of a Staples paper shredder by the character Kevin in an episode of The Office is not enough justification for serving a 30 second Staples spot. Watching The Office does not say anything about my interest in Staples office supplies or office supplies in general. If anything, watching The Office says something about my interest in comedy or Steve Carell.
While it may be a step in the right direction, television networks need to start thinking outside of the 30 second commercial spot before they get contextual targeting right.
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Comcast
Contextual Targeting
Oneupweb
And the Winner is.......
Posted by grant on July 30, 2008 at 09:14 AM
An interesting piece of info slid across my workspace this foggily sunny morning that just may be of interest to everyone out there in the digital inter-web. Apparently our chief here at Oneupweb, Lisa Wehr, has been inundated with awards as of late.
Recently she was named one of BtoB Magazine's Who's Who of 2008, making it five consecutive years. I reiterate for emphasis: five consecutive years. This makes her the first and only individual in the search marketing category to be recognized five times in a row, and also probably the only former sled dog racer in the category as well.
And if that's not rad enough, Lisa also garnered another honor, being recognized by Corp! Magazine's Entrepreneurs of Distinction. Corp! Magazine, Michigan's Largest Business Magazine, chose their honorees by their impressive business activities, major accomplishments, special skills and innovative approaches.
Instead of basking in the glow of her accomplishments, Lisa diverts the credit to us background singers, we Merry Men to her Robin Hood, her hard-working employees, "It takes a great team that contributes ideas and executes decisions. I'm really fortunate because I get to work everyday with a fantastic group of smart, innovative people. I feel a huge sense of responsibility towards them and our continued success."
And really, this is all pretty neat when one puts it into perspective: in just over 12 years Oneupweb has gone from a 4-person crew operating out of her basement to a collection of talented employees working in a 23,000 square foot building resting on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay. And even before all that Lisa has worked in Alaska in competitive dog sled racing, displaying the same determination and strategy that would help her receive several awards in the field of digital marketing and search optimization.
So from all of us at Oneupweb, we'd like to belt out a big "Congratulations, Lisa!"
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B2B Who's Who
Corp! Magazine
Oneupweb
Can Anyone Compete with Google?
Posted by chip on July 29, 2008 at 03:13 PM
You don't have to be an industry insider to know that Google is the dominant player in the world of search. Over the years the search engine has gone from a new player with a lot of promise, to one of the major engines, to being almost synonymous with search itself.
In fact it wasn't long ago that the word "google" was added to both the Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary as a verb. Fearing the dilution of its brand and the potential loss of its trademark, Google resisted the use of the name as a verb, but to no avail.
While Google may have lost the name game, it's definitely winning the search war. With its market share fast approaching 80% and paid search revenues that are truly mind boggling, I don't believe there are too many people out there feeling sorry for Google. To the contrary, some would say that Google is in need of some real competition.
So where is this competition going to come from? What is it going to take for a competitor to make a stand against the search giant that is Google?
Cuil Hand Luke?
If you follow the search industry at all you've undoubtedly heard a lot about Cuil (pronounced "cool") this past week. Entering the space with more fanfare than any new search engine deserves, Cuil is being billed by many as an engine that might eventually have the ability to compete with Google for market share.
While I do like Cuil's interface, and I always try to cut new engines plenty of slack when they first roll out, I've not seen or read anything that convinces me of its ability to compete with Google in any meaningful way. Stay tuned to find out if I'm wrong but I think that we've gotten to a point where it's going to take a lot more than a massive index and some big names to un-seed Google as the engine of choice for the masses.
The Merging of Microsoft & Yahoo
While I really don't feel like rehashing this topic today, I'd be remiss not to at least mention Microsoft's attempt to purchase Yahoo while posting about this topic. After all, isn't it just as likely that Google's competition will come from some well established players rather than a brand new engine? And isn't the desire to compete with Google the main motivator for Microsoft to originally pursue this deal?
But even if you combine MSN, Live and Yahoo's market share you only end up with around 17%. That's quite a bit better than anyone else has been doing in quite some time but I doubt it's the height of Microsoft's aspirations.
Microsoft's BrowseRank
Thinking beyond merger possibilities, Microsoft has developed a new method of evaluating web pages called BrowseRank. Separating itself from Google's PageRank, the idea behind BrowseRank is that analyzing a page according to traffic and time spent on a page is a much better indicator of quality than a mathematical evaluation of links to a page.
I'm not going to hash out the process of computing page importance here as that would be an entire post in itself, but I do have to admit that the idea is intriguing to me. You can learn more about BrowseRank here (PDF).
