Marco Spoerrle

More App Store News, Spoerrle Marco

2010-12-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

More App Store News: No Mac App Store Promo Codes, iOS/Mac App Names, Push Notification Security

posted by Eric Slivka on Wednesday December 08, 2010 04:55 PM

In addition to today's news that promo codes for applications in Apple's iOS App Store are now valid worldwide, several other items of interest related to the iOS and Mac App Stores have surfaced yesterday and today.

First, MacStories notes that the latest version of Apple's iTunes Connect Developer Guide makes clear that promo codes will not be available for Mac App Store applications. In conjunction with last week's tip that Apple will not permit "demos, trial versions, or betas" of applications in the Mac App Store, this latest bit of info suggest that Apple will be fairly restrictive in what can be offered through the Mac App Store, preferring that developers use their own sites for non-mainstream distribution for testing and review purposes.

Given that Mac OS X is much more open than iOS in terms of officially-supported application distribution mechanisms, it appears that Apple feels that limiting its role to mainstream distribution is a preferred strategy, at least for the time being.

Second, Apple yesterday announced on its developer news page that iOS developers can now submit Mac OS X versions of their applications to the Mac App Store with the same names as their corresponding iOS applications. Apple had previously required that applications in the two stores carry different names, but has apparently now opted to support the branding and consistency permitted by using the same name for a given application on each platform.

Finally, iClarified reports that Apple has informed iOS developers that it will be upgrading the security on its push notification service as of December 22nd, introducing 2048-bit certificates to ensure greater security for connections between applications' notification provider servers and Apple's servers. The change will not require modficiations to iOS applications, but will require developers to update their notification servers with the new certificate.

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Marco Spoerrle - Handheld Gamers Moving From Dedicated Devices to Smartphones

2010-12-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

Handheld Gamers Moving From Dedicated Devices to Smartphones

posted by Eric Slivka on Wednesday December 08, 2010 04:23 PM

Industry Gamers reports on the results of a new survey from market research firm Interpret revealing that users of handheld games are increasingly moving away from dedicated devices such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP in favor of smartphones such as the iPhone.
The report, "The Phone Gaming Revolution: Do the DS and PSP Stand a Chance?," found that 43.8% of the phone/DS/PSP gaming market plays games on phones, which represents a significant 53.2% increase over the past year. At the same time, Interpret says that the proportion of those who play on the DS or PSP has fallen by 13%.
But while that data could indicate that the market for handheld gaming is simply expanding with the increasing capabilities of phones, other data shows that users of dedicated gaming devices are in fact abandoning those devices in favor of their phones.
The company notes, "Gamers appear to be defecting from their handheld gaming devices to phones to get their gaming kicks: a full 27.2% of consumers who indicate that they play games on their phones only (and not on the DS/PSP) actually own a DS or PSP, but do not actively use the device(s)."
With existing dedicated gaming devices being forsaken in favor of all-in-one smartphone devices, some analysts are questioning whether dedicated devices have a significant role in the future portable gaming market. Sony at least appears to be responding to the threat with a "PlayStation Phone" of its own that appears to be an Android-based device offering many of the features of a smartphone while also including hardware buttons akin to those found on traditional handheld gaming devices.

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Exposing Device History Reduces ‘Friendly Fraud’ Rates - Marco Spoerrle

2010-08-31T19:36:00.001-07:00

Exposing Device History Reduces ‘Friendly Fraud’ Rates - Marco Spoerrle

For many online merchants, friendly fraud is a persistent problem. Without the right security tools in place, it is difficult to identify whether or not a customer is committing fraud.
According to the article, “Friend and Foe? Combating E-Commerce ‘Friendly Fraud’,” financial cybercrime against card-not-present (CNP) retailers can take many forms. While MasterCard says 70% of [...]

Marco Spoerrle: Dr Akif Khan of CyberSource and Greg Pierson of iovation talk to eGaming Review about the ways in which their companies are fighting fraud within the online gaming arena

2010-08-31T19:23:00.000-07:00

Combating cybercrime – Marco Spoerrle

Dr Akif Khan of CyberSource and Greg Pierson of iovation talk to eGaming Review about the ways in which their companies are fighting fraud within the online gaming arena

http://www2.iovation.com/e/1692/es-pdf-egr-fraudroundtable-pdf/I7OGW/204834332

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Jobs: Software Update to Address iOS 4 Performance Issues on iPhone 3G 'Coming Soon' Marco Spoerrle

2010-08-28T03:37:00.000-07:00

Jobs: Software Update to Address iOS 4 Performance Issues on iPhone 3G 'Coming Soon' Marco Spoerrle: http://bit.ly/a12sgW

Advertising Apple AppleCare Blog Book Facebook FBI iPhone Marco Spoerrle marcospoerrle.com market your business Marketing During Recession Marketing Ideas Privacy Sales and Marketing Security Social Media Social Networking social networks Spoerrle Strategies to Help Teacher Tips for Newbies traffic www.marcospoerrle.com Your Business Grow YouTube

Marco Spoerrle - Google Adds Gmail and Calendar Push Notifications to iPhone App

2010-08-28T03:27:00.000-07:00

Google today announced an update to its Google Mobile App for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, bringing push notifications for Gmail and Google Calendar.
Ever missed an appointment or important email because you were away from your desk? Now Google Mobile App can help with push notifications from your Google account to your iPhone -- an icon badge shows you've got new mail in Gmail, and Google Calendar event reminders appear right on your home screen.
Also included in the update is as-you-type results for searches on flight info, weather, stock quotes and currency conversions.

The update appears to just be going live now, and may not yet be appearing for all users.

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posted by Eric Slivka on Monday August 23, 2010 01:47 PM

Facebook Sues Teacher Resource for Using the Word "Book" - Marco Spoerrle

2010-08-27T01:30:00.000-07:00

Facebook Sues Teacher Resource for Using the Word "Book" - Marco Spoerrle

Facebook is suing a company called Teachbook, which operates a social networking site for teachers, apparently because it has "book" in its name and "competes" with Facebook. Teachbook is described as "a professional community for teachers". Sounds like a threat to Facebook's existence doesn't it?

Do you think Facebook should be suing Teachbook? Tell us what you think.

Ryan Tate at Valleywag draws on some irony, saying, "Imagine: Someone ripping off the name of an existing social networking tool for his own site. Why, that hasn't been done since 2004 when some punk kid at Harvard registered TheFacebook.com while college administrators were already developing their own 'online facebook.'"

The beginning of the suit reads:

Facebook has become a worldwide social, cultural and political phenomenon. With fame comes imitation. Here, Defendant Teachbook.com LLC rides on the coattails of the fame and enormous goodwill of the FACEBOOK trademark. Misappropriating the distinctive BOOK portion of Facebook's trademark, Defendant has created its own competing online networking community in a blatant attempt to become Facebook "for Teachers." Despite Facebook's protests, Defendant has willfully and deliberately persisted in its misappropriation of the Facebook brand, forcing Facebook to protect its user community and the strength of the Famous FACEBOOK trademark through this action.

They're protecting us - the user community.

When a user (teacher) joins Teachbook, the site promises the ability to manage a professional profile and all info in the account by choosing to share with admins, colleagues, parents, or public. It lets teachers create lesson plans, instructional videos, and other teaching resources. It lets users manage their classroom communications with secure parent-teacher communication tools (gradebook, events calendar, classroom newsletter, homework space). It lets teachers communicate with colleagues through discussion, chat, blogs, etc. It lets them create and manage online courses and instructional modules. It lets teachers manage student grades by recording, calculating, and sharing them within the Gradebook. (I wonder if Facebook knows they're using the word "gradebook" too).

Facebook drops the following stats in its case for why others shouldn't be able to use the word "book" in their names:

- Facebook has over 500 million active users

- Those users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.com.

- Facebook is the second most trafficked site in the U.S.

- Over 150 million Facebook users also engage with FB through third-party sites each month

- Over a million sites have implemented tools Facebook makes available

- Through Facebook, users can interact with over 900 million objects (individual and community pages, groups, and events) and 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.).

"Through this usage, Facebook has permeated the web and Facebook users are accustomed to seeing and expect to see Facebook across the world wide web, not just on the Facebook site," the suit proclaims. "Facebook, and its FACEBOOK trademark, are famous."

The suit also mentions that Facebook owns a number of U.S. registrations for the mark FACEBOOK, covering a variety of goods and services, such as online networking services, chat functions, electronic media, online journals with user-defined content and electronic publishing services, and software to enable uploading, tagging, and sharing of electronic media or info.

By this logic, other companies that use either "Face" or "Book" may have to fear. It's unclear what the company's stance on the word "the" is, as Facebook was first called "The Facebook". "The" is only slightly more common than "book", especially in the teaching profession, I would imagine. Since "the" is no longer part of the Facbook brand, I'm guessing they won't pursue that.

It's also worth noting that Facebook just launched a product called "Facebook Places" , even though Google (their direct competitor) already had a product called "Google Places".

This suit comes at a time when Facebook is becoming much more integrated with not only the web, as the company pointed out, but the real world as well. Facebook Places is bringing physical locations to Facebook, and other third-parties are also coming up with different ways to connect physical objects (not just places) to Facebook. Watch out, books!

The entire suit can be read here (pdf).

FBI Picks a Fight with Wikipedia - Marco Spoerrle

2010-08-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

FBI: Take Down Our Seal, Wikimedia Foundation: No.

This week, the New York Times and BBC News both reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has sent the Wikimedia Foundatation a letter, ordering the removal of an image of the Bureau's seal from its Wikipedia entry. The Wikimedia Foundation's response thus far has basically been, "no."

The NYT provides copies of both the FBI's letter, and the Wikimedia Foundation's response. Pretty entertaining stuff. The FBI's letter, signed by Deputy General Counsel David C. Larson, begins:

It has come to our attention that the FBI seal is posted, without authorization, on Wikipedia at the following site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US-FBIShadedSeal. svg . As the site itself notes, "Unauthorized use of the FBI seal . . . is subject to criminal prosecution under Federal criminal law, including 18 U.S.C. 701."

The FBI Seal is an official insignia of the Department of Justice. Its primary purpose is to authenticate the official communications and actions of the FBI. Unauthorized reproduction or use of the FB I Seal is prohibited by 18 United States Code, Section 701, which provides:

Whoever manufactures, sells, or possesses any insignia, of the design prescribed by the [Department head] or any colordble imitation thereof, or photographs, prints, or in any other manner makes or executes any engraving, photograph, print, or impression in the likeness of any such insignia, or any colorable imitation thereof, except as authorized under regulation made pursuant to law, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both...

See the whole letter here (pdf).

The Wikimedia Foundation's letter, signed by General Counsel Mike Godwin, begins:

Dear Deputy Director Larson,

First, thank you for taking my call Thursday, and congratulations on your imminent retirement after so many years of service. It's unfortunate that on such an otherwise happy occasion I must inform you that the Bureau's reading of 18 U.S.C. 701 is both idiosyncratic (made especially so by your strategic redaction of important language) and, more importantly, incorrect.

I'm writing you, of course, regarding your recent letter reiterating the Bureau's invocation of 18 U.S.C. 701 and your demand for removal of the image of the FBI Seal on Wikipedia (images of which are widely available elsewhere, including on the Encyclopedia Britannica website, last I checked). You may recall that in my initial email response to your estimable Assistant General Counsel, Mr. Binney, I pointed to cases construing Section 701 and that, in a subsequent email, I broadly hinted that ejusdem generis, a standard accepted canon of statutory construction, demonstrates that this statute is inapposite to the use of an image of the seal on an encyclopedia.

It's clear that you and Mr. Binney took the hint, although perhaps not in the way I would have preferred. Entertainingly, in support for your argument, you included a version of 701 in which you removed the very phrases that subject the statute to ejusdem generis analysis. While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version of Section 701 that you forwarded to us...

See that whole letter here.

Clearly, the Wikimedia Foundation firmly believes that it is not in the wrong here, and is prepared to go to court with the FBI, if it comes to that, as Godwin notes in the letter.

be interesting to see if the FBI pursues this, as everyone else wonders why the FBI isn't focused on more pressing matters. I can't imagine what harm the FBI's seal is doing on a non-profit community encyclopedia site aimed at spreading knowledge.

Which side do you agree with? The FBI's or the Wikimedia Foundation's?
Let us know.

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FBI, Marco Spoerrle, marcospoerrle.com, Advertising, Blog, Facebook, market your business, Spoerrle, Social Networking, Social Media, Security

By Chris Crum | Staff Writer

WebProNews IT Team Confirms Facebook "Leak" Not Much of a Story, Marco Spoerrle

2010-08-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

Facebook has put a lot of people on edge about privacy in recent months, and while some of it may be legitimate concern, a lot of the discussion is simply getting blown out of proportion.

You've probably read about the infamous "leaked" list of user names this week, that a security researcher shared in a torrent. A bunch of companies have reportedly been downloading the info leading to some unnecessary paranoia. Our own IT department took a look at that torrent, and there's really nothing to get freaked out about. It just contains data that's already public (170,879,858 URLs by our count), as the "leaker" Ron Bowes told BBC News.

The biggest file is called facebook-urls.txt. The top of the file looks like this (with "xxxxx" representing the unique number associated with the accounts):

http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxxxx

Eventually, once you get past the dashes, they start looking like this (where the "xxxx" represents people's names):

http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxx-xxx-xxx/100001172054083
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxx/100000816806409
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx/643427473

"So you could figure out somebody's name from the profile URL, but that's really about it,” our IT manager says. "Anything else, you'd have to actually go to the URL and crawl it."

And of course, these people are already in the Facebook Directory anyway, as Bowes noted. There's no other information.

