Monday, September 24, 2007
Build A Better Web Site!
The most important thing to consider, when first thinking about any website, is the user. Like so much marketing, websites are, unfortunately, too often developed
'inside out' (company focused) rather than 'outside in' (customer focused).
All website users have their own reasons and objectives for visiting a site. No matter how targeted, any website has to communicate with a wide range of individual users.
To be successful, therefore, every site has to give each and every user a thorough but simple presentation of the site's content so that the site achieves your objectives e.g. registrations, leads, sales. To do this successfully, users want:
Simple Navigation
Navigation that is clear and consistent. Probably the worst issue is 'lost visitors' – those who are in a maze and don't know where they are in the site. The site should always allow users to easily return to the home page and preferably get to any page with one clíck. Studies have shown that users want to find things fast, and this means that they prefer menus with intuitive ranking, organization and multiple choices to many layers of simplified menus. The menu links should be placed in a consistent position on every page.
Clarity
Users do not appreciate an over-designed site. A website should be consistent and predictable. For maximum clarity, your site design should be built on a consistent pattern of modular units that all share the same basic layout, graphics etc.
Designing Websites That Meet Their Objectives
Everything above is pretty simple, but how do you ensure that you can achieve it?
The answer is website architecture – an approach to the design and content that brings together not just design and hostíng but all aspects of function, design, technical solutions and, most importantly, usability. The distinction may seem academic but imagine trying to publish a magazine using just graphic design and printing whilst ignoring content and editing. It just would not work yet that's what too many people still try to do.
Website Architecture
Defining a website using web architecture requires: Site maps, Flow charts,
Wireframes, Storyboards, Templates, Style guide and prototypes. This planning saves you (the client) money. The better the site map, flow chart, wireframe, storyboard, templates, style guide and prototype the more time and money you save because it gives the designer who has to do the graphics and the developer who has to do the programming a blueprint. We are constantly amazed that people who wouldn't think about building a house, car, ship or whatever will still build a website without an architectural plan. The benefits include: Meeting business goals, Improved usability, Reducing unnecessary features, and Faster delivery.
Site Maps
Many people are familiar with site maps on web sites which are generally a cluster of links. An architectural site map is more of a visual model (blueprint) of the pages of a web site. The representation helps everyone to understand what the site is about and the links required as well as the different page templates that will be needed.
Flow Charts
A flowchart is another pictorial or visual representation to help visualize the content and find flaws in the process from say merchandise selection to final payment. It's a pictorial summary that shows with symbols and words the steps, sequence, and relationship of the various operations involved and how they are linked so that the flow of visitors and information through the site is optimized.
Wireframes
Wireframes take their name from the skeletal wire structures that underlie a sculpture. Without this foundation, there is no support for the fleshing-out that creates the finished piece. Wireframes are a basic visual guide to suggest the layout and placement of fundamental design elements on any page. A wireframe shows every clíck through possibility on your site. It's a "text only" model to allow for the development of variations before any expensive graphic design and programming, but one that also helps to maintain design consistency throughout the site.
Creating wireframes allows everyone on the client and developer side to see the site and whether it's 'right' or needs changes without expensive programming. The goal of a wireframe is to ensure your visitors' needs will be met in the website. If you meet their needs, you will meet your objectives.
To create a wireframe requires dialogue. You and your developers talk, to translate your business successfully into a website. Nobody knows your business better than you and your developers should listen to ensure the resulting wireframe accurately represents your business. You, however, must answer the questíons; questíons such as:
What does a visitor do at this point? Where can a visitor go from here? Ignore questíons about what your visitor sees at this point. Sounds easy, but!
Storyboards
Storyboards were first used by Walt Disney to produce cartoons. A storyboard is a "comic" produced to help everyone visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. When creating a film, a storyboard provides a visual layout of events as they are to be seen through the camera. In the case of a website, it is the layout and sequence in which the user or viewer sees the content or information.
However, the wireframe provides the outline for your storyboard. Developers and designers don't need to work in a vacuum - the wireframe guides every design, information architecture, navigation, usability and content consideration. Wireframes define "what is there" while the storyboards define "how it looks".
Templates and Style Guide
Templates are standard layouts containing basic details of a page type that separates the business (follow the $) logic from the presentation (graphics etc) logic so that there can be maximum flexibility in presentation while disrupting the underlying business infrastructure as little as possible.
Style guides document the design requirements for a site. They define font classes and other design conventions (line spacing, font sizes, underlining, bullet types etc.) to be followed in the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) used to provide a library of styles that are used in the various page types in a web site.
Prototypes
A prototype is working model that is not yet finished. It demonstrates the major technical, design, and content features of the site. A prototype does not have the same testing and documentation as the final product, but allows client and developers to make sure, once again, that the final product works in the way that is wanted and meets the business objectives.
Once you have built your virtual site, it's a lot quicker, easier and cheaper to build the real one.
Increase Site Trust, Get The Privacy Seal!
'inside out' (company focused) rather than 'outside in' (customer focused).
All website users have their own reasons and objectives for visiting a site. No matter how targeted, any website has to communicate with a wide range of individual users.
To be successful, therefore, every site has to give each and every user a thorough but simple presentation of the site's content so that the site achieves your objectives e.g. registrations, leads, sales. To do this successfully, users want:
Simple Navigation
Navigation that is clear and consistent. Probably the worst issue is 'lost visitors' – those who are in a maze and don't know where they are in the site. The site should always allow users to easily return to the home page and preferably get to any page with one clíck. Studies have shown that users want to find things fast, and this means that they prefer menus with intuitive ranking, organization and multiple choices to many layers of simplified menus. The menu links should be placed in a consistent position on every page.
Clarity
Users do not appreciate an over-designed site. A website should be consistent and predictable. For maximum clarity, your site design should be built on a consistent pattern of modular units that all share the same basic layout, graphics etc.
Designing Websites That Meet Their Objectives
Everything above is pretty simple, but how do you ensure that you can achieve it?
The answer is website architecture – an approach to the design and content that brings together not just design and hostíng but all aspects of function, design, technical solutions and, most importantly, usability. The distinction may seem academic but imagine trying to publish a magazine using just graphic design and printing whilst ignoring content and editing. It just would not work yet that's what too many people still try to do.
Website Architecture
Defining a website using web architecture requires: Site maps, Flow charts,
Wireframes, Storyboards, Templates, Style guide and prototypes. This planning saves you (the client) money. The better the site map, flow chart, wireframe, storyboard, templates, style guide and prototype the more time and money you save because it gives the designer who has to do the graphics and the developer who has to do the programming a blueprint. We are constantly amazed that people who wouldn't think about building a house, car, ship or whatever will still build a website without an architectural plan. The benefits include: Meeting business goals, Improved usability, Reducing unnecessary features, and Faster delivery.
Site Maps
Many people are familiar with site maps on web sites which are generally a cluster of links. An architectural site map is more of a visual model (blueprint) of the pages of a web site. The representation helps everyone to understand what the site is about and the links required as well as the different page templates that will be needed.
Flow Charts
A flowchart is another pictorial or visual representation to help visualize the content and find flaws in the process from say merchandise selection to final payment. It's a pictorial summary that shows with symbols and words the steps, sequence, and relationship of the various operations involved and how they are linked so that the flow of visitors and information through the site is optimized.
Wireframes
Wireframes take their name from the skeletal wire structures that underlie a sculpture. Without this foundation, there is no support for the fleshing-out that creates the finished piece. Wireframes are a basic visual guide to suggest the layout and placement of fundamental design elements on any page. A wireframe shows every clíck through possibility on your site. It's a "text only" model to allow for the development of variations before any expensive graphic design and programming, but one that also helps to maintain design consistency throughout the site.
Creating wireframes allows everyone on the client and developer side to see the site and whether it's 'right' or needs changes without expensive programming. The goal of a wireframe is to ensure your visitors' needs will be met in the website. If you meet their needs, you will meet your objectives.
To create a wireframe requires dialogue. You and your developers talk, to translate your business successfully into a website. Nobody knows your business better than you and your developers should listen to ensure the resulting wireframe accurately represents your business. You, however, must answer the questíons; questíons such as:
What does a visitor do at this point? Where can a visitor go from here? Ignore questíons about what your visitor sees at this point. Sounds easy, but!
Storyboards
Storyboards were first used by Walt Disney to produce cartoons. A storyboard is a "comic" produced to help everyone visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. When creating a film, a storyboard provides a visual layout of events as they are to be seen through the camera. In the case of a website, it is the layout and sequence in which the user or viewer sees the content or information.