Improving on Relevancy
So will Microsoft be able to provide meaningful competition to Google? Will Cuil be able to live up to the promise that it holds? Perhaps a better question is whether anyone can compete with Google at this point?
After all, Google didn't get to where it is today by acquiring smart start ups or by raking in paid search revenue like nobody's business. Google got to where it is today by providing a level of relevancy to search that had not been seen before.
As we instinctively align ourselves against the established power, we often times forget what brought Google to power in the first place. We did. And we did it in the name of relevancy.
Is there room today to improve upon the level of relevancy that Google has established?
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Google
Cuil
Microsoft
Oneupweb
Jumping on the Olympic Adwagon
Posted by lawrence on July 28, 2008 at 11:16 AM
It seems that everyone, including the media, advertisers and athletes, are jumping on the Olympic adwagon for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The internet has become a vital information channel for audiences watching the Olympic Games, and the ad world is utilizing the latest high-speed video streaming and social media technologies to capture the attention of the Olympics' global audience.
With a population of 1.3 billion people, China has overtaken the United States as the world's largest internet population. According to an article in China Daily, it is estimated that Chinese internet users are spending about 570 million hours online per day. Within the next decade, China's online advertising market is expected to increase to 85 billion yuan (approximately 12.4 billion U.S. dollars) from its current 9.34 billion yuan (approximately 1.3 billion dollars).
To reach this growing number of Chinese internet users, as well as the rest of the online world, many companies are using the Olympic Games in Beijing as a springboard.
Image:striatic
Coca-Cola is pushing the social media aspect with new software that allows people to pass "virtual Olympic torches" through instant messaging. So far, 58 million people have received the virtual torches. Coca-Cola also started a "Design the World a Coke" campaign, which allows users to create a custom Coke bottle design and then tallies the number of bottles created by country. Overall, Coca-Cola is spending an estimated $75 - $90 million in multimedia advertising to further build its brand in China, which is already Coke's fourth largest market. China is expected to surpass the United States as the beverage company's top market.
Another company that is getting involved with the online social aspect of the Olympics is Lenovo. The technology company has created blogs for 100 athletes and has given these athletes laptops and video cameras to chronicle their preparation for the games. Lenovo isn't hosting the blogs on its own site, but is showcasing the blogs. In return, Lenovo only asks that the participating athletes display a "Lenovo Olympic Games Blogger" badge on their blogs.
McDonald's has also expanded on its traditional Olympics advertising with a social strategy. The fast food company is offering an alternate-reality game called The Lost Ring, which is currently boasting more than 2 million players from 100 countries. The Lost Ring game challenges players to solve mysteries surrounding the Olympics.
Sohu.com Inc. is the internet content services sponsor of the Beijing Games and has reportedly paid $20 million for rights to host the Official Website of the Beijing Olympic Games, in addition to use of its logo. As the only website sponsor of the Olympics, Sohu.com plans to send a reporting team of more than 700 journalists to the Olympics.
Meanwhile stateside, NBC Universal has plans to sell $1 billion in commercial air time during the Beijing Olympics. According to Reuters, NBC has already sold more than $900 million in ad time for the upcoming Olympic Games by booking nearly 90% of its inventory three weeks ahead of the opening ceremony.
NBC Universal plans to air a record 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage between August 8 and August 24 across its broadcast, cable TV and online outlets. 2,200 of those hours are expected to be streamed live over the internet via NBCOlympics.com.
To track its Olympics audience across a variety of platforms, NBC is utilizing TAMI (Total Audience Measurement Index), which combines data from Nielsen Media Research, Omniture and Rentrak. With more precise audience measurements, NBC can prove the worth of its cross-platform reach and likely influence commercial sales for the 2012 games.
Whether you plan to watch the live feeds of the Olympic events, tune in for highlights and statistics, or just check out the latest advertisements, the online technologies in place for the 2008 Beijing Olympics are truly a union of people and ideas on a global scale.
Google's Project Knol - An Update
Posted by mike k on July 25, 2008 at 03:53 PM
It has been seven months since my original story on Project Knol, Google's attempt to compete with Wikipedia. Earlier this week Knol finally went live to the masses.
I have had a chance to explore the service and found that, while it may have been under development for months, there are still some issues that need to be ironed out.
