The Web Celeb 25

1. Perez Hilton (Mario Lavandeira) Age: 30
What: Celebrity gossip blogger - http://perezhilton.com/
Hollywood stars fear the wrath of Perez Hilton, a controversial gossip blogger with a poison pen. Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, styles himself as "The Queen of Mean" and has earned a rabid following, thanks to his sense of humor, snarky voice and irreverent habits--like doodling rude captions on paparazzi photos. Perez bolsters his Web presence with frequent TV gigs, including guest-hosting The View, and hosting a series of specials, What Perez Sez, on VH1. He recently published his first book, Red Carpet Suicide: A Survival Guide on Keeping Up With the Hiltons.

2. Michael Arrington - Age: 38
What: Tech blogger - http://www.techcrunch.com/
Who do savvy investors and tech-business cognoscenti turn to for help finding the next big thing? Michael Arrington, corporate attorney, entrepreneur and editor of the influential blog TechCrunch. The site obsessively profiles and reviews Internet entrepreneurs, products and services--and a mere mention of a company on its pages can make or break a start-up. Arrington's fame and influence has become so great that he's begun to experience a backlash from entrepreneurs who feel disrespected or ignored; he's received death threats, and at a conference in Germany this month, an unidentified assailant spit in his face. Arrington subsequently announced he would take a month off from blogging to "get a better perspective on what I'm spending my life doing."

3. Kevin Rose - Age: 31
What: Digg founder, videoblogger
http://www.digg.com/
In 2004, geek icon Kevin Rose founded Digg, a social bookmarking site that allows users to share and vote on their favorite news stories. The site has become a focal point of the tech community, with more than 35 million members and about 6.8 million unique visitors in the U.S. during December 2008, according to comScore. Rose is also well known as a producer and host for online tech channel Revision3; his weekly video podcast Diggnation, co-hosted with Alex Albrecht, is a must-catch for the tech crowd.

4. Frank Warren - Age: 44
What: Online artist - http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
Got a secret? Write it on a homemade postcard and send it to PostSecret, Frank Warren's ongoing community art project. Since its inception in 2005, the project has collected and displayed upward of 250,000 original pieces of art on its blog. Audiences have fallen for the formula: A 2008 survey by market research firm Youth Trends showed it was the 10th most popular site on the Internet among female college students. Four books of collected confessions have been published to date, most recently, A Lifetime of Secrets. As for Warren, he's hardly been keeping quiet: He's appeared on Today, 20/20, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Fox News and more.

5. Cory Doctorow - Age: 37
What: Author and blogger
http://www.craphound.com/
Cory Doctorow is a prominent activist for digital rights, and serves as a fellow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He's one of the editors of Boing Boing, a hugely influential and popular blog about technology, culture and politics. And he's also a science fiction novelist, particularly famous on the Web, where he gives away his novels for free (For more, see his essay, "Giving It Away." In 2008, Doctorow published his first young adult novel, Little Brother, "a fictionalized manual for how to build an underground resistance to an evil government."

6. Pete Cashmore - Age: 23
What: Tech blogger
http://mashable.com/
Tech media wunderkind Pete Cashmore started working as a Web technology consultant when he was a teenager, and founded the Web site Mashable from his home in Scotland when he was just 19. Now based in Silicon Valley, it's a must-read for the tech cognoscenti, and Cashmore is widely regarded as an expert on how to use, consume and profit from social media.

7. Beppe Grillo
8. Heather Armstrong
9. Guy Kawasaki
10. Jason Calacanis
11. Robert Scoble
12. Will Leitch
13. Jeff Jarvis
14. Wil Wheaton
15. Nate Silver
16. Om Malik
17. Matt Drudge
18. Owen Thomas
19. Dave Winer
20. Seth Godin
21. Brian Lam
22. Mark Frauenfelder
23. Steve Rubel
24. John C. Dvorak
25. Leo Laporte

World's Gloomiest Countries

No. 1 - JAPAN > Grade: minus-85
No. 2 - SPAIN > Grade: minus-65
No. 3 - THAILAND > Grade: minus-63
No. 4 - FRANCE > Grade: minus-60
No. 5 - BELGIUM > Grade: minus-58
No. 6 - ARGENTINA > Grade: minus-57
No. 7 - TAIWAN > Grade: minus-50
No. 8 - IRELAND > Grade: minus-50
No. 9 - HONG KONG > Grade: minus-49
No. 10 - BRITAIN > Grade: minus-47
No. 11 - ITALY > Grade: minus-45
No. 12 - SWEDEN > Grade: minus-40
No. 13 - FINLAND > Grade: minus-40
No. 14 - NETHERLANDS > Grade: minus-37
No. 15 - U.S. > Grade: minus-34
No. 16 - Greece > Grade: minus-34
No. 17 - DENMARK > Grade: minus-34
No. 18 - TURKEY > Grade: minus-24
No. 19 - CHILE > Grade: minus-24
No. 20 - NEW ZEALAND > Grade: minus-15

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/01/0126_business_expectations/index.htm

15 Hottest Products of 2008

1. The Acai Berry - Americans have always loved their miracle cures. Little wonder the Acai berry (pronounced Ah-Sigh-EE), from Brazil's tropical rainforests, has become the "it" food of 2008. (Sorry, pomegranates!) If the snake-oil salesmen are to be believed, that $7 Acai drink you're about to quaff will restore your youth AND do your laundry.

2. Twitter - Twitter allows users to write and send, via SMS or online, short (140 characters max) messages to a network of fellow Twitters, usually off-the-cuff updates describing what they are doing at the moment. Facebook offered $500 million in October for the service, but Twitter's CEO and co-founder Evan Williams turned him down.