From the README file included in the torrent, here are the list of all the files:

Filname          Description
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
facebook.rb                     The script used to generate these files (v1)
facebook.nse                    The script that will be used for the second pass (v2)
facebook-urls                   The full URLs to every profile
facebook-names-original         All names, including duplicates
facebook-names-unique           All names, no duplicates
facebook-names-withcount        All names, no duplicates but with a count
facebook-firstnames-withcount   All first names (with count)
facebook-lastnames-withcount    All last names (with count)
facebook-f.last-withcount       All first initial last name (with count)
facebook-first.l-withcount      All first name last initial (with count)

Bowes said that collecting the data was in no way irresponsible and likened it to a telephone directory. On top of that, there's not any info to distinguish people with the same names apart from one another.

Facebook has also confirmed that the info in the list was already freely available online, and that "no private data is available or has been compromised."

This article from the Telegraph claims that the torrent contains info like profile pictures, lists of friends, etc. Our team says that's not true and that you'd have to re-crawl the profile URL in order to get that data.

The bottom line is that the info in the torrent is public info, just like any other personal info that is published publicly on the web that's out there for Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other crawler to index. Essentially, all that's really in the torrent is big list of URLs. Whoa!

The companies downloading the torrent for whatever purposes they have in mind, would probably be better served to just look at the directory. Facebook has a lot more users than 170,879,858.

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By Chris Crum

Marco Spoerrle, Spoerrle, YouTube, Social Networking

2010-08-03T01:15:00.000-07:00

Almost There - YouTube and Social Networking, Marco Spoerrle

Innovation doesn't wait for anybody. It's a constant, vital force, thriving on new ideas, new interpretations of old ideas, and a deep desire to understand the next important step. This generation has been defined by its technological advances, and the creation of a global society on the Web. This society is as complex and dynamic as any physical city or province, and has become the important battleground of ideas for the foreseeable future.

YouTube has played a vital part in this process virtually since its inception. In less than a decade it has grown into a tool for political discourse, a venue for amateur filmmakers and artists to showcase their talents, and a means by which the common citizen opposes tyranny by posting film of those abusing their station and authority. Without a doubt, it is one of the major forces in modern innovation.

Part of innovation is of course the combination of ideas. The telephone wasn't strictly a new concept; electrical transmission of messages existed in the telegraph, and the transmission of recorded sound existed in the phonograph. Combining these two technologies is what led to the telephone. This is also the path much of the Web seems bent on taking, combining and integrating services, and YouTube seems to be no exception.

YouTube's designers have, for example, pledged to implement more Social Networking functionality in future versions of the site. They also set up a new interface that focuses on Playlist content rather than individual videos. What other ideas may be unveiled is a mystery, but while the Web is waiting for more concrete information there are a few steps that can be taken to integrate YouTube into an existing social media program.

Step 1 - Familiarize

Whoever said 'familiarity breeds contempt' only had part of the story. Yes, being exposed to something consistently can cause someone to gloss over or underestimate its value. On the other hand, being intensely and exceptionally familiar with a process or a tool can open up many varied ways to understanding it.

Consider the humble knife. On the surface it's made to cut, either as a tool or as a weapon. However, if the blade is heated up it can sterilize a wound. Knives with a strong enough blade and enough surface can be used as screwdrivers, or to pry open containers. Or think of a car engine. The average user can probably learn enough on their own to keep it running in reasonable condition, but someone familiar with the specific model type in front of them can get exceptional performance out of the machine.

To this end, become familiar with YouTube's new layout. Learn how to put together a playlist, and look at how the rating and comments systems display themselves. Examine the interface aesthetically; does your channel warrant a flashy, playful background, or does it need something more conservative? Spending time with the site on a regular basis will begin to fill in your understanding, and allow you to innovate when it's really needed.

Step 2 - Observe

There is a saying that, "All good ideas having already been discovered, what remains for the innovator is to borrow judiciously." No one has all the best people, and no one has the strongest notions under monopoly. Select YouTube channels that are performing well, and try to discern why. Consider the quality of comments available, and the presentation of videos.

Note, however, that this admonition is to observe, not to imitate. Yes, feel free to borrow a good idea or a presentational technique that will work with your gróup. However, your gróup is not the same as any other. Don't try to slavishly duplicate another organization's technique or content. You will be called on it, and despite its penchant for hyperactivity, the Web tends to have an incredibly long memory for failure.

Step 3 - Discourse

As mentioned, YouTube's designers intend to implement greater social networking functionality. What's interesting is that there is already a limited sort of social networking present on the site, in several forms.

The first is in the comments section for each video, and for channels. People can leave the feedback they feel is relevant, and they do so in staggering numbers. It's not uncommon for even unremarkable videos to garner thousands of views and comments, some of them profitable and others drivel. The trick is to use the social media techniques that work elsewhere to cultivate the image you wish. Converse with them, share ideas and give hints about upcoming projects, and do what is needed to gather their interest in your channel.

Second is the 'reply to' style of video. In short, one party will make a video, and another party who sees it will create a second video and flag it as a response. This can be done for any number of reasons, ranging from tribute and commentary to rebuttal and confrontation.

This is an excellent social marketing tool, as it creates a 'link back' friendliness. Respond to a video you found interesting, and you will send at least some of your audience to that video, increasing their numbers. They may return the favor, or the site may simply link your video in the search function as a related topic. Either way, your traffic increases, and your message gets out.

About The Author
Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the "voice" of our client's brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to www.Brandsplat.com or visit our blog at www.iBrandCasting.com.

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5 Common Facebook Tactics - That Don't Work! - Marco Spoerrle

2010-07-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

There are about ten common Facebook marketing tactics. (You can probably think of more, but most are a derivative of one of these ten.) It may surprise you to learn that five of these tactics don't even work -- that's fully half! Now, no Fire God will suddenly appear to smite you if you happen to have done one of the following things. They are definitely mistakes, but they aren't irreversible. In fact, they're really only mistakes in one sense of the word.

My perception of these as "mistakes" isn't about breaches of the unwritten Facebook etiquette either - I dance on those lines myself from time to time.

Rather, I'm calling them mistakes from a perspective of effectiveness, versus the alternative behavior. Whether they're wrong in terms of just coming across as rude or politically incorrect is another matter altogether.

Having said that, off we go.

Mistake #1 - Posting Signature Links on Profile Walls with Your Introduction

I asked someone why they did this once, especially since I'd already been to their site and purchased the item they were selling on that page.

She said: "I saw someone else do it."

"How did it make you feel?" I asked.

"I felt kind of used. But I figured if that's what it takes to be successful, that's what I'll do, even if it doesn't seem quite right."

Now that's deep.

I understand though, because once I made the vow to become successful, I also made a vow to do "whatever it takes". At the time I thought it meant hard selling and being pushy. I later found it meant hard work, and doing what's right even if there's a lazier, easier way.

Even if this was once effective in terms of getting clicks from random profile visits, Facebook is now much more stream-driven than it is profile-driven.

And that's a huge part of why this is a mistake in terms of effectiveness.

Not to mention that people who see these postings as rude or attempts to spam can rémove or hide them. They may even drop you as a connection, which cuts you off not just from them, but from their network.

You're not missing out on anything by omitting that signature link. Your name, hyperlinked to your profile IS your signature link. If your profile is set up correctly, prospects will get to your site from there.

Mistake #2 - Pitching

If you want to pitch people on Facebook, purchase an ad on Facebook.

It doesn't have to be a Facebook ad - purchase one in a popular Facebook application. No matter how good your elevator pitch is in real life, it doesn't translate in online networking. Let me give you a hypothetical example from the real world.

Imagine you go to an after-work bar. People go there to relax with work friends, to meet potential mates, on actual dates, and to get to know other people in the business.

You're unwinding with colleagues when someone walks up, and without forewarning, tries to sell you some steak knives. When you stare blankly, they shrug, and move on to the next person.

We all may chuckle to ourselves, and wonder what that person is thinking... but are you ever the knife salesman when you're on Facebook?

Honestly, when I first came here, I was tempted to be.

Thank God my better judgement stopped me. I'm telling you that to say this - if you've been the knife salesman don't be ashamed, you didn't know any better. It's not like they issue marketing lessons with your incorporation papers.

Just make a vow, right now, to always check yourself before you post. Ask yourself "Am I Networking or Pitching?"

Mistake #3 - Artificial Bonding

I'd respect a person more who was upfront with me, and said they were hoping we could work together, or do some business, than someone who pretended to care about me in order to get me to have a conversation that they could then direct to their pitch.

I wouldn't purchase from them, at least not then. But at least I'd still respect them, which means I could change my mind in the future.

Pretending to like people until you get the chance to try to sell to them is really just pitching with a little bad foreplay first.

Bad foreplay isn't better than none at all.

Mistake #4 - Favoring Uphill Marketing Over Downhill Marketing

Again, this is a mistake in terms of how effective it is. In my own experience, as well as in case studies of clients, it always works out better when you create a fantastic marketplace presence and people are drawn to you in droves, seeking to do business with you, rathere than the alternative.

The alternative, of course, is when you go out and pursue customers and clients one by one.

That's not to say that you should stop advertising, bidding on projects, or being a go-getter in any way.

It means that while you're doing that, also create a situation where customers are flowing towards you, seeking you out, asking for help.

It's much less work to get from interest to sale when they come to you.

Mistake #5 - Fishing on Dry Land

A long, long time ago, I was in a network marketing company. Now defunct, the products they have greatly enhanced, possibly even saved, my life. The products were targeted to people who cared about being healthier and eco-friendly.

By Tinu AbayomiPaul (c) 2010

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Report of an iPhone 4 Catching Fire, Spoerrle Marco

2010-07-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

posted by arn on Thursday July 08, 2010 05:39 PM

BoyGeniusReports posts pictures of one customer's iPhone 4 having caught fire. The photos come from an AT&T source after the customer brought the iPhone 4 in.

It's the first time our guy has seen this happen (us too), but the brand new iPhone 4 caught on fire while being hooked up to a computer using the Apple USB cable that accompanied the device. The customer wanted to exchange the iPhone -- obviously -- for a new, non-charred unit however the AT&T store in question was out of stock. An Apple Store did confirm to our AT&T connection that this did appear to be a defective USB port and not some sort of user error. Our source went onto say that the phone bezel was extremely hot (obviously), and it slightly burned the customers hand.

Apple's iPod nano has in the past been linked to overheating and potential fires. Apple issued replacements for those iPod nanos that dated back to 2005-2006.

So far, this seems to be an isolated incident.

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Advertising and Marketing Techniques, Marco Spoerrle

2010-07-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

Advertising and Marketing Techniques, Marco Spoerrle

I've been involved with Internet marketing
for over twenty years and have seen marketing techniques come and go. Some are still around and some are new and innovative. Below you will find what I believe to be the best and most effective online marketing techniques.

Article Marketing - Article marketing was and is one of the most powerful online marketing methods available. Not only does it do wonders for you and your business, it's also free! Article marketing consists of writing helpful, informative, easy-to-understand articles that actually help your readers, instead of trying to sell them something. You then submit your articles to article banks, directories and ezine publishers. When your article runs in a popular ezine, it can make a major difference to your business. Contrary to what you might think, it's not that hard to get started.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

- Don't worry about your ability to write. People are looking for help, not big words.
- Advertise in your resource box, not your article.
- Provide real, helpful information and resources, not hype!
- Write from the heart! Let your personality shine through in your articles.

Blogging - Blogging is a newer form of online marketing that became popular in the late 1990's. Blog is short for weblog and is an online publication in the form of a log or journal. Blogs can increase your customer base, your traffic and your search engine ranking, thus increasing your sales.

Blogging can be done for free through such sites as:

- blogger.com
- wordpress.com and
- livejournal.com

Be sure and update your blog regularly; every day would be best as people like fresh content, ideas and information.

Ezine Publishing - Ezine publishing has been around much longer than blogging and is far more effective, in my opinion. Your ezine needs to contain helpful resources and information, not just sales pitches. It's important to develop a relationship with your readers. Let them know they can trust you and rely on you when they need your help.

Things to remember when putting together your ezine:

- Keep it clean and easy to read.
- Limit your advertising and be selective.
- Always provide quality content and information.
- Add your personality into your writing. This helps readers to get a feeling for you as a person.
- Always provide contact information and be accessible.
- Be consistent; send your ezine regularly as scheduled.
- Be sure and proofread your copy before sending it out.

Online Networking - Online networking, as with offline networking, is very important to your business. This is where you connect with as many people as possible to learn more and share information about your business. Many leads can come from networking. There are several ways to do this online.

Email Discussion Groups: Go to yahoogroups.com and search for appropriate groups.

Message Boards: Be sure and follow the rules for posting and offer your help as much as possible.

Social Sites: Examples include: MySpace.com, Ryze, Merchant Circle, etc. These can be great ways to make more contacts and get leads.

Joint Ventures - This is when you enter into an agreement with another online marketer that will benefit both sides. Examples of joint ventures:

- Ezine ad swaps
- eBook ad swaps
- Subscription page ad swaps
- Affiliate programs
- Exchange advertising for a percentage of the sales

and the list goes on and on. Be creative and come up with new ways for you and your associates to help each other.

Podcasting - Podcasting uses digital media files which are distributed all over the Internet via syndication feeds. Podcasting is still a fairly new way of online marketing and has great potential. Podcasting can be powerful because it uses voice, instead of written words to get the message across. Offer your articles, do voice interviews, offer a chapter in your ebook via podcast, etc. Again, use your imagination to create new ways to spread the word about your business.

Ezine Advertising - Advertising your business, product, service, etc. in quality ezines can be well worth the money spent. Before you do so, here are a few things to consider:

Conduct a search to find ezines that cater to your target market. Once you find several targeted ezines, subscribe to them so you can look them over and see if the publisher is reliable in sending them out. You can also look over the other ads and make sure the publisher is selective in their advertising. You might be able to learn what the other readers think of the ezine as well.