Lack of browsable categories
There seems to be a complete lack of browsable content categories at this point in time. The main page of the site offers a random assortment of knols under the heading "Plain old bag o' knols". Google might be trying to hide the fact that there isn't much content available at this time since, despite there being a working search box at the top of the page, they say, "Who needs a search engine? CTRL+F" under the "Plain old bag" heading. I find this hilarious coming from the largest search engine company in the world.
Buried at the bottom of the page in a tiny font you'll find a "browse" link that will take you to an unsorted list of fifty knols. At the time of this writing there were seven pages worth of knols available. 350 articles is a far cry from Wikipedia's nearly 2.5 million but then again it is only the third day.
Complete breakdown
While writing this blog post it seems that the Knol site is suffering some server problems. The error displayed when attempting to visit the site is "knol pageview limit exceeded".
This will most likely be resolved quickly but it just goes to show that Google might have pulled the trigger to release the project a bit too soon.
Despite these issues there are some pretty interesting features that set Knol apart from competitor Wikipedia.
Name verification
Knol authors are be able to verify their identity to help lend credibility to the content they post. You can verify your name by providing your phone number, entering a pin code when an automated system calls your number. Another option is to enter your credit card information so Google can check it against credit bureau databases. Name verification is currently only available to people living in the US.
AdSense ads
One of the most talked about features of Knol is the ability for authors to monetize the content they publish by allowing the display of AdSense ads within articles they publish. This can be seen as an incentive to write quality content that could potentially been seen by millions of visitors. So if you have an AdSense account just enter the details and start creating content for fun and profit.
Conclusion
It will be interesting to see if Knol becomes a true competitor to Wikipedia or if it will carve out its own niche on the web. Once the rough edges are smoothed over and more content is added it could become a force to reckon with in the future.
The Dark Knight Gets Serious about Social Media Marketing
Posted by maureen on July 24, 2008 at 09:36 AM
Like a viral plague of fear spread over Gotham City, Batman has taken over the internet with the use of effective social media marketing tactics. And the tactics have worked. According to CNN.com, "The Dark Knight" took in $155.34 million in it's first weekend, beating out "Spider Man 3" for best opening weekend ever at the box office. That's a lot of cash, created by a lot of buzz.
Some of that buzz was generated by the early death of Heath Ledger, who plays the movie's maniacal Joker - brilliantly. But the carefully planned use of social media marketing to correctly target "The Dark Knight" audience also contributed to those record breaking numbers.
The official movie website provides video, still photographs, downloads, an iPhone app, a mobile game and more. The site was released well before the film was in theatres, allowing fans to interact with the characters, heightening the anticipation and guaranteeing that the movie stayed top of mind with the target audience.
Other social media marketing tactics included several microsites and a takeover of the MySpace homepage. One interesting interactive feature that is continuing to generate buzz involves committing your friend by placing a photograph of their face on the body of an insane asylum inmate.
So it's true. Social media marketing is a great way to generate buzz about your business or products. But as we can see from the examples above, it isn't just about having a MySpace or Facebook page. There are several different social media tactics helping to promote Batman. The key is choosing a combination that is right for your specific audience and product.
To find out more about how to make social media marketing work for you, download our two-part social media marketing series: The Secrets of Social Marketing Success.
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Social Media
Dark Knight
Oneupweb
Bidding on Competitor Trademarks is Bad Business
Posted by vern on July 23, 2008 at 09:27 AM
Last week, American Airlines dropped its lawsuit against Google for allowing competitors to bid on trademark names via Google AdWords. The out-of-court settlement ends a nearly year-long battle between the airline and the search giant.
The case is but one example in a long history of corporation suing corporation over keyword bidding practices. There's no doubt that it's a fairly widespread practice. But what's all the fuss about?
In-house paid search marketing teams (and some agencies) need to get a clue and spend their ad budgets more efficiently. Bidding on your competitor's name is bad business, but not because of the legal liability. It's a waste of money!
When someone searches "American Airlines" in Google are they likely to click on an ad for Southwest Airlines? I argue - NO! Southwest Airlines is not what the searcher is looking for, so why on earth would they click on a Southwest ad?
Oneupweb has been managing paid search initiatives for clients in many different industries for nearly five years. In the early days, when Google was a private company and Yahoo was just beginning to integrate Overture, we tested bidding on competitor names as search engine rules allowed. What we found was quite interesting.
While ads served on competitor name searches did see an expected number of impressions, click-through rates were very low and conversions nonexistent. Disappointing results that didn't justify the click spend. And certainly didn't justify the time spent adding the competitor keywords to the paid search campaigns.
The Moral of the Story: Be more efficient with your PPC account management. Don't waste your time and money bidding on competitor names, and give your legal team the rest of the year off.
