eBay TV ad campaign
TV ad campaign to generate online traffic...
eBay launches national TV ad campaign | CNET News.com "No matter what holiday product is hot--whether it's the Xbox 360 or iPod Nano--eBay wants people to know it's for sale at eBay, a site better known for hard-to-find collectibles and flea-market sales.
That's the message of eBay's new national TV advertising campaign, which is only the third in the auctioneer's 10-year history and a relative rarity among surviving Web retailers. eBay's ad campaign also stands out at a time when the lines between search engines like Google and online stores like Amazon.com are blurring further, and that melding is heightening rivalries among all of the most trafficked sites."
Google Moves Against Spam Blogs
MediaPost Publications - Google Moves Against Spam Blogs - 10/24/2005: "RESPONDING TO GROWING COMPLAINTS ABOUT spam blogs, or 'splogs,' Google implemented new security measures to make it more difficult for users of its blogging service to create and maintain fake blogs...
The "CAPTCHA" test is a method by which automated programs that post or create blogs can be foiled--where the user is asked to type in a sequence of letters from a line that people can read, but computers can't decipher.
Spam blogs generally fall into one of two categories: Link farms, which pack hundreds or even thousands of blogs with gibberish or recycled content, and contain multiple links to a particular Web site, which allow them to game Google's PageRank algorithm, creating artificially high organic search rankings; and spam blogs that simply recycle content with AdSense or other advertising on them in the hopes of making money from errant users clicking on the ads."
Splogs , Scraping & AdSense average commission earned by sites running AdSense about $20/month
SiteProNews: "Splogs Scraping AdSense = Fraud...webmasters have built businesses out of taking content off of other people's websites and using that content to build pages designed specifically to attract ad-clicks. As the
average commission earned by sites running AdSense generated advertising is approximately $20/month, webmasters working this type of scheme need to create hundreds, if not thousands of pages to make a living. In order to create those pages and attract ad-clicking visitors, content must be created, begged, borrowed, or most commonly, simply stolen.Known as Splogs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splog), these sites only exist to game Google in one way or another, mostly for money but also for increased search rankings or as a means of manipulating search spiders."
Content rich sites - Fastest growing UK sites
Netimperative - Fastest growing UK sites revealed: "Brands such as Disney, Blogger and MyOffers have experienced the greatest growth in broadband audience over the past year, according to new research.
The findings come from a new report from Internet research firm Nielsen//NetRating, which looks at the websites that have benefited most from the increasing take-up of broadband in the UK. Almost three quarters of Britons (73%) now access the Internet from home using broadband compared to 46% this time last year, representing a growth of 59%. Meanwhile, broadband users spend twice as long on their computers and view 3.5 times as many web-pages each month as narrowband users.
Sites rich in content have experienced the greatest growth in the number of broadband users over the past year. "
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): "Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 17, 2005:Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
Summary: Weblogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues, making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author"
1. No Author Biographies
2. No Author Photo
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
5. Classic Hits are Buried
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
8. Mixing Topics
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
Other Top Ten Lists
The ten very worst design mistakes of all time Summary based on the main elements of the other lists.
Web design mistakes (1996) My first list. Luckily, many of these mistakes have been fixed by now.
Web design mistakes (1999)
Web design mistakes (2002)
With cartoons.
Web design mistakes (2003)
Web design mistakes (2005)
Good deeds in Web design
Top homepage usability guidelines
Most violated homepage guidelines
Elements of your brand story
Telling Stories: Your Brand is About You / Rick Hendrie / October 2005:
A brand needs single minded focus to break through and hit our brain’s sweet spot while combining the following elements...
"The Brand Story
The Brand Experience
The Company Story
The Company History
The Company Mission & Guiding Principles
Their Personal History
Their Personal Guiding Principles
Each has value. Each plays a role in creating and maintaining a brand. The best brands combine all of these stories, condensing their essence into a singular enterprise"
Skype tohelp eBay extend its 10-year-long monopoly ?
Net Sense: Skype might help eBay extend its 10-year-long monopoly - Internet Services - Internet - Opinion: "Bambi Francisco...writes...Years ago, I wrote about the three-year cycle of search-engine dominance...To be sure, Google's still the No. 1 leading search engine, with 37% of all searches conducted.
But Microsoft is climbing the ranks and may combine itself with AOL to challenge Google's dominance on the Web.
And importantly -
no one knows where the search wars will be fought next...desktop search, which is powered by X-1 Technologies... Or perhaps the search wars will be fought on the emerging communications portals, where all forms of chat -- instant messaging, voice, e-mail..."
State of the Blogosphere, On Blogosphere Growth, Technorati Weblog:
Blogging just keeps growing....
Technorati Weblog: State of the Blogosphere, October 2005 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth: "State of the Blogosphere, October 2005 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth Posted by Dave Sifry"
Chart shows the continued growth of the blogosphere"Technorati is now tracking 19.6 Million weblogs, and the total number of weblogs tracked continues to double about every 5 months. This trend has been consistent for at least the last 36 months. In other words, the blogosphere has doubled at least 5 times in the last 3 years. Another way of looking at it is that the blogosphere is now over 30 times as big as it was 3 years ago"
new weblogsAbout 70,000 new weblogs are tracked every day, which is about a new weblog created each second, somewhere in the world...about 2% - 8% of new weblogs are fake or spam weblogs....