However, the wireframe provides the outline for your storyboard. Developers and designers don't need to work in a vacuum - the wireframe guides every design, information architecture, navigation, usability and content consideration. Wireframes define "what is there" while the storyboards define "how it looks".
Templates and Style Guide
Templates are standard layouts containing basic details of a page type that separates the business (follow the $) logic from the presentation (graphics etc) logic so that there can be maximum flexibility in presentation while disrupting the underlying business infrastructure as little as possible.
Style guides document the design requirements for a site. They define font classes and other design conventions (line spacing, font sizes, underlining, bullet types etc.) to be followed in the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) used to provide a library of styles that are used in the various page types in a web site.
Prototypes
A prototype is working model that is not yet finished. It demonstrates the major technical, design, and content features of the site. A prototype does not have the same testing and documentation as the final product, but allows client and developers to make sure, once again, that the final product works in the way that is wanted and meets the business objectives.
Once you have built your virtual site, it's a lot quicker, easier and cheaper to build the real one.
Increase Site Trust, Get The Privacy Seal!
Landing A Top Ten Ranking In Google...
Most webmasters go totally "gaga" for top 10 rankings in Google. And for good reason, Google is the most dominant search engine on the net and will deliver the largest amount of traffíc. More importantly, those same webmasters will also inform you, getting top 10 rankings in Google often means your site will prove profitable. Mainly because obtaining targeted traffíc is usually your first obstacle in creating a viable online business. In other words, if you get top ten listings in Google for good searchable keywords, it is almost impossible not to earn money.
First, you must know the rudimentary basics of how keywords work. Keywords and keyword phrases are the exact words someone types into a search engine to find what they're looking for online. If you have a site on "dog training" then your goal is to get a top 10 ranking for the keywords "dog training". Now if no one searches for "dog training" it would be a useless keyword, you would get no traffíc no matter how perfectly your site is optimized for that keyword.
To find out, you have to do some keyword research on your particular keywords. Many professional online marketers use keyword research software like Brad Callen's Keyword Elite. However, you can also use the keyword suggestion tools supplied by Google Adwords or Overture.
Now if you chëck "dog training", you will find it receives around 4,469 searches each day. That's a lot of traffíc but you must realize that it may be too good, or rather too competitive for your purposes, especially if you have a new site. The most common mistake most novice webmasters make is targeting keywords which are too competitive. You simply will not be able to compete or place for extremely competitive keywords. Well established sites and businesses with very deep pockets have the resources to completely dominate those keywords.
While it is not entirely futile nor a waste of time to concentrate your efforts on highly competitive keywords, you will have better success if you target low to medium competitive keywords. Besides online marketers have discovered that longer keyword phrases are usually the most lucrative. These phrases deliver traffíc which is better targeted and more likely to convert into a sale. "Dog hunting training" which gets around 100 searches a day will be more targeted than the general term "dog training" and if you have a site devoted to training hunting dogs then this keyword phrase may convert better for you.
Always keep this "Long Tail" keyword strategy in the back of your mind as you implement the following steps to achieve your own Top 10 Rankings in Google.
1. Make A Master Keyword Líst
Your first step is to make a master líst of the keywords you wish to target. Obviously these should be closely related to the theme of your site. Chëck the keyword competition by seeing how many sites are listed in Google for that keyword. Webmasters should also chëck the Google PageRank of the sites that hold the top 10 positions. If all those sites are PR6 and above it may be hard to get ranked high for your keywords.
2. Choose Related Keywords
Once you have your master líst of keywords, find long tail related keywords to target. Again, chëck out the competition and daily searches made for each chosen keyword.
3. Use Quality Content For Your Keywords
Creating quality content should always be your main goal. Write for actual visitors who will see and read your content. First and foremost you must have good useful content that your visitors will use themselves and recommend to their friends or colleagues. Tie this quality content in with your chosen keywords. Use one keyword phrase per page.
4. Keyword In Domain Name, Title and URLs
Having your keyword in your domain name will score big points from search engines. Plus, each page of content should contain your keywords in the title & meta tags for that page. Most experts also suggest you have your keyword in the URL and use hyphens to separate your keywords. Although the author has gotten good results by using an underscore and htm in URLs. Example: www.yoursite.com/your_keyword.htm
5. Do On Page Optimization
Keyword ratio is a much discussed topic by SEO experts and many suggest you should have your keyword in the H1 or headline title of your page. Sprinkle your keyword and variations of it throughout your page. Don't over do it but make sure the robot/spiders will clearly discover what your page is about. Many webmasters make sure they include their main keyword in the first and last 25 words on their pages.
6. Use Traffíc Modules
One technique that works extremely well in Google is clustering a closely related topic or subject into a distinct separate section on your site. For example, if you have a marketing site, you could create a whole section on article marketing where you would have 50 to 100 keyworded pages all relating to your subject. Writing articles, formatting articles, submitting articles, article software... place a keyword linked menu on each page to connect all your pages together. Keep in mind, your main objective is to supply quality information to your visitors. One reason Google may favor this type of structure is because they want quality content returned in their SERPs.
7. Try Article Marketing
Article marketing is writing short informative articles on keyword topics related to your sites. You then submit these helpful keyworded articles to ezine directories on the web. When your articles are picked up by related sites, you receive quality One-Way links. The higher the quality of your article, the more links you will receive.
Another ranking tactic to use: If you're just starting out your site will probably have a low PR rank and you will find it hard to rank for even modest keywords. That's why it's useful to take advantage of the higher PageRank of the major ezine directories. Your keyworded articles on these high PR sites will get picked up by Google and displayed in the top 10 rankings. Now the displayed URL will be the article directory site but the links in the resource box will be pointing back to your site. Over time this article marketing technique will raise your own site's rankings for those keywords. Simple but effective.
8. Anchor Text And One Way Links
Off page optimization is important in obtaining high rankings in Google. Getting quality One-Way links is very important. Anchor Text simply refers to "the underlined clicked on words" in your links. Most webmasters include their keywords in their anchor text as this tells the search engines exactly what the links are about.
9. Tags, Blogging And Web 2.0
Take advantage of Web 2.0 by using blogs, RSS feeds and the social bookmarking sites like Reddit and Digg. Try AddThis.com for a simple social bookmarking system. At the very least your site should have a blog and RSS feed attached to it as this is an effective way of boosting your keyword rankings. Tags have become very important for getting higher rankings. Keep in mind, in free blogging software such as WordPress, categories will automatically be seen as tags. Blogger, which is owned by Google, now has a form where you put your keywords (tags) for each post you make.
10. PPC vs Organic Search
Of course, one of the fastest ways to get your links displayed on Google is to pay for them by using Google Adwords. Your ad and links will sit side by side with the organic link results. In Pay Per Clíck advertising you bid or pay so much per clíck for your keywords and you only pay when someone clicks your links. But smart marketers also know since you're getting millíons of impressions advertising your products, acquiring name recognition and branding through PPC advertising can be a major side-benefit.
However, most webmasters would say that organic links (SERPS) will return better traffíc than paid links or advertising. In most cases, this may be true because Google's organic rankings are becoming more respected and more trusted by users. They simply carry more weíght with surfers.
This makes it even more beneficial to obtain top 10 rankings for your keywords in Google. Depending on the competitiveness of your chosen keywords reaching the first page listing or even the favored number one spot is well within any webmaster's reach. Just go for it. The rewards are well worth your efforts.
Site Credibility Pays. Join Guardian eCommerce!
First, you must know the rudimentary basics of how keywords work. Keywords and keyword phrases are the exact words someone types into a search engine to find what they're looking for online. If you have a site on "dog training" then your goal is to get a top 10 ranking for the keywords "dog training". Now if no one searches for "dog training" it would be a useless keyword, you would get no traffíc no matter how perfectly your site is optimized for that keyword.
To find out, you have to do some keyword research on your particular keywords. Many professional online marketers use keyword research software like Brad Callen's Keyword Elite. However, you can also use the keyword suggestion tools supplied by Google Adwords or Overture.
Now if you chëck "dog training", you will find it receives around 4,469 searches each day. That's a lot of traffíc but you must realize that it may be too good, or rather too competitive for your purposes, especially if you have a new site. The most common mistake most novice webmasters make is targeting keywords which are too competitive. You simply will not be able to compete or place for extremely competitive keywords. Well established sites and businesses with very deep pockets have the resources to completely dominate those keywords.