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Trademarks
Trademark Bidding
Oneupweb
The New York Times & LinkedIn Link Up
Posted by steve on July 22, 2008 at 02:27 PM
Yesterday, LinkedIn announced a new partnership with The New York Times. The basis of the partnership? Greater targeting for both users and advertisers.
LinkedIn members browsing the Business and Technology sections of NYTimes.com will now have the option to view highly targeted related news stories based on non-identifiable profile attributes.
How Does It Work?
LinkedIn will power the dynamically-generated custom headline feature of NYTimes.com in order to serve the five most recent news articles based on certain LinkedIn member attributes, which include industry, company size, job function, seniority, gender and location.
If you're browsing through Business or Technology articles on NYTimes.com and are not logged in to your LinkedIn profile, you will be prompted to "Get Headlines About Your Industry". Here is a screen capture of this prompt:
When I click to activate, I am taken to the partnership page on NYTimes.com where I can join or sign in to LinkedIn. Once logged in, I am served the five most recent and relevant articles based on my profile information:
You will see that these "more targeted" articles each differ from those served prior to me logging in to my LinkedIn account. After logging in, I am served articles more relevant to Technology. This is somewhat interesting to see as the industry specified in my LinkedIn profile is Marketing and Advertising. Apparently, this has been identified as the most relevant category based on my specified industry. Other profile attributes, however, may also be coming into play.
Once logged in to my profile, I also have the option to share articles on NYTimes.com with contacts in the LinkedIn community.
Who Benefits from This Partnership?
Well, LinkedIn for one. Increased brand awareness on, and direct association with, the most popular newspaper website in the U.S. will likely help to boost LinkedIn's current user base, which stands at nearly 25 million.
NYTimes.com could also experience an increased user base. For most professionals, it is likely that they have their go-to news sources and that loyalty will trump the benefit which could be experienced from this new partnership. For some LinkedIn members who currently get their news from sources other than NYTimes.com, however, the appeal of a more targeted and social browsing experience may outweigh any loyalty they have toward other news sites.
In addition to an enhanced user base, The Times is set to benefit from increased ad revenue. Given the popularity of LinkedIn, this more targeted article-serving approach is an enticing option for advertisers to explore when deciding how and where to allocate budget.
The potential for a greater number of advertisers and increased ad revenue is the most appealing part of this partnership for NYTimes.com. It is interesting to see how The Times is increasingly embracing not only the advantages of the evolving Web, but also the considerable opportunity available for ad revenue generation from their highly authoritative and popular site.
Last September, I reported that The New York Times was killing their TimeSelect program, a program which was designed to increase subscription-based revenue by blocking portions of the site from non-members. After two years, The Times realized that the potential for ad-based revenue far outweighed that generated from TimeSelect.
They also realized the potential for a greater user base by opening up their site. In September, the NYTimes.com had 13 million visitors, as reported. In June, according to Nielsen Online, NYTimes.com had 17.7 million unique visitors.
Finally, for those of us who utilize both LinkedIn and NYTimes.com, we, the users, will benefit from this alliance. Given the commitment of LinkedIn to uphold the privacy of its user base, this appears to be a win-win-win situation, at least for the time being.
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LinkedIn
New York Times
Oneupweb
Managing Franchise PPC Campaigns
Posted by leah on July 21, 2008 at 04:27 PM
Managing franchise clients can be an interesting feat in the world of paid search marketing.
More than likely, not only are you advertising for the 'corporate' Papa Bear, but you have the responsibility of managing PPC advertising for the entire family - the whole bear cub pack.
Separating the bear pack into individual baby bears is the key element when dealing with your corporate bear family. Papa Bear and the cub pack want to see metrics on a cub-by-cub level (OK, enough with the bears).
It's imperative for franchisee owners and corporate to know how their local franchise PPC campaigns are performing. The best way to manage this success is to branch-out campaigns and tracking.
To have an accurate account of franchise-level performance, each franchise branch should have its own PPC campaign. Now that each franchise has its own campaign within the engines, you can more specifically target the audience you want to reach. This will make it easier to ensure that the franchises are only advertising to potential clients, not everybody and their brother.
You should also use unique tracking codes for each franchise. That way when you look at date from your analytics system, you'll have metrics for each franchise instead of one lump sum of information for all franchises.
In summary, when bears come out of the woods to start their PPC advertising, organizing the cub pack into individual baby bears will be the key to your success. More importantly, it will make Papa Bear proud.