3. Music Video Games - In 2008, gamers everywhere cranked the volume up to 11, rocking out to Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2. When this blogger's dad sat down at the drums and played through Gimme Shelter for the first time, he knew that music games had arrived.

4. Bud Light Lime - Earlier this year, Budweiser introduced Bud Light Lime, a citrus-flavored concoction, to compete with Miller Chill, a lime-flavored beer introduced by Bud's major competitor in 2007. Accompanying the release of this new beverage, Bud launched a $35 million ad campaign, a strategy that paid off with a 2% rise in sales in the first three quarters of 2008.

http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d68a4-003b5-03c49-400cb8e1
5. BlackBerry Smart Phones - Swimming in the wake of the Apple iPhone is BlackBerry, with its army of addicted executives eager for the sexy features of touchscreen technology but unwilling to give up the workhorse dependability of RIM's network. This year it unveiled two new phones, the Bold and the Storm, to slake that thirst.

6. Speedo LZR Razor Swimsuit - Speedo spent three years and untold millions researching and designing a super swimsuit. It tested 100 different fabrics and suit designs, and conducted body scans of probably every top-level swimmer in the world (more than 400, the company claims) to come up with the Speedo LZR, the ultimate suit for hydro-propulsion.

http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d68a8-000a5-03c49-400cb8e1
7. Smart Cars - The smart fortwo started selling in Europe in 1998, but a recent redesign has made it a hot commodity in America in 2008: 20,000 smart cars have been sold in America this year so far; worldwide, around 140,000. Americans eager for the mileage and attention that comes with the smart will have to be patient, however; waiting lists are long.

8. Amazon Kindle - Amazon's Kindle is the first electronic reader to give print media a run for its money. The Kindle's cutting-edge electronic paper technology provides crisp, clean print in any light conditions. The device is thin and light enough to carry anywhere, and can store hundreds of books at your fingertips. Another reason it's so hot? Oprah loves it and gave it a ringing endorsement, calling it her "new favorite thing."

9. Vibrating Mascara - Both Estee Lauder's TurboLash and Lancome's Oscillation debuted in 2008, with celebrity trendsetters test-driving the products and touting their benefits. At one point, Lancome's waiting list numbered 21,000 and NPD says it was the number one mascara in dollar sales in department stores and Sephora combined.

10. Wii Fit - Playing video games used to be a fun excuse for sitting on the couch, relaxing and doing much of nothing. Then came along the Nintendo Wii, and its healthy counterpart, the Wii Fit, and video games were sedentary no more.

11. 3-Ply Toilet Paper - In September, 2008, Georgia-Pacific took toilet paper further than it has ever gone before. With the introduction of Quilted Northern Ultra Plush, the world's first premium three-ply toilet paper, it not only broke tissue boundaries, but may have changed the "face" of America's bathrooms forever.

http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d73cb-000be-03c49-400cb8e1
12. Flip Mino - The Flip Mino, pronounced Minnow, weighing only 3 oz., is smaller than an iPhone and only slightly taller than a deck of playing cards, yet can capture an hour's worth of VGA quality video on the 2GB of internal memory.

13. Aloft & Element Hotels - Aloft, named because the rooms are like "a loft," have nine-foot ceilings, oversized windows and the wonderful beds for which Starwood is known. Aloft rooms also have high-tech office and entertainment areas with free wireless Internet access, one-stop "connectivity solution" for multiple electronic gadgets -- all linked to a 42-inch flat-panel, HDTV-ready TV.

http://www.aolcdn.com/channels/0d/03/493d73cd-001d7-03c49-400cb8e1
14. iPod Touch - In the beginning, there was the Apple iPhone, and users named it good. So good, in fact, that Apple quickly transformed its iPod into the same form, the iPod Touch, and it too has been deemed good. Very good, if sales are any indication.

http://www.walletpop.com/specials/hottest-products

25 E-Commerce Tech Terms You Should Know

1. Access Control - The process of determining whether an individual has access to a specific function or piece of information. Authentication and Access Control are related processes with Access Control usually following Authentication.

2. Affiliate Program - Where a company provides a tangible benefit (typically a fee or portion of sales) to the affiliate site for directing traffic toward the site or for providing additional promotion to secure a sale. Affiliate programs have been used for everything from book sales to political campaigns to blogging, and represents an active form of advertisement.

3. Authentication - The process of determining whether the individual signing in under a specific user name actually has an account with permissions to perform specific actions. Authentication can be as simple as providing a user name and password, but especially in high dollar e-commerce settings authentication is usually done in conjunction with access across secure channels and sometimes alternative authentication mechanisms (from thumb prints to retinal scans).

4. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) - A language for specifying business behaviors using Web services, it is a standard produced as part of the OASIS XML standards. BPEL is itself two specifications, an abstract version for describing business processes from a modeling standpoint, and an executable version that can actually perform business processes in conjunction with a BPEL processor. Like most business language specifications, BPEL is written using XML (eXtensible markup language) and is considered an orchestration language rather than a choreography language.

5. Choreography - The establishment of business rules and logic in a distributed environment where there is no central controller--typically the case when the e-commerce systems are across different companies or vendors. Compare with orchestration. Choreography is usually accomplished by building a messaging-oriented architecture.

6. Discovery - The process by which a machine determines the capabilities that a Web services provider offers. This process usually involves determining both the business objects that are exposed (typically via a Universal Description, Discovery and Integration, or UDDI, document) as well as the specific services that these objects exposed (usually using a WSDL document). Once a Web services client has this information, they can more readily build applications that use these services.

7. ebXML - Electronic business extensible markup language is a family of specifications intended to replace the EDI binary standards developed by the United Nations in the 1970s. It encompasses several standards for performing everything from messaging and discovery to handling orchestration, business object modeling and authentication.

8. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) - The process of sending messages across a network in order to perform financial transactions. EDI systems evolved in the 1970s in order to handle e-commerce--like messages between a large corporation (such as an automobile manufacturer) and its suppliers. While the EDI standards established by the U.N. (via the UN/EDIFAC organization) involved binary formatted data, most EDI in the 2000s use XML messages and SOAP-based Web services to accomplish the same thing.

9. Federated Identity - The process of creating a way that different service providers (say a hotel and an airline) can provide a common way to share basic identity information and perform authentication across each provider's systems. A federation is a collection of distributed entities, so the federated identity is the total of all pieces of information for a given individual. Federated Identity lies at the heart of single sign-on systems, and is also used (with some difference) as the foundation for the OpenID standard.

10. Federation - Systems built on Web Services are distributed by nature; this term describes multiple independent Web services, which cooperate as a single system to external systems.

11. HTTPS/SSL - Secure HTTP (HTTPS) combines the venerable HTTP standard for Web communication with a security system built using the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). A Web site or Web service that uses HTTPS provides a "certificate"--an electronic document--that is issued by a trust authority indicating that the site is indeed who they claim to be and that they are not involved in fraudulent activity. Once the browser receives such a certificate, then it uses the information in the certificate to encrypt the contents being sent back to the server. This provides a reasonable degree of security for handling sensitive electronic information, such as credit card numbers.

12. Long Tail - his idea states that the Internet makes it possible to capitalize upon smaller micro-markets that nonetheless in the aggregate make up a considerably larger market. Chris Anderson first proposed this in Wired magazine in 2004, though a study by Anita Elberse of Harvard Business School argues that marketing and business trends do not in fact support the long tail hypothesis.

13. Merchant Account - A line of credit extended by a bank, which accepts payment on behalf of a merchant, required to process and accept credit cards online.

14. Messaging - A messaging oriented architecture sends message packets (electronic documents) from a Web service to a queue, which then processes each message in periodic batches. Messaging architectures work better in distributed systems such as the Internet, because they don't force the participants to remain in contact with one another once the message has been sent (in computer parlance, this communication is asymmetric).

15. Orchestration - In an orchestrated architecture, a single controller (like the conductor in an orchestra) is responsible for the coordination of information flow between vendors in a network. Orchestrated systems have the advantage of being simpler to develop, but at the cost of potentially making the controller into a bottleneck. Compare with Choreography.

16. PCI/DSS - A set of standards that provide for secure communication for financial transactions over the Internet. The PCI Data Security Standard was a concerted effort in 2006 by a consortium made up of members including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover in order to minimize Internet-based credit card abuse, though the DSS standard is finding its way into other secure financial transactions as well.

17. Phishing - A form of fraud where malicious users fake information--usually e-mail--from a legitimate entity in hopes of tricking users into logging in to a lookalike site under someone else's control. From there, the attackers steal login credentials.

18. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - The process of configuring Web content in order to gain the highest potential rankings for a given search engine. While early SEO systems involved simple keyword matches, SEO has evolved considerably to the level of performing semantic searches on content, optimizing the specific layout of a page to make its terms more indexable and using complex mathematical algorithms to better match anticipated search engine behaviors.

19. Single Sign-On - An approach to authentication in which a person maintains some kind of "wallet" (either locally on their machine or Web-based), which stores user names and passwords for various sites. When the user revisits that site, the sign-on provided by the system "unlocks" the user name and password for that site, rather than the user having to remember both of these keys for different sites.

20. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) - An XML-based language for describing a particular kind of document called an envelope that can in turn be used to hold other documents, computer services calls, or error messages. SOAP-based systems prevalent in financial and eCommerce services, either in a messaging mode or as a vehicle for performing remote procedure calls (XML-RPCs).

21. Universal Business Language (UBL) - A standard produced by OASIS-XML that defines a large set of common business terms and their relationships, making it easier to model these in a way that will have the least degree of discrepancy between different organizations' data model.

22. Web Services Description Language (WSDL) - An XML-based document that specifies the services that are available on a given Web services provider, including how these services are invoked and what the applications expect as parameters. WSDL is used most commonly with SOAP-based systems, especially when SOAP is used as an XML-RPC.

23. XML Business Reporting Language (XBRL) - An XML-based specification designed to simplify corporate accounting and financial reporting. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the governments of England, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Australia and New Zealand all either accept (in some cases even require) or are developing pilot programs to explore XBRL as part of their regulatory mechanisms.

24. XML-RPC - A remote procedure call is a request from one computer in a network to another computer to perform a certain action and (generally) return a response once that operation is completed. XML-RPCs use XML messages in order to contain the instructions to perform these actions and get responses, with SOAP/WSDL- based XML-RPCs being the most common XML-RPC types. Note that Web architects are moving away from RPCs toward messaging systems because RPCs tend to make for fragile applications that have too many interdependencies.

25. XML - A language for marking up document and data structures in a human readable and easily computer understood format. It is used heavily in e-commerce, describing everything from orchestration systems to SOAP messages to business objects to the Web pages that provide a human interface for these documents.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/22/tech-starter-kit-ent-tech-cx_db_1022ecommerceglossary.html

Protect Your Brand With SEO Research

In today's competitive environment, many advertisers resort to using competitor trademark names as keywords in paid-search advertising. These trademark names appear in the search engine results pages for Google, Yahoo! and affiliates and partners when you buy Google AdWords or Overture Precision Match sponsored listings. Therefore, it's possible for your competitors to drive substantial traffic to their web sites by virtue of your trademark name, using your reputation to attract visitors.

A fine example of this is the sticky situation with Google AdWords. In an Internetnews.com article titled "Google Adwords Under Further Trademark Scrutiny," Google was quoted thusly:

"As stated in our Terms and Conditions, advertisers are responsible for the keywords and ad text that they choose to use. We encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with our advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites."