While it is not entirely futile nor a waste of time to concentrate your efforts on highly competitive keywords, you will have better success if you target low to medium competitive keywords. Besides online marketers have discovered that longer keyword phrases are usually the most lucrative. These phrases deliver traffíc which is better targeted and more likely to convert into a sale. "Dog hunting training" which gets around 100 searches a day will be more targeted than the general term "dog training" and if you have a site devoted to training hunting dogs then this keyword phrase may convert better for you.
Always keep this "Long Tail" keyword strategy in the back of your mind as you implement the following steps to achieve your own Top 10 Rankings in Google.
1. Make A Master Keyword Líst
Your first step is to make a master líst of the keywords you wish to target. Obviously these should be closely related to the theme of your site. Chëck the keyword competition by seeing how many sites are listed in Google for that keyword. Webmasters should also chëck the Google PageRank of the sites that hold the top 10 positions. If all those sites are PR6 and above it may be hard to get ranked high for your keywords.
2. Choose Related Keywords
Once you have your master líst of keywords, find long tail related keywords to target. Again, chëck out the competition and daily searches made for each chosen keyword.
3. Use Quality Content For Your Keywords
Creating quality content should always be your main goal. Write for actual visitors who will see and read your content. First and foremost you must have good useful content that your visitors will use themselves and recommend to their friends or colleagues. Tie this quality content in with your chosen keywords. Use one keyword phrase per page.
4. Keyword In Domain Name, Title and URLs
Having your keyword in your domain name will score big points from search engines. Plus, each page of content should contain your keywords in the title & meta tags for that page. Most experts also suggest you have your keyword in the URL and use hyphens to separate your keywords. Although the author has gotten good results by using an underscore and htm in URLs. Example: www.yoursite.com/your_keyword.htm
5. Do On Page Optimization
Keyword ratio is a much discussed topic by SEO experts and many suggest you should have your keyword in the H1 or headline title of your page. Sprinkle your keyword and variations of it throughout your page. Don't over do it but make sure the robot/spiders will clearly discover what your page is about. Many webmasters make sure they include their main keyword in the first and last 25 words on their pages.
6. Use Traffíc Modules
One technique that works extremely well in Google is clustering a closely related topic or subject into a distinct separate section on your site. For example, if you have a marketing site, you could create a whole section on article marketing where you would have 50 to 100 keyworded pages all relating to your subject. Writing articles, formatting articles, submitting articles, article software... place a keyword linked menu on each page to connect all your pages together. Keep in mind, your main objective is to supply quality information to your visitors. One reason Google may favor this type of structure is because they want quality content returned in their SERPs.
7. Try Article Marketing
Article marketing is writing short informative articles on keyword topics related to your sites. You then submit these helpful keyworded articles to ezine directories on the web. When your articles are picked up by related sites, you receive quality One-Way links. The higher the quality of your article, the more links you will receive.
Another ranking tactic to use: If you're just starting out your site will probably have a low PR rank and you will find it hard to rank for even modest keywords. That's why it's useful to take advantage of the higher PageRank of the major ezine directories. Your keyworded articles on these high PR sites will get picked up by Google and displayed in the top 10 rankings. Now the displayed URL will be the article directory site but the links in the resource box will be pointing back to your site. Over time this article marketing technique will raise your own site's rankings for those keywords. Simple but effective.
8. Anchor Text And One Way Links
Off page optimization is important in obtaining high rankings in Google. Getting quality One-Way links is very important. Anchor Text simply refers to "the underlined clicked on words" in your links. Most webmasters include their keywords in their anchor text as this tells the search engines exactly what the links are about.
9. Tags, Blogging And Web 2.0
Take advantage of Web 2.0 by using blogs, RSS feeds and the social bookmarking sites like Reddit and Digg. Try AddThis.com for a simple social bookmarking system. At the very least your site should have a blog and RSS feed attached to it as this is an effective way of boosting your keyword rankings. Tags have become very important for getting higher rankings. Keep in mind, in free blogging software such as WordPress, categories will automatically be seen as tags. Blogger, which is owned by Google, now has a form where you put your keywords (tags) for each post you make.
10. PPC vs Organic Search
Of course, one of the fastest ways to get your links displayed on Google is to pay for them by using Google Adwords. Your ad and links will sit side by side with the organic link results. In Pay Per Clíck advertising you bid or pay so much per clíck for your keywords and you only pay when someone clicks your links. But smart marketers also know since you're getting millíons of impressions advertising your products, acquiring name recognition and branding through PPC advertising can be a major side-benefit.
However, most webmasters would say that organic links (SERPS) will return better traffíc than paid links or advertising. In most cases, this may be true because Google's organic rankings are becoming more respected and more trusted by users. They simply carry more weíght with surfers.
This makes it even more beneficial to obtain top 10 rankings for your keywords in Google. Depending on the competitiveness of your chosen keywords reaching the first page listing or even the favored number one spot is well within any webmaster's reach. Just go for it. The rewards are well worth your efforts.
Site Credibility Pays. Join Guardian eCommerce!
Facebook Launches $10M Fund
Just two months after venture capital firm Bay Partners launched a fund for Facebook developers, Facebook itself and two of its backers have done much the same thing with a new US$10 million program. Dubbed the "fbFund," the program aims to create continuing incentives for the development of Facebook applications by doling out grants of between $25,000 and $250,000 for anyone interested in building a business on the Facebook Platform. No strings are attached, other than the requirement that the funds be used to build the company on Facebook. Additional capital could follow later.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the fund on Monday during a talk at the TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco. The program will be administered by Facebook and funded by Accel Partners and The Founders Fund, both backers of the wildly popular social networking site. "We are forming this fund to help grow the Facebook application ecosystem," Facebook said. "By decreasing the barrier to start a company, we hope to entice an even larger group of people to become entrepreneurs and build a compelling business on Facebook Platform. We hope this is also a funding model that other venture capitalists will follow."
The fund is open to any individual or company anywhere in the world who has not previously raised any formal venture funding. An online submission process will be created in the next few weeks, Facebook said; until then, business plans can be e-mailed to platform@facebook.com.
Proposals will be reviewed by an advisory committee that includes Reid Hoffman, founder and chairman of LinkedIn; Josh Koppelman, founder of First Round Capital; and Rajeev Motwani, professor of computer science at Stanford University and an early advisor to Google, Facebook said. Approval will come from an investment committee that includes Zuckerberg along with Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook vice president of product marketing and operations, and two Facebook board members representing Accel and The Founder Fund. The goal is to get decisions to applicants within a month, Facebook said.
The Founders Fund and Accel Partners will have the right to fund applicant companies first, but otherwise no equity or debt will be associated with any grant made. Most venture capital funding, by contrast, requires equity in return. Founded in 2004, Facebook currently has some 41 million users. It opened up its application programming interface to developers in May, allowing for the creation of applications tailored to the site.
"This is a smart thing for Facebook to do," Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, said. "They want to keep the momentum going, and to get people engaged in creating rich applications that go beyond the level most are at now." Google did something similar with Google Gadgets, Sterling noted. Ultimately, one result of the fbFund could be a group of startups that launch only Facebook-specific applications, he said. "For Facebook, it's a small amount of money, but this could encourage continued development after the initial novelty dies down," Sterling said.
"Facebook is trying to diversify and get deeper, with more serious and complicated applications," Mike Gotta, principal analyst with Burton Group, said. A recent mashup of Salesforce.com and Facebook dubbed "Faceforce," for example, highlights some of the platform's potential to go further than most applications do so far, Gotta explained. "In the long run, the deeper applications that do something to cause a 'wow' factor -- like the Faceforce mashup did -- spark ideas," Gotta said. "That's important not just to Facebook, but to other social networking platforms as well, providing ideas for how to build more purposeful applications.
"Right now, what we have just scratches the surface," Gotta concluded. "These new types of applications are much harder to build, and special funds like this might be necessary to make them happen."
Join The Privacy Seal Program, Let Your Site's Credibility PAY!
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the fund on Monday during a talk at the TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco. The program will be administered by Facebook and funded by Accel Partners and The Founders Fund, both backers of the wildly popular social networking site. "We are forming this fund to help grow the Facebook application ecosystem," Facebook said. "By decreasing the barrier to start a company, we hope to entice an even larger group of people to become entrepreneurs and build a compelling business on Facebook Platform. We hope this is also a funding model that other venture capitalists will follow."
The fund is open to any individual or company anywhere in the world who has not previously raised any formal venture funding. An online submission process will be created in the next few weeks, Facebook said; until then, business plans can be e-mailed to platform@facebook.com.