For additional insights into marketing online for franchisors, download our recent white paper: Local Search Solutions for Franchisors.
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PPC
Franchise Marketing
Oneupweb
Google While You Sleep - The Power of News Alerts
Posted by duncan on July 17, 2008 at 01:37 PM
Did you know you can Google while sleeping? You can. I am not talking about some type of bio-electronic shunt that plugs into your brain while you dream, rather a simple service called Google News Alerts. Google News Alerts are a powerful tool for both business and personal use.
On the business side you can use News alerts to track your reputation, your company's reputation, news about your industry, news about your clients, and news about your competitors. It is really easy. Just go to the interface and setup it up for the keywords you want to track. Choose the type of media you want to track. Choices include News, Blogs, Web, Groups, Video and Comprehensive. Make sure you use wise keyword choices and use several keywords if necessary. For instance you may want to list your company's name, its domain name, and product names as keywords. Do the same for anything else you want to keep up with.
For personal search there are no limits. Perhaps you are going to take a trip and want to receive alerts on the happenings in the town or city you are going to. Maybe you want alerts for the university you plan to attend, or perhaps the one you graduated from. Perhaps you are eyeing a new car, or other major purchase and want to see if the product is making news for a few days before you buy. Alerts can be very handy for fantasy sports junkies.
Choose a reasonable time frame for Google to send you the results. You can choose from Once a Day, Weekly, or As it Happens. Make sure you set it up so that the alerts are manageable. Timing the delivery right is your key to avoiding in box overload. You may even want to schedule different times for different topics. For instance, you should track your company's name on an As it Happens basis.
You can turn the alerts off and on easily, so do not feel like you are stuck with this information push forever.
In the summary, this is a great service and saves you the time of manually searching for things on a daily basis. That's about all you need to know on Google News Alerts. Have fun with them.
By the way I am going to setup an alert for bio-electronic data shunt (so I can insert a USB cable behind my left ear). I'll set it to As it Happens. Surely it will be the right thing to do.
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Google News Alerts
Reputation Management
Bio-Electronic Data Shunt
Speech Surfing Powered by Google
Posted by nick on July 16, 2008 at 02:07 PM
With its latest gadget, Google has taken aim, for now, at the current election season. Recently, their research team rolled out a nifty little tool that uses speech recognition technology to convert spoken words within YouTube political videos into readable text. But wait, there's more! Not only does this tool recognize the words spoken by candidates appearing on these videos, but this indexed text can then be searched, allowing users to skip easily to the areas of the speech that are most important to them.
There you have it. The Google Elections Video Search gadget.
The major benefit of this tool is quite obvious. Google has given users another way to search for relevant videos, besides titles and descriptions. Once a searcher has entered his or her query, this tool scans the videos in YouTube's Politicians channel (the only area where this service is currently available) and produces the proper results. Once a video is selected for viewing, markers are placed within the status bar, showing users where their search term showed up in the speech. Want to hear what Barack Obama has to say about health care? How about John McCain's views on the economy? Whether it be about health care, the war on terror, or the assault on gas prices, this gadget is a great way for voters to find information, direct from the mouths of this year's candidates, on issues they see as vital in making their election decision.
But Is It Accurate?... Well, It's Close
While this new service provided by Google gives voters a new method of informing themselves, it isn't exactly perfect. An obvious hinderance that could be encountered deals with how the gadget identifies homophones: words that are different but sound the same, such as "our" and "are," or "night" and "knight." (Though I can't imagine why a candidate would need to use the word "knight," unless they plan on implementing a radical new national defense strategy, but you get the idea.) We can only hope Google's scanning and search algorithms take this into account. That said, there are still reported issues with words of this nature.
Context might come into play as well. Let's look at health care. If someone does a quick search for the term "health," hoping to see results about health care, results may be returned for a number of others issues, such as candidates speaking about the health of the economy.
Both issues mentioned above, of course, rely on the fact that the text converted by The Google Elections Video Search gadget is accurate. Lucky for us, Google has already directly admitted in their blog that the tool isn't 100% accurate. However, they are quick to mention that they are continually refining their algorithms to provide better accuracy. Even if the speeches that are converted to text aren't perfect down to the letter, the this tool still allows users to jump to sections of speeches directly pertaining to their query.
Search Implications
The ability of Google to recognize the spoken words contained in a video is a large step toward a more comprehensive search engine. If or when this technology is available for all YouTube videos, it could help pave the way for universal search to become a more efficient and likely dominant force in the world of search.