To summarize:As of October 2005, Technorati is now tracking 19.6 million weblogs
The total number of weblogs tracked continues to double about every 5 months
The blogosphere is now over 30 times as big as it was 3 years ago, with no signs of letup in growth
About 70,000 new weblogs are created every day
About a new weblog is created each second
2% - 8% of new weblogs per day are fake or spam weblogs
Between 700,000 and 1.3 million posts are made each day
About 33,000 posts are created per hour, or 9.2 posts per second
An additional 5.8% of posts (or about 50,000 posts/day) seen each day are from spam or fake blogs, on average "
Yahoo taking on Google, Microsoft for AOL? | CNET News.com
Yahoo taking on Google, Microsoft for AOL? | CNET News.com: "Yahoo reportedly has left the sidelines and entered the struggle with rivals Google and Microsoft for a piece of America Online.
Yahoo is in talks with AOL, according to an article on TheStreet.com, which cited unidentified sources. The prize: AOL's millions of search and portal users and the related $380 million in ad revenue that now goes Google's way"
Google's apples vs. your oranges - Internet Services - Internet - Opinion
Net Sense: Internet Services - Internet - Opinion: "Make sure you're not comparing apples to oranges when Google reports earnings next Thursday.
: Google's new way of reporting might get a bit confusing, to the point where you might mistakenly assume the search engine has missed Wall Street expectations for the third quarter...But those numbers don't adhere to generally-accepted accounting principles, because they exclude the gains and charges related to stock option expenses."
Microsoft, Yahoo Reach Instant Messaging Deal
Microsoft, Yahoo Reach IM Deal - Forbes.com: "Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. have reached a deal to make their two instant messaging programs work together, in a partnership that could provide a challenge to market leader America Online"
Online sellers use offline methods to drive sales
Internet Daily - Electronic commerce - Internet - :
"BizRate Research's Online Holiday Mood Study found almost 60 percent of Net merchants plan to use catalog mailings to drive traffic to Web sites this year. Nine out of 10 online merchants say they will be putting promotional dollars into offline media for the season. In-store material sand direct mail also will be popular.
Overall, Internet sellers are very optimistic. Expecting that higher gasoline prices might boost online sales, 19% expect their holiday business to be twice that of last year, with another 54% of Web retailers expecting growth between 20% and 29%, according to a statement by Shop.org, the industry trade group that announced the research results."
Blogs and SEO Theme Relevance
Blogs and SEO Theme Relevance Wayne Hurlbert writes: "Blogs provide search engine optimization (SEO) power by their very design. The blog strength lies in keyword rich content and in the abundance of inbound links...
Theme relevance in Google is just one more great reason to start a blog for your online or offline business."
Blogs go Mainstream
Blogs' Mainstream Moment: "The Weblog world looks different today than it did at week's beginning. More mainstream. More big media. More big money.
Through deals with the two most prominent blog networks, America Online and VNU have made it clear they want a piece of the audience -- and ad revenue -- that's beginning to pour into the blog space....
The blog news making the biggest stir is AOL's agreement to acquire Jason Calacanis' Weblogs Inc. Network (WIN) for a rumored $20 to $30 million. The deal will bring the portal a diverse passel of sites and authors, including the Peter Rojas-edited tech blog Engadget...
What exactly AOL has planned for the WIN blog content and its accompanying ad inventory remains to be seen. Same goes for VNU's experiment in licensing the brands and content of popular blogs. About all that is clear is that big online publishers are becoming interested enough in niche media to spend money that a year ago would have seemed insane.
"
If there's any wake-up call here, it's that blog media is worth a lot to somebody," said Mernit."
Blodget's back and he's blogging
A blog to suscribe to.....
Internet Daily: Henry Blodget's back and he's blogging: "one of the Internet's most notorious figures has launched a Web log. Merrill Lynch's Internet analyst at the top of the bubble -- later disciplined over conflicts of interest -- is the man behind www.internetoutsider.com.
"Wading back into the Web waters after a few years away," Henry Blodget wrote. "Thanks in advance for including me."
In his first posting, he suggests that Microsoft may well have to pursue a merger if it wants MSN to survive. There's also a link to a 12-page research report titled, "The Web War is Over - And Microsoft Lost."
In an "About Me" section of the blog, Blodget said Internet Outsider "provides informal analysis of Internet companies, stocks, finance, trends and third-party research" and is published by Cherry Hill Associates LLC, which he describes as a "fledgling industry analysis company.""
Internet Outsider: "Internet Outsider Analyzing the Internet Business: companies, stocks, trends, research, and more..."
Yahoo preparing announcement on blog search
Yahoo moves into blog search....
Yahoo preparing announcement on blog search: "Yahoo preparing announcement on blog search"