Proposals will be reviewed by an advisory committee that includes Reid Hoffman, founder and chairman of LinkedIn; Josh Koppelman, founder of First Round Capital; and Rajeev Motwani, professor of computer science at Stanford University and an early advisor to Google, Facebook said. Approval will come from an investment committee that includes Zuckerberg along with Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook vice president of product marketing and operations, and two Facebook board members representing Accel and The Founder Fund. The goal is to get decisions to applicants within a month, Facebook said.
The Founders Fund and Accel Partners will have the right to fund applicant companies first, but otherwise no equity or debt will be associated with any grant made. Most venture capital funding, by contrast, requires equity in return. Founded in 2004, Facebook currently has some 41 million users. It opened up its application programming interface to developers in May, allowing for the creation of applications tailored to the site.
"This is a smart thing for Facebook to do," Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, said. "They want to keep the momentum going, and to get people engaged in creating rich applications that go beyond the level most are at now." Google did something similar with Google Gadgets, Sterling noted. Ultimately, one result of the fbFund could be a group of startups that launch only Facebook-specific applications, he said. "For Facebook, it's a small amount of money, but this could encourage continued development after the initial novelty dies down," Sterling said.
"Facebook is trying to diversify and get deeper, with more serious and complicated applications," Mike Gotta, principal analyst with Burton Group, said. A recent mashup of Salesforce.com and Facebook dubbed "Faceforce," for example, highlights some of the platform's potential to go further than most applications do so far, Gotta explained. "In the long run, the deeper applications that do something to cause a 'wow' factor -- like the Faceforce mashup did -- spark ideas," Gotta said. "That's important not just to Facebook, but to other social networking platforms as well, providing ideas for how to build more purposeful applications.
"Right now, what we have just scratches the surface," Gotta concluded. "These new types of applications are much harder to build, and special funds like this might be necessary to make them happen."
Join The Privacy Seal Program, Let Your Site's Credibility PAY!
Scam Alert On Domain Hijacking
There's a frightening new batch of scams going around now that can damage your reputation as domain "squatters" steal your domain name. There are a number of ways the "game" is played. The first is entirely legal, if more than a little questionable. In this version, the name of a city or geographic area is grabbed by a domain squatter and pointed to... "sites that you wouldn't want your children visiting."
A prominent notice is placed on the sites, offering them for sale at prices that range from $2500 to as much as $500,000! The idea here is that city officials will feel that enough damage is being done to the reputations of their towns that they'll pay to keep them from being associated with that type of material. It's obviously safe to say that it's not appropriate to pop those kinds of images into people's faces while they're looking for info on a completely different topic. That's where the pressure on the cities comes from, and why this is such a disgusting scheme.
In essence, the domain squatter says: "Pay us, or continue to watch as your city's reputation suffers." Many would call this blackmail... The second variation on the theme is not always legal. When someone takes a trademarked name (or variation of the spelling of one) or a famous person's name, and does the same thing.
For trademarks or close variations, there's a specific procedure for addressing the problem. (See the resource section at the end of this issue.) For the names of famous people, there MAY be a remedy. But, it can be tricky -- and expensive. For example, if someone named John Jones registered http://WalterCronkite.com and pointed it to one of "those" sites, Walter Cronkite could probably force the domain away from him.
However, if someone named Steve Cronkite registered http://Cronkite.com and did the same thing, Walter Cronkite would have no recourse. It would be very hard to demonstrate that Steve registered the domain in bad faith. And if Steve's son's name is Walter, the same is true for http://WalterCronkite.com.
If you feel that your name is likely to be typed into a browser when people are looking for information on you, you should consider getting both the .com and .net versions of the domain if they're available. It will cost you a few bucks to prevent the problem. Fixing it, assuming you win, will cost you hundreds -- if not thousands -- of dollars.
And there's no guarantëe you'll win. A third version is a bit more benign. It's common among members of affilíate programs. In this version, names very close to, or even including, the trademark are registered. The sites are created to drive traffíc to the affiliates' URL at the main site.
This may or may not be acceptable to the affilíate program owner. If it is, it's a good technique for getting traffíc. If not, it could get you into hot water. Chëck with the owner of the trademark before doing this. Less benign is an alternative version of this technique where someone grabs domain names that are close to the trademark of a competitor and uses them to grab competitor type-in traffíc. This is often done by finding out the most common misspellings of the real domain name or trademark. Watch for people doing this with your domain. Here's the worst version of this -- and it can hit anyone if they have enough traffíc and don't pay close attention to when their domain registrations expire.
In this situation, someone grabs expired domain names and points them to "those" kinds of sites. This is a "no löse" for the hijacker, as they will profít from the traffíc even if the previous owner doesn't pay the requested ransom for the domain.
The more traffíc the URL gets, the greater the clickthrough value to the hijacker. This means more potential damage to the original owner -- and a higher ransom to get it back. In effect, your own popularity is your worst enemy in this case.
The solution to this one is simple -- and very important: Don't let your domain names expire! If you have a famous name or trademark, the best defense is to make sure that you register the main variations in both the .com and .net form. The .org is probably only necessary if you are heavily involved with charitable activities. Protect yourself. Scammers come up with new schemes all the time... so keep your eyes open.
For a more formal explanation of the legal aspects of this problem, visit: LLRX.com.
For specific information on the UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy), the procedure for taking domain names that are being used in violation of a trademark, see World Intellectual Property Center.
Choose Guardian eCommerce, Site Credibility Pays!
A prominent notice is placed on the sites, offering them for sale at prices that range from $2500 to as much as $500,000! The idea here is that city officials will feel that enough damage is being done to the reputations of their towns that they'll pay to keep them from being associated with that type of material. It's obviously safe to say that it's not appropriate to pop those kinds of images into people's faces while they're looking for info on a completely different topic. That's where the pressure on the cities comes from, and why this is such a disgusting scheme.
In essence, the domain squatter says: "Pay us, or continue to watch as your city's reputation suffers." Many would call this blackmail... The second variation on the theme is not always legal. When someone takes a trademarked name (or variation of the spelling of one) or a famous person's name, and does the same thing.
For trademarks or close variations, there's a specific procedure for addressing the problem. (See the resource section at the end of this issue.) For the names of famous people, there MAY be a remedy. But, it can be tricky -- and expensive. For example, if someone named John Jones registered http://WalterCronkite.com and pointed it to one of "those" sites, Walter Cronkite could probably force the domain away from him.
However, if someone named Steve Cronkite registered http://Cronkite.com and did the same thing, Walter Cronkite would have no recourse. It would be very hard to demonstrate that Steve registered the domain in bad faith. And if Steve's son's name is Walter, the same is true for http://WalterCronkite.com.
If you feel that your name is likely to be typed into a browser when people are looking for information on you, you should consider getting both the .com and .net versions of the domain if they're available. It will cost you a few bucks to prevent the problem. Fixing it, assuming you win, will cost you hundreds -- if not thousands -- of dollars.
And there's no guarantëe you'll win. A third version is a bit more benign. It's common among members of affilíate programs. In this version, names very close to, or even including, the trademark are registered. The sites are created to drive traffíc to the affiliates' URL at the main site.
This may or may not be acceptable to the affilíate program owner. If it is, it's a good technique for getting traffíc. If not, it could get you into hot water. Chëck with the owner of the trademark before doing this. Less benign is an alternative version of this technique where someone grabs domain names that are close to the trademark of a competitor and uses them to grab competitor type-in traffíc. This is often done by finding out the most common misspellings of the real domain name or trademark. Watch for people doing this with your domain. Here's the worst version of this -- and it can hit anyone if they have enough traffíc and don't pay close attention to when their domain registrations expire.
In this situation, someone grabs expired domain names and points them to "those" kinds of sites. This is a "no löse" for the hijacker, as they will profít from the traffíc even if the previous owner doesn't pay the requested ransom for the domain.
The more traffíc the URL gets, the greater the clickthrough value to the hijacker. This means more potential damage to the original owner -- and a higher ransom to get it back. In effect, your own popularity is your worst enemy in this case.
The solution to this one is simple -- and very important: Don't let your domain names expire! If you have a famous name or trademark, the best defense is to make sure that you register the main variations in both the .com and .net form. The .org is probably only necessary if you are heavily involved with charitable activities. Protect yourself. Scammers come up with new schemes all the time... so keep your eyes open.
For a more formal explanation of the legal aspects of this problem, visit: LLRX.com.
For specific information on the UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy), the procedure for taking domain names that are being used in violation of a trademark, see World Intellectual Property Center.