Try contacting the publisher to see if they respond to your email. Ask about testimonials from other advertisers. Find out how many ads they run per issue and what it costs. You could also ask the publisher to do an ad swap to get an idea of what the response is like. Be selective in your choices and always code your ads so you know which ezines actually deliver.

I hope this article has given you some insight as to how to market your home/online business. I use several of these methods and know from experience that they work.

http://marcospoerrle.blogspot.com/
http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/
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Reports of 'App Store Hacked' Greatly Exaggerated

2010-07-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

posted by arn on Sunday July 04, 2010 06:06 PM

Earlier today a report on TheNextWeb claimed that the App Store had been hacked and that a rogue developer had gamed the system by artificially driving sales to their eBooks. The rise in ranks were noted by competing developers who thought the rise strange given that the books all represented poorly coded Vietnamese-based books.

A couple of reviews left on one of the books revealed that at least two customers had their iTunes accounts compromised to purchase the books. This led to theories that a widespread attack specifically tied to this developer could be the cause of the rise in ranks. Which then led to a cascade of headlines suggesting that everyone's iTunes account was suddenly vulnerable to a coordinated attack. While we do believe that this developer had been trying to game the iTunes ranking system, it's hard to believe that their efforts affected more than a few hundred accounts worldwide.

The Book category in which we found these apps (note, they've been pulled from the App Store) is one of the lowest trafficked categories in the App Store. Based on sales reports we've received from developers, the number of daily sales required to hold a book in the #10-#50 rank seems to range from 50-250 sales a day. That means that even if every sale was based on a compromised account, the actual number of accounts involved are minuscule compared to the 100 million active iTunes accounts.

Now, on a separate note, the issue of hacked or compromised iTunes accounts is a major issue, and one not to be dismissed. However, this issue has been ongoing for years and we're not convinced there has been a major spike in activity. iTunes accounts are easy targets since they are so common. In our forums we have had a running thread on the topic since January 2008. A few reports appear every few months. There do seem to be a higher number of reports arising the past day or two of other iTunes accounts being hacked. It's certainly possible there has been an acute rise in the past few days, but the added press coverage will certainly attract more stories. Meanwhile, a blog post from 2009 similarly attracted a number of "me too" reports.

It's still a good idea to make sure your accounts are safe, and especially important to make sure you have good (and different) passwords on all your sensitive accounts. Common mistakes include easy to guess passwords and shared passwords across multiple accounts.

http://marcospoerrle.blogspot.com/
http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/
https://twitter.com/marcospoerrle
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Apple on iPhone 4 Reception: Signal Strength Display Issue Only, Software Update Coming

2010-07-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

Apple on iPhone 4 Reception: Signal Strength Display Issue Only, Software Update Coming

posted by Eric Slivka on Friday July 02, 2010 09:24 AM

Apple today released a public statement regarding user complaints of reception issues on iPhone 4, noting that the issue is simply a software one relating to how the number of bars of signal strength displayed is calculated. The apparent significant drop in signal while touching the lower left corner is actually a result of the phone reporting too many bars while not being held.

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don't know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To address the issue, Apple will be issuing a software update "within a few weeks" that will adjust how signal strength bars are calculated and displayed. The change will adopt a recently recommended formula from AT&T that will more accurately display actual signal strength at any given time. The update will also increase the size of the smaller bars (1, 2, and 3) to make them easier to see.

The update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and 3G, which are also affected by the miscalculated signal strength indicators.

We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same - the iPhone 4's wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused.

Finally, the company notes that it is allowing customers still unsatisfied with iPhone to return their device for a full refund within 30 days of purchase, provided that the phone is undamaged.

Apple, AppleCare, Marco Spoerrle, Spoerrle, marcospoerrle.com
http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/?p=13

Apple Beefing Up iPhone and iPad Antenna Engineering Staff

2010-07-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

posted by Eric Slivka on Wednesday June 30, 2010 10:31 AM

As noted by Engadget, Apple has been busy posting job listings for engineers to work on design and testing of antennas for the company's iPhone and iPad. While Apple typically posts a number of new job listings each day, the fact that the company has posted a total of eight antenna-related positions over the past two weeks naturally leads to speculation that it is beefing up its staff to investigate and deal with signal issues being experienced by iPhone 4 users.

The eight job listings comprise three separate job titles, with the most relevant being three "Antenna Engineer - iPad/iPhone" positions. The three listings, all posted on June 23rd, are looking for individuals with a high level of qualification including 10+ years of experience in RF technology and a preference for PhD-level training.

Responsibilities: Define and implement antenna system architecture to optimize the radiation performance for wireless portable devices. The candidate should be able to design antennas suitable for wireless handheld devices with excellent radiation performance, including TRP, TIS, SAR, and EMC. Work closely with other RF and antenna design engineers, mechanical and industrial designers, and EMC engineers to integrate the antenna design in our products.

Also posted on June 23rd were two listings for "iPhone OTA Wireless Systems Engineer" to focus on validation of antenna radiation performance. And just one week earlier, the company posted three listings for " RF Systems Validation Engineer iPhone" positions also focused on testing the iPhone's RF systems, noting that "as we add more and more capabilities to the iPhone, testing the radios becomes more and more complex."

It is unclear exactly what role these new hires might play in addressing the current issues, as it typically takes some time for a hiring process to run its course and new employees to arrive and get up to speed. The job listings could suggest, however, that the company is looking to bring on additional hands to work on designs and testing for future models as some of the unit's staff is absorbed in addressing issues with the current model.

http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/?p=10

iPhone 4 Death Grip Doesn't Affect Edge Connection

2010-06-30T00:32:00.000-07:00

I've been watching the whole "death grip" with the iPhone 4 with interest. Some say it's a defect, while other reports claim that all phones do the same thing, while others claim its a little of both.

I believe it's an issue with software that Apple will fix as soon as their engineers figure it out. I could be wrong, but here's a test you can do for yourself if you have an iPhone 4.

If you have the so called "death grip" condition, go ahead and make those bars disappear. Now I want you to do a little something:

Go to Settings > General > Network > Turn off 3G.

You're now on the Edge network. Watch those bars come back. If it was a hardware issue, wouldn't those bars stay gone, no matter what network you were on? My guess would be, yes. this is one strange problem!

All we can do is wait and see what Apple does to address this issue. Either way, rest assured, if it's a software OR a hardware issue OR both, Apple's got your back and will fix it.

blogspot.com - blog marcospoerrle.com

AppleCare Training Document on iPhone 4 Signal Issues Revealed

2010-06-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

Boy Genius Report claims to have received a copy of Apple's internal training documentation for assisting its AppleCare staff with handling customer complaints regarding iPhone 4 signal issues.

The document instructs AppleCare representatives to work with the customer to diagnose the problem, but that issues appearing when the iPhone 4 is held at the lower left corner or the iPhone 3GS is held at the bottom right side should be addressed by either holding the phone differently or using a case or bumper.

Clearly Apple is taking the position that nothing is wrong with the antenna, although that's not surprising since most companies will never willingly admit their flagship product is potentially suffering from an unfixable flaw. But does anyone else find it interesting, if not troubling, that there is no mention of an impending software fix?
Apple's guidelines also push the "positioning statements" to be used by representatives, claiming that the iPhone 4 has better overall antenna performance than the iPhone 3GS and that almost any mobile phone will experience similar issues. Finally, representatives are instructed not to promise free bumpers to customers experiencing the issue, although a number of users have already reported receiving bumpers from Apple as a means of addressing the signal issues.

posted by Eric Slivka on Tuesday June 29, 2010 05:18 PM

http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/?p=8

Reboot Congress: May Candidate Forum and Today's Freedom Fights

2010-06-28T00:44:00.000-07:00

Reboot Congress: May Candidate Forum and Today's Freedom Fights

http://marcospoerrle.blogspot.com/
http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/

DOING THE RIGHT THING

2010-06-28T00:41:00.000-07:00

DOING THE RIGHT THING

http://marcospoerrle.blogspot.com/
http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/

Reboot Congress: Pictures from Freedom Fights

2010-06-28T00:38:00.000-07:00

Reboot Congress: Pictures from Freedom Fights

http://marcospoerrle.blogspot.com/

Marco Spoerrle - Advertising Alternatives for Your Blog

2010-06-28T00:33:00.000-07:00

advertising alternatives Maybe you’ve got a Google Adsense account and have some of their ads smattered around your posts (I use it at the bottom of all RSS subscriptions to this blog). Maybe you’ve started looking for direct advertisers for your blog. Here are some of the ways I’m finding ways to make a little bit of escape velocity money from my blog projects that might be useful to you. (Note: EVERY link in the post is probably an affiliate marketing or advertising-related link. Consider this a blanket disclosure for the post.)

Straightforward advertising is based on your web traffic more than anything else. It’s the whole cost per thousand (CPM) method that’s been in place since we started online marketing over a decade ago. What I’ve found is that, unless you’re a really big traffic site, that’s the hardest way to make money. Here are some alternatives instead:
Create Your Own Products

Probably the easiest way to make money via your blog is to create something worth selling. I’m cofounder of Third Tribe Marketing, and it’s a site where you pay a monthly fee to get tons of content and to get information and help via a very active online forum. That makes me plenty more revenue than a Google Adsense ad.

You might sell ebooks. You might sell software. You might sell consulting services. Whatever it is, your own products will get you much more benefit than any advertisement.
Affiliate Marketing

If you can’t make your own stuff, or don’t have the time, affiliate marketing is a way to marry up other people’s products and services with your audience/community. The MOST IMPORTANT part of doing affiliate marketing, in my mind, is the trust and relationship factor. Never sell or promote something that you can’t endorse or that you don’t feel is going to be useful to your community. Every product I promote via an affiliate link is something I think will be of value, and something I’ve touched and investigated.

The big difference between getting started with affiliate marketing versus CPM-based marketing is that everything is paid on a “cost per action” (CPA) basis. That means that I’m only paid for sales. I use this kind of advertising alternative all the time on my blog. See my sidebar? These are the programs I promote there:

Thesis Premium WordPress ThemeRackspace Cloud

scribe-SEO for bloggersBlue Sky Factory

Three of the four programs are affiliate. I trade space on my blog with Blue Sky Factory for a free account.

Beyond that, I promote other projects I think are great, like Chris Guillebeau’s Empire Building Kit:

Empire Building Kit

To me, affiliate marketing has lots of benefits. There are many places to sign up for programs. I’ll give you a few to start with:

    * Commission Junction
    * Share-A-Sale
    * LinkShare

You can find lots of programs and offerings that might be of interest to your audience there. I use this heavily at Man on the Go , but it’s been too soon to share the results. I will when I get them.
DIY Advertising

Over at Man on the Go, the guys at 9Seeds installed the wp125 ad widget. It works really simply, and gives me some stats. This lets me place do-it-yourself ads, where I set the rate and the terms of the advertisement.

For instance, my friend Joel Libava wanted to advertise on Man on the Go. I’m running a special because the blog has just launched, so there’s not enough traffic to ask for top dollar. So, Joel and I agreed, and then I put up his little 125×125 ad, that looks like this:

sick of traveling

This is a fairly man-made ad. At the end of the 30 days, I can tell Joel how many people clicked it, and he can decide if he wants to advertise with me again. Simple.
It’s Always a Balance

There are sites that look like the sides of NASCAR cars from all the advertising they run. I don’t know how effective they are, but I know that I get the feeling that I’d better worry where I place my mouse and what I click, because I might accidentally click something and buy it.

Some people want their sites to have no advertising. I went years and years feeling like that.

What changed my mind: first, I found programs that I really thought were worth it. I think the Thesis WordPress theme is one of the best themes out there for a design skeleton and for improved SEO. I like the Scribe SEO plugin because I don’t know much about search engine optimization, so I let the plugin help me. That’s how I got started.

What else changed my mind: I realized that what I’m providing here is a benefit and a value to others and that I shouldn’t feel ashamed to make the ask from my community, should they be in the market for some of what I find interesting and useful. There’s no shame in offering things of value to your community.

Now, there is a perception hit to being an open-faced salesperson and marketer on your site. People might see this is cheapening the brand. People might say, “Well, he must not be a very successful speaker and marketing company president if he has to hock WordPress themes.” It’s okay if you feel that way. I don’t mind. I use some of my affiliate money for charities. Some days, I just use it to buy my family a nice meal. My “real” money? I try to bank it.

Your mileage may vary, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.

Questions? How have your own experiences been? What else can I tell you?

http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/?p=7

Apple’s iPhone-centric developer event is still days away, but a case manufacturer sent Wired.com two protective rubber cases designed for the next-generation iPhone.