I can certainly understand Google's position. Can you imagine what would happen if it were forced to reverse its policy allowing advertisers to buy keywords containing trademark terms belonging to others? This would severely impact Google's revenue, and no doubt would require exhaustive efforts on their part to prevent such activities from occurring.

It's interesting to note that originally, Google AdWords did not sell trademarked keywords. However, it currently sells trademarked keywords in the U.S. and Canada (but not internationally) with the proviso that the trademark name can't be used in the ad copy itself.

The Best Defense is an Offense

Is there any way to protect yourself from competitors raiding your trademark? One way is to hire an SEO vendor to help identify your competitors and then research their search engine advertising activities. Your legal department can subsequently use the SEO research data to protect your trademark and reputation. This step will prove invaluable toward defending your future and ongoing business.

Most often, it will be the smaller, "wannabe" companies riding on your coat tails by using your trademark terms as keywords in their advertising. These companies will generally avoid the threat of legal action upon receipt of a cease and desist letter. Not only are you protecting your name and reputation, you are crushing the competitors that you don't want representing your firm.

Building Your Marketing Network

Another benefit of mining this competitor data is to assist those whom you do want to benefit from using your trademark name. For instance, you may have affiliates, resellers, and a number of associates with whom you can negotiate on a recurring basis. These are the folks you trust with your trademark and reputation -- your friends and family marketing network. There's something in it for you when they profit from your success.

Knowing who is using your trademark in keyword search advertising or in the body text of their web site has a directly positive effect on managing your brand, your trademark, and your reputation. Make sure your SEO vendor covers this critical marketing aspect for your online success.

A Word of Caution

It goes without saying that you don't want to use trademark names other than your own in keyword phrases. Profiting from the use of another company's trademark or brand without relevance or permission is unacceptable and could even result in legal action against you.

Reviewing the above information on trademark term research while interviewing SEO vendors will help you to identify those vendors who provide added value to your search engine marketing and optimization campaign.

Paul J. Bruemmer is founder of trademarkSEO. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including ClickZ, MarketingProfs, Marketing Today, WebProNews, SitePoint, SEO Today, SEO Consultants, MarcommWise, Pandia, B2B Interactive and Search Engine Guide. TrademarkSEO is a search engine optimization firm based in Santa Ynez Valley, California and serves clients nationwide. His company provided search submission services to over 10,000 websites, including many of the most prominent names in American business.

http://www.seonews.net/articles/article48.php

World War 3.0: Google battles Microsoft

It might not be all-out war -- yet -- but the battle lines between Google and Microsoft are certainly being drawn in the wake of the software giant's bid to buy Yahoo. According to a report in The New York Times, Google has been hard at work readying its financial, political and legal resources for what could be the fight of the digital age.

Already Google has made overtures to Yahoo, hoping to find a way for the slumping internet giant to remain free from Microsoft's clutches. But at the same time, Google has ramped up its lobbying machine, trying to convince lawmakers to step in and kill any potential deal. If that's the case, it could be payback for Microsoft, which worked feverishly to delay Google's $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick.

While the precise nature of the looming battle will depend on Yahoo's decision to accept or reject Microsoft's bid, the prospect of an all-out battle for ownership of the digital ad industry appears to be a reality.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/18253.asp

A Buyers' Market at eBay

New CEO outlines spate of changes to improve buying experience and quality of sellers at online marketplace.

Caveat emptor? Not on Donahoe's watch!

Speaking at eBay's third annual e-Commerce Forum in Washington, D.C., newly minted President and CEO John Donahoe outlined a series of sweeping changes to eBay's fee structures, seller rankings and feedback mechanisms that will take effect in the coming months.

In this morning's keynote address to some 200 of eBay's top sellers, Donahoe followed up on the promise he made during last week's earnings call to move aggressively to improve the buying experience on eBay.

"Today, buyers expect a very high level of value, selection and convenience," he said. "Given these heightened expectations, eBay is in a crossroads."

"We can no longer afford to make incremental changes to meet our customers' needs," he added. "We need to redo our playbook, and we need to do it fast."

That new playbook includes pricing adjustments and several new mechanisms that tilt the marketplace in favor of honest sellers who work to improve the quality of the buying experience.

A poor shopping experience, marked by inaccurate product descriptions or excessive shipping fees or delays, deters a buyer from returning to shop at any part of eBay's site, not just from dealing with a single dishonest seller, Donahoe said.

Beginning Feb. 20, eBay will lower the insertion fees that sellers pay to list merchandise through fixed-price sales and in eBay stores. The goal is to reduce upfront risk. However, eBay will balance the revenue equation by increasing the final value fees it collects following a sale.

The new structure is designed to align fees with performance. The fees that sellers pay will be more closely tied to how much they actually sell, rather than how much inventory they display.

Final value fees will increase according to a tiered schedule, eBay said.

For sales up to $25, the fee will jump from 5.25 percent to 8.75 percent; for sales up to $1,000, the fee on the first $25 will increase to the same 8.75 percent, with the fee for the remaining balance ($25.01 to $1,000) moving up from 3.25 percent to 3.5 percent.

Those same rates will apply to sales of more than $1,000, while the final value fee for the amount exceeding $1,001.01 will hold steady at 1.5 percent.

After a five-week promotion, eBay will permanently eliminate fees basic Gallery photo-based listings, an announcement that drew cheers from the audience. In addition, eBay will introduce a tiered pricing structure for Featured Plus listings, reducing the lowest level from $19.95 to $9.95.

Donahoe said he expects upfront fees for some sellers to drop by as much as 50 percent.