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Sunday, September 09, 2007
Domain Names: The Latest Real Estate Deals
Many of us have thought of "locking up" a killer domain name or Web address. Then, all we'd have to do is find a buyer. Some people with whom I speak tell me that all of the good domain names have been registered. Personally, I think that an enterprising and savvy person can still make a big score in online "real estate."
Through the first half of this year, we have seen some domain names fetch in the millions: Porn.com -- US$9.5 million; Chinese.com -- $1.12 million; Topix.com -- $1 million. I'd say that there still is a thriving and growing market for domain names, defined as an alpha-numeric designation used to identify a particular computer or address on the Internet.
There is a major player out of Waltham, Mass., called "NameMedia." I recently went to their Web site, and here is how they describe their domain name marketplace:
"NameMedia combines the industry's largest portfolio of premium domain names with SiteMarket, our domain valuation platform designed to drive the most dynamic marketplace for revenue-generating online properties."
According to an article in the New York Times, this company owns 750,000 domain names. It is playing a big role in the latest gold rush, the frenzy over prime cyberspace. With that many domain names in their portfolio, NameMedia certainly has critical mass on its side. Another major player is Sedo.com, a German-based company with offices in the U.S. According to a recent article in the Boston Globe, this company "handles more than $3 million of transactions every month, acting as kind of an eBay for domain names." That same article talks about Internet Real Estate Group that "takes a luxury developer's approach to the domain name game." This approach has focused on companies such as jeans.com, chocolate.com and software.com.
Incredibly (and rightly so, in my opinion), we're now talking about domain names in the same way that we speak of real estate. It is -- after all -- real estate, albeit virtual or cyber-real estate. I have no doubt that the laws applicable to this type of real estate are adapting to accommodate this new and fascinating market.
A recent Google search of "domain names" gave me 112 million hits, dealing with such things as domain name registration, domain name sales , how to reserve a domain name and how to search for a domain name. It is quite obvious that a major market has developed for cyber-real estate. In fact, venture capitalists are funding companies that are specializing in domain name acquisitions and sales. When venture capitalists start focusing on an industry, one can rest assured that there is a good probability that such an industry is here to stay and will remain profitable.
Just as the real estate industry has dedicated journals and magazines, so does the domain name industry. There is an online publication called the "DN Journal" that has quite a bit of data on the industry. This journal calls itself the "domain industry news magazine." If you go to its Web site, you'll see links to articles, legal matters and latest news. Another online resource is a publication called "PlusDomains.com." This publication has links to news articles, domains for sale and domain parking, among others.
I consider the Internet as a virtual reflection of the entire world economy. Just about every business of any significance has a Web site -- thus a domain name. In fact, many individuals presently have their own Web site. With the economy constantly changing, and with so many new businesses and industries being spawned, I have no doubt that the future is a bright one for virtual real estate brokers.
The competition is obviously severe -- it usually is. But by all means, if you can think of a domain name that someone or some company would covet, register it. It's an easy process, and it's relatively inexpensive to maintain an active domain name.
Since the world economy is constantly evolving, one has to be aware of which industries are coming into being and what names would lead Internet surfers to their sites. Then, it's a matter of registering the name and keeping it active until either you are approached to sell it, or you go to a broker who will sell it for you.
Assuming that you have a domain name with cachet, you shouldn't have any trouble disposing of it. The trick is to come up with a domain that will be actively sought after. There's the rub. Keep an eye on the economy and evolving industries. Then, try to create catchy domain names that would appeal to some of the companies in those industries. The rest is easy -- you will either be approached to sell your domain name or a broker will approach you. In either case, you have nothing to lose.
Good luck!
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Through the first half of this year, we have seen some domain names fetch in the millions: Porn.com -- US$9.5 million; Chinese.com -- $1.12 million; Topix.com -- $1 million. I'd say that there still is a thriving and growing market for domain names, defined as an alpha-numeric designation used to identify a particular computer or address on the Internet.
There is a major player out of Waltham, Mass., called "NameMedia." I recently went to their Web site, and here is how they describe their domain name marketplace:
"NameMedia combines the industry's largest portfolio of premium domain names with SiteMarket, our domain valuation platform designed to drive the most dynamic marketplace for revenue-generating online properties."
According to an article in the New York Times, this company owns 750,000 domain names. It is playing a big role in the latest gold rush, the frenzy over prime cyberspace. With that many domain names in their portfolio, NameMedia certainly has critical mass on its side. Another major player is Sedo.com, a German-based company with offices in the U.S. According to a recent article in the Boston Globe, this company "handles more than $3 million of transactions every month, acting as kind of an eBay for domain names." That same article talks about Internet Real Estate Group that "takes a luxury developer's approach to the domain name game." This approach has focused on companies such as jeans.com, chocolate.com and software.com.
Incredibly (and rightly so, in my opinion), we're now talking about domain names in the same way that we speak of real estate. It is -- after all -- real estate, albeit virtual or cyber-real estate. I have no doubt that the laws applicable to this type of real estate are adapting to accommodate this new and fascinating market.
A recent Google search of "domain names" gave me 112 million hits, dealing with such things as domain name registration, domain name sales , how to reserve a domain name and how to search for a domain name. It is quite obvious that a major market has developed for cyber-real estate. In fact, venture capitalists are funding companies that are specializing in domain name acquisitions and sales. When venture capitalists start focusing on an industry, one can rest assured that there is a good probability that such an industry is here to stay and will remain profitable.
Just as the real estate industry has dedicated journals and magazines, so does the domain name industry. There is an online publication called the "DN Journal" that has quite a bit of data on the industry. This journal calls itself the "domain industry news magazine." If you go to its Web site, you'll see links to articles, legal matters and latest news. Another online resource is a publication called "PlusDomains.com." This publication has links to news articles, domains for sale and domain parking, among others.
I consider the Internet as a virtual reflection of the entire world economy. Just about every business of any significance has a Web site -- thus a domain name. In fact, many individuals presently have their own Web site. With the economy constantly changing, and with so many new businesses and industries being spawned, I have no doubt that the future is a bright one for virtual real estate brokers.
The competition is obviously severe -- it usually is. But by all means, if you can think of a domain name that someone or some company would covet, register it. It's an easy process, and it's relatively inexpensive to maintain an active domain name.
Since the world economy is constantly evolving, one has to be aware of which industries are coming into being and what names would lead Internet surfers to their sites. Then, it's a matter of registering the name and keeping it active until either you are approached to sell it, or you go to a broker who will sell it for you.
Assuming that you have a domain name with cachet, you shouldn't have any trouble disposing of it. The trick is to come up with a domain that will be actively sought after. There's the rub. Keep an eye on the economy and evolving industries. Then, try to create catchy domain names that would appeal to some of the companies in those industries. The rest is easy -- you will either be approached to sell your domain name or a broker will approach you. In either case, you have nothing to lose.
Good luck!
Site Credibility From Guardian eCommerce... PAYS!
Search Engine Wars - A Shifting Battle Plan?
The fact that the name "Google" is often used interchangeably with the verb "search" today speaks volumes about the current state of the search market. "Right now it's Google's game to lose," Kevin Lee, executive chairman and cofounder of search marketing company Didit, said. "They are synonymous with search, and thus far they've been doing a good job of executing, keeping it lean and relevant." How long that dominance will continue is not yet clear. Yahoo, Microsoft and a number of others are trying hard to wrest control away from Google using a variety of tactics they hope will convince at least a chunk of the market to switch.
Much of the talk about search engines today focuses on ways to monetize the technology, but really, the search war is being fought on two fronts, Lee said: "One for the eyeballs, and another for the money." The money only happens once the eyeballs are there, he adds. "You have to get the traffic first. Until you have a significant chunk of traffic, you won't even be able to get advertisers' attention."
Getting the traffic, of course, is no easy feat if you're not Google, and traditional approaches to attracting consumers have met with only mixed success. "Even if you're better, you won't necessarily be able to convince users to switch to you unless they can perceive the difference," Lee pointed out. "In the old battle between VHS and Betamax, every technical person agreed Betamax was better, yet VHS won anyway."
An advertising campaign by Ask.com, for example, garnered underwhelming results, and other traditional techniques haven't done much better, Lee noted. One notable exception has been a game contest used by Microsoft to draw users to Live Search, which "has moved the needle," he said, in part because the product has enough unique features to stimulate trial.
Indeed, "it does still start with a great product," James Lamberti, senior vice president of Search Solutions for comScore, said. "If done right, search is a win-win for the consumer and the engine, combining a paid ad with highly relevant information that would have taken a long time for the consumer to discover otherwise. The epiphany around search is that synergy."