2010-06-27T01:17:00.000-07:00

The company, Gumdrop Cases, said it based the case design on a combination of specifications provided by inside sources in the plastics industry, as well as features seen in the prototypes leaked to Gizmodo and a Vietnamese blog. The company, which has offices in California, the U.K. and Hong Kong, said it did not receive the specifications from Apple.
“It’s supposed to be announced on Monday is what we’re being told, so we wanted to make sure we had cases available,” a Gumdrop spokeswoman told Wired.com.
The third-party accessories industry has historically been a leaky boat for Apple, according to Leander Kahney, Cult of Mac writer and former news editor of Wired.com. In the past, we’ve seen a number of case manufacturers begin selling protective cases for Apple products ahead of release. However, those leaks usually occur in China, and this is the first time Wired.com has actually received a case for a next-gen Apple product before it was released.
The characteristics of the two cases line up with the prototypes of the next-gen iPhone revealed in video and photos. Its overall form factor is slightly more square than the current iPhone. The case also fits awkwardly around the current iPhone: The holes for the audio/silent switch, volume button, power button and microphone jack don’t line up. The camera hole is slightly too large, giving enough room for a camera flash — a feature that Gizmodo and the Vietnamese blog saw on their prototypes of the next-gen iPhone.
A Gumdrop representative admitted the company deliberately mailed the cases, labeled “iPhone 4G Case” on a press flier, in order to gain attention prior to Apple’s official announcement of the product — you could call it a publicity stunt.
We have to get a next-gen iPhone to see if these will really fit, but the story about overseas insiders in the plastics industry is intriguing.
Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off Monday, where Steve Jobs is expected to announce Apple’s fourth-generation iPhone during a keynote speech.

http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/?p=6

The American dream ran out of steam on Saturday as Bob Bradley's team exited the World Cup with a 2-1 extra-time defeat to Ghana. blog @ marco spoerrle

2010-06-27T01:03:00.000-07:00

http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/?p=3

The U.S's strengths throughout this tournament have been their work-rate, self-belief and determined spirit but those proved not to be enough against the African team who also knocked them out of the tournament four years ago.
Once again, a U.S. side which twice gave up early goals in the group stage, conceded before they had even got into their stride and yet again they came back after Bradley astutely changed things around at the break.
A Landon Donovan penalty brought the Americans on to equal terms but this time it was their opponents who found the extra something to come back from a setback - Asamoah Gyan's superb strike in extra-time giving Africa just their third ever quarter-finalists.
The Americans, who fought back for draws against England and Slovenia, couldn't make it back one more time.
Their legs looked tired, their play was imprecise and somehow that fighting spirit that pushed them to a last minute win over Algeria just was not quite enough.
The weaknesses of Bradley's side though go beyond conceding early goals and the draining effect of playing three days after the grueling and emotional victory over Algeria.
The U.S. midfield, with two defensive central operators and two attack-minded wide players in Clint Dempsey and Donovan, was over-run at times by the numerically stronger Ghanaian midfield.
That uneven battle was not helped by Ricardo Clark's wayward performance, his yellow card and the subsequent need for Bradley to replace him, with Maurice Edu, in just the 31st minute.
The U.S. coach addressed the problem by bringing in Benny Feilhaber to give him three genuine midfielders in the second half with Clint Dempsey moving into a full attacking role.
The floating Donovan is the main creative spark in the U.S. team and in fact, with him not finding his touch, it highlighted just how much the Americans rely on him for that little bit of something out of the ordinary.
When Donovan doesn't deliver the U.S. are far too predictable going forward -- needing a sharp turn from Clint Dempsey or a burst of pace from Jozy Altidore -- neither of which were frequent features at the Royal Bafokeng stadium.
The full-backs, Jonathan Bornstein or Steve Cherundolo, were solid defensively but didn't offer much of a threat from wide positions -- both found space on several occasions but were unable to deliver dangerous crosses or get to the byline.
Up-front, for all their efforts, the American strikers didn't have the sharpness or the clinical finishing displayed by Ghana scorers Kevin-Prince Boateng and Gyan.
For the U.S. to move from a decent qualifier from the group stages to a team that can really threaten to make the latter stages they need to address those limitations.
A midfield playmaker, a genuine winger and an international class striker would transform them from a solid, workmanlike team into something that their fans could get really excited about.
They have four years to find those players.
(Writing by Simon Evans; Editing by Kate Holton)

http://marcospoerrle.com/blog/?p=3

Relationship Marketing: Blogging and Inbound Marketing

2010-06-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

One of the most effective inbound marketing strategies available for businesses, online and offline, both in terms of cost of implementation and in overall return on investment (ROI), is blogging. Why has business blogging become so important as an inbound marketing strategy? There are a variety of reasons. Blogging is conversation, it’s personable, and it’s informative. Blogging is attractive for both online and offline (i.e., brick and mortar) businesses because consumers (i.e., customers, clients, and patients) feel they are being told a story rather than sold a product or service; and, no one wants to be “sold!”
Significantly, clients and prospective clients become part of the conversation by reading the blog posts and leaving their thoughts and feelings in the form of comments.

Who doesn’t like being asked their opinion?
And, what business owner wouldn’t pay big money to know what his target audience is thinking, as well as what they react to and why?
A blog is a great way to show the world your expertise, thus establishing authority and demonstrating your competence in the marketplace and to your target market. People like to do business with business people they know, like, and trust. Prospective clients are drawn to businesses and business people who are experts in their field. Demonstrating competence enhances your image and makes the prospective client feel confident about their decision to purchase from you…you, as the expert in your field.
When properly constructed and implemented, an effective business blogging strategy is an incredibly valuable asset. Blogging for business is crucial, whether the business is entirely online or a combination of both, as is the case with most brick and mortar businesses today.
When organized and well written, a blog conveys the ultimate Internet image, an image that announces:

“This business is well run, this is a business I can do business with!”
A well thought out, well constructed blog, combined with an effective overall inbound marketing strategy, conveys a message, an image if you will, that this business owner is knowledgeable and cares enough to seek feedback about products and/or services offered from his or her clients and prospective clients.
A wise business owner values feedback, realizing there is always room for improvement, both in sales and service. Why not ask for feedback from the very people who use the product or service day in and day out? A blog can accomplish this for a business, creating a link both valuable and, ultimately, profitable. The feedback a blog offers is an often over-looked advantage; and yet, it is an incredibly powerful resource.
Significantly, the proper blogging strategy will provide a window into the thinking of your client-base and create a vehicle you may then use to improve your products and/or service.
The feedback from your business blog will also provide ideas and strategies for new products and services. Interestingly, you may even be able to gain a competitive advantage by learning what your clients and prospective clients like and dislike about your competitors, their products and services. Perhaps it’s a product or service you don’t provide but should? Perhaps it’s something to do with price? The blog provides the vehicle, the opportunities are there; and, it is up to the individual business owner to take advantage of them. A well constructed inbound marketing strategy, one that has at its center a well-thought-out and appropriately implemented blogging strategy, will put your business on track to accomplish all of the above and more.
One last word about inbound marketing, blogs, and blogging for business: photographs, audio recordings, and short videos are worth their weight in gold. If you aren’t the greatest writer, and don’t have the money in the budget to hire a good copywriter, also worth their weight in gold, a photograph or short video can help you tell your business’ story. With today’s technology, a photograph, audio, and/or video is easy to create and it’s often the first item to catch the attention of a visitor to your blog.
It’s worth taking some time each day to blog. Think of it as going out to talk to the man on the street. Think of it as time well spent. You will find it to be a great investment in time and effort, the ultimate in ROI.

HTML5 - The Future of the Web, Marco Spoerrle

2010-06-11T00:47:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs was recently quoted as saying "No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5" igniting interest in HTML5 and sparking numerous debates online in blogs and forums.

Jobs' prediction that flash is dead invokes memories of the famous Mark Twain quote "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated". While the debate rages on over the future of Flash, HTML5's destiny is assured.

It's not just Apple pointing to HTML5 as an internet revolution, Microsoft, Google, Opera, Mozilla, W3C and even Adobe themselves agree. In fact HTML5 may become historic for that very reason. It is arguably the only time Google, Microsoft and Apple have ever agreed on anything.

How HTML5 evolved was largely due to a disagreement with the W3C over Error Handling and the failure to embrace modern Internet applications. In 1997, W3C announced it would no longer extend HTML4 and saw XML and XHTML as the future. Draconian Error Handling, (Draco was the Greek leader that issued death penalties for minor offences), instructed that browsers were to treat all errors in XML as fatal. With 99% of web pages showing minor errors, and the lack of new features in XML, many webmasters ignored the new standard or continued to serve their websites as HTML, even when adopting XHTML.

In 2004, a group of developers and browser vendors including Apple, Opera and Mozilla gave a presentation to the W3C on evolving HTML4 to include new features for modern web applications. The W3C rejected their proposal of extending HTML and CSS. Those interested in evolving HTML4 rebelled and broke away from the W3C, forming their own working group called WHATWG (Web Hypertext Applications Technology Working Group). At the core of the WHATWG beliefs was backwards compatibility and forgiving error handling. WHATWG's vision was to extend HTML features including form handling while ensuring that it would degrade gracefully in older browsers. While the W3C wanted the world to move to a new standard XML, WHATWG planned to evolve existing HTML to support a modern Internet.

In 2006, Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the W3C, recognized that the rebels at WHATWG had gained momentum and announced that the W3C would work together with WHATWG to evolve HTML. The W3C HTML Working Group was formed, working with HTML in conjunction with XHTML. HTML5 was officially born. In October 2009, W3C shut down XHTML2 making HTML5 the future of the Internet. The pirates had taken over the ship.

HTML5 marks a change in attitude from the W3C and seeks to support the diversity of HTML rather than just enforcement of web standards. It is an incredible achievement that HTML5 is backward compatible, meaning most of HTML5 can be used straight away albeit with some JavaScript hacks on semantics for IE. Ideas from W3C, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, Opera and many other experts combine to pull the best bits out of HTML and browsers past into an exciting upgrade of the HTML language that promotes inclusion not exclusion.

In many ways HTML5 simplifies web pages, taking laborious tasks such as form validation away from web authoring and into the browser. The idea of making the browser do the work probably stems back to IE3, where Microsoft provided the first browser to build in CSS support. HTML5 introduces new tags for page structure and semantics of documents.

New markets in Typography are opening up with the implementation of "@font-face", meaning designers at last can transfer the visual appeal of print to the web thanks to advances in CSS and HTML5. Large JavaScript libraries such as MooTools and JQuery can be slimmed down as HTML5 transfers many common tasks directly into the browser. Client side storage, session storage and client side posting are set to change how we communicate on the web. Web applications such as video are embedded by HTML without the need of JavaScript. Sites will begin to move away from Flash to deliver their video and onto HTML5, especially when current codec concerns with Mozilla Firefox are resolved.

New HTML5 API's, such as drag and drop, are reverse engineered from Microsoft, ensuring that they are supported from the start by IE. What developers of HTML5 such as Ian Hickson (Opera) have done is to view the modern web and say, "OK that's what people are trying to do, how can HTML5 support that".

Unlike previous web standards based releases such as XHTML 1.1 and the never finished XHTML 2.0, HTML5 is backward compatible and is here to stay. With the involvement of people that have been critical of the W3C, HTML5 brings a standard based upgrade of HTML that is fully supported throughout the industry. HTML5 will genuinely future proof your site without the danger of your markup depreciating in a couple of years.

HTML5 timetable for completion is in 2022, which has left many webmasters confused as to its relevance now. However, any website can begin using the new specification immediately by simply changing the doc type to "", the lowest number of characters required to trigger standards mode in IE. Currently, only beta versions of browsers IE9, Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera support advanced HTML5 elements. However, typography "@font-face" is fully supported in current browsers. For more information have a look at Ethan Dunham's "FontSquirrel.com" and Jeffrey Veen's "Typekit.com". Other HTML5 features such as "Drag and Drop" and "ContentEditable" are also currently supported. You can follow the implementation of HTML5 in modern browsers at "HTML5Readiness.com" and "Caniuse.com".

Further information:

     http://www.whatwg.org

     http://diveintohtml5.org

     http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html

About The Author
Jennifer Robinson currently works as an underpaid freelance writer for Online Connect, a supplier of photocopiers and Document Management. Visit their website at www.onlineconnect.co.uk

Do You "Like" How Facebook Phrases Your Likes? Marco Spoerrle

2010-04-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

Do You "Like" How Facebook Phrases Your Likes? Marco Spoerrle

Now that most of the web is scrambling to get like buttons and/or recommend buttons on their sites, there is going to be more "liking" and "recommending" on Facebook than ever before. While users may like or recommend a piece of content, that does not necessarily mean they like or recommend what that piece of content is about.

Users don't have a choice how this is displayed on their Facebook profiles, and while common sense can ordinarily separate intent of a "like" from the words on the screen, it can still lead to some inappropriate messages:

In these examples, I don't necessarily like that Corey Haim died and ended up on FamousDead. I don't necessarily like that a Blippy user's credit card number was found in Google again, and I don't necessarily recommend popping pills as a way to boost brain power.

You can also get generalizations like, "Chris likes Facebook Developers." Just because I like Facebook's developer channel doesn't mean I like all Facebook developers. There may be a few I specifically don't like, or even loathe.

People have expressed concern for this in the past, but now that like and recommend buttons are all over the web, you're going to see a lot more inappropriateness than ever before. It's just something for publishers to be aware of (and users for that matter). Perhaps this is something to keep in mind with your titles.

On a related note, lots of people have called for a dislike button for quite some time. There is even an unofficial Firefox extension for it, not to mention a Facebook group. I would imagine more than ever want to see that button now, although that would create a reputation management nightmare for brands.

Marco Spoerrle, MARCO SPOERRLE

Facebook "Likes" Mean More to Businesses Than Just Traffic, Marco Spoerrle

2010-04-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

Facebook "Likes" Mean More to Businesses Than Just Traffic, Marco Spoerrle

It's been nearly a week since Facebook rocked the world with its Open Graph announcements, and many of us are still wrapping our heads around all of the implications they have. I don't think there's any dispute that it's a huge move, and that it's important to pay attention to from a business perspective, but just what it means for businesses is still up in the air in some regards. Like Facebook itself, or even social media in general, we're going to see more benefits (and possibly negatives) as time goes on, and more sites and applications harness the power of said Open Graph.

As those wheels turn in our heads, there is plenty of discussion already happening around the subject - not just the Open Graph and the issues related to it (open web ramifications, privacy, etc), but how we can indeed take advantage of it.

Traffic

In a recent article we talked about why Facebook's Open Graph and particularly its social plug-ins will be good to drive traffic. It's pretty straightforward. The like and recommendation buttons are essentially different versions of the share buttons that people have been using to drive traffic for quite some time. The main difference is that instead of only showing up in the news feed only disappear shortly thereafter, they will remain on the user's profile page for people to see in the future - a fixed link to your content.