Until then, at least we no longer have to sift (or sit) through long political speech videos online just to find information on what each candidate thinks about the issues we'll be voting on come November 4th.
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Political Speech
Google
Universal Search
E-Commerce: Easier than You Think
Posted by sswaney on July 15, 2008 at 02:30 PM
If you are a small retail business owner, but you have yet to take the plunge into online sales because you think you don't have time, or don't know where to start, read on. Online retail sales are estimated to reach $204 billion this year according to a Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research. That's a 17% increase over 2007. Your retail business needs to be online, and here's how you can start:
- Go broadband. If you are still using a dial-up connection, now is the time to get that fast broadband connection. You don't want to waste time uploading pictures, emailing, processing sales, etc. A typical DSL connection will cost you around $50 a month.
- Register your domain name. Even if you don't plan to use it right away, it is a good idea to register a domain name for your business before someone else does. Also, after you register your domain name, you can use a business specific email address (i.e., yourname@yourbusiness.com) to gain credibility and a sense of professionalism online.
- Start small, but think big. You don't have to launch a website to get started selling online; Internet auction sites can be a good way to begin selling inexpensively. However, for the best returns in the long term, having your own e-commerce website is the only way to go.
- Liquidate. Don't try to sell everything you currently offer at your retail location. Start by selling your older stock or open package return items on sites like eBay and Amazon first. This will give you more experience selling online while providing a new sales channel for your slower selling merchandise.
- Get listed. Update or create a listing in the major online local business directories. The top five directories are: Yelp!, CitySearch, Yahoo Local, Google Local, and MSN Live. Make sure you include a link to your website or other selling platform (i.e., eBay Store). This will also generate additional local store traffic.
- Use your current employees. If you own a retail store, chances are you already have the workforce you need to support your new e-commerce endeavor. Your current employees can take over the data entry work once you have a clear idea of what you are doing.
- Integrate your current inventory system. This might seem like a big step, but relax, it can be painless. You can simply use your current point-of-sale system and inventory software as if your new online customer was standing in front of you. As your online sales grow, you will want to consider upgrading your current POS to handle your e-commerce sales more efficiently.
- Final destination, your own website. Ultimately, you should be working towards establishing your own e-commerce website. Since you will have already registered your domain name for your business by this point, the next step is finding a web hosting services provider. The best fit may be a solutions provider that has e-commerce experience and product offerings. Do your research; don't necessarily choose the first company you see, there are a lot of e-commerce solutions available, so make sure you pick the right one for your business. There are several entry-level turnkey providers - ProStores (an eBay company) or Network Solutions are two examples. Do your due diligence in research, choose one with whom you're comfortable, and you'll be up and running quickly.
You can be on your way to opening a new sales channel for your business that can attract customers that were once unreachable. Just remember one thing: marketing. Online marketing, as a concept and total amount spent, has grown considerably since the birth of the web. Having a shiny new website that is void of an online marketing campaign is like having a store in the middle of the desert. Of course, the goal of e-commerce is to attract paying customers, so as you establish this new sales channel, consider hiring an online marketing firm to help you generate and track search traffic. Before you know it, you will be the envy of your competitor down the street and another Internet success story.
Use these tips. Go forth and prosper.
Tags
eCommerce
Online Sales
eTailing
Image: danielbroche
Will Cable TV Go the Way of the Newspaper?
Posted by dave on July 14, 2008 at 11:35 AM
The internet has already changed the way many people get their news. Instead of stopping at the newsstand, or having the paper delivered to their home, many people turn to the internet to learn about what is going on in the world of politics, sports, or whatever else interests them.
Now, with the increasing number of online video sites - YouTube and Hulu, to name just two - people are no longer bound to network schedules to see their favorite shows. Want to watch The Office at 3 a.m.? Not a problem. Want to create your own "Must See TV" schedule? Not a problem. In fact, many popular shows, such as The Office have even started to create episodes, or "shorts" available only to the online community. What's more, it doesn't end at TV shows. Want to watch a movie with the family? Ghostbusters sounds like a good choice.
In fact, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, in May of 2008, 119 million unique viewers watched 7.5 billion video streams. So, although the percentage of users with commercial television is continuing to grow, the growth rate is small. And with all of these shows, shorts and movies available online, on your schedule, how long will it be until this overtakes the TV as the dominant source for video entertainment?
Tags
Television
Obsolescence
Online Video
Image: regacr
CSS DO's and DON'Ts - Part II
Posted by ashley on July 11, 2008 at 09:25 AM
Welcome to the second installment of CSS DO's and DONT's, our monthly blog series designed to provide useful, time-saving CSS tips while making note of some bad habits website developers tend to repeat in their code, despite the negative impact on workflow.