There are a number of different strategies being tried out in the hopes of creating a better product. Many of those focus on the search box, which is "still the dominant method of enticing users into becoming advertising customers -- there's nothing like a search box to know what people want," Whit Andrews, a research vice president with Gartner, said.
Most such efforts focus on trying to find new ways to categorize and rank information so as to maximize the relevancy of search results for users. One challenge inherent in that task is fighting off attempts to manipulate result rankings.
"The biggest unseen problem we've got coming is what I call the hostile information ecosystem," Andrews said. Included in that phenomenon is "Google-bombing" and other such deceptive efforts to alter search results. People sometimes create pages that aren't what they say they are, for example, just to attract attention. "This has already been a problem for more than 10 years, and we're going to see a lot of different behaviors within and outside search intended to affect results," he noted.
"We live in a world where we assume search knows what it's talking about," Andrews added. "Most of the time it does, but it's very hard to tell when it doesn't."
Google tends to focus on implicit techniques to evaluate the content on the Web. Yahoo and other companies, however, are exploring explicit strategies to decide which pages are most important for a particular search term, Andrews noted. "By investing in Flickr and del.icio.us, for instance, Yahoo has said, 'we're going to try to take advantage of when people explicitly discuss the results they got on a search," he explained. In a blog, for example, a user might describe a search they did on the term "puffins" and tell readers which result they thought was the best one.
Such social search techniques can be approached in many ways, Andrews added, but in general the strategy will be increasingly important. "The important thing is that the company with access to the most people who are the most passionate is the company that wins," he explained. "There's a magnetic effect, so that the more people are involved, the more they want their friends to be involved, and the site gets better and better."
As site quality improves and traffic increases, new advertising inventory naturally results. Yahoo's purchase of Musicmatch Jukebox, for example, is both a strategy to create a deeper relationship with users and a new, more focused search set on which marketers can advertise, Andrews said.
Indeed, "improving the product and creating new advertising opportunities are not mutually exclusive," Andrews noted. "It's very possible to do both with the same technologies. If you can deliver a good page, you should also be able to deliver a good ad -- that's absolutely fundamental."
Looking forward, another, often-underutilized strategy for increasing monetization is focusing beyond the main search box, Lamberti added. "We think the next frontier is in query boxes that aren't necessarily on the main search engine, such as searches within MySpace," he explained. "There's a tremendous opportunity in this area. The fact is, all of us search daily on the Internet on a variety of places, for a variety of reasons, and that's a huge opportunity for monetization."
eBay has already experimented with the approach on the half a billion searches that take place within its site each month, Lamberti noted, and other sites could too. When a user searches on the Yahoo Movies database, for example, "there's a tremendous opportunity for Warner Bros. and other movie companies to capitalize on that site search" with an ad, he explained. "Where we see huge volume, and where search is most powerful, is when it is truly exploratory, done by users with an open mind set purely to seek information," Lamberti said. "You could argue that the social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have become portals, and so are the most logical new areas for general searches."
Ultimately, the question of which search engine will win can't focus on just product or just monetization, because the two must necessarily go hand in hand. "We've seen Google ratchet back its advertising coverage over the past year because it is really committed to the product and the end user," Lamberti noted. "The engines that are winning are really committing to the product, because they are starting to realize that the strength of their brand lies in performance and relevance."
As the market matures, the power of the brand is becoming increasingly critical, so that in some senses, the search engine war has become a branding war, Lamberti concluded. "This is a mature space now, and there's a lot to be said about how difficult it's going to be for even the best to break through to the mass market," he said. "It's only going to get harder for new guys to come on."
Guardian eCommerce, Since 2002!
Much of the talk about search engines today focuses on ways to monetize the technology, but really, the search war is being fought on two fronts, Lee said: "One for the eyeballs, and another for the money." The money only happens once the eyeballs are there, he adds. "You have to get the traffic first. Until you have a significant chunk of traffic, you won't even be able to get advertisers' attention."
Getting the traffic, of course, is no easy feat if you're not Google, and traditional approaches to attracting consumers have met with only mixed success. "Even if you're better, you won't necessarily be able to convince users to switch to you unless they can perceive the difference," Lee pointed out. "In the old battle between VHS and Betamax, every technical person agreed Betamax was better, yet VHS won anyway."
An advertising campaign by Ask.com, for example, garnered underwhelming results, and other traditional techniques haven't done much better, Lee noted. One notable exception has been a game contest used by Microsoft to draw users to Live Search, which "has moved the needle," he said, in part because the product has enough unique features to stimulate trial.
Indeed, "it does still start with a great product," James Lamberti, senior vice president of Search Solutions for comScore, said. "If done right, search is a win-win for the consumer and the engine, combining a paid ad with highly relevant information that would have taken a long time for the consumer to discover otherwise. The epiphany around search is that synergy."
There are a number of different strategies being tried out in the hopes of creating a better product. Many of those focus on the search box, which is "still the dominant method of enticing users into becoming advertising customers -- there's nothing like a search box to know what people want," Whit Andrews, a research vice president with Gartner, said.
Most such efforts focus on trying to find new ways to categorize and rank information so as to maximize the relevancy of search results for users. One challenge inherent in that task is fighting off attempts to manipulate result rankings.
"The biggest unseen problem we've got coming is what I call the hostile information ecosystem," Andrews said. Included in that phenomenon is "Google-bombing" and other such deceptive efforts to alter search results. People sometimes create pages that aren't what they say they are, for example, just to attract attention. "This has already been a problem for more than 10 years, and we're going to see a lot of different behaviors within and outside search intended to affect results," he noted.
"We live in a world where we assume search knows what it's talking about," Andrews added. "Most of the time it does, but it's very hard to tell when it doesn't."
Google tends to focus on implicit techniques to evaluate the content on the Web. Yahoo and other companies, however, are exploring explicit strategies to decide which pages are most important for a particular search term, Andrews noted. "By investing in Flickr and del.icio.us, for instance, Yahoo has said, 'we're going to try to take advantage of when people explicitly discuss the results they got on a search," he explained. In a blog, for example, a user might describe a search they did on the term "puffins" and tell readers which result they thought was the best one.
Such social search techniques can be approached in many ways, Andrews added, but in general the strategy will be increasingly important. "The important thing is that the company with access to the most people who are the most passionate is the company that wins," he explained. "There's a magnetic effect, so that the more people are involved, the more they want their friends to be involved, and the site gets better and better."
As site quality improves and traffic increases, new advertising inventory naturally results. Yahoo's purchase of Musicmatch Jukebox, for example, is both a strategy to create a deeper relationship with users and a new, more focused search set on which marketers can advertise, Andrews said.
Indeed, "improving the product and creating new advertising opportunities are not mutually exclusive," Andrews noted. "It's very possible to do both with the same technologies. If you can deliver a good page, you should also be able to deliver a good ad -- that's absolutely fundamental."
Looking forward, another, often-underutilized strategy for increasing monetization is focusing beyond the main search box, Lamberti added. "We think the next frontier is in query boxes that aren't necessarily on the main search engine, such as searches within MySpace," he explained. "There's a tremendous opportunity in this area. The fact is, all of us search daily on the Internet on a variety of places, for a variety of reasons, and that's a huge opportunity for monetization."
eBay has already experimented with the approach on the half a billion searches that take place within its site each month, Lamberti noted, and other sites could too. When a user searches on the Yahoo Movies database, for example, "there's a tremendous opportunity for Warner Bros. and other movie companies to capitalize on that site search" with an ad, he explained. "Where we see huge volume, and where search is most powerful, is when it is truly exploratory, done by users with an open mind set purely to seek information," Lamberti said. "You could argue that the social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have become portals, and so are the most logical new areas for general searches."
Ultimately, the question of which search engine will win can't focus on just product or just monetization, because the two must necessarily go hand in hand. "We've seen Google ratchet back its advertising coverage over the past year because it is really committed to the product and the end user," Lamberti noted. "The engines that are winning are really committing to the product, because they are starting to realize that the strength of their brand lies in performance and relevance."
As the market matures, the power of the brand is becoming increasingly critical, so that in some senses, the search engine war has become a branding war, Lamberti concluded. "This is a mature space now, and there's a lot to be said about how difficult it's going to be for even the best to break through to the mass market," he said. "It's only going to get harder for new guys to come on."
Guardian eCommerce, Since 2002!
The Social Web: Are Sites Cashing In on Advertising?
When News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media unit reported its first annual profit earlier this year, a message was sent to naysayers everywhere about the future of online advertising. Growth in advertising and search revenue at MySpace was largely responsible for the unit's profitability, and the result was a figurative sweeping away of many skeptics' concerns that advertising on social networking sites would never amount to much.