Marco Spoerrle, MARCO SPOERRLE

Report: Singapore to Soon Get a Facebook Office, Marco Spoerrle

2010-04-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

Marco Spoerrle
MarcoSpoerrle.com

Report: Singapore to Soon Get a Facebook Office

April 8th, 2010

By Chris Morrison

1 Comment »

Following a string of other expansions this year, Facebook has moved to set up its latest outpost in Singapore. The company has registered its name, rented offices and listed a half-dozen positions with the intention of of opening the office this summer, according to Channel NewsAsia.
The new positions will be in sales and business development, suggesting that Facebook may have settled on the city-state to support its growing user base in nearby countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, all of which are among the ten fastest growers according to our March statistics.
Singapore also looks like a strategic choice accounting for the satellite office that Facebook anounced it would be opening in Hyderabad, India in mid-March. Taken together, the two offices should be able to serve most of the rapidly-growing audience in Asia, while the fairly cosmopolitan cities that Facebook has chosen should help it find multi-lingual staff. The report says that Facebook currently has six local job listings, “largely in business and sales develoment;” it cites a local publication’s source suggesting that Facebook will begin Singapore operations in ” the middle of the year.”
For the moment, hiring local developers doesn’t seem to be on Facebook’s slate, although it recently bought Malaysia-based contact importer Octazen, whose two employees continue to work from that country.
The initial number of people Facebook is hiring for the entire Asian region is probably pretty small, but the social network may find reason to expand it soon. The current Facebook audience of about 85 million people in the region may quadruple by next year, according to our Global Monitor stats (we’ll be covering Asia again next Tuesday).
Other recent expansions for Facebook include a larger European advertising presence, the purchase of a second building near its headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., and the opening of a new 200-person office in Austin, Tex.

Marco Spoerrle
MarcoSpoerrle.com

Facebook’s Multi-Prong Mobile Strategy Pays Off With Significant Traffic Growth, Marco Spoerrle

2010-04-11T05:41:00.001-07:00

Facebook’s Multi-Prong Mobile Strategy Pays Off With Significant Traffic Growth

April 9th, 2010

By Eric Eldon

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[Editor's Note: The following article is from Inside Facebook Gold, our new data and analysis membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth. In addition to monthly data updates, Inside Facebook Gold presents weekly in-depth analysis articles exploring the most critical developments impacting the future of the Facebook ecosystem. Click here to learn more.]
Around 100 million of Facebook’s more than 400 million users access the service through a mobile device every month. Even though that’s a fraction of the estimated four billion mobile phone subscribers in the world, it’s a much bigger number than most people realize, and amounts to a massive global mobile operation.
However, unlike other services attempting to create a pure-play mobile social networking service, Facebook’s goal is to be much more than a social network on your phone. It is competing with a wide range of leading technology companies in trying to be the main way that you consume and share information, which is something Google and many other companies are also focused on doing.
Will users five years from now use Facebook to find nearby locations, for example, or Google, or Yelp or Bing, or something else? What app will they use to see which businesses their friends frequent, or find the location of an event they’re on the way to attend? How will they share photos? Think about the main use cases for mobile and Facebook is already in some way trying to meet them on the web.
Google’s strategy, most notably, has been to build mobile services that complement its search and advertising business, from mobile ads to maps to Gmail, and to promote everything through its Android mobile-focused operating system. Yahoo is busy providing its own mobile apps, as are other internet media companies. Apple, Microsoft and other platform providers distribute their own apps, too.
Facebook, instead, is trying to do anything it can to extend its real-world social graph and simple communication features using the mobile web and basically every mobile operating system. Whether or not that turns out to be what most mobile users prefer, its positioning in the mobile market is unique. As it has on the web, it hopes that it can be a new and valuable “social operating system” that co-exists with multiple platforms, and increases the reach and relevancy of its advertising services, growing other revenue streams as a result.
As with the launch of basic applications like Photos and Events, and its developer platform, years ago, you can see Facebook looking at key types of apps and services that it can provide for mobile users. Location, as a concept, is widely available as a key feature on a range of location-based check-in games like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt and Booyah’s My Town, not to mention Google’s Latitude. But Facebook has been working on providing location-based services for a long time. At this point the company appears likely to release some functionality as a new part of its platform — likely a way for third-party applications to easily share location information back and forth with Facebook’s service.
The examples of Photos and Events are instructive for how Facebook hopes to approach mobile features like location. Other photo-sharing and events-planning sites became popular before Facebook existed, for example, but by making apps for photos and events itself, Facebook has become the market leader in these areas by tying those apps to its social graph and giving them special access to users.
How Facebook is Going After Mobile
Facebook has been available in various mobile forms for a long time — but the company has steadily come out with more ways to access the service via mobile platforms over the years since the site first launched in 2004.
In 2006, Facebook launched a mobile site, at m.facebook.com, that simplifies the web site interface so it will load quickly on a variety of devices’ web browsers and data connection speeds. The company has been experimenting with ways of getting itself on to devices, including ill-fated ones from earlier this decade like the Helio.
After the iPhone first launched in 2007, it developed a mobile site designed for its interface. Then it launched a native iPhone app that provided integration with more features, like photos. It also began working with other partners, like Blackberry maker Research in Motion.
In the last couple of years, Facebook has expanded to a wide variety of other devices. As of today, those include INQ, HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, Palm, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile’s Sidekick, and phones powered by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system.
Facebook either works with the hardware manufacturer to develop a standard application to run on all devices, as it did with Palm, or builds its own, like on the iPhone. In other cases, the manufacturer will create their own version of the app for a specific device, like Nokia has with its N97.
Native apps tend to work better than the mobile web services, because they are less reliant on a constant data connection for things like loading parts of the site interface. They provide a better user experience for people on Facebook, so the company has done whatever it can to take itself to those users. In perhaps the most prominent example of this, Facebook uses technology from mobile download store GetJar on m.facebook.com to detect when a native app is available for the user on the mobile site. It then directs the user to download the appropriate app.
Facebook has continued expanding its web-based mobile services even more, however. One example is a version designed for the iPod Touch, at touch.facebook.com. Another is a new site it has planned, at zero.facebook.com. It illustrates the other key part of Facebook’s mobile efforts: Relationships with carriers.
Facebook has actively worked with more than 180 carriers in 32 countries to form various distribution partnerships. Many of these carriers are in parts of the world where mobile devices are far more common than computers. Facebook has already been providing simplified text messaging services, for example, where users can send and receive status updates and take other actions on Facebook via text. You can see all sorts of carrier implementations around the world today. Telcel, a leading Latin American carrier, has a mobile site and messaging service designed specifically for helping users upload photos, status updates and other content they create to Facebook and other sites from their phones.
Zero is a text-only version of Facebook that carriers can provide users for free. If users decide they want the multimedia version of Facebook for doing things like sharing photos but don’t yet have the necessary data plan, Zero lets carriers include a billing prompt so users can pay for the data service and get the full version.
Facebook’s mobile growth has stayed at around 25% of its overall user base, based on numbers that Facebook has released over the years. Yet some differences are emerging. Some 70% of the service’s 400 million users are outside the US, most in mobile-heavy Europe and Asia, but also across Latin American and Africa. Most users in Indonesia are accessing Facebook on their phones, for example. In the United Kingdom, Facebook was the most popular site for mobile Internet users last December, according to GSMA Mobile Media Metrics; more than a quarter of all cell phone users connect to Facebook with their phones each month in the country and almost half of all mobile Internet minutes were spent on the service.
Today, more people in the US and many other industrialized countries still connect to Facebook on computers than mobile phones. In the short-term, developers and marketers have needed to build with the web experience in mind. But now they’re needing to think about new features that mobile is making possible — like location, which can provide new forms of applications and targeted advertising.
Like Facebook has adapted itself to the massive growth in mobile web usage around the world, so to will companies and other organizations that rely on it to reach users.
Measuring Facebook’s Mobile Traffic
While the company irregularly updates its internal numbers for mobile, we’re able to track some apps and services via our AppData measurement service. Here’s a closer look at some examples.
Facebook’s iPhone app is by far the most popular Facebook mobile app. It has 31.4 million monthly active users as of today, 10 percent of whom have joined in the past month — while the app has been growing steadily, its numbers are looking particularly good now. And not just in terms of MAU. It has 16.0 million daily active users, so more than 50 percent of all users access the app every day. Note that this traffic includes both the iPhone and the iPod Touch, as both use the same application, although it doesn’t include touch.facebook.com.

The Blackberry app is also one of the most popular. It has fewer MAU than the iPhone app, at 15.9 million, 1 million of whom joined in the last month. But it also has relatively higher engagement, with 9.65 million people using it every day, or 61% of all MAU.

Finally, we also track the m.facebook.com site, as it’s officially listed as an app on the platform. Even though Facebook is using this site to direct people to download native apps for their devices, the site continues to grow — by 1.7 million users this past month. It now has 19.8 million MAU and 7.76 million DAU; like the two apps above, it brings back an abnormally large amount of users every day, or 39% of them.

Expect Facebook to Focus More on Mobile

Facebook has made a big organizational commitment to mobile in the past few years, and we expect it to put even more resources towards mobile in the future. Key parts of its strategy are already visible. The company will continue to try to cut deals with carriers around the world, as it has already, to get itself as integrated as possible into every device available. While the company has only spoken briefly about Zero, the feature is part of Facebook’s effort to adapt itself to tough computing environments (another example is its simplified web site, Lite). Zero could play a major part in helping Facebook make deals with carriers who are not using Facebook, or doing so minimally, as it promises to help them sell more data services. Finally, we expect Facebook to continue building apps for smartphones and other high-end devices.
Other innovations, like location, look promising — but Facebook needs to continue making its mobile service popular for those to be valuable, so doing so will be its main focus.
This article is from Inside Facebook Gold, our new data and analysis membership service tracking Facebook’s business and growth. In addition to monthly data updates, Inside Facebook Gold presents weekly in-depth analysis articles exploring the most critical developments impacting the future of the Facebook ecosystem. Click here to learn more.

Marco Spoerrle
MarcoSpoerrle.com

Marco Spoerrle: Offerpal Expands to More Non-Traditional and Overseas Payment Options

2010-04-11T05:40:00.000-07:00

Offerpal Expands to More Non-Traditional and Overseas Payment Options

April 9th, 2010

By Chris Morrison

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When Offerpal started out a couple years back, it was focused exclusively on online surveys and marketing offers. That’s no longer the case, as last year the company joined the race to become a full-fledged payment platform offering dozens of ways for users to send money to application and game owners.
Its latest raft of additions, announced this week, includes three payment options targeted at children and teens, including those overseas. For the US, Offerpal has partnered with BillMyParents, which lets kids tap into their parent’s credit cards with direct supervision, and Rixty, which uses existing ATMs and convenience stores to let kids pay for online credits in cash. In Asia, Offerpal has added MyCard, which sells gift cards throughout Asia.
Three other new OfferPal partners don’t specifically target kids. For the world market, it has added ClickandBuy, which lets users pay in 120 different currencies, while in Europe Offerpal has added Paysafecard, another pre-paid card. And for the US, the company now has STi prepaid cards.
Over time, the so-called “payment wall” loaded up by Offerpal for users should cater to just about anyone; in fact, it’s hard to imagine that anyone in the US would be terribly hard-pressed to figure out one way or another to pay for a virtual good or service, including the private virtual currency that Offerpal launched last August.
The picture overseas is more fragmented, but Offerpal is at least addressing the major markets of Europe and Asia. As each of the various payment companies fills out its wall of offerings, we’ll begin seeing them battling over finer points in their business models — which is probably why Offerpal also just hired Alex Brutin, who has previous experience with both Google Checkout and PayPal, as a new VP of business development.
Offerpal also just acquired TapJoy in March, which is part of a separate-but-similar move into mobile monetization for the company.

Marco Spoerrle,
MarcoSpoerrle.com

Marco Spoerrle - Facebook’s Search Traffic Continues to Grow

2010-04-11T05:38:00.000-07:00

Facebook’s Search Traffic Continues to Grow

April 10th, 2010

By Chris Morrison

The latest ComScore numbers for the search market reveal an interesting fact: Facebook’s search query volume is rapidly approaching that of the smallest major search engine, Ask. Citi Group, in its own take on ComScore’s numbers, noted Facebook’s 647 million queries in March, which was in turn picked up by Liz Gannes at GigaOm.
That number is equal to about 2.7 percent of all searches performed in the U.S. market — a big number, especially for a company whose business isn’t really search at all. But with almost half a billion users trying to find their way around an ever more sprawling social network, there’s a real need for all those queries.
Measuring Facebook against, say, Microsoft’s Bing does sound like an apples-and-oranges comparison at first. Then again, ignoring the site would create an excessively narrow definition of what search is. It’s not unheard of for large destination sites to become search portals of a sort; YouTube, for example, serves as a portal for a lot of kids, some of whom will go straight to the video site when they need to look up something. Over the years, YouTube has grown big enough that it can actually serve a general search audience, especially with the help of content creators like Demand Media.
The purpose of search on Facebook is a bit more narrow. People tend to be searching for something in particular: a person, a group, an event or an application. Yet over time, if Facebook becomes a central location for those categories of information, it could end up drawing traffic away from the dedicated search engines.
Of course, we all know there’s a lot of money to be made in search, and it’s not hard to imagine how Facebook could successfully seed some results with sponsored results, and create another revenue stream.
In fact, the company is already starting to take advantage of this, via its strategic partnership with Microsoft. Right now, it is running links to Bing web results for searches made on the site, recently tweaking this interface to make Bing more prominent by adding the the official logo. But that’s just the start. The companies also plan to use Facebook data to improve the relevancy Bing’s own search results, and Microsoft is handling search ads on Facebook. While these initiatives are not too far along yet, they could make Facebook search even more significant.