As it restructures the marketplace to reward quality sellers, eBay will begin putting much more importance behind the Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR) it rolled out last year.

eBay will reward Power Sellers with consistently high DSRs by reducing the final value fees by 5 percent or 15 percent, depending on the seller's score.

Power Sellers enjoy a favorable presence in the eBay marketplace, and the designation is a tacit endorsement by the company. Starting in July, however, sellers will need to earn a minimum DSR score to retain their Power Seller status, Donahoe said.

Bill Cobb, eBay's outgoing North America president, expounded on the specifics of eBay's changes -- including adjustments coming to the search algorithm.

Beginning in March, eBay will skew the algorithm to boost exposure for sellers with the highest DSR rankings, effectively marginalizing sellers who mistreat their customers.

The Best Match criterion will become the default sorting method, and sellers with the highest DSRs for the past 30 days can expect to climb to the top of the search rankings.

"Looking ahead, DSRs are going to be playing an even more important role in eBay," Cobb said, after acknowledging that some sellers had expressed objections to the ratings system.

While eBay is amplifying the voice of its buyers, it is taking steps to limit the public feedback sellers can give.

Beginning in May, sellers will only be able to leave positive feedback about buyers. The move comes in address of the growing problem of retaliatory feedback that has been scaring many buyers away.

Cobb said that sellers leave retaliatory feedback about buyers at a rate eight times higher than the rate buyers do about sellers.

For sellers, he also outlined some seller-friendly tools eBay plans to roll out later this year. Those include increased back-end monitoring of suspect buyers, as well as a new dashboard that will provide sellers with the same information about their transactions that eBay's customer support staff sees.

Additionally, sellers will no longer need to authenticate a shipping address through PayPal, and eBay will start rewarding sellers who transact with repeat customers.

Today's address came as a call to eBay's sellers to ratchet up their standards for customer service. In the old days, when eBay first appeared, it was enough just to drive traffic to an e-commerce site, Donahoe said. That was 1995. On today's Web, buyers have options.

"As strong as we are today, the world is changing around us," he said. "Sometimes you have to be willing to throw out the playbook.

http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3724546/A+Buyers+Market+at+eBay.htm

The 100 Best Products of 2006

Powerful computers, handy services, tiny utilities, mammoth HDTVs--our editors' top picks include all these and a whole lot more. Plus: the worst products of all time.

1. Intel Core Duo Notebook/Desktop CPU
2. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Desktop CPU
3. Craigslist.org Web Classifieds
4. Apple iPod Nano Digital Audio Player
5. Seagate 160GB Portable Hard Drive Portable Hard Drive
6. Google Earth Satellite Imagery
7. Adobe Premiere Elements 2 Video Editor
8. Canon EOS 30D Digital SLR Camera
9. YouTube.com Video-Sharing Site
10. Apple Boot Camp Mac Dual-Booter
11. Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 Image Editor
12. Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Web Browser
13. Engadget.com Gadget Blog
14. Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD Player
15. Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 Power Notebook Computer
16. nVidia GeForce 7600 GT Graphics Card Chip Set
17. Google Search Engine
18. Sonos ZonePlayer 80 Digital Audio Streamer
19. RedOctane Guitar Hero Video Game
20. Yamaha RX-V4600 Home-Theater Receiver
21. Pioneer BDR-101A Blu-ray Drive
22. Adobe Photoshop CS2 Image Editor
23. Citrix GoToMyPC 5 Remote Access
24. Dealnews.com Online Bargain Tracker
25. Palm GPS Navigator GPS
26. MioNet Remote Access
27. Ubuntu Linux Distribution
28. Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 E-Mail Application
29. Canon Pixma MP950 Multifunction Printer
30. Yahoo Mail (Beta) Web-Based E-Mail
31. TiVo Digital Video Recorder
32. Avvenu Remote File Access
33. Blogger Blogging Service
34. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1 Advanced Digital Camera
35. Apple Mac Mini Value Desktop Computer
36. Apple iPod Digital Audio/Video Player
37. Lenovo ThinkPad X60s Ultralight Notebook
38. SideStep.com Travel Site
39. Windows Live Local Online Mapping
40. Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Sound Card
41. Alienware Aurora 7500 Power Desktop Computer
42. NEC MultiSync LCD 2180WG-LED Flat-Panel Monitor
43. Apple iTunes Digital Audio Software
44. Olympus Evolt E-330 Digital SLR Camera
45. Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro Earphones
46. Creative Zen Vision:M Digital Audio/Video Player
47. Google Desktop Desktop Search
48. Opera 9 (Beta) Browser
49. Mitsubishi XD460U Projector
50. Vonage VoIP Service
51. StumbleUpon Browser Add-On
52. NoScript 1.1.4 Browser Add-On
53. Webroot Spy Sweeper 4.5 Antispyware
54. Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 Keyboard
55. Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive
56. Yahoo Maps (Beta) Online Mapping
57. Intuit Quicken Premier 2006 Personal Finance
58. ATI Radeon X1900 XTX Graphics Board
59. Javacool EULAlyzer Personal 1.1 License Analyzer
60. Eizo FlexScan S2410W 24-Inch Wide-Screen LCD Monitor
61. Kosmix.com Search Engine
62. T-Mobile SDA Cellular Phone
63. Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
64. Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP 30-Inch Wide-Screen LCD Monitor
65. Meebo (alpha) Instant Messaging
66. Corel Painter IX.5 Graphics Software
67. Samsung LN-S3251D LCD TV
68. Cerulean Studios Trillian 3.1 Instant Messaging Client
69. Rhapsody Online Music
70. In2M Mvelopes Personal 3 Online Budgeting
71. Canon Pixma IP6600D Photo Printer
72. EMC Retrospect Professional 7.5 Backup Software
73. Yahoo Music Engine 1.1 Digital Audio Site/Software
74. Network Magic Home Networking
75. Z-Wave Home Automation
76. BitDefender 9 Standard Antivirus
77. Sage Software Simply Accounting Basic 13 Small-Business Finance
78. Flickr Photo-Sharing Site
79. Nero 7 Ultra Edition CD/DVD Burning
80. Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 Voice Recognition
81. Kodak EasyShare Gallery Photo Printing Service
82. EvDO Wireless Broadband
83. LaCie d2 Hard Drive Serial ATA External Hard Drive
84. HP Md5880n DLP TV
85. Qnext 2 P-to-P Communications
86. Salling Clicker 3 Presentation Remote
87. Epson Perfection V700 Photo Scanner
88. Mindjet MindManager Pro 6 Data-Organizing Software
89. Microsoft Xbox 360 Game Console
90. iRiver Clix Digital Audio/Video Player
91. Fujifilm FinePix E900 Point-and-Shoot Digital Camera
92. nVidia GeForce 7900 GTX GPU
93. Del.icio.us Social Networking
94. Serious Magic Ovation PowerPoint Add-On
95. WordPress Blogging Tool
96. Amazon A9 Toolbar Search Toolbar
97. ThinkFree Office Online Online Office Suite
98. Greasemonkey Firefox Extension
99. NewsGator FeedDemon 2 RSS Reader
100. Sysinternals Rootkit Revealer 1.7 Antispyware