MySpace currently accounts for about 81 percent of social networking traffic and about 58 percent of advertising revenues on such sites, according to eMarketer. U.S. advertising spending on the site has increased from US$190 million last year to about $525 million this year, the firm says. If MySpace can make it work, suddenly it looks a lot more likely that others will too.
"Sites like MySpace and Facebook that have enormous traffic volumes are definitely going to make money," Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, said. "With millions of users and an attractive demographic, advertisers want to be on those sites."
Monthly page views have reached 40 to 45 billion at MySpace, noted Andrew Frank, research vice president with Gartner, so even if they average CPMs (cost per mille, or cost per thousand viewers) of just $1, "you're still talking about millions of dollars a month in ad revenue at the low end," he said. "A very small percentage of a very big number is still a big number." Indeed, assessments of the market's potential are increasingly optimistic.
"If anything, we may be raising our estimates for social network ad spending based on the good results at Fox Interactive and also the increasing popularity of Facebook, which is becoming one of most popular sites on the Internet," Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst with eMarketer, said. "All those additional users translate into additional page views, and advertisers are very interested in that."
Companies worldwide will spend $1.2 billion advertising on social networks this year, up from just $445 million in 2006, eMarketer says in a May report. By 2011, the figure will be $3.6 billion, the firm estimates. In the United States, advertising on social networks as a proportion of total online ad spending will increase from 2.1 percent in 2006 to 6.9 percent in 2011, eMarketer says.
MySpace and Facebook together account for about 72 percent of all U.S. online ad revenues in the category this year, and eMarketer estimates that they will continue to dominate at least through 2008.
Compared with MySpace's predicted $525 million in U.S. online ad revenues for 2007, Facebook will generate about $125 million, leaving about $180 million for other general social networking sites such as Bebo, Friendster and Piczo and about $70 million for niche and marketer-sponsored sites, eMarketer says.
YouTube is not included as a social networking site in eMarketer's analysis because of the site's primary focus on online video, Williamson said. The Google-owned site does include a social networking component, but because of the higher storage and bandwidth costs associated with video, it may not be quite as profitable as more traditional networking sites, Frank said.
"I think Google's strategy probably is a little more indirect than just having it be profitable on a stand-alone basis," Frank explained. "I think they see YouTube as way to not only monetize traffic but also make it easier for some of their advertisers to get into the video ad space. It's hard to measure the profitability because that's an indirect contribution."
Clearly, advertisers are increasingly ready to spend on social networking sites. Whether that trend continues depends on whether those ads pay off for them, and that's still not entirely clear. "Is an ad on Facebook or MySpace going to be more effective than one on Yahoo?" Sterling asked. "Certainly if you're going right for the 18-25 demographic, it makes sense for you to pursue one of these sites. But otherwise, there are still some questions about their effectiveness."
Part of that may depend on choosing the right form for the message, which can require some experimentation with the unique -- and often unfamiliar -- possibilities on social networking sites.
"It's easy to buy a banner ad -- that's something marketers are familiar with," Williamson explained. Developing sponsored groups and profile pages, on the other hand, involves taking some risks.
"It's been more of a challenge for the social networks to get advertisers to sign up for that type of advertising," Williamson said. "It takes a lot of thinking and effort to develop something like that, and everything that's a big project is a big sell. It is happening, but much of it is still experimental."
Yet much of the promise of social networks for advertisers lies in their ready connections among similar groups of users, offering marketers the ability to take advantage of word of mouth and enable the rapid spread of viral campaigns.
"Going forward, I think marketers and social networks will need to focus more on techniques like creating groups and profiles in order to continue their success in this area," Williamson said.
That, in turn, will require not just a willingness to experiment, but also that marketers start to overcome their "historical unease about being side-by-side with user-generated content and worries about the effects on their brands," Sterling said.
"I think those fears will be overcome with time, especially as more sites add community and user-generated content to their features," he added. Privacy issues have also put some "dark clouds over this space," but a growing trend toward user control over profile visibility should take care of much of that, Frank noted.
There may even arise a new industry dedicated to social media optimization, Frank predicted, focused on helping advertisers approach social networking environments.
Then, in turn, the social networks may have to develop new revenue models to reflect the changes. When advertisers set up a presence for their brands on the networks or create viral widgets, for example, "it's not always clear how the social network can monetize that," Frank noted.
Even on YouTube, "I have a persistent difficulty understanding how advertisers are better off paying YouTube for banner spots versus creating their own viral videos and using the network to distribute them," he added. "The industry is just starting to grapple with some of these issues," Frank said.
In the meantime, there's no doubt things will continue to evolve. "It's a moving target," Williamson said. "A year ago people thought social networking might be just a fad, but it has staying power." However the details and the revenue models evolve, she concluded, "Marketers are now realizing that even if they weren't sure they wanted to be on the social networks before, now they just might."
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MySpace currently accounts for about 81 percent of social networking traffic and about 58 percent of advertising revenues on such sites, according to eMarketer. U.S. advertising spending on the site has increased from US$190 million last year to about $525 million this year, the firm says. If MySpace can make it work, suddenly it looks a lot more likely that others will too.
"Sites like MySpace and Facebook that have enormous traffic volumes are definitely going to make money," Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, said. "With millions of users and an attractive demographic, advertisers want to be on those sites."
Monthly page views have reached 40 to 45 billion at MySpace, noted Andrew Frank, research vice president with Gartner, so even if they average CPMs (cost per mille, or cost per thousand viewers) of just $1, "you're still talking about millions of dollars a month in ad revenue at the low end," he said. "A very small percentage of a very big number is still a big number." Indeed, assessments of the market's potential are increasingly optimistic.
"If anything, we may be raising our estimates for social network ad spending based on the good results at Fox Interactive and also the increasing popularity of Facebook, which is becoming one of most popular sites on the Internet," Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst with eMarketer, said. "All those additional users translate into additional page views, and advertisers are very interested in that."
Companies worldwide will spend $1.2 billion advertising on social networks this year, up from just $445 million in 2006, eMarketer says in a May report. By 2011, the figure will be $3.6 billion, the firm estimates. In the United States, advertising on social networks as a proportion of total online ad spending will increase from 2.1 percent in 2006 to 6.9 percent in 2011, eMarketer says.
MySpace and Facebook together account for about 72 percent of all U.S. online ad revenues in the category this year, and eMarketer estimates that they will continue to dominate at least through 2008.
Compared with MySpace's predicted $525 million in U.S. online ad revenues for 2007, Facebook will generate about $125 million, leaving about $180 million for other general social networking sites such as Bebo, Friendster and Piczo and about $70 million for niche and marketer-sponsored sites, eMarketer says.
YouTube is not included as a social networking site in eMarketer's analysis because of the site's primary focus on online video, Williamson said. The Google-owned site does include a social networking component, but because of the higher storage and bandwidth costs associated with video, it may not be quite as profitable as more traditional networking sites, Frank said.
"I think Google's strategy probably is a little more indirect than just having it be profitable on a stand-alone basis," Frank explained. "I think they see YouTube as way to not only monetize traffic but also make it easier for some of their advertisers to get into the video ad space. It's hard to measure the profitability because that's an indirect contribution."
Clearly, advertisers are increasingly ready to spend on social networking sites. Whether that trend continues depends on whether those ads pay off for them, and that's still not entirely clear. "Is an ad on Facebook or MySpace going to be more effective than one on Yahoo?" Sterling asked. "Certainly if you're going right for the 18-25 demographic, it makes sense for you to pursue one of these sites. But otherwise, there are still some questions about their effectiveness."
Part of that may depend on choosing the right form for the message, which can require some experimentation with the unique -- and often unfamiliar -- possibilities on social networking sites.
"It's easy to buy a banner ad -- that's something marketers are familiar with," Williamson explained. Developing sponsored groups and profile pages, on the other hand, involves taking some risks.
"It's been more of a challenge for the social networks to get advertisers to sign up for that type of advertising," Williamson said. "It takes a lot of thinking and effort to develop something like that, and everything that's a big project is a big sell. It is happening, but much of it is still experimental."
Yet much of the promise of social networks for advertisers lies in their ready connections among similar groups of users, offering marketers the ability to take advantage of word of mouth and enable the rapid spread of viral campaigns.
"Going forward, I think marketers and social networks will need to focus more on techniques like creating groups and profiles in order to continue their success in this area," Williamson said.
That, in turn, will require not just a willingness to experiment, but also that marketers start to overcome their "historical unease about being side-by-side with user-generated content and worries about the effects on their brands," Sterling said.