Today's DO's and DONT's:
DO Comment a Reference Guide into Your CSS File
and
DON'T Forget to Validate Your Code.
Let's get started.
DO Comment a Reference Guide into Your CSS File
When you're deep into the code of any given website, you've probably memorized every hex color used in your design and are able to rattle off style values at will, even from a sound sleep. Flash forward to three months after launch and try to remember what the hex is for that sole yellow sidebox four pages deep. Unless you have a photographic memory, chances are you won't remember!
Taking a few extra minutes to comment a style guide at the top of your CSS file could very well turn out to be your own most useful resource down the road. Rather than having to scan 500 lines of code to locate your yellow hex, you could readily locate it at the top of your document in a matter of seconds.
Style reference guides are also particularly beneficial to those working within a team setting of any kind, whether agency, in-house or virtually scattered across the globe. Even if only one team member is responsible for the markup of a website, the programmer on the team will find the guide handy when they need to style a report, while the graphic designer may reference the guide to pull colors for a custom icon set.
An example of a reference guide outlining the basic color scheme used in the website:
/* COLORS
blue #0033cc
light gray #efefef
navy #330066
orange #d97510
*/
Or, you can break it out by element:
/* COLORS
container #aeaeae
container border #333333
nav bg #330066
nav hover #d97510
image thumb border #176f77
image thumb border hover #275c61
*/
You can even take it a step further by including other style values, such as border or div widths. The more detail you provide, the handier your reference guide becomes:
/* VALUES
container #aeaeae 900px
container border #333333 1px solid
nav bg #330066 125px
nav hover #d97510
image thumb border #176f77 1px dotted
image thumb border hover #275c61 2px solid
*/
There are no set rules for marking up your reference guide in any particular way - just make sure you use a format that meshes well with your own semantics and workflow!
DON'T Forget to Validate Your Code
Although validating your code might seem like an extra step, especially when everything is rendering properly on all major browsers, here are a few thoughts to ponder:
1. Error-free code renders faster, meaning less download time for your website visitors.
2. Some search engines cannot properly index XHTML/HTML that contains serious errors.
3. Just because your code renders properly on all browsers this month, doesn't necessarily mean that it will render properly with the next release of a major browser. Most browsers are becoming more standards compliant with every version release.
4. Browsers that are currently under development are probably being written in compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) set of standards - validating your code now will protect your website from future browser incompatibilities.
5. Publishing valid code is a positive reflection of your abilities and attention to detail.
6. Unless your code has some serious issues, validating both your XHTML/HTML and CSS is a fairly quick task. Conversely, if your code does have serious issues, your company or client would probably greatly appreciate you going the extra mile to fix said issues.
If you're a Firefox user, there are a number of extremely useful extensions that allow for one step XHTML/HTML validation. I prefer to use Marc Gueury's HTML Validator. It puts a handy icon in your tray that you can click while viewing your development progress to pop open an organized three pane window displaying your code, page errors, and a useful help section, as shown in the screen shot below:
Once you have fixed your XHTML/HTML errors, pat yourself on the back for a job well done and move on to validating your CSS.
The W3C also offers a free CSS validation service that is quick and easy to use. Simply input your website address, and in seconds you are presented with a breakdown of your CSS errors and warnings. Typically, errors are flagged when there is an improper value attached to a particular property, whereas warnings are generated to flag potential code issues such as a background-color value and color value that are the same for a single property.
Up Next Month: DO Properly Organize Your CSS File and DON'T Overuse Conditional Comments and Hacks.
You can catch up on our series by reading last month's CSS DO's and DON'Ts.
Image: geirarne
Tags
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Oneupweb
The Future of Adobe Flash Player 10 - Part 1: 3D Environment
Posted by robert on July 09, 2008 at 09:58 AM
With Google's recent announcement that it will begin indexing text and links in Flash files, I thought it appropriate to talk about the release of Flash Player 10.
There have been many changes and advancements with Flash since Macromedia first introduced it back in 1996; the majority of which occurred with Adobe's release of Flash Player 9 and ActionScript3.
In this article, we're going to uncover some of the upcoming features of Flash Player 10, which has recently been released for public beta testing.
3D Environments
New to Flash Player 10 is the native 3D support. Previously, Flash only allowed us to move images around on a 2D workspace by changing the 'x' and 'y' position of an on-screen object. The 'z' position has been introduced in Flash Player 10 as a way to move images in a 3D workspace by adjusting the depth.