Reference by PC World

3 Businesses on Google

Google search listings is the first main step, concentrate on building up PR (PageRank). Webmasters attain ongoing success without any advertising by fighting for & retaining a high searchpage position for important keywords.

Google Adwords is the search advertising program. It will increase presence and drives traffic, increasing presence is free, ads appear on the right side or top of search results. Advertisers pay for their ad only when user clicks on it. This program has a quick way to put your site on a results page without necessarily being in the index.

Google AdSense is a method of making money on your site. Web owners in the AdSense program display AdWords ads on their pages & share advertiser payments with Google. The point of AdSense page is to get visitors to scoot off the page by clicking an ad. The ads are supplied by Google, and in fact are the same AdWords you see on Google search results pages. When a visitor clicks one, the AdSense publisher shares the cost-per-click ad revenue with Google. Members in the AdSense program is free to any qualifying page or site.

A Simple Trick that can double your Adsense revenue

I've been working with Google's Adsense program for a while now. If you're not already in the program, why not take a look at it now at https://www.google.com/adsense. I really like Adsense. It makes me money and it's easy to work with. Just some simple copy & paste into your webpage and you're done. Right? Wrong! You can do it that way if you want. Who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky and get a lot of clicks. But if you're really serious about making a lot of money with the program, you're going to have to tweak it a little.

I've invested quite a bit of time experimenting with the program. When I first signed up, I got some clicks and made a tiny bit of money. That wasn't good enough. I knew there must be a way to get more of my visitors to click on the ads.

Google has a strict policy about not pointing to the ads in any way or asking people to click on them, so there were two things I couldn't do. What else was there?

Then I remembered reading an article once that discussed the psychological impact of colours on the human mind. I started researching everything I could find on the subject.

After a lot of reading, many tests and periods of watching my clicks go up and down, I found the one colour combination that seemed to work the best.

Testing previously done at supermarkets had revealed that the same product could pull more sales from just changing the colours of the label. What were these colours? Red and yellow! The combination of these two colours has an immediate impact on the person who sees them. They make your eyes stop and focus. They pull your eyes right to that part of the page. They grab your attention! I'm not sure exactly why the combination of red and yellow does this, but it does. On one of my sites, I changed my Adsense ads to a bright red border and a yellow background with black text and URL.

My click through rate more than doubled with just that one simple change. That's what worked on my site. Your site's colour scheme may work better with a slightly different colour combination. Try lots of different colour variations. Make a change in the morning and let it ride for the whole day. The next morning, try a different set of colours. Change the border, background, text. Change everything you can. Most importantly, keep detailed records of the colour scheme you used, click ratio and revenue generated.

After you've done all the experimenting you want to, go back to the most profitable one and let it run for a week or so and see how it does. I'm always trying different colours even after my run of good clicks with red and yellow. There are a lot of colour combinations to choose from. You never know when you'll find just the right one.

Reference: by Brad Bahr at http://www.no-nonsense-internet-marketing.com/

How to Make Search Engines Happy in 3 Easy Steps

1) Follow the Search Engine Guidelines

Nearly all search engines publish their own guidelines regarding the submission of sites, the type of sites they will accept and recommendations for optimized content. Google recently updated their Webmaster Guidelines which cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative search engine behavior that they consider to be "spam". They also published SEO Guidelines - advice for webmasters to heed when choosing an SEO. Google was the first search engine to publicly acknowledge search engine optimizers in this fashion.

It's not just Google publishing anti-spam guidelines. You'll find them at the following search engine sites as well:
- MSN Search webmaster guidelines
- AltaVista terms of use (AltaVista is a Yahoo-owned company)
- Yahoo terms of service
- Yahoo guidelines on search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)
- Yahoo definitions of search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)
- Yahoo content guidelines
- AskJeeves / Teoma terms of service and spam policy
- AskJeeves / Teoma editorial guidelines

2) Avoid Spamming the Search Engines

Often, webmasters will use search engine spam techniques without even being aware that they are doing so. Or worse, web designers can - advertently or inadvertently - integrate techniques that could cause a site to be penalized in the site's rankings in one or more engines, without the site owner's knowledge of such penalties. The key to avoiding spamming the engines is research.Keep track of the various search engine guidelines via the links above. Watch for any changes they make to these guidelines and tweak your site accordingly. Trawl the various webmaster and search engine forums regularly to ensure your site doesn't use any of the latest methods that appear to be penalized. If you suspect your site has been penalized, remove the offending content, contact the engine concerned and ask to be reinstated.