Marco Spoerrle - Use These 3 Tips so that Your Online Income Affiliate Business can Survive

2010-03-24T04:43:00.000-07:00

As an affiliate marketer who would like to not only survive but also generate a large income you will need to utilize these 3 tips given here and be prepared to work hard as there is not magical formula to success.
As an affiliate marketer using these 3 tips will help your chances of success with your online marketing business. Using these 3 tips will help your online business survive the competition that is found in an online based business environment.
1. Give your readers free reports.
Either place these reports where they can be easily seen near the top of your website or alternatively give them as an incentive to visitors who are will to give you their name and email address.
Use a unique squeeze page, in other words one that is different from what everyone else is using, to offer your reports in exchange for their email address and make sure that you have an opt in box on that squeeze page that goes to your auto-responder account.
It is a known fact that the majority of people will not purchase anything the first time they see it. Normally it will take a minimum of seven views for them to make the purchase. Keep in mind that usually people are more willing to spend money with a person that they believe is trustworthy and has taken the time to build a relationship with them, they need to know that they are not just dealing with some faceless website but a real person who is willing to help them.
If the only connection is the product on your website, not only will you not build a list, but chances are that even if someone is interested in the product you are selling they will move on and in the end buy it from someone else.
2. Promote each product on a separate web page.
If you use this method of marketing your products you will be keeping the reader focused on one thing at a time and they will become less distracted than if there were too many things on the one page.
Help the reader to make a decision on each product by having a review for each one on your website. This not only gives it a more personal touch but also helps to encourage a sale. If you are able to get some testimonials from any of your previous customers who have already tried the product then this is something that you can use to your advantage.
Just be sure that those customers are happy to allow you to use their name and if possible their photo.
3. Aim to generate a lot of targeted traffic to your website.
There is absolutely no point in getting people to visit your site who have no interest whatsoever in the products that you are promoting. Write articles and submit them to ezines and article directories and focus on the niche that you are promoting your products to. There is no point in spending your time promoting your affiliate internet business where no one is interested in what you are selling, but writing articles and publishing them in article directories is a great way to become known and brand yourself and your business and the best thing is that this type of advertising will not cost you any money.
If you want to benefit from marketing your online business by using article marketing you will need to write a minimum of 2 articles every week. If you continue to do this consistently you will see that over time your traffic will increase and it will be people who are interested in your products and what you have to say.
None of these tips are really difficult to follow and take action on it just needs some time and thought from you. Try using these tips for a few of your affiliate internet based business programs and see how they will help your opportunity to survive as an online affiliate marketer. Another great thing about this is the increase in the pay checks you will be receiving.

Five secrets to success on the Web (Marco Spoerrle, marcospoerrle.com)

2010-03-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

Five secrets to success on the Web

Is your XSite doing everything it can to boost your business? We give you all the tools you'll need to maximize your online ROI, but in the end it's up to you. (We just gave away secret number five!) Step back and take a look at the whole of your website/online marketing plan. Here are five secrets to its success.

Eyeballs.
If a total of five people see your website, its chances of reeling in one of those five to apply online is remote indeed. If 5,000 see it, your chances of landing an applicant are exponentially better.

Consider exchanging links with local agents and other real estate professionals you work with. The more links to your site, the more people will find it from your partners' sites and the better your search engine ranking is likely to be.

And speaking of search engine ranking, consider a pay per click campaign. It's the best — and only — way to guarantee a first-page search result placement. See our article on Pay-Per-Click 101 here.
Time.
The longer visitors spend on your site, the more powerful your branding and marketing message becomes. The more likely they are to see you as the mortgage professional they can trust.

You keep visitors on your site by including lots of engaging, relevant content, like the pre-written material available to XSite owners. Give them tools like calculators, rate sheets and local information. Retail stores know they have a better chance of selling you more the longer you stay. The same principle applies on the Web.

Add content to your site that increases the time visitors spend there. Write about local events, add high school sports schedules or include our newest feature - RSS Feeds. Click here to learn more about RSS Feeds.
Flash.
It's human nature: the more attractive and engaging information is, the more persuasive it is. The more people pay attention to your site, its tools and your content, the more likely they are to request more information or apply online.

Your Mortgage XSite lets you showcase your business with rich tools, sound and graphics. You have a better chance of selling with a feature-rich, attractive site than a simple online brochure. (Just be sure to complement your substance with style, not drown it out.)

Add one of our pre-made Flash intros to your XSite or create your own. Just log into your XSite, click on the XSite icon and then My Intro to get started.
Lead capture.
Lots of visitors is good. Getting visitors' contact information for followup is ten times better. Mortgage XSites come with pre-built, customizable lead capture forms you can drop on any page. When visitors submit responses, the lead is sent to your e-mail and your mobile device. It's also automatically added to your contact manager.

Relying on a dazzling, information-rich website to sell isn't enough — you'll want to follow up with visitors who began applications but never completed them, visitors who supply you their contact information and more. XSellerate campaigns are a great way to stay in touch with minimal effort. Set up campaigns that automatically go out to website leads or stay in touch with past clients to encourage referrals. Which brings us to the final secret:
You.
Your XSite will inform and empower visitors, and provide incentives to return. Once they leave though, you take over, by following up quickly and aggressively with web leads, marketing to contacts and providing the kind of attention and quality service your clients expect.

Blog your way to more business - part three (Marco Spoerrle, marcospoerrle.com)

2010-03-21T19:12:00.001-07:00

Blog your way to more business - part three
by Carla Chadwick, Web content specialist

In part one and part two, I covered how to develop blog content, and gave you some marketing ideas and free blog resources. In this issue, I’d like to focus on fundamental tips for using social networking to promote your blog.
One of the reasons blogs are such powerful marketing devices is that they’re a key component of Web 2.0. Although the term Web 2.0 seems technical, it’s just a way to identify the recent shift in the way people interact online. There’s plenty of disagreement about what Web 2.0 means. But for the purpose of this article, I’m going to say that Web 2.0 is, among many other things, a more collaborative approach to online interactions.
Because of this movement, a lot of sites have sprung up under the Web 2.0 subset of “social networking.” Social networking can take many forms when used for blog promotion, but they come under two major headings: social bookmarking and social networking. I’ve included samples of both below. All the sites I mention are free, although some have upgrade options.

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites allow you to save your bookmarks and share them with others. The advantage to you as a blogger is that you can save your individual blog posts as bookmarks. These can subsequently be found by anyone searching for information on your topic. Good social bookmarking etiquette dictates, however, that you bookmark pages from other people, as well as your own.
Here are some of the more popular social bookmarking sites:

del.icio.us

This is one of the most famous bookmarking sites, so it has a lot of users. To make sure your blog posts can be found in de.licio.us, just go to the link above and click the “post” link at the top. This will bring you to a page where you’ll enter the address of your latest blog post. While doing so, you’ll want to enter a description and tags that detail the content of your post. Once posted, if anyone within de.licio.us searches for any of the tags you used, your blog post will come up in the search results. If your headline and description are compelling, you’ll have a good chance of getting people to click through to your blog.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a world onto itself, in that it has a different model than the other bookmarking sites. “Stumblers” as its users are called, are served up Web site and blog pages, based on the preferences they chose in their profile and how many people have voted for the pages they’re viewing. If a Stumbler likes your page and gives it a “thumbs-up,” this pushes it to the top of a list to be shown to other Stumblers. The more thumbs-ups the page gets, the more people will see it. For this reason, you would only want to post original content with widespread appeal. You also would want to choose the category carefully when you submit a story. As with all other bookmarking sites, you must join to submit articles. And if you want to use StumbleUpon to view sites and blogs, you’ll need their toolbar.

Digg

Digg is another popular site that gives you the ability to submit blog posts, Web site pages, photos, video or podcasts. The site has a user-based voting system that causes a submission rise to the top. I’ve had submissions that never got a vote that still brought traffic to my blog; so don’t let the lack of votes stop you from submitting again. There are plenty of other sites that provide social bookmarking services. You can find more of them through SocialMarker, which also has shortcuts for submitting to all the sites on their list. If you’re going to use social bookmarking, I recommend choosing just a few sites and getting to know the way they work. This will allow you to get the most out of each. Although the sites I listed above are popular and get a lot of traffic, there also is a lot competition to have your posts be seen. Sometimes one of the smaller networking sites can be more beneficial. If you plan to use Social Marker as a means to find the sites you like, I would suggest selecting just a few sites to visit for each Social Marker session. Otherwise, you might find using their program too overwhelming.

Social networking

The main goal of social networking sites is to make it easy for people to connect. More social networking vehicles come online every day, but for blog promotion, I recommend the following:

Linkedin is a twist on a traditional social networking site because it’s focused exclusively on people who want to promote their businesses. The premise of the site is that there are only three degrees of separation between your group of friends and a massive group of contacts. The easy-to-navigate interface allows you to connect with people you know who are in the Linkedin system and then connect with their connections. When you then connect with the people in that extended group of connections, the number of people with whom you can be in touch is huge.

BloggingZoom

This site is the new kid on the block, but the fact that it was developed by two bloggers specifically to serve the needs of other bloggers has drawn an enthusiastic response. Like Digg, BloggingZoom has a voting system. But don’t worry if people don’t vote for your post. Like with Digg, people will often read a post but not vote for it. Also, their submissions process is set up specifically to be search-engine friendly, so if you submit according to their guidelines, you have another chance to be found by the engines for each post.

HubPages

HubPages offers a different sort of social networking, in that it gives you the chance to express yourself while connecting with others. Although you can also use it to connect, join subject-related clubs and comment on articles, HubPages is perfect for people who write well and want to use that skill to promote their businesses. You can create your own pages, called “hubs,” which can then potentially be seen by the HubPages community and millions of people the search engines bring to the site each month. You can even use articles you have already written for your blog, as long as you change the content by at least 20 percent. Click here to see a typical hub. These are just four of the many social networking sites that are available. To access links to many others, view this Wikipedia page, which contains a large list of them.
But don’t go off into the social networking world just yet. There’s some terminology you should understand first, so your time will be more productive.

Social networking glossary

Keywords
I’ve covered this topic in other issues of the Marketing Insider newsletter because there can never be enough said about it. But rather than go over it again in this article, go to this page for information on using keywords for beginners. You might also want to sign up for WordTracker’s free easy-to-follow nine-part e-mail series on using keywords.
Tags
Tags and keywords are closely related, in that they both are shorthand for identifying the content of a particular blog entry, photo, geographic map or video clip. Unlike keywords, each user chooses tags when one of the aforementioned files is created or saved to a bookmarking site. Users search by tags, which cuts down the time it takes to find information. To see examples, click on this page. The words in gold-colored boxes are tags. If you click on any of these tags, you’ll bring up all the posts that have been tagged with the same name.
Tag cloud
A tag cloud is a method of arranging tags by the amount of information connected to each one. The point of a tag cloud is to show the user at first glance which topics a blog contains and how much information there is on each. The more information about a tagged subject, the larger and bolder the tag. To see an example of a tag cloud, click here and scroll down the page to the “WordPlay's Tags” box.
Categories
Categories reflect the major subject groups covered on a blog. They’re similar to tags, except the person who generates the content chooses them.
Avatar or icon
An avatar or icon is a graphic that accompanies you as you comment on a blog post or use a social networking site. In some cases, it can be seen even if you visit individual blogs. An icon is sometimes accompanied by your username, so it’s a good idea to choose a good username (one that brands your business at first glance) when you sign up for networking sites. For examples of good icons, click here. For free images you can use to create your icon, click here for clip art and here for photography.
Bookmarklet
Most social bookmarking sites offer a bookmarklet, which places a bookmark in your browser. Once it’s in your bookmarks, if you want to submit a page to that service, just navigate to the page you want to submit, open your bookmarks and click on the bookmarklet. This will automatically take you to a page that has your page information filled in, making the submission process easier.
Knowing these terms in advance should cut the time it takes to get up to speed with social networking. I think you’ll find it can be a lot of fun to use social networking sites. And in the process of promoting your own blog, you’ll probably even come across interesting information you never would have found otherwise.

Blog your way to more business - part two (Marco Spoerrle, marcospoerrle.com)

2010-03-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

Blog your way to more business - part two
by Carla Chadwick, Web content specialist

In part one, I covered basic content issues and how to use free photography to increase your blog’s post appeal. In this issue, I have a few more content tips for you, but I mainly want to focus on some effective free methods you can use to market your blog.
Content tips
If you’re feeling stuck for a something to write about, sometimes getting a little inspiration elsewhere can help. The following ideas and linked resources might just give you the kick-start you need to write memorable posts:

Try using a quotation from a famous person to get your creative juices flowing.
Use clip art, either alone or in conjunction with a quotation, to provide some visual interest.
Include a free cartoon in your post to inject some humor.
Use the Cool Text Generator to create fun graphic headlines for your posts.

You can incorporate any elements you want as long as they relate to your subject. Remember, if you stray from your subject, your readers will stray from you.
Free blog marketing resources
Once you’ve become inspired and written those wonderful posts, you’ll want as many people as possible to see them. There are myriad ways to market a blog, some of which require special expertise. If you’re a new blogger, though, you might want to begin with the following relatively simple methods:
Print materials, advertising and XSellerate
It might seem obvious that you should put your blog address on all your communications, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded. Opportunities to promote your blog on vehicles you’re already using abound. These include:

Letterhead
Business cards
Listing fliers
E-mail signature
XSellerate messages
Web site home page
Advertising

Class reunion Web sites
Class reunion sites, such as Classmates.com, Reunion.com or ClassReport.org, get a tremendous amount of traffic. You never know; there might be people from your past looking for you on these sites. It takes just a few minutes to register for each. When you do, make sure your Web site and blog are listed in your profiles.
Commenting on other blogs
You can gain exposure by writing entries in the comments fields of posts on popular blogs and Web sites. Well written, on-topic comments in the right places can generate buzz about you and your business. When you make comments, remember the following guidelines:

When you enter your name in a comment form, use a name that identifies your business. Unless your name is well known, using “Jones Mortgage” would have more benefit to you than using “Jane Jones.” That way, when people read your comment, they’ll see your business name right next to it.
Keep your comment focused on the topic in the story or post.
If you have content on your blog related to the story, provide a link to it in your comment. (The obvious exception would be on blogs or Web sites that don’t allow URLs in comments.) Be sure to explain briefly in the comment why readers would find your information beneficial. This would give them incentive to click through to your blog.
Since you would be posting comments with the ultimate goal of marketing your business, stay away from writing anything negative. A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t make a remark to someone’s face, don’t post it in a comments field.