The new 3D environment is incredibly easy to use and requires little learning for someone with past Flash experience. However, the features are still insignificant compared to what has already been developed by the Flash community (like PaperVision3D). Still, this is a major advancement in the Flash Player's native graphic capabilities and, with a bit of creativity, the possibilities are endless.
In addition to depth control, there are also new rotation properties. In Flash Player 9 and earlier, the 'rotation' property would rotate an object using the z-axis as its guide. This is useful if you want to turn the hands on a clock, but in a 3D world we want to be able to do much more than that.
By changing the 'rotationY' and 'rotationX' properties, we can effectively achieve the true feeling of a 3D environment. By default, a display object is flat and will appear as though it were cut from a sheet of paper. With some minor code manipulation we can give our objects mass, unlocking the door to even more creative potential.
Lastly, it should be noted that there is no "camera" object in Flash Player 10. However, it is possible to imitate a camera by putting all the display objects inside a container. Now, when the container moves, we get the appearance of moving through the environment.
That's all for now, but check back for the next article installment: Dynamic Sound!
URL Canonicalization & Internal Linking Structure: Consistency is Key
Posted by teal on July 08, 2008 at 02:50 PM
In SEO it's important to occasionally go back to the basics to cover some issues that can affect the inner architecture of your website. After all, a strong and complex optimization campaign starts with your site. Also, as Content Management Systems (CMS) become more powerful and more customizable, it's important that you speak with your vendor about certain issues before you jump on board. It's also important to consider some situations outside of the CMS and how they affect your site.
In this blog post I am going to look at servers, specifically IIS and Apache, and how they handle URL structures.
Because more content management systems are allowing webmasters to customize URL structure, many sites now are graced with static-appearing URLs that are good for everyone; search engines and users. Instead of having mile-long URLs with a bunch of dynamic parameters, many webmasters have the option of using title case, lower case, hyphens, underscores, etc (depending on their system) to customize URL structure.
Of course, the search engines are getting better at indexing dynamic URLs and are even offering tools to help with URL rewrites in their specific engine, but in the end it's tough to argue that a parameter-rich URL is as beneficial as a clean and simple one. It's also important to consider how servers handle URL structure. One specific area I would like to discuss is how IIS and Apache handle URL cases. It's pretty simple, and can make a difference in how you decide to structure your URLs.
Simply put, IIS is not case-sensitive and Apache is.
This means that on IIS, the following URLs will render the exact same page in a browser:
http://www.yoursite.com/Product-Category-One
http://www.yoursite.com/product-Category-One
http://www.yoursite.com/product-category-One
http://www.yoursite.com/product-category-one
http://www.yoursite.com/Product-category-one
(you get the point)
On Apache, these many URLs will not render in a web browser. Depending on the Apache server setup, URLs with case inconsistencies will either return a 404 or will redirect to the correct version.
So What Does this Mean?
You can see that on IIS this may present some URL canonicalization issues, however I find that the real issue lies with the internal linking structure. On either server, IIS or Apache, linking to multiple versions of the same page can be very harmful to the internal architecture of your website. For example, instead of 5 links pointing to http://www.yoursite.com/Product-Category-One, you are dispersing the links to this very same page over multiple versions of the same URL, fracturing the internal link popularity of this page.
Avoid URL Inconsistencies
A lot of responsibility of URL consistency lies in the hands of those adding links within the website. It's best practice to have a consistent and pre-determined URL structure and to make sure everyone who has permissions to make changes to the site understands the importance of this consistency. Explain that even though the page renders (on IIS) or redirects (on Apache) that inconsistencies lead to link popularity dilution and fracturing, which can hurt the site's search engine positioning potential.
In my experience, it helps to make the URL structure as simple as possible. I like lower case. It's simple, it's clean, and users tend to prefer this style when directly accessing or linking to the site.
Also, if you're running into issues, take the time to research tools and other options to help you control the canonicalization problems you're running into. There are various techniques and server add-ons to help you control the trouble you're having with URL inconsistencies.
Image: Bitterjug
YouTube vs. Viacom: Internet Privacy Perpetrators or Piracy Preventers?
Posted by drew on July 07, 2008 at 07:36 AM
Old news but big, important news -- last Tuesday, a federal judge ordered Google to provide Viacom with a record of every video watched on YouTube (excluding privately-shared videos), including user login IDs, when the user started watching the video, the user's IP address and