Google actually encourage you to file a re-inclusion request via their Help Center and this post by Google staffer Matt Cutts outlines what should be included.

Alternatively, here is a sample email template you can use instead:

----------------------------------------------------
Sample Re-inclusion Request Email:

Dear [search engine name],

I am the owner of [your site URL].

I did not realize that participation in [spammy method] and[spammy SEO name] programs could cause problems for my website. I wasassured that these techniques were search-engine-friendly by [your source for using spammy method].

I now understand that the practices used are not acceptable. I apologize for having allowed them to be placed on my website. I've removed the questionable pages and links from the site. I promise not to repeat such mistakes.

I am asking you to please consider reinstating my website,[your site URL] into the [search engine name] Index.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
--------------------------------------------------

To assist them to provide a high quality service, search engines encourage people to report search results they are dissatisfied with. If you spot some content spam or techniques that are clearly in breach of the search engine's public guidelines, you can report it using these links:
- Google spam report or via search-quality@google.com
- AllTheWeb relevancy problem report (AllTheWeb is a Yahoo-owned company)
- AltaVista search results manipulation report (or via Yahoo's spam report below)
- Yahoo spam report
- AskJeeves spam report or via information@ask.com

3) Build Sites for Visitors Rather than Search Engines

The methodologies may have changed over the years, but the same principles have always applied to "good" or "white hat" SEO. Build sites for humans, not search engines. Make the site as user friendly as possible, avoid the bells and whistles and include high quality, relevant content.

Wherever possible, include text-based content and navigation menus with simple, descriptive, well-written copy designed to convert your visitors into customers. Include keywords and phrases your audience would logically type in to search engines to find sites like yours. Only link to sites that are relevant to your target audience and spend some time on usability, making sure all your forms and shopping carts work.

Remember that what pleases a visitor is almost always what pleases a search engine too.

Reference: by Kalena Jordan at www.searchenginecollege.com

5 Simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques

The lifeblood of any website/ecommerce business is traffic, and every webmaster knows the best type of traffic is natural, organic search engine traffic. There are two very important reasons for this: (1) it is extremely targeted, and (2) It is FREE! The hard part is getting top ranking for your sites keywords... or is it? The purpose of this article is to provide a few simple, effective, and most important, search engine friendly strategies to help boost your websites' ranking and ultimately your traffic.

1. We will start with the Meta Tags. I know you have already heard of, and are probably currently using meta tags on your site. This is great. I just want to make sure you are using them effectively. We will only go over 2 tags: the "title" tag, and the "description" tag. We will not go over the "keywords" tag, as the major search engines have placed less and less weight on this one, and some would argue this tag has no weight at all. I still use this tag however, as I feel there is some merit and no drawbacks to using this tag.

I have found it effective to use similar text in the "title" and "description" tags, and to place your keywords prominently in these tags (near the beginning and more than once). I have seen sites with "sitename.com", "New Page 1", or "Welcome to my site" in the "title" tag, which really does not help in their quest for higher rankings for their particular keyword. Also, try not to use words such as "and", "or", or "the" in these tags.

Important note about keywords Search engines evaluate keyword prominence, keyword weight, and keyword density when determining a site's ranking. All three are calculated individually for the page, the title tag, the description tag, as well as other areas on a page. Keyword prominence means how close the keyword is to the beginning of your page. Keyword weight refers to how many times a particular keyword or phrase can be found on the page. Keyword density is the ratio of the keyword to the other words on the page. You do not want the keyword weight or density to be too high, as this can appear to the search engine as "keyword stuffing" and most search engines penalize sites that stuff their keywords.

2. Place your navigational links (and JavaScript) at the right or at the bottom, but not on the left, of the page. When the search engines "read" your site, they read from the top left to the bottom right. Search engines place an emphasis on the first 100 words or text on the site. You do not want these words to be navigational links or Javascript. Ideally, you want to have your "heading" tags with your keywords in the beginning of your page. This being said, placing your links/JavaScript on the right or bottom of your page ensures the search engine spiders get to the text first, giving more weight to what's important on your page.

3. Place alt tags on all of your images. Search engine spiders cannot "read" pictures or images. The only way a spider knows what an image is about is by reading the alt tag. This is also another chance to place more of your keywords in your HTML, improving your page's keyword weight/density. Alt tags are easy to make and they can make a big difference in your sites keyword ranking. A simple alt tag looks like this: alt="put your keyword phrase here." Search engines separately calculate keyword prominence, density, and weight in alt tags as well, so optimize your tags.

4. Place your keywords at the bottom of your page. Just as search engines place more weight on the first words of your page, they also do the same to the last words. The general thinking is this, if your site is about a certain subject, then the main points, or keywords, should, appear at the beginning, be spread throughout the page, and be prominent at the conclusion. But if you have all of your navigational links and JavaScript at the bottom, your relevant page text could end well before the HTML does. An easy way to have your keywords at the bottom of your page is to include them in the copyright information. For example, if you have a dog food website, you could have something like this at the very bottom of the page

copyright 2005 yoursite.com World's best dog food

Search engines are not (as of this writing), penalizing sites using this technique, and it wouldn't really make much sense for them to do so.

5. The Anchor Text of your links. Anchor text is the actual linking text on a site. It is what the user clicks on to navigate to that particular site or page. If a search engine finds many links to your site using the term "dog food", then the search engine concludes your site is about "dog food". This is overlooked quite often, but it seems to have a very large impact on your search engine rankings for a particular keyword. Your anchor text needs to be the keyword or phrase you are trying to target. Try to avoid anchor text such as "Click Here" or "http://www.yoursite.com/"

Also, if you're running a reciprocal link campaign, be sure to use variations of your text. If an engine notices every link to your site is identical, it could place less weight on these links or potentially penalize your site. This is because search engines generally give more weight to "naturally occurring" links, and less to "reciprocal link exchange campaigns". Using different, but relevant anchor text can dramatically affect your targeted keyword rankings, by making your links appear more natural.