"I think those fears will be overcome with time, especially as more sites add community and user-generated content to their features," he added. Privacy issues have also put some "dark clouds over this space," but a growing trend toward user control over profile visibility should take care of much of that, Frank noted.
There may even arise a new industry dedicated to social media optimization, Frank predicted, focused on helping advertisers approach social networking environments.
Then, in turn, the social networks may have to develop new revenue models to reflect the changes. When advertisers set up a presence for their brands on the networks or create viral widgets, for example, "it's not always clear how the social network can monetize that," Frank noted.
Even on YouTube, "I have a persistent difficulty understanding how advertisers are better off paying YouTube for banner spots versus creating their own viral videos and using the network to distribute them," he added. "The industry is just starting to grapple with some of these issues," Frank said.
In the meantime, there's no doubt things will continue to evolve. "It's a moving target," Williamson said. "A year ago people thought social networking might be just a fad, but it has staying power." However the details and the revenue models evolve, she concluded, "Marketers are now realizing that even if they weren't sure they wanted to be on the social networks before, now they just might."
Get The Seal, Go Guardian eCommerce.
10 Great SEO Tips!
As evidenced by the phenomenal success of Google, search has evolved from an interesting sideline into a primary function for many, if not most, Internet users. Consequently, more and more companies are putting content up on their Web sites to attract the attention of search engines. "You can have really great information on a site, but if a potential customer can't find you, what good is it?" asked George Aspland, president of eVision.
Chances are that most times a person won't find the company. If a user types in a simple query today, tens of thousands, millions and even billions of results come pouring back in an instant. In most cases, a user will sift though a couple of pages -- basically a few dozen links -- and either re-enter the query or give up the search in disgust.
Consequently, companies are trying to make sure that their sites show up on those first few pages. In response, a booming cottage industry creating search engine optimization (SEO) specialists has emerged. What follows are five tips from such experts that a company can use to increase the likelihood that its name will pop up quickly.
Keep tabs on search engine rules. The search engine vendors would like to make it easier for themselves to collect information. Consequently, they have devised Web page design guidelines that help their software index new Web pages.
"The search companies expect to see basic items, such as a site map, so their Web crawling software -- as well as your customers -- can find information on different pages," George Chaney, president of SEO King, told TechNewsWorld.
Repetition is another item that these vendors value. "Keywords belong in page titles, image names, headlines, body content and links," Todd Follansbee, vice president at Web Marketing Resources, told TechNewsWorld. In certain cases, following this guideline may diminish the graphical appeal of a page or not follow business writing rules, but that is a price a company has to pay to be displayed on those first few search pages.
Pay special attention to the title of a page. Search engines list a company's title at the top of search results, so it is not surprising that they examine titles carefully. An obvious item -- but one sometimes overlooked -- is that companies need to put titles on all pages, not just main entry points on their Web site. Also corporations need to be direct, rather than clever, when crafting their titles because the Web crawling software does not have a sense of humor.
Brevity is an important consideration in regards to the title -- the search engines want companies to limit text to less than 80 characters, which translates to one short sentence. All caps should be avoided because it detracts rather than enhances reading comprehension.
Label graphical content. Increasingly, companies are putting more graphical and video elements on their Web sites. "Currently, most search engines are not able to understand and rank thumbnail pictures and video content," Andrew Frank, a research vice president at Gartner, told TechNewsWorld.
Since they cannot understand the information, they simply pass on indexing it -- although their algorithms are getting better at working with such information. If a company has a number of these items, there are alternative tags that can be used to describe them. When a company uses one of these tags, it should include keywords in the text and clearly label the item. Generic descriptions, such as pix1, and abbreviations should also be avoided because search engines do not value them highly.
Support link exchanges. Search companies have taken on the communal characteristics found in the Internet. If a number of other sites link to a company's Web page, then the engines give it more credence. "Companies should include link bait, phrases or pages on Web site that others can use to link to it," eVision's Aspland told TechNewsWorld. Also, a company can search for sites similar to its own, contact the creators and build a new community. Another option is to join a webring, a string of linked sites dedicated to a certain topic. There are plenty of them on the Web, and more arising daily.
Be prepared to tweak Web content consistently. Search companies, such as Google, determine which items to display by relying on ranking algorithms, formulas they have developed that decide which Web pages best match each user's query. With the dynamic nature of the content and the vendors' desire to deliver the best page out of millions and billions of possibilities, these algorithms are constantly being scrutinized.
Daily, vendors' engineers work busily to make them more precise. After undergoing a test phase, changes are put into production. No one knows when this occurs -- observers expect it at least once every three months -- because companies like Google never announce them. The only time it becomes clear is when a company's page rankings change dramatically. Consequently, firms need to track their rankings and make changes when they are needed.
There was a time when companies could simply boot up a Web site and their content would immediately begin showing up in various search engines. For better or worse, those days are long gone. To have content displayed, corporations need to understand what the search engines are looking for and then provide it to them. If one company does not want to do that, a competitor certainly will.
Increase Site Trust!
Chances are that most times a person won't find the company. If a user types in a simple query today, tens of thousands, millions and even billions of results come pouring back in an instant. In most cases, a user will sift though a couple of pages -- basically a few dozen links -- and either re-enter the query or give up the search in disgust.
Consequently, companies are trying to make sure that their sites show up on those first few pages. In response, a booming cottage industry creating search engine optimization (SEO) specialists has emerged. What follows are five tips from such experts that a company can use to increase the likelihood that its name will pop up quickly.
Keep tabs on search engine rules. The search engine vendors would like to make it easier for themselves to collect information. Consequently, they have devised Web page design guidelines that help their software index new Web pages.
"The search companies expect to see basic items, such as a site map, so their Web crawling software -- as well as your customers -- can find information on different pages," George Chaney, president of SEO King, told TechNewsWorld.
Repetition is another item that these vendors value. "Keywords belong in page titles, image names, headlines, body content and links," Todd Follansbee, vice president at Web Marketing Resources, told TechNewsWorld. In certain cases, following this guideline may diminish the graphical appeal of a page or not follow business writing rules, but that is a price a company has to pay to be displayed on those first few search pages.
Pay special attention to the title of a page. Search engines list a company's title at the top of search results, so it is not surprising that they examine titles carefully. An obvious item -- but one sometimes overlooked -- is that companies need to put titles on all pages, not just main entry points on their Web site. Also corporations need to be direct, rather than clever, when crafting their titles because the Web crawling software does not have a sense of humor.
Brevity is an important consideration in regards to the title -- the search engines want companies to limit text to less than 80 characters, which translates to one short sentence. All caps should be avoided because it detracts rather than enhances reading comprehension.
Label graphical content. Increasingly, companies are putting more graphical and video elements on their Web sites. "Currently, most search engines are not able to understand and rank thumbnail pictures and video content," Andrew Frank, a research vice president at Gartner, told TechNewsWorld.
Since they cannot understand the information, they simply pass on indexing it -- although their algorithms are getting better at working with such information. If a company has a number of these items, there are alternative tags that can be used to describe them. When a company uses one of these tags, it should include keywords in the text and clearly label the item. Generic descriptions, such as pix1, and abbreviations should also be avoided because search engines do not value them highly.
Support link exchanges. Search companies have taken on the communal characteristics found in the Internet. If a number of other sites link to a company's Web page, then the engines give it more credence. "Companies should include link bait, phrases or pages on Web site that others can use to link to it," eVision's Aspland told TechNewsWorld. Also, a company can search for sites similar to its own, contact the creators and build a new community. Another option is to join a webring, a string of linked sites dedicated to a certain topic. There are plenty of them on the Web, and more arising daily.
Be prepared to tweak Web content consistently. Search companies, such as Google, determine which items to display by relying on ranking algorithms, formulas they have developed that decide which Web pages best match each user's query. With the dynamic nature of the content and the vendors' desire to deliver the best page out of millions and billions of possibilities, these algorithms are constantly being scrutinized.
Daily, vendors' engineers work busily to make them more precise. After undergoing a test phase, changes are put into production. No one knows when this occurs -- observers expect it at least once every three months -- because companies like Google never announce them. The only time it becomes clear is when a company's page rankings change dramatically. Consequently, firms need to track their rankings and make changes when they are needed.
There was a time when companies could simply boot up a Web site and their content would immediately begin showing up in various search engines. For better or worse, those days are long gone. To have content displayed, corporations need to understand what the search engines are looking for and then provide it to them. If one company does not want to do that, a competitor certainly will.
Increase Site Trust!