Here are some tips for finding suitable sites for your comments:

Look in the a la mode blog directory for blogs from companies that provide allied services in your area.
Search in a major search engine for government Web sites or blogs in your city, county and state.
Search in a major search engine for community-oriented or personal blogs in your town. For example, if you’re in Boca Raton, Florida, search for “Boca Raton Florida blogs.”
Visit the Web sites and blogs of local newspapers, and television and radio stations to look for stories related to your business.

Real estate blog directories
If you’ve been blogging through a la mode, you’ll automatically be listed in their blog directory. You’ll probably also want to submit your blog for inclusion in the following free directories that rank high in Google:
Real Estate and Mortgage Blogger's Exchange (REMBEX)
To submit your blog to be considered for inclusion in REMBEX, click the link above and follow the instructions.
MortgageBlogs.com
As you can tell by the name, this directory is dedicated only to mortgage-related blogs. They offer a map-based search system so readers can easily find local blogs. Click here to submit your blog to the directory.
I hope you’ll find these methods useful. In part three of this series, I’ll delve into even more free ways to market your blog.

Blog your way to more business - part one (Marco Spoerrle, marcospoerrle.com)

2010-03-21T19:09:00.000-07:00

Blog your way to more business - part one
by Carla Chadwick, Reseller

The old adage says that you need to market more, not less, when business is slow. And it’s true; it takes extra effort to capture business when the pool of available clients is smaller. But paying for that extra marketing can sometimes be a problem when the economy is sluggish — unless you have an XSite. As you know, XSites already have a full range of features that allow you to promote your business. But to truly maximize your marketing, you have to use those features to their full potential.
It’s natural that the first thing you would do when you get your XSite is to configure it with your Web site content. But don’t let it end there. Once your site is up and running, the XSite blog feature should become your best friend. The approachable, personal nature of a blog can enhance the reputation you’ve established on your Web site, and even reach some people that your Web site might not. Also, people are interested in learning what the real estate market is like from local professionals. There are a lot of scared homeowners right now because all they hear is doom and gloom on the news about the market. Your blog could help counteract that negative influence. Not only that, your daily or weekly blog updates can give potential clients a window into not only your professional qualifications, but also how you think and interact.

A funny word for a powerful feature

Short for “weblog,” a blog is the place where a marketing Web site and a traditional diary meet. With such a weird name, it would be tempting to ignore this powerful feature if you weren’t familiar with its benefits. But you shouldn’t pass up this marketing opportunity, because blogs have proven to be effective promotional tools. One of the primary reasons for this is that search engines love content that changes all the time, and changing content is what blogs are all about. Also, you can never underestimate how much people want to read what other people are thinking! Blogs excel at presenting personal perspectives, even when they’re used for business marketing. And if you blog through XSites, you have the additional advantage of being listed in the XSites blog directory, which allows potential customers to search by geographical area. This directory provides yet another arena to highlight your services, but you won’t be found there unless you’re using your blog.
If you’ve already been blogging for a while through XSites, you know how easy it is. For those who haven’t tried it, you don’t even have to think about the technical aspects; those are already taken care of. All you have to do is write. Now, I realize that fact can stop some people in their tracks. But again, because you have access to the vast selection of XSites content, you don’t have to worry about writing. In case you didn’t know, all the content available for your Web site is also available for your blog. This gives you a powerful source of quality information.
Since XSite blogging is so easy, I won’t go into the physical details of how it works. I’d rather focus on how to give your blog a personal touch and provide information people want to read. First, let’s determine what type of blogger you are. Are you a writer or a non-writer? Obviously, we can all physically write. But if you don’t feel you write well, the time to admit it is before you start blogging. There’s no shame in being a “non-writer” because we all have different talents. And even if you can’t write well, you can blog; you just have to use a different strategy.
Before I go into the strategies, it’s probably a good idea for you to get an idea of what other people are doing with their blogs. To view other XSite blogs, go to the XSites Network site and choose a category from the pull-down menu in the “Mortgage Lenders” box. Choose a state and county, and you’ll be shown a list from that area. Looking at blogs in your area can help you understand what information other professionals think is important and how they’re reaching out to their readers.

Blogging strategies

For non-writers (or people in a hurry)
Obviously, you can always hire someone to write your blog or edit something you’ve written. But if you want to stick to no-cost blogging, the 106 pages of XSites content are a great starting point. You can use any of the articles as-is or you can modify them a bit. If you followed the suggestion above about looking at other blogs, I’m sure you found other companies that are geographically close to you that also use XSites content in their blogs. Since a potential client might look at some or all the blogs in the area, you might want to have your copy look a little different than anyone else’s. This is especially important because people can subscribe to get e-mail updates when blogs are updated, which could lead to a potential client receiving e-mails with the same information from two different companies.
So, if you’re not a writer, how do you customize your copy while also making it different from other blogs? It’s easy. Just choose an article on a subject you’d like to feature, and then use only some of the content. For example, the “401K for Down Payment” article under the “Provided” tab in the XSites Wizard has seven paragraphs. But if you use just the second, third and fourth paragraphs, instead of the entire article, you’ll have solid content that won’t look like anyone else’s. This is because the first thing people will see in other blogs that use this article will be the first paragraph, which won’t be in your copy. And if you add one or more photos (see this page for a free photography resource), you can differentiate your post even further.
To have this strategy work, you just have to make sure the paragraphs you choose stand alone and don’t read as if something were missing. It also would be advisable to identify the content as a “tip” rather than making it seem like a full article. This would allow you to add a teaser at the end to announce your next tip, which would help build interest in upcoming posts. In the case of some articles, you could even use other paragraphs to form a completely new tip for your next post. This would give you two blog entries out of one article!
This same strategy can be used with any number of article types. For example, you can pull a list of area attractions from the XSites local content or feature one of your recent listings. And if you have a professional XSite, you have even more options, including using stories from Inman News, which would give you a continual source of fresh content.

For writers

Sometimes the biggest hurdle when writing is getting started. XSites content can help with this, too, because just looking at the list of available articles could inspire you or provide a topic. When you’re ready to begin, keep these things in mind:

Although a blog is a marketing device, the less you can make it appear like one, the better. This means you should focus on copy that benefits the reader. Some examples would be to provide updates on interest rates; the development of new loan types, or any other information that someone looking for a loan would find useful.

Include keywords in your blog posts. Search engines deliver search results based on the words they find in your blog, so it’s important that you feature your keywords. It’s also important to know that people are actually searching for those words. But how do you know which words people are looking for? This topic is too detailed for this article; so click here for more information on doing keyword research. Once you find the best keywords, try to use them a few times per post, as long as they read naturally. Search engine technology has become so sophisticated; it can sniff out copy that has keywords repeated with no rhyme or reason.

Check your work before you post. Although the XSites blog interface allows you to edit or remove copy even after it’s been posted, the e-mail announcing the new post will have already gone out to subscribers. So, it’s always a good idea to check your writing over thoroughly before you post. Click here for a checklist of things to review before you post. You might even want to add a few checklist items of your own.

Above all, have a good time! Blogging is actually a lot of fun and a great creative outlet. While working toward mastering the aspects above, you can also allow your personality to come through. That can even mean being a little irreverent. You want to stop short of being offensive, of course, but if it’s in your personality to joke around, let that come out in your blog. It will give your writing a human touch that will set you apart from everyone else.

I think you’ll find it’s relatively easy to get blogging, even if you aren’t a writer. If you write well, though, you’ll probably find you enjoy the opportunity to express yourself. And don’t forget, once you’ve created your first blog post, you can use XSellerate to announce it to the world.
In part two of this series, I’ll discuss ways to be even more creative with your blog, as well as options for marketing it free on the Internet.

Marco Spoerrle - Plan Your Marketing Strategy

2010-02-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

Marketing During a Recession
It's true businesses are pulling their marketing budgets and as a result they are going to see a decrease in sales, while their competitors will continue to market and see growth during these difficult economic times. Learn the importance of marketing during a recession and gain the information you need to do it effectively and at low to no cost.

MarketingPlan Pro Software by Palo Alto Software
MarketingPlan Pro software was developed by PaloAlto and powered my marketing guru John Jantsch. I had the opportunity to play with this software package. In this review I share with you the pros and cons and tell you if it's worth your money.

What to Look for When Outsourcing Your Marketing
The option to outsource marketing functions is becoming increasingly popular. If you are evaluating the option to outsource there are a few things you should know when selecting a marketing consultant or outside firm. Learn what information your should gather and what things you should look for to find the right marketing consultant for you.

What’s the Future for Marketing in the Media Industry?
Like any business, the media industry evolves in cycles. The career potential for marketers in the media industry is anticipated to keep growing. Learn what you need to know about the future for marketing in the media industry and how to break into the career path in this guest article by Rick Linde.

Being Unique is a Good Thing... Isn't It?
Distinguishing your product or service from the competition can make your marketing more effective. Learn how to stand out in a crowd by being unique.

Marketing Power In Podcasting
Podcasts are audio or video files distributed over the internet. Listeners download the files, and either play them on the computer or a listening device, such as an I-Pod. Learn how you can market your company using the new technology of podcasting.

4 Ways to Overcome Marketing Challenges Forever
For most small business owners, marketing is an overwhelming concept. They need marketing solutions that ensure a smooth-running, profitable business yet most don't know where to begin or how to focus their efforts. Guest author Leslie Hamp shows you four ways to overcome marketing challenges forever.

Create an Effective Marketing Kit
The trifold brouchure is outdated. No one even reads them anymore, so how can you get the attention of prospective customers and clients? Learn how to make an effective marketing kit that will drive business to your company.

Dare to Be Different In Your Marketing
Why is it so difficult to find new ideas in the industry of marketing? Have we become complacent when it comes to developing new campaigns and strategies? Is it just easier to copy campaigns and change them up to make them our own? Learn how getting back to the basics can help you stand out and put you on a path that is unique and different. By daring to be different I guarantee you'll see the effectiveness and the excitement of your marketing endeavors increase.

Elements in the Situational Analysis
Before developing any given marketing strategy it is important to conduct some form of analysis. This week guest author Alex Margarit shows you a raw marketing 101 introduction to what to take into account when conducting an analysis. He also provides you with with a checklist of the most important factors to take into account. In his article you will learn how to evaluate the elements in situational analysis.

Develop Your Value Proposition
An effective and well written value proposition describes what you do in terms of tangible business results. It draws interest and shares a success story within a few words. Learn how to write yours today.

Changing Your Position When There's Competition
Are you finding many of your best prospects already working with competitors? When you pursue a new opportunity, is someone else capturing the prize? Maybe it's time to re-evaluate your positioning. Learn how in this guest article by C.J. Hayden.

Make More Money with Marketing Metrics
Knowing which marketing endeavors pay dividends will save you time, money and effort by allowing you to focus your marketing budget on tactics that work. Learn how to measure the effect of your marketing efforts to make more money in this week's guest article by Jeremy Cohen.

Is Procrastination Holding You Back?
Putting off unappealing tasks may be human nature, but for an entrepreneur, procrastination can be deadly. Is it holding you back? Find out how to overcome procrastination in this guest article by C.J. Hayden.

Reach Customers with Your Marketing Mix
Learn how to effectively reach customers with your marketing mix in this guest article by Alan J. Zell.

What's Your Marketing Attitude?
As business owners you may not lacking in the knowlege of marketing techniques but what about your marketing attitude? Are you sabotaging your own marketing efforts by carrying the wrong attitude? Find out in this guest article by C.J. Hayden.

Developing Your Marketing - 4 Ps of Marketing
Your marketing mix is a combination of marketing tools that are used to satisfy customers and company objectives. Learn how to develop a successful marketing program.

The Marketing Value of a Mission Statement
Your mission statement has marketing value, unfortuntaely it's often lost in wordy and meaningless jargon. Let me show you how write a mission statement that reflects your company's purpose and gives you marketing value.

Featured Article: Marketing Ideas & Strategies to Help Your Business Grow - Marco Spoerrle

2010-02-10T11:59:00.000-08:00

How do you grab people's attention, arouse their interest, trigger their desire, and motivate them to take action? Answer that four-part question correctly and you've identified the secret to achieving tremendous sales and marketing success in your business or profession. To complicate matters, however, the potential answers are as numerous and multi-faceted as the growing number of niche markets, products and services, and evolving marketing strategies and trends in our culture.

While not all inclusive, the following list of marketing strategies, marketing tools, and free marketing ideas can help establish a marketing framework that can put your small business on a faster track to growth. If you need more information on a particular business marketing topic, there are opportunities throughout this page to purchase and download relevant digital books from eBooks.com. (Note: Ten additional marketing strategies have recently been added to this page. Take a look.)

Small Business Marketing Tip #1: Gain Customer Confidence. Customer indecisiveness, skepticism, indifference, or confusion are among the top sales killers in the business world. It's up to you to project an image of experience, quality, dependability, excellent customer service, and/or added value to your prospective customers in order to win their confidence and overcome sales objections. If you haven't clearly communicated the advantages and solid reasons for them to do business with you, then they'll be hesitant to commit and the sale will go to your competitor.