Effective SEO may seem difficult at first, but as you have read above, little tricks that require little or no programming knowledge, can make a huge impact on your website's keyword ranking.

Reference: by Noah Ulrich at http://www.adsense-id.com/

Selecting & Supplying New E-Business

Idea Phase - First, you tell people about your great idea. They hear the enthurisam in your voice, nod their heads. They've seen you in this condition before and know how it usually turns out.
Decision Phase - Undaunted, you begin honing your plan. You ask questions & shop around until you find just the right tools and materials. When the project is starting you down in your own workshop, you may start to panic, asking yourself whether you're really up for the ask.
Aassembly Phase - Still determined to proceed, you forge ahead. You plug in your tools and go to work. Drills spin, sparks fly, and metal moves.
Test-drive phase - One fine day, out of the dust and fumes, your masterpiece emerges. You invite everyone over to enjoy the fruits of your labor. All of those who were skeptical before are now full of admiration. You get enjoyment from your project for years to come.

Mapping out your online business by
- Looking around
- Making your mark

• Pursue something you know well
• Make a statement
• Give something away for free
• Find your niche
• Do something you love

- Evaluating commercial Web sites

• A big commercial website: Get ideas from big business with big dollars for your own site
• A mid-sized site: Notice some features that mid-size companies use, such as FAQ
• A site that's just right: Different kinds of business can launch online goals for you

Flavors of Online Business you can taste test

- Selling consumer products

• Your products are high in quality
• You create your own products; for example, you design dishes, make fudge, or sell gift baskets of wine
• You specialize in some aspects of your product that larger businesses can’t achieve. Perhaps you sell regional foods, such as Chicago deepdish pizza or live lobsters from Maine

- Hanging out your professional services: Attorneys, Psychotherapists, Physicians, Consultants

- Selling your expertise: Search engines, Link pages, Personal recommendations

- Opportunities with technology or computer resources: Computers, ISP, Software

- Being a starving artist without the starving: Host art galleries, publish writing, sell music

Marketing One-to-One to Your Customers

- Focus on a customer segments

• Get your visitor to indetify themselves
• Become an online researcher
• Keep track of your visitors
• Help your visitors get to know you
• Make yourself visible
• Make your site an eye-catcher

- Boost your credibility

• Document your credentials
• Convince with must-have information

- Customer to customer contact: Everyone wins

- Be a player in online communities: Be a newsgroupie + be a mailing list-ener

- Add ways to sell and multiply your profits

Easyware (Not Hardware) for Your Business

- The right computer for your online business
- Processor speed
- Hard drive storage
- CD-RW/DVD±RW drive
- Monitor
- Fax equipment
- Image capture devices

Getting Online: Connection Options
- A second phone line
- Beyond dialup

Software Solutions for Online Business
- Web browser
- Web page editor
- Taking email a step higher
- Discussion group software
- FTP software
- Image editors
- Instant messaging
- Backup software

Technics and Tools for Web and Online Business

1. Specify your necessity
- Knowing marketplace: Find out the online culture, chat rooms, webboard
- Visit business website: eBay, Amazon, other online marketplaces
- Take note of ideas & approaches that you want to know
- Analysis 7C: Competitors, Customers, Culture, Cheap, Customized, Convenient, Content-Rich
- Visit indexes: Yahoo, Google to see how many same existing businesses.
- Define what existing biz don't do, set specialized goal for yourself.
- Realize how to do it better [Why later Google is popular than Yahoo?]

2. Specify your products
- Make a list of services/products you want to sale
- How to get that services/products? Create or purchase from suppliers?
- Don't try to do everything cuz medium biz do one thing well

3. Plan your strategies
- Note your business plan why you want to do, what you want to buy & what make you buy
- Note a brief description, draw up marketing plan & keep track of your finances

4. Gather supply & begin store
- Finding host to place website/blog
- Think of all equipment you need/don't need
- Using appropriate software: web editor, graphic, storefront, accounting

5. Look for experts to support you
- Hiring technician: designer, DBA, SA, programmer, etc
- Business partner who is abilities balance your own
- Gathering team members: Learn from case-study such as eBay, Maxwell
[John Moen found some retired teachers to help answer the geography questions that come into this worldatlas.com]
- Pick someone who already exhibits experience with computers/internet by résumé

6. Build up your website
- Choose web address [URL] that's easy to remember
- Make content-rich in the site, attract visitors & make them come back regulary
- Explain how the reader will benefit by click, link, explore
- Briefly & concisely summarize business & mission with page
- Establishing a graphic indentity

7. Arrange processing of sales system
- Providing a means for secure transactions
- Becoming a credit card merchant: get ID
- Put shopping cart, set pages "holding area" before purchase
- Provide online form, stating, payment area with SSL
- Safeguard customers' personal information & your business
- Keeping your books straight: record all financial activities that pertain to business
- Make backups: don't lose information you need to do biz

8. Assign personal service
- Share your expertise: other may think not like you
- Make site a go-to resource: not for sales only bu also share useful link/information
- Becoming a super e-mailer: Often check email & respond inquiries immediately
- Use any tools: Internet excels, mailing lists, newsletters but not spam

9. Alert the media & anything else
- Submit site with search engine services
- Reach the entire internet

10. Verify, edit and update
- Taking stock: redid the site, increase the number of giveaways, then traffic rose
- Entrepreneurs have more reasons than making money
- Update content: create contests, strick up cooperative relationships with other business