Marketing Tip #2: Penetrate awareness of your target audience by using integrated marketing strategy, which in many cases would include a well-planned website marketing strategy. Stated simply: the more ways the public hears about you, the better your chances are for achieving brand recognition, credibility, and greater market share. Effective marketing strategy is partly the result of exposing your target audience to your name and your selling points (unique selling proposition) as often as possible (frequency), in as many ways as possible, and as cost-effectively as possible. For more information, consider downloading these eBooks: Implementing an Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy and Strategic Integrated Marketing Communications.

How to Make Money Online by Starting An Internet Business | Marco Spoerrle

2010-02-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

Experts say now is the perfect time to make money on the Internet, and online business owners are still seeing big profits, even in this roller coaster economy. That's why our entire range of information, software, and training products is designed to help you create an online business that you can easily run from your home, on your schedule. So if you're interested in making money online, we have everything you need to get started:

Internet marketing courses
The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet guides you through all the steps of starting and running your own online business website, and making money on the Internet.
The Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay teaches you how to make money online with eBay, including finding products to sell, and writing listings that turn browsers into buyers.
Our Internet Entrepreneur Club gives you direct, one-on-one access to our team of marketing experts, and finally, StartUp offers traffic-building techniques, time-saving tools, case studies from successful entrepreneurs, and top-performing niches guaranteed to make money online.
Internet marketing training services
If you want to jumpstart your ability to earn money online, we offer a range of Internet marketing training programs that allow you to work directly with our expert mentors at a level that suits your needs, time constraints, and budget.
From our intensive five-day classroom experience to our six-month, one-on-one mentoring, all of our Internet marketing training systems will guide you successfully through every step of starting an online business website, and teach you the most effective ways to make money on the Internet right now.
Online business software
One of the most important elements of making money online is using the right tools to keep your Internet-based business running smoothly. We offer a full suite of software to simplify and streamline all your daily tasks.
Our flagship business-builder software, BeBiz is a step-by-step system designed to take you from "no product, no website"... to running your very own profitable online business.
Free articles and resources
We offer a wide range of free articles and resources to keep you on top of the latest strategies for making money online.
Sign up for our twice-monthly Marketing Tips Report, our regularly updated company blog, our comprehensive glossary of Internet marketing terms, or our eBay-focused AuctionTips newsletter .
You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

DealDotCom: One Internet marketing product a day for low prices? Marco Spoerrle

2010-01-30T01:33:00.000-08:00

There's a new service being launched this Tuesday that offers a two tier affiliating marketing program. According to their website they will sell one high quality internet marketing product per day for discount prices:

"Anything and everything related to building an online business, increasing traffic, monetizing your websites, blogging, web design... in short, we sell all things Internet Marketing. We've spent the last 4 months stalking big-name (and not-so-big-name) Internet Marketers who sell high-quality products, and convincing them to let us sell their stuff at huge discounts here on DealDotCom."

And so on and so forth, blah blah bladdy blah blah blah...

I signed up as an affiliate (accounts are free), but I'm VERY curious to see what kind of internet marketing products they're planning to sell. If there's one thing I'd love to see more of, it would be EFFECTIVE marketing services that can help promote your blog through WHITE-HAT means, without you having to pay for it using Bill Gates' checkbook.

If you do sign up, make sure to check out the site early morning on Sept 18th to see what their first product offering will be. That should give you a good indication of what they'll be selling and whether it's worth your time or not.

www.dealdotcom.com

Finding Your Niche - Marco Spoerrle

2010-01-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

One of the first few and quite challenging tasks faced by people who are starting to work from home for the first time, more commonly referred to as newbies, is finding the right niche or target market to pursue. Finding your niche is indeed crucial for your online career since this will serve as your platform or kind of a blueprint as you tread on this new journey. That’s why you can find or read a lot of useful newbie tips all over the Internet regarding niches and all that.

When finding your niche and eventually choosing that niche for your work from home, you will have to start doing one important thing and that is to know, to learn, to research, to understand. The following are three things or newbie tips on how you can do that effectively:

Knowing something
Start by researching. Find out all about niches, what they really are and their significance in the Internet marketing industry. Then, research what particular niches are hot today. What are the latest trends? Which of the many choices can potentially bring great amounts of income to your hands? Just get out there and use the Internet to find the information you need and those details that you feel will help you tremendously with your decision-making later on. You can go read blog posts, articles and newbie tips like this one. You can join groups and forum discussions. You can chat with people who have some experience and knowledge. There’s so much that you can do and you should start doing it now because that will make you an inch closer to your goals.

Knowing your capabilities
By capabilities, we mean your knowledge, skills and expertise before going into this. Those traits may be able to help you in finding your niche and, more importantly, the right one. There are certain folks who chose niches that are somewhat related to their previous jobs or line of expertise. Someone who worked for a publication may go for niches involving books, e-books, blogs or reviews. There’s a great chance that a person previously involved in sales companies will go for affiliate marketing, stock photography or online selling and will become successful. This is because they can make use of what they already know and integrate that in their chosen niche and their work from home.

Knowing your interests
Another important factor that newbies should take note of is their interests on things. As you start finding your niche for your online business or your work from home, it would also be best to know and find out what your likes are, your desires, your passion, what interests you the most, that type of stuff, for that can also be a huge aid in narrowing down the niche that’s perfect for you. Some Internet marketers were influenced by their interests when they were looking for their target niches. So if you are very much interested in laptops and you think you can do well selling or promoting those, then by all means, do so.

As a newbie, finding your niche can either start your online career or end it right then and there. Therefore, take these newbie tips and reminders seriously because you may just be surprised with what you can do and achieve as an Internet marketer. As long as you stay focused and keep your head in the game, you will be able to do wonders.

Create a Catchy Domain Name with Ease

2010-01-26T19:20:00.000-08:00

Here are some helpful tips and resources:

1. Use already branded ideas (one of my favorites):
seomoz.com (Dmoz.com)
youare.tv (Youtube.com)
The obvious advantage of this approach lies in adding a fixed positive association to your domain name. Consider this, everyone knows and trusts Dmoz and thus by adding -moz to your domain name you get people to trust your new website.

2. Make up new words by adding suffixes:
2.1. Add -ster (very popular): catster.com, dogster.com, friendster.com
2.2. Add a verb forming suffix -ize/-ise: fashionising.com, colourize.com
2.3. Add Latin adjectival suffix -cus: eventicus.com
2.4. Use adjective suffixes
-matic: podomatic.com (podcasts)
-ful: eventful.com
-able: fundable.com

3. An advanced version of the above two: take a well known website name, add your keyword and add a suffix - gamediggity.com

4. Add suffix -er and drop e (also very popular):
talkr.com
socialtrackr.com

5. Go even further: add -er, drop e and make it plural:
sweeprs.com (from sweepstakes)

6. Take advantage of .us top level domain:
thumblicio.us
flickrlicio.us

7. Invent the suffixes of your own:
searchles.com
URLex.info

8. Split your keyword with another word:
mapeire.com (map + empire)
motortopia.com (motor + utopia)

9. Add one letter before your keyword (also must have been invented by Dmoz):
Dcomments.com
furl.net

10. Invent a new word which looks familiar to an existing word (a risky one):
SiteBar.org (sidebar)
wepublic.com (republic)

11. Add your targeted territory name + use any method from above: filipinofriendsterworld.com

12. Drop a letter in the middle of your keyword:
Sk-rt.com

13. Rhyme your keyword:
Flyspy.com

14. Play with your keyword plural form (a bit overused method):
-x instead of -cs: topix.net
-z instead of -s: clickz.com

15. Use an advanced option of the above method: add -z instead of regular -s and add any vowel in the end: piczo.com

16. (also using the 15th one) use your keyword twice (singular + (changed) plural): picpix.com
Things to keep in mind while searching for a domain name:
- Plan ahead: think how easily your new domain name will be branded. Learn from the best: wikitravel.org (from wikipedia.org), Mozbers (SeoMoz + Members), etc.
- Try to avoid potential misspellings (can be referred to the 15th and 11th, for example).
- Make sure your domain name is easily spelled (can be referred to the 5th one)
- Try this tool which can be a real fun.

5 Internet Marketing Tips for Newbies

2010-01-25T01:43:00.000-08:00

Although there are over 100 ways to market your business on the internet, some methods will get you a lot more traffic than others.

Unlike the offline world, where advertising is very effective, content rules the internet. You'll develop a more effective marketing campaign when you focus on strategies centered around developing content for your site.

Below are some of my most effective ways to market online, and I do it all for free.

1. Search Engines
Before you even develop your website, the first thing you should do is focus on the search engines. Organic, i.e. free search engine listings that are highly ranked, will get you far more traffic than using any kind of advertising.

The most important thing you should do here is find the right keywords. You can do this by using any of the pay per click search tools. You can also download a free tool like Good Keywords, http://www.goodkeywords.com

2. Articles
Writing articles not only allows you to brand yourself as an expert, it helps you to create original content for your website. The more quality content pages you have in your site, the higher it will rank in the search engines, and you will also create a viral marketing strategy for your business.

3. Press Releases
Press releases are news. Just like the offline world, where press releases are more effective than advertising, so too are they more effective online.

You should remember to focus on news about your business. Don't make your release a glorified sales letter. It will get rejected.

A simple search for press release writing will help you find resources to help you write an effective press release.

Press releases, like articles, are spider, or search engine food. The search engines love them, and a good release can be very viral.

4. Blogs/RSS
Blogging is the latest craze online. It's a very effective way to promote your business not only because of RSS, but because you can quickly and easily create content without knowing HTML, and with trackback, it has its own built in link building strategy.

RSS is nothing more than a very search engine friendly code that allows you to syndicate your content to other websites, or to be read in RSS readers.

With trackbacks, you can link back to other sites and build your links. This raises your search engine rankings.

5. Free reports
Free reports, like blogs, articles, and press releases, not only allow you to build a content strategy for your website, but you will also create a viral marketing strategy for your site.

A viral marketing strategy is very important because it's mainly passive. If you create good content, your content will be recommended by others. One person reads your content and recommends it to someone else, and before you know it, your content is all over the internet. The more entries you have in the search engines, the more likely you are to be found by your potential customers.

The point is, if you develop an effective content and search engine strategy for your business, you will get your message out a lot faster. Potential customers will find you, and they'll be eager for what you sell because they were already looking for you.

Why Most Internet Marketers Start Out as Affiliates

2010-01-25T01:39:00.000-08:00

If you've just started out with the intention of making money online, one of the first things any Internet marketing eBook will tell you to do is sell affiliate products - but what are they and why would you want to sell them?

An affiliate is a marketer who has chosen to promote somebody else's product for a commission. Commissions can range from a very modest 1% up to a very respectable 80% of the sale price, depending which affiliate program you find to represent.

However, the percentage shouldn't be the main thing you look for when deciding on a product to promote - after all, a small commission on a high ticket product can make you just as much money as a high commission on a much cheaper product.

Why choose to represent affiliate products in the first place? Why not just go the product owner route and have complete control over every aspect of your business?

Well, the most important reasons for you are time and cost - it's more convenient! The majority of people just starting online won't have a product of their own to sell, and it will take them time to research the market for something appropriate to sell and money to develop the product once they've decided on one.

With affiliate marketing, you can jump straight in and get your first taste of selling online quickly and easily - with no money in your start-up coffers. All you do is find a product to promote via ClickBank, PayDotCom, or another marketplace.

Then grab your unique affiliate ID, start generating targeted traffic to the product owner's site, and collect your commissions! Being an affiliate marketer is one of the easiest ways to begin building an online business

7 Small Business Marketing Tips

2010-01-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

1. Don't Advertise Like a Big Business
Big businesses advertise to create name recognition and future sales. A small business can't afford to do that. Instead, design your advertising to produce sales ...now. One way to accomplish this is to always include an offer in your advertising - and an easy way for prospective customers to respond to it.

2. Offer a Cheaper Version
Some prospective customers are not willing to pay the asking price for your product or service. Others are more interested in paying a low price than in getting the best quality. You can avoid losing sales to many of these customers by offering a smaller or stripped down version of your product or service at a lower price.

3. Offer a Premium Version
Not all customers are looking for a cheap price. Many are willing to pay a higher price to get a premium product or service. You can boost your average size sale and your total revenue by offering a more comprehensive product or service ...or by combining several products or services in a special premium package offer for a higher price.

4. Try Some Unusual Marketing Methods
Look for some unconventional marketing methods your competitors are overlooking. You may discover some highly profitable ways to generate sales and avoid competition. For example, print your best small ad on a postcard and mail it to prospects in your targeted market. A small ad on a postcard can drive a high volume of traffic to your website or generate a flood of sales leads for a very small cost.

5. Trim Your Ads
Reduce the size of your ads so you can run more ads for the same cost. You may even be surprised to find that some of your short ads generate a better response than their longer versions.

6. Set up Joint Promotions with Other Small Businesses
Contact some non-competing small businesses serving customers in your market. Offer to publicize their products or services to your customers in exchange for their publicizing your services to their customers. This usually produces a large number of sales for a very low cost.

7. Take Advantage of Your Customers
Your customers already know and trust you. It's easier to get more business from them than to get any business from somebody who never bought from you. Take advantage of this by creating some special deals just for your existing customers ...and announce new products and services to them before you announce them to the general market.

2009-10-05T03:29:00.000-07:00

If rocketing up your sales, and boosting your profits sky high are your goals, then it makes sense to choose us.

We offer professional services and solutions for companies looking to get serious with their e-business initiatives. We are dedicated to driving and increasing targeted traffic to your web site, with one objective - getting more results. We provide internet project management and marketing strategies for companies of all sizes.

Visit marcospoerrle.com for more information.

Marco Spoerrle

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MarcoSpoerrle.com

Marco Spoerrle
MarcoSpoerrle